ok, body, i'm listening

so yesterday, i had a lot of energy, it felt really good. i went to my dentist appointment, me and my girls all did chores together, i even crawled under the kids beds and kicked everything out to get taken care of.
and in the process, i thought to myself, i wonder if tomorrow i'm not going to be able to do anything.

HA!
well, i can do SOME things. ;)

i took the morning off to watch tv with my older two daughters while the youngest, Zoe, was at her bible study, and then we started working on clothes and shoes for school, and i kept getting light headed and i'm sore from yesterday. sigh. :P

i stopped in the middle of the project, pushed all the boxes to the side, and got some stuff to take a shower. because i stink, and i need to conserve my energy.

i figure i'll finish tonight.

i got in the bathroom, got ready to jump in the shower and i had a muscle cramp in my neck, and started to get a muscle spasm around my SI joint. first thing i did in the shower was stand with my back to it, letting the warmth pelt my skin, hoping to keep the spasm from increasing. but as soon as i got out, it started getting worse. so as soon as i was dressed enough, i went to the closet in the hallway and got my muscle relaxers.
            and decided that now is the time to do my foot soak. i've been putting it off and putting it off.. and since my body isn't ok with my movements today, i'll sit in front of the computer with my feet in a dish pan of warm lavender scented water, with my foot scrub and shaver.
            probably a good thing that i'm being forced to slow down ;) body knows best.

"busy napping"

this morning, i got up before my girls did, fed the cats, cleaned the litter, got dressed, made coffee, went to my dentist appointment 5 minutes down the road. got back and made sure they were all get up. (10ish AM). i had my breakfast, drank my coffee, and grabbed my iPad to read my book on kindle while i rested in the chair. i ended up falling asleep after 2 pages, i was so tired. i didn't get up until noon, and asked one of my daughters something (middle child), and she said.. get this..

"you were busy napping, so i didn't want to bother you".

busy napping.
guys, this girl gets in.

in a world of speed, and bad health, and go here, do this, can't slow down..

i was busy.
i was busy doing something important.
why was it important?
because my body was telling me i needed to it. and i listened.

being mindful of what your body says to do IS NOT EASY!
and then listening and LETTING YOURSELF do what your body says it needs is HUGE!

and my daughter, at 12 years old, is unconsciously recognizing this.
i'm a proud mama.

for listening to my body and letting it do what it needed.
and also for my daughter to recognize that, in that timeframe, mom was busy. i was actively doing self care. which i obviously want to promote with them, as well.

teenage trauma - acne or pimples?

So I’ve noticed in the last few months since my rheumatologist did bloodwork and recommended I do DHEA spray under my tongue every night to level out my hormones, the acne on my chest, on my back, on my face have all gone away. It’s helped my libido which is great, so therefore it’s helped my confidence. i've also noticed that when i DO get a "pimple", more likely than not, it's actually a harder calcified substance that comes out instead of the regular pussy white that's in a pimple. this is because of EDS.

This also reminds me and makes me think of when I was growing up and my dad would make fun of my pimples and point them out and say "what’s that on your face?", with an annoying grin, thinking he was so clever, like it was funny or a good thing to point it out to me. (like i didn't know, as a teenage girl, that i had pimples on my face.) It would’ve been nice to know back then that I had a hormone in balance, so that could be taken care of so he didn’t keep doing it.

Even now, my husband is fascinated sometimes that because of the way my skin heals, that i constantly have some form of scar or mark left by the pimples or dry skin patches. I know my husband doesn't mention it to be obnoxious or to be harmful, but i know my dad knew better. maybe he was trying to make light of it? all i know is it was harmful to my emotional and mental health. so much so that to this day, it still invades my mind to some degree.

also at that time, i would pick at them, like i still do pick at things. but now i know why i pick.. it's because of my autistic tendencies, it's part of my stimming and also part of self-mutilation. i didn't realize that part of being autistic and chronically sick is the fact that i feel things a lot differently than other people, as in, i really don't feel very often. so that is part of self-mutilation, it causes us to feel pain and emotion, which we don't normally have any control over. 

What used to be my business

As I’m working on this order for a friend of mine, so far this is my third week working on it. My turnaround time used to be like 1 to 2 weeks and that was taps. And then I made sure people knew it could take 3 to 4 weeks. Now I’m finding myself exhausted just knowing that I have a project to do for someone else that’s taking a while. And there are more cosmetic flaws than there used to be.

Now I’m getting ready to put the snaps on and I’m having to jog my memory about what part is white. The socket and the stud and the cap. And it’s daunting to look at my snap press and realize that it’s very hard to push on it, much harder than it used to be.

This is going to be my last custom order that includes snaps. Honestly, I really haven't done any custom orders period in a long time. Which i'm sad of, but actually relieved and grateful for. I don't like disappointing people. 

I honestly might sell my snap collection. They’re just too hard for me to do anymore. And it makes me sad to look at them.
for now i'll put them behind a box to get them out of sight. 

being disappointed and imperfect in Gods love

“Because there is sin in the world, there is disappointment. You can’t escape being disappointed sometimes, but when that happens you can rely on this; Jesus will never disappoint or let you down. His love for you is unconditional. And when you put your faith in him, you can be sure that he will work out every setback and problems for your good.“

His love for you is unconditional.

His love for you is unconditional.

Why do we feel like we need to do something to earn his love?

Is this crazy foreign mindset to us, I guess, that we can offer ourselves to him in the middle of our mess and he will help renew us. He pulls us up out of our crap, no strings attached, loves honors, no matter what a mess we are, and brings us close to his heart. We don’t have to earn his love, we can’t earn his love. There’s no price tag on it. It’s free.

This reminds me of sometimes when you go in a store and you’re looking to purchase things and you have your budget on your mind, how much money is in your wallet, and you’re trying to be careful because you can only afford to buy certain things. But you pick something up and bring it to the register and they tell you “you can’t buy it, it’s free. You can take it home with you without paying for it.“

It’s like that flabbergasted, question in your mind, how is this possible, do I take it or don’t I take it. Will it add anything to my life? It’s like we question free gifts so much that we don’t allow ourselves to enjoy the fact that it is a free gift. We didn’t earn it, it was given to us because there’s some emotion behind it that says we don’t have to burn it. We don’t have to use our hard earned money or we don’t have to freak out because, oh my gosh, someone’s not asking me to give them something back. It’s a foreign concept. Because everything that we do in life has some sort of give-and-take to it.

What is this thing that we don’t have to give anything for it? What is this thing that is just being handed to me and not expecting anything in return? Yes that does confuse us. We’re not used to that. But it’s such an amazing gift, why wouldn’t we take it home. Even if we don’t know what to do with it right now, we have it in our grass, it’s something that we are allowed to own without giving something in return. All he wants is us to say “I don’t know what this is that you’re giving me, it’s confusing me, I think it’s wonderful, help me learn how to put this gift into action in my life.“ 

His love for you is unconditional. There are no strings attached.

a walk

Livy is in her counseling session, I decided to take a walk outside, the smell of Bruce blue spruce trees, dragonflies flying everywhere, cabbages in the field, the birds flew away when I got close to the last tree. Second time back-and-forth It started drizzling, so I just kept going, zig-zagging in and out of the trees. By the time I got back to the back door, it was coming down steady but still light rain.

I am in the basement of the building pacing back-and-forth :-) I will finish my walk :-)

She's got about another 20 minutes in her session. 

I just found an app to work on my blog :-) so now I can write my blog and save a draft on my phone, and then just add photo or video or whatever later on and publish it. :-) #Grateful #ItsTheSmallThings #socialmedia

autism and anxiety- my life mix 8-2-19

8-2-19

OMGOSH today was very mentally overwhelming and exhausting. I didn’t do much physically, because there was no momentum or inspiration from anything. 

mom- coming over to not?

Jenn’s project

Jazmine going to mom heger’s house <—- at garage sale

time? 6ish Emilee too

Alivia (spend time)

Zoe- library project + cuddle time.

Brian- A2?

bike place

meijer

REI

target

best buy

5guys.

book writing

book reading

Do I turn off the AC?

means opening windows and putting the fan in ours.

the right way

sheets on bed?

fold laundry now?

don’t through brian’s laundry at him, leave it in the pile.

take care of your piles as you go

I_> i can’t do that.

i put all my piles together +

THEN put them away.

kids did laundry

w/o yelling,

something’s wrong,

i’m confused.

I made 1 cup of coffee and refilled the diffuser +turned it on.

WIN!

couldn’t read my devotion w/o interruption.

slammed my hands on the table. 

closed my book- overwhelmed.

put it away.

———————————————————————

I’m @ the library + Zoe’s art project is outside.

I made sure to turn in the reading slips for the grand prize. 

WIN!

the doors are loud every time they open.

the sound of someone on the computer, clicking, shifting in their seat.

The sound of someone checking books out- click, beep, paper shifting, voices.

copy machine- humming + beeping.

someone speaking.

feels like the ping pong ball in my brain is slowing down. the hard, fast bouncing doesn’t hurt anymore.

I’m hungry.

hydration.

Brian decided I needed to help him take the top off the Jeep when I was supposed to leave. 

Actually, after I was supposed to leave. 

I can hear the traffic on the main road beside us, especially the trucks. 

It sounds like a storm.