Fractures of our hearts

How do you do it?
I'm asking you mothers. The ones who have babies, and children, and husbands, and pets...People you care for. Animals you care about. How do you?

You have dinners to make, clothes to fold, children to soothe at night and sometimes it's in the middle of the night. Nights of disrupted sleep where you can't sleep, or they can't sleep, or someone can't sleep, and you're up doing the things that mothers do. Being present with those strong and capable laps that holds and unfolds every single care in the world and files them in folders marked:

"Times when mom was a superhero."
Or
"Times when mom said the right thing"
Or
"Times when mom listened and didn't talk"
Or
"Times when mom just held me."

 This deep commitment alone should win awards.

There should be awards given to those parents who mend chubby toddler knees, toes from bee stings, damaged feelings from toys not shared, or when friends words come out too honest. Far too many times, these little essential things are over looked, but they shape our lives. They matter deep inside the innermost fractures of our hearts.
Our parents nurture us. They accept us broken and whole at the same time.

I don't know how you do it. How you care so deep and still exist in other forms to other people. How you exist outside of all that you do inside the four walls of a home.
Where does this energy come from?
I thought hard about this recently, and I mean hard. I recall all those times I pined for my life to be a certain way, and now I know.
In my nursing class there are many parents.

Lets be realistic here, I feel as if my time is so limited that I am ready to give parent of the year awards to those people who are in my class (or are in any college atmosphere for that matter) and still are able to be actively present in their families lives.

I'm almost invisible to mine. I have books upon books open every day, papers strewn everywhere, and I'm typing, or reading, or highlighting, or scattering, and organizing messes. There's hellos and goodbyes, and I'm off to study.

I find time when I can to reach out to people I love and care for, but it's few and far between.
The kind of commitment raising children implores would be entirely unimaginable to me in my current circumstances.

I pray to God on the way to school, and on the way home from school, thankful. He knew what he was doing with me when He made me wait for things I previously prayed so much for. I pray for those people who have the same school commitments and families at home too.  I've become thankful for my near 40 minute commute to school everyday, because it gives me time to be thankful and prayerful.

Here's the weekly glimpse into my life:

Love,

Amber

A Day In the Life!

The idea behind a day in the life is posting your day in pictures. Some people choose to snap a photo every hour. Some take more, and some take less. It's all up to you! I chose to snap a picture whenever I thought about it. Some people do their day in the life when they're doing something fun and exciting, like going to disney land or going on a road trip.

This is my day in the life

Getting my wake up on! Shower and brushin’ my teeth.

Ready, set, make-up, selfie afterwards, and a time stamp of my day thus far.

Daily essentials: Water + Homemade Chai tea curtsey my sister-in-law.

Off to grocery shop! We have a YOLO moment and stop to enjoy the view over the lookout. I snap a picture of my nieces toesies because I want to remember her with us, and because she’s in the process of being adopted we can’t photograph her just yet!

Winco is our last stop! Eating a quick lunch that my sister-in-law packed for us.

Ella is happy to see me!  I try to take a nap, but it doesn’t last. 

My sister-in-law is as cute as a button, isn’t she? Drinking her protein frappe. It’s delish, be jealous.

While my sister is picking up the kids from school, I go check on the puppies. Hello, and goodbye sweet pups.

Then, I load the dishwasher, and start it up, and survey the fresh fruits and veggies people have been gifting us. We appreciate it soooooooooo much!

A before and after of my room that I straightened up, but sadly in the process my scentsy warmer fell off the shelf and broke. SAD! Those things are expensive man.

On the way home, my thrifty sister found a new table for our kitchen.

Prepping for our Gluten free, home made pizza crust. We had a make your own pizza, kind of pizza + salad! It was SOO good!

My dad calls to tell me about an epic spider, and spider web he discovered. Since I live a few blocks away, I went to get some photos of it

These cute people stopped by .

As the night comes to an end, it required coffee + music. YES!

Ella is clearly ready for bed..

But I’m not! I check facebook, and start getting my A Day In the Life post ready..

Finally ready for bed! Good night :]

I'm having a day in the life contest. You can Facebook or email me your photos, and I will post the winner's photos on my blog with credit.  My contact information is in the contact me section of my home page on my website.  Get creative! :]

Love,

Amber

Catching lightening

Have you ever read words on a page, literature of any kind, and you just felt inspired to take some kind of action:

Write.

Photograph.

Sing.

Dance.

Tell someone.

Go somewhere.

Pray.

Read some more.

Just. Do. Something.

And then inspiration fails you as you sit there staring at a blank screen trying to implore said inspiration?

It happens to the best of us.

Sometimes I write something, erase everything I’ve written, and then repeat. I want to dig deep, but sometimes my inspiration takes a hiatus, and I have to do a million and one things to bring her back, so that I can try and come up with something clever.

It’s not pretty.

Coincidentally while I was writing this post, half of it got erased by the decision of my macbook pro to not be so pro, and then my left mouse clicker decided it wanted to be a right mouse clicker and open a menu every single time I clicked, all while being viciously attacked by a fly, also not pretty.

Last night I felt like the world was ending because my daily dose was on vacation for a night. I had to laugh at myself, The world is not ending because you aren’t writing every single day. Get over it!

I cried a little.

Okay, maybe not, but then I realized that I have a life too.

You guys are busy people!

You have people to see.

Kids to raise.

Things to do.

Minutes in your days occupied by others, or yourself, or time.

For example, my brother is in Alaska, and if I wanted to forget that he’s in the middle of devout wilderness, I couldn’t, because my instagram feed is filled with every single second of the amazing Alaskan views he’s soaking in. (I’m slightly jealous Bub, and on a side note, you are missing lots of rain if you didn’t know already.)

I’m hoping to catch some lightening on film, but sometimes it’s unpredictable.

Tomorrow I’m going to do a “Day in the life post”

If you don’t know what it is, you will tomorrow :]

Amber