Texas Lou

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Hi friends! The sun is shining and I am so thankful for the beautiful and warm weather we’ve been having. Here are just a few other things I’ve been thankful for lately:

1. I’m so grateful my kiddos have all been sleeping well lately because when they sleep well, I sleep well! 🙂
2. I’m thankful for a husband who recognizes and acknowledges my need for exercise and free time. I got to run 4 days in a row this past week and that has made me feel so good!
3. I’m grateful for the opportunity to be Carter, Morgan, and Auggie’s mom. They help me learn so much about myself and life every day.
4. I’m thankful for an amazing preschool that we are able to afford to send our boys to and I’m even more thankful for the wonderful teachers who work there. We are nearing the end of our second year with the school and everything about the experience has been so amazing! My boys have grown so much and I’m really looking forward to next year!
5. I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn new things and work on challenging tasks and projects at my job. I’m lucky to have a profession, workplace, management, and coworkers who facilitate learning and an environment in which professional development is valued.

Have a wonderful day!

Happy Thursday and happy spring! I’ve actually been practicing daily gratitude since the new year with a handwritten journal so I haven’t been keeping up with my weekly gratitude posts on this blog but today I feel like I need an extra dose of it!

1. I’m grateful for spring, flowers, warm weather, and sunshine. Winter here is so so hard for me. The short days, the gloomy weather, and the cold really have an effect on me so I’m so thankful and full of energy to welcome spring and the promise of summer!
2. I’m thankful for a really fun girls trip to Savannah and for my husband and mother-in-law who helped take care of my boys so I could have a little break and spend time with some of my best gal pals and my mom while exploring a new city.
3. I’m grateful for an amazing preschool that my kids attend. Not only have they taught my children so much over the past 2 years, they have gone above and beyond to accommodate Morgan and his broken leg.
4. I’m thankful for exercise and my body’s ability to participate in it. With the warmer weather, I’ve been exercising more and my body and mind feel so much better!
5. I’m thankful for my 3 sons. They are constantly teaching me and motivating me to try to become a better person.

Have a wonderful day!

Good morning and welcome to this week’s Thankful blog post…on Tuesday!  I was traveling all day yesterday so I didn’t have a chance to post my regular Monday morning Thankful post.

Here’s what I’m thankful for today:

1. I’m thankful for a wonderful long weekend in Cape Cod!  I’m grateful that I got to see a new part of the country I’d never visited, got to see where my husband spent his summers as a child, got to visit with family that we don’t see very often, and got to meet new family members.
2. I’m thankful to my in-laws for planning the trip, booking the hotel, renting the car, paying for way too much, and allowing us all to have a nice family vacation together.  They were more than generous on this trip and I’m grateful to them for the whole experience!
3. I’m thankful that our cousin Kimberly found her best friend and soul mate in Matt and that we were able to help them celebrate this weekend.  They both seemed so happy to be joining each others’ families and I am ecstatic for them!  And Kimberly sure knows how to pick them…Matt is a wonderful and funny guy!  They had an amazing and beautiful rehearsal dinner, fabulous wedding complete with ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception, and Sunday brunch at the beautiful Wequassett Resort .  It was a wonderful place to stay and to hold the festivities!  I’m also grateful that Kimberly and Matt gave us the opportunity to help them celebrate their marraige to one another!
4. I’m thankful that I finally got to meet Ben’s Uncle David and Aunt Dee.  They were both so hospitable and nice and shared many pictures and family heirlooms with us when we visited.  I probably learned more about Ben’s extended family in one weekend than I have in the seven and a half years we have been together.  I’m also so very grateful to get to visit with and get to know Ryan, Olya, Marcia, Kimberly, Matt, and all of their friends and family.  Family, friends, and relationships are the most important thing in the world to me, so I’m always grateful for the chance to nurture them and allow them to grow.
5. I’m thankful that we all made it safely to Cape Cod and back despite thunderstorms and winter storms all along the way.  We were lucky that we didn’t run into any terribly slippery roads or extreme weather conditions and I’m also thankful to be home now and see our kitties that we missed so much!

Have a wonderful week!

P.S.  Here’s a picture of Ben and I from the wedding on Saturday!

Whenever I leave Texas/home/family or get back to reality after a lovely trip to Texas/home, I get this nagging tinge of sadness.  It eats at the back of my mind.  It makes my heart ache.  It creates the lump in my throat.  It makes me question my place in my life.  Can I stay in Virginia forever?  Will I stay in Virginia forever?  I have to stay in Virginia forever.  I feel trapped.  I’ve made a life here, a wonderful and amazing life filled with beautiful souls surrounding me.  But I also have a life there, a wonderful and amazing life filled with more beautiful souls who I long to be around.  I start to panic, worrying about all of the moments I’m missing with those people in Texas.  I start to get jealous of them because they are there and I am not.  I miss my mom, I miss my dad, I miss them all.  Sometimes I wonder if I have Separation Anxiety Disorder.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m just an emotional child who never learned to be OK with being on my own.  And other times I wonder if maybe what I’m feeling is normal even though it hurts so very much.  The tinge of sadness turns into much more.  It turns into anxiety, emotion, pain, and depression that engulfs me.  Its like I’m on a roller coaster.  I go from level ground in my every day life to being at the very top spending an amazing time with people who I miss and love in a place that I miss and love and then I’m down at the bottom trying to get back to that ground level again when all I can think about is the very top.  My mind conjures up an old woman, the me of the future, here in Virginia, all alone, with no one to love me and let me love them.  This may be my biggest fear.

My main motivation becomes getting back to that top, back to Texas, back to the ones I love as often as possible.  The reason I seek a high-paying job, the reason I save my money, the reason I allow my inbox to overflow daily with the latest airfare deals.  It becomes an obsession.  I need to find a way to stop this cycle.  Leaving my family and Texas cannot always reduce me to becoming an emotional child.  It’s not healthy and it’s not fair for the ones around me that I love.

Here are some things that seem to help:

• Having another trip or visit to look forward to (this isn’t always easy as I don’t always have the next trip planned or booked)
• Getting back into a schedule as fast as possible
• Spending time with the people I love here to remind me why I am here
• Counting my blessings…being thankful that I am even able to take the trips
• Talking to the people I love there on the phone or on the internet to remind me that they are only physically far away but close in all other ways (thank goodness for Facebook, Email, Cell phones, Skype)
• Escaping…into a movie, into fun, into activities

I’m not sure if any of those are healthy ways of dealing, but they all seem to provide some relief until I’ve reached that level ground again.  Please, if anyone has any suggestions or ideas, I’d love to hear them.  How do you cope with being permanently away from the ones you love?

Good morning and welcome to the last day of 2012 and today’s Thankful Monday post.  Here’s what I’m thankful for:

1. I’m thankful for a fresh start with a new year starting tomorrow.  I’m ready to do right by 2013!
2. I’m thankful that my brother comes home from South Africa tomorrow.  Even though we live 6 hours apart, we’ve been talking alot and I miss our little chats.  Plus I’m really excited to hear about his adventures!
3. I’m thankful for the ability to work from home on occasion.  It made me feel alot safer to work from home rather than drive to work last week when we had a snowy and icy day and there were lots of car accidents being reported.
4. I’m thankful for my wonderful mom and her amazing talent for gift giving.  We are loving our new AeroGarden and Soda Stream, both of which will save us some money and help us to live healthier lives.
5. I’m thankful for my mother-in-law Virginia mom and her craftiness and creativity.  She helped me make an amazing New Years wreath yesterday and has really introduced me to some great projects lately that have allowed me to healthily distract myself from my anxieties.

Happy New Year everyone!  May 2013 be your best year yet!

I just voted in the 2012 election and here’s proof:

I’m wearing my voting sticker proud this morning!  I voted for the office of President and Vice President of the United States, Senator for Virginia, House Representative for Virginia, and cast my vote on two amendments to the Virginia state constitution.

Everyone should get out there and vote regardless of the long lines or your busy schedules.  This is a right and privilege that many people in this world do not have and less than 100 years ago, even women in this country did not have so get out their and exercise your right as an American!

Happy Election Day!

This morning, on my way to work, I was stuck behind an SUV going unusually slow.  I was really annoyed that the person in front of me was making my commute last a few minutes longer than it normally does.

All of a sudden, a deer darted out in front of the SUV in front of me which caused them and then me to slam on our breaks.  We were all lucky…the deer escaped without injury and the driver of the SUV and myself were safe from any car accident.  Then I realized that had that slow driver not been in front of me, I probably would have been driving at my usual higher speed or following another car driving at a faster speed and things could have ended very badly for myself, the deer, and my car.

I realized that someone or something was watching out for me and the unusually slow driver in front of me this morning was put there for a reason.  I found myself being thankful for them rather than annoyed or frustrated and reminded myself to not always be in such a hurry.  It’s experiences like this that reinforce my belief in God and a higher power.