What happens on a girl's weekend stays on a girl's weekend, unless it's permanently tattooed on your body, then it stays with you forever. Which is how my first tattoo story goes. I was in Ludington on a girl's weekend and 2 of us decided to get tattoos. After a quick Pinterest search, I was inspired by this: Which led to this: (I could still bawl my eyes out looking at the second picture. My fresh postpartum body, that stretched beyond what I imagined to provide a home for my sweet boy). Which eventually led to this: Unfortunately when you get a tattoo on a whim, you don't do your research and the tattoo you love, gets really blown out and illegible. Yikes. Which led me to today: I covered the old, but replaced the words, because even though I was 23 and didn't do my research, I still love what it meant when I got it. Pre-kids, post-kids, overweight, healthy weight, acne, clear skin, no stretch marks, stretch marks...it doesn't matter. The absence or presence of those things isn't what makes me beautiful.
I think the girl's weekend tattoo was the beginning of me looking at my body differently. I've been working on shifting my thoughts on beauty, health, and strength for 5 years now. Of course, I still have bad days where negative self-talk takes over, but more days than not, I truly believe I'm beautiful, healthy, and strong, (Although getting another tattoo made me question my strength- OUCH!) Still beautiful. You are too.
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We are halfway through our flight home from our 5-year honiversary (honeymoon/anniversary) trip. I can’t sleep because I’m way too excited to see our kids and we’ve finished all the books we packed! I figure now is the best time to jot down a few thoughts from this trip before returning to real life.
If I had to sum up this week in one word it would be:rest. We arrived in Cancun on Sunday afternoon and did next to nothing until Wednesday night when we left the resort for a few hours for a jungle tour. I can’t remember the last time we had time for such intentional rest, even before we had kids. Our days basically consisted of waking up, ordering room service, heading to the pool, napping, eating dinner, playing cards, and sleeping. Although we probably won’t have rest quite like this again for years to come, (although we both decided ordering food via iPad and having it delivered and cleaned up for you every day would be 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻) I hope we can incorporate more intentional rest into our weekly routine. I’m terrible at rest. I actually think God saw how antsy I was getting on Tuesday and threw in an afternoon of sickness to stop me from planning excursions to fill the rest of our time. Joking aside, I’ve realized my body doesn’t actually know how to rest. When I have downtime, I get anxious, have a hard time concentrating, and disengage. (I actually had myself tested for ADHD earlier this year in hopes of it being something medication could fix vs. a change I would have to make; no such luck). This results in me keeping our family busy, most of the time unnecessarily so. If I’m being honest, it’s because I feel like a better parent when we are out doing something than I do playing legos. Real question? Parents what do you think is longer: a microwave minute, treadmill minute, or LEGO minute? I’m somewhere between treadmill or LEGO. I’m positive my kids would love a LEGO minute on a weekend we don’t have plans more than most other activities I use to fill our time. They just want their mom and dad, fully engaged in the world of play and make believe. This week, I’ve started to learn to rest. We’ve slept, ate slow, took a walk because we wanted to and not because we were trying to fill activity rings, read, and talked. We’ve had silence, honest conversations, and a few laughs too-there are so many wild sunburns in Mexico. Reflecting, I can see why I’ve been so tired. You’ve seen the memes of women with crazy hair and dark circles around their eyes with the caption “me trying to maintain a career, household, social life, drink enough water, and workout.” I can 100% relate. It’s impossible and exhausting. I want our household to operate out of a place of well-rested people who are taking time to know Jesus, love each other well, and make time for things that bring real fulfillment. For me, it might mean working out 3x instead of 5x per week in order for our days to run smoother, reading at night instead of scrolling, picking fewer weekend activities, getting the grocery shopping done before a “we have no food panic”, cooking more at home, and taking time to be intentional about our marriage. I was personally tired, but I think our marriage was too. It’s an easy thing to neglect when you’re fully immersed in toddler-land and managing the chaotic schedules of 2 full-time jobs. Also, I’m an all in type of person and wanting to do “all the things” “all at once”. That’s why we got engaged and married in less than 4 months, jumped into fostering, moved a zillion times, and had back to back kids (there will be no pregnancy announcement 12 weeks from now for those wondering). I’m exhausted just looking at that list. We needed a break, time to get to re-learn each other, and come back ready for marriage 2.0. We got just that. I will be forever thankful for this trip. I really mean that; to everyone who made it possible-thank you doesn’t touch it. So this weekend, I’ll be carving out time to intentionally rest with my family, I’m sure it will take some time to figure out what that looks like with a 1.5 year old and 3 year old. It might mean pjs til noon tomorrow, seeing the butterflies, a long training run, homemade pizza, Legos, family reading fort, I don’t know. But I do know I’m coming home with a better sense of what rest is and things that can be more restful depending on how you approach them. I hope you have time to rest too-especially my mom, who cared for our kids while we were gone! |
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Hi! I'm Haley. Archives
May 2019
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