Fill up to Spill out

  I think I write about this every single year, but January and February tend to be my least favorite months, despite January being my birth month.  These months are dark and gray and cold, and as someone that thrives on longer days filled with sunshine, flowers, and time spent outdoors, these 60 days are not my favorite.  I will really get in a funk if I'm am not super intentional about filling my days with purpose and joy.   This year, I chose "committed" as my word for the year and set specific goals related to staying committed to nourishing my body with foods that fuel it, drinking more water and physically getting stronger, writing my next book, being more present and fun, having more game nights with my girls, and also being committed to finding and creating joy again in my job as a nurse practitioner.   I'm sure I don't need to tell most people this, but the last 2 years have been challenging, and working in healthcare and education has been brutal. ...

One of my very favorite movies that I have watched at least a hundred times is Sweet Home Alabama .  As Melanie (played by Reese Witherspoon) goes back home to Alabama to confront her past, so she can marry her new and dreamy boyfriend from New York City (played by Patrick Dempsey), she discovers that you can take the girl out of the South, but you can't take the South out of the girl.  Her first love Jake reminds her one evening that she can have roots AND wings... she can have BOTH.   As we start a new year, we see so many posts about New Year, New You!  New Year, New Goals and Dreams!  As a long-time dreamer and goal-setter and as someone who is always looking to learn and grow and become a better version of myself, I am also reminded by this movie that we can have BOTH.  We can be this AND that.  We can have deep, deep roots AND also wings that fly.   For example... I can be deeply rooted in my country upbringing AND choose to live in a larger...

As 2021 comes to a close, I like to use this last week leading up to the new year to reflect on what was and look forward to what will be.  Like 2020, this year was hard, but it was also good.  It was filled with sadness and also filled with joy.  It felt fast and furious as we played catch up from the year before.  Demand for healthcare was high, (and like many things) supply was low, and I felt it to the point of exhaustion.   Over the last 2 years, I have picked a power word or word for the year to focus on.  In 2020, I chose the word courage as I had just released my first book out into the world and planned to write a second one that would be read by a broader audience.  And then of course, we know how 2020 went, requiring a completely different level of courage as I worked on the front lines as a healthcare provider when Covid was new and filled with so much fear and uncertainty.  I was one of the early ones to step up and get vaccinated th...

Wow, I can't believe we're in the last 10 days of 2021, and I haven't updated this blog since March.  I started this year with big goals for my writing, and although I kept posting regular content on social media, I did not have the time or mental energy in my day to keep up with this blog or write my 3rd book in a year that felt fast and furious.  As many of you know, my day job is not a writer or a blogger, but a family nurse practitioner, and working as a healthcare provider in the middle of a never-ending pandemic while also being a mom to two school-aged girls has been stressful.  Needless to say, it did not leave much time for blogging or working on my next book.   What I did make time for was reading.  I read more books in 2021 than I think I have ever read in a year.  I read to learn, read to grow, and read to protect my peace in a season filled with so much noise, negativity, busyness, and continued change.   At the beginning of the year, I se...

  It was March 15, 2020 when life as we knew it suddenly changed.  We had just gotten back from our trip to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon and hike the infamous Devil's Bridge, a trip that was supposed to include a medical conference for me, but was cancelled that week due to increased concerns over a global pandemic on the horizon.  We decided to go anyways, as our flights were non-refundable at the time, and we really had no clue what was about to happen.  That Monday, our kids, along with most kids in the country, were supposed to return to school, but something called Coronavirus (later known as Covid-19, the global pandemic we would talk about for a year or more) had other plans.  "Flatten the curve" is what our leaders and health experts told us to do as school was cancelled for a couple of weeks and then moved to virtual for the remainder of the school year.  We were basically put on "lockdown" as non-essential businesses were forced to close a...

For as long as I can remember, I have always been a big reader, but I don't think I made the shift from fiction to nonfiction until about 10 years ago.  It was when I became a mom that I really started turning to educational, self-help, Christian living, personal growth type books.  I craved stories of encouragement, inspiration, and wisdom.  I desired to be a better version of myself, and by discovering these books that spoke to me during different seasons of my life, they helped grow me into the person I am today.   I've wanted to do this post for a while.  I love hearing about the different books that have been transformational in someone else's life.  So, I figured why not share mine?  Here we go...  1. Out of the Spin Cycle by Jen Hatmaker.  This little book filled with devotions and motherhood humor introduced me to Jen Hatmaker during my early years of being a mom.  From there, I became a huge fan of hers, reading most if not all ...

Does anyone else dislike January and February as much as I do?  I think I write about this every single year, because this is how I feel each time we reach these 2 dark, cold, dreary months of the year.  At the end of each calendar, I get all geeked out about a new year and new goals, and then just a few days into January, I start getting in a funk.  Daylight is scarce, it's cold and gray, my work is busy, and these months follow all my favorite holidays, giving me a case of the blues and blahs.  Can anyone else relate?   Add in the global pandemic and all the not-so-fun stuff surrounding it, a transition of government leadership in a time like no other, as well as all the negativity, hate, and division going on in our country, and January just kind of stinks, right?   Believe it or not, January is my birthday month, but I can't say I have ever liked it.  It follows Christmas and precedes Valentine's Day.  And did I mention it's cold and gray and ...