• Personal,  Wellness

    The Chaotic Life

    Life is chaotic.  It is unavoidable.  Even if you tried to keep every moment of life planned and scheduled, chaos is going to happen.  It is part of what makes life great and fun.  It can also be overwhelming at times. As a mom to two very busy kids, chaos is an unmistakeable part of my life.  When I was in grad school, my anxiety reached crippling levels.  There was so much to juggle in such a short time period, I felt like I could never meet all of the demands placed on me and if I did, I felt like I could never do a good enough job.  I…

  • Archived

    My first #MicroBlogMonday

    In looking at different types of blog link-ups, I stumbled across this idea of microblogging and Microblog Mondays.  The basic idea is to just take something that is on your mind, write up a quick paragraph on it and publish it.  #MicroblogMondays is a link-up that was created by Melissa at Stirrup Queens.  You can read more about the ideas behind Microblog Mondays here: What is #MicroblogMondays. As soon as I came across this idea, I knew I wanted to participate.  I have started so many blog posts that I just couldn’t finish and had writer’s block so many times.  The idea of just writing whatever is on my mind, similar…

  • Places

    Henniker Chili Festival – Sundays in My City

    I have been playing around with different ideas for blog content this past week, and came across a cool blog link-up called Sundays in My City.  This seems like a great way to share a little bit of where I live (and a good excuse to explore my surroundings), so I am super excited to participate! I live in a tiny town in rural New Hampshire, so my Sunday posts will probably be from all over my general area. Today, we went to the Henniker Chili Festival on Pat’s Peak in Henniker, NH.  Cal is from Texas and feels very strongly about chili.  He is also a foodie in general.…

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  • Archived

    Friday Goal Day

    Right now this blog is all over the place and really just something that I update whenever I have a spare moment.  At the moment, I am only blogging for me.  However, I would love to eventually use this blog as a possible way to connect with others and maybe build a community.  In order to do that, first I need to get myself back to blogging consistently.  To help me do that, I have been brainstorming about a content schedule a lot over the past few days. One thing that is really helpful to me, would be to have a set day to check in about and refine my…

  • Personal

    Grad School Completed

    Graduation is this week (not that I will be attending) and I can finally consider my grad school journey complete.  I feel like I am finally closing the door on a very stressful chapter in my life.  Hopefully I will find it easier to keep my sanity in tact for the next chapter.  I should have graduated three years ago, but I went into post-residency instead. That was the right decision for me at the time.  I was dealing with an overwhelming amount of stress and pressure and knew I wasn’t in the right place to add a thesis to my load at that point.  It would have been nice…

  • Personal

    Getting back to me

    For the past six years, I have been overwhelmed by this shroud of anxiety.  Now that my thesis and grad school are behind me, I feel like I can finally breathe a bit more.  I want to exist as person beyond my anxieties and being a mom.  I feel like I have forgotten who I am under the weight of my anxieties and I need to work on getting back to that. So how am I going to do that? 1. I am recommitting myself to writing everyday.  When I write, I feel like I am really alive and more than a mom.  In addition to writing on this blog…

  • Places

    Return from the Emerald Isle – Trip Recap

    We are back home from Ireland.  It was a whirlwind trip and we are all completely exhausted, but I am so glad that I had a chance to do it all.  We spent two nights on the Aran Islands, one night in Galway and one night in Dublin.  It wasn’t nearly enough time and I can’t wait to go back and explore more, but it was a great trip all the same. The whole trip was very go-go-go from the start.  We picked Ryan up early from school at 1pm and headed straight to Boston, where we picked up my sister and went to the airport.  We had a 5:50pm…

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  • Places

    Heading to Ireland!

    I cannot believe it is already here! Tomorrow we are getting on a plane and flying to Ireland to get married.  It is going to be a whirlwind trip and I really cannot wait.  We will be flying all night (plus losing 6 hours to the time difference), then we will hop on a bus and head to Galway.  From there, we will catch a ferry to the Aran Islands where we will check into our accommodations.  Then, we have about two hours to shower and get ready before our officiant comes to pick us up and bring us to the ceremony site.  I don’t anticipate getting much rest during…

  • Personal

    Writing

    Today, I just want to write.  Writing has always been a passion of mine.  Unfortunately, lately Saoirse does not make it easy to get that writing done.  She is a velcro baby (well, toddler now I suppose) and the instant she sees me computer she has to be right there poking at the screen and banging on the keys.  So, I avoid pulling out my computer when she is around.  The thing about being a stay at home mom is, she is always around.  Pretty much my main opportunity to write is if I wake up early enough in the morning and have time to write before she wakes up.…

  • Personal

    What’s in a name? Our last name decision

    When we made everything legal last Friday, we finally had to address an issue we had been dancing around for years: our last names.  Tradition would have me change my last name to match Cal’s.  However, I am not big on tradition for the sake of tradition.  There are so many different approaches to last names with marriage now.  I could hyphenate.  Cal could hyphenate.  We both could.  We could choose a new name altogether.  Cal could change his last name to mine.  You get the idea.  For us, this decision was further complicated by the fact that we we had children before getting married. When Ryan was born, I gave…

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