Overdue Writing

I realize that it's been a while since I've blogged so I thought I would do a quick update on my life.

Things in Alabama are still as crazy as ever (and by crazy, I mean a super slow, quiet life). :) God definitely knew that I needed some Alabama in my life when He sent us here. I've told you all about my recent diagnosis of hypothyroidism. Well since then, I've done a ton of research on the topic. Apparently one of the things that can bring hypothyroidism on full force is stress. I probably have had it for a while, but the recent stress that I've been through was probably what made it rear its ugly head.

So putting me in a situation where I could chill out for a bit was probably the best thing I could do for my body. Along with this hypothyroidism is my gut issue (which is actually tied to hypothyroidism). I won't get into this too much, but I've completely cut out gluten and dairy from my diet and am trying to cut out sweats (but I'm definitely not perfect here). So yeah....eating is no longer fun for me.

As far as the adoption goes, we're still saving. Again, I can't stress how amazing our family and friends have been throughout this process. We've been so blessed with their monetary gifts! We've completed our adoption profile and video. The next step is the home study (and honestly, I'm kind of dreading this part).

So that about sums up our life! Josh is getting busy with flight school....so busy that he transformed our guest room into his personal study office. So sorry guys, no visitors here! :) He's also in SERE right now, which is three weeks of survival training. We've gone months without seeing each other and even about 1.5 weeks without talking but this is the first time we have to go 3 weeks with no communication. And we're only 4 days into it at this point......

Putting things into perspective

Yesterday, a beautiful, sweet, vibrant friend passed away. Paloma will always be remembered for her gorgeous smile and infectious laugh. She was such a kind, thoughtful person. Sadly, she passed away due to complications while delivering her first child, sweet Elsie.

Of course I wonder why. And I struggle trying to understand how/why her husband now has to move on without a wife and mother of their brand-new baby. My heart breaks for them.

Wow do things like this sure put my own life into perspective. I talk a lot about my infertility here, but that all seems like nothing now. I have a wonderful, loving husband. We're so blessed in so many ways.

I'm thankful for the time I was able to spend with Paloma. She will always be remembered.

Positive Attitudes

To be honest, I'm writing this blog post to be a reminder for myself. It's about having a positive outlook. One of the things that I really love about Josh is his positive outlook on life. Not only does it make him more pleasant to be around, he is also very successful because of it. I'm not saying that negative people can't be successful. I'm naturally negative and believe that I've done well in life. But to be honest, it's harder. Negative people have this voice in their head that is telling them that they can't do something...or they are constantly thinking that something might go wrong. It's a rough way to live...let me tell you. I could go on and on about this but let me move forward to the what I wanted to blog about today.

Sometimes I'll see people talk about their days and how "everything went wrong." They got up in the morning and spilled their coffee on their clothes, they forgot to save something at work and lost 3 pages of content, and someone hit their car as they were leaving work. Yes, this stuff happens and it sucks. Here's the thing. Generally, our lives are pretty easy going. For the most part we get through our days without much going wrong. But for some reason, we can't see the "good" in life. We only want to see the "bad." Have you ever stopped to watch your life and thought, "wow, that could have gone so wrong." It's amazing how many things go right when you do this. Maybe a car barely misses you at an intersection or maybe the torrential downpour held off until you got home. There are so many instances in our lives where we could sit back and see the good but for some reason, we only see the bad.

I've been really trying to focus on all the areas of my life where I can see God's protective hand. It's everywhere and it's actually very eyeopening when you're willing to watch for it.

Next Steps

Josh and I just finished the profile part of our adoption paperwork. Although we have so much more to do (including a video profile and the home study), this still feels like a huge step for us. It was fun (and eyeopening) to write about ourselves to our birth mother. It was also very eyeopening and humbling to write her a letter. Birth mothers are so often shamed and looked down on when becoming pregnant and giving their baby up. But what people don't seem to understand is how hard this is for a birth mother. It's emotionally and physically draining and a very selfless act. I've started to pray for our future birth mother. I know she needs it.

I found this quote below and wanted to share it. I can't wait for those moments when all this waiting and dreaming is worth it!

The Journey Continues

Today marks three weeks that Josh has been gone. 2 more to go! I can't wait for him to be back home - the pups and I miss him terribly. The last couple of weeks has been a bit of a whirlwind for me. I started having health issues since arriving in Alabama. After lots of blood work and other (quite disgusting) testing, it looks like I have hypothyroidism, or as my Dr said "a malfunctioning thyroid." I also had a pelvic ultrasound and a thyroid ultrasound done (results have not been sent yet). I won't go into detail but I've had a lot of strange things that have happened that don't seem to make sense. It hasn't been terribly easy trying to deal with all of this physically and emotionally while Josh has been gone.

Not only have I been struggling physically, but I've also been struggling emotionally.

My anxiety seems to be worse too. I'm not going to try to sugar coat anything by saying that I don't struggle with this - because I do and have for a long time. Some days are fine. Some days aren't.

Some part of me thought that as soon as we started our adoption process, that everything was going to be ok. That, emotionally, I was going to be fine. Turns out, that's not true :). We live on post with lots of military families...and they all have children. I see this every single day. In a way, I feel isolated. I feel like we're the only ones without children and that families won't want to hang out with us because we don't have children to play with their children.

I'm ready to be excited for our child that God has for us. Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited about the thought of adoption but right now, that's exactly how it feels....like it's just a thought. We're really focusing on saving so the adoption process is moving along slowly.

I'm not trying to be a debbie downer. I'm just being real. Now I'm going to go grab another cup of coffee (which my doctor advised me against) and look forward to this beautiful day (because it really is)!

Settled In

We're finally settled in and able to go back to life as normal. I'm enjoying working from home and saving on gas (although, I do go stir crazy and make Josh go on walks almost every night just so I can get out of the house). Josh starts his five week training/school on Tuesday. We won't see each other for that entire time. Much better than a deployment but still sucks. Since we don't know anyone here, Jax, Zoey, and I are going to have to figure out some major bonding time.

Last week we ran the Army 10 miler and somehow, I placed 7th for overall female...what?? I'm not competitive and have never run to place. All the glory goes to Josh for pushing me and Alabama for being at sea level. This 31 year old has still got it! :)

We've also made some steps towards our adoption. We've picked an agency and begun some of the application process. At this time, we're really focusing on saving as much money as we can. Coming out of a very expensive IVF, we want to be smart about this. As much as I'd love to start the homestudy now, we're going to wait until we've saved more money. We're so blessed to have wonderful family and friends who are excited for us and support us through this process.

And now, I shall leave you with some pictures.

 Fishing...because that's what people do here

New Beginnings

We're now in Alabama! I'm not sure if I should have put an exclamation point after that. It's more like, we're now in Alabama...

No, just kidding. I'm actually liking it so far. I really think that you can grow to like any...ok most...places if you have a good attitude about it. Obviously, I didn't expect Alabama to be Colorado, but I am looking for things that set Alabama apart from Colorado. It's so green and there are so many trees, which is a beautiful scenery change from Colorado. We like our house on Post too. It's smaller but it's actually been kind of freeing to get rid of materialistic items.

My favorite part is all the running trails on post. My least favorite part is coming home from a run drenched in sweat. This NEVER happened to me in Colorado Springs. Josh and I also signed up for a 10 miler next weekend. We haven't trained for this so hopefully this wasn't a terrible idea.

Another positive to living here is that we're only 1.5 hours away from the closest beach.  And we're only 2 hours away from Sam and Karen (brother and sister in law) who live in Pensacola. This weekend we spent a day and a half with Sam and Karen checking out the dog beach, grilling at the park, visiting the beach and Flora Bama, and buying delicious sea food and cooking it.

Jax decided he did not like the water...

 Hanging with Zoey on our patio

 Drove through Duck Dynasty's town...but too tired to stop

 Visiting Jared, Mindy, and Avery in Texas

 Driving with this cutie pie

 Hanging out with Jared and Mindy

 Josh and Sam swam in their cargo shorts

 Jax and I on the beach

 Crawfish!