Lesson(s) Learned

So I’ve been thinking for quite a while now that it’s about time I blog again. You see, it’s been a while, and I’ve sort of missed it.  ~But I have a newborn.~ There’s something freeing-and-stress-relieving to me about writing. ~But I have a newborn.~ I feel like God teaches me a lot when I take time to sit down and write about the events in my life. ~But I have a newborn.~ Lately, it’s been difficult to really come up with anything to blog about, because, you see, I have a newborn. And, well…. life truly consists of diaper changes, feedings, and structuring life around the idea and phrase “I have a newborn.” I think you get the idea by now. But it’s totally and completely true. A newborn trumps everything on your to do list. Everything. Every. thing. E.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. No matter what you have planned, your sweet little one will make sure to unplan it and reschedule it for you. For another time. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow-in-18-years. But whatever it is –...

Note: This post will be short (I have a newborn!). sweet. to-the-point; and hopefully, it'll encourage you to move to action. Rainy days are the perfect time to stay inside, clean out your closets/drawers, discover how excessive your goods and blessings are, and then use those items to donate and bless others! If you're with me, here's two organizations I recommend! #1. www.lovepackages.org  - This is a new one I just found out about (for anyone to donate). They take donations of Bibles, Bible studies, and a variety Bible resources, etc. to send overseas to missionaries and other organizations to people who don't have as ready access to the Gospel and Gospel study aides as we have here in America. And really, who doesn't have a ton of extras of these resources lying around their houses that aren't even being used? #2. www.freethegirls.org - This one I have given to for years (for women only to donate). They take gently used bras of all kinds and sizes and ...

Lately, everything seems to be in constant motion. Well, it doesn't just seem. It is. Everything in my current life is in constant motion. Do you ever have seasons of life like that? I’m sure each one of us could point to a certain time, place, or season of our lives where everything just keeps moving. Perhaps, you’re there – in that season – right now. This. Very. Moment. I’m right there with ya. So, allow me to make this brief-ish: 1. Everything in my life is literally in-boxes-and-moving-across-town (God has so blessed Jeff and I recently with the ability to purchase and successfully close on a townehouse, so my life is all packing boxes and supervising, as I sit around with my preggo self and watch my sweet husband move boxes from room to room and from apartment to townehouse… don’t worry, we’re not in a rush to move…we’re enjoying daily trips of moving to and daydreaming in our new house together… and we will be seeking out the help of others soon for ...

If you know me well, you know that I tend to be hyper-organized, somewhat of a perfectionist, and newly borderline minimalist. While these are not necessarily bad traits to have, they most definitely have a tendency to become like overgrown weeds in a garden and take the life and beauty out of their entire surroundings. (Cue: The Lion King where Mufasa tells Simba, "Everything the light touches is yours." Yup, that's the far-reaching extent of these positive-traits-potentially-gone-wrong.) Add on top of those factors the fact that I'm an optimist through-and-through, and you easily have a recipe for disaster that is never fully recognized or remedied. What really stopped me in my tracks and made me start thinking about the issue of these so-called "positive traits" in my life actually holding me back spiritually was a simple phrase my pastor said a few weeks ago. (At first, it may not sound at all related, but bare with me for a moment.) He said, "Jes...

Out of my life’s story…          As some of you may already know, Jeff and I have recently been looking for houses to buy here in Lynchburg. We go through phases of daily searching, searching, searching Zillow and the local MLS; email-conversing on and off with a local realtor; attending open houses (ok, so we went to one already…hah); and spending many, many, many a Saturday mornings and/or afternoons going on scouting adventures and participating in our own concoction of neighborhood-watch parties (a.k.a. driving around-and-around the neighborhood to see if it “feels safe” to one day live there… We’ve actually gotten fairly good at reading each other’s queues on this one. We’ve done this so often that we’ve gotten to the point where no words need to be said to one another. Just one look, or one quick lock of the car doors, signals that we most likely will not be buying in that particular neighborhood.)      ...

I don’t know about you, but winter can really zoink the energy and life right out of me, sometimes. {Well, for now at least, I’m blaming winter.} I can quite literally go to bed suuuuper early, sleep all throughout the night (more or less), and then find myself more exhausted when I wake up in the morning. In attempts to never want to get out of my nice, warm, flannel sheets and out and into the cold, I then aim to go for the gold with sleeping, round two, the Daytime Nap edition. Maybe it’s because I’m a Florida girl at heart. Winter and I just don’t jive. At all. Or maybe it’s because I’m a girl and allow low moods to overtake me sometimes, no matter what the season is. And. For. Seemingly. No. Reason. At. All. Maybe (and much more likely) it’s this: I now have a spaghetti-squash-sized human little girl, living and growing inside of me, that I carry everywhere I go. I love her already with all of my heart…. and, apparently, all of my energy, too. Whatever may b...

Yesterday, Jeff and I started a Hazard family tradition that we hope to do every year from here on out with our little (growing!) family. It's an oh-so-simple idea, but its implications are far-too-profound to skip over or miss out on. I'm not exactly sure how the idea came to me or how we settled upon the fact that this should become a family tradition down-through-the-years, but I do know the idea came to me at just-the-right-time. Somewhere amidst the madness that is Christmas preparation, I began to think of the fact that this would be Jeff and my first Christmas together, New Year's, and so on. Not only our "firsts" together as a married couple, but also our "only" ones to celebrate together - just the two of us - as a family, BTB. (That's how we refer to everything that comes Before The Baby.) With this in mind, I wanted not only to make these days/holiday times special, but I wanted to start some family traditions that would be three things:...