How I do it ALL

Summary of what may (or may not) be a lengthy post...that may or may not be read by many people...who may or may not find it interesting...

I DON'T do it all...OR NOT "ALL OF IT" is getting done.
I can't tell you how many times I have heard recently, "How do you have time to do everything?"  
There is no quick answer to that question, so here is the not so quick version.  I am certainly not doing it all.  Here is a picture of my life right now.
Yesterday- 

• I woke up and took a shower while my amazing rockstar of a husband (insert this superlative anytime I refer to Brian) woke up Shea (my two-year-old son), took him potty, got him in his high chair, started Mickey Mouse Clubhouse to keep him company while he ate his pop tarts, fed our two dogs, woke up Patten (our six-month-old) and changed his diaper, laid him in his swing, and made him a bottle for me to feed him while Brian took a shower.  Summary: Brian got most of it done.
• After getting himself ready, as I finished feeding Patten his bottle, Brian gathered up all of the stuff we needed to take with us for the day.  This included: all of Patten's bottles he needed for the day, both of the boys' winter jackets, Shea's backpack, and everyone's lunches (that he had packed for us the night before).  Patten finished his bottle. Then I helped Shea put both of the dogs in their crates, give them their treats, and turn on the radio to ESPN for some sports-centered background noise.
• Side note: on more than one occasion, I have forgotten to secure the doors to their crates on the times that Shea shuts them before I get there.  Because of course, everyone knows a two-year-old knows how to latch a dog's crate without assistance. NOT!  The most recent time we came home to both dogs in our bed with no damage, but other times we were not so lucky.  One of the other times, our dogs decided to snack on our comforter. Not everything got done.
  
• My suitcase still lies open on my floor halfway unpacked from our Christmas vacation we got back from right after Christmas...something that didn't get done.
• First day back with my students since Winter Break-surprisingly no catastrophes.  I realized I actually missed those little stinkers of mine so it was nice to see them again.  I am getting to co-teach, or whatever the new term for what I am doing is, with a teacher I love who I haven't gotten to teach with yet, and I am pretty excited about it.  I had to confess to the students that I will be learning along with them.  I had to beg two different professors for Cs in both of my history classes in college because it is my weakest subject.  I almost got a D in 2 classes, and I am an A student!!! Bring on the high school history!  I think I will be learning along with them.  I had to share with my students that I am not perfect.
•  We got home and Brian and I split the "when we get home" chores pretty evenly I think.  Brian got the laundry started. I unloaded the dishwasher and re-loaded the dirty bottles and sippy cups.  Shea went back to his high chair for his afternoon snack and Mickey, which Patten has already developed a liking for.
• I got started on some of my sewing projects while Brian played with the boys.  I had to clear off enough of the table to make room for my project.  The organizing of the table and cleaning of the kitchen will have to wait.
• Brian made a yummy chicken and rice dinner for us.  I don't do it all. 
• I did an online video chat session with some other folks from the National Seizure Disorder Foundation.  It lasted a little over an hour.  During this time, Brian tucked Shea into bed. Sidenote: Shea is finally going to sleep in his own bed and sleeping there all night long until we wake him up in the morning!  What a long way we have come from the sleepless nights not too long ago.  By the time I was done it was time for Patten to have his pre-bedtime bottle.  Have I said how amazing he was, yet?
• Brian and I watched a Netflix documentary and went to bed to get ready for another day of the craziness.

Today-

• Morning looked much the same as yesterday and many days before.  :)
• School 
• Met Brian at Outback for dinner because we had gift cards.  Our boys were little angels, which they often are when we go out.  Patten stayed in his car seat in the sling and quietly looked around the restaurant.  Shea had fairly sophisticated conversations with us about how he pooped in the potty two times at daycare today.  I hope the older people behind us were not mid-bite when he decided to exclaim it proudly.  Then he shared with us his desires to be an umpire like his daddy.  Now he is at home practicing just that.
• As soon as I walked in the door and got settled I changed into my penguin PJs and Frozen sweatshirt.
  
• Remember how I told you he pooped in the potty twice while he was at school?  Well he did not gift us the same opportunity at home.  He decided the living room was the perfect place this time.  

Here is the moral of the story.  I have done some thinking.  I think judging from my posts about teaching, one might imagine I am one of those teachers that starts every day smiling and welcoming her students in with hugs, the one that stands at the front of the class and without a word draws all focused eyes and quiet mouths, the one who has her lessons neatly written in a lesson plan book, the one that has everything in organized little folders, the one that loves every minute of her job.  Sometimes I am some of those things...scratch that, I am only occasionally some of those things.  But I love my students, so there's that.

I think  judging from my posts about parenting, you may think I am mother of the year, that I read books to my boys all day long, that my house is clean and Shea's knows where each of his toys are to go at the end of the day, that they are both in bed by 8:30 and sleep through the night.  None of those things are true.  But I love those boys like crazy.

I think judging by my posts about sewing and crocheting, you may think,  "how does she have time for that?"  You may think I don't sleep, that I have a cozy little craft room with cute little cabinets to show off all of my quilts and fabric and yarn.  The truth is I don't have a craft room so all of my half-finished or only-dreamed-up-but-not-started projects are kind of taking over the house.  I have only made 2 blankets for our family.  I am too busy making fun things for other people.  I have the kitchen table half covered with my quilt-in-progress.  But I feel that what my yarn and fabric turn into are kind of worth the clutter.  They make me happy and make other people happy, too.

So here is the real truth.  Yes, recently I have been very busy.  I have made quite a few mermaid tails.  I have crocheted some hats and blankets.  My sewing machine has been busy making quilts.  And I have blogged on a semi-regular basis (but it doesn't take long because I don't take time to edit it, what you see is what you get).

I have done a lot.  But I have certainly not done it all.

PS-This post was inspired by a post I read by Olivia Muenter called What I Instagramed Vs. What Was Really Happening, or my Entire Life Is a Lie...worth reading for sure.

16 NOT RESOLUTIONS for 2016

I don't like the whole concept of New Year's resolutions.  I mean, I get it.  I know that people see it as as a fresh start, a chance to be a different you.  To many people, they see the end of the calendar as a chance to be a new person.  It is as if everything that happened before now is gone.  What happened before January 1st, 2016, never happened.  It is the year 2016.  Blank slate.  New me.

It may be a fresh start but it isn't a start over.  This year I will not be making New Year's resolutions.
If I was, here is what they would be:

1. Have a clean house every night before I go to bed.
2. Read through my Bible in a year.
3. Run at least 20 miles a week so I can run a half marathon in under an hour in the half Ironman relay this May.
4. Drink only 2 Cokes a week.
5. Have both of my boys tucked in for the night by 8:30.

None of these resolutions individually are outside of the realm of possibility.  However, I am pretty sure that, to accomplish all of these, I would need to be 3 people, I think.  I may be able to do these for a couple months if I worked really hard at it.  But somewhere in the midst of resolving to make these happen, I will lose myself.  Something would have to give.  For all of these things to happen, I would have to let go of other things that I love-time with my boys, sleep, caffeine, confidence, reality, and sanity.

Instead, I resolve to see the new year in a different way.  For me, it will just be a turned page.  All that I have written before with my life is still there.  The mistakes I have made, the milestones I have reached, the people I have hurt, the people I have reached, the times I have been lazy, the times I have overcome, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  None of it went away.  It is not a new chapter either.  It is just the turn of a page.  Another new day.  So from my heart to yours, HAPPY NEW DAY, my friends!

Instead of resolutions, I have created goals.  My goals are within the realm of  possibility.  None of them say "every day no matter what."  They are not destinations to reach, but things to reach for.  There is no opportunity to be hard on myself, lose confidence in my abilities, or feel like a failure.  They are just things I would like to focus on as I move into the new year.  So here  goes!  This year I plan to...

1. Be more positive and content with the here and now.  Those of you who know me well, or have read my blog recently, know that I have desires to move my life in a different direction.  Instead of focusing on where I want to go, I want to focus on where I am.  I love my life, right here and now.  Truly, I do.  I have my family and that is all I need.  Sometimes I am so focused on the fact that I am not where I am going, that I forget how good I have it NOW.  I would like to be content with the place God has me, now, while I look forward to where I hope I can be down the road.
2. Read and reflect on AT LEAST one Bible verse a day.  I think that almost every year since I first accepted Christ into my life, I have made my "New Year's resolution" either to read the whole Bible in a year, or to have a "Quiet Time" every day.  It didn't take too long to fall short of that resolution, which led me to feel like a "bad Christian."  That  whole "bad Christian" stuff is a lie from the devil, but creating and failing in my "resolution" played a part in me believing it.  I plan on spending much more time in the Word than I did last year, but reflecting on one verse a  day at the  will do wonders for my spiritual walk.
3. Make prayer a priority.
4. Perform at least one intentional act of service per day for my family.
5. Spend quality time with each of my boys individually so they each feel wholly loved.
   
6. Read one new book and one old book to my boys every day.  We do a lot of reading in this house.  Shea loves to read books.  However, he memorizes books VERY QUICKLY and has favorites that he wants to read over  and over again.  After trying to make room for new toys after Christmas, I realized we have a TON of books that we have never read to the boys.  So I plan on reading a new book every day to the boys before reading a book they have heard hundreds of times.
7. Work on my areas of weakness-forgetfullness, lack of focus, distractability, and absent-mindedness.
8. Be more accepting of my shortcomings.  I have a bad habit of beating myself up when I make a mistake.  I am even critical of myself when I do things out of my control.  Sometimes my medications or epilepsy cause me to say the wrong words, or forget what I am doing or talking about.  When I feel my mistakes are affecting other people, I let it get to me much more than I should.  I need to learn to shake things off and move on.
9. Complete at least one custom creative project, and one personal creative project per month.  Recently, I have been doing so many custom projects that I have not been able to complete any of the ideas floating around in my head for either my family, my online store (that I have closed temporarily due to the abundance of custom orders), or myself.
10. Train to run the WHOLE half marathon running portion of my leg of the Half Ironman.  At one point of my life, running WAS my life.  But that feels like a whole lifetime ago.  I ran competitively all the way up through college.  However, running hasn't really been much a part of my life anymore since Shea was born.  At the beginning of this school year, I was asked to complete the running portion of a relay half marathon race.  It is taking place in May and  I am just now getting back into running.  I don't have any time goal, but I do want to aim for running the whole race.
11. Drink less Coke than last year.  I have never even TRIED to stop drinking Cokes.  I know there is no way I could do that.  I love me a good glass or  bottle of Coke...mmmmm.  But I know they are not good for me.  So this year, I plan to drink less Coke than I did last year.  
12. Be more  organized.  I just wrote a whole blog post about this.  Go read it if you feel like it.  I thought it was pretty exciting.
13. Document my accomplishments. I think writing down my accomplishments will make me feel more positive and confident and proud.  I am going to do so in Milo...don't know who Milo is?  Go see.
14. Take better pictures of my work.  Believe it or not, those who don't know me or haven't known me for long, I once had a photography business.  I was pretty good at it.  I loved it.  But now I love a lot of things much more than I love taking pictures.  But I know from experience that taking good pictures of the things that I make will make a huge difference in the amount of sales that I make.  I have been skipping this step and taking pictures with my phone because I am too excited to take the extra step of taking good pictures to show off what I make.  I just take a quick snap with my phone and post it.  And oftentimes I have to write below it that it is even cooler in person than in the picture, or the colors are different in person.  I know I could sell much more if I had high-quality pictures to show the products just as my clients will see them.  Like these pictures that Lorie took of some of my blankets that are still
15. Have one month where my profit from my creative endeavors equals at least half of my teaching salary.  This is quite a lofty goal.  But my last goal is how I am going to get there.
16. Increase social media presence.  Some of you may not like this idea.  Some of my friends and my family may be a little tired of seeing my blog posts and pictures and crocheted blankets and quilts.  I get it.  However, if you are, now would be a good time to unfriend me.  My feelings won't be hurt.  But count on more of it in the coming year.  I am not doing all of these posts to make myself look better or to show off.   If that is the way it is coming across, I am  sorry.  But this is all just what it will take to get me from where I am to where I want to be.  My dream is to be able to make my side job into my job-job.  To get there, I have to put myself out there as much as possible.  So please be patient with me.  If, on the other hand, you like what you see, share it with all of your Facebook friends.  Pin my pictures on Pinterest.  Re-tweet my tweets.  Tag people on my Instagram pictures.  Make me busy.   Here is what last year looked like and what I want this year to look like.  And as I said before, these aren't resolutions, just goals to aim for. 

• Pinterest was my biggest area of growth.  Without focusing on gaining Pinterest followers, I somehow have 4,000 Pinterest followers.  Let me get this straight.  This does not mean that many people like my work, just that they like what I am pinning (it probably helps that I have 7300 pins, oops, don't judge).  For that reason, please pin and re-pin the pictures that you like from my blog.  The more you pin, the more people see what I make.  
• My goal is to increase my followers from 4000 to 10,000 by the end of the year.
• Facebook is where I get the most blog traffic from.  Most of my posts are read because one of you clicked on the link on my Facebook page.  If you know someone who would like my post or something I made, share the link with them or tag them in the post.  The more the merrier.  My Scrap Stash Studio Facebook page is something I have neglected.  I will update it more frequently this year.  When I do, I hope to go from 82 page  likes to at least 500 this year.
• I really hope to focus a lot on my blog this year.  I love to write and share my life with family, friends, and strangers.  My goal (not my resolution) is to write at least 3 posts per week.  I hope somewhere along the way I learn how to monetize my blog, but that isn't a must.  
• Here is an overview of my blog this year.  This year I had 5,685 views of my blog.  I averaged 470 views a month.  
• Here are the numbers for my top 5 most read posts:
• Work-in-Progress Wednesday (285 views)- This post focused on my Mermaid Tails that have been very popular.  This was the post that was on my blog when I received the most traffic.  This happened after Ginger Wesson (who has a very popular You-Tube Channel), shared the Mermaid Tail that I made for her.  
• Fed Up Friday (278 views)-This post was about my thoughts and feelings regarding the United States supreme court decision to allow same-sex marriage.  It was written while I was pregnant with Patten and therefore very emotionally raw and unapologetic.
• Sometimes Life is a Pill (210 views)-This post was about my journey with epilepsy and my quest for medicine that worked for me.  It was a story of ups and downs and real life.  It also drew extra views because it was featured on National Seizure Disorder Foundation's website.
• To teachers, moms, and  my high school crazies (209 views)-This was a post about the realities of being a teacher and the realities of being a mom who is a teacher.  I wrote this in response to a post from a mom writing to her children's teachers.
• Life in the Strauss House (133 views)-This is just a post about life in the Strauss house.
• There are two common themes in the top five posts on my blog.  I connected with people.  And I was real.  I think that is what people are interested in reading.  So this year I plan to make connections and be real.

HAPPY NEW DAY, my friends!

What are your GOALS or RESOLUTIONS for 2016?

A Thrifty-ish American Girl's Attempt at a Filofax

About a month ago, I started trying to come up with a system of organization.  I am a scatterbrained, messy-ish, clutter-thriving, artisty girl.  I am a multi-tasker.  It is both my strength and my weakness.  It helps me to accomplish a lot of things.  But it also means that sometimes little things get ignored, or I get things all out of order.  I jump from project to project to keep from getting too bored with something.  I am pretty sure I have un-diagnosed ADD.  But, Lord knows, I don't need another diagnosis or another daily medication prescribed to me.  See my recent post about my journey with epilepsy and the rise and fall and re-rise of my medication experience.

For all of these reasons, I decided I needed to come up with a way to make sense of the organized chaos in my head.  My "crochet/sewing/random creative endeavors" business has gone from a hobby that sometimes gave me a little extra spending money to somewhat of a second job.  I wouldn't call it a second full-time job yet.  However, I feel it would be justifiable to say that I have 1.5 jobs...2.5 jobs if parenting counts as a job...3.5 jobs if each kid counts as a separate job (I have two little boys)...and 4.5 jobs if being a wife to an amazing husband counts as a job.
So let's just say that I have four and a half jobs right now.
1. Wife to Brian
2. Mother to Shea
3. Mother to Patten
4. High school teacher
...And a half...sewing, crocheting, and making other random things
One day I hope to reduce my day jobs to three and a half.  I love my husband and my boys and can't picture my life without any of them.  And I can't imagine a life that doesn't involve me making things in one way or another.  You do the math.

That being said, I really need to see how it all adds up.  I need to see how I am really using my time and how productive I can be.  I need to see what all I am accomplishing, and have proof that I can eventually make MAKING THINGS my "full-time" job.  I need visual AND ARTSY evidence that what I think can be done really can be done...in real life...not  just in my dreams.

I could go in the direction of Excel spreadsheets like most entreprenuers, but even looking at Times New Roman font when I am typing on my computer bores me.  And I don't like numbers.  I know...I know...I have to like numbers.  I can at least make them tolerable if I write them on paper in pretty handwriting with colorful fine-tipped markers.

SO...I scoured Pinterest and pinned fun planner/organizer pins to my Pinterest boards (go browse my boards and pin away).  As I researched, I fell in love with the Filofax system.  I saw planners made  by people whose brains worked like mine did.  Check them out and see what I fell in love with. The one that I loved the most was from "A Bowl Full of Lemons."  Filofaxes are just glorified planners exploding with color and personalization and randomness that make order from the chaos that is the mind of an artist.  The more I saw of it, the more I loved.

I did see some downfalls, but I felt that I NEEDED A FILOFAX...NO MATTER WHAT...and I NEEDED ONE TODAY!...or at least  before January 1st, because it is pointless if I can't start off the year perfectly organized (or at least that is how I thought of it).

Here are the downfalls:
1. The ring placements and paper size are very specific so I couldn't just put anything in it.  I needed special paper with special holes.  I was willing to cough up the extra bucks because there were paper inserts that seemed to meet all of my needs.  I thought that could probably get expensive, but WORTH IT!
2. The outside of the Filofaxes are all the same, different fun colors, but basically all the same.  However, I could get over that by putting fun clippy thingy's on my pages that stuck out to the outside of the book.  WORTH IT!
3. I would have to break out of my shopping store comfort zone.  If you know Soddy Daisy, Tennessee, (which you don't know if you don't live here), you know there aren't a lot of options.  Unless I want to drive 30 minutes, my options are slim pickings.  Within a 10 minute drive, I have a Bi-Lo (I mean Food City), a dollar store, Cottage Closet (an adorable little consignment store), and a Wal-Mart.  If I drive 25 minutes, my options are a little broader.  That is where the closest medium-sized town mall is located.  That's where you can find your standard pool of restaurants.  And that is the outer limits of my shopping comfort zone:
* Food City for groceries
* HOBBY LOBBY FOR EVERYTHING!
* Target for everything else.
* Wal-mart if necessary...I don't hate it.  It just isn't my first, second, or third choice.  But it is my last.
So going somewhere else was not what I wanted to do.  But, like I said, I wanted a Filofax so it was WORTH IT!

So picture this.  I leave my two boys at home with my hubby and have one hour to shop before I have to go to the neurologist for another follow-up appointment (same old song and dance).  I went to Staples.  It wasn't going to be traumatic because Hobby Lobby was in the same shopping center and if I needed some retail therapy I could go recover there (and buy fabric remnants, because you can never have enough fabric remnants).  So there I was, bopping joyfully into Staples on a mission to find the brightest Filofax cover and the most colorful calendar inserts and as many cheap things to cutesy it up as possible.  And I didn't care how much it cost (well to some extent), because it was...wait for it...WORTH IT!  So there I was, walking straight past the woman getting coached on how to hook up her new printer to her first ever laptop, to the planner aisle.  I looked high.  I looked low.  And I saw nothing that even looked Filofax-esque even in the least.  Then I thought, "hey, I bet it has it's own little section of the store if there are whole Pinterest boards devoted to it."  You probably could have seen a light-bulb above my head.  But it went out quickly after I searched the whole store with no luck.  I walked out like a puppy with its tail between its legs.  I was bummed to say the least.

Then I thought that there was a slight chance that Target would have them, or at least something similar, because Target is hip and trendy like that.  Yes, I used the words hip and trendy, and hip and trendy are not hip and trendy words anymore, but sue me.  Target is hip and trendy.  So surely they had Filofax.

WRONG!  They had neither Filofax nor anything like it.  After a quick Google search, I discovered that Filofax is a UK thing.  And there is no K in my corner of the woods, just an S.  By that time, I knew I HAD to go home with a planner.  So I made it my mission to thriftify and Americanize the heck out of my planner.  I was going to make the coolest Filofax wannabe on a thrifty-ish budget.
Sidenote: I say thriftyish because I was determined to do this with as little money as possible to kind of stick it to the "Filofaxers" for not making their awesome planners readily available in the US.  I quickly discovered, to be as cool as Filofax, you have to spend a little money.

See one of my mermaid tails below, and let me know if you would like to order one.



Here is what I came home with the cost of a mermaid's tail later.

I set up a draft of a color-code system on the heart-covered paper from the dollar stop section at Target.  I just slipped it into the front pocket of my Filofax wannabe...I will just call her Milo (short for  My-lofax).

Pink (because I am not a huge fan of red)=Personal

Orange=Expenses

Yellow=Exercise

Green=Orders (Like $, get it?)

Blue=Blog

Purple=Quotes and other randomness

Black=Contacts, dates, more official businessy stuff

I made 5 sections in Milo: Planner, Orders, Motivation, Blog, and Accomplished. And I did a practice for my page-a-day planner. I have 5 more tabs to determine behind these. I will probably use them for the not as fun businessy numbers stuff like expenses and such.

I stuck a cute little mini notebook into the back pocket secured temporarily with a rubber band. If I decide to keep it there I will find a more permanent securing method.

Milo will receive much more tinkering I am sure, but I am excited about the direction Milo and I are headed for the start of 2016.  If I don't see you before then, HAPPY NEW YEAR, my friends!

Be a FRUITLOOP in a word full of Cheerios!

Christmas Eve in ICU

Read the Facebook post I am sharing first. It is SUPER IMPORTANT...especially for the mommies and soon-to-be mommies I know. This shared post is from my mother in law. That means this post is about my father in law...who I love. We got a call on Friday morning on our way out of town that Bruce was in the hospital because he couldn't breathe...next update was he was put on a ventilator...then that he had bacteria in his blood...all extremely scary updates to be getting when we are on the other side of the country for Christmas. And all of this because of a rare strain of influenza. All of which could have been prevented if that strain had been wiped out by shots that are available to every child but some parents are scared to give their kids. There are consequences for more than just your child if you decide not to give them life-saving and others-saving vaccines.

Thanks for hanging in there Brucey...hope you enjoyed your 5 day nap. Love you!

Merry Christmas, my friends!

We're still in LOVE

This wonderful man doesn't have a facebook so I can't tag him. But I have to share just how much I love him. I don't say this to brag but to tell you that this kind of love exists and not to settle for anything less. It has been exactly 5 years since this moment when he looked at me in this picture as I walked down the aisle. And he still looks at me like that. Five years after our wedding day we are even more in love than we were then. We first met in January of 2008 and look at us now. Back then we were just college students all wrapped up in giddy feelings and butterflies and "young love." Full of "I love yous" and "I love you more." And now we are parents full of the same things.
No, those moments are not as often as before. Now we have grown up jobs.  We have many more bills and I'm not talking dollars. We have a nonstop 2-year-old bundle of energy and a cuddly bundle of cuteness that still cries a lot. We have lots of dirty diapers and wet or dry pull ups. Bed time doesn't start when we are ready to go to sleep. We have two hyper dogs, lots of laundry, a load of dishes every night. We have lots of doctors appointments. Getting ready for work isn't a 20 minute process but now about an hour long ordeal. And there isn't anyone I would rather spend the madness with.
Because in the midst of all of the craziness, when our eyes meet it looks just like that picture. We laugh at the mess and roll our eyes and blow each other a kiss.
On a roadtrip like the one we are on now with a crying 5 month old in the back and a 2 year old trying to drown out the cries with his singing and having to turn off the music because it is just too much, he reaches over to hold my hand.
Life is still crappy sometimes. It gets hard and messy and downright sad sometimes. We get homesick. We get mad then we get over it. We stress out then realize it's not a big deal in the big scheme of things. Life isn't easy. It's not perfect. I'm not perfect. He's not perfect. But together we are perfect.

Sometimes Life Is a Pill

This post will start with a rant and end with a plea. I will need you to share it with anyone who will listen for more reasons than one.  This video will give you a preface to what I have to say. Please watch it. It is a message that needs to be heard. It may not apply to you but it applies to my family and me.

Don't proceed until THAT is seen.

Her story is much like mine. My struggle was not depression but it took the same path.  My journey started in 8th grade with a grand mal seizure (or whatever the medical term is now when you fall to the ground unconscious, shake violently, and stop breathing). I woke up in an ambulance with no  knowledge of why I was there. I don't really remember the events that put me there. But I was told after returning to normal that I had flirted with the paramedic in the spongbob scrubs. Allegedly when I was asked why I was going to the hospital I said that I passed out in front of Target.  In actuality, it had happened while channel surfing with my cousin in a dark basement. After a cocktail of medical tests: MRI, EEG, cat scan, and blood tests, I was sent home drug free. The doctors said that a lot of people have one seizure and never have another one. So they sent me on my way. Hooray, I had left with a clean bill of health and no percriptions

For a long time, it looked like the doctors were right.

I started high school and immediately found my niche, passion, love, and gift in running. With running came many things...people who would, over the four years of high school, become my lifelong friends, endless incredible memories of victories, pains of defeat, and the opportunity to finish college debt-free. My junior year of high school revolved around me trying to decide what NCAA school I wanted to run for. I went on official recruiting visits to Clemson, Auburn, and University of Georgia. My junior year track season ended with a second place finish in the state track meet. I was ready to win it all my senior year.  My one focus the summer before my senior year was to run as far and as fast as I could. I almost doubled my weekly mileage and practically lived at Tribble Mill Park or the shoulder of roads around Grayson, Georgia. I was topping off my last summer of high school with a week of running camp at UGA. I fell in love with it all...the town, the track, the "SEC hype," the campus, the waffles in the cafeteria, and the crappy dorm rooms. I was convinced I was meant to be a running bulldog. By the end of the week, the coaches were convincing me they could see me there, too. I was living large, just short of prideful. I had it all laid out. I could picture the red and black uniform with way too short shorts.

A week later all of those plans changed. I was knocked off my high horse. I learned humility because I had no other choice.

It was our last cross country summer practice. I was running and fell back behind my teammates a bit. I figured I was just tired from the week of running camp. Then my vision got blurry. I couldn't run any more. So I started walking but my feet felt like lead. A couple passed me walking the other direction on the trail. They asked if I was okay. In my head I was saying, "no, I need help." But no words came out. So I just nodded and kept walking. That was the last thing I remember...a blurry couple walking past me smiling.

Then few of my teammates found me on their way back to their cars to end their run. Two of them slumped me over their shoulders and tried to carry me to our coach. One of them sprinted ahead to tell him and our parents, "I think Meredith just had a seizure." The next thing I remember is getting hoisted into the front seat of one of the x-c moms' SUVs and taken to the hospital. The whole ride I was conscious. I don't know who I was with. All I knew was I couldn't move or answer any of their questions. At the hospital later I didn't recognize my parents right away. I threw up a lot. My brain and my body were a mess. And it took a long time and lots of different PERSCRIBED drugs (in case any of you were wondering if I had a drug problem) to get them back to normal. Walking out of the hospital was stepping into the my new reality as we searched for a medicine to fix what was broken. 

Pill #1-Topamax (used for depression and/or epilepsy) In a very short period of time I lost about 20 pounds. I literally stopped eating. I would be so hungry then after one bite I would be stuffed and sickened by the sight of food. I was the skinniest runner at all of the meets. And that says a lot. I was running terribly. Every college that used to call me after all of my races stopped calling. I was lucky if I finished races. My mom thought I was anorexic because I was trying to lose weight and run faster. I told her even if I was it wasn't working. But I wasn't. I thought, maybe I was anorexic. It definitely wasn't a conscious decision so maybe I was messed up in the head. She took me to an eating specialist. As soon as she looked at my chart she diagnosed me with "involuntary anorexia." She said I wasn't the first one she saw on Topamax. She informed us that doctors also prescribed it as a diet pill. No doctor had ever told us that. That wasn't on the pill bottle. But I hadn't had any seizures since I started it. So instead of changing my neurologic medicine, the eating specialist told my mom she could mix this powder into my food to give me the calories I was missing. So there was that. Not long after that I had a seizure at school. It was right after I finished my final in my photography class. We all finished the test long before it was time to change classes. Some people laid their heads down and went to sleep. One girl stretched out on the floor and went to sleep. I decided that was a great idea. So I walked over by the window because I wanted to sleep in the sunlight. That's where I made a mistake. Sunlight streaming through windows and epilepsy don't mix. Well, I laid down and never closed my eyes. I was in stare mode. I was frozen. I couldn't move or talk to ask for help. I was just stuck frozen staring at the beam of sunlight. The bell rang to change classes and I still didn't move. A student shook me to wake me up and I wasn't sleeping. Then it clicked. "Oh yea, she has epilepsy." Seconds later I heard them say over the intercom, "first responder to the photography class." I heard squeaky tennis shoes running down the hallway. I knew it was Coach Bryant even though he wasn't the first responder. He knew it was me. Then teachers were kneeling around me on the floor trying to snap me out of my far away place I had gone. A few times I was able to look around just enough that they knew I was with them but not enough to really be with them. Then I heard the sirens and thought, "how embarrassing. I'm leaving school on a stretcher." Then I remember the paramedic snapping that peppery stuff in my face to try to bring me back and it worked for a second then I was more out than before. I woke a LONG time later and again didn't know where I was or why I was there. Then came ...
Drug #2- I forgot the names. I can't pronounce them anyways so what's the point? This one made me forget everything....what I had studied, what class was next, my best friends' names every now and then. And I was very angry very easy. That drug didn't last long.
Drug #3-....didn't last long either. I had night terrors. Not nightmares...terrors. One night, at 17 years old, I jumped out of bed screaming and ran downstairs and jumped into bed with my parents. I told them there was a praying mantis in my room. They laughed. I said I would laugh too because they don't bite but this one was human-sized and laying on my chest. It sounded just as crazy to me but I swore I wasn't crazy and I wasn't going back to my room til they killed it. And I said all of this wide awake. Not sleeptalking.
Drug #4-Lamictal-my miracle drug...for a while. My seizures went away and no side effects came. I started feeling healthy again...and running fast too. At state my senior year I got 3rd in the two-mile then broke my finger at the starting line of the mile...but that's another story. But it was too late for my dream schools. They had moved on to greener pastures...TRUE DEFINITION OF A BLESSING IN DISGUISE. But then as life changed or miles increased or stress went up so did my dosage but it worked and still works mostly.
Drug #5-...still up for debate but seems good so far. The Lamictal seemed to be slacking on its job lately. No seizures but recently my brain has kind of been in slow motion...slurred speech...forgetting what I am doing...forgetting words like accommodation in IEP meetings. No good. I guess two babies under age 3 and a stressful job can throw off chemical imbalances and mess with seizure medicine. But so far so good with the 750mg a day total thay I take to keep my brain working how it should.
I could use this post to vent about the absurdity of the profit that drug companies make (a month of my Lamictal would be $1700 without insurance), the nonchalant prescribing of medication and laxidasical roller-coastering of dosages. All of these would be justified battles to fight, I feel.
But this post is about the necessary evil that is modern medication. I have it to blame. But more than that I have it to thank. Not too long ago a person like me might be institutionalized. Instead I am nearly seizure-free and have a husband, two kids, and a job teaching other people's kids.

I freaked out when I realized my oldest son had epilepsy, too. He was having 12 or so staring seizures a day as a one-year-old. I was more scared to medicate him than I was to see him freeze for 30 seconds at a time. Then I was told that it was going to have to happen when he started falling behind in school even if he only missed 30 seconds of instruction a day. I was reminded it is a necessary evil.
Drug #1-The go-to drug for infants with epilepsy. Promises of very little side effects. Wrong. He started hitting and biting almost immediately. We didn't want a baby with aggression headed into the terrible twos.
Drug #2- Lamictal-They tried it on him because it worked on me, but they didn't seem convinced it would work. And now it works for both of us. But he went from sleeping through the night on his own to hardly sleeping at all.
Drug #3-suggestion...some kind of sleep medicine drops...we just worked through it. Sometimes it still needs work. But a little less sleep is better than seizures or a doped-up toddler.

All that to say, there is no shame in getting help, even if it is in the form of medication. Now, this can not be an argument for illegal  self-medicating or self-harming drugs. Doctors may not fix things the first time but I am proof they can help if you let them.

So here's to you doctors. Thank you. But also remember that what you write on prescription papers will have an impact on every patient: their health, their moods, their families, and their wallets. Don't prescribe nonchalantly. Take it easy on our bodies, our brains, and our wallets.

6 Reasons I am NOT Depressed

I honestly don't think I could be any happier than I am right now, or any more content, or excited about the future.

Over Thanksgiving break, I had family and friends here I don't get to see very often staying in my house.  I have an amazing husband who is an answer to many prayers I prayed long before we met at Scenic Land School. 

I have two incredible boys who are growing and changing and learning faster than I can blink my eyes.  And I feel blessed that I am getting to watch that happen. 

Without really thinking about it, the spirit of Thanksgiving swept over me like a gust of wind and shifted my perspective.  I am not a pessimist, but lately I have been seeing the wrong side of things. 
Yet, I seem to have it all straightened out in my mind. 

1.The world is not primarily dark.  Yes, there is evil and hate in the world.  There is lots of it.  The latest mass-murders in San Bernardino, California have made that all too clear.  But light and love still shine stronger.  Lately, I have noticed the stars.  My son asks to go see them every time we get home after dark.  He stares up at the sky and says, "Jesus made that."

2. No, I don't always love my job.  But I love the people I do my job for.  No, I didn't miss my work over Thanksgiving break, but I did miss the young people I try to serve.  No, I didn't miss their snarky attitudes or their laziness.  But when I go more than two days without my students, I find myself wondering if they were having a good Thanksgiving, too. 

3. Yes, my oldest son is two.  And yes, he can sometimes exhibit the stereotypical behaviors of one who is two.  But I am treasuring watching him learn to be a person.  I love his incessant drive to do exactly what he wants to do with every ounce of seemingly endless energy he possesses.

I love seeing his passion for baseball build without any persuasion from his baseball-obsessed father.  I love watching my husband as he watches his son fall in love with the game he loves.

  I love the way Shea loves and protects and shows genuine concern for his baby brother. 

4. I love Shea's baby brother, Patten.  There is not much learn or observe about him yet.  But what I have learned and observed about him, I love.  I love his little neck rolls, and leg rolls, and arm rolls.  I love his squishy chunky cheeks, with or without his dry flakey skin.  I love his quick, not-quite-yet laugh and his open-mouthed smile.  And I love how his favorite person to watch is his big brother.

5. Yes, there are a lot more family members that couldn't be with us for Thanksgiving than the ones that could.  And yes, it would be much easier and more convenient for all of the people we love to be one big happy family all living just around the corner.  But for more reasons than one, that just isn't the case.  But how blessed are we to have so many loved ones to miss?

6. Sure, there are plenty of things I would change if I could.  But I have way more things that I wouldn't change FOR THE WORLD!

Despite all the stress, and the oftentimes mess, and the things that would leave any person depressed, the one thing I am feeling right now is BLESSED!

PS-The family photos were shot this weekend by my friend, Lorie.  She is an amazing photographer.  She will take your photos, too!
Check out her website.
http://lorieallison.com/