Saturday, April 30, 2016

Baby Brinley

Newborn sessions.

My baby fever comes on real quick and I just wanna snuggle that precious babe all day!!! And smell their head. Can they bottle that smell?!

ugh.

Baby Brinley was NO exception! She is just one day shy of 2 weeks old, which is longer than I like to wait to do newborn sessions. However, Brinley just broke out of the NICU, like, yesterday. 
So its alright. :)

I absolutely loved our session. She was wide awake at first and we got fun pictures with her big sister. Then, after her tummy was filled, she went right on to sleep and snoozed through the rest of the session. 

What a doll!!











Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Right now.

Oh boy.

I'm not the most eloquent person. I'm not a professional writer. This blog doesn't make money. I write here for 2 reasons: as a part of therapy, a way to get my emotions out; and as a way to journal my life. I have hand written journals, but the computer is a much faster way for me to say what I want to say. I dont only document happy moments...because life isn't made up of just happy moments. I want anyone who reads this to understand something...my life is hard right now. I'm well aware of that. But I do try to find multiple moments of happiness daily. My life is hard, but its my life. And my life is a gift from God and I'm going to do my best to be appreciative of that gift.

Since learning of Jace's addiction a year ago (this week)...my life completely changed. I dont know how to explain it properly, especially to people who haven't experienced this kind of betrayal trauma or to people who dont understand how utterly devastating a pornography addiction is.

You would be surprised to know that most people think that us wives of pornography addicts (WOPAs) are crazy, emotional, unstable, stupid, ridiculous, etc. etc. etc. The world has normalized porn. Its a joke to people, that people would be upset by it. People don't think that its an actual addiction. Anyone who thinks this way is so beyond wrong. Study after study is showing how harmful a pornography addiction is now...TIME magazine just did a whole spread on it. It got brought up on the view recently, and in the news with Utah's governor signing a new resolution: " Utah Gov. Gary Herbert will sign a resolution declaring pornography a "public health crisis" at the Utah state capitol today.The resolution was introduced by Republican state Senator Todd Weiler in January 2015, to battle the “pornography epidemic harming” the state and the country."--that was from USA today.

I'm not going to get into jace's addiction...maybe one day if he's comfortable I'll have him write a post. But I'm going to re-itterate that the addiction started WAY before me. However, with the discovery of the addiction...it completely changes...everything. I mean, our entire marriage, our entire relationship was built on lies, upon lies, upon lies. Jace was cheating on me with images and videos and what have you. Hearing that...realizing what was going on in your own home behind your back... it makes you feel stupid. Dirty. Angry. Worthless.

My married life up to this point was a lie...and now my future is unclear. Where there once was a general outline (nothing too stable, because life has a way of not working how you thought ie:infertility) now there was NOTHING. My husband was a stranger to me. The foundation I thought we had built upon was condemned and torn down. We started rebuilding and then he relapsed and that foundation crumbled again. Its been 2 months now. And last week Jace told me that he acted out, very purposefully, and had been lying to me (lie of omission) for 3 weeks. 

I am in a state of shock. My life is in a state of flux. Jace has to make a very important decision: its the addiction or your family. You fight for us. You fight even if it kills you, to keep us. Or you let us go. Both are hard and scary pills to swallow. 

My life was not supposed to be this way. I was supposed to find a man who actually REALLY loved me...who would treat me as his queen. I would be faithful, loyal, and loving. I was to become a mother and raise my children to be God-fearing, serviceable people. I was to be happy.

Right now...all of that feels unobtainable. My mother told me the other day that there is a time and a season for everyone. My time, right now, is to go through this horrific trial. My bishop called it a trial of faith. I'm working really hard to find the good that is floating in the junk...but its a daily struggle. 

Right now...i'm surviving. That's literally all I can say. I take care of Nash all day (who is so energetic and tiring, but also sweet and cute and my miracle in all of this), and I take care of my business and our finances. However, my anxiety comes rearing most days and I feel stuck. I stare at my messy house...all the toys that Nash gets out and we play with, the cups of water he spills everywhere because he has to be independent, the dishes that are piled nice and high in my sink because standing at the sink doing them while my child is making a mess unsupervised churns my stomach (last time i did that he drew all over my kitchen floor with a crayon)...I cant find the motivation to do anything. At night, i struggle to sleep...my husband and I are still separated and I'm alone...then I'm plagued with thoughts and horrible dreams in relation to his addiction. If i'm lucky, my son will sleep, but lately he's been sick so i'm up multiple times a night with him and then up early for the day. 

Its hard to see my future right now. The 'right now' is a hard place to be in...because my 'right now' is not necessarily happy. But I hope and pray with all my might that my 'right now' will run its course and I get to move past it into my future. Oh my, how I pray for that day.


Saturday, April 9, 2016

Snow-balling

I hate when you have some really frustrating things going on in your life that others seem to follow right behind it and snowball.

The past year, i have felt that my life has been one big snowball. 

The house buying, the moving, the sickness, the addiction reveal, the lonely nights, the heartbroken days, the starting a new business, the sickness for months on end, the toddler who still wont sleep, the relapse, more heartbroken and lonely nights, stressed so much my blood pressure started to spike...etc.

We did our taxes with our long time CPA March 8th. Turns out we were getting a fair chunk of money back. And to be honest, it has been NEEDED. The roof in our house needs to be replaced, we need a new hot water heater, and it would be nice to put a chunk down on debt. 

That was the ONE piece of news that felt like the snowball was melting.

And that was a month ago. A FREAKING MONTH. 

I had been trying to get ahold of my CPA in the last week to ask what the heck was going on and they were so swamped that I didnt hear back from them. My frustration rose, my stress rose, and I called that office like 15 times in 3 days. FINALLY found out what happened. 

There was a check that came in for Jace from a lawsuit that PapaJohns went through. Since Jace had worked for them at the time, he got a $100 check from them. It also had a tax form to take in with you. So i included that in our taxes, and apparently it was for 2016's taxes since the check came in 2016. So the IRS denied our whole refund because of a stupid paper. 




Its being handled...now. But that was like the last thing I needed. I'm also retraining Nash on how to sleep, but now I'm having a hard time falling asleep. But man. This tax thing. I had a nightmare about it last night...that our water heater finally went poof! and we didnt have the return to pay for it. The things that become nightmares as you get older...

Monday, April 4, 2016

Miss Maisie

Maisie turned 5 months old and her mom wanted some pictures to document!!

This little red-head was so cute. She kept giving me a stink-face because she just wanted mommy to hold her. Getting her to smile was a trick, but oh man. When she did the photo captured turned into magic.

She is past the newborn stage of sleepy and pose-able, but not quite to the bigger baby stage of sitting up on her own. So there was LOTS AND LOTS of rolling around and movement in pictures. I love the realness that shines threw though. Its my favorite part of pictures. Yes, the posed pictures are great too, but I love the ones with silly faces and things you weren't expecting.