just because

did i ever tell y'all that my issue is NOT anxiety? i meant to. (not that i think anyone really cares, ha.) i'd like to state for the record that I WAS RIGHT. all along i told the doctors that my issue was not anxiety. i'm not an anxious person! i recognized that the only reason i was anxious is because of my other symptoms! you try being dizzy and off balance and NOT being anxious. LAWD. i tried to accept the anxiety diagnosis. i took the meds. allowed them 6 weeks to get into my system. and i will confess i was less anxious....AFTER i had dizzy spells and felt off balance (along with other symptoms.) i truly thought the anxiety meds would heal me. i thought my days of struggles were over. not so much. after several months of continuing to feel off i started researching ways to get rid of my symptoms. i kept reading that vestibular rehab could help. finally i googled places that offer vestibular rehab in columbus ga.  i wasn't even paying atten...

growing up i had an amazing group of girl friends. oh we spent so much time together between church and just hanging out. i LOVED these girls and spent obnoxious amounts of time watching movies, talking about boys and having sleepovers. it truly was fantastic and i thank God for those girls often. we all still stay in touch through Facebook mainly and sometimes seeing each other around town. but we don't talk daily, hourly like we did growing up. that being said...if anything big happened in my life or theirs i KNOW we would all be right there in a heartbeat. i KNOW that and am thankful for it. fast forward to college and most of those girl friends had moved on the serious relationships and towards marriage and for me that didn't come until age 27. SO in the meantime most of my close friends were guys. mostly because, let's be real, guys are easier to hang out with. no drama, no comparing yourself, no gossip, etc. it was just easy. i did have times when i was jealous ...

This  Sunday, November 8  is Orphan  Sunday . Can I just be honest and say that until 2010 hearing about Orphan  Sunday  wouldn’t have stirred so much emotion in my heart. Sure, I would have taken a moment in church (if it was even mentioned) to think about children growing up without parents and maybe I would’ve even given some money towards an orphanage…. But it would not have meant what it means to me now. I remember like it was yesterday when I first heard about Vasa. Josh took me to lunch downtown and told me he & Claire felt called to adopt and were in the process of adopting a little boy from Russia. I was floored! They already had three beautiful girls who I adored but hearing about an orphan completely hit me in a new way. I was just as excited to hear about Vasa as I was when they announced each one of Claire’s pregnancies. I was enamored by the adoption process and couldn’t wait to see every picture, follow every step of the journ...

This summer I helped Teen Advisors prepare for their fall retreat. It was definitely bittersweet knowing I wouldn't be at the retreat for the first time in 13 years. I did easy jobs like write name tags, make blessing bags, make adult folders and coordinate transportation and facilities. Nothing difficult. I love doing tasks. LOVE IT. I know it may be strange but checking jobs off of a list is heaven to me. And I may not be super talented or brilliant but I am a fast worker. I can get things done crazy fast. I don't even know why. So doing things for the retreat is my favorite kinda job. My, not so favorite job, is reading the "write your heart out" forms that we ask the kids to fill out at the pre-retreat meeting. They are completely anonymous which gives the students freedom to truly write their hearts out....and they do. Every year my heart breaks at the crap these young students are facing. High school sucks. Don't you remember all the pressure?! I mean ...

y'all. anxiety sucks. i've never dealt with anything like this in my life. since last november i have had dizzy spells, lightheadedness, some nausea and felt off balance. do you KNOW how annoying that is?????? when i'm brushing my teeth i feel like i'm going to fall forward. even sitting here now i feel heavy headed and just not myself. i don't feel stressed. i do NOT sit around and think about terrible things or "what ifs" or worry about my life so it frustrates me that i have to deal with the physical symptoms. i sure do wish i understood why. i feel like a bad christian. like i should be able to pray past this! but it's still hanging around. i am taking medication and i guess it helps some. i do covet prayers. i want so badly to feel like myself again!!! dealing with something like anxiety is lonely. i sometimes get jealous that other people just "feel normal" and can go on about their lives doing whatever they want to do...

so back in november i started having some strange health issues. i've talked about them before. dizzy, lightheaded, etc. not vertigo room spinning kinda stuff. but random moments of lightheadedness...feeling like my brain was falling inside my head. weird, i know. i also felt nauseous often. but not enough to keep me from eating ;) i went to my regular doctor and they tried treating my symptoms and started testing me for everything. i took zofran for nausea. meclazine (sp?) for vertigo. i took stuff for heart burn and acid reflux. they did an ultra-sound of my organs....stomach, gall bladder, lungs, kidneys, etc. had my gall bladder removed. b/c ya know, maybe that's it?! i did have stones and sludge. gross. still the symptoms continued. ok, so we moved forward a little and had an MRI done. came out normal. (thank the Lord.) but the symptoms remained. it was/is depressing. it's hard to want to drive or go anywhere when you aren't sure how you'r...

Lawd knows I have a love/hate relationship with running! I love the idea of it. And during fall and spring I actually love it. But summertime is a different story. Good grief, there is no way to escape the Georgia humidity. (I mean, unless I leave GA.) I haven't always been a runner. Not AT ALL. I didn't play sports or do anything active really growing up. I tried dance at one point. I think I did it for a year. Wasn't my thing. I also did gymnastics when I was 15. Yep, 15. A group of us girls decided we wanted to give it a shot our freshman year. I think they were all good at it. I, on the other hand, was a train wreck. I may have attempted gymnastics as a kid too. But I don't remember it...which makes me think it was traumatizing therefore I forgot it. I also did ballet at age 30. NO woman in her 30's should wear pink tights and a leotard. Well, that's not true. Some women can. THIS woman should not have. I hated that mess. I felt like those pink hip...