On April 5th 2022 our beautiful Caroline Beth House came into this world at 7:35pm. The world wind of emotions I felt is undescribable as her little scream belted out and she was placed onto my chest. To say I was speechless was an understatement, I was in awe of her. Every part of her, from her tiny hands and feet to her beautiful head full of hair. She was perfection in its purest form. 💛
Our Story
On April 4th (our two year anniversary💕) I headed to my Dr. for our 38 week check up. We did an ultrasound to measure how baby girl was doing, she had been on the smaller side my whole pregnancy so we checked on her every month. To my surprise though we found out that we were needing to be induced and needed to head to the hospital that night. Apparently she had officially ran out of room in my belly and wasn’t going to have enough fluid to last her the next two weeks! Such a scary moment as in my head I knew this day was coming but to have it happen right then and there, my stomach dropped. We got to the hospital at 6pm and started the process of getting everything set up. I had nurses in and out, pocking and hooking me up for at least an hour and half.😳 My husband and I shared our anniversary meal/last meal just us two and then the fun began! Ha…fun😐
Chick-fil-A to the rescue😂
We started the inducing drip at 7:30 and 24hours, almost exactly, from the start of the inducing we welcomed our beautiful Baby girl Caroline Beth House into this world 🥺 5lbs 10oz and 19in long! She was so perfect in every way and we couldn’t believe how lucky we got.
The whole experience was so crazy and surreal, been expecting baby Girl to come for 9 Months and now she was actually here!!🤯 Our perfect little bundle of joy was here and we couldn’t put her down!
One of my absolutely favorite pictures of them🥺
Delivery overall wasn’t as scary as I thought, definitely not easy, but I had such an amazing team of nurses and my husband that never left my side (besides to go get us food😂) that I felt so relaxed and empowered going into delivering her. We stayed two nights in the hospital just to make sure baby girl was good to go and then we finally got to head home!
Our first Family picture👨👩👧
BEING HOME
We’ve been home almost a month now and adjusting to new parents life has definitely been a learning curve. I believe we got extremely blessed with Caroline as she really is so sweet and not a super fussy baby (right now at least🙃) but we are working on figuring out sleep schedules and our new home life.
Seeing her grow over these last few weeks though has already killed me. I want her to grow and can’t wait to see the beautiful girl she grows into but I also don’t want her to get any bigger! She is my little Care Bear🐻 and I want her to be itty bitty forever!!😭
I am so excited for this next step in our lives, the greatest adventure we could ever go on is going to be raising her and getting to have our family grow.
Here’s to the small moments of having dreams really do come true!💕
Good Morning and Blessed Be to all you amazingly wonderful and beautiful people! Today is a day for showing gratitude! No special day besides the fact it is a new day and there is no better time to start or do something new!
So recently I have been in a slump of emotions. I feel like a rollercoaster of high and lows and all the curves are my confusions of whys. What triggered me noticing this was yesterday when I busted out in tears, I know, pretty noticable sign right! It was just one of those moments where sensory overload got me and my mind started to just list out everything that was “going wrong” recently or Everything that’s made me feel “bad”. I have pretty bad anxiety, who doesn’t these days, but I’ve had for so long that when I catch myself in an overload moment I know I have to do something to break it or I’ll go into a straight panic attack and start not breathing and all that good jazz. So THANKFULLY my husband called in that moment for his lunch. Not sure if he just knew I needed him then or fate knew I needed help but he called exactly when I needed to help calm me down.
Y’all will never know how much that man has saved me!
My slump though, that has been due to stress and I know this, it’s one of the few things we all share in emotionally on this Earth, and If you don’t have any stress in your life you seriously need to share that secret cause I promise you could market it and make bank! Oh wait… pretty sure people actually do this already??
Come on though, EVERYONE has stress, everyone has moments that just feels like nothing is going right and you feel like you’ve failed.
And THAT’S OKAY!
Like I Said it’s one of the few things we all share so I promise no one will ever be mad at you for having stress in your life!! You Do What You Can With What You Have!!
Seriously my motto, even got it tattooed on me!
I have found though that in dealing with stress, or sensory overload, or having a crummy day cause your coffee order was wrong, or whatever moment or event that is going on in your life right now that is causing you to doubt yourself or feel small, being Grateful helps!
It truly does!
Taking that moment to realize a bigger picture helps to make that moment of doubt seem insignificant.
Next time you start to feel down, I want you to think of these to help bring you gratefulness:
1. I am grateful for my mornings! – your morning means you made it through yesterday and today is a whole new experience! Use this as a push to always look forward to your morning!
2. I am grateful for the dirtiness of my home! – your home being dirty just means YOU LIVE THERE! You have a roof over your head and four walls to protect you! Be thankful that you have something that gets dirty.
3. I am grateful for my endless questions and the to do list I may have!! – having kids that constantly ask questions or a job you have have so many projects for can be stressful, but know that that child ask you all those questions cause your are their world and to them your the encyclopedia of knowledge! That job ask you questions or gives you work, I hope, cause they believe in your work and they trust you to do a wonderful job. You are needed to them!
4. I am grateful for my mind! – your mind is an astounding organ! Your mind literally has the ability to make you feel any way you want and think any thoughts you want! This is a treasure you have that no one else will EVER know the full depths of! Take advantage and make your mind your discover all that you have to offer this world!
5. I am grateful for my body being sore or tired at the end of the day! – at the end of the day when you lay in your bed all sore and tired know this. You accomplished your day! You got up, made what you needed happen, and are able to lay down and let that breath of the day out! Be grateful your body allows you to wake up everyday, carry you around doing everything you need, and allows you to lay, breath and rest it all away for the nexy day.
Being grateful isn’t hard, but it does take self awareness. It does take knowing in any stressful moment that its only a moment and you still everything else you get to do and be! Being grateful is one of the easiest, free, most uplifting activities you can do AND BE!
So today I challenge you.
Write it down!
Take THREE moments from your day and write down what you are grateful for! Even if one of those is being Grateful for someone else, like I was for my husband yesterday! Take three moments and show yourself love and peace by giving love and peace to your world around!
I am so grateful for each and every one of you! Each of you have a purpose and a reasoning for being on this Earth and it is time you accept you are needed! You are needed to bring love to this world. You are needed to help bring peace. You are needed to be grateful and to help show gratefulness to others. Blessed be my loves!
Accepting yourself. Accepting others. Accepting our world. Its hard sometimes. Unfortunately acceptance is not something that comes naturally to many of us. It’s not something we just do, or that we are. A lot of times it’s something we really work hard at. To be able to accept the commodities around us. To Accept the people around us. To accept ourselves for who we are.
I honestly couldn’t say which is harder.
At what point in our existence did we as humans start to not accept anymore? To turn to a way where all we do is judge another or complain for what we have. Where we put so much expectation on ourselves to be a certian way or live a certian life, all for what? To keep up with this materialistic world we live in? To make sure no one sees our weaknesses or has negative comments to say? To fake a smile at a stranger cause we wish they would give us the same?
Why though? Why is it so hard for us to coexist on this place we call home? To live together on this Earth in total peace.
Why is something that is so easy to do so hard for us? Acceptance is as easy as saying, “okay”. Nothing more, nothing less. Just okay.
If for one day our World could look at its neighbor and say, “I see you are different than I, but that’s okay, we are all one being living on this Earth. We all share one world. We are all together forever.”
If for one day we could all look into the mirror and just smile, because we know that who we are is needed for this World! Who we are was perfectly made for this time now! Who we are at this moment is just the beginning of who we can become!
If for one day we all just accepted.
Imagine it!
Acceptance is hard!
The choice to choose not to accept though, is harder, but it is just a choice!
Your choice, to say “okay” or not.
Life can be hard, but Accepting doesn’t have to be!
Blessed be my loves!! I hope your Monday morning is going amazing!!
Today will be short but I wanted to make sure to post about this, as this year’s celebration really meant so much to me in my journey.
Lammas, also known as Lughnasagh, to honor the Celtic God Lugh, the God of Light and Craftsmanship, is the celebration of the harvest!
This was the time of the year tribes, villages, and covens would come to harvest their wheat, grains, oats and rye to make room for the new seeds of the year!
This is the time for transformation and new beginnings, this is the time for Rebirth and awakening.
In just starting my own journey of rebirth and Discovery getting to celebrate this, on my birthday no less, meant more than one could ever know! We all live our lives in hopes that one day we will find our purpose or our reasoning for being, but after yesterday. After taking the time to just be. After taking in all that I have already accomplished, I have realized its not our purpose in life to find a reasoning, but it is our purpose to be the reasoning. Be the reasoning someone else find peace, happiness, love, or Sanctuary.
Be what you seek, and become what others seek.
So gather your harvest, from this physical world, and the spiritual, and give thanks. Put into the world Everything you want back from it. Plant the seeds in your life that you can’t wait to harvest next year. Join together in your own tribe or community and give back together.
We Honor the past and our ancestors by taking this time to celebrate what we already have and allow it to remind ourselves of all that we have yet to come! To many times in this new world we take for granted what all our ancestors had to fight for, what all the had to do to survive. It wasn’t as easy as going to the market to buy bread or vegetables, or buying a new shirt when yours gets a hole. They worked hard everyday to make what they could so they could live. Simply live. Nothing more than that. They joined together in their communities to take part in the harvest each year as it was a celebration of all the year has given, and to give back so that the next will be just as plentiful.
Blessed be my loves. Go forth and be blessed, always!
Home-made Honey Rosemary Bread for Offering! First time making this recipe and it turned out amazing!!!
I mean the title pretty much says it all! I know though, you’re probably sitting there wondering what the junk does this girl mean? Can she say Fuck Off in a blog post?
So while I dont know the answer to that last part! I will say that you can take this one of two ways, depending on how you feel and what all you have going on today.
Two ways you can take this and use it!
1. Fuck Off Friday! – Meaning you literally tell Friday to fuck off! Today is your day and it doesn’t matter if its the last day of the week, or the first day of the weekend, your gonna make whatever you need happen today!
OR
2. Fuck Off Friday! – Meaning it’s a fuck off Friday kinda day! It is the last big breath in before you can just let go for the weekend! Take the day and let it be your transition to the weekend, let it be a day of relaxation and fuck its!
So there you have it! Pretty simple right?
With every other day getting its own #mancrushmonday or #throwbackthursday I figured it was time Friday deserved one! Now, with a smile on your face and one big breath in look out at your day and say, “Fuck Off Friday”!
The English name Friday is derived from Old English and means “day of Frigg,” the Norse goddess of fertility and love. Also known as Freya, Odins wife in Norse Mythology.
As children we are told to look up to our elders and use them as role models. To use the doctors, the firefighters, the people in power, and so many more as our guides for wisdom. Now, while it is true that we need these role models to help set the examples of the good we need in our world and our lives, we don’t realize we’ve had these role models all along. We’ve had guides to help us along on our journey.
When you can find good in someone or something you’ve seen then it becomes easier to spot. It’s easier to become good when you surround yourself with it, and it’s easier to be good when you have something to base the good off of.
So why not use the past as a way to help guide our future? Why not use the stories of our ancestors and all they went through as a guide of where you came from? Why not use the legends of heros to show us there is good in the world? Why not use the stories of the Gods to show us we will always have somewhere to turn?
What if you could turn to multiple role models as guides and mentor’s?
Do you seek wisdom for upcoming decision that needs to be made? Reach out to Athena, the goddess of Wisdom and War. She can help guide you in any upcoming battles you may face.
Do you seek love? Reach out to Freya, the Goddess of Love and Fertility. She can help you reconnect with your inner love and allow you to give and receive it.
Do you need courage and strength to get through your day? Reach out to Kratos, he is the embodiment of strength, and can help you find yours.
Do you seek balance in your life? Reach out to Hecate. She is what balance is. She controls the heavens, the earth, and the seas. She is both maiden, mother, and crown. She is who I reach for in times of need. She can help you find that balance you seek.
You see, there are so many from our past that we can use to help guide us.
When we seek guidance, we can usually find it. It’s up to you though to determine rather its good or bad and if you want to use it or have it in your life. Not all guidance that is given can be helpful, but if we turn it all away then you will never know where you could have gone.
“Be what you seek, and become what others seek.”
Use the past to guide you in all that you do! Seek out good, in yourself, and in others!
Be the Goddess or God that you need in that moment, in that time. Appreciate all that you have been through and overcome. Rejoice in all that is left to experience and gain in life. Then, truly accept that you can be all that you already are and more.
Use your past and the past of our ancestors to lay a way for your path in life.
Walk it with honor and pride, and when you get the chance, share your story with others. Let your stories be a guide for others needing, and those yet to come.
Now say, “I am happy, I am healthy and I am full of love!
Take a second. How did that feel to say? Are you just thinking it or actually saying it out loud?
What you say and how you say it mean everything when it comes to speaking to yourself.
Words are important!
Without words are world would be a blank canvas of untapped beauty. We need words.
From speaking to each other, being able to read and write, and most important speaking to ourselves words are what make up our lives.
Words are power and words are important! If you’re not use to speaking these types of affirmations out loud I challenge you, once a day for 30 days speak one of the below out loud. Go stand in your mirror or sit up in your bed in the morning and speak these words.
⁃ I am healthy
⁃ I am strong
⁃ I am full of love and happiness
⁃ I will be a flame for others
⁃ I will full my positivity
⁃ I have the energy to bless others
⁃ I am deserving of kindness and respect
⁃ I am beautiful
⁃ I am no less than anyone I meet
⁃ I love who I am
⁃ I love all that I have achieved
⁃ I love all that I can become
⁃ I will overcome anything
For 30 days, that is all I ask! Say at least one of these to yourself. If you can go to a mirror and look at yourself when you do that’s even better, you need to know who your talking too.
When you look into the mirror really look at yourself, the curves of your face. The dimples on your checks. Does your nose wrinkle? When you smile do you show teeth? Really look at yourself, study yourself and repeat at least one if not all of these affirmations. Don’t just whisper them…I want you to yell them!
Yell,
“I love who I see in the mirror!”
You are beautiful. You are strong, and You deserve unending happiness. No if, ands, or buts about it! You DESERVE it all!
It is possible! It’s a process, and a journey but it’s something so Worth it and it doesn’t have to be stressful!
Yeah you heard right!
It doesn’t have to be stressful!
So let me step back real quick, anything you want to do or have requires putting time and work into it! It takes dedication and the persistence to stick with it even if it gets hard! So with that being said you too can do anything you want! Anything you REALLY want! As long as your willing to stick with it and put in the time it takes to get it.
Want to go on vacation? Or start your own business? Or own your own house? You can, but are you willing to put the time and effort to get those things? That is the question you have to answer for yourself.
My husband, Dustin, and I have been married a little over a year now. We have been together 5 years in total and just bought our first home back in April! Looking back it really does seem that long ago, like everything went by so fast, but the road getting here was definitely no open highway drive!
We moved into our first townhouse, six months into our relationship, to this small town in the middle of nowhere. We pretty much became non-existent during that whole year and after the year was up we had to make the tough decision to move back in with Dustin’s parents.
Let me just stop real quick to say, God Bless the whole House family!
You will never met a better family, and I seriously am the luckiest to be blessed to have them as my family now! They took us in when we needed and allowed not only myself but our big ol baby Zowey to stay with them!
It was husband, my both my in-laws, my sister-in-law, two dogs, my other sister-in-law that would come home on the weekends from college, and myself all in this house. Somehow though, we all managed, we all just flowed together every day. Going into it I was so nervous, and honestly, embarrassed, but it went so much more easily then I could have ever thought. They immediately made me feel so welcomed and loved and, like I said, God Bless that family! That year turned out to be one of the biggest blessings too, I got the best job working with my mother-in-law at our insurance firm!
After that year though we were able to get our new rental house that we had for two years! It was a nice starter place. Perfect for my husband and myself and Zowey! Then we got Callie.
Callie is our, now 2 year old, Aussie and she is our little sissy! She is the sweetest thing in the world and her hugs make me melt! We got her the first year at that house and then a short year later we got Mamma. Mamma was my friends dog but her and her family were moving out of the country so they couldn’t take her, so we adopted her! She is our potato!
Zowey is the one on the left, Mamma (Potato) is middle, and Callie is on the right!
Now though, with my husband, me and three dogs, our home was starting to feel a tad cramped! It was time.
It took us exactly 4 months, viewing 22 houses, putting offers in on 8 houses, running and rerunning back to the bank for updated bank statements over and over, and so many “I’m over it!” before we got our home.
Remember when I said it takes dedication for something you want? Remember I said it takes time? Yeah…it takes it all when buying a house, but!
Yes there is a but!
But…I am going to give you a few tips and tricks to help get you started in your house buying process to help make it less of a stress for you!
One:
⁃ Make a list of what you want! – Go crazy with it! You want windows in every room? Put it on the list! You want at least 4 bedrooms? On the list! Put down anything and everything you want in a house! This is your dream, this is your goal! Put it down and read it over and over!
Two:
⁃ Make a list of what you can live without! – I know, kinda takes away from the first one, but hear me out! Now that you have it all listed out, Everything you want, big or small, you need to narrow down. Heck, if you can get everything on your list Whooo! You go girl! Unfortunately though, more times than not your not going to find a house that has exactly everything you want. Unless you build, and then again, You go girl!!! Narrow down though. If you can live without certain things on your list DONT MARK IT OFF, put a little mark next to it! You don’t have to take away, cause hey you may find it in a house, just mark so you know that’s not necessarily needed!
Three:
⁃ Really look at your budget! – some of you are probably thinking, “what the junk is a budget?” And in that case, honey, bless you. If you are getting ready to buy a house, or really buy anything that is a major purchase you’ve got to have a budget!! You’ve got actually sit down and look at what got, what you don’t, what you want, what you need, and how much you really really can afford! Buying a house takes time right? This is probably the biggest time piece!
*Make sure you budget how much you can go over asking price too! Most houses, specially in todays market, are going $20-$30K over asking! I know, WHAT?! It’s right though! On average your gonna pay about $15K over. THANKFULLY we got blessed and the house we went to purchase, at first we went about 15K over, but appraised for less so whoo hoo!
Four:
⁃ Look at the Neighborhoods and school districts! – I know when you first start to look at houses it gets all, “oh look at the bathrooms!”, “Look at these closest!”, Or “that kitchen!”. It’s so much fun looking! And it should be! This could potentially be your new home! You need to have fun with this! You also need to be safe and find something you actually need! Do you have kids and need to be by a school? Will the commute to work be an easy one? Do you have three crazy pups and need a big yard like us? These are things you need to look at and consider as well in buying your home.
Five:
⁃ Okay here it is the biggest tip I can give! DO NOT GET OVERWHELMED AND DO NOT SETTLE! – just saying this makes me laugh! I say this in hopes that you won’t be like me and you’ll actually understand, you have time! I tend to over do things and if there is something I want I put everything into it till its mine. Not a bad thing, but in this case I was constantly putting in stress and getting stress back. You have time! The first house you see you’ll, 50/50, either be, “Oh my gosh, I need it!”, Or “Oh nooo, not happening!” This is a common feeling! My only advice on this is go into the viewings thinking your this awesome house critique! Like one of those home improvement shows with the people that walk into a house and just start pointing out what they like, what they don’t, and what they want to change and update. Be like this! Go in and find what you love, find what you dont, and find what could be done to make it better! If you do this with every house you’ll start to get a clearer picture of the house you actually want! Don’t get so overwhelmed with the actual process of buying that it takes the fun out of actually shopping! I don’t know about you but I love shopping and this was the biggest purchase we are probably gonna ever make so we wanted to have fun with the actual process! Probably why we saw 22 different houses… I’ll fully take that was all me but hey what can you do!
Biggest thing though, don’t settle either! There are so many houses out there if you’ve been looking for a while and are tired and just want to say screw it, dont! You want to go with that one you saw last week that didn’t have the yard you wanted but it has four bedrooms that you need? Don’t settle. You want that awesome house with the perfect bathrooms and closests but its over an hour from your work? Don’t settle! This process takes time! Sometimes it takes a few weeks, sometimes a few months like ours, but sometimes its takes more! What if you do go with one of those houses then in the next two months another comes up that has all that you want and more! Two more months! Thats all you had to wait to get your dream home? Could you do it?
• Key note – in today’s market, houses are going like crazy! Like seriously crazy! Those 22 we went and viewed, all under contract and gone within three days! Three days y’all! That is insane! Do not stress yourself out trying to get in and see a house and feel obligated to put an offer on one you don’t really like!
No house is going to be perfect! Again, unless you build it. So don’t go into this process thinking it has to be perfect, find something that works for you and has what you want, what you need and what you love!
Another big tip I need to put out there, TALK TO YOUR PARTNER!
If you are married or in a relationship you can not do this by yourself! This is something you both are going in on, something you both will live in together, and I hope, make home together! You need to communicate, you both need to sit and make that list! You both need to sit and redo that list! You both need to find houses you both wanna see! You both need to have an opinion on your future! This is a huge step and going into without full support, and I mean you supporting them and they supporting you, then this process will crush you. It will make you stressed. You need support and you need to give it!
I hope this helps to at least get you started in this process! It’s a lot, I won’t lie to you, but isn’t anything that you actually want? Question is, is it worth it?
If you truly want it, you can have it! It is possible, and the journey can be fun, you just gotta go for it!
Healing House & Home 