Kristen Blog

  We got to see the most beautiful rainbow this week!  A gift of promise and hope... When it all comes down to it, I think every thing in life is about finding balance.  It seems I am constantly straining between too much and too little. I often waver between the days where I am exhausted and overwhelmed by a hopelessly loaded to-do list and days where I am bored out of my mind with nothing to do.  (The latter days I am usually ignoring the to-do list, because I have burned myself out of EVERYTHING...I have adapted my coping skills to include a few go-to's for those days, as well.) Overall, I think I am getting better at finding the middle ground.  And balance is peaceful.  I have a lot less meltdowns when I'm in balance, and the meltdowns I do have don't tend to be maliciously redirected at the people I love.  (You notice I said "tend."  If there is one thing I can say about my little blog, it is that I have never feigned a false sense of perfection.) See that bu

 Well...I finally hit the wall. My little tribe keeps me going...sometimes a little more than I can take. I've been watching everything crumble around me and have been holding it together pretty well.  Typical for me.  I hold it together until everyone else hits homeostasis...then I can crumble. It wasn't even mental this time.  I won't say not at all, but not noticeably...and I've become pretty self aware (out of necessity) in that department over the years.  What actually happened, is I went for a walk alone.  Without Matt.  Without Jesse.  And about a 1/4 mile from the house, I had this weird, warm shock wave descend from my brain throughout my whole body.  I thought, "Weird," and kept going.  I mean, please tell me I'm not the only one to have random weird physical "events" like that every now and then???!!!   Regardless, I've had enough of them to know it is not completely atypical for me. Not this one, of course...he's just my littl

 P.S.  I know...you are going to get the puppy.  We will cover that, too.  😉 My macho, macho man... Ok.  Kidding, not kidding.  But seriously.  Are you stressed yet?  'Tis the season.  It seems like everywhere I turn everyone around me is falling to pieces...one by one, like dominoes.  I blame time change and daylight depletion and weather fluctuations, but we shan't (yep...I used it) neglect the good old addition of extra holiday "fun" duties. I, myself, am just trying to take it one little step at a time.  Minute by minute.  Hour by hour.   Breaking it down into nice, easy steps, and not neglecting my need for creative downtime for things like: "It is finished." -Jesus I FINALLY finished the cross-stitch Starry Night.  If you were with me then, you may remember I bought this kit in February of 2019.  I recently put "finishing projects" and "getting rid of excess" into high gear around here. I finished this one last week, all 36,080 st

I will spare you the video, but I think we can agree this proves...I still got the moves...😂 I've rediscovered my happy this weekend. As it turns out, five days off in a row happens to allow the me to shine a bit more like...ME!...especially if I am not sick and/or in pain...or overwhelmed by debilitating disappointment in a rebellious teenager.  Or managing some crisis or other. It's a big galaxy and here we all are...crowded on this one planet...and so many of us in this one home.  It's very truly ALWAYS something.  I wouldn't have it any other way...too much freedom and alone time isn't good for the Kristen Shanna brain!  It seems everything is about finding balance.  Like...3 day work weeks and 4 day weekends. But...you do understand what I mean by "day off," right?  It's not, like, all "rest and relax." It's certainly NOT not getting anything done, because I have been crafting out my precious little heart.  I am getting so close on

Where do I begin?  How do I ever catch up the last 2 terribly rough months? I guess I could start with: That little badword-er showed a line in "T" before "C," and I will confess, it MADE ME MAD! Haven’t been THAT miserable in a long time.  (Think Evan…pregnancy and post delivery pancreatitis style misery.). I can’t even put my finger on what it was that made me so miserable.  Constant coughing?  Repeatedly choking and struggling just to swallow and breathe? Everything aching?  (Like…my WHOLE body.). Or those jaw/neck glands on (literal???) fire.  I remember wrapping the heat pad and tying it around my neck for a meager ounce of relief.   But…why go on?  You know it’s bad.  And besides, I can complete the picture easily by telling you even Matt took the week off of work (for the first time since my sister died 2016), so…yeah.  It was bad. Who's that I see walkin' in these woods? Also…didn’t help that Dillon broke his leg right around the same time.  Because

 Smoky Mountains Family Vacation Day 5: Baskins Creek and That’s a Wrap! A lovely view from early in the trail.  Since it was all uphill heading back, we were even MORE grateful to see this the second time around! At this point, I finally found a reliable website for analyzing trails.  Hiking in the smoky’s ( hikinginthesmokys.com ) includes a succinct overview of each trail, including total trail length, features you will see and (THIS IS KEY!) elevation gain.  (The site then continues to offer a very accurately detailed description of the walk-through…and I am not getting paid to advertise!)  I found the elevation gain stats to be much more useful than the overall trail difficulty rating.  I mean…I don’t like to consider myself completely out of shape (and there were others less fortunate than myself on many of the trails we conquered), but what many websites rated a 5 or 6, I would tend to give a 5,000.  I don’t know upon what type of person we tend to base these difficulty ratings,