Happy Mother’s Day!

Maternity photo shoot picture. Hands on baby bump, navy blue dress, mahogany hair, light blue nail polish, silver rings, in a field of straw, mountains in the background.
Photo from My maternity shoot 2022 with my second baby

Happiest of Mother’s Day’s to you friend! This is a part two of my discussion of mothers and I want to talk about the amazing mamas out there!!

Not to toot my own horn or sound self centered, but I like to think I’m a pretty good mama to my babies.

I will share some pictures of my and my kiddos in this post because well, I created humans and they are fantastic, this is what mothers day is about, showing off your amazingly beautiful, kind, and sweet humans you made!

To all the great mothers

You are amazing,

You do everything and more.

From feeding, teaching, and bathing,

You keep the family going and do every chore

You are wonderful.

You are tired, exhausted and beat,

Yet you continue to love, care and keep hearts full.

How long has it been since you’ve taken a seat?

Everything you do is an amazing feat!

I don’t know you, but if you treat kiddos with unconditional love, support and understanding, then, I love you, and I appreciate you. I see you, I feel you, and I can’t thank you enough for blessing the world with a loved and kind hearted soul.

And with that, I’d like to share photos of me and my precious babies.

My son the day he was born. July 16th 2019
My baby girl, day after birth, before going home from the hospital. August 27th 2022
My son 3 years old just before sister was born summer of 2022
Baby girl 7 months old
Easter 2023
Baby girl 7months old
Bother and sister
My boy and I March 2023
Scanned images of mine and my kids hands
Family couch snuggles soon after baby Aila was born

So there, the mama behind the blog, and the children that made her who she is today. My children are growing faster than I ever could have imagined. And that second baby seems to grow even faster than your first. It makes me happy and so sad. Happy to see them grow into new people everyday, and so sad that I didn’t have more time with the babies they once were. It’s such a bitter sweet love.

I was meant to be a mother. I would never want my life to be any other way. My children are my life, my soul, my heart, my everything.

Happy Mother’s Day

~A

(In all honesty, I had to redo the last half of this post because I somehow deleted it, but I just want to say that I’m so glad I did, because I wrote it better today than I had it yesterday. So, even if you “mess up” it’s ok, because there was probably a reason, and you can do better!)

Starting my business

This is a short post today but I wanted to share that I have just reopened my Etsy Shop! The first time I did it was years ago, trying to sell my artwork.

No one liked it I guess.

Anyway I have gone down a different path with it this time around and I’m having a blast being creative! It’s simple stuff but I’m enjoying that.

Mother’s Day card on my Etsy shop.

A name change is in the very near future!

~A

What is this feeling?

I sit in silence, my babies sound asleep after a long tiring day.

A day made more tiring from sleep deprivation and a migraine.

But the most tiring of all,

The man in the other room.

The man who can’t utter a single sentence that’s new.

A record on repeat.

A one lane highway.

My words fall on deaf ears. Or drunken stupidity.

I’m not sure what’s worse, being ignored or having your words be heard as something completely different. Twisted into something I didn’t say.

No matter. I know his games. And I won’t play. I have a busy day with my children tomorrow and I need rest, if I get any tonight.

I’d say I feel numb, but this is a different sort of weight.

A sensation I have no name for, one that I don’t like, but I don’t hate either. It’s just…. There.

~A

Just a daydream

His soft but prominent steel eyes seem to touch my soul.

The nicely groomed hair tousled on his head

Golden skin shining under the suns hot rays.

He gives me a shy yet confident smile, beautiful white teeth against the stubbled hair on his face, it’s cute.

He leans in to the car window, strong well rounded muscle shows beneath his shirt sleeves.

“This might sound crazy, but I feel as though I have known you for eternity…”

“That’s exactly why I had to stop you. I knew if I let you drive off I’d never see you again, and that just didn’t seem right.” He sounded just as stumped as I was, but somehow it all felt right.

~A

Car thoughts/brief history

I hear the term “shower thoughts” on occasion, but most of my thinking is done when I’m driving my son to and from school. It’s about a 15-20 minute drive (depending on how fast you drive…) and today I thought,

How beautiful this is.

It’s not sunny, but there is still so much life along this highway. The massive trees along the road are getting their leaves, the ditch line is filled to the brim brim with water and life. I watched as a pair of mallard sucks flew over the road and slid into the water together. I saw a pair of Canadian Geese with their brand new babies wade in the waters and feed.

It’s been wet and rainy here this week but, seeing all the growth feeding off of the Waters of Life… it’s stunning.

Nestled between my town and where my son has school is the Hot Lake hotel. A historic building and landmark. A hospital back in its day, now a resort, and one of the most haunted places in Oregon.

LaGrande Oregon Hot Lake Springs hotel nestled and the base of the mountains
Hot Lake Springs LaGrande Oregon

The sulfur springs were first used by native Americans to heal the sick. And it was a popular stopping point for settlers walking the Oregon trail. The brick structure you see above, was only a section of the original building built back in 1906, and in 1934, there was a devastating fire that burned all the wooden structure of the building.

Hot Lake Springs back when it was whole, and a hospital
Hot Lake Springs during the devastating fire in 1934

I stayed in this hotel once when it was being remodeled, I believe that was 2013. We were given a small tour of the first and second floors, the third floor was said to be too damaged to walk through. I saw one of the old operating rooms, and I admit, it gave me chills. Some of the rooms you’d pass by gave you bad feeling, but I wasn’t lucky enough to see any paranormal activity. Although, I did not sleep well that night due to hearing many noises in my room.

Dilapidated antique surgical table in the historical Hot Lake Springs hotel, a mural painted on the wall of medical equipment, framed photo with two men, presumably the doctors at the time, small whit hexagonal tile on the floor
This picture doesn’t show, but in the center of this intricately tiled surgical room, is a big drain in the floor. The tiles all slowly drop to a hole in the floor where a metal grate sits.
Antique massaging chairs in the Hot Lake Springs hotel
I believe these were massage tables? I don’t fully remember but they sit in a room with a view of the sulfur springs from the balcony.
Hallway in the Hot Lake Springs hotel, red and green carpet. The red strip of carpet has cream designs throughout, bordered by thick green strips of carpet against the walls.
This is what you’ll find walking the halls to your room should you decide to stay!

Now while this place may have a jointing history, it is very newly renovated and has wonderful outdoor soaking tubs! I do recommend using them!

A hot springs sulfur water soaking tub at the Hot Lake hotel in LaGrande Oregon, overlooking the Hot Lake at sunset, mountain range covered by the steam from the lake.
View from the sulfur spring soaking tubs

I pass by this hotel every day, and I don’t look at it as anything more than a hotel. But it is beautiful, and the life that it holds is beautiful. It’s a warming spot for birds of all kinds to endure the cold weather. And it’s lovely to see the plentiful and diverse species it caters to.

Have a wonderful day friend, remember to see the beauty around you, no matter how small.

~A

Fun simple project

Mine and my baby girls hands

I saw a post recently of someone making an awesome memory capture with the scanning feature on a printer. It was a scan of their hand and their child’s hand. I knew I had to do it!

So I whipped out my printer and tried it out!

It didn’t start out so well…

I tried it with my sons hand and he would not sit still, and my printer (although newer) decided it didn’t want to print anything. So I freed my toddler from the torture of sitting with me holding my hand, and just practiced with my own.

I decided I’d grab my baby girl and try her hand, she was much more cooperative!

The printer however, was not.

I had to fidget with it a bit, the lighting was either too dark or too bright, and I kept getting a skip in the print. (I never did fix that issue.)

Once I got the best version I let my baby girl play and not hold her down!

The photo above was hers, dirty hands and all. She had blanket fuzz stuck in her palm creases and who knows where the finger specks came from…

This picture below was me and my son. He did NOT want to sit still so I didn’t get many chances to mess with the light settings, which is why his turned out so much darker, but it’s ok! The contrast is kind of neat!

Mine and my sons hands

I just used regular paper for these because I didn’t want to waste good card stock on trials! So I do plan on perfecting these! But for the time being, I tacked them up in the living room.

My printer is an HP envy, I got it free, brand new never been opened! What a deal huh?!

But since I’ve had it, I have never had a permanent spot for it, so unfortunately it gets moved…a lot… and I am certain that’s why it has a bit of a hiccup in the printing.

All in all this was a simple project to do, I think if you had a cooperative pup, you could do really sweet paw prints of your dog, a lasting memory of a moment in time.

If you have a scanner on your printer, give this a shot! Play around with the brightness scale on the printer plus the lighting in your room and that’s it! If you try this, good luck, and I’d love to see them!

~A

Pre- Mother’s Day discussion

I’m sure somehow this is a controversial topic, and I don’t care! I want to talk a little bit about mothers, good and bad. And since I want to discuss bad mothers too, I have decided to not post this one on Mother’s Day!

I feel that would be in poor taste.

Let’s just get the bad mother talk out of the way first!

Now if you’ve read some of my previous stuff, I don’t hide the fact that I had a bad mother. The woman that birthed me was a bad person, and an even worse mother. I haven’t seen her in 20 years. I don’t plan on changing that.

It is of my personal opinion, that bad people, stem from bad mothers… now maybe that isn’t always true, but I truly think it is. When I say “bad mother” I mean that she was either, neglectful, absent, abusive, and/or mentally unstable, which could cause all of those things.

Not all people that had bad moms turn out bad, but I think all bad people, most likely came from a bad mother.

I personally can’t tell you what it feels like to be loved my your mom. I never had that. I never had my mom to run to when I got hurt, I just dealt with the pain on my own. I couldn’t crawl in bed with her after a nightmare, because I felt more secure and safe staying in my own bed. My mother taught me nothing but distrust, and how to take care of myself at the age of 5.

She never hugged me, or cuddled me, never brushed my hair, never played with me, and rarely ever even spoke to me.

Being a mother myself now, I can’t even fathom how she could have done that to us. It’s baffling.

All I ever want to do is snuggle my babies and smother them in love every single second of the day. My life would be so empty without them, and the thought of any mother feeling differently…. Well it really hurts me. It breaks my heart, because I remember the lack of motherly love. And I get sad because even as an adult, I so desperately wish I knew what it would have felt like,

And knowing I never will.

I plan on a part two of this discussion to talk up all the great mamas out there, because you’re there, I see you!!

Don’t take your wonderful mama for granted friend.

~A

Netflix show review: Call the Midwife

Newborn babies toes sticking up from a white swaddle in a smooth wicker basket for photo shoot

I love this show. I love the history, and although brutal at times, I love learning about how medicine was and seeing how much it progressed.

If you have not seen this show, you should. It’s heartwarming, heartbreaking, gut wrenching, and full of love and laughter all at once. There are currently 12 seasons and the show is still running!

The beginning of the show was actually based off of a real woman’s memoir that she wrote called Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950s, and the rest of the show is adapted from that. I believe the show is now to the 1960s era in season 11 (that’s as far as I’ve seen, I have not seen season 12 yet!)

The cast changes a bit throughout the seasons but the show never loses your attention, and they make you love each character more and more. The writers did a phenomenal job at showing gripping stories. This show made me cry many times, and that is not common for me.

Although this show is about midwives, there is much more that happens, they are nurses too so they don’t just deal with babies!

About the setting…

We start off following a young nurse (Jenny) who moved to the East End of London in the 1950s. She was brought up in a well to do family and did not know what to expect, moving to one of the poorest areas in London.

She thinks she is going to be nursing in a clinic, but she soon finds herself at the door of a convent. She would be working with nuns at Nonnatus House. (Nuns back then were the first midwives, and were a private medical practice.)

Jenny has a hard time adjusting to the surroundings, and to the community, but she becomes a very confident and capable nurse, with the help of her fellow midwives/nurses and nuns.

We follow along with the stories of about 5 nurses and about 3-4 nuns and the local doctor and his son, and their daily struggles to help the people of the east end.

This is an absolutely amazing show, it is very well written and presented. The medical tools are accurate, and so are the medical outbreaks of the time such as polio, diphtheria, and even the crisis of the drug thalidomide that caused severe deformities in newborn babies.

This show pulls at your heartstrings at every turn, whether it’s a story about love, or tragedy. I give this one a 10/10 score!

Enjoy your weekend!

~A

It didn’t need to be said.

Typing on a laptop computer keyboard

I have come to you today with a small rant about something that happened to me the other day.

Now I don’t have many viewers on my blog. Majority are from you lovely fellow WordPress-ers, (Yeah, I see you guys!) and I appreciate everyone single on if you that had followed, liked, commented, and read my rambling!

The other day, I get on the app (I use my phone or iPad most of the time) to find that a single person who’d been following for a while, had gone through and liked a bunch of my posts! I was stoked!! How kind of them to take time to look at my previous stuff, whether they really read it or not, I still felt overjoyed!

Then I read their comment on my (then) latest post…

They said that they were unsupporting me, (unfollowing is probably what they meant? I had to translate from Spanish) they didn’t care for my content.

I replied, saying I was sorry that something I wrote made them not want to follow my blog, but thanked them for visiting.

They replied back and in short said you can’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Which is very true, and that’s not my rant for today. In fact I don’t mind at all that they unfollowed me. What bothers me is this…

Why does someone feel the need to tell you that they don’t like your content??

I honestly would not have even noticed, and I would have been none the wiser. But instead, they made a point to comment on my post, to tell me they didn’t like my stuff and they were leaving. (Again, I do Not mind that they didn’t like my content!!)

But why tell the person?!

I’ve heard it happen to people on Instagram before, if you don’t like something, keep scrolling, don’t say anything, continue on with your day, there’s no need to make someone aware that you don’t like them.

Ok, rant over, I’m off my soap box for now. I hope you have a wonderful day!

~A