Just Being Honest: Feeling Stuck, But Grateful...

I am sitting at my desk, feeling somewhat paralyzed. Very unmotivated.

I have so many special order requests that I need to respond to, but for some reason, looking too far ahead on the calendar seems challenging. I have definitely been living day to day, which is not in keeping with my personality AT ALL! (I promise to respond by the end of the week! We are driving to Charlotteville for Bensten’s state XC meet on Thursday and I plan to take my computer and do work on the drive down!)

So instead of responding to emails, I flip to reading the morning news, and I feel like maybe there won’t even be a next month. There is so much craziness in this country, I don’t even want to read the daily news. 

So I start my to-do list, which begins with reaching out to a new pediatric psychologist that one of our customers told me about. Boeden’s anxiety has been bad again, and I am at a loss - I don’t know what else I can do. I know a lot of his behaviors are to get my attention…..but I swear I feel like I give him more attention than any of my other kids. So why doesn’t it feel like enough to him? I definitely worry about him.

And Boomer is still not well. His blood work showed elevated liver counts. They have him on medication…and special food. And probiotics. So I worry about him too.

And don’t even get me started on Christmas cards. They used to be the highlight of my year. And I would pride myself on sending them out the day after Thanksgiving, so my card would often be the first to arrive!  I would do something creative, with each of my kids dressed perfectly. But now with one in college, Izzy’s crazy work schedule, Lance’s travel schedule…. I am actually embarrassed to admit this- but yesterday I asked ChatGPT if I sent a picture of each family member, could they create a family photo for me. OMG- I laughed so hard. Let’s just say it was a huge fail. In fact, I will attach the picture just for your amusement.  It’s soooo bad. So now I am also worried I won’t have a card to send out this year, and that would make me very sad.

So as I sit here being all dramatic and unmotivated, I remembered it's the time of year that we like to do the toy drive for INOVA and also open frontline donations. Collecting for INOVA seriously makes me so happy. Seeing how much that hospital has done for so many in our community- and hearing some of the heart breaking stories of patients Izzy sees….I really want to try and make this year’s toy drive as successful as possible.  Izzy and I started brainstorming yesterday- now that she sees first hand how much the sick kids appreciate our donations we were trying to think of ways to get as many donations as possible. With the Amazon wish list, it’s no longer hard to actually collect the toys, since everything can be sent directly to our house. So I think what we need is for people to help us spread the word. If you would be willing to help share our toy drive information to your network of people, or to your office, please shoot me a message. We are working on setting up the wishlist today (or maybe in the car on Thursday!) and will come up with a flyer/post that you can easily share!!  We would truly appreciate any help!

AND, I am going to try and put together the menu for the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving so you can plan gifts/etc! If there is anything you are hoping to see on the menu- please let me know! I will hopefully have that figured out by the end of the week as well!  I have a lot I plan to accomplish in a 2 hour ride to C’ville… 

Hope you all are doing well! Thanks for letting me bake for you!

Xo, Heather

I feel like we could start a contest, who can find the most things inaccurate about this picture. Let's start with Boeden is about a foot taller than this....