Wowzers time has flown by...

Hello everyone! I know that this is not a giveaway but it’s a Wednesday. It’s also been two whole years since my husband made this very sad post on my behalf. I don’t know where to begin or what to say. It surely has been a long time and so much has happened to me.

As you know I gave birth to the cutest baby boy in the whole wide world, yes I am that biased. But if you look at this photo you can see what I’m talking about. He is definitely a living room baby.

(Here’s what I’m talking about when I say “living room baby”.)

The downside though is that I got hit badly with what I thought was postpartum depression. In the end I found out it wasn’t postpartum depression, but just a lame term that doctors slap women with. What I actually had was post partum anxiety and it was extremely debilitating. Breast feeding was a nightmare. I couldn’t even move out of my bed sometimes. I wasn’t sleeping at all. Yeah, I stayed up for 48 hours once. I had horrible visions of hurting myself and my child. I checked on him numerous times to make sure he was breathing. I experienced anger, sadness, happy bouts or what I like to call one bout of “hapangsad”. I felt detached and not bonded to my baby. I had shame and humiliation of having other people look after my child for me because I was too incapacitated to look after him myself. Physical health challenges plagued me as well. 

Also it is with a very sad heart I need to let you know that our co-blogger Boston Terrier Cooper had to find a new home as I couldn’t handle looking after two dogs and a baby. She is now way too busy to blog so she won’t be handling Monday’s Meme any more. But thank goodness my son, James will be taking over. I will miss sharing my house and my life with my beloved fur baby but she is doing great in her new home and has three kids to play with. We miss you, Mini C! xo

Nowadays, I’m doing way better. However, I’m still not 100%. I don’t know if I ever will be, but going through all of this really showed me that I need to make some changes on my blog.  Blogging is very cathartic for me. I’ve always loved to express myself with the written word. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way I got lost with trying to keep up with the “Jonses” or maybe the “Chanels” of the blogging world. I became more concerned with followers and people noticing what I was doing rather then just enjoying blogging. So this time I’m going to do everything possible to quit running myself into the ground trying to make everything perfect. This time our blog will reflect more of who and what I believe in. My faith is the centre of my life and got me through hell so it will now be a part of our blog as well. Also our blog is going to have mistkaes and not be purfect. There are days where I’m going to look like this:

And days when I look like this:

The bottom line is that I missed writing and connecting with all of you on my little piece of the internet. I never knew if I would be able to come back and continue doing what I love. But even in my darkest hours the new ideas I wanted to possibly implement on our blog went through my head hundreds of times. A voice kept crying out, “You gotta do this, Joelle! It doesn’t matter who comes along for the ride, or if you have to stop blogging again due to health challenges, it just matters that you be you. If you keep struggling with poor health you can just keep taking breaks. It’s your blog! And Zeke doesn’t seem to mind. (Bacon is a great bribe!)” So I’ve decided that like a weed, I will just keep coming back. For better or for worse, here I am.

Because that’s real life and real life is beautiful. It’s as if my freshly bathed toddler knew I was writing this and took a dump on the floor. Note to self: Do not blog while James is awake and running around in his bathrobe.

“Whatcha doing, Mom?”

Got to go and put him to bed. One moment please…

Okay I’m back. *chomping on chips and salsa* So great I can write with my mouth full. Well let’s see. These are a few of the events in no particular order that have occurred while I have been away: Snapchat was created (join me at clothesbnquite – yeah shameless plug!). China’s economy crashed. Kate Middleton had an adorable baby. Lots of fighting in the Ukraine and Crimea. Trudeau became Canada’s Prime Minister (I’m not so happy about that!). Many people have passed away like Robin Williams, Joan Rivers, Philip Seymour Hoffman, David Bowie, Glen Frey, Merle Haggard, Nancy Reagan, Abe Vigoda and Mother Mary Angelica. Florals and stripes have been in style two more times. ISIS was created and caused a lot brutal of terrorist acts. Mom jeans are now in style – never thought I’d see the day. A Malaysian plane went missing. Everyone and their dog is Kon Mari-ing their spaces. A major Syrian refugee crisis is ongoing. Fleek is a word. France and Belgium had major terrorist attacks. Fuller House has been created and is on Netflix.

So have you noticed something? For every good thing I wrote, I put a bad thing after it. And that’s life! Good stuff and bad stuff sandwiched together like an Oreo cookie with creamy white tastiness and a hard black crunchy outside. “But, Joelle!” you say, “All of the Oreo is good!” And you would be right. So then why did I use an Oreo as a comparison to good and bad events in the world? It’s because if you look really, really, really hard you can find good things in even the most horrible situation. For example, in the sadness and loss of both the Paris and Brussels attacks I saw love, faith, support, bravery, and strength. Something so awful and wrong can bring out parts of us that we may never otherwise connect with or even know we possess. On a much lesser scale, my year of hell showed me what I’m made of. I am forever changed, can share my heart with others better than ever before, and help others because of what I went through.

So my question now is are you with me? Then please come and be a part of this journey. Yes there still will be Monday’s Meme, Tuesday’s Outfit Of The Week, Win It Wednesdays, This & That Thursdays, and Zeke’s Friday’s Faux Paw. But there will be some changes. Some big. Some small. And some you probably won’t even notice that I will still be obsessing over by the time you read this! But there will be me and hopefully you. Sound good? Then let’s catch up.

What have you been up to lately? Anything you’d like to share? Please let me know in the comments below.