Out of the Kitchen April 2017

WE’RE BACK WITH ANOTHER OUT OF THE KITCHEN POST – HERE’S WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO FOR THE MONTH OF APRIL!

I was able to spend a Saturday with my bestie, Ashley, while Ryan was in San Francisco. I helped her add a pop of RED to her kitchen! See the fun door behind us? Is it tacky that she’ll have a piece of me in her house after I leave and it makes me want to cry! The second photo – face timing with my guy while he was in San Francisco. He went to Ghirardelli square and brought me back ALL THE CHOCOLATE.

This was Salsa’s April thing. He would sit in my lap as I put on my make up. Sweet cat. The second photo – the great jelly bean sort! The result was these fun jelly bean easter egg cookies!

These sweet friends of mine and I went shopping for a little surprise package to send to another one of our friends who recently moved to Nashville. Putting so many women in Target at one time is dangerous. We loaded Jess’ package with lots of goodies! The second photo – it’s rare when I wear my hair down, so I had to capture it on camera so it would encourage me to wear it down more often. lol

Speaking of hair.. I’ve been thinking about cutting my hair SHORT for a long time. For years. And it still hasn’t happened. But Ryan helped me try out short dos online with this silly website. What do you think!? The second photo – Ryan bought me flowers on Easter.. but they were half dead. He thought it was fitting since it was resurrection sunday, thinking I could resurrect the flowers, but no. They were dead. Don’t be fooled by this picture, they look nice.. but that’s because he’s showing the good side of the flowers in the photo.

My bible study celebrated Meg’s 30th birthday with a sweet fiesta party! Abbey made the cutest photo spot with all those fun props she found on amazon. I’m thinking a cinco de mayo party is in order! The second photo – sometimes when I get lazy I forget to put my photo supplies away.. for a few days. So Salsa took to laying on top of them. I guess he thought they were snuggly.

I went a got a massage (I’m still using up my birthday gift Ryan gave me in July!) and the massage therapist offers those massages where they walk on your back. I didn’t get one but I took a picture of the contraption they use! The second photo – my friend Ashley, who I mentioned in the beginning of this post, is a nanny (that’s actually how we met, I was also working as a nanny). She really is the world’s best nanny. One morning I was hanging out with her and her nanny kiddo at the mall, and we went up and down the escalator just because she knew it would be fun for her kids!

OPENING UP…

And there went April, friends.

This April has been one for the books. We had so many nice, warm days (I’m trying to not let the gloomy/rainy weather the past dew days get me down). April was our last full month in Illinois before we move to Michigan. We were able to spend time with friends, and I felt like I was just holding onto those moments.

We’ve been knocking a few things off our bucket list, mainly taking walks around our neighborhood and favorite park, eating macaroons (YUM!) and going to a few local eateries one last time. I felt like I was handling everything like a champ until Thursday of last week.

My anxiety came in like a wrecking ball. I felt blindsided and totally caught off guard. I’ve mentioned before that my anxiety is very physical. My mind convinces my body that it’s in survival mode. And every time anxiety creeps back into the picture, I forget how awful is it. I feel like it makes me an unreliable person because I don’t know what my physical symptoms will be from day to day. And being a planner, it makes me anxious that I don’t know! See. The cycle.

A lot of my anxiety comes down to this: I get anxious about a certain event, which causes all these physical symptoms, and then I’m anxious about the physical symptoms. I used to think the physical symptoms would last forever, but I’m so thankful to sweet Jesus for hindsight, and now I can look back on past times of anxiety and know it will come to an end.

This little round of anxiety has been different than the past ones. I can see that I have more strength to get through it. I’m able to be more proactive, instead of letting it swallow me. I’m so thankful that I’ve had the opportunity to work with a therapist over the last 2 years.

While the thoughts of moving to a new town, finding new friends, a therapist, a church, and new a community is overwhelming, I’ve taken to looking at all this from God’s perspective (or what I imagine His perspective is!).

I imagine that He is excited for us. That he’s been planning this move and this new season into our story for a long time. He can’t wait for us to experience this new season and what He’s planned. He’s already picked out a church for us and friends to do life with. He knows we’re scared and worried, but He’s saying, “Trust me, It’s going to be good.”

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See our previous out of the kitchen posts.