WIC Peer Counseling

As many of you know I work for Women, Infants, Children(WIC) as a Breastfeeding Peer Counselor. I got hired in December of 2009 and have been working to support women in their breastfeeding(BF) goals ever since.
My job doesn't seem like much, making phone calls, teaching some classes, hosting support groups, etc, but I feel it actually is a very important job.  If you've never had any trouble BF, or never even had the inclination to breastfeed, you may wonder why its such a big deal, but if you are a mom, or know a mom that struggled with BF or never knew anything about it but wanted to know how to do it, maybe even had help from a peer counselor-you may know what I'm speaking about.
This isn't about making someone BF, or making them feel bad about not BF, or how long they did, this is about every mom that wanted to, struggled to and didn't know where to turn to.
When I start hearing in the news that our government wants to completely cut the funding of the WIC Peer Counseling program I don't feel upset about that for my own job, but for all those moms, who possibly won't have the opportunity to FREE help from their local WIC offices. Sure, there are Lactation Consultants(IBCLC) at local hospital's, private practice IBCLC's, La Leche League leaders, etc. who are MORE than capable, to help a mom with BF, I refer my clients to them often and believe they are SO important to moms as well. You know the difference though? As a peer counselor, my job is to seek YOU out. As a peer counselor I have my clients in a binder, a call list and my job is to consistently check in with prenatal and postpartum mom's. I have my phone with me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, no really.. I do. A mom that is on WIC can reach me at anytime if she has a question or a BF issue, sometimes mom's want help, sometimes they don't-the most important thing? I and hundreds of other peer counselor's in the United States are ready, willing and available to help a mom through one of the most crucial start's of a baby's life.
What am I asking of you?
If you feel that BF support is important, whether for yourself or you can understand what other mom's in our community, our state, our country need this type of support, please click this link and fill out the form to let your representative know that you want this put back into the funding.

Legislative Action
Tell your representative

Camping(picture heavy)

We went camping this weekend, just one night, but for me-it was enough. I'm just not an outdoorsy person., I haven't ever really cared for it, but I go and do my best not to complain and really, Josh loves to camp and I want the kids to have the opportunity to love-or hate it-for themselves!
We went after church on Sunday to Wildcat Den(after watching the movie, The Grey, I wasn't thrilled with our camping spot).
The kids help set up the tent:

 and then we basically let the kids play and we relaxed until it was time to start the fire which the girls were fascinated by the flint:

Josh thought those huge campfire marshmallows would be good for smores but we found they were a pain to cook,the kids didn't care!

It took Kaylyn 10 minutes to get through this!
Here are my 4(..well 5 though he didn't want his picture taken) reasons for going camping!

Made to Crave

I mentioned this book in my last post and I wanted to talk about it a bit more.
I'm not yet at my goal weight, but my heart is there and in time I'm going to get there. I've half-heartedly  tried to lose weight after every child. I pushed it from the front of my "must fix now" list because I didn't feel convicted it was a big problem. So what if I had extra pounds or more than just extra, I "just" had a baby, or I had 4 kids, aren't I allowed to have an imperfect body? Imperfect? Yup. Eating what I wanted, being lazy, not exercising? Nope. I knew better than that, but I excused it away, made it acceptable. The only problem was I didn't feel good about the way I looked, the way I felt in my clothes. I heard about Lysa Terkhurst and her book Made to Crave. I got excited about it the way I got excited about every other New, Exciting, Amazing weight loss program. I of course got online and checked out the book, the resources, the freebies and thought, cool! I'll like that on facebook and be good! Add that to my growing list of emails, you know, Weight Watchers, Jillian (from Biggest Loser), Biggest Loser, Spark People...you know how all those emails you sit and read motivate you to eat right and workout! Yea. No.
So I ignored it like I did everything else but I kept hearing more about it through radio, facebook, and got the guilt trip.

AKA-

conviction 

 Black Friday. Yup. That's when I picked it up. The Family Christian Bookstore had it for the Doorbuster sale of $5! So I picked it up and stacked it and there it sat for the next month. I had told a friend and my mom that I had bought it, so they would ask me every so often-"Hey! Did you start that book yet?" ummm. no, I didn't. Tomorrow. I totally will start it tomorrow. 

I'm not even sure what day I actually did pick it up on, but once I did. I was done. I didn't even make it to chapter one.

 Lysa had me at Introduction

The introduction is titled: Finding your "Want to".  I mean really, how did she know? God knew. I had heard her speak the little blurbs on KLOVE from her Proverbs 31 ministries and knew she was enjoyable and fun to listen to and her book was no different. So right there on the intro page is this:

 "It's not the "how to" that's missing. It's the "want to"... really wanting to make changes and deciding that the results of those changes are worth the sacrifice"

Worth the sacrifice-yea that was something I rarely did when it came to food and exercise. I always made it fit into my life. If I was too busy, had something to celebrate or really if I just didn't want to-I didn't sacrifice anything.  The further I got in the book the more I realized this was what God wanted for me. I had put this off for way too long, it couldn't be ignored and I wasn't going this alone. God cares about me too much to let me sit in this state. He wants my best, wants me at my best, so now is the time to do it.

I haven't done the study guide, just the book, I want to dig deeper as I'm still continuing on this journey of weight loss, but I'm so excited that as I go along this journey-my relationship with the Lord is what I am craving more and more. When I am weak, He is strong....more to come!

Getting Personal about weight loss

   It's no secret that I've struggled with my weight for quite a few years now. I've never been a dieter, I never worked out hardcore, I always thought if I put a little bit of effort in, the weight would just come off. 

Unfortunately that is not the case. 

    I never thought I was someone that had food issues. I ate what I wanted, I worked out when I wanted and let every day things of life come first. I've always been uncomfortable about where I fit in in general, but when I started to feel uncomfortable in my own skin,  putting on my clothes, going out in public, having people see what I'd done to myself-I knew I had to make big changes.

I had seen great results from Stroller Strides classes, and it was probably the best exercise class I've gone to-physically demanding and challenging, and fun at the same time! Unfortunately my work schedule had gotten busier and the times didn't work for me to keep that up and I had to let it go. One of the major things I loved about the class is that you don't have to walk into a gym, clueless, surrounded by athletes and feel inferior. I could go to class, surrounded by mom's, women, and an amazing instructor who for an hour, would tell me exactly what to do and workout with others who were feeling the burn right there with you.  

    So I reluctantly signed up for the gym, knowing I had to do this, on my own, and that was daunting. 

Little did I know, that was the best thing for me. I had too long relied on others to tell me what I should be doing for working out, when, how, where... I needed to realize my responsibility in this journey and go for it. I'm sure I looked lost in the gym-and probably still do at times-but I made it a point to get there. Sometimes at weird hours, occasionally I found stuff to do at home when getting to the gym that day was impossible, the point is, I made a choice-and each day I continue to make a choice. 

    A major part of this journey is God. I "knew" that God was in every part of my life, wanted Him to be in every part of my life-though I completely neglected giving my weight over to Him. This may sound odd, but other then feeling uncomfortable in my skin-the conviction I got from the food I would eat, the lazy habits I chose was not to be denied. I couldn't deny that God wanted much more from me than to let food and laziness have any control in my life. I picked up the book Made to Crave and was floored by the truth hidden inside. It's not a lengthy book, but I couldn't put it down and had to reread chapters as I didn't want to miss a thing. I have learned that the Lord wants so much more for me, that  surrendering every single part of my life is vital to my relationship with Him. My weight could no longer be ignored, He wanted me to deal with it and I still am-daily. My weakness gave way to His strength-and He gets all the glory for any changes I've made.

During this time Josh also started a new gym and that's where a lot of our big changes started happening. I hadn't been consistent enough nor made enough food changes to really see a difference, though when Josh met Grant with QC Barbell and started his program we both started changing. We completely changed our food habits, watched everything we ate and worked out hard. Having Josh so fired up about the gym and our eating habits helped fuel me to keep going and working together on this has brought us closer. We now are both on a food program, Medifast, with Take Shape for Life. We buy their food, and it pretty much has made it easy. We started eating 5 of their meals 1 lean and green of our own,then it goes down to 4 and 2, 3 and 3, etc. until you have reached your weight loss goal and are eating healthy on your own. You can check it out Take Shape for Life

The bottom line for me is, I feel better. I'm not yet at the goal weight I set, but I'm working towards it and I'm excited about getting there.  I'm not doing this half-hearted anymore, I'm not waiting for all the kids to be in school to focus on me, I'm choosing to fit it in whenever I can, each day. Some days are more of a struggle than others, and that's why God is so vital and important-He is in everything, He made me, He is my everything, so my help comes from Him. 

So that's it, laid it all out there-stay tuned-more updates to follow!

Away from Home

So, I'm away from my family for a week long training for work. In theory this sounded like a good idea. Get extra training, *hopefully* get a certification, do much better at my job, and enjoy some time away.

In reality- I had major anxiety about leaving, especially the day of, I'm in the middle of my week now and miss my family SO much.  I'm sitting in a classroom for 8 hours a day and though I'm trying to meet other people in class, I still feel so lonely.

I also have major guilt about leaving my family, feeling selfish and keep asking myself-what am I doing? Why am I doing this? My head knows I'm doing the right thing, my heart speaks volumes louder and I spend most of class time wondering how my kids are doing, I can't sleep wondering if anyone misses me and how much I miss their hugs and kisses.

Last week there was a media frenzy over a comment that was made about stay at home mom's. I kind of feel in the middle of a stay at home mom and working mom. My job is flexible that I can do it mostly from home, but there are weeks that I'm in the office 3-4 times a week, and then of course, now. I'm not even home. My job has taken me from home completely. I struggle with, is this right and good for my family? I feel I'm constantly evaluating the effect it has on my husband, kids, and the state of my house-which I imagine can't look too well at this moment in time. HA!

Every mom has to make the right choice for her family, and we need to not feel guilty about it. *I* need to stop feeling guilty about it! Now I'll say this to myself for the next 2 days and hopefully it will sink in??! :P

Even though I have to be away, I"m confident my husband is doing an amazing job with the kids-getitng in lots of  Daddy time and getting to do lots of things I normally say no to. OH to be fly on the wall there!

Thank goodness for Skype I get to see my kiddos each night so that helps my heart -some.

Crafting soap holders

I made these a few months ago, quite a few steps in the tutorial, but really fairly easy to put together. I love how easy it is to get to versus digging all over for it- a.k.a the bottom of my purse!
Tutorial here at a Lemon Squeezy Home-its a great tutorial!

Changes

Remember that scene from Mary Poppins when she's about to arrive and a huge wind blows all the other nannies away? Gosh I love that movie and that was one of my favorite parts. I sort of feel like that is happening in my life. Probably not quite the major windstorm that would be-though it would be fun to see some people in my life just blow away with the wind....(did I just say that out loud??) There's change a'blowin' in the wind!

I think change is good. It can be scary, but usually, change is for the better. One thing I can rest assured in, the current changes are with the Lord's guidance and that gives me peace.

I have been fighting some changes for a time now, and while I still am stubbornly holding onto some things, I have come to realize that change is inevitable. Knowing that if I want to grow and let the Lord mold me, I shouldn't even be surprised by change.
He is teaching me so much and this is what I love the most about the Lord. When I am actively seeking Him, when I am spending time with Him-He shows up-He speaks to my heart- He just loves on me in a way no human being can possibly even understand!
This past Sunday during worship He spoke to my heart. I stopped singing, I was too choked up, and then I felt that immense peace.
I was so shocked by the still.small.voice.

"See, I am making a new creation, I make all things new"

At that moment I had peace, which then later-of course as I let it marinate in my head-got a bit fearful. What part is being made new? When? I had to cut out the frantic thinking and just let it rest. One thing I need to remember is to actually do just that-rest. Let Him take care of all the details and stay in tune with Him so I know where to go, when to move. 

Change is coming-here's to God's new creation in me!