Thrive!

Back in July I was introduced to this food and preparedness company called, Thrive Life.  I listened to the consultant's spiel, and started to get excited.  I have been to plenty of home parties for products before and nothing sounded as awesome and full of potential as this company did!

I am still in the starting out phase, but I keep getting more and more excited as I think about all of the possibilities that I have with this company. 

Anyway, I am linking my consulting website and inviting you all to ask me questions! 

https://www.thrivelife.com/crystalnallred

Overcoming Chapter 3...

Note:  I tried to differentiate the stories by using different colors - hopefully that's not confusing...

Chapter 1.  

I was born.  I had a fun childhood, and I loved school and sports.  I graduated High School and moved to college.

Chapter 2.

I met a wonderful man, and married him.  We then had two beautiful children.

Ok, so those chapter 'reviews' just barely scratch the surface of what went on during those times.  That's fine, because it was life, and it was good for the most part (though life is never perfect).

So what was/is my Chapter 3?

Well, my Chapter 3 overlaps with my Chapter 2 and it gets really complicated emotionally.  Why?  Oh boy, that's hard to answer.  I think I'm finally at a place to try to explain.

Chapter 3.

All while growing up my Mom had Crohns Disease, and while I was in High School she was diagnosed with PSC Liver Disease.  She got sick a lot, especially in the winter.  So when Jaren and I decided on our wedding in January of 2009, there was some opposition.  We both felt strongly that that's when it should be though and we didn't want to wait until May.

After the wedding, my Mom got sick.  It wasn't until April that they discovered that she had a large mass in her colon.  What?  Cancer?  No way, not happening to my Mom!  She got sick really fast, went through chemo, and still got even more sick.  In July, she was admitted to the hospital and had her colon removed.  A week or so later, she was back home because she was going downhill and wanted the comfort of her own home.  We all felt that she was not going to make it.  

On Sunday, July 26 we had a Family Home Evening and discussed our feelings about what was happening.  We took pictures, told of our love for her and each other, and basically said goodbye.  The next day she was put on hospice care.  She was not really responsive the rest of the week.  Around midnight on July 30th, I was alone in the room with my Mom.  I was singing to her.  I was singing 'Goodnight, my someone', the song she sang to me every night before I went to bed.  I was crying and hit some notes wrong, my Mom grunted 'uh uh'.  I smiled because she was always my greatest music teacher!  

I then felt prompted to tell her I loved her and then I felt that I needed to leave the room.  A couple of minutes later, my brother went in the room.  She was gone.

Nothing could have prepared me for the loneliness I would feel.  My Mom was my best friend and we hardly went a day without some form of communication!  

The next part happened/developed over the time period of August 2009 to around January 2011: My family fell apart.  I won't get into details, but it sucks.  Throughout this same time, I got pregnant and had my oldest son, and I was in school full time too.  I was stressed and was dealing with depression from losing my Mom, and then post-partum depression on top of that.

In September 2011, I got pregnant with my second baby!  I was thrilled, yet I still was dealing with bad depression.  I welcomed our second son in June 2012.  Jaren started a new job (his internship) in Denver a week later.  The arrangement was that he would live with his Aunt and Uncle, while I stayed in our apartment.  

It. Was. Horrible. 

I sunk into a deeper depression than I thought was possible.  I was alone with a toddler, and a brand new baby and I felt like I had no one to turn to for help.  After a month, I decided that I could not do it alone anymore and we all moved in with Jaren's Aunt and Uncle (such great people!).

I was still depressed and hardly did anything each day.  It was hard to get out of bed, take care of kids, or do much of anything.  

October 2012 is when I was introduced to The Specific Chiropractic Center by Jaren's Aunt.  I began getting treated and started to feel less fatigued.  It helped a ton.  In January of 2013, we moved back to Fort Collins.  I continued to get care, and I began to change my diet and to exercise more.  These changes helped little by little.  

In August, 2013 we had to move across town.  This move brought the potential for good things and bad things.  I honestly believe things would have been good, but this was also around the time that I miscarried.  I was so excited to add to our family and I felt as if it was ripped away from me.  So, I chose laziness and sadness, I guess it was easier...

This situation made me drop into an even deeper depression.  This time, though, anxiety came along with it in full strength.  The thought of talking to people freaked me out, emailing people was hard, posting on Facebook was hard.  All I wanted to do was to sleep, watch TV when I was awake, and let Jaren do the rest.  I tried my hardest to make it look like my life was in order, so no one would really know how I was feeling.  I hardly told Jaren what I was feeling, but I know that he could tell because of my lack of doing anything.  

I began running again in November, and it helped.  The holidays made this harder though, and I still felt depressed, and I missed my Mom so much during this time.  I was just grateful that I didn't gain any weight during this time!

Fast forward to now.  How am I feeling?  I am still depressed, and I have bad anxiety.  It takes all of my energy to get out of bed, and it's hard not to snap at my kids.  I hate driving because of the anxiety.  I also daydream about horrible scenarios happening, things that would most likely never happen, and sometimes these thoughts are scary. 

So what am I doing to help myself?  How am I overcoming my Chapter 3 and opening up my Chapter 4?

First, I know that Heavenly Father is always with me, and that Jesus Christ suffered for us and can help with our struggles and heartaches.  

Second, during the second week of January, I started limiting foods that I know make me feel bad, and I began exercising again.  I have now lost 17 pounds since November!  

Third, I have set goals for myself.  I registered for the BolderBoulder 10k in May, and I registered for the Thrive Convention in April.  

Fourth, I am pushing myself to become social again.  This is a big part in why I am writing this LONG post!  I want to have friends, I need to have friends, and I know that won't happen unless I put forth some effort.  

The moral of this story is that I AM overcoming my Chapter 3, and starting my Chapter 4.  This time of my life has been hard; harder than I ever imagined it to be.  I do know that if I continue to do these things, then I will be able to move forward and be the person that I want to be!

Here is Jaren and me on our 5th wedding Anniversary today!

The boys and I were being silly after Jaren and I got home from dinner.

 

Here I am, feeling good after a fun date.

Emotional rollercoaster ride

I've written this and edited it more times than I can count.  I wasn't about writing this, but I feel that it might help me to write it down, and to also let people know why I may have been acting strangely the last few months.  So here is my story:

On Tuesday July 16th, I was delighted to find out that I was pregnant.  My mind began thinking of who this baby would be, how our lives would change with 3 children, how to organize ourselves, and I was just plain excited! 

I had just over a week of excitement before I began bleeding on Thursday July 25th.  I was nervous, but I also knew that sometimes that is normal.  The next day, Friday, I decided to go to the ER because things had progressed and I realized that I was probably having a miscarriage.  In the ER, I explained what was going on to several different people and I cried harder each time I imagined the end result of losing my baby.  The Dr. finally came in and had me go in for an ultrasound; there was nothing on it.  I was devastated.  The Dr. said I was miscarrying and I would need to do blood work done over the next 5 days to make sure things happened correctly.  I completed all of my blood work and each time my numbers doubled.  That meant that I was still pregnant!  The theory we have is that I may have had twins and lost 1.  We can't be sure though. 

Well, due to that scare, I pretty much put myself in a bubble for a bit just because I did not want to lose my baby.  I know it was silly since if you are going to miscarry, it will happen.  Time went on, we had to move due to rent increase, and life got extremely hectic for the month since all of that had happened. 

Then, on Wednesday August 21, I began bleeding again.  I monitored myself carefully.  On the next day, August 22, I passed tissue and miscarried.  On Friday I had blood work done and confirmed that I was no longer pregnant. 

Not only was I devastated, but Devlin was having trouble understanding why there was no longer a 'baby in my belly'.  Having to explain to him that the baby had died was hard.  Depression hit.

I have had bad depression ever since my Mom passed away in 2009.  I have been battling it; sometimes I win and sometimes I lose.  In October 2012, I began seeing an Upper Cervical Specialist to adjust my neck and my health issues began to lessen.  Around March of this year I finally began to come out of my depression fog.  I was genuinely happy again and that felt great!  I was running again, biking with the kids, doing crafty things, I was cooking and enjoying it, and I felt like myself again.  Life still had problems, but I was getting through them easier.

Currently I am fighting daily to keep a hold on that happiness.  I have days when it is there, but since I miscarried I have been sinking deeper and deeper into the depression that kept me locked up since 2009.  I have had no desire to reach out to others; I honestly have been wanting to keep my phone turned off and not get on the internet anymore, but I know my family would not allow that :)

I have only miscarried  one other time, to my knowledge.  That time I only found out when it happened; I had not known about the pregnancy yet and it wasn't as emotionally frustrating.  This time I found out first and had my emotions yanked around for over a month with being told I was miscarrying and then everything being fine and then not again...whew...you get the picture.  It was hard.  I feel that I am ok and can move on now, but the depression is so hard to come out of!   

Anyway, here are some pictures that I've been looking at lately to cheer myself up.  

My boys trying to skip rocks.

 

See?  I can still smile :) 

Time slows down, diaster comes

Disclaimer: You may laugh at me, just please do so with love :) There is also a 'naughty' word used.  This particular day was very hectic and I was struggling to keep my cool and keep up with the day.  It happens to everyone.  But this particular day makes me laugh hysterically now that I look back at it!

Friday September 20, 2013:

Most of my morning was spent playing with the kids and trying to get work done, with Internet that was not working most of the time (long story).  Devlin ran to the bathroom and shut the door.  I waited and didn't hear anything after a minute, so I went to investigate.  He had peed his pants.  Right in front of the toilet.  He went to the bathroom and decided it was better to stand in there and pee his pants.  Big 'UGH' from Mom.  Then a list of questions to find why he decided it was better and then "Well, you need to clean this up, here's a towel." 

After things settled down, I put Kade down for a nap.  Then I got lunch ready, Kade got up, and we ate.  I left lunch out because Devlin takes longer to eat than the rest of us.  I was sitting on the couch and all of the sudden Hope jumped and put her paws on the table and starts eating our food!  While I was right there!!  I was so mad.  I hurried and put her outside while the kids were crowding trying to see the damage to lunch.  

Not even 5 minutes later, Devlin peed his pants again in the exact same way.  This time, I put him in time out and told him to then clean up.  He went in to take his pants off, and then there was a knock at the door...

*Now here's where time slowed down*

It was the postman delivering my Thrive Food order that had to be forwarded (for some reason my address update didn't work? something wrong happened).  He began to hand the package to me, and naturally I reached for it.  He quickly pulled it back and said "Woah, you have to pay me $9.88 for this."  I was annoyed with how he was acting, especially since he was holding both doors open and Kade was trying to escape and Hope was barking a ton.  I was overwhelmed.  I teared up.

I couldn't find my wallet right away and when I did, I dropped it.  I then got a pen, and dropped it.  Then when I took the cap off, I dropped it.  I felt like an idiot.  And to make things worse, the postman was watching me and laughing at everything.  He was laughing!  I felt so dumb. 

All the while Hope was still barking and I was writing the check and he says, "Don't you get so annoyed with all the barking?"  I barely kept my cool.  I tried to be calm as I said, "Yes I do, but she always does this when people come by."  I kept writing the check.  Who knew it took SO long to write one little check?!?!

THEN Devlin walks out to the whole scene butt naked!!  I kid you not!  I was still there trying to keep Kade from escaping while writing the check and the postman is still laughing.  I was mortified.  I immediately let go of Kade and grabbed for Devlin.  I tell Dev, "You need to go back to the bathroom, you don't have clothes on!"  He started to go back to the bathroom.  

I turn back to the mailman, and I say "sorry".  He responds with, "Don't worry, it's not the first time I've seen a penis."  Not making this up here!  I froze and thought, 'what a freaky thing to say...'  My next thought was finishing writing the check (yes, it took forever to write this check out) and to get him away from my house.  

Devlin starts to come back to say hi and the guy starts talking to him.  I think, 'you freak, stop talking to my kids after being rude  and laughing and talking about stuff.'  I then pushed Dev out of the way, threw the check at the guy, and grabbed my package.  Then I closed the door as quick as I could with getting the boys out of the way.

I felted so humiliated and embarrassed.  I decided that the mature thing to do here, after so many frustrating things happening in such a short amount of time, was to throw the package on the floor and then get down on the floor and cry.  Don't worry, it was food storage and it didn't break or anything :)  

As I'm on the floor, the kids got down too.  Devlin said, "you crying on the floor?" I had to laugh.  Then Kade started patting my head.  They brought me back to reality and I just smiled and laughed with them.

And all of this (in purple) happened in about 5 minutes.  It felt so much longer than that.

Looking back, it's hilarious.  I think the guy was trying to be funny in his own way, but with everything else that happened in the day, it came across in a bad way.  The next day we saw each other while he was putting mail in the box and he laughed again.  This time I just laughed too.  I no longer cared what he thought. 

Why, hello there!

UGH life gets so busy sometimes.

Anyway, we got the internet figured out.  The phone and car, those still aren't figured out.  Either way, I've adapted to both.  If I want to go somewhere I either put the kids in the jogging stroller and run there, or I wait until Jaren comes home.  For the phone, I am using my old flip phone - it's only slightly better than my android. 

Well, sickness has hit our house.  The kids and I have colds, Devlin has a bronchial infection, and both kids are throwing up.  Devlin is on antibiotics, so hopefully he will start to feel better soon. 

Thanks to my in-laws, our garage is almost completely organized now!  My house is coming together and I am so grateful and excited.  I can't wait until everything is together because I am going to post pictures :)

Everyone, stay healthy!

I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it

When I posted last (all too long ago) we weren't sure about where we were going to live.  Well, we found a place the day before Christmas and several other people were interested as well.  On Christmas Day we received and email from the landlord saying that we got the place!  We were so excited, everything felt so right.

We moved into our new home on December 29th, it is a great place and we love it!  It is a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom duplex, with a yard and a garage.  It's small, but we are used to doing small and we manage pretty well with small (TONS of organization and daily cleaning).

SO...

We moved and that took a lot of money to do.  We luckily are getting student refunds this week, but that was supposed to last us the entire semester...

My phone has issues.  It warped my battery and started to kill Jaren's when we switched batteries for a bit.  Jaren still has a not-so-great battery, so he needs a new one.  I need a whole new phone.  That costs money.

I called to switch our internet services to our new place 3 weeks ago.  Still nothing, and we are paying for internet.  We have called about 4 times in the last couple work days.  Nothing, and no explanation either.  I have a ton of things to transfer/pay online and I can't do it here.  I am currently using an open internet network.  I don't really care about it for email, I'll change my passwords once internet is up again, but for bills I really do not want to put sensitive information out on an open network.

I could go to my in-laws and use their internet...oh wait, I can't.  When we moved here we needed to bring our van, our car, and the moving truck with only two drivers.  We left Jaren's car and for a week he used the van to get to work.  We brought his car to our new place finally and then two days later, it died!  No idea what the issue is.  Today, the van died; again no idea of the issue.  We are car-less.  These things cost money to fix.

I was seeing a neck doctor (chiropractor) and I was on the road to health.  It was exciting.  She left for two weeks and we had moved by the time she came back.  Now without a car and money, I can't get better.  I've been having daily migraines again the past 3 days.  I was liking life without migraines...

I'm not trying to be pessimistic right now, but oh boy how hard it is to see the blessings in all of this.  I know everything will work out, we just have to keep trying and doing our part.

Life will get better.
Life is great, overall.
Little, frustrating things do not determine our overall mood, we do.
I can choose to be happy or upset, that is all up to me.

I will have my moment right now and then I will move on.

On a very happy note:
Devlin (2) is potty training and doing very well!  While in underwear, only two accidents so far while he was running and trying to get to the bathroom.

Kade (almost 7 months) is a crawling machine and has started pulling himself up to a standing position on all the furniture.  He tries doing it to me while I'm cooking or cleaning too!  He is also getting teeth 3 & 4, hopefully soon :)

Until later, stay positive!

All is calm, All is bright

I know it's super late right now, but we are at my in-laws and I am waiting to go to bed, but Devlin won't go to sleep!  So I'm letting him fall asleep in the big bed, which is apparently easier for him.  

Anyway, today was Christmas!  We had a blast spending the last couple of days in Fort Collins and spending time with family.  We also spent quite a bit of time looking for places to live, which has been stressful for us.  Jaren is going to be starting his last semester of college before graduation and we are coming back to Fort Collins!  He was also extended his job until graduation; at that point they will re-evaluate to see where he will go from there!  We are so excited that he has a stable and flexible job through his last semester.  

Christmas has been wonderful this year.  Devlin and Kade loved opening presents and seeing all of the cool things inside.  Devlin's favorite was, of course, his train that he got from Santa.  Kade's favorite was an old fashioned toy telephone with eyes that Devlin gave to him.  Also, Kade starting doing the "real" crawl today and we actually got it on video!

We are looking for a place to live and have an amazing prospect, and we are potentially signing a lease tomorrow.  Pray that all goes well!  

If all goes well with this place, I have big plans!  We would have a nice, big yard and a garage!  I would be able to have my piano back too.  I am planning on bringing my mom's inventory to this place and using the space to sell it and get money for her headstone.  I am also planning on selling my own things (I will have to make a post dedicated to that subject later).  

Well, I realize that I'm really tired and my kids are now asleep (yay!)  

Hopefully I'll be able to make a post tomorrow announcing us having a place to live and then I can post pictures :)

Merry Christmas!