We have had the best experience with sitters. All three of our long term ones have been just amazing.

Right now, with Dr. appts slowed down a bit, I have her 3 mornings a week. 2 are just for me to work. I plan them so as soon as I get home, Bella has had lunch and after a few minutes together she hits nap. This means that I often get 4 hours of nearly uninterrupted working time – you have no idea how much I can kill in 4 hours.

When I close the Twitter/Facebook tabs.

Our sitter gives Bella the creativity and energy that I simply can’t do much of right now. I mean, I’m having trouble getting off the floor when I sit down. So chasing her around the backyard is out. And it’s hard to prep for a craft when I’m passed out on the couch during her nap.

Let’s call a spade a spade: having a high energy sitter makes me feel 100x less guilty when I sit on the couch and zone off for a half hour while Bella chases Charlie around the house. I see that craft on the fridge they made together and my third trimester exhaustion thinks, “Well, at least she did that today.”

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This is how I’ve felt the past few weeks. Like I’m out in a giant ocean of work/life/baby/life and am just treading to keep my head above.

It’s not all the time. But when it hits, it hits hard. Social media tends to dump it all at once. I can go weeks with nothing. My own blog and a few posts here and there, but some weeks everything comes in at once.

Our sitter has been gone to visit family since mid-April. She’ll be back next week and I can’t tell you how thankful I will be. Writing with a 3 year old is not an easy task, and by her nap I’m so tired I end up falling asleep as well – which is when I could work. As third trimester progresses, I find myself slowing down more and more. Partially because I’m huge. Partially because most of my treks are to the fridge.

Mostly because I can’t remember what I got up for in the first place so I wander around trying to figure out what on earth I was going to do.

Mostly that one.

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A few months ago I was invited to speak at The Influence Conference this coming fall. What a complete dream come true that was for me, and I’m honored {and nervous!} to be joining the women {and men} that will be speaking as well. Some of them even spoke at Blissdom this year so I had a chance to meet them. I’m already working on what I’ll be talking on, and praying over my material and thoughts as it comes together. I’m hoping that whatever I say will truly bless you, the Lord, and the story that has been given to me.

Tickets go on sale today, and there are a limited number to keep this conference small and intimate while still allowing for a wonderful network to happen. If you haven’t had a chance to look at their site and get to know the Influence Network better, head over and see more about the conference, the online classes they host, and the Christian community they pull together. This truly is an extraordinary group of women that make social media connections happen all year round.

Hopefully I’ll see some of you {again? for the first time?} this September in Indianapolis at the Westin for this amazing conference. Also I’ll be bringing the baby – all freshly baked and small. In case any of you need to get a fix right about then.

If you’d like any more info, I can help point you in the right direction or you can find Influence here:

Facebook / Twitter / Instagram

::jiggety jig::

Sam is home and what a wonderful thing it is! This weekend I was able to put my feet up and relax while he cooked, cleaned, and took care of Bella alongside me – and I felt like a million dollars by Sunday. Instead of feeling like I was hit by a bus.

It’s nice to have the adult conversation and someone there to snuggle up to at night. I won’t tell you it’s all perfect, there are the times of both of us adjusting right now. He’s lived alone for 7 weeks and I’ve been in complete control for 7 weeks so having him home and wanting to take over some is rather – testing on us both.

But we’ll fall back into a routine soon enough.

Friday after he was home I ended up in L&D with such horrible lower pelvic pain. I knew it could be the cerclage but since I’ve had similar pain with both Bella and the twins, and it wasn’t a great outcome either time, my Dr admitted me right away. I chose the same hospital as my cerclage since they were so kind to me the first time, and once again they went above and beyond for me.

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I haven’t written on here because all I want to write about is

WHERE WE ARE MOVING

but we don’t “officially” have the orders yet. Hai slow military life. And I’m nervous I’ll jinx it or have to come back and say, “Never mind, we got El Paso again.”

O_o

It’s so monumental in life to move that it’s kind of all consuming. Oh, and I’m alone with a preschooler all day so there’s also that. I tend to think about things that are coming to pull me through the looooong days without Sam.

12 more days by the way. He’s been gone 5 weeks.

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