Hi!
So…. it’s been three years and some change since I’ve posted. My sincerest apologies. We kinda had a hiccup in our family life, in that we welcomed a wee bairn into our lives, and life went crazy like it does for most anyone when they become parents. He was three weeks late (Yes. Three. No. Really. And yes, it was awful.) and I’d like to be honest here. Things didn’t go easily. From the birth, to attempts at breast feeding leading to over a year of Exclusively Pumping, to ppd and anxiety that threatened to ruin our lives. I’d love to paint you a picture of perfectness, with us traipsing through the woods every weekend, dog and toddler in tow, exploring all sorts of wild thing and places and that’s why I haven’t blogged lately.
But, I’d be lying. Terribly dishonest. And while you’re not here to read about difficult times as motherhood changed our lives forever, and would like me to get on to the hiking, biking, and exploring bit- I feel the need to be somewhat transparent. It wasn’t easy or straightforward for me. Life carried on around me, but part of my brain stayed stuck in ppd (postpartum depression) for a long long LONG time.
I’ve been humbled and encouraged by all the comments and messages from friends who stumbled across my blog, years after the fact and from strangers thanking me for detailed reports (I’m a bit anal about those things). All those positive words, no matter how small, were bright spots of encouragement and I sincerely thank each of you who’ve taken time to read my blog, comment, like, or email.
I hope you all will forgive my absence from the blogging world, and will welcome some changes to the blog. Here’s some key points to how different our life is, and how it has resulted in no posts over the last three years and how it will create different looking posts as we go forward.
- Whiskey is sadly, getting older. His joints give him trouble. He takes daily medications. He just isn’t going to be out there exploring as much. And I know…sometime in the future he isn’t going to be with us anymore. It makes my time with him now bittersweet. I don’t know how the blog will change or grow or stop if Whiskey left us. When Whiskey leaves us.
Photographic evidence of Whiskey. He’s alive! Here he’s joined by 12- the newest addition to our family. Whiskey 💙s 12.
- We have a toddler now. Life looks….different… than it did before. Our daily routines now involve deep intellectual discussions about poop and if we are royally screwing our kid up somehow by following a peaceful parenting approach (spoiler alert- we’re not. but we’re still occasionally worried about it.) And routines also involve trying to figure out how to get as much sleep as humanly possible which means giving up lots of other things. Like long backpacking trips. Or fishing. Or even day hikes.
A boy and his nanny (oh, and his mom) at said nanny’s bridal shower. She’s moving away forever 😩 Anyhoo, this is the three year old in question 😉
- I have not….in three years…lost one pound of baby weight. This, seriously affects my ability to backpack. I’m afraid of being a slow waddling burden to my fast hiking friends. So I have not gone backpacking once since our son was born.
Being obese is horrible. Trying to lose weight and failing is horrible. Not feeling confident in your ability to physically do the thing that used to make you you is horrible. It’s all effing horrible. BUT… I haven’t given up.
Taking steps to get healthy
- I have taken up running to get back in shape. There will be running posts. No, Whiskey isn’t running with me. But you will see some posts where he gets to explore with me. Promise!
Me and Woods after completing my first 5k this March. I did okay at 39 minutes. Slow but steady right?
So this means for you dear reader: more kiddo friendly posts, a little less Whiskey, a LOT more running.
Whiskey on the Rocks 