Audrey Wellness

Things That Are More Uncomfortable Than Wearing a Mask….

… wearing a bra.

… wearing pants.

… wearing high heels.

… attending a middle school band concert.

… sitting at Table 9 at your third cousin’s wedding reception.

… giving birth.

… stubbing your toe.

… throwing up.

… getting water up your nose.

… buying tampons in front of your dad.

… farting right before someone comes into the room.

… a Pap smear.

… the middle seat of an airplane.

… a pea under 20 mattresses when you’re a princess.

… watching a sex scene in a movie with your parents (or worse, in-laws!).

… texting the wrong person.

… texting the wrong person something ABOUT that person.

… scraping your knuckle on cement while drawing with chalk.

… walking in on someone using the restroom.

… Texas in August.

… trying to parallel park in front of other people and realizing it’s not going to work and having to give up and drive away while everyone watches.

… biting ice cream.

… when a chip stabs you in the roof of your mouth.

… wedgies.

Just trying to bring a little humor to something that’s truly life or death. Wear a mask, friends. It’s not forever, but it’s for the good of all. And trust me, there are things much more uncomfortable- namely death & losing a loved one.

Thank you for coming to my snarky tedxtalk.

Audrey Goals etc., Wellness

My Resolution | 2020

Happy Thursday ♥ I skipped book day with Steph & Jana because I haven’t finish any books lately (surprise, surprise) but I’m showing up today. I listed some goals for 2020 a few weeks ago but I have a resolution to share, too.

My New Year’s resolution isn’t just for the year… it’s for the decade and (hopefully) forever. This isn’t a “new year, new me” kind of thing… It’s a “how can I nurture my mental health and fully enjoy life in this season and seasons to come” kind of thing.

So what is it?

I want to live in the present and fully enjoy (or at least experience) my time right now.

The season of life I’m in right now is tough & tiring, slow-paced with subtle achievements. It’s easy to miss or overlook or dismiss little victories & developments. It’s easy to wish for longer sleeps at night & more mobile and active baby days.

The thing is… those future days are going to happen. M is going to grow up and start talking and moving and sleeping etc. And when they happen, I can enjoy them for what they are. These days- the 2am cuddles and itty bitty onesies and first smiles & coos & babbles- are only going to happen right now. To reference 50% of country songs and 100% of seasoned parent advice, it won’t be like this for long.

So no more wishing the days away. No more “I can’t wait until … .” No more looking ahead to the next chapter while moving blindly through my current one. That’s not to say I can’t be excited about days to come. I will look forward to the future, but not with tunnel vision.

What am I hoping to achieve with this resolution? What changes do I hope to make?

Mindfulness (which is the root of living in and experiencing the moment) leads to decreased anxiety and depression. I’m hoping to experience more frequent and natural joy.

I hope to improve upon my patience. Less getting frustrated about things. Less getting frustrated with K or Bristol or M or myself. (Enzo very, very rarely frustrates me.)

I want to acknowledge and practice gratitude. When I’m home I want to be grateful for the time I spend with my family. When I’m at work I want to be grateful for a job I love. When I’m working out I want to be grateful for the ability and time. Et cetera.

I really do love my life. I feel incredibly blessed to have the family & friends and comfort and opportunities that I do. I never want to take my reality for granted. And I hope my resolution helps me to fall in love with my life, over and over.

I’ve shared my resolution with K. I’ve told him I want to cut the phrase “I can’t wait until/for…” from my vocabulary. I’m hoping he holds me accountable to this mentality and practice. (This is me giving you permission to call me out, dear.) I know I can’t be joyful or patient or grateful ALL the time… but I can certainly be those things more often than I am right now.

So here’s to living for today, patiently looking forward to tomorrow, and experiencing every moment as it happens, while it’s happening.

Audrey Wellness

This Is A Rant About My Rights

I don’t post on Fridays but I’m pissed off.

I want to write about silly things and life updates and other fun things but I cannot get our country’s bullshit out of my head.

I have to write it out.

I posted this on my facebook this week:

“So like… are we going to believe victims of sexual assault now that they are being forced to carry the proof in their own wombs and birth their abuser’s offspring or… are we still going to argue that they were asking for it?

I seriously can’t with this f*cked up country right now. Do not gloss over these new laws. They are a direct assault on you and the women you love.”

You know what? Republicans, democrats, libertarians, and borderline socialist all liked it. You know why? Because these new effed up laws aren’t to protect childen- they’re to control women.

Laws that would benefit kids: School lunch health laws. Gun laws. Keeping kids out of freaking cages laws. Adequate funding for schools and teachers laws. Environmental laws. Stronger rape and abuse laws. Stronger animal abuse laws (because animal abusers WILL move on to humans). Health care laws. Affordable college laws. Welfare program laws. Homelessness laws. Hunger laws. Living condition and real estate laws. Medical laws that IMPROVE the care, services, and conditions of lower income facilities.

You want to work on and pass laws to help kids? Work on those ^^^

Laws that do not benefit kids: Forcing women to abstain from sex OR risk pregnancy. Forcing women to birth a human that they did not consent to making. Forcing doctors to withhold life saving and safe medical procedures from consenting women. Removing birth control as an option for employed women. Closing and decreasing funding to FREE & low cost clinics that assist with conception, pregnancy, birth, and other services.

Maybe you’re pro-life. I’m not going to argue with you on your beliefs. I will argue that these laws are NOT pro-life. They are anti-women. They are dangerous. They are being passed by men who do not understand how menstruation works, let along pregnancy. These states have stricter laws on the female body than they do on GUNS. Based solely on the service level digging I did, the numbers of abortions in the US have dropped over the years and gun violence has skyrocketed.

I’m not going after gun rights at this moment- promise– but as far as policies that need laws revamped go… My lovely female body ain’t it. You want to help me out? BELIEVE ME when I say someone assaulted/raped/underpaid/stalked/harassed/threatened me.

I have many things to say about this, but I need to stop and calm down because you get the idea. Guys… uneducated, stupid-as-stones men are making these laws. (I’ll admit there are some dumbshit women involved as well.) Men that don’t understand how tampons work or how ectopic pregnancy works or when an egg is even implanted in a woman’s uterus. For f*ck sake. This is NOT ok.

And as a side note, rapists can SUE their victims for custody rights in 31 states. What. the. hell.

So I agree that there are rape & healthcare laws that need revised. Forcing women to push out unwanted & unintended humans is NOT the humane or correct solution.

I’m turning my comments off because I don’t want to debate pro-life/pro-choice and I’m not changing my mind on this topic so I don’t need anyone to “at me”, as the kids say.  Feel free to share this, feel free to blacklist my blog, feel free to email me I guess. We still have all those rights as of now.

I’m not looking for validation in regards to this post- I’m just begging you to keep your eyes open, VOTE for decent and education humans, and get out there and fight the fight when you can. There is no Starbucks war on Christmas but there is a brewing, dangerous war on women.

-A

Audrey Wellness

Sick

Every time I miss a few Tuesdays/Thursdays I feel like I have to explain why. I know that’s not the case. I know that either a) you don’t care lol or b) you completely understand my absence and are just happy to see me around on IG or in your comment section. Nevertheless, I brought my excuses with me today.

We’ve been on the road a lot for fun & work, but more than that, I’ve been sick.

Being sick when you’re an adult is complicated. When you’re a kid, your parents called the school, planted you on the couch with the remote, and made sure you had ginger ale/chicken noodle soup/tissues/etc. Yeah you probably had homework and classwork to make up, but the pressure was minimal.

Being a sick adult SUCKS. First of all, there’s no one to take care of you. (Yes, I have a husband and yes, he steers clear of me when I’m sick.) You feel like dog poop, but you have a JOB and a WORK LOAD and DEADLINES. There’s pressure to show up and perform and get your stuff done without excuses.

I powered through most of my cold because we were on a business trip and I pretty much had to. When we got home and it was the tail end, I finally decided, ‘screw it, I’m taking a half day’, and that’s what I did on Tuesday.

But still… it was only a half day. Should I have powered through and just lived with my cold and kept doing my work? Or should I have taken a day off SOONER and rested and nursed myself back to health? Quite honestly, I think society pressures us to go with option one.

(Yes, I tried to think about my coworkers’ health, too, but I’m married to one so that was kind of a null point.)

This ties into self care. We feel pressure to ignore the illness, keep our nose to the grindstone, and work through the pain (or snot or hacking). First of all, ew. But secondly, that’s not healthy! We struggle to admit we need a day to revive our health- sometimes physical and sometimes mental. I think it’s really hurting us.

And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you feel a tickle in your nose and you elect to stay home (or even work from home), but that’s not me. And it’s not the person I’m married to. We show up regardless and not in a good way; we’re never our best in that state.

Just some food for thought today. I’m too busy to get sick, but that never stops the germs. And in the future, I need to take the time to slow down, rest up, and kick the cold to the curb with rest and medicine- not emails and meetings and ignorance.

What do you do? Are you good about recognizing what you need and taking that time for yourself?