In retrospect bangs may not have been the best idea. I cut them too short to even push to the side with a bobby pin. I am 36. I should know better. On to Poppy. She is me as a child times a thousand. So let's say a bit intense. I love her ferociously. She is hysterically funny when she tries to be very serious. She is the most stubborn human being I have ever come across. She is smart smart smart. Tomorrow we meet her kindergarten teacher. She says she is nervous.

Serious Face

 Fake Smile Face

 Shy Face

Her new necklace I made a few days ago...

 Laughing Face

Update

This shall be an awkward sort of update post. I cut my bangs, myself, last night in the bathroom mirror. My baby turned NINE. I realized all of my four children are right handed an affront to my left handedness for sure. One of my depression helpers (medication) has caused me to gain weight so none of my clothes fit so I don't want to work out because I feel too big to even try and then I eat cake so my size 8 shorts from last summer are in a neat little pile on my closet shelf gathering dust. I should probably pray about that. We are for sure not moving for a least a year or two which feels like infinity because we now have 6 people not in diapers using our one bathroom except for Charlie still just pees in his pants a lot of the time. I would have made a wretched pioneer, all complaints and not ever wanting to cook over the camp fire or whatever. When I feel like my house is too small I look up tiny houses on the internet and feel better or look up real estate and fall in love with nine hundred thousand dollar houses and feel much much worse. I have the awesomest husband in the universe who sometimes dresses up like a ninja to play with the kids, see above picture. I miss writing and am going to try and write every day for a little while. Until then Greta

Fairy Crown

Finding God Again

Since this whole depression thing I have been struggling with God. Where was He? Why didn't it go away when I called out in anguish to Him? By the way this is a heavy post but I'm hoping the title scared away the people not so into God and stuff. So I have been feeling sort of groundless and like a newborn flailing their limbs this way and that. Questioning Gods love for me and fearing global warming and not even recycling every bit of plastic I come in contact with. Enter my churches women's retreat.

I go with LOW expectations. I go because my good friends are speaking and I get to ride with them and it will be a break from regular life.

The first night we are asked what do we want from this retreat. I think to myself I want to hear from God, I want to feel Him again in my life but that feels so very far away and impossible. Like as possible as me climbing Mount Everest TOMORROW. So I settle in for mediocre, a break, a time to meet women in my church. And I do meet women (Kate and Katie you are awesome) and I get to know  women I already like so much a little bit better. Then we are asked to think about how we introduce ourselves. Is it who we are or who we are associated with? I of course end up telling the story about getting pregnant with Charlie my fourth child a year after my husbands vasectomy. In ways it defines me. An unintentional mother of four.

Then somehow I am in a conversation with a friend who had some experience with depression and I share with her that in my deepest darkest moments the only thing that kept me from something drastic was my four children and how I WOULD NOT LEAVE THEM and she says something about how maybe God sent me four children for that very reason and time stops and suddenly I see this thread connecting it all together. Then I realize God knew from the beginning the darkness I would face and that in that war what would keep me safe were the four children I never expected to have. God never left me, He armed me. He provided. He saw me through.

This all circles back to a part of Psalm 127 that I wrote out on a piece of paper way back when I first found out I was pregnant with Charlie and could not stop crying (I was super freaked out.) I placed it on my refrigerator and read it every day.

Sons are a heritage from the Lord,

children a reward from him.

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth.

Blessed is the man whose quiver in full of them.

They will not be put to shame 

when they contend with their enemies in the gate.

How awesome our God is. So much more than my human understanding. I just get glimpses every now and again and apparently when I go on retreats and talk to women and have low expectations. 

Back Online Sale

To celebrate getting back to writing and crafting I'm having an sale! Twenty percent off in the gremadcha shop with code SPRING. I've got some new bracelet sets and various other delights new in the shop so check it out. In other news it's above freezing outside so YAY and my birthday is tomorrow. I have a feeling that thirty-six is going to be good because to be really honest thirty-five was LESS THAN SPECTACULAR. Love Greta

P.S. Thanks for all the sweet comments and support throughout these last few months, it meant a lot:)

Maybe a Kardashian

With a thank you to modern medicine I have semi-clawed my way up to the surface. I think I am breathing normally. Maybe. Little things are coming back. Like how children are HILARIOUS. Especially Poppy who asked me, "These grapes are from China?" Because apparently she has caught on to the fact that everything is made in China. I missed laughing. I missed my children being a joy rather than a burden. Depression does that to you, takes all the good things and turns them upside down so you can't see light, only darkness. Depression is a hard thing to understand if you haven't experienced it first hand. I know some people think it's just a matter of willpower or praying the right prayer. They tell you to stop being depressed, get out and take a walk (Yes! Why didn't I think of that?!),  recommend yet another professional, another counselor, maybe a motivational speaker or two? Not that counseling isn't fantastic. It is. It just isn't always a matter of talking it out. Sometimes it's the way your brain is wired and for me it came down to the right medication in the right dose. Which sucks in it's own way. Who wants to be on medication? Not I. Especially the one I am on right now that causes weight gain. Really Lord? But I will take being on medication and functioning in the world over weeping any day. For as long as God deems it necessary since for some reason He chose not to take it away. Which by the way I was very very angry about but am slowly getting over. I keep thinking of that goofy footsteps in the sand poem and how there was only one set of footsteps and the guy got mad at God saying where were you and God says it is then that I carried you. So maybe it was something like that. I don't know. It just sucked all around and I don't have any grand wisdom or lessons learned from it. Not yet anyway. I have a friend who made me a giant bag of homemade Uncrustables. Those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with no crust. I will never forget that. Ever. I have another friend who would call and text ALL THE TIME checking on me. I will never forget that either. I have family that cared for my four children day after day after day when I could not get out of bed. I hope they know what a blessing they were. I have said thank you but that seems so inadequate. You cared for my four ridiculously strong willed, always always hungry, one newly potty trained, traumatized by their mothers sadness, children week after week? Thanks. See what I mean? In conclusion I am a person of many weaknesses. A mess. A sufferer of depression. I hate admiting that. I sometimes think I would like to be more like a Kardashian. Maybe the one with two kids and the dismal boyfriend. At least she always seems steady with her disgruntledness and she always looks great. Her kids are happy and I am fairly certain she has a full time nanny. Okay so maybe not a Kardashian but someone with their shit just a little more together. Is that too much to ask?

Fun With Depression

I haven't been writing because I have been at war/in denial/pissed off/mostly crying with depression. Which sucks in case you are unfamiliar with it. I think for the last few months I have been trying to figure it out. The right prayer, the right counsel, the right plan that would somehow make it disappear. It hasn't worked. Thankfully I have friends and family that are helping me stay upright. I do have occasional flickers of hope that this too shall pass usually dependant on if the sun is out or if I have managed to shower. Today I brushed my teeth.

Things I usually blog but didn't:

Charlie turned 3.

We went to a cool bird place.

I potty trained Charlie (mostly) in 3 days using this potty training method. I do NOT recommend if you are dancing around the edge of sanity mostly weeping cause it makes the whole ordeal a little intense. For those of you not frantically treading water in the depths of depression it works great.

Poppy turned five.

I am now going to attempt to put on pants.