Self Care

Self care is an important concept in my field. In community mental health especially we are exposed to secondary trauma daily by hearing and connecting to the life stories we do. We've been hugged and we've been spit at, we've been praised and we've been blamed, we've been thanked and we've been cussed out, we've known the best of human behavior and the worst of it. The work we do is hard. The only way to sustain a life's work in this profession is to develop the skill of balancing the caring for others with caring for self, making sure your filling up more than your giving out.

I know I'm one of the blessed ones in that deep in my core I have a knowledge and a fulfillment that the work I do is exactly what I'm suppose to be doing. From my first day on the job, I loved it and I knew. Community mental health isn't for everyone but it is for me.  My whole career? Maybe. For right now? Certainly.

I'm writing this post because mostly I feel I need to put some words to some of my work experiences over the past week. It is been probably the hardest week I've ever had on the job. We had a crisis situation that I was in charge of managing that ultimately had a good outcome but along the way involved some very difficult experiences for my staff and myself that I feel we will take some time to heal from.

Self care is an important concept no matter what you do or where you work because the truth is life is just hard sometimes and its a necessary life skill. Sure you might survive without it but you certainly won't thrive without it. I had already planned a media fast prior to the events of this week. I think the timing is not coincidental. As I reflect on ways I currently practice self care, I will be challenged to do that in different ways, deeper ways, and I'm sure longer lasting ways.

I'll be back with some more reflections post fast until then see you in a few weeks...

A loaded gun and a call to 911...

Let me set the scene for you last night about 2:00am at our house, Me and Ava huddled in our bed, Ryan's standing outside our bedroom with a loaded gun while I'm on the phone with 911.

Ava had a cold and woke up about 1:00 and came to sleep with us. All four of us (Rory too) were sound asleep in our bed when at a little after 2:00 the house alarm starts going off, a loud siren noise followed by an intermittent voice saying "alarm - side garage door", over and over.  I was in such a deep sleep, it took me a minute to even register what was going on. Ryan however took about .3 seconds to respond, he was already up and loading his gun while I was still registering what was even happening. He loads his gun and then proceeds to the kitchen to get his phone and check things out. The alarm company was already calling to see if they should send someone. Ryan throws me the phone and we tell them to go ahead and send someone. We waited a bit, we can't see the door in question well from inside the house.  No officer yet. So I call 911 to check the status. (I learned our cell phones bounces to the wrong 911 dispatch center so they had to transfer for me to Oklahoma county). The dispatcher says they sent someone but the alarm company gave them to wrong address. I hear her talking to the officer and he gets routed to the right address and comes over within a few minutes. He checks out the back where the alarm sounded. The door in question is closed and locked. Our sprinkler system was on so he said foot tracks would be easy to see but there were none. So we still don't really know why it went off, possibly the wind and/or combination faulty sensor. So the best news, appears no actual intruder appears to have been involved. We were then of course all wired with adrenaline and couldn't go back to sleep for a while.  So our unintended intruder drill was very informative, while it felt like the real deal at the time, it was so nice to know after the fact that there appears there was no actual crime occurring.

P.S. Our friends house was still standing when they returned this morning. Lots of prayers of thanksgiving for the safety and security of our family as well as our friends this past 24 hours.

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot!

While this kind of extreme heat was not on our Summer fun list, we have tried to not let it slow us down. We had three things in Broken Arrow that were on our list and we got to enjoy them this Friday and Saturday.

First off, I forgot to take a picture but we visited a dear friend, Wendy and her little man Silas! We had fun with a first play date and spent a good part of Friday visiting and catching up.

Next up was to visit Mema and my parents, Mema unfortunately had to be in put in the hospital before our visit. We got creative with having Ava visit her, which actually worked out great for both of them. The last two times we've done hospital visits Ava got a stomach bug, so I was hoping to minimize our germ exposure this time around, we did a morning outside visit that they both seemed to enjoy. It was pretty nice in the shade. We had some wheel chair races for entertainment.

This afternoon, we went to my parent's neighborhood pool trying to beat the heat. High of 112 was the forecast. Ava got some swim lessons from meme.

We had a to take a long, out of the way route home this afternoon, the fires closed down the turnpike and most of the immediate routes around it. I was on the phone with my dad as he mapped out us out route after reviewing the fire maps online, which got us home. Once we got through the main fires it was actually a pretty scenic drive. Ava slept the entire two and half hours it took us, so it wasn't too bad. 

Ryan's best man and dear friend, just moved to a new home in Manford, they had to hose down the roof and take what they could before they were evacuated. We are prayerful and hopeful their home is spared.  I've lived my whole life in Oklahoma but sometimes I'm still amazed at all the different natural events that can occur that leave such a path of destruction. Praying and thinking of all those displaced families this evening. 

These aren't clouds it's smoke covering the sky Near Tulsa.

Another smaller fire we saw on the drive home. 

Texas Travels...

We've had fun visiting friends and family this summer, which included several trips to Texas. Here's some pics Daicia took of the girls while we were down there that I love!

We went to Dallas again this past weekend to do our annual birthday bash. We celebrate all the adult family's birthdays in one weekend the summer. We had fun swimming, watching the olympics, cuddling Adley, playing card games and just having a good time. Here's some of the fun in instagrams:

 Being the Olympic junkie that I am, my olympic viewing schedule is leaving time for little else this week. Hope your having a great week too. Go USA! 

Houston!

We made our annual trip to Houston this weekend. Aunt Amy and I took Ava to visit our dear friends/old college roomie. We've had this tradition since college for about 10 years now! We always have a good time although with our little ones our fun look way different than it use to. We use to wander around the city, not having set plans, staying out late, sleeping in. These days we have to have some more plans to our adventures, they revolve around nap times and kid friendly locals, earlier bed times. We still have fun even though it looks different and we now have the added blessing of watching our kid's friendships grow with each of these visits! 

(One of my most cherished friendships is of my dad's college roommate's daughter. We visited each other each year when we were growing up and formed a life long friendship ourselves. I love the idea of Ava also having deep rooted friendships that she is already developing!)

Ava did great on the road trip portions, we only had one incident of uncontrollable crying for no reason  Amy or I could find other than that it was smooth sailing. I did some reading online on tips for road trips with toddlers before we went. One of the best things we did was go pick out a bunch of library books, that way on the trip when we pulled them out they were new and novel to her and she spent lots of time looking through them.

Friday we went and fed ducks and played at a park before. Ava loved the ducks, she got her finger nipped by one toward the end which she did not enjoy but overall she loved it. 

We then went to Cafe express for lunch which I always enjoy eating at when we're in town. Then we walked over to a splash pad near there.

Post ducks, playground, and splash pad morning, the girls crashed on the drive back.

 That night we had Mexican (another Houston must when we are in town). Ava wanted to try the salsa, she ate some small bites and seemed to like it, So I got out my camera to video this for Ryan as she rarely tries new foods on her own and seemed to be enjoying the salsa, then right as I am videoing she takes a big bite and started to cry, we couldn't get her to take a drink so she started coughing uncontrollably and threw up right there in the restaurant. She finally took a drink and calmed down. It was funny and sad all at the same time. After that ordeal, she asked for more salsa again but I wouldn't let her have anymore, crazy girl!

Bath Time!

Saturday we went swimming at their neighborhood pool and went downtown in the evening to a little out door festival they had. We ate at a great place called Barnaby's and got to meet up with our friends the Meredith's who use to live in OKC and recently moved to Houston. They had a live band downtown and the girls had a great time dancing. Us big girls did some shopping, several us bought dresses at a great booth that had tons of vintage dresses for sale.

Sunday we enjoyed worshiping at their church. I always enjoy the singing there, Ava did too, she kept asking a different times if we could sing more when they were in between songs. 

Our traditional post church girl picture. 

We stopped by Willies for lunch on our way out of town. Genius idea, they had a large sand area for kids to play on their patio. We got visit pretty uninterrupted and had a great last meal. 

Today we are getting back in the swing. Ava went to MDO for the morning while I ran some errands and did some work. Now she's napping and its time to get us organized for the rest of our week before we head to Texas again on Friday. Happy Monday!

These days...

These days your favorite song is blue skies and rainbows. You break out in song daily singing it. If I try just sing one verse you immediately say, "Tall mountains, green valleys?" I think that's your favorite part. You call it "Rainbows" and say "mommy sing rainbows". I finally got some of your singing of it on video. I love hearing your little voice sing.

Also these days you figured out we have different names besides "mommy and daddy". We have this conversation multiple times a day right now:

Ava: Mommy what's your name?

Me: Heather (or sometimes we give you silly answers)

Ava: What's daddy's name?

Me: Ryan

Ava: What's Rory's name?

Me: Rory

*To stop the cycle of questions*

ME: What's your name?

Ava: Ad-oo-ley  (she's says this with a big smile).

You keep us laughing and smiling!

Summer Reading...

My summer reading has defiantly been unintentionally thematic. Some of them were pretty powerful for me, I firmly believe this is one way God works in my life when I am open to what areas I need to grow and be challenged in. 

The first book I knew I wanted to read something on this topic on vacation and sought out, the other two landed in my lap in different ways. This year I've been feeling the pull to simplifying life and trying to un-snare myself and my family from the busy chaos than can over take life and rob us of living a conscious, intentional and purpose focused life. I asked a friend to borrow a book on this topic and was so glad  I did. Organized Simplicity was a great by the beach read for me, I took notes and dreamed about the kind of family life I want as well as made some practical plans to simplify our home and lives. In true book club form I will give you my ratings, this one I give a 9 out of 10 and highly recommend it!

Tales of a Female Nomad was the book club pick for last month. I love book club for many reasons but the main one is that I get to discover books I probably wouldn't have selected on my own. I love real books, about real people in real situations. This woman tells of her journeys in living among different cultures. While it wasn't about simplicity necessarily, I was struck by her ability to travel the world with so little possessions, everything in a back pack, living a quality life on a fraction of what most of us live on. I was really interested early on but kind of got bored at the end. I still give this one a 7 out of 10.  I was inspired to live more simply, be more hospitable and take chances on those I could know better, reaching outside my comfort zone. 

A friend asked me to read Seven along with them, not knowing quite what expect I dove in and I have to say it is a game changer for me. The author takes seven areas of excess and essentially does 30 day fasts in each of the areas and basically keeps a diary of sorts of the insights she has. My main take away, is living excessively may be impacting God's intended purpose for how we use our wealth and our blessings- in this country especially. The idea of what is excessive living was a slap in the face and a good wake up call for me. While I fear my passion about it will wear off over time and I feel a little overwhelmed with all my thoughts on what this means and ways I've been convicted to make change, I feel like I'm taking the first step in a better direction and the only way to keep moving is to fully rely him seeking His guidance. I've embarked on some of my own 7 inspired fasts that are already very powerful. This is a 10 out of 10 for sure. 

Sometimes summer reading is light and sometimes its the right kind of hard. This has been a great summer to be challenged and inspired in just the right way.