Cole Family News....

I originally authored this blog post at some point last summer. Today I have felt inspired to write, and decided to dust off the blog and add something to it. In doing so, I found this still sitting in edit mode. I no longer see those negative things (save for the wonky eye!) listed at the beginning of this post when I see this picture, confirming that time has a way of offering perspective to our perception of ourselves as captured in a photo.  So, after reviewing, decided to post it.  Authored: sometime in summer of 2017. Posted over a year later (read: I don't need a pep talk about my self talk!). Let's air out a universal truth in my world: I dislike taking pictures.  Selfies, posed, spontaneous...doesn't matter.  Why?  I generally see more I dislike than I find redeeming. Ugh.  What a gut punch to say.  But a truth nonetheless. In the picture above, my first instinct is to see my crow's feet (my how I've aged!), my one wonky eye (as L...

Hope is not believing you can change things: hope is believing that what we do makes a difference. Vaclav Havel Such a subtle distinction.  One is grounded in an external belief, and the other – grounded in belief, something deeply internal. I know there are people who read this who have been severely hurt, beaten, traumatized by addiction – more specifically by someone who is or has been active in addiction.  It’s a desperately isolating experience, one that many people suffer alone, or largely in silence, as much like an iceberg, what can be outwardly seen is only the tip of it all.  Addiction leaves scars.  Deep scars.  Not only on those who are in the ripple zone, but also for those who have been the center of it.  I have been both. Substance use disorders manifest much like other chronic disorders.  The manifestation is part genetics, part lifestyle, much of the insidiousness of it happening under the cloak of the un...

How does one get here…from there?  First, a little about what “there” was. In the end, the outside was as messy as the inside, but the inside is what is the most important (as the outside is merely a reflection of the inside).  From the beginning I felt alone, even with people; a profound sense of being lost, even when I seemingly had a direction, and; unsafe, even when surrounded by people who cared.  In the end, I also felt completely hopeless.  I knew the insanity of the cycle, but was powerless to stop it.  When I do public speaking, I liken it to being underwater and trying not to breath.  You know breathing means death when underwater, but your survival instinct is stronger than your conscious reasoning, which is what not drinking was like. I knew I couldn’t have just one. I knew what the end looked like. Time and again – blackouts, rages, hurt.  I knew the consequences, the insanity, and waking to find I had done it yet again, much to the c...

It's nuts to realize I have not posted in nearly a year.  It's been an eventful, busy 10 months since my last post, which, in large part, is the reason I haven't posted.  Follow that one? Five days after my last post, I gave birth to our beautiful Julia Rose... ...and we have not looked back since!  Life has been so busy it just doesn't allow the time to keep up with this blog, but I figured I would at least give it a try. Having said that...here are the highlights, in pictures...

Many things...but having a husband who has a Daddy's girl who adores him ranks way up on that list... Most mornings, JP is gone training client's at the gym by the time I get Jenna up.  However, on the mornings he is still here, all I have to do is go in her room and let her know Daddy is here, and she off like a shot.  By the time I catch up with her, she is already in the bed, snuggled with JP. Most nights, especially these days, JP gives Jenna her bath. When he gets her out of the bath, they play this little game - you know, one of those random ones she came up with over time - where she gets all wrapped up her her towel and hunkers down on the floor.  Once in this position, she says, "Daddy I'm a caterpillar!" JP then says, "I'm a bird" and pretends to swoop in and eat her up.  She giggles and giggles and giggles! If you ask Jenna if she is a Daddy's girl, she lights up like a Christmas tree, and proudly tel...

Last Sunday, as I got dressed and ready to head up to Minute Clinic to head off this upper respiratory infection, Jenna asked JP where I was going.  He told her I was going to the doctor because I was sick. She looked at him with a puzzled look and said, "But I'm a doctor.  I can fix her." And promptly grabbed her "doctor's" bag to set out to make me well. In preparing for the baby, we have been working out plans with various family members to come and stay to help us and with Jenna.  Two of those are JP's mom, Nana B, and sister, Aunt Kimmie.  The other night we were riding along in the car, and Jenna asked us, "Hey, hey, HEY!!!  Guess whose coming to town?"  Then she said at the top of her lungs, "AUNT KIMMIE & NANA B!!!"  Immediately followed by, "And then Santa Claus is coming to town, too." Speaking of Santa Claus....we asked Jenna early on what she would like for Santa to bring her.  She has repeatedly said,...

What does it take to carve out time to update a blog?  In this case, it appears being 38 weeks pregnant and home sick with an upper respiratory and ear infection.  Neither of those are fun, especially not in combination with one another!  However, I have had fun compiling pictures from the various phones, cameras and emails in preparation for updating this blog.  What a wonderful reminder that, even though I'm not running on all cylinders at the moment, I am immensely blessed! Where to start?   As of this Wednesday, I am 38 weeks pregnant.  Time goes so slow, but also so fast, when you clock it in terms of weeks.  It seems like ages ago that we found out we were pregnant.  And it was...almost the better part of a whole year ago.  April 17th, to be exact.  So much has happened between then and now...and all of it with the added anticipation of bringing a new member into our sweet little family.  And we will...on December 12th...