Hills & Valleys: Our Faith Journey

What a whirlwind year it has been. This time last year we had just moved from Georgia to Kansas and had spent three months without a job. We moved into our house ten days before Christmas, but due to an Army mix up, we had no furniture or any of our stuff. All we had was one bag of clothes, a few pots and some food - the few things we had brought with us to carry us over the couple of weeks we expected to be without a home and job. We didn't have any ornaments or lights, and we had no paper to wrap gifts. It was strange. We ended up going about 8 weeks without furniture (while I was 20+ weeks pregnant) and six months without a job/income. As much as I tried to rejoice in the true reason for the season, it wasn't easy. Maybe it was that I've become accustomed to certain things as I celebrate Christ's birth - lights, ornaments, beautiful gifts. In their absence, I had a really hard time feeling festive. Something was missing. Throughout this past year, I've had...

I think "ecstatic" could pretty much describe me right now. I started packing our closet and decided to try on some clothes I haven't worn in at least 3 years....and they FIT!! Only one dress was too tight to actually wear, and I haven't worn it in probably 5 years anyway. One of these days I'll wear it again. My goal during my pregnancy was to be back to my pre-pregnancy weight by 3 months post-delivery, and if not by then, I definitely wanted to achieve that weight by 6 months after bub arrived. I was trying to eat healthy, and I had heard stories of people back into their pre-pregnancy clothes within a couple of weeks after delivery, so I was hopeful that the weight would just melt right off. I was also motivated to exercise regularly. After all, I hadn't gained that  much during pregnancy - only 35lbs, which my doctor said was fine. But, what I hadn't realized is that breastfeeding, especially exclusive breastfeeding, limits weight loss, especially ...