I’m not going to lie. Halloween’s not my favorite holiday. Which is why this little monkey costume has been worn by 3 different kids in my family. Cause I can’t bear to shell out one more cent for the weirdest holiday ever.
That being said, I do love watching my babies re-experience trick-or-treating the first few years (because they forgot what it is each year). This may be the last year that happens as Caleb just might remember it next year.
Have a safe Halloween and watch out for weirdos!
If you haven’t read the first post I did, please read “Hi my name is….let’s talk about addiction” so you understand why I’m publishing these posts.
At first I was going to publish all of these essays as “anonymous”. But this one was written by one of my brothers (obviously not the addict brother) and it would be hard to mask who he was based on some of the similarities of the story. I also thought it would be interesting and hopefully helpful for people to see differing views within the same family.
My brother and I fundamentally disagree on some key parts of how to handle an addict. We reacted differently in different situations. We responded in different ways. We felt different. Our experiences and viewpoints were different. We were involved in different degrees. Neither of us was necessarily right or wrong. Each member of a family who loves an addict has to respond in whatever way is best for that person. And it will be different for each member of the family (based on SO many different factors). It can get very complicated.
No choice ever feels exactly right. Most choices feel “less” wrong than others. Because the whole situation is just wrong. Feels wrong. Feels hopeless. Like there IS no right answer. So we all do the best we can with the varying life situations we live in and make decisions accordingly.
His account is different than mine would be, in the past and present. Which also makes addiction so interesting. Two people can talk about the same addict and the story looks SO different. It’s all about perspective.
And for the record, even though we don’t always agree on how we will handle different situations, our relationship is still just fine. 🙂
So with his permission to disclose his identity, this essay was written by my oldest brother about our brother who is a currently sober alcoholic/addict. It is honest and real and I am incredibly grateful my brother agreed to do it. He didn’t want to. Most people don’t really want to write about this stuff. But it needs to be written about. It needs to be talked about. Thanks C!!
“I am the brother of an alcohol and drug addict who started drinking in the second grade. Since that time, his addictive behavior has caused untold grief, anger and frustration within my family. Over the last 20 or so years, I have not had to deal directly with many of the consequences of his behavior since I have started my own family and we don’t live in day-to-day proximity to the center of the action. However, I can still feel the effects of choices made and lament the corrosive effect those choices have had on our family.
It’s hard to articulate the way I feel about this situation. I have mixed emotions about it all. Part of me feels real compassion toward my brother and the demons he must face day after day. I know addiction is a disease that involves overwhelming compulsion to engage in self-destructive behavior, and treatment has to involve a lot of patience and understanding. But I do not believe addiction is in the same class as other diseases like cancer or lupus. To be sure, sometimes those diseases are the result of choices made. A lifelong chain smoker shouldn’t be surprised to be diagnosed with lung cancer at some point. But an alcohol and drug addict has to make a choice to consume, and it is that choice — and more importantly the attitude behind it — that makes addiction a different disease, in my view. While I still feel compassion for the addict and the difficulties in dealing with the compulsive behavior it creates, for the most part I believe it can be managed and ultimately overcome with the proper attitude and support structure. If the attitude is not there, and the addict wilfully chooses to consume alcohol and other drugs in defiance of his support network and the opportunity to make a different and better choice, there should be consequences.
I am a firm believer in personal responsibility. I am not a cold-hearted, die-hard, far-right-wing conservative who sings the praises of rugged individualism at every turn and feels everybody should fend for himself. I do believe in safety nets and that society at large should provide a basic one for all of us. But we all have to do what we can to live responsible, productive, independent lives, and when somebody chooses one way or the other to live irresponsibly and unproductively to the point he becomes utterly dependent on others for his existence, I say “let the consequence follow.”
I have come to realize, however, that this is often easier said than done. The one thing I have observed about my brother’s addiction is that his choices over the years have forced his loved ones — my parents, in particular, and to a lesser extent some of my siblings who are closer to the situation than I am — to make some very hard choices in response.
My father’s youngest brother was an alcoholic. I do not know many details here, but I do know that my uncle did not have the best relationship with my grandparents because of the choices he made, choices that were contrary to the lifestyle of a conservative, religious family. On the cusp of adulthood, my uncle more or less decided to leave the family. Physically and emotionally he distanced himself from his loved ones. Over the years he’d pop up here and there for family gatherings. There would be an occasional phone call. But after my grandparents passed away, those encounters were fewer and further between. He ultimately died of a heart attack in a pool of his own vomit after a night of heavy drinking. He was 51 years old at the time of his death. I personally never saw or heard from him the last 14 years of his life.
I believe my uncle’s life and ultimate demise had a profound effect on my dad and the decisions he has made with regard to my brother. My dad has decided that it’s better to do what’s necessary to keep my brother within the family and safe at home than to let him drift away and suffer the full weight of the consequences behind his choices. He does not want what happened to his brother to happen to his son. Sure, there have been times over the last 25 years when the consequences were inevitable. My brother has been in and out of jail countless times. He’s been a frequent guest at the homeless shelter. But he has always come back, knowing full well that my dad will give him another chance sooner or later and that he won’t be allowed to fall too far.
My mother has done her best to defer to my father, but she has had an indescribably difficult experience dealing with my brother’s rude, immature and manipulative behavior on an almost daily basis. As such, she generally seems to lean the other way: Let him go and make his own choices with whatever consequences come as a result. I know she and my dad have gone to battle over this many times. I don’t know bad the damage really is, but I do know their marriage has suffered greatly.
Some of my siblings have leaned more toward my dad’s approach and have engaged in a lot of “enabling” behavior over the years — giving my brother a place to stay, a place to work, or a ride to or from the homeless shelter. I will readily admit that I have done similar things as well, but because of my physical and emotional distance from the family center it has been occasional and limited. For the most part I have profoundly disagreed with that course of action over the years. As you might expect, this has sparked some heated arguments at times. Several years ago at a family gathering, my sister and I were having what I thought was a casual discussion about my brother and his situation, but for reasons I still don’t understand it quickly heated up to the point we were screaming at each other. I stormed out of the house and drove away to avoid going into kill mode, leaving my wife and kids behind (my parents later drove them back out to my house and we had a short, tense conversation to cap off a lovely evening).
Fast forward to the present. As I write this, my brother is now 40 years old and continues to live with Mom and Dad, with no sign of ever becoming an independent, productive member of society. He works maybe 20 hours a week at a local thrift store, then spends the rest of his time popping pain meds (which, for reasons I won’t get into here, have largely taken the place of alcohol and illegal drugs) and lying on the couch in the basement watching Law & Order re-runs. For now, it is a dreadful, pathetic situation. My parents should be enjoying their twilight years. Instead, they are babysitting a stunted adult child and using precious physical, emotional and financial resources to do so.
One the one hand, I feel a small sense of vindication. I have felt that this approach was going to have less-than-optimal outcomes to say the least, and that clearly has been the case. On the other hand, as I’ve aged — now well into my 40s — my hard-line disagreement with the way my dad has dealt with my brother has softened somewhat. I am starting to see and understand that there really wasn’t — and isn’t — any good choice to deal with my brother’s addiction. If you let him go like my wayward uncle, it’s likely a death spiral. While in some cases you could argue that might actually be best for all involved, death permanently closes the window of opportunity to live a productive, meaningful life that impacts the world for the better. But by the same token, if you do whatever is necessary to keep him in the fold and effectively shield him from the consequences of his bad choices, you accept the likelihood he lives a miserable, aimless life with little or no redeeming value to anybody and which drains those around him physically, mentally, and financially. It’s a shit sandwich no matter how you slice it.
My dad is the most patient and compassionate person I’ve ever known. I didn’t feel that way growing up — especially in my clueless teenage years — but it is crystal clear to me now. He will do anything he can for anybody, loved one or complete stranger. He is a true disciple of Christ. In an age when most pay lip service to what really means, I am both humbled and touched by the exemplary life he has led.
I see that Christ-like compassion on display with my brother, and I know it’s being tested more profoundly than ever. But my brother is alive today because my dad — my parents — made the hard choice to provide him with daily living support and to accept the consequences of that choice.
I suppose there is always that hope — however faint it may be at times — that he will right the ship and become the person we all want him to be. I am not terribly optimistic that will end up being the case, but it’s possible. I may have made a different choice to deal with my brother’s addiction and the attitude undergirding it. But I have come to realize that addiction usually presents no easy, clear choice. Because of that, it’s not for me to say that my parents made the wrong one. All I can do is accept the choices that have been made and express my love and support as best I can, however imperfectly that may be.”
If you love someone who is an addict, please feel free to post your experiences, feelings, comments below. You can put “anonymous” for the name if you’d rather people not know your real name. Starting conversations is how we start to dispel the shame.
A few months ago, I found myself standing on the edge of a decent size cliff in Lake Powell. As I peered over the edge, a memory from 25 years earlier flooded my mind.
My family was in Lava Hot Springs in Idaho for a family reunion. There were a few diving boards and 3 platforms of varying heights. I was 9 years old and not a great swimmer (I’m still not a great swimmer). But I sat and watched people jumping off those platforms and I decided I had to do it. Because that’s just how I am.
So I climbed up the very long ladder, walked across the platform, and peered over the edge. It looked much higher from up there. But I had committed. And there was no way I was climbing back down that ladder. There was no way I was quitting. So I stood on the edge for awhile, stomach turning, legs shaking. And then I backed up. And someone else would jump. Then I’d walk to the edge, peer over, try to get courage, and then back up. This lasted for probably close to 30 minutes. Walk to the edge, peer over, walk back. Walk to the edge…..
After being up there for so long, nearly every person at the pool that day was aware of what was going on. And they were all……waiting. Waiting to see if I’d jump or if I’d climb back down. My parents never came up after me. And I don’t remember them encouraging me to jump or climb back down. They just waited. Like everyone else. To see what I would do.
I don’t remember why, or how, but eventually I stepped off the edge. And miraculously, someone got a picture of it.
{9 year old me stepping off the platform at Lava Hot Springs}
{a view from further away to show varying heights}
Because I had been up there for so long, and the entire pool became invested in watching me jump, when my head finally came up out of the water, all of the people at the pool were cheering and clapping. I don’t recall being embarrassed. I was just relieved I finally did it. I did not go back up for another jump.
Fast forward 25ish years and I found myself in a very similar situation. Only this time there was no crowd. Just me and my family. And my 15 year old niece who I couldn’t let show me up (that girl is WAY too crazy for her own good). And my husband who so kindly said “either jump or climb back down, but this boat is leaving”. And so again, I walked to the edge and backed up. And then after a much shorter time period than the first experience, I jumped.
Both of these experiences got me thinking a lot about what it means to be brave. And then, like it was meant just for me, Glennon from Momastery wrote a brilliant post on this very subject. She said:
“Over time I have come to believe that brave does not mean what we think it does. It does not mean “being afraid and doing it anyway.” Nope. Brave means listening to the still small voice inside and DOING AS IT SAYS. Regardless of what the rest of the world is saying. Brave implies WISDOM. Brave people are not simply those who JUMP every time. They do not necessarily “do it anyway.” Brave people block out all the yelling voices and listen to the deepest voice inside the quietest, stillest place in their heart. If that voice says JUMP, they jump. And if that voice says TURN AROUND – they turn around, and they hold their head high. Often the one who turns around shows GREAT BRAVERY, because she has been true to herself even in the face of pressure to ignore her still, small voice and perform for the crowd….
Brave is: To Thine Own Self Be True. And Brave parents say: I trust you, little one – to Be Still and Know. I’ll back you up.”
(You can read the entire article here. It’s a good one)
In both instances, I wanted to jump. I wanted that adventure. I wanted that memory. If I didn’t, I definitely have the kind of personality where I would have never gone up in the first place.
The take away message–listen to the voice. And be mindful that my children have their OWN voice and if I can teach them to listen to that, they’ll be okay. Sometimes the voice says “jump” and sometimes it says “turn around”. Feel the fear and decide if the voice is telling us to “do it anyway” or if the voice is telling us to run. All we have to do is listen. And trust. And then DO as the voice says.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be excited about a scrapbooking tool. I’m not a scrapbooker. Never have been. Too much….stuff. Too much time. Too expensive. And I’m honestly not creative or patient enough to come up with a variety of worthwhile page layouts.
My other complaint with scrapbooking. There often seemed to be so many different papers, and buttons, and ribbon, and other stuff I can’t even identify, the pictures looked lost. And for me, the photographs are what matter. And the STORIES those photos tell.
So when I came across Project Life, I was sold. To me, Project Life is about the STORY, not the stuff.
It’s SIMPLE. I’m a simple kind of girl.
I started using the Project Life physical products and completed 5 albums. And then. Then the game changer. The team at Project Life came out with the Project Life app. And now I can “scrapbook”, document, memory-keep, story tell, with my THUMBS. While I’m in the carpool lane, or watching TV, or waiting at the soccer field. Anywhere. Everywhere. No mess. No fuss. No getting stuff out. No cleaning stuff up. And it’s all safely stored where my two year old can’t mess it up while in production.
It’s ridiculously simple. And fast. And easy. And everything I’m looking for when I’m documenting our family’s story. The pictures take the lead, and the journaling cards and filler cards add a little extra touch. My goal is to have the pictures tell the story, then add a little with words if I have to.
If you watch this quick 7 minute video and you’ll see how EASY it is to make a page layout and document your stories. If you watch the entire thing you’ll see how:
to add photos, add kit journaling cards and filler cards, add and resize text and change fonts, resize photos, move photos from one spot to another, edit photos right in the app, and I’ll show you how to seamlessly PRINT those pages you create as well.
The app is so easy to use I didn’t even have to talk on the video. You can figure it out just by watching. So you get to listen to music instead.
Once you finish the pages and export them, you can print them wherever you want. Then you just get some 12×12 sheet protectors (use 40% off coupons on Michaels or Hobby Lobby) and put them in an album. Project Life has great albums you can get at Michaels or Hobby Lobby (again, use the coupon) OR you can use any album that will hold 12×12 sheet protectors.
If you want to see a FULL VIDEO TUTORIAL (with words) on how to use the App along with some tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way, check out this Project Life App Video Tutorial.
A few tips.
**The app comes with a few free “kits” (journaling cards and filler cards) as well as some page layouts. The app only costs $2.99 and even if you buy ALL of the available kits and page layouts, it’s still only around $20. And once you have them, you can use them over and over and over and over again. And they’re adding more kits and page layouts with updates.
**If you want to use pictures that are not on your phone, you can put them in a Dropbox folder. You have to install the Dropbox app on your phone. Dropbox can walk you through that.
**If you use the Dropbox feature, I recommend putting your pictures in different folders based on what pages you want them grouped together with. Makes it easier to keep track of which pictures you’ve used if you have them in smaller folder groups rather than one big huge folder with all the pictures in it.
**When you export your pages, you can print them or share them online. Definitely don’t skip the printing part. Kids loooooove looking at pictures of themselves in an actual physical album.
**The app DOES sync to other devices. So if you buy things on your phone, you can access them on your iPad and vice-versa. If you buy a kit or page layout on one device, you can then click on that same kit/page layout on the other device and click “restore previous purchase” or “Buy now”. Once you’ve bought it, it won’t let you buy it twice. It will ask if you want to download it again.
**When you print the 12×12 pages, the font is MUCH bigger than it looks (because you’re going from a tiny screen to a full-sized 12×12 print. Just something to keep in mind when doing fonts and font sizes.
A few things about Printing your pages.
When you export your photos from the app, they are automatically saved as high-resolution 12×12 photos. The quality of the pages will depend on the quality of your photos AND where you choose to print the 12×12 pages.
DO NOT send your photos to Instagram and then export from Instagram to print. Instagram reduces the size of pictures to 612 pixels by 612 pixels (so people can scroll through the feed fast without having to wait for large images to load) so your resolution will NOT be good as a 12×12. When you export from the app, export to your camera roll and order prints from there as well.
You can now print straight from the App. If you click on “order prints” at the bottom of the opening page it will walk you through ordering prints. The App prints through a professional photo company so the pages look excellent and are high-quality.
If you don’t want to print through the app, I also recommend using Persnickety Prints. This is why the owner, Chari, started the company in the first place. They were born to print scrapbooking pages. The prints are archival (meaning your ancestors will thank you because the pages will still be around) AND they are water-proof. Seriously!!! Waterproof. I had my doubts about that one so when I got my first order of 12×12 prints, I put one under the kitchen faucet just to see. And sure enough, waterproof. They also have a 100% money-back guarantee.
I recommend doing a batch of prints (every few weeks or every month) to save on shipping costs.
You can see on the video how to order prints at Persnickety directly from your phone.
And for those of you who like photographs, here are a few.
My kids love looking at pictures. Especially if they’re in them.
When I get my prints back, I lay them all out so I can see what order I want them to go in the album. I generally have a “helper” when I do this.
Here’s a comparison of the 12×12 print and the 8×8 print
And then they go into the albums.
And for a closer view of some of the spreads I’ve done using the Project Life App
$.99. That’s what you pay to get started documenting your stories. It’s so so easy. I am not a lover of scrapbooking. I love having my stories documented and displayed. This process makes it bearable and dare I say fun.
One last tip. If you’re WAY behind on getting your digital photos in albums (like me) I recommend you START WHERE YOU ARE. Start with the present (or go back to the beginning of this year). Then if you have extra time here and there, you can go back and play catch up. Or, you can start with certain categories. I started by documenting all our vacations in layouts. Then I’ll go back and do holidays. Then I’ll try to keep current with each year.
You can do this!!!
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer them!
And, if you want to improve the quality of photos you take with your phone, get access to my TEN tips on immediately improving your phone photography so your Project Life pages will look even better!!!
You can go here for more ideas on displaying photos in your home.
If you’d like to see more ideas on how to organize, back-up, sort, print, your digital photos, you can check out my Picture Display Movement series.
When I was working to lose all my baby weight after having four babies (over 8 years–not all at the same time), I didn’t wear a heart rate monitor. But I should have. It would have made things a lot easier. Here’s why.
When I exercise, my body burns calories. There are a number of factors involved in how efficiently my body does this, but when I wear a heart rate monitor, it tells me exactly how many calories I burned during any given period of time. That’s important because if I want to lose weight, I have to BURN more calories than I consume (which isn’t easy because I really like to eat). So if I’m tracking the calories I eat (which I do loosely in my head), but not exactly sure how many calories I’m burning, it makes losing weight a guessing game.
When I was doing Insanity to get back in shape, the information packet said I could burn “up to 1000 calories” with one particular exercise DVD. “Up to” is pretty vague. And I really had NO IDEA how many calories I was actually burning. Fortunately for me it ended up working and I lost the weight. But it would have made my daily eating a lot easier to figure out if I knew exactly how many calories I had burned. (I have since worn my heart rate monitor during that exercise and I did NOT burn 1000 calories. It was closer to 600).
You can use Google to find out how many calories you should be eating in a day to maintain your current weight. Then if you want to LOSE weight, you subtract 500 from that number. If you eat 500 less calories each day, you’ll lose about 1 pound a week. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but generally slow and steady weight loss is more likely to KEEP the weight off.
So if I’m supposed to eat 1800 calories a day to maintain my weight, then I need to eat around 1300 calories to lose weight. OR, I need to burn those calories off during exercise. I prefer that method so I can eat more. I eat around 1800 calories, exercise to burn 500-600 calories off and each week I should lose about 1 pound.
If you’re already at the weight/health level you want to be at, a heart rate monitor can still be helpful. For instance, right now I’m trying to GAIN muscle. In order to do that, I NEED to eat enough calories (energy) to fuel my muscles. In order to do that, I have to know how many calories I’m burning each day and make sure I eat enough. Sometimes when I do a particularly hard exercise routine and I burn a LOT of calories, it’s hard to eat enough calories (the right kind of calories–from healthy food not crap food).
Wearing a heart rate monitor takes the guessing game out of how many calories I burn during any particular exercise.
So, if you want to try it out (I highly recommend doing so), I did a lot of research on different heart rate monitors. I finally chose the Polar FT4 Heart Rate Monitor (Purple/Pink)
Below I am listing a bunch of different exercise routines I did and the amount of calories I burned during each one. I thought it was really interesting to compare the different exercises and the calories I burned with the time I spent on each one. With some I got more bang for my buck (burned more calories in less time).
Please note everyone will burn a different amount of calories than I did with each exercise. It all depends on YOUR personal heart rate. Which is why it’s good to wear one.
The Polar heart rate monitor will tell you exactly what your heart rate is, if you’re in the “target zone” (I’m never in the zone–always higher–something I need to get checked), and how many calories you burn.
{The pics below aren’t matched with each exercise. Just different photos I took to give an example of what the readout looks like.}
1. Pure Cardio–Insanity by Beachbody
32 minutes. 389 calories. I kept the monitor on after I was done and by 45 minutes I was up to 502 calories (your body continues to burn calories quickly even after you’ve finished an exercise).
2. Pump Revolution (weight lifting DVD by Beach Body)
53 minutes. 460 calories
3. Treadmill Shredmill (treadmill exercise by Jillian Michaels)
26 minutes. 365 calories (my treadmill said I burned 430 calories–heart rate monitor is the correct one)
4. Running while pushing a jogging stroller with 2 kids in it (not my favorite–I like to run alone)
52 minutes (including stops to pick up sippy cups, see the cows, and find more snacks to eat). 660 calories
5. Speed 2.0 —T25 by Beach body.
25 minutes. 331 calories
Then I did it again a few week later. 25 minutes. 303 calories. Same exercise, different day, different amount of calories. Must not have worked as hard the second time. Or my heart rate didn’t get as high because I was in better shape. We’ll go with the second reason.
6. Running outside
1 hour 5 minutes. 7.05 miles. 940 calories
7. Max Cardio–Insanity
44 minutes. 497 calories
8. Regular run on the Treadmill
52 minutes. 5.27 miles. 617 calories (treadmill said 790–monitor is more accurate).
And another time. 1 hour 10 minutes. 7.0 miles. 965 calories
Did 100 burpees. Took me 16 minutes. 220 calories.
10. Immortal Stair challenge by Brenda Vance (these will make you sweat. And all you need are some stairs)
47 minutes. 607 calories
11. Treadmill. Fast walk on an Incline (you don’t have to do high-intensity, high-impact exercise to burn calories)
40 minutes. Incline 6.5. Speed 4.0. 2.75 miles. 367 calories.
12. Runners world Iron Strength workout. This was super hard for me. And left me sore for days.
50 minutes. 563 calories.
13. Spinning class. This was the first spinning class I’d ever been to. It was hard. A good hard.
56 minutes. 709 calories.
I’m all about being efficient. Especially when it comes to exercise. Since I’ve started wearing my heart rate monitor, it’s easier to know how many calories I need to eat each day to lose weight, maintain weight, or gain muscle. And it motivates me to work harder to get my heart rate up and burn more calories. Go get yourself one here:
Polar FT4 Heart Rate Monitor (Purple/Pink)
{I don’t get paid by Polar or Beachbody (but I totally should). I just recommend their products because THEY WORK!}
9.