moving forward

I have been on a bit of a blog hiatus lately. It wasn't intentional at first, but afer some personal reflection as part of a Bible study I'm doing and some recent sermons I decided to take some time to pray about the future of this space. I wanted to make sure I'm updating here for the right reasons, I wanted to give it to the Lord and make sure that He is receiving the glory through what I share here just as much as I want him to in all other areas of my life. If I felt God was leading me to abandon blogging, I would have and with a peace about it. For a while I wasn't sure how I would get an answer or how long it would take but I wanted to remain obedient to the call. It has been a productive time of prayer and decision making and I'm happy to be back. I don't know how frequent my posting will be because something I've always stuck to is that I will not let my blog become a distraction from my family and my household responsibilities as other things have in the past.

Earlier this week I sat down and made a list of "why I blog" and as I went through I felt like my reasons were solid and as long as I am mindful of my time, they can all be ways to give God the glory in my life and share His work in us with the Breaking New Ground community. So here I am, back at it! 

I've also made a list of what I'd like to share with you all in the coming weeks, as time allows. I have some crafts I've been working on that some friends have been curious about so I figured I could easily share them here. I also have some recipes to share, essential oil tips, cloth diapering information, homeschooling, a fun giveaway and a sprinkling of family updates as we have been and continue to be VERY busy! I know for sure I will be taking an extended break in August as we will be doing our best to schedule nothing and just enjoy each others' company as summer winds down and the school year approaches. It seems crazy to plan out that far but I've noticed that our schedule fills ups so effortlessly that we need to protect our down time with some strict "black out" dates! 

While I've been on a break, my best friend Liz over at Bramblefield has been busy with updates to her blog and her shop. She just posted some awesome free calender and phone case printables! 

I've also still been fairly active on Instagram so if you aren't following there come join me @breakingnewground 

I'm so thankful for this creative outlet, the people I've connected with because of blogging and the memories I'm able to look back on over the years of sharing a little bit of our lives online. 

Sticking with it...

Hi friends, I'm back! I've thought a lot about it and I really don't want to let go of blogging just because of what happened a couple weeks ago. So, I'm here and I'll be posting a little more depending on how often I get a little time to tap something out and throw a few photos in. Speaking of, due to aforementioned incident I will be ramping up security on my page. Annoyingly it means bigger bolder watermarks on all my photos, but I will still post photos. For now my Instagram will remain private, but feel free to request me. This will help me keep track of who has access to what I post there. I will be posting fewer photos on the Facebook page due to it's public nature, but I will still be sharing there so be sure to "like" it to get updates. 

As you can likely imagine, or possibly relate to, life with 3 kids is very busy! We went through a lot of changes all at once over the last couple months with Malakai starting Kindergarten and then Aurelia joining us just 3 days later. Ben had a week off of work and then I felt sort of thrown in to a new and very busy routine. Getting Kai to school daily proves to be exhausting and Desmond decided to stop napping completely a week later. How fun for everyone! 

{there are THREE watermarks on this photo, some are harder to find than others, just one way I'm increasing security here to protect my family from another incident of stolen identity}

Desmond turned 3 earlier this month, so our kiddos are 5, 3 and 8 weeks old as of today. Time is FLYING by us and I feel like all I can do is keep our heads above water. I know things will calm (somewhat) and even out a bit soon, but we are heading into the holidays so it can't last long!

This year I'm participating in a few Christmas Bazaars to make a little extra money and gauge interest in some of my handmade items. I will not be opening a shop anytime soon but I have done a little branding in case I decide to go that route in the future. For now, it's all informal so that I can be protective of my time. I hope to sell pre made items at the bazaars and possibly drum up some custom orders as well. I'll post dates and locations of the Bazaars that I'll have items at on our Facebook page, so keep an eye out there and then come look for my work under "BnG handmade". 

That's it for now. I will be back to share some updates on what we've been up to as a family and how the kiddos have grown. Keep an eye out for more giveaways coming as well. Thanks for taking time to check in with our little corner of the internet. 

social media hazards

It's been quiet around here, but not only because we have a tiny new human in the house. It's also not because our 3 year old isn't napping and our 5 year old is in his first and very busy year of school. While all of those things are really great reasons to take a blog break, as I've done before, I've been away for reasons out of my control. 

Sadly, I've not been around this space for a while because we recently had an issue of stolen identity. A Twitter user in the UK randomly stole a photo from our About Us section and used it as his own, claiming to be a husband and loving father of 2 (as only the boys were pictured) which means he was posing as Ben. Hiding behind our photo he attacked people verbally and brought attacks on our likenesses. Many people lashed out at him, identifying him through our photo and saying really terrible things about us in response. 

I was first notified of this impersonation through emails. I received 4 emails from different twitter users claiming that my photo had been stolen. They seemed a bit "spammy" in nature, especially because I didn't recognize any of the people contacting me.  Instead of clicking on any links in the emails I googled the username they were claiming had stolen our photo and was shocked at the snippets of tweets I saw from him and the replies of those he angered. Thankfully his account was taken down before I ever knew it existed. I am grateful to those of you who reported this user which I can only assume led to twitter removing him. 

Those who had emailed me had somehow tracked the photo back to my blog and quickly realized that we were not the ones behind the tweets this user was sending out. I was able to send tweets out to several users letting them know that the photo did not belong to this user, but the damage had been done. It just makes me sick that my husband and especially our sons were victims of these angry social media users' rants. We feel rather violated by the whole incident. I don't really want to blog or say much on twitter. I've made my instagram account private so that I have to approve followers from here on out, and I haven't posted anything to my Breaking New Ground Facebook page. I already watermark all my photos, but that didn't stop this person from using one anyhow. 

I'm trying not to let one person "ruin the internet for me" as Ben put it, but it's hard to not want to hunker down and protect my family from having anything like this happen again. I enjoy blogging for the community it has brought me to but it feels lost or broken somehow. So I'm taking some time to think and pray about what to do next. I may take my blog down and use it for my own records, or possibly make it private, open only to approved or invited users. It's also possible that I will keep things the same after some time away. 

I could use some encouragement so feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions on the matter in the comment section here. 

Thanks to those of you who read here and have supported us over the years! 

moving slower

If you couldn't tell by the quiet here on my blog, I've been moving a lot slower these days. This applies to just about every aspect of my life and is largely due to my pregnancy (no puns intended). Between being tired + sick for so long in the beginning to now being so tired + sore I feel like I didn't get much of the "energetic" part of pregnancy. I have drive and motivation to do things, I want to do ALL THE THINGS, but I can't. I try anyway and end up miserable at the end of the day, and my husband isn't too happy with me for pushing it either. Most days I feel fine in the midst of activity, but oh how I pay for it later!

I've had a couple sessions of physical therapy and have already been able to tell the difference in my physical ability just by keeping up with the exercises and advice given to me. I'm really disciplining myself to get my stretches done, it helps that the boys love to join me. 

I have a blog post all written out for an update on our 40 Bags in 40 Days project, but editing the pictures has been slow going for me. It'll come soon. We've also taken on a couple big home improvement projects over Memorial Day weekend that I'll share soon after. 

Oh yeah, Mother's Day has come and gone as well. I was showered with gifts and given the gift of relaxation. Ben + the boys gifted me with an act of service which I loved because 1. it got something done and 2. it is teaching our boys how to love others with servants' hearts. They cleaned out our garden area, which was a tangle of weeds and filled a couple pots with dirt for me to plant my herbs. I won't be planting a full garden, just basil and cilantro this year. Overall I felt blessed to be a mother to my sweet boys and wife to my thoughtful husband. 

Slowly but surely I'll get some more exciting updates posted and maybe some more baby posts thrown in here and there. For now, Desmond is napping so I'm going to snuggle up next to Malakai and take a little rest myself. 

welcome interruptions

I've been working, snuggling my boys and NOT cleaning house (only partly because our vacuum just died).

I did however do some catch up over at Project 365 (once again I was a whole week behind).

Lately though, I've had my nose buried in Catching Fire. Thanks to my sister who lent me Hunger Games, I'm totally hooked. I'm almost done will book 2 and will no doubt be totally consumed by the 3rd one. I just have to do my best to not read them before bed if I want to sleep well...

aaaand I'm back!

Yikes.

My blog was down for over a week and I am so sorry for no explanation before it happened. We kept putting off renewing my domain name and then I transferred it the day it was expiring. Bummer is that transfers take 5-7 business days. Whoopsie!

Anyway, I've transferred to purchasing my domain name from Twenty70 Hosting and I'm SO glad I did. Their customer service has already been amazing. Night + day compared to using My Domain before. I received one on one attention and personalized help from someone who actually cares. I highly recommend them for your blog/website needs!

So I'm back and I have a lot of catching up to do. Life has been busy in some good + satisfying ways and in some bad + not so happy ways. We are moving onward with life as always and keeping a positive outlook as we always shoot for.

While the blog was down spring arrived, and then it snowed (photos to come), and then it was sunny for a few days. Oregon. I have also been sick and I keep thinking that I'm getting better, and end up feeling worse. I have a tendency to overdo it when I am on the mend instead of letting myself heal completely. Thank you dearest husband for teaching me this interesting fact about myself.

I have also been terribly behind on my Project 365. I've been taking photos like a maniac, especially since getting an iPhone, but I have been bad about posting them. So I'll take some time tonight and over the next few days to try to catch up here and over there.

Meanwhile, here's a precious photo of my boys from today.

Thanks to those of you who are still around. Hang in there...

another break

Among all the other things that make daily life busy, plus getting ready for a houseguest next week, and having plans here and there this week both of my boys are STILL sick.

Ben hasn't been this sick in a long time. As long as he's not contagious and able to function he usually pushes through and goes off to work. Malakai has never been this sick. His fever is hanging on this time.

{this was the adorably pathetic view from the kitchen this morning}

Now that I've filled their bellies, they are napping their way back to health. I'm off to get some more house work done. 

I'll try to be back on Thursday, but it'll be short and sweet if I am. Thanks for understanding, dear readers, I'll miss you so.