Life Updates ⟡ Recent Contemplations ⟡ July 2025

 Hello again friends!

(a note before starting - I legitimately didn't know what day it was and thought I had missed my usual Wednesday post. It turns out, I'm right on schedule and not late at all, LOL! Though I do expect to be off schedule here and there in the coming months. Read on to see why...)

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If you have been reading the blog for awhile, you might have noticed I tend to have a schedule of posting on Wednesdays! I like having a routine when I can, for most things in life. It helps me take the guesswork out of when to get what things done to make sure I do all that I want to do!

My blogging desk setup!

 ⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖ An Interruption of Your Regularly Scheduled Posts  ⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

This past Wednesday, however, was an exception. I was a bit "under the weather", shall we say. Not the usual way you might think though. I wasn't SICK sick... I was actually pregnancy sick! 

That's right, our little family is expanding. I am in fact pregnant with our second child!

My husband and I have been expecting this for a few months now. I was worried at first, because with my first son, I got pregnant right away when we started trying to conceive. But this time, it took just a few months. I was worried perhaps I was cut open wrong with my C Section and was preventing a new pregnancy. (Believe me, up until we got pregnant, the possibility/worry of that was very real for me. Especially considering how terrible my birth experience was with my son, and how everything was handled by the medical staff around me. But, that is a story for another post perhaps some day ... )

And as mentioned above, I have been feeling the sickness recently. It set in around 4 weeks. I won't directly share how far along I am for privacy reasons - but I'll just say come springtime I will have a new little baby to love. 

It's shaped like a <3

 ⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖ Tummy Aches Are Fun ⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

Thankfully, the nausea is not terrible, and can be managed. As long as I eat very regularly, and make sure I don't get hungry, I can control how I feel. Which of course, isn't always possible. Sometimes it's too difficult to time it right, and I end up hungry and nauseous. In addition to the morning time, of course I have not eaten all night and can't really help that. So most mornings I wake up nauseous and then the nausea makes it hard to eat food for breakfast. It's really a mental battle getting breakfast down every day! But, once I can finally get down some food, I feel good for the next several hours. 

Outside of my Home Depot store taken Summer 2025

 ⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖ Supplements Are Somewhat Helpful ⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

Additionally something that helps the nausea, that I discovered with my first pregnancy (with my son), is taking Vitamin B6. Especially before bed, during dinner or my last snack of the day. I have noticed a significant improvement in my overall tummy feeling the next day when I remember to take it! 

I also take Folate since it's one of the most essential vitamins for early pregnancy, and with my tummy issues it's really hard to eat enough in my diet on a daily basis. Of course, I still try. But I also take the folate. 

Other than that, I haven't been taking anything - I really try hard to avoid Tylenol, since I have read that recent studies suggest that Tylenol consumed during pregnancy can lead to higher risks of (I believe) ADHD and/or Autism in the child (I can't remember which on it is but it could also be both). I did however have such a bad headache recently that Tylenol was the only thing that pulled me through! 

Iced Earl Gray Tea from Course Coffee Roasters!

 ⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖ Other Life Tidbits ⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

Besides the pregnancy, life has been a season of adjustments recently. Obviously pregnancy is a huge adjustment, especially with all the physical symptoms that come with it (I have had others besides the nauseous tummy, believe me). But life in general for me has been an adjustment for the last several months. 

Mainly the big change of me quitting my full time job in May to be home with my son. There have been many ups and downs since making that decision. 

1. Positive: More time with my son and time to play and develop

2. Negative: We only have one car, which my husband takes to work. Unfortunately his job is too far away from our home at the moment for me to realistically drop him off to keep the car very often at all. 

3. Negative: Having no car means being "stuck" at home, isolated. Similar to the above-mentioned mental battle of having to eat food with a nauseous tummy after a full night sleep on an empty stomach, so too is it a mental battle of keeping my spirits above water when I am stuck at home with no way to leave, all day, with a toddler (whom I love very much. But still). This has caused me to go into a bit of a depression due to the loneliness.

4. Positive: More time to do things I need to do around the house, like chores and food prep/cooking.

With the struggles above, I have not lost hope. Sure, plenty of days I feel hopeless. But I have not fully lost hope, I know that everything is a season, and nothing lasts forever. I have been in many seasons so far in my life, and one thing is for certain - GOD has not forgotten about me. He has not yet let me down, I just get impatient. But I believe and want to slow down and let a season exist instead of just wanting it to be over while being frustrated. Sure, many things about this season are frustrating. But I know He hears me. He tells me so, in little ways. He is always confirming His presence in my life. 

Somewhere, way up there

 ⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖ Other Struggles & Opportunities to Seek God's Will ⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

One of the frustrations I have had with this seasons is with friendships. I, like many, have experienced friends both come and go in life. Some people are meant to be around for a long time and some only for a short while. I can understand that. But it's been especially difficult to grasp God's design for friendship as something I understand when I have lost 2 major friendships in the past 2 years. The situations were entirely separate from each other, and both caused by normal happenings caused by life shifts. But, they dampened my spirits about friendship. And left me wondering lots of things that I realized I didn't know:

• What does it mean to "be a good friend", according to the Lord? 
• How can I be a better friend to those around me? 
• What boundaries should I have for the people in my life? 
• What expectations should I have for my friends, and acquaintances? 
• How much effort is the right amount of effort to put into a person that I want to be friends with? 
• How much effort should I reasonably expect back from the person I'm putting effort into?
• How can I not take friendships ending personally, but instead maturely and with wisdom? 

And many more. 

It's been an area that I have felt convicted to seek the Lord on. I know SOME things about friendship that are directly quoted in Scripture off the top of my head. But I want to go deeper. I don't necessarily understand how the concept of those verses, and even the concept of Christ's work directly applies to my personal encounters with people. So, I'd like to find a few books on the subject and seek the Lord in prayer as I meditate on verses on the subject as well. 

I did this same thing recently with the concept of Forgiveness and it helped me immensely! 

Perhaps, depending on how I feel in the coming months of pregnancy, I will post about my discoveries and developments on the subject as way to perhaps stay accountable and committed to the mission.

Coloring while at Course Coffee Roasters

That is all I have for now, friends. I will try to post regularly, and even on my usual Wednesdays, when I can. I know that life will continue to shift as I get farther along in the pregnancy, and I may not feel up to doing everything I really want to. 

But have no fear, I am here. In the background of this blog, living life! You, reader, just don't know it! I will post when I can.

Until next time... 

~ Amaris // ☆