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I can hardly believe it’s the end  of August and beginning of September (my birthday month!). August is about growth and sunshine.

Our plantings are now growing after months of heat. I love this time of year for plant growth. I’m nearly ready to pull peppers and tomatoes, the rhubarb has been ready since spring!

It’s also a great time to sit outside or go for a walk and enjoy the sun.  It’s good for vitamin D. I’m a believer in sunscreen so it makes it fine to be outside. I put sunscreen on when I’m going for one of my long outdoor walks.

I’ve been taking advantage of the weather to walk outside instead of in the gym. It’s waiting for me in the winter or cold months after all. Why do that now when the birds and sun beacon?

Rob and I love to drink coffee or adult beverages outside on these warm days.

I try to take advantage of being outside since the summer and warm seasons are shorter in Minnesota compared to cold and winter months.

I’ve said here that I share elements of my life. It’s the purpose of my blog. I also share things I’ve learned that I hope can help the people who read my weekly blog.

This week I’m sharing how no one notices your pain but everybody notices your mistakes. I understand it, again, because I’ve overshared more than ever this year.

And I get it. People like to judge others because it makes them feel better about their own lives. It’s why people watch reality TV, to make them feel as though their lives aren’t so bad.

Perhaps I need to keep more private so fewer can judge me for my mistakes. Everyone does make mistakes. I’m not perfect and I know it. Sometimes that means sharing my life’s pains, too.

Similarly, errors are noticed and effort is ignored.

In terms of others judging me, I saw this somewhere on social media and I wanted to share:

• the right people will come back in your life after they get disappointed by people they thought were better than you
• an athlete won’t judge you for working out
• a millionaire won’t judge you for starting a business
• a musician won’t judge for trying to sing a song

It’s always the people going nowhere who have something to say. Maybe that means I’m going somewhere! It’s a reminder to me those who judge me don’t matter, whether it’s for my pain or my mistakes. Remember to be kind. You never know what battle or challenge someone be going through.

On Aug. 18, 2016, I brought my Tea Biscuit home. She was a pup of eight weeks. She was so dang cute.

Once we picked her up, she immediately peed on my daughter, and we had a three hour drive ahead of us.

I loved her from the start. she was adorable. She would drop and sleep where ever and when ever she wanted to. It was so sweet. That’s puppy regular!

She was also a weirdo. My husband and I still talk about all of her quirks. Since it’s summer and storm season, I remember how much she hated them. When storms got noisy, she’d either hide behind the sofa or the toilet.

She loved those spots in general, if she wasn’t laying next to me, of course! I loved her backwards shuffle when she came out from behind the sofa.

Another funny thing about Tea was how she didn’t really like longer walks. There were a few times when she would just decide she wasn’t going to walk any more. That’s typical corgi stubbornness! Occasionally, I had to pick her up and carry her for awhile.

If I opened the screen door, she loved to look outside. She was so curious. She would sit outside with us. She always had FOMO and it was ok with me. I loved having her with me right beside me.

As with most corgis, I was conscious of when she got too hot outside and brought her inside. She would splay out on the cool floor. She alway knew how to find the coolest spots.

I miss the weirdo. I miss her companionship. But I love the silly and corgi-rific memories.

I will love you and find you in every lifetime, my sweet Tea!

A mindset is a mental attitude or state 0f mind. It’s another topic I’ve covered multiple times here on my blog.

Being positive isn’t always easy. For generally positive people like me, holding a high and good mindset helps me in my day-to-day. I really work hard, sometimes, to stay happy and positive. Even with that focus, I do have my  challenging days and situations.

That’s why if you can over think the worst, you can also over think the best. Think about this for a second. To over think the good, the best. It feels so positive and light and almost makes me smile. Sometimes, however, it can be easier to over think the worst. That makes me feel overwhelmed and like n0thing will get better soon. What a difference between the two states of mind!

That’s what it means to shift mindset. It’s a choice by day or even by hour. One of my Yogi tea tags recently read, “Peace of mind comes piece by piece.” It’s the same with mindset. It comes a bit at a time.

Reminder to me: Be positive whenever possible. Smile more. Over think the good and the best. Manage your mindset every day.

Aug. 5, 2019, is the day we got engaged. What a happy story!

We went to one of our favorite restaurants at the time (which is no longer open) to celebrate.

Look how young we look! We’re dressed up. We were super happy then and it’s only gotten better since. Truly. We’re more in love and happier with each passing year. It’s wonderful!

Here’s h0w we got engaged. He put my ring in a Cracker Jack box. He came home from an event and handed me the box. I started to snack and he pulled the box from my hand, thinking I was going to eat the ring.

It all had to do with this  a verse from the Meatloaf song: Two out of three ain’t bad.
“You’ll never find your gold on a sandy beach
You’ll never drill for oil on a city street
I know you’re looking for a ruby in a mountain of rocks
But there ain’t no Coup de Ville
Hiding at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box.”

Another anniversary for us was our first date on April 10, 2010. Yes, we’ve been together for quite awhile (even with an 18 month gap). So, we were together for eight years and we’ve been married for almost seven. What a great history!

I love you, Rob!

Being good-hearted is defined as”having a kindly, generous disposition.” It’s what I want to be and to demonstrate to others.

First, kindness. It’s probably one of the topics I’ve most written about here in my blog. It’s concern for others and their well-being. I believe it takes so little to be kind to others. When you are, they notice. It’s as if they are being seen. I believe it’s easy to be kind to others. Alternately, it takes energy and time to be mean to others. So, if you can be anything be kind. After all, every act of kindness comes back multiplied for you and others.

Generosity. It’s about abundance and gratitude. Being thankful isn’t always easy. Being generous isn’t easy either. Perhaps the benefit comes when you can be generous from your need instead of your surplus. Abundance may be a state of mind. For example, I feel abundant in my life because I have wonderful people in my life. I’m healthy. It’s not about money but in a life mindset. Gratitude should be easy. It’s like abundance, gratitude is is a state of mind and something to focus on every day.

Given all these definitions, I’ll never regret focusing on trying to focus on having a good heart. Being kind. Being generous. Being thankful. Sharing it with others. Sharing my good heart with others.

When you face trauma from something in your past like me, it can be easy to get stuck there. Perhaps, for me, I’m trying to find the reasons why certain things happened to me in my life.

And sometimes, there are no reasons why hard times and trauma happen. Toxic individuals should stay in the past. Perhaps it’s why I need to try to turn corners whenever possible. It means trying to focus on my future instead.

It may sound easier said than done. So, it will require a loyalty of sorts to my future. It makes sense mentally. The past is the past, and experts say that’s where it should stay. While it’s part of my experience, I need to either appreciate it and/or move on.

Why move on? The future is endless while the past is a point in time. That’s worth remembering. So, the future is where opportunity is in every area in life.

The future holds love, loyalty and life. It’s a focus on friendship on love and opportunity.

So, while my past made me who I am for better or worse, I have hope for my future and that’s positive. Positivity is how I can make sense from the past and continue. Hope becomes a north star to follow int0 a full future.

And that’s better than wallowing in the past.

In my blogs, I share hard moments from my life. I may often overshare. Here, I share an even more raw story about myself and a personal struggle.

Eating disorders are serious illnesses and I had one for nearly all my college years and some time beyond. Occasionally, I still think about it.

My sickness was bulimia. Bulimia nervosa is recurrent cycles of binge eating and purging, or self-induced vomiting. For me, it also included excessive exercise. Like other eating disorders, bulimia is an obsession with weight and body image. The cycle of bingeing and purging made me feel guilt and shame and like I should be able to control myself.

In so many areas of my life I was in control. I came off a very successful high school career. I was my high school valedictorian. I worked during high school and managed it all. Once I got to college at Notre Dame I managed my busy schedule. I never had to pull an all-nighter. I made sure to spend time with friends and go to parties or dances. While I had gained the freshman 15, in the next years those pounds fell off. They didn’t necessarily come off in a healthy way, however.

When it came to purging, I had to be careful when I did it because I lived in a dorm. I had to make sure no one else was in the bathroom. And I had to be efficient and fast. It became all-consuming  around my self-image or my weight. I remember the years when I was in the throes of the active disorder. My mind wanders and I remember what it was like to lose control and define my worth by my weight.

But that’s the thing with an eating disorder, it’s about lack of control. It is, after all, a disorder. Disorders are complex illnesses that can cause severe harm.

My bulimia was painful for me. Throwing up hurt. I felt it from my stomach through my teeth and mouth. My esophagus hurt. The physical hurt was all encompassing. My mental health suffered. Sometimes I felt like I couldn’t have fun with my friends if food was involved.

When you equate weight loss with health and place value and worth on your size, you are basically saying we are more valuable when we are smaller and perpetuating the diet culture.

I can’t remember a time I wasn’t on a diet. It didn’t matter my size or weight. At 5’0’’ any weight showed up on my tiny frame quickly.

My biological parents didn’t know how to handle the situation. Instead of having an open, yet difficult discussion about it, my biological mom hid food from me in the washing machine. Discovering this filled me with even more shame than I was already feeling on a regular basis about myself and my body image.

I knew I didn’t have control, but this was not a loving way for a parent to address such a personal issue around such weighty issues like my body and self-esteem. My biological mother was inept and didn’t understand that an eating disorder is a disease. Like she usually did, she tried to control the situation and didn’t realize she was way in over her head. As typical, I suffered from my parents’ lack of understanding.

Another example includes one of my biological sisters. Later in life, I found an essay of sorts she wrote about me, calling me overweight and using words like “fat.”

No wonder so many women struggle with self-esteem connected to body issues for most of their life. For me it’s still something that impacts how I try to balance my life today. I think I’ll always have that challenge with food and over exercising in the back of my mind. Perhaps once you have an eating disorder you always have an eating disorder.

Healing is possible, though. Often, therapy helps. Medical intervention may be necessary. It may include learning to love yourself as you are. I’ve learned it and I need to remind myself often. I even talk to the younger me and remind her she is worthy as she is for who she is, n0t for what she looks like or what she weighs.

I know I need the reminder, even today.

I recently shared a raw post about what happened with my biological relations at my biological father’s funeral in early January. It was a shit show orchestrated by these nasty individuals.

That funeral was six months ago.

Knowing it was going to be said shit show, a close friend recommended I get clear on what I needed from my daughter over the following days. So, I took her advice and sent a text to my daughter about what I needed from her. I was clear on h0w and why I needed her support and to have my back. The text read:

“I need you to have my back completely and unconditionally. I need to be clear with you what I would consider a direct betrayal. It incudes any time spent with Sarah and her family, Cecilia and her family, or my mom, or any combination thereof. I love you, but if I find out you’re engaging with them, I’m not sure how I’ll be able to handle that.”

(Note: Sarah and Cecilia are my biological sisters. I’m the oldest of three sisters.)

My daughter ignored my ask, my plea, my emotions.

During and after the funeral Mass and burial ceremony at Fort Snelling, I saw the betrayal with my eyes. And this was with skipping the funeral luncheon. I’d had enough of my nasty biological family at that point -including hiring  cops at the visitation and Mass.

Here was my follow-up text to my daughter:

“You, I trust, saw that I didn’t get to lay the pall on the casket with everyone else. That was the ONE thing I wanted to do. I wish you’d sat with us. I’m really disappointed and hurt about that. You did stab me in the back. I made my boundaries clear. You chose a different path. I warned you about being manipulated. Where were these people when they ignored you for years?”

I’ve always had my daughter’s back. When she needed support monetarily and emotionally during college and grad school, I was there. Growing up, I was at every event, also paying for said events. I never asked for anything as part of it. It’s what a mother does.

And I did all of this as a single parent who worked full-time. I don’t say that to brag or for kudos but as a statement of fact. Also a fact is I stayed at toxic jobs because I was the sole family support. These jobs actually affected my physical and mental health. I stayed at some of these jobs anyway. One, I stayed so I could pay the final college tuition payment. While there, I developed an auto-immune health issue.

But after what happened at funeral events, I haven’t talked to my daughter for months. Six months. Rob and my bestie have repeatedly encouraged me to reach out to her and try to heal the relationship. But I feel differently. I don’t stand for betrayal on any level.

I need her to apologize t0 me for how she treated me and for betraying me at my core during my biological dad’s funeral events. For all I know, the betrayal continues.

What makes this extra nasty is that my biological sisters and brothers-in-law manipulated her at the funeral events – the very horrid individuals wh0  ignored my daughter for nearly a decade before. These are the villans. Not me. They brought the funeral drama. Not me.

I’m just fine. I know I deserve respect as a mother. N0t just as a mom but as one wh0 sacrificed herself for her daughter at every turn. It’s why I hold fast to my boundaries and I won’t be treated ill, betrayed or ignored – even from my daughter.

This is the July 4 holiday week. It’s the heat and center of the summer season. On July 4, we will also celebrate America and 250 years of American Independence. Happy Birthday, U.S.A.!

It’s also a time for me to be grateful for my own  independence as a person, a woman. It’s my independence from toxic people and th0se who would cut me down instead 0f build me up.

Wh0 are these toxic people? They are basically individuals wh0 I don’t want to be around for any reason.

I truly get to choose who I want to be around. They say you are known by the five people wh0 you choose to associate with or are known through. I choose the people who love me unconditionally. I wish my sweet corgi girl was still here. She loved me totally. I know my husband does, too. I have a wonderful bestie, my best friend, who supports me at every turn n0 matter what. It’s a wonderful thing to be truly loved for who I really am. It’s an authentic, beautiful thing.

It’s why I’m celebrating my independence this week to be just who I am and to h0ld my boundaries at the same time. I’m proud of that and of myself. I’ve done a lot of inner work to get to be where I am. And I’ll continue to do that going forward.

After all, independence is about forward looking as an individual, even as we celebrate our Independence as a nation.