Have you met amazing friends or the love of your life online? Echoes explores online relationships. Lauren, fresh from a broken romance, "meets" KC on line, and they strike up a friendship in cyberspace. Both share a love for everything Victorian, including Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barret Browning, and English Breakfast tea. After a year of corresponding through the magic of the "Web," Lauren finally realizes that she loves KC. Circumstances allow her to finally meet him face to face, but she "chickens out" at the last minute and stands him up. Will Lauren ever meet her true love? And will he actually live up to all that she believes of him? What is God trying to tell Lauren to do with her life? 
I don't read a ton of Christian novels, but having met my ex-husband, my closest friends and the love of my life online, how could I resist this one? It's one of those books that I didn't want to put down and actually sighed when it was finished. I haven't read the other books in this series, but they're going on my wish list so that I can see what has happened and what will happen!



I received a copy of this book from the Blogging For Books program. All thoughts, comments and opinions are 100% mine.

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I'm so excited about menu planning and cooking again. It feels wonderful to be more like the me that I know I can be. Thank god for the medication that is helping me do this. I never thought that I would be one to want medication, but I always said if you need it, then you need it and once I got past my fears, I realized that I needed it. Enough about that though...on to the menu!

Monday: BBQ Chicken w/ corn on the cob
Tuesday: Brat Burgers
Wednesday: Shrimp Scampi
Thursday: Shepherd's Pie
Friday: Stromboli




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I am loving meal planning again. It's amazing what happens when you take little baby steps to getting better. Suddenly things that I had lost enjoyment in seem fresh and new and wonderful again. The boys are getting interested in what we're having and I'm even thinking about each week taking each one of them into the kitchen to help make dinner one night each. For this week, we have:

Saturday: Beef Stroganoff
Sunday: Steak w/ Asparagus & Smashed Garlic Potatoes (Mom's night w/o the boys)
Monday:  Ham & Eggs
Tuesday: Cod w/ Parsley Sauce
Wednesday: Sheperd's Pie
Thursday: Mac n Cheese w/ Shrimp (Ben request)
Friday:  --- Surprise ---






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It's been a really long time since I actually cooked. I'll confess that I've been living off of Weight Watchers frozen meals for months now. One of the baby steps to getting better though is to start to take better control of my diet. It's better for me and it's better for the boys. We're not making anything super complicated so even on the tough days, it's not too bad and I always feel a little bit better for the accomplishment. So, without further ado...here is our meal plan for this week:

Saturday: Brat burgers, pasta salad and corn on the cob
Sunday: Roast w/ carrots & potatoes
Monday: Pizza (frozen -- freezer clean out)
Tuesday: Lasagna (frozen -- freezer clean out)
Wednesday: Taco Chicken
Thursday: Beef Stew (from scratch using leftover roast from Sunday)
Friday: Tacos





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About a month ago, I received an email from Aloha Island Lei with a review request. My first reaction was to chuckle. What was I going to do with a lei all the way over here in Michigan? Knowing though, that people would be getting married or having fun summer parties, I said sure, what the heck? Today, out of the blue, a long box appeared on my front porch. Opening it, I was amazed to find not one, but two gorgeous fresh flower leis.

I apologize for not taking pictures of the packaging, but I was far too eager to get them unwrapped! They smelled absolutely amazing and I couldn't wait to see them. I wasn't disappointed! These are beautifully made, smell delicious and are absolutely beautiful. Don't believe me? Check out this picture where I forced the boys to wear them and stand on the front porch..hehe...

Don't they look handsome?

What amazed me the most...other than the fact that I got them to do this for me? These came all the way from Hawaii and still looked this good! You'd have thought I'd picked them up on the island and snapped the picture within minutes! Honestly, if I ever get the chance to have a lovely beach themed party, I'm going to want one of these around my neck and the necks of my guests!

If you'd like some gorgeous flowered leis of your own, check out Aloha Island Lei! I've been very impressed and hopefully you will be too! Now, just for fun...my boys being all summer stylin'!

Roger - Age 12

Ben - Age 13

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I've spent the past 30 hours wanting to write here, even needing to write here but not knowing what to say. I always find that to be such a sad irony; the girl who has a writer's soul not knowing what to write. I guess let's start with what the doctor said...

I broke it down for some friends like this:

1. It turns out that I'm brilliant. IQ testing, for what it's worth, put me at smarter than 90% of the people on the planet.
2. I have PTSD that mostly likely began when I was about 3 and has continued untreated well into adulthood. The other "traumas" that I have gone through have only made it worse and in part most likely led to...
3. What is most likely Bipolar II disorder. The testing that I did wasn't geared towards that but it did come up as a possibility and after discussing my symptoms that the testing didn't go over, he's pretty convinced.

So...now what? Now, I wait to hear back from my primary care doctor to see if they'll write me a prescription for a lithium based medication. I also have to call and set up a therapy schedule with a therapist who specializes in trauma therapy for women and children.

On paper, that's where I am right now. Inside my head, I'm so far from there. The stress and anxiety of yesterday has led to exhaustion and depression today. Add into that what one friend calls the "female chemical factory" that's going on inside of my body and I'm left wondering what the point of it all is.

I'd love to be able to say don't worry, I'll be fine, but the reality is..or at least the reality inside of my own head...I don't know. I don't know if I will ever be "fine" again. I look around and I see people smiling and laughing and so much of the time, it feels as if I don't even recognize those emotions. I put on a brilliant show, but deep down, I'm not sure what happy even is.

There are times..maybe too many times..that I sit and think about how I wish nobody really cared about me because then I could just vanish. Somehow, I could just cease to exist on this planet and the world would be such a better place. The oddest part? When I have those thoughts, I'm disconnected from them. There's no deep emotional well that they're coming from. If I were to say it out loud, it would be said in that same bored tone like, "Yeah, I should take the garbage out."

So I would love to say don't worry...because I'll be okay, but instead it's don't worry, you'll be okay. Who knows, maybe I will be too. After all, this is only 2/3 of my world...the rest of it is nothing like this...

For now though, I'm going to leave you with two posts..written by someone who has said and illustrated it so much better than I can right now. She's been there, so she understands...please go and read these and leave her your support.

Adventures in Depression Part I and Adventures in Depression Part II



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Tomorrow is the day where I find out if I'm officially crazy. I've said it before and I guess I'm going to say it again...I don't know which idea is scarier..the one where he looks at me and says there's nothing wrong with you or the one where he looks at me and says yeah, you were right. You have entire subscriptions to issues. I've spent so many years fighting this and I'm so tired. I'm so dang tired and scared.

I'm tired of the days where I wake up and my brain just doesn't work right. It's so hard to explain. It's like I'm in a room and one minute, it's open and light and airy. The next minute, it's filled with dense fog and suddenly there are walls that I can't see and I keep smacking into them. If I try to push past it, I get terrible headaches.

I'm tired of the days where everything seems to be okay but then suddenly I'm caught up in this whirlwind of fear and anxiety and all I can do is sit and rock while I cry, whispering please can't someone help me? Those are the days where I feel so incredibly alone. I feel as if nobody on the planet has the time to just sit and spend a bit of time talking to me. Those are the days when I want to throw myself at the feet of some and beg them to just hug me and tell me that it's going to be okay because okay is the last thing that I can see.

I'm even tired of the up days. The up days where everything is remarkably clear and I can focus and my brain works at super sonic speeds and I get a thousand things done. I'm happy and cheerful and optimistic and nothing can bring me down. They also leave me exhausted, both mentally and physically. Plus, I can't maintain those levels and when I crash, I crash hard.

I'm tired of living life on this rollercoaster where there are times when I don't feel as if I have any control. I'm tired of the "side effects" of living a life this way. I need answers and tomorrow, I will get answers. It's been close to two weeks since I sat in that room and took a battery of tests. Before I took the tests, the psychologist told me that he thinks part of my problem is that I'm too smart and that I'm not using my brain to its potential so it gets bored and bored brains are bad things. He wasn't surprised that I found myself doing editing since it requires a high level of intelligence and attention to detail. Then, I took the tests and I left feeling like an idiot. It's not surprising. The tests are meant to challenge your brain and mine hasn't been properly challenged in a long time. It's like using muscles that haven't been used in years..they moan and groan and struggle.

Tomorrow, I get answers and I'm scared. Deep down I know that it will all be okay but on those upper levels, I'm scared and I just want someone to hug me, to hold me and to tell me that it's all going to be okay.




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