Tempered Cass

So if you have met me, or heard of me, or read a little of my writing you might gather that I am a bit....distractable? All over the place? Um, scattered? My BFF in high school used to say that I didn't walk anywhere, I scurried. The poor dear must be a saint because she is one of my closest friends to this day... She has withstood years of my inability to fully focus and the incessant bounce from one thought, one conversation, one thing to another. I love you, Terisa. I have been told I write like I talk...in big sweeping stories that MAY eventually land on my original thought...try to stay with me :) The truth is, I kind of live that way too and have for a very very long time. Last week, I talked about how COVID-19 has brought in the lovely and somewhat challenging simplicity of life that halts all "non-essential" tasks and opens all the windows of my soul to bare both my apple-pie-on-the-sill emotions as well as those ones that are filled with the putrid spoiled-...

Friends, Hmmm, that's interesting.... Okay, as I type that word FRIENDS there is a sense of warm and gentle happy that bubbles up through my belly and softly tugs at the corner of my eyes, elevating my cheeks into a little eye smile....hello crows feet. This week my friends, it has been a doozey! I haven't completed the 2nd module in my Peace with Food and Soul because I had to take a step back. I had to FEEL some stuff that bubbled on up. The simple phrase that tugged me was a lesson about how Metabolism is more than the sum of calories and energy.... but the sum of that AND our thoughts, feelings, and experiences. It got me thinking, feeling and experiencing quite a lot. Some of you know I toyed with writing a book.... I started it, and stopped. I started again and stopped. I picked it back up and came face to face with memory, idea, feeling after memory, idea, feeling and sometimes it would be way too much to confront. I would write and then as if a wound would rip...

My friend Christina once told me that as the passionate person I am, I have really high highs and really low lows.... It's funny how when things like that are said out of love they stick with you. I had perceived that one of the WORST things as a woman to be called was "sensitive". Which of course I had been called on many occasions.... I have also been called too "hard". I think being described as TOO anything is enough to send the jaw into a firm clench right? Okay, well unless its something like, "DaAAYYYYUUmn Cass, you are just TOO awesome, cute, sexy, amazeballs...." Yeah, so those TOOs are just fine by me... But if we want to get honest, to call it like it is...the truth isn't exactly all the fun stuff. The whole sensitive thing still has a little bitter taste to it, but I am learning to embrace it. More on that in later posts. This week my "New Thing" journey has me peeking around the corner and reluctant to come face to fa...

"Ugh, I. am. SO. FAT. Just DISGUSTING." I tell myself as I try not to look at myself in the mirror. "There is no way my hubby actually finds this attractive.... how could he??" "Effing Hives!" I mutter under my breath as I scratch my legs raw. I grit my teeth as someone gives us the recommendation to eat someplace that has everything except real food and I try in vain to explain why I CAN'T eat that.... Recently, at an event that was designed to pamper and honor us, I got to eat an entire small plate of LETTUCE. Our name tags had our meal choice on it, so I literally walked around with a name tag that said lettuce on it. They say you are what you eat.... in my case there are so many times I feel like, for me, that just means my name tag should say "CAN'T" I can't lose weight, I can't eat what everyone else eats, I can't feel like the hyper bubbly me that I desperately want to be again because of my adrenal fatigue, I can...

I go to buy a coffee after a 4am wake up and a string of I don't even know how many days straight of crazy stress. No. No coffee. I turn to face my travel companion. She, having just stirred in a little sugar, samples the hot tasty goodness of the apparent LAST cup of coffee gold. So relegating myself to the task of finding some overpriced alternative, I look up in the middle of my search only to see that the man who had been standing behind me walk away with nothing other than a cup of coffee. WTF? Where is Alanis Morissette when you need her? Digging in my purse I discover that I may have forgotten my coin purse full of the local currency I opt to pay for my 5 Euro half cup of yogurt with blueberries with my VISA. Swipe one...the card won't read. No problem. With determination, I whip out my Mastercard... NOPE on that one too. I stare at the European goddess in front of me behind the cash register wielding all her "its impossible" power. My companion leans ove...

How do you spend time together over the summer with your kiddos?               We usually spend the summer with a dream itinerary of swimming pools, gelato, traveling, bible study/prayer time, a goal of a certain number of books to read and brushing up on the next level in Math and English so that the boys start the year with lots of confidence. Oh and sweet snuggles.             Reality looks a little different. We end up with full schedules of training for football, Daddy goes TDY most of the summer so our trips get cut by half, the dog has to be neutered and the price for pet sitting goes up so the trips would have to be less extravagant anyway because coupled with the bazillion unplanned van repairs on our 15-year-old Ruby and the news that we will PCS a full year sooner than expected we have less cash flow. (Not the worst problems to have but not the dream list)          ...

If obsessing with weight, and general perfectionistic narcissism and procrastination were superpowers I have them. I am the winningest winner of those issues...okay add humility lacking in the above diagnostic list and we have Cass. The truth is, like you, I am a lot of things. I am a woman (maybe like you, maybe not). I am the daughter of a heavenly king, and an earthly hero, I am the wife of the most really in true life fairytale love servant leader and soldier (yep...all wrapped up in one blue-eyed hot hubby) and mama to two wicked smart, handsome, genuinely awesome young men and a shepherd pup and his sister cat. Like you, my life is full of stress, craziness and joy and unfathomable love. I am on a mission to live joyfully. That has been my insta hashtag for forever but today...TODAY....I embrace it in a new way. I really want to embrace happy, manage stress, lose fat, be healthy, and be a good human. If I can "be less of a jerk" like Dan Harris says that would be...