Who IS Hannah Keeley?

In brief, to me, Hannah Keeley is another mom-- a busy mom-- who has been where I am and acknowledges it.  She's figured out a way to get the chaos under control, pay the bills, get a job, home school her children (not a particular goal of mine, really), and not lose herself or her mind.  To me she's a great resource and touch stone, not just of this is how she DID it but this is how she gets it done...


She's authored a few books and I own them... and they really have led me away from negativity.  Now, please keep in mind that 2009 was one ginormous speed bump in my life... well more like "Bridge out Ahead" and no other ones in sight.  Without going into too much detail, and without seeming like I'm not responsible for my actions, in an attempt to solve one problem in my life, I made a minor change... I went from Lexapro to Pristiq to deal with my depression issues.  It eventually caused a physical reaction that led my nurse practitioner to take me off of it... and when the withdrawal symptoms subsided, I looked around my house and thought, "Dear Lord, have we really been living in this disorganized mess... " Only there was a lot more blame and swearing involved and it wasn't like I noticed suddenly but gradually got this sense of the walls closing in on me.  I was mad, I was frustrated, and it was not pretty to watch at all (yet for some reason Steve is STILL here... the man definitely is working on his corporeal works of mercy... I won't go so far as to say "Sainthood" because that's a bit comical).


So, now we've gotten the house cleaned up, the basement de-junked, but the clutter is out of control and the routines I'd gotten into are permanently hosed... so I'm starting over from scratch again. 

As an alternative to replacing the Pristiq my nurse suggested a psychologist (and you don't even want to know what I think about "talk therapy")... well, turns out... I'm NOT manic depressive, nor schizophrenic, nor even depressed.  Yeah, I'm down a lot, and some days I feel out... but the truth is I'm OVERWHELMED... maybe I was before and have been all along, but according to the Doc... it's lead to anger management issues.  LMAO... anyone every been on the receiving end of one of my outbursts would definitely agree... And the key to resolving that issue is to get a higher frustration tolerance and get my life under control.  Instead of trying to juggle all the balls, let a few drop by the wayside.

So... though I love my kids, 90% of my volunteering at St Mary's is now on hold.  Not that I did a lot but for literal sanity's sake, I had to back off.  I'm slowly rolling back out onto the social scene after a few months of purposefully isolating myself... I didn't feel like I could handle a girl's night out (or a trip to visit family in Chicago).  Because I didn't want to bring my worst self to the event.  Now, you get my "I'm okay... but a little nervous" self... and I'm hoping those who meet up with me can accept that.

Yet, I digress, because, well who is Hannah Keeley and what does she have to do with this... generally speaking, I can blow $20 in a heartbeat, and if you multiply that, simply multiply the heartbeats.  So last week, I invested in Hannah's 5 Minute Mom program... and I'm only on day 4 (took the weekend off because of Sammie's party)... but she's not blowing sunshine into the wrong places, but really shedding a light and guiding me to look at the places I need to look .  And can I just say, I love that she's bringing the bible into it.  One of my hugest commitments right now is to stop shrugging my shoulders and walking away from God but to say, "Okay, I'll do it."

In a time management class I took, the only thing I walked away with was the instructor saying, "You can mow the lawn, or you can have fun mowing the lawn."  In some sense, this is Hannah's attitude, but instead of leaving it at that I feel like she's showing me the yard, explaining what needs to be done, helping me put gas in the mower... but ultimately, she's going to let me mow the lawn my way.  So if you're interested, give it a try... I'd love to hear what you think and how it works for you. [And Hannah did say "You get what you expect, not what you want." and that totally defined Sammie's party... I expected awesome and I got it.]