Good McLean Fun

  Thank you for checking in on me! Pregnant, at 39 years old, 40 in December...with my 6th baby, and we're 36 weeks today. I wrote a blog post in 2014 about how bittersweet it was to be in my last pregnancy ever. But now, surprise!! Here we are again!  This is my 5th pregnancy. All pregnancies had led to healthy living babies. I have never had a miscarriage. I have never known that pain, I have never lost a child, I have never known that grief. But I know so many of you who have had both, or either, and so I write with all the sensitivity and sympathy in the world. Please know I don't intend to highlight your pain when I write about pregnancies and babies.  If it hits too close to home please abandon ship, you don't need anything extra to sort through and I'm just praying God will answer your prayers because He is good and He is able.  So this particular blog won't be full of clever metaphors or jokes, I just wanted a place to document what I'm experiencing and

(Originally written in 2018, finally published, in 2022.) I don’t have the words to sum up the last 9 months of my life. Actually that’s not true. I have too many words. And some of them just cannot be shared on this blog. 2018 ended with heartache, and 2019 started with heartache. And it hasn’t actually gone away. That’s the thing about real, deep heartache. Time doesn’t ever fully heal the pain, does it? It can be dulled, it can be momentarily forgotten, it can be lost amongst the more pervasive moments we must deal with day to day. But the heartache doesn’t leave completely. And I’m struggling because I know that so much healing lies on the other side of sharing these heartaches—on the other side of eyes red and raw, on the other side of sobs and gasping for breath type crying, there is opportunity for healing, for empathy, for a willing soul to share in the grief. But I’m struggling because these heartaches run too deep. They cross over into many lives. They have already

Important family updates for the final quarter of 2018! I’ve asked myself these things countless times over the last 4 months... Where have I been? 👣 Where am I headed? What now? So much can change in a year’s time—even in a few months! Think about your own family members, finances, health, career circumstances— life is pretty unpredictable. This time last year Ryan got sick 😷 and developed double pneumonia, which actually uncovered serious heart problems he’s still having to manage with 6 medications. ❤️ 😳🙏🏻 Our health is so precious—so fragile. When you or a loved one’s health is at risk, you look at life through a different lense. 🔭 This time last year my team was breaking records and promoting me to the top 1% of the company. 🙀🙌🏼 Today that same company is no longer in existence as I knew it. 😳 Just 4️⃣months ago they filed for bankruptcy 📉 and left thousands of us wondering...unsure of our business future. 😲(Thankfully for those desiring to continue, a smal

This blog was written a year ago, but I never published it. I think I was too embarrassed and frustrated to put it out into the world wide web at the time. But now that we own our first home, I can share... If you are currently renting, and you don't have any issues, count yourself blessed!!  If you're dreaming of your own home and being an owner someday, keep praying, keep saving, keep believing--it will happen for you! Captain's Log: 2016. As you may or may not know we are currently renters. When we moved from Key West 3 years ago, we were sharing living space with 4-5 other adults. For those not counting, that was up to 10 of us under 1 roof for a few years.  You can read about those fun times in previous blog posts such as The Nut House . When a job opened up for Ryan in Vero Beach we were all too ready to move. We found this little spot on Craigslist and put the 1st and security deposit over the phone without having seen the inside. We were just feeling so bless

I really want to post of pic of my cute “It’s Fall Y’all” motif I have going on in my house, but I can’t because there’s nothing cute about the situation at my house. I want to diffuse pumpkin spice in my bamboo diffuser and sit wistfully by the windowsill, sipping my mocha choca latte dadah, but my windowsills are dusty and I don’t have a bamboo diffuser, and I have too much to do. MAN the longing to have  adorable autumn porch decor is REAL y’all! But money is tight, and there are hundreds of hieroglyphic chalk markings, wet chalk chunks, and a bunch of planters with dead crispy leaves soaking up all my creative juices as I stare at them...clearly not motivated enough to clean it up and make it fancy. Come to think of it... maybe I should leave the dead leaves and dust and just call it a head start on Halloween decor. It is so easy to become dissatisfied in our culture because of social media. I can feel content, until I look to the right or left and see I am surrounded by Pint

I’m disappointed in me. 2017 is over in 5 days, and I have only written ONE blog post in the entire year. Is this true?? ME?! I’m full of words & stories--and I didn’t catalog a fraction of them this year. I used to fill pages and pages of journals and diaries when I was younger. Now I can’t even make it to 2 entries per year. So pathetic. No respectable blogger would ever dream of posting just twice a year. I’m full of regret and a little disdain. I WILL write down more of my thoughts in 2018. I won’t call it a resolution, but I am resolved. I've even changed my blog name from Mediocre Mom to Good McLean Fun...hoping to drop the connotations of the past. Because you know what they say...don't bring last year's self to next year's goals. I read recently, a blog is most successful if the author writes often, and succinctly. Soooooo yeah. Clearly my blog is not a success. I can’t get 2 posts out over 12 months and I write novels when I actually do sit down