Tag Archives: Today

75 Hard, Things Grandpa Said, More of What There Should Be and Other Perfectly Orchestrated Coincidences

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God is truly all wonderful and all powerful.

As of Monday, November 20th I have officially completed my 75 Hard. 75 days of working out twice per day for 45 minutes each, drinking a gallon of water, following a diet, no cheat meals, no alcohol, taking a progress photo and also reading 10 pages of nonfiction. No alterations to the program. If you fail a task, you must restart on Day 1.

I began this challenge as a positive step towards consistency in my life. My main goal is to become intentional and consistent.

Our loving God is two very important things: Intentional and consistent. Here are some other things that have lined up perfectly today to assure me on my path.

The day I finished was a Monday. According to my Grandpa, “the most happy day of the week.” Please read the photo attached of a letter my grandpa wrote about Monday and the many blessings we are each afforded every day, but that I will take the time to acknowledge each Monday because of him.

That same day I read an entry I have never read in the Big Book. It made me cry. It was from a woman who had spent a long time in the rooms and was discussing how even with all her clean time she was still struggling to express her needs to others. She wanted to stand off instead. I often find myself feeling this way. It feels more natural for me to attempt to isolate as an alcoholic even now nearly 4 years sober. I work to live a better life every day. I want to be someone who communicates and takes responsibility for my emotions.

This is the text that stood out to me the most from her: “Thank Heaven nothing is as bad as it used to be and there is so much more of what there should be in my life.”

A little sob escaped me. Thank Heaven indeed. I am so fortunate.

Also the day lined up so that I would be cooking lunch for all of God’s people out at House of Prayer. This meal that I cook will be the official anniversary of my service work with the ministry. One whole year of feeding his people. Feeding folks is a ministry that was given to me by my parents through their passion for the church and the divine steering of God towards all things food and feeding others. The most direct picture of this ministry was modeled to me by both of my dads throughout my life beginning when I was very young. My dad feeding the unhoused in California while our family was in mourning. My bonus dad feeding other families each year for the holidays and through his restaurants.

The same day I also was awarded my Community Engagement cord for my service work with House of Prayer, HDCA, Cleburne Chamber, SHINE and now even the backup. project. (Get involved at http://www.thebackupproject.com)

I will wear this when I graduate with my masters to signify my time in service to my community in the duration of my studies.

Some people may not even notice the divine timing of these things, and I will pray for their eyes to be opened. If life is a symphony and we are the orchestra then surely God is the greatest conductor of all.

I am thankful for a love so powerful that His goodness can be shown to me in such an extreme way.

It brings a tear to my eyes to write this. To know I am lucky enough to even be alive in this moment, to experience so many blessings all on one day. What a wonderful season of gratitude. It really is that simple.

If you have read this, thank you. I hope you will commit to beginning something for yourself that you have been putting off for some time. You are smart, capable and important enough to begin the work on or with yourself and God will be with you through it. I pray over all of your own victories as well and for all the moments when you get to suddenly realize that nothing is as bad as it was and that there is so much more of what should be in your life.

Thank you, God. Gracias, Papa Dios.

XOXO,

NBNealie

Grief by Land and Sea

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Every day since my best friend got pregnant I have become a master researcher in all things pregnancy, babies, baby safety, baby parties and Jesus. Especially Jesus, because I was appointed God Mother.

In fact, I downloaded one of those baby apps just to see what size her baby was every week. I often think back in amazement on how he started out the size of a sprinkle on a donut. At the start of the week I would send a text message. “Do you want to know how big baby is this week?” One week I even sent her a strawberry shirt to lounge in with a note, “This week baby is a strawberry! I am so berry excited!”

You see, I take my role very seriously because I am not having children of my own. Being invited to take part in such an important piece of a tiny human’s journey (their relationship with Papa Dios) has been the #1 privilege of my life.

In April we received a fatal diagnosis for my God Son that would result in almost instantaneous loss at his birth. In that moment I realized my role would be abridged. I had to shift my focus to getting him to heaven alongside my greatest friends of all and praying over all of this new, terrible and terrifying journey.

My God Son was born into heaven this August.

I cannot ever accurately put into words the grief associated with watching someone you love so much being coping with the loss of their own baby. The grief of months of preparation and planning and future building that seem to come to an abrupt end. The grief that ripples through the entire family.

The Rail Ride of Grief

It’s as if you’re on a train and you can’t get off of the train no matter how many stops it makes before yours. No matter how much speed it gains, time spend in holding on the side rails or how many stops it makes at places you would rather go instead, you’re stuck in the train car, watching through the windows, until your stop.

At some point it feels like you may never get off the train.

Until all of a sudden you do, you’re at the station. You have approximately 10 seconds to gather your bags and jump off all the while you find yourself pushed onto the platform instead. When you look back the train is gone. When you look down you’ve left most of your luggage.

At the station it seems like nothing you could have packed would have prepared you anyways, the weather is both too hot and too cold, it’s raining hard but the sun is out. You expected to find someone waiting for you, but they’re not here. You’ll have to walk the rest of the way home or call an Uber.

In my case, I decided I’d rather walk. We all know how unpredictable ride sharing can be.

Unused Furniture

If I’m honest with myself, every time I walk in my garage I cry just a little. At our house we prepared for our friends to not have to travel with much for us to spend time with them and Daniel. There is a little white high chair alongside all my stray boxes and decor. The chair gathers dust while it waits for him, while we all wait for him. He will never sit in it and that is something someone can never truly wrap their heart around.

Since August it is as if a part of my brain has been on hold. Waiting as well and gathering dust while we all wait for him. Hoping for the missing piece in our lives to click into place from somewhere. Perhaps holding to unload the new sadness that often feels like a case of broken celebratory champagne bottles in my heart. Maybe for answers or understanding, but I know some things pass all understanding.

A Healthy Respect for the Ocean

I have spent this past week on a cruise ship with my husband and our dear friends.

Each time I get on a boat I repeat to myself, “I have a healthy respect for the ocean.” As in, I’m not afraid of the ocean, but I’m aware of its depths, occasional roughness and its role as home to very large animals.

During this trip, while I look out at the vast, blue, deep ocean, I think of my own God Mother and how I throw up a hang loose sign just for her in all my photos while I enjoy life just as she instructed me to while she was on Earth with us. I think of Daniel, who I will not experience these things with on Earth.

I’ve also spent my fair share of time in the ocean while exploring. Just this week I kissed a stingray equal in size to myself and snorkeled a beautiful underwater national park.

The Beach of Grief

I rounded out my ocean time on one of my favorite private beaches. I find myself thinking that, over time, maybe grief can be like a beach.

The waves can be the overwhelming moments of grief with ebbs of everyday life, the sand at shore can be the happy moments or ways I cope or people who have loved me through these experiences, I will be just beyond the breaking wave on the soft sand and my sadness can remain the broken glass.

Some days, I know the grief will form in huge swells and my sadness will slam over the sand, my support system. The glass will spill over onto me where I sit on the land causing even more pain, but the tide will come back up again and take the glass back out into the waters.

Over time, the sharp, broken edges of my sadness will be worn away and whittled down into smoothness by the shores I’ve built. The memories of this sadness will hurt when they hurtle at full speed into the sand, but they will be more beautiful to remember and cherish, just like sea glass.

Today I am reminded that our darkest sadness and the brightest joys coexist every day in our temporary home on Earth. I am also reminded of the promise that one day we will all be together again without sadness or pain in our true home heaven. I take comfort in God’s promise to us. I give my sadness over to Jesus for him to turn into sea glass.

“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.” Matthew 5:4

XOXO,

NBNealie

My Beef with Beef

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Hello NBN since we last talked I have become an ethical vegetarian. I’m here today to talk to you all about being a vegetarian (and no, I’m not trying to pressure you to become a vegetarian) why, how, and the difficulties I have faced since making the big decision to break up with all my favorite foods. IF YOU DON’T LIKE OPINIONS CLICK AWAY NOW BECAUSE THIS IS MINE.

WHY?

I have taken several courses in environmental and  animal ethics philosophy for my minor. In every single course I had well constructed arguments for why being a vegetarian was the single most dumb thing in the world and why everyone should get over themselves and eat meat and blah blah blah. I was so pro-meat-eating that I never even really gave vegetarian arguments a chance. That is, until I watched several documentaries that gave me a new perspective about how factory farming was affecting something that I really did care about – the world. (We only have one of those you know…)

Farming practices didn’t bother me because I grew up in the 4-H and the FFA. I had an understanding from the time I was little that we raise animals to be big and healthy – and then they get sent off to be slaughtered. We watch the slaughter videos from the time we’re about nine-years-old here in the south so I was unfazed by the graphic nature of the “vegetarian/vegan propaganda” that each new ethics class presented to me. In fact, I would watch these videos and promptly eat a burger on my way home.

The video that changed it all had to be Cowspiracy. (Which is a video aimed towards vegan-ism however I am definitely not there in my journey so please vegans of the world… Be kind while I eat my eggs/cheese and figure out when/if I’ll stop that.) The cheese-ball title had me rolling my eyes before it even started. (I think I even ignored the first five minutes of it to play Monster Busters on my phone.) Then they discussed the amount of pollution caused by factory farming and my fingers went from swiping away at monsters on my iPhone screen to neatly folded on my desk. These people had my attention.

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For me personally I come from a family that has jobs deeply rooted in the fossil fuel/natural gas industries. I have a dad and step-mom hauling coal on trains and a step-dad in the oil industry. Their jobs are criticized HEAVILY and DAILY at my university for contributing to the pollution of the world. (Yeah… Okay… So do you every time you get into your car but you still buy gas now don’t you?) SO for Cowspiracy to blame MORE pollution on the factory farming industry than my family was a big deal. Factory farming accounts for more pollution than all transportation combined WORLDWIDE according to Cowspiracy. That means more than every plane, train, and car over this big blue planet. According to this documentary the only reason that this fact is so ignored and why most companies that are trying to stop pollution from the oil industries and such instead of all the actual relevant sources of pollution is… They are bought and paid for by big farming companies to keep their mouths shut.

Even without fossil fuels, we will exceed our 565 gigatonnes CO2e limit by 2030, all from raising animals.

Oppenlander, Richard A. Food Choice and Sustainability: Why Buying Local, Eating Less Meat, and Taking Baby Steps Won’t Work. . Minneapolis, MN : Langdon Street, 2013. Print.

Source: calculation is based on http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6294 analyses that 51% of GHG are attributed to animal ag.

I was overjoyed! HOORAY! FINALLY A DOCUMENTARY THAT DOESN’T HATE MY FAMILY’S LIVELIHOOD! Then suddenly… I wasn’t. Factory farming practices causing THAT MUCH pollution was not okay and I was not okay with it and that was not okay right? Right. Then because I was so heavily impacted and so charged to actually make a change I… I went home and had a burger. For the next several months I went home and had a burger, I had chicken, I had bacon, I HAD IT ALL.

Then one day in my Ethics class a very nice vegan girl told the class why she was vegan, “Once you know better you have to do better.”

And because I love our planet and I wasn’t very well going to stop driving any time soon… I quit eating meat.

HOW?

This was the hardest transition ever. I have no other vegetarian friends, I can no longer just pick anything I want off of the dollar menu, and (the cherry to top off the hell pie) my love affair with bacon, sausage, and burgers was officially over.

Every time I walked up to order I would groan because I couldn’t get “the usual”. I would be hit with a pang of sadness knowing that half of the menu at most places was off-limits for me. I WOULD DROWN IN MY SORROWS BECAUSE IN THIS CRUEL WORLD VEGETARIAN OPTION MEANS SALAD!!! I am not a rabbit. I do not want lettuce for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Until it wasn’t the hardest thing ever. I decided that I love black bean tacos, potatoes, steamed veggies, black bean burgers, humus, and black bean subs/pita. Quite apparently science has come so far that people are pretty good at making things that are not meat taste a lot like meat and I am forever indebted to these people.

I guess the real how is just: I remembered to deprive myself of meaty goodness in the interest of protecting our planet until I eventually found vegetarian foods that I loved a lot.

DIFFICULTIES?

Well let me talk you through a scenario…

Most people in your life will try but fail to hide the look of disgust on their face when they ask, “WHY don’t you eat meat though?”.

Most people will try even harder and yet fail even harder to hide the look of annoyance on their face when you tell them that it’s because pollution from factory farms accounts for more pollution than all transportation combined.

Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation.   [i]

Fao.org. Spotlight: Livestock impacts on the environment.

After that they will not hide any of the mean looks when they say, “You’re only one person so why do you think you can change anything?”

(By the way: Because there are a lot of us “one persons” walking around not eating meat and making a change together. Feel free to join us.)

These people are probably placing their insecurity about not wanting to make such a large sacrifice in order to better the world onto you. I suggest doing what we do best here at NBN and kill them with kindness.

It really does bother people that in order to make a change in the world you have to make a big lifestyle change. That sometimes means giving up convenience and can tend to make people very uncomfortable. Take me for example, I single-handedly talked two dear friends out of being vegetarian because I was insecure about not wanting to make such a big change in my life… It made me feel like a bad person! It shouldn’t. You should celebrate the people that are willing to change for the planet you live on. I celebrate vegans for being able to take an extra step that I just can’t seem to take. I’m not insecure about it anymore. I have focused that energy into celebrating the people that can. You should too.

(NOTE: This will happen until every person in your life has heard your entire spiel unless a few of them need to hear it a few times to understand that you’re seriously not going to be eating meat.)

PERSONAL BENEFITS

For me, personally, I have been getting the best sleep of my life. I spend less time asleep during the day and less time awake at night. I don’t rely on afternoon naps anymore and find that where usually I would need a coffee at 9 a.m., 12 p.m., and 3 p.m., I really only need the one in the morning. I feel more focused in my classes and after a FULL really great vegetarian meal my hunger stays away longer.

I might just be sleeping better knowing that I am a part of minimizing harm to the world but who knows.

Please email me with any questions at: NothingButNealie@yahoo.com

Feel free to comment below.

And until next time…

XOXO,

NBNealie

Tennis Today.

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My partner Hampton and I played one match so far. The other guy we were playing broke his strings the first ball he hit. So he had to use my extra racquet. (It was made circa 1800, swear.) Later he got a better racquet and aced us a lot. Blah. That’s how my days going, hope yours is good!

BTW I used this app called group shot to make the teams look like they have three players. I’m THAT bored.

XOXO

Yesterday! TODAY. Tomorrow?

I went to in-n-out burger with my friend Elizabeth after a great day of shopping and stocking up on art supplies because I’ve got canvases to make!((: Sorry for no post yesterday lovies! Just got done hiking (Picture of how gorgeous it was attached.) now for some food then a shower then an hour or two of HW. Tomorrow will be a very busy Monday filled with tests, make up work, and practice. Sweet dreams!

XOXO

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What Today Consists Of.

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Today I’m cleaning. I know. This is probably the most interesting thing to read about on my blog, ever. But it’s the only thing I’m really doing at the moment. I have a very small room but I’ve been at it for more than an hour now. My evening will be MUCH more interesting. It involves going out to eat with my friend Kitty and awaiting the premiere of Pretty Little Liars! I can blog more about way better things happening in my life at a later time! This month, (two days really) I’ve gotten 160 views! Thank you so much! Remember you can subscribe by email and post any comments concerning the blog or you can comment with suggestions! Keep on reading.(: I’ll have more pictures and fun stuff up soon.

XOXO