Let me get you caught up on The Farleys.
Cory continues to work on his phd and will be graduating in May 2012. So close! He puts in long, long hours at the lab and they are paying off! He has a research facility in Kansas City, MO that is interested in him and just this past week, he recieved an email that the chairman of the engineering dept at Mizzou is interested in him and wants his resume! Oh, that just makes my heart happy because that means there is real potential for us to get closer to my family! He will be doing his defense sometime in March. Pray for him as he gets down to the final parts of his dissertation. It is more work than you can possibly imagine. I am so proud of his dedication and you should hear him talk about his research...I'm just in awe of his massive brainpower!
I am currently "working" as a stay at home mom. I left my job in September to be home with Eli. The hospital here was a horrible fit for me for many, many reasons. I could write my own dissertation on that, but I will spare you ;) I do intend to work when we move and I hope to work with hospice patients. Although I really must say, I LOVE being a stay at home mom. It is truely the best job EVER. I love playing with Eli, and watching him learn and grow and giving him new experiences. It is so fun to watch his little mind work and try to figure things out. He is a little miracle. I just can't even begin to describe how much I love that little boy!
You can click HERE to see an album I have created on Facebook called The Daily Dood where I try to post a pic for everyday for Little E.
In other news, I have had an emotionally rough year. I have been battling negative body image, which has roots from my teenage years, but really reared its ugly head after having Eli. It was so severe that I completely considered becoming anorexic, but don't worry, I didn't make that choice. However, that is how bad it was. I had postpartum depression and severe negative body image. After nearly 10 months of emotional hell and a spiritual warfare, I have finally broke through and I am living with a positive body image now (most days). I even spoke at our MOPS (mother of preschoolers) event on negative body image, my story and how to battle it. I started a blog that you can check out HERE that has not only been something I use to keep myself accountable, but also as a way to write about what I am going through. Writing is therapeutic to me and I have put my whole heart out there for you and others to read. Here is an example of me putting my heart out there, read THIS. There is alot more to the story than what I am sharing here on the family blog, and if you are curious, you will have to go read the Faith and Fitness blog. If you are on facebook, you can also follow me HERE. That should take you to the fb page of Faith & Fitness: Living Healthy For Him (thats my page). My whole weight loss journey and battle with negative body image is there on that blog. I will say that I have lost 58 lbs since having Eli, and I am currently 132.4 lbs...I was 145 lbs prepregnancy. And I did it all the RIGHT way. But its not only about the weight loss. It's about winning the spiritual battle that goes with negative body image. I will be starting a sort of "video blog" on my Faith and Fitness blog soon where I will tell my story to my followers of the blog/fb page. I have recieved emails from my followers of my FB page and had friends from MOPS relate to me on this subject. I have been told that my page inspires others to fight their own battle. I ask the Lord to use me as a vessel to help others thru this blog and my experiences and I feel like that is exactly what he is doing! Today, thanks be to God, I am living HEALTHY in mind, spirit and body!
I also have another blog (really, I know I have 3 blogs, but it doesn't consume that much time to blog!) When I write, it just flows so it's not like I just sit around and blog all day ;) One of my passions is crafting, and letting creativity flow, so I have another blog/fb page that I have started called "I did it on {re}purpose." You can check out that blog HERE and the fb page HERE . It is SOOO fun and I love sharing my creativity with others. It is a relatively new blog so it is a work in progress :)
I will leave you with the most recent picture of Eli. We went out to play in the snow (for like 5 minutes! Cuz we didn't want Little E to freeze!) but those 5 minutes were SOOO fun :)
