15 Things You May Not Know About Me

So I've been tagged lately in a few of those "11 things" or "15 things" or whatever else has been floating around on the internet. I shared a few randoms here and there but I thought it would be easier to do one simple post instead of trying to respond to everything everyone has tagged lately. I love them all but I just don't have the time! So here it is, 15 (pretty random) things you may not know about me.

1. I never planned on having children. People would say I'd be a great mother someday but that wasn't how I saw things going for me. Luckily Everly had other ideas and joined our family at the perfect time. She is spectacular and I couldn't do life without her. 
2. I've been married twice. The first time was painful and awful, though not always, and it taught me so much about love and life. Divorce was a difficult thing to go through but I am this person today because of the difficult things I've been through and I really like me. I count Aaron in my blessings every single day and thank all the good in the world for him. He is my better half.
3. I am a doula, but if you told me five years ago that it would be my job one day there is no way I would have listened. I didn't understand the miracle of childbirth back then and I certainly didn't want anything to do with it. Now I can't imagine doing anything else.
4. I love to sew. I was always scared of it because I "didn't know what I was doing" and everyone around me seemed to make amazing things that I could never measure up to. Then one day I sat down to a machine and taught myself and I've been in love ever since.
5. I love to take pictures. I take all our family pics and do them for some close friends and family as well. I don't think I would ever want to be a professional photographer though. 
6. I have a book collection to rival a small library. I will read anything I can get my hands on and often times I'm reading multiple books at the same time. I love getting lost in another world, another life, another story.
7. I'm writing a novel. I've been writing it for a while now and one day I will finish it and (hopefully) publish it. Before my divorce I was writing a really beautiful story but I stopped because after the divorce it became very angry and bitter. I didn't want to ruin my story but I couldn't find any positive energy to put into it so I stopped. I don't think I'll ever finish that one.
8. I love to help people. I think that's part of what drew me to doula work. But truly, I love it. I'm not saying I'm selfless (because I'm definitely not), I'm saying I help people and it makes me feel great. So maybe it's selfish to help other people just to make myself feel good? It's something to think about.
9. I have played the piano since I was five and I'm quite good. I'm not to the level of concert pianist or anything like that but I can play almost anything you put in front of me. It wasn't until band class in middle school when my teacher was introducing us to the basics that I realized most people can't read music. 
10. I don't like movies very much but I love TV shows. I prefer the in-depth stories and three dimensional characters that television offers to the quick burst of a movie. If I'm not in a theater I cannot sit still and watch a movie start to finish. 
11. I work with the movement Sacred Pregnancy and I deeply believe in it. There is something about pregnancy that changes a woman and the world needs to put the sacred back into pregnancy. I love working with them and I count myself so lucky that I get to be a small part of this amazing organization. 
12. I like to do things that scare me. Not in a terrified out of my mind way, but in a way that I get that adrenaline rush that makes my heart race. When I got my tattoo I planned and waited for weeks before doing it (since that's kind of permanent) but when I went in to do it I was thrilled and I had such a rush. When I jumped on a plane to Japan 2 days after buying a ticket just to have a new adventure I felt the same thing. I love to be adventurous. 
13. Aaron saved me when I really needed saving. I was anti-love and that's not a good way to live your life. I completely credit him for helping me realize that it wasn't love I needed to be against. I tried pretty hard to push him away when we started to get close but he knew this was something special, extraordinary even, and he told me so. And he was right. I am so lucky he knew we would be worth it and he stuck with me through the bad to get to the good.
14. Everly saved me when I didn't even realize I needed saving. Aaron and I were living a happy little life together but we had a gaping hole. I didn't know it. I didn't know something was missing. The day I found out I was pregnant that hole was filled and I realized how desperately I wanted the tiny baby growing inside me. I also became paralyzed with fear over the next 9 months that somehow I wouldn't get her. 
15. Being a mom is the scariest thing I've ever done in my life. It is a daily fight to not be too protective, too overbearing, too worried about every step my daughter takes. It is the most terrifying, rewarding, difficult, amazing, wonderful thing I've ever done in my life. I think these pictures say it all.

xo Sue