Boy do I have a story for y’all that I’m sure is relatable & hopefully will give you a little enjoyment this Tuesday. I have promised to be real and honest about life and this past weekend is a perfect opportunity to share just how much the reality of having kids hit me.

This past Saturday was a ROUGH one for my kids and me. I started off the morning in a little bit of a not-so-happy mood. I wasn’t mad, but definitely not my usual self. Once I woke up the morning just started to decline by the minute. It’s important to note that my husband has been gone since February off and on and hasn’t been home at all since August so I have been dealing with my little minions on my own for quite some time. A mental breakdown was bound to happen at some point right?

First offense: I’m trying to get in the shower which is not a death sentence for my almost 1 year old. He now sits in my bathroom and cries at the shower curtain until I get out. I have now cut my showers down to a good 3-5 minutes. Quickly washing my hair and my body (if I’m lucky). Take note that I did ask the 8 year old to keep an eye on him for 5 minutes so I could shower but her Hulu account is her number one priority on a Saturday morning. By the time she noticed he was back in my bathroom and not in the living room with her I was already racing out of the shower.

Second offense: Time to do my hair. I take my son and put him on the sink. I fill the sink just a little bit with some water so he can splash his feet in it while I blow dry my hair which takes a solid 10 minutes. In that time my husband is texting me about his luxurious all inclusive resort he’s going to in port, including a jacuzzi and massage on the beach, which literally infuriated me due to it being impossible for me to even shower for 5 minutes. He wasn’t doing it to brag, he was simply sharing his excitement but I shut that down pretty quickly by going off on him for even thinking I wanted to hear about him having fun while I was stuck in fresh hell with our children. THEN my son decides to sit in the sink, with his clothes on, and grab my phone and drops in in the sink (thankfully for just a quick second before I grabbed it). I LOST IT. When I tell you I screamed at my baby. I SCREAMED at him, curse words included. Shame on me, I know.

Third offense: I try to calm down, literally on the verge of tears. I walk upstairs to get son changed out of his soaking wet clothes and I hear my niece/daughter FaceTiming my sister telling her I am losing my mind and screaming at everyone. True, but the mental breakdowns that happen in this house stay in this house. I then proceed to cry-scream at her for calling my sister and she starts crying. So its about 915am, we are supposed to be out the door in 15 minutes, we’re all SOBBING. I literally cried the rest of the day, probably due to my hormones, being that I’m 7 months pregnant.

But it was rough, Sister. It wasn’t pretty. And honestly, I’m okay with it. Of course I wish I had reacted differently. I definitely should not cry, scream, or curse at my young children. But I have granted myself the grace of having a mental breakdown. Life got the better of me that day. So I want to tell y’all if you’re having a rough day/week/month/year I FEEL Ya! I am with you! Give yourself some grace. You’re allowed to have days like this. You will survive. Your kids will survive. You just have to keep rockin’ and rollin’ and pray it gets better.

I would like to shout out my Gran. My saving grace in my chaotic life. Who goes out of her way for me all the time. The next day she took my kids and treated me to a facial and pedicure so I could have some “mommy time”. I pray y’all have a Gran in your life like I do. If you don’t, find one. Pay for one. Do WHATEVER you have to do. I literally would not make it without this woman. After my “mommy time” she sent me a text and said, “I’m not enabling you. Now it’s time to put on your big girl panties and get on with it!” She pampers me and then gives the tough love I need. She’s an angel sent from the high heavens.

-Savy J

Hello and Happy Friday!

Today I want to wrap up my thoughts on marriage with a topic that is very important to me and that’s having a serving heart towards your significant other.

I’ve said before marriage can be hard. One of the hardest things to do is go from a mindset that kind of revolves around just you and having to expand those thoughts into a mindset that is considerate of now you and your partner. It can be a struggle and it’s something that you definitely have to actively work towards. These practices can be simple, but I’ve made observations based on some reactions from other women when those moments come up and honestly I’m shocked at how many women (and men) don’t have serving hearts towards their significant others.

On Tuesday I mentioned that Chris and I just went through a tough time in our marriage. Months of him being out to sea and back home; throwing us both off. So after we had a heart to heart talk, that Sunday we went to church. We knew we needed God. I kid you not, the service we went to was talking about having a Gospel Centered Marriage. WOW. I call it a “Jesus Moment”. The Lord knew Chris and I needed to hear this. One thing our preacher spoke on was having a MUTUAL submission. This means that it takes the man AND woman to really make this work. Both of you have to be on the same page and be living out how God wants you to in your marriage or relationship. The scripture he referred to was Ephesians 5:15-30 if you want to read it.

Okay, so now that we know that submitting to our husbands (as they should submit to you) is what God is calling you to do, how can we implement this in our daily activities? It’s really not hard. Do for each other. For example, one thing that Chris and I do for each other is making each other’s plates for dinner. I remember when we were hanging out with friends and family one time a friend of mine saw me making his plate and they were literally shocked. They literally said, “He can make his own damn plate”. Well yes, he is more than capable, but I like serving my husband. I like doing things for him, simple things. It’s an easy way to show him I love him. When I walked in the garage to give him his plate the men were in just as much shock. “My wife would never make my plate” or “Look at Sav being a good wife”. The simple jester really does go a long way. He also will make my plate for me. It makes me feel great when my husband walks up to me with a plate of food because he loves me. It’s not a have dinner on the table by 5 and serve your husband mindset. It’s a “show acts of kindness and love because that’s what God intended for your relationship” mindset.

I always write my post before coming up with a title because I like the title to be cute and catchy. I decided on “Fill Each Other’s Plate”, Then I got to thinking. Can’t we take this literally and figuratively when talking about having a serving heart? Rather not necessarily filling each other’s plate with food, but fill your husband’s plate with love, kindness, laughter, acts of service, uplifting words, etc. Say “I love you” more at random times, shoot them a nice text in the middle of the day, let them know they are appreciated. I love sending Chris random text that simply say, “Hey, just thinking about ya! I love you and appreciate you! Can’t wait to spend some time with you this weekend!” It’s really not hard.

Ladies, I challenge you to change your actions & mindset. If you have the “He can make his own damn plate” mindset you may want to dig deep and fix that. Do you expect him to fill his own plate in the figurative sense? Would you like for him to fill your plate? I recognize this works both ways. Imagine how you would feel if your husband had the mindset of filling your plate literally and figuratively as well. How much better would your marriage or relationship be? How much healthier, effective, positive would it get? Don’t wait for your husband to take the initiative. Let’s be real, probably not gonna happen. You can take the initiative. Mention this to him. Tell him you want to fill his plate, literally and figuratively. You don’t have to do it in silence. Remember they aren’t mind readers and they’re too simple to think this much into it. If they do they’re a KEEPER! See how he responds, pray he follows. Remember MUTUAL submission.

-Savy J

Hello!

This week I will still be hitting on relationships and marriage. Today, specifically keeping God at the head of your relationships and marriage. I have a group of friends, we started doing bible studies together earlier this year, they’re my Jesus Sisters. One of my most favorite things about this group of women is that we are all in totally different areas in life. A few are married, a few have serious boyfriends, a few are single. They all work, I stay home with my kids. Some are in college, some are well established in their careers. We all get together and talk about God in our relationships, we share ideas, habits, tips. We talk about hard stuff. We cry. When I was thinking about this post I immediately thought about this group and how much I adore them and the bond we have built over these bible studies. And how even though we are all doing totally different things in life right now, we all seem to be able to relate to working on having God at the head of our relationship.

“A cord of Three strands is not easily broken” – Ecclesiastes 4:12. This verse is hanging in my living room. Basically what it means is that, a relationship with you, your partner, and God (the three strands) is not easily torn apart. Essentially, you can get through anything.

Now, my husband and I are guilty of not always having God at the head of our marriage. You and your significant other may be the same. Having faith can be a challenging thing at times, especially in more desperate times when you’re in a hurry for something to work out for y’all. You begin to force things to happen. What we miss is that our plan is not perfect. No matter how perfect it seems as you go over the logic in your head, its still not going to be close to what God can do for you and your relationship. I have a couple tips that have really helped my husband and me. They aren’t hard or time consuming, but they do require a little effort.

1. Pray: Pray all the time. For the most simple things. It’s not silly. Encourage your partner to pray. Talk about your prayers. I would love to say that my husband and I pray together. We don’t. We should, but we don’t. We do actively pray for each other and for our marriage though. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a military wife. My husband is gone all the time. One thing I love and that is really been helpful in our marriage is to get the same devotional book and we email back and forth what we got from the devotional, how we can apply it to our lives, and then we end with a prayer. I type my prayer & send it to Chris. He does the same. You can do this through text message too. This is a great alternative if praying together is a challenge for you. For me, praying is private. I just like talking to God alone. You may feel the same. It can be intimidating, like public speaking, to pray with your partner sometimes. I. Get. It. Or even let your partner know, “Hey, I prayed for you today” or “Hey, pray for me today”. Be that person. I know some are thinking if I sent that to my boyfriend he would probably be like “um, okay?” That’s okay. I encourage you to take that step and open that door. Let it get weird for a minute. It will get better.

2. Be aware and intentional: Story time. So with Chris gone all the time, one of the most challenging things for us is when he’s home for a week and then gone for 2 weeks. We are both SO use to being alone that when we’re together its chaotic and frustrating. This just happened right before he left for a three month underway in August. We had been arguing constantly. Making rude comments (both of us love to be sarcastic) which is funny but sometimes we take it too far, not being helpful to the other person, or being unavailable to each other. Not being willing to have a conversation or creating a body language that says, “Leave me the eff alone. I can’t stand you right now”. That’s not good. It’s real, it happens. So I make the effort. I get a baby sitter for a night. We don’t even have to pick the kids up after we go out (SCORE!) I tell him I’m taking him out on a date. We’re gonna grab sushi and then go out with a friend and do some brewery hopping (& best part, I’ll DD since I’m pregnant for the 100th time this year). We go to dinner and we were SILENT. I had planned this whole night and I still wasn’t making myself vulnerable, available to him. So he. My husband, who by the way always looks mad. Def has RBF. Doesn’t EVER show feeling (I often tell him he’s like a robot), says, “We aren’t putting God in our marriage. That’s our problem”. Crazy thing is I hadn’t even thought of that. But he was RIGHT. Yep, a man was RIGHT. And I will admit it. I started tearing up. This is what being aware means. Knowing, you two aren’t walking with God. Knowing you haven’t asked God for help during a tough time in your relationship. Knowing TO go to God. Turn to him, lean on him. I promise things will get better. It may not be instant, you still have to put in effort. You can’t ask God for help and continue with you crappy attitude towards your partner. Be intentional. Work on specific things with God. This problem between Chris and I didn’t magically go away after we had the realization. Every day we work on it. We have made a point to talk about ways to deal with him coming home and having to adjust to being together again. It’s a period of transition & its hard. But we pray that God will be with us during that time and keep us aware when things start to feel chaotic or frustrating that we stop ourselves and say, “No. We aren’t letting this get to us”. How can we make this work? How can we compromise? Is there an alternative? How should we word what we need to say so that we don’t come across confrontational? Do I need to step back, take a breath, and check my tone? Pray about it. Literally ask yourself these questions. I do. This is being aware & intentional and with God by your side you can do it.

We are sometimes going to stray away. We are human. That’s just a given. But its important to know when you have gotten off the path with God and started forming your own. Take the step with your partner and turn around and go back to Him. Communicate with your partner about wanting to bring God in your relationship. Its a lot easier when both people are working towards the same goal. It’s a process, a change in mindset, but its so worth it.

-Savy J

Hey ladies! So today I want to start to break down relationships. I realize that not everyone is married so I’m really gonna try to focus on dating & marriage. A couple things you need to know before I get into this talk. 1. I’m not here to bash men. 2. Ladies, I will and am going to hold you accountable for your place in your relationship. As should you. I can’t put everything I want to say about marriage into one post so I’m going to hit on two things that have been extreme eye openers for me and that I now have to actively work on every day.

First let me say that whether you’re dating or you’re married its freaking hard. I am not here to pretend that my husband and I have a perfect marriage or that we always get along. Please don’t think that. I know friends and family that know some Sav and Chris stories are saying to themselves, “No sh**”. Little background, I’ve been married to my husband, Christian, for 5 years this November. 5 LONG years. We dated for a whole 5 months before getting engaged and were married 3 weeks later at the ripe ol’ age of 20 & 21. In this time I’ve realized how much I love him. Seriously. Overall, he’s a solid husband. He’s honest, he’s sweet (and a little salty which keeps me on my toes), he’s a provider for our family, he’s loyal (as far as I know), he’s absolutely hilarious, communicates well for the most part and he’s overall average at being a dad (told you I keep it real). He tries. He loves them so much but parenting is hard and we’re new to it. It’s not a natural thing for men to jump into a parenting/nurturing like it is for women. On the flip side, no one pisses me off more than he can. Chris probably hears me say, “You’re pissing me off” at least 3 days a week.

This brings me to my first point, COMMUNICATION. I could talk about communication all day. Aside from honesty & loyalty, good communication is going to help you the most. Yeah, I tell my husband he’s pissing me off cause guess what ladies, men can’t actually read your mind. Stop giving them the silent treatment and punishing them until they guess. They aren’t smart enough and honestly, if they’re like my husband they don’t give a sh** when you act like that. You are not creating a productive/effective relationship. After I tell him he’s pissing me off he will stop (usually) and then we can move on. I’m not spending or wasting my time and energy bottling something up that can be solved within a couple minutes and neither should you. With this being said, there are times where a simple “You’re pissing me off” isn’t sufficient. When your man does something that fires you up. That will make you lash out, I suggest taking a step back. When my husband does something that makes me feel like that (usually on Saturday nights after a few too many), I don’t communicate with him because if I do the wrath his ass would catch is not healthy. It’s better, healthier, and more effective for me to keep my mouth shut until I can communicate with him what he did and why I don’t appreciate it and quite frankly won’t put up with it. This is coming from years of experience. I have not always been this knowledgeable believe it or not. I used to get a sick sense of enjoyment when I got to rip him a new one.

The second and final point I want to bring up that has really has hit home with me and made me realize how important it is for me to pay attention to the way and timing in which I react to him & things that go on in our house is that my children are listening and watching. If you don’t have kids yet that’s okay. Keep this in mind so you can create healthy relationship habits now. My 8 year old can hear me whisper to my husband something that is not meant for her ears but Lord knows she won’t hear me say, “clean that food off the coffee table” even after I’ve said it 15 times. Selective hearing is what they call it. And this goes for both spouses/significant others, but because women are my audience, I’m telling you hold yourself accountable in respect to what your children see you do/say. They are learning communication skills from you. How they see you interact with your significant other is how they will likely react to theirs when the time comes. They will mimic your level of self control, your words, and your actions. When I’m quick to react in anger I can see Juliette do the same. She’ll lose it on another kid in a heart beat. And it’s because she has seen me do the same to Christian.. and a few others. I’m not suggesting that you hide that marriage takes work, but show them in a healthy way. Let them see you communicate healthier and more effectively so they learn good habits that they will later use in their marriage and with their children.

So if your significant other needs to hear “You’re pissing me off” let them have it. But be knowledgeable about when you need to take a step back and breathe. And always remember little eyes and ears are right behind ya.

-Savy J

Let me start off by saying I am so excited to be here with you!

Now, let’s get down to who I am, what led me here and what I want to accomplish through these “Sav Talks”.

I am freshly out of college, by freshly I mean I literally submitted my last final last Sunday and I’m still waiting to be cleared for graduation. I also am getting a degree in a major that I have no intention of doing anything with, at least professionally. So I’m already off to a really great start.

BUT most importantly I am a momma to two (almost 3) beautiful children. I have custody of my 8 year old niece, I have an 11 month old son and I have another son who is due to arrive in January. You don’t have to read that over again. Yes, I am going to have two boys that are under a year & a half. No, I did not plan this out. I am also a military wife to the most wonderful pain in the butt you’ll ever meet. My husband is the guy that gives you the perfect mix of God, I love you and holy sh** I want to rock you in the face all at the same time.

So what led me here? Well I am a woman that has never found her purpose in life. What did the good Lord put me on this earth to accomplish? The answer is still unknown. If you would have asked me when I was a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up I would have said, “a mom and a wife”. My answer hasn’t changed. But I guess I feel like there has to be more to it. I have to do something beyond that. Not necessarily something great but just something, a purpose outside of changing diapers and being a personal Uber driver to an 8 year old. Anyways, I love self-help books. I am currently reading “Own Your Everyday” by Jordan Dooley. Who by the way, is fabulous. Totally recommend. This book is has encouraged me to jump out of my comfort zone. I can assure you that blogging is out of my comfort zone. So here I am, taking a leap of faith & willing to fail (but hoping & praying I won’t).

My goal with this blog is to reach & learn from mothers and wives that come from all sorts of backgrounds and have all sorts of stuff going on in their life: Blended families, co-parents, military spouses, pregnant women, new moms, boy moms, girl moms. You name it. I want to reach you, listen to you, offer advice, and learn from you. My blogs are purely off of experience. I keep it real and make a point to view from every perspective.

So, I hope that you will continue this journey with me. There is a little button at the bottom of my website for you to quickly click and follow! Comment any topics that are of interest to you and lets talk about it!

-Savy J

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton