A Rough Wake-Up Call: Migraine, Numbness, and Uncertainty

 

Early this morning (6am), I was jolted out of a sound sleep by a sharp, stabbing pain on the top right side of my head. The kind of pain that doesn’t ease in slowly...it was immediate, severe, and disorienting. When I stood up, I couldn’t regain my balance. The room tilted, and my footing felt unsure. And then, not long after, both of my hands went numb! (the familiar “pins and needles” of limbs falling asleep) Only this time it came out of nowhere and hit both hands at once.

I took a Fioricet and grabbed an ice pack, doing what I could to bring the pain down to something bearable. Eventually, I was able to sleep again. When I woke up, the worst of it had passed, but the migraine still lingers like a shadow.

• Fioricet is a combination medication containing acetaminophen (a pain reliever and fever reducer), butalbital (a barbiturate that promotes relaxation and sedation), and caffeine (a stimulant).
• It's primarily used for tension headaches but can be prescribed off-label for migraines.
• It's designed to treat immediate headache symptoms, not prevent migraine attacks. 

If you're new to my blog, I have a chronic migraine/headache issue. Yes, I am working with Doctors and neurologists to address this issue. I'm not relying on the internet to solve my medical problems. 😁

I don’t usually share the deeper side of these episodes, but this one rattled me. The sudden onset, the balance issues, the numbness...it’s hard not to wonder what else is at play. Chronic migraines can be unpredictable and isolating, and sometimes they come with symptoms that make you question whether it’s “just” a migraine or something more. 

Quick note: My recent CT scan was normal according to my PCP, and I am waiting to hear back from the neurologist.

PLEASE! If anyone reading this has experienced something similar, I’d really like to hear from you. Sometimes, just knowing you’re not the only one can offer a strange kind of comfort. Let’s talk
about your experience.

Faith Without a Label: How God Stays at the Center of Our Lives

 

I personally was raised in a Catholic family, where faith was structured, reverent, and routine. 

I knew the prayers, attended Mass, and learned the stories, but as I grew older, life pulled me in other directions. 

Church became less frequent, and eventually, I found myself outside its doors, unsure where I fit spiritually. But here’s the thing: I never stopped believing.

Even as I drifted from religion, I never let go of God. I still pray, still read scripture, and I teach my kids what I know, sometimes through bedtime Bible stories, sometimes just through how we live. Our home isn't pinned to a specific denomination. 

We believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, and he died on the cross for our sins.

Watching my husband’s faith journey has been humbling and beautiful. He didn't grow up with much exposure to the Bible, but now it feels like he's surpassed me in knowledge and understanding. It wasn’t forced or dramatic, just a slow, steady transformation born of curiosity, love, and grace. That kind of growth is powerful.

And yes, I believe miracles happen. 

Sometimes they’re quiet, like a moment of peace in chaos or a whisper of hope when you need it most. Sometimes they show up through other people, in ways too perfect to be a coincidence. 

I’ve learned that God is always working through you, through others, in ways we often don't even see until we're looking back.

Life tests us constantly, and I've come to believe that our reactions matter more than we realize. Faith doesn’t mean everything goes smoothly. It means trusting that there's purpose in the process, that every trial is shaping something deeper in us.

Still, I want to be clear: we DO NOT judge anyone for believing differently. In fact, we embrace the diversity of faiths and paths people take. It's not our job to decide who's right. That’s up to Jesus. We're here to love people. Period.

I’ve also seen how easy it is for newfound faith to become all-consuming. How, when we’re too eager to share it, we can accidentally push away the ones we love. I’ve learned that faith shared gently has far more impact than faith shouted loudly. Let it shine through how you live, not just what you say.

If you've ever felt like you don’t quite belong in a church but still feel deeply connected to God… you're not alone. Faith doesn’t need a label. It just needs love, intention, and grace.

"Let all that you do be done in love." —1 Corinthians 16:14

We don’t need the perfect words or the perfect walk. Just an honest heart, a willingness to grow, and a little grace—for ourselves and for others.

PSA- When Your Experience Doesn’t Match the Headlines

These days, the Catholic Church gets a lot of criticism; sometimes for heartbreaking reasons. There have been scandals, cover-ups, and deep failures in leadership that deserve to be confronted. But while it's easy to paint all priests or even the Pope with a broad brush, I hold a different memory in my heart. ❤️

I spent nine years in Catholic school (K-8 grade). Was I embarrassed by the plaid skirt and awkward socks? Definitely. Did I get teased a little? Sure. 

But looking back now as an adult, I’m honestly grateful for that chapter. We had God in our classrooms, in our gym classes, and in our ordinary school days. We went to Mass during the week, not just on Sundays. And even if I didn’t realize it at the time, it laid a foundation that helped shape my awareness, my conscience, and my sense of purpose.

I didn’t leave the Church because of hurt, hate, or trauma. I simply grew in a different direction. But that doesn’t erase the gratitude I feel for the good it brought me. Faith is never one-size-fits-all, and neither are the paths we take to find it.

The Bright Side of Empathy: Why Being an Empath Is a Superpower

 

Being an empath can feel heavy. Constantly absorbing others’ emotions, navigating overwhelm, but it also gifts you with incredible strengths. Here are the positives I’ve discovered so far:

1. Intuitive Insight
   Empaths often pick up on the things no one says out loud. A shift in tone, a glance, that subtle energy in the room and suddenly, you know. Not because someone told you, but because your gut did. It’s not magic, it’s emotional fluency. The kind that helps you navigate tough conversations, sense truth beneath words, and make decisions that somehow, always feel right.

2. Deeper Connections
   Empaths forge bonds faster and more authentically. People feel safe opening up to you because you don’t just listen, you genuinely understand.
3. Compassion in Action
   Your caring nature drives you to help in meaningful ways. You notice small needs like a friend’s quiet stress, a stranger’s lonely glance, and offer support before anyone else does.
4. Creative Flow
   Feeling deeply often sparks creativity. Your art, writing, or problem-solving taps into emotional layers most people never see, making your work rich, relatable, and original.
5. Emotional Translation
   You’re a natural mediator. By tuning into both sides of a conflict, you can translate needs and calm tensions, turning drama into dialogue.
6. Resilience Builder
   Constantly facing emotions (your own and others’) teaches you healthy coping strategies. Over time you learn to set boundaries, recharge, and bounce back stronger.
7. Purpose-Driven Living
   Empaths crave meaning. You’re drawn to causes and careers that align with your values. Whether it’s teaching, caregiving, creative work, or community-building, and that sense of purpose enriches your life.

Feeling seen by these empath perks? Share one positive way your sensitivity has shaped your life in the comments. Let’s celebrate our superpower together! ✨

When Empathy Eats You Alive (And How to Slam the Brakes)

 

Being an empath is a gift, until it becomes a runaway train. Feel every emotion, carry every crisis, and eventually, there’s nothing left of you.

1. Emotional Hoover
   You inhale stress and pain like secondhand smoke. Without a filter, you’ll internalize so much anxiety that you start to believe it’s your own, and now you're "stressed out."
2. Identity Erosion
   When you spend your days mirroring others’ feelings, you lose sight of what you actually feel. Who are you without everyone else’s emotional soundtrack?🤔
3. Physical Fallout
   Chronic headaches, tight shoulders, racing heart, your body stages a rebellion when you ignore its limits. It’ll force you to stop, whether you like it or not.
4. Burnout & Resentment
   Giving without pause leads to quiet rage. You’ll snap at small things, withdraw from loved ones, and wonder why you ever signed up for “all the feels.”
5. Neglected Self-Care
   You’ll skip your own needs like rest, joy, even basic downtime, because everyone else’s crisis feels more urgent. Before you know it, you’re running on fumes.
   

If you don’t hit pause, empathy swallows your energy, your joy, and your sense of self. But here’s the good news: you can close the gate.

Call to Action:
Have you felt empathy take over your life? Drop a “💛” in the comments and share the moment you realized you needed boundaries. Let’s build each other up.

The Empath Survival Guide (What’s Actually Helping Me Lately)

 

Being an empath can feel like living life without skin. Every emotion, every room, every news headline sinks in deep. It’s beautiful… and exhausting. But I’m learning. Slowly, messily, and with a lot of trial and error. Here’s what’s been helping me stay grounded:

💫 1. Mini Retreats
I take quiet breaks before I hit the wall. No phone, no people, no guilt. Just me, some deep breaths, and a chance to come back to myself. Even if its just a walk to my small greenhouse, to enjoy the progression of my gardening.

🌀 2. Morning Energy Check-Ins
Quick question I ask: “What am I carrying that doesn’t belong to me?” Even one honest answer helps lighten the load.

🙅‍♀️ 3. Saying No Like a Grown Woman
“I can’t commit right now, but thank you for thinking of me.” Full sentence. No apologies. No footnotes. No explaination.

📵 4. Emotional Content Breaks
I pause heavy media when my brain feels foggy or my chest tightens. Empathy doesn’t mean drowning in everyone else’s feelings. No news, no facebook, nothing that will drain my emotions.

🧠 5. Magnesium & Hydration (Seriously!)
Headaches, tight shoulders, and brain fog often follow emotional overload. Water, electrolytes, and yes, magnesium have helped me more than I thought they would. I've also started a handful of other supplements that have definitely been helping.

🧍‍♀️ 6. One Person at a Time
When people I love are hurting, I focus my care where it’s needed most. I’ve stopped trying to be everyone’s emotional Wi-Fi.

🌿 7. Permission to Just Be
Some days I’m not the fixer, the feeler, or the wise one, I’m just human. And that’s not just okay. It’s enough.

Call to Action:
If any of this resonates, I’d love to hear what’s been helping you survive the empath whirlwind lately. Your tip might be just what someone else needs today.

Wait… Am I an Empath? (Spoiler: Yes. Yes, I Am.)

 For years, I thought being “too sensitive” was just part of my charm, or maybe just something I needed to “toughen up” about. I felt deeply, cried at commercials, picked up on people’s moods like a sponge, and could walk into a room and instantly feel the emotional temperature shift. But I still shrugged it off. Everyone feels like this… right?

not everyone does!

It wasn’t until recently that I heard the word empath described in a way that clicked. 

Not just someone who's sensitive, but someone who actually absorbs the emotional energy around them. Someone who doesn't just feel for people, but often feels as them. 

Suddenly, so much of my life made sense....from random emotional overloads to the need for alone time after social events to the way I can read a room without anyone saying a word.

And let’s talk about those social events. After big gatherings, I don’t just feel “tired.” I feel completely drained, like someone unplugged me and forgot to charge the battery. For the longest time, I chalked it up to being an introvert, or just getting older, but now I’m starting to think that my migraines and chronic headaches are actually my nervous system’s way of waving the red flag. Like, “Hey, maybe absorbing ten people’s emotions in one afternoon isn’t sustainable?”

The more I dig into this empath thing, the more it explains other parts of me, too. Like how I:

• Overcommit because I can feel when someone’s disappointed(huge one for me)
• Carry the emotional weight of stories I read online like they’re happening to someone I love
• Struggle to set boundaries because I don’t want to hurt anyone, even if I’m hurting myself
• Seem to attract emotionally intense people like I’ve got a “free therapy available” sign on my forehead
• Feel guilty for needing space, silence, or solitude
• Experience physical symptoms from emotional overload. Tight shoulders, nausea, sleepless nights, etc.

I didn’t grow up believing in this stuff. I honestly thought it was too woo-woo for me. But here I am, rethinking everything I used to brush off as “just being sensitive.” Turns out, I’m not broken. I’m just tuning in.

So now, I’m learning to listen to my body. To protect my peace. To embrace solitude without guilt. And to stop apologizing for the depth of my empathy. It’s not a flaw. It’s a strength that needs boundaries and rest, and compassion, especially from me.

If you’re reading this and quietly nodding to yourself…well,  welcome. You’re not alone in this, and you’re definitely not “too much.”

Learning you’re an empath can feel like turning on the lights in a room you didn’t know you were sitting in. If that resonates, take a moment to rest today, drink some water, and ask yourself: What energy am I carrying that isn’t mine?

The World Through an Empath’s Eyes

 What is an Empath?

Empath: One who experiences the emotions of others: a person who has empathy for others

For most of my life, I thought everyone felt emotions the way I did. It was normal to walk into a room and instantly sense the tension before anyone spoke. That absorbing someone’s sadness, joy, or frustration was just part of being human. Turns out, it’s not, it’s an empath thing.

Being an empath means emotions don’t just exist outside of me; they become part of me. I’ve felt exhaustion from crowds, headaches from heavy energy, and the unshakable certainty that someone is hiding their true emotions. I can tell when someone is lying, not because of words, but because their energy feels off.

But here’s the kicker: I assumed everyone experienced this. I thought it was universal, like breathing. Only as I got older did I realize that some people don’t feel the weight of a room the way I do. They hear words, but they don’t feel the emotions behind them.

Being an empath can be extremely overwhelming. But it’s also a gift- a deep, intuitive connection to the world and the people in it. It teaches compassion, awareness, and the power of feeling beyond words.

Some real-life empath experiences:

Feeling Overwhelmed in Crowds – Large gatherings can be exhausting because you’re picking up on so many emotions at once. Why crowds exhaust me...Most people leave parties buzzing with excitement. I leave feeling like I just ran a marathon, because I’ve absorbed every unspoken emotion in the room. The stress of one person, the tension between another, the quiet sadness someone is hiding. It's an emotional overload, and by the end of the night, I need to sit in silence just to feel like myself again.

Absorbing Others’ Moods – A relative is stressed, and suddenly you feel anxious too, even though your day was going fine.

Physical Reactions to Emotional Energy – Being around intense emotions can cause headaches, fatigue, or even stomach aches.

Deep Connection with Nature and Animals – I tend to feel at peace in nature because the energy is calming, and animals seem drawn to me. I also love being in my garden/ greenhouse.

Knowing When Someone is Hiding Their Emotions – You sense when someone isn’t being truthful or is suppressing their feelings, even if they look calm on the surface. This one is hard for me, only because there has been so many situations where I want to say, "Why are you lying?" But at the end of the day, It's not my business and I have been trying my hardest NOT to get to involved, like I usually do.  

The Struggle:

One of the hardest realizations was understanding that just because I feel someone’s pain doesn’t mean it’s my responsibility to fix it. For so long, I would get involved in people’s struggles simply because I knew what they were going through. I felt it so deeply, I couldn’t separate their pain from mine. But I’ve finally learned that sometimes helping isn’t about stepping into someone’s emotions, it’s about knowing when to step back. I can't tell you the number of times these situations have gotten me into trouble. Carrying others’ burdens can be exhausting, and not every emotional storm needs to be weathered by me.

Have you ever realized you sense emotions more intensely than others? Let’s talk about it in the comments below. 

You can also take our "Am I an empath?" Quiz! Try it out!

Celebrating Freedom & Family

 How the Fourth Became Our Biggest Party

Every family has that one holiday, the one that feels bigger, louder, and more meaningful than the rest. For us, that holiday has always been the Fourth of July. It’s fireworks and freedom, yes, but it’s also something much more personal: it’s my grandmother’s birthday, the woman everyone adores, and over the years, it has grown into a celebration that stretches far beyond just the patriotic meaning of the day.

A Birthday Worth Celebrating

Growing up, the Fourth was always a big deal in my family, not just because of the holiday, but because it was Noni's actual birthday. And if there’s anyone who deserves an entire nation setting off fireworks in her honor, it’s her. She has this incredible way of making everyone feel welcome, loved, heard, and seen, which is probably why so many relatives-both close and distant, show up for the occasion.

But then something interesting happened. The celebration didn’t just stay hers. It expanded, and we found another reason to make it even bigger.

The Unexpected Birthday Addition

Enter Gramps—Tyler’s grandfather—who casually let it slip one year that he never really celebrated his birthday growing up. The thing is, his birthday is in July, too. So naturally, I decided that was unacceptable. If Grandma got fireworks, cake, and half the town showing up, Gramps deserved something, too.

So we sing to him. Every year. Right alongside Noni. And despite his claims that he never cared much about birthdays, the way he lights up when he sees all his friends and family gather, it's clear how happy it makes him.

Carrying on the Tradition

At some point, I took on the responsibility of planning and hosting the annual Fourth of July bash. What started as just a birthday picnic for Grandma has transformed into a massive event, with both sides of the family, plenty of friends, and enough food to feed an army.

Water balloon fights, cornhole, badminton matches that somehow turn way too competitive, the kids playing with water laughing and the simple joy of seeing everyone, just for one day, truly get along—it’s these little moments that make it special.

The best part? The tradition continues to grow. Every year, we add something new—a new guest, a new game, a new laugh-out-loud memory. And as long as Noni and Gramps are still here to blow out their candles, I’ll make sure we keep the celebration going.

The Meaning Behind It All

At its heart, this tradition is about more than just birthdays or fireworks; it’s about family. About making people feel loved, included, and celebrated, no matter how big or small the reason.

So as we gather this year, singing for Noni and Gramps, dodging water balloons, and watching the night sky light up, I’ll take a moment to soak it all in. Because these are the moments we hold onto. The ones that remind us that celebrations aren’t just about the date on the calendar, they’re about the people who make them unforgettable. Here are some pictures from over the years at our Fourth of July celebrations.⬇️

At the end of the day, family is complicated. There will be disagreements, old grudges, and moments when you question how you're even related to some of these people. Actually, in my case, my mom was adopted into the family, so I'm not technically related to anyone here by blood. 😂 But if there's one thing I've learned from hosting our Fourth of July bash, it's this: there is something deeply valuable about showing up, about celebrating together, even when things aren’t perfect. Because these moments, these traditions, are what bind us. So keep your family close, even when it’s messy, even when it’s hard, because one day, you’ll look back and realize these were the moments that mattered most.