Fighting the Good Fight in Family Law?

The last few months I've noticed a lot of my family law clients, celebs, and even friends and people I know are getting divorced.  No shocker considering family law makes up the majority of my practice-- but what is shocking to me is many of them have been married the same length of time I have or are my age. 

When I dreamt of being a lawyer I did not dream of being a divorce lawyer.  Do any of us really?  I never intended to practice it in law school and not even during my first 3 years of practice.  My first couple of cases I took as a favor.  Surprise!  I was good at it!  

Over the years I have seen what family law conflicts do to people.  And what people do to each other and their kids.  I'm not going to lie, it's hard on an emotional human being like me.  

So why do I do it?  I do it because I care about people.  Divorce is a traumatic life event.  And even going through modifications of child support or parenting plans is tough on a soul.  I try to encourage couples to reconcile, and I've been successful at times.  But often divorce is a necessity for two people and a family to live the life they want or need to live.  And it is too often the only way for someone who will never be appreciated, respected, truly loved, or valued to escape from their cage.  

Sometimes I end up on the wrong side and it is too late.  Sometimes I end up with an ungrateful client.  And those times are really hard because I put a lot of my heart into my cases.  It is my ultimate goal as an attorney to lessen the impact I allow my cases to have on me.

BUT, not to eliminate it completely.  Because being a lawyer is what I'm good at.  Because being an emotional soul is not only who I am but what I am.  Because I really care about people and I love helping them.  But most of all because I am a warrior, inside and outside the courtroom. It is what God created me to be, a warrior.  So I will fight the good fight as he brings it to me with the tools he has given me.  Even if it sometimes hurts.

Let Freedom Ring! UPDATE

Today is MY INDEPENDENCE DAY!! My freedom and my independence from my poor health and the resulting health problems!

90 days.  90 days until my half marathon.  90 days to freedom.  I've got my battle plan all mapped out and I'm ready to fight!  Ready to become the warrior God created me to be.  

More details to come on my battle plan.  Just know that I would love any suggestions and support.  

Love you all!

A

UPDATE:

So my battle plan:  I decided some time ago I am not living the life I want to live.  There are things present that I want gone or changed and things not present that I want to be abundant in my life. 

So my "battle" is the battle towards eliminating the icky things and filling my life with the good things.  I've created a "battle plan" to accomplish those goals broken down into three phases (yes, I know, I am such a Type A).  There is no timeline on these phases-- I'm just going to do them until I feel they are somewhat mastered. 

Phase I includes:  Faith, Me Time, Anti-Stress, Sleep, Activity, and Exercise.

 

I will try to create a video to explain more thoroughly.  Any advice, comments, encouragement, suggestions, help, or feedback would be very much appreciated.  Here we go! 

Can't figure out how to post the video, hopefully later.

 

 

Living through Faith

Many say faith is believing in what you do not see.  While that is true, many of us lawyer types, type A, analysts, etc find that faith is often accepting what we do not understand.  We can believe in what we don't see but it is just so much harder to accept what we do not understand.

A year and a half ago it was so much easier to lose Abby. Don't get me wrong, it was hard, but she expected it, we expected it for a long time.  She was so at peace with it and in so much pain for so long.  She made me believe it was okay.  And when she was gone and ever since, I have been at peace with it and SO happy to have her for a guardian angel. 

Jeff Parker, a pillar of the Wenatchee Christian Community, has now passed. I really only knew him tangentially.  I had only been in the same room with him a handful of times. But his daughter is an amazing dancer at the studio and his wife a warrior against cancer. Jeff was so faithful to God and on fire for Jesus.  I really looked forward to his FB posts on the latest good news on his wife's cancer.  And Jeff made it all sound like good news. 

Now Jeff is gone and so many people left to try to understand why.  He wasn't sick, we weren't expecting this and it makes it so much harder to accept what we do not understand.  But from what little I know of Jeff I know he would want us to accept his passing as Gods will and know he is at peace.  

So for Jeff's family I will pray.  Pray hard for them as I cannot imagine what they are going through.  And I will pray hard for his close friends that this brings them closer to God and they can accept, in faith, what they do not understand.

As for Jeff I say to him "thank you ".  So many of God's children are closer to him because of Jeff.  Thank you for being a warrior for your family Jeff.  Thank you for showing us what it means to be a man of God.  Because of you I will try incessantly to not only believe in what I do not see, but accept what I do not understand.

2015-The Year of ME

I'm BACK!  It took a while, but here I am.  I tell you it would be so much stinkin easier to blog if I could somehow do it on my phone like I can on a computer.  Maybe I'll figure out how to voice command blogs?  If so, be prepared for some good auto-text fails.

So 2013 was the year of realization and 2014 was supposed to be the year of change.  It was a little, but not a lot and not like I needed it to be.  2015 is the year of ME! Those that know me well can probably guess how the year's intentions started- a detailed list of like 40 resolutions all written out with frequency in a month to work on them and what days to focus on which resolutions.  HA!

Now that we are two months into this year, I've realized some big stuff.  Well, mainly one big thing.  It all starts with ME!  And Him, but he is part of working on ME.  My friends and family are always saying "you need to take some time for yourself" "you are so hard on yourself" and so on and so forth.  I was always like "sure, as soon as I have time I'll get right on that."  But, I've realized in the past two months, THEY WERE RIGHT!  I WAS WRONG!  Record it in history folks, I was wrong!

All the things I want to change, all the time I want to spend with HIM, it all starts with ME.  How I feel about myself, I mean REALLY FEEL!  How I treat myself and let others treat me.  How much I love myself the way He loves me.  How I spend my time, energy and emotions.  How I treat my body, my mind, my spirit.  It all comes down to I've been treating myself like crap.  And I'M CHANGING THAT!

 I've had some really great inspiration.  I have to think the Brave Girl's Club, Tabitha Evan's page "Inspiring Sanity, my mom for getting me the subscription to One Little Word, and Sarah LaVallee (sorry if I'm spelling that incorrectly Sarah)!  Also Destinee Grable and her awesome yoga practice posts on Facebook and SO many of my friends who have been so supportive and so determined in opening up my eyes to what the real change needs to be- JP, Jonna, Shannon, Leona, Lori, just to name a few.

One Little Word is about choosing a word to focus on for the year.  Each month there are prompts for your word.  Some are crafty and some are more of a journaling type of exercise.  I really had a hard time choosing my word.  I kept throwing around Renew, Transform, Change, and most of all Freedom.  Then it hit me today after a whirlwind month for me personally and professionally- ME.  So that is my word for the year and that is what I will be focusing on-ME. 

So come along on this journey with me.  Love to you all! 

a

My time, my beautiful valuable time...

...Is too often wasted by stupid people and stupid things.  I am done, I am taking my time back.  I found a quote today that was SO awesome:

"You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage...pleasantly, smiling, nonapologetically...to say 'no' to other things. And the way to do that is by having a bigger 'yes' burning inside." - Stephen Covey
So not all the things I'll be saying no to are stupid, nor the people.  But I notice for the most part, most people do not perceive my time as valuable.  I charge quite a lot for my time at work, so sometimes I think "Geez, that doctor's office that kept me waiting an hour owes me $200!"  But then I realize, it's a doctor's office.  So I will wait, because it's the doctor's office, and it isn't the receptionist's fault and maybe not even the doctor's :)

BUT... for the rest of "the people".  I'm done.  You have a finite amount of my time that I will choose to give to you..  If you don't take it when I offer it to you, too bad, you don't get any.  I think this is a relatively simple principal.  I may even tell you how much of my time you get, 5 minutes? 10 minutes? 2 minutes? etc.  If you say you are going to show up and I waste my time waiting for you, you probably aren't going to get more than a second chance.

I will also try, very hard, to be respectful of everyone else's time.  I will try REALLY HARD not to be late, not to drone on or ramble, and call you when I say I'm going to call you or show up when I say I'm going to show up. 

Your problems are not my problems.  I have plenty of problems already.   If I choose to help you with your problems, it is my choice.  If you shove your problems onto me, that is wasting my time, and that is going to piss me off.  And now, I'm going to say NO.

This really doesn't apply to my close friends and family because they know if they ever need anything, even my time, I will give it to them.  BUT, I am going to start putting my phone on Do Not Disturb quite a bit.  So if you need to get in touch with me, you can ask me for our home phone number and I'll give it to you (if you are close friends or family).  But if you call me about some legal issue and you aren't calling from jail your telephone privileges are going to be taken away:)

And yes, Dad, this post may seem "angry" to you.  It is in a way.  However, I'm also excited for this realization!  It means more time for the things I need and love, and less time for the things I don't.  So if you catch me letting others waste my time, sternly tell me NO.

love, a

This is All About ME!

All this time I was finding myself... and I didn't know I was lost.  So says the song.  I think that is really what this blog, this year, my life right now, is about.  For twenty years, fighting to survive, thrive, accomplish, be a good mother, provider, wife, daughter, friend, attorney.  Where was I?  Just remnants of me remained (remain?) in the fog of battle, chaos, and busyness. 

At some point many of us are in the middle of our careers, middle-aged, or surrounded by children yelling Mommy! Mommy!  Even empty-nesters... all looking around and asking themselves "what happened to me?  Where am I?" 

Don't get me wrong, I love being a mother and I'm a damn good one.  My children encourage me to find who I am, not discourage it.  But it is easy, as a mom, to hide in that role or be overwhelmed by it and lose site of who you are.  And in all the other roles as well... to get caught up in your "role" and lose site of your core, your truth, who "you" are. 

Sometimes it is a bad marriage, a life tragedy, a life event, or a miserable job that we allow to fog our vision of us.  We allow someone else or something else to temporarily define us, and lose sight of who we really are.  Do you know who you are?  Do you REALLY know? 

The song also says "tried to carry the weight of the world, but I only had two hands."  Boy do I know how that feels.  At some point that weight overcomes you and you crumble to the ground.  At the beginning of the year I tried to describe what that looked like for me.  Unhealthy and unhappy...lost.

What have I learned in six months? 

I'm an athlete and I'm proud of it.  I may not look it yet, but I will, have no doubt. It is okay to love to run.  Who cares if I'm not the fastest or if it is bad on your joints.  Know what else is bad on your joints?  Being fat.

It is okay to be proud and honest of how much you rock!  I'm a great attorney!  And I'm sick of letting others on occasion waste my time or put me down because they think THEY are the lawyer.  I'm slowly learning how to take my time back from these assholes.

Faith is my core.  I want more than anything else to glorify God by others recognizing him through me.  I have a lot to learn and the journey to amazing faith is incredibly difficult.  But if it is your core, it is your truth and you must walk through hell for it.

Truth is my core.  I will call you on your bullshit.  If you don't like it, there is the door.  I don't have time or space in my life or incredibly big heart for posers.  I CANNOT stand those that preach love truth and respect and living life and all that crap and then turn around and walk away when you call them on their crap.  Forget it, not worth the hassle and not people I want to surround myself with.

I am passionate and loyal.  That comes through in my friendships.  I am an amazing friend because I am full of passion and loyalty--because I run high emotionally.  But, I also have unrealistic expectations for people, especially friends, because of the same core traits.  Alexis has gotten this from me.  So sometimes I have to let people go even though it hurts my heart.  And sometimes I have to just cut friends some slack.

Respect and Integrity are my core.  If you say you will do something, do it.  Don't do something you'd be afraid to admit to your children, to your parents, to God.  Karma is a bitch and I've seen it slap some people around something fierce!

I am a spitfire.  I have a terrible temper.  It can be rather amusing but can also get me in hot water fast.  But it is part of who I am and must be accepted by me and those that love me.

My priorities are clear:  God, family, friends, everything else. 

I have ignored Me for many years.  No one could blame me.  But now it is time, time for finding me.

2014- April Showers Bring May Flowers

Well March ended with a bang!  Especially awesome was the Wenatchee World posting a link to my blog, making the entire thing public!  So I may have some new readers I suppose?

The first quarter of the year is over, wow time flies! And WOW has the weather improved! Soccer has started back up again, spring break is over, and the two week break from dance flew by.  The spring is full of events, starting with this crazy week.

I re-read all my posts since the beginning of the year and that was really good for me.  It has helped me to re-focus on my goals and desires for the year.  I have really ramped up my running, but of course got injured, and am now under constant scrutiny by my chiropractor;) I will continue to run and I WILL run that half marathon this year, even if I have to crawl over the finish line! I have one or two runs planned for each month except this one, the 10k.  It is ahead of my training schedule but I'm not planning on running the whole thing anyways.  I'm also planning on slowly adding some other elements to my training. 

As far as my relationship with God, I am working on it.  I have missed way more church than I am comfortable with but we had a good family meeting about it.  I am slowly reading a great book, although it is a little over my head.  I have to read each chapter twice and often go back and review all the previous chapters. 

My work on my "outlets" has sucked, but I will change that and I will change that now.  Looking back, I remember why it is so important to my health to do so.  My Dad called this week and his numbers (cholesterol, etc.) are WAY better than mine.  Not for long daddy!  The rest of this crazy busy week is going to be focused on outlets, especially walking and praying.  I so often neglect this much needed time for me.

So hear is to April!  It may bring some showers, but we will reap the rewards with the May flowers (both literally and metaphorically speaking:))