Remember the time we said we were back and then proceeded to go radio silent for close to two months?! A lot has happened in the past two months and really in the year 2017. It may go down as one of the highest and lowest years for us thus far.

Baby number two for Beth was born in March and baby number two for Teal was born in June and that basically rounded out the highs.

We have experienced a lot this year together and with our friends and family many of whom have experienced the greatest losses one can imagine and with those experiences has come a renewed passion and need for changes all around.

For Beth this year she is choosing the phrase “Back to Basics.” To make it easier to follow along in this two-person blog Beth has put together her reasoning behind this phrase for 2018 –

For me there was so much busyness in 2017 with working full time (from home), having the kids with me while I work, growing my yoga teaching, my mom’s health and care, having a second child, my husband changing jobs and some other personal minor things that just aided in adding stress. January 1, 2017 my family and I were already in the process of finding out what was wrong with my mom. She had been hospitalized on Christmas Eve and a mass was found next to her left kidney.

To make a long story short with changing doctors and insurance supplements we landed with a doctor’s appointment down at UT Southwestern in the beginning of February. What was going on with her didn’t seem to be straight forward and she had many doctor’s appointments to try and find answers. The day after I had my second son, Kate (my sister) and Mom delivered to me in my hospital room the news that Mom did in fact have cancer and she would be starting chemo in four days. In June, several weeks after finishing chemo, Mom had a hysterectomy where we learned her cancer presented as small studding hence why it was not blatantly clear from scans that she had cancer. After completing more chemotherapy, Mom was told at the end of September she was in remission, but she started to get weaker and eating had been a problem for her throughout the entire year (and even before that) but continued to get worse. More doctor’s appointments were scheduled and then at the end of November we were told it was time to call hospice. Everything with Mom’s diagnosis and care had been a rollercoaster. As a family we went up and down emotionally as we tried to keep up with what we were being told. We were never told how long she might or might not have, so none of us expected for less than a year from her hospitalization for Mom to be gone. At 67 years old, my mom passed away of uterine cancer. It was a very aggressive cancer and she fought really hard. She was so strong in so many ways even when I did not necessarily give her credit for it. I am so thankful for the 34 years I had with her here on earth, but I am so heartbroken it could not be longer. This year I have struggled feeling like I have completed anything that I have done which is why “Back to Basics” is my phrase. It’s time to resume taking care of myself and one of the biggest ways I will do that in 2018 is back to dedicating myself to my meditation practice. It is important to me to put my health first and be an example to my boys. I think that some of the qualities I inherited from my mom will actually shine through so much more this year than ever. In some ways I really do think that my phrase for the year goes right along with what Teal is working on which is pretty typical of us to be doing similar things whether we know it or not.

This year Teal has really decided to work on 3 things – Balance, Health, and the word Build (thank you to her friend Victoria for opening her eyes to that word). There will probably be a point she will expand on those words, but first here is a brief why in her own words –

This year my mom became the last living person in her immediate family when she lost her twin brother to cancer. His cancer came on so fast that it shocked us all. When my mom told us he had cancer she told us he had at least a year if not more. He actually got less than 3 months. His cancer was fast and relentless. It came in the form of small studs that they could not treat and within 3 month of diagnosis he was gone. This left all of asking why. Why would a 58 year old man be taken that fast, why and how does this happen. The worry for my mom’s health went up, she is the last one. This is scary to think about with how fast her twin left the earth. It plants a huge seed for a need for change and protection.

Perhaps the biggest scare to all of us this year was my Dad. On December 1^st I got a call from my mom at 10:30pm at night, I was alone with the boys at home and she said, I don’t want you to panic but I have called an ambulance for Dad, he has chest pain. I called my husband to come home from his concert so I could meet them at the hospital. I watched the ambulance take him in complete panic. I got to the hospital and was relieved to see him awake and talking… joking even. They ran a plethora of tests and told him he would have to stay the night. We still weren’t sure what had happened but come morning the doctors would make it clear that he had suffered a heart attack, and not only that, but would require a quadruple bypass. This was NOT on our minds, we thought he would just go home and that he had indigestion. He underwent the surgery and passed all tests with flying colors and we are now on the other side of a long recovery. He is working back up to being himself and will have to make huge changes to his life and lifestyle. As his daughter it scared me, I’m still scared. Had my mom not have called the ambulance he may have never gone to the doctor, they would tell us all later that it would have happened again and that it would have killed him, again 58 year old man. This is all too early.

Everyone has room for changes, everyone. These events have really put that need for change into perspective. I have started talking to my parents about making changes and not just for them, but for all of us. My dad’s heart attack has been building for years, they typically don’t just happen. My uncle’s cancer built in his body and showed itself so late that there was nothing anyone could do.

As you may know Beth, her sister Kate and I completed a Whole30 in October. We felt like we needed this, we needed the rules, we needed a reset and we needed to change what was going in our bodies. After having kids, working through that recovery and Kate and Beth’s care for their mom, our ability to balance life and diet suffered. We are preparing to start again on January 9, 2018 and work to keep many of those dietary changes in place as we work on a new way to live. My parents now own every book Melissa Hartwig wrote and will work to slowly start making changes to their diet through the Whole 30 principles. I’ll keep you posted on them!

We have also become consultants for a safer beauty company called Beautycounter that we want to share with you as well. We hope that with these changes, removing chemicals from our beauty products and what we put in and on our bodies that we can give ourselves and our family the best shot at being healthy. We never want to sound preachy or lecturey (we’ll make that a word) but we really want to share with you as well as hold ourselves accountable with making these changes. We hope you will join us as we do this. There has to be an answer somewhere. So much has been confusing to us. We have learned that so many of the problems we are facing within our family and much larger in the world has to do with what we are putting in and on our bodies. These environmental factors we can start to control to some extent. We want to spend this year balancing what we do, getting healthy (this doesn’t mean just skinny), and building relationships, knowledge, memories and our Beautycounter knowledge and business with you!

Would you be interested in joining our Facebook group for our Whole30 starting on January 9, 2018? Drop us a comment below and let’s get connected!