A Revelation...

I realized something tonight, driving down the road to my yoga class of all places...

I am HAPPY.

That sounds a little silly, doesn't it?  But this was a major revelation.  I'm not talking, 'Hey, it was a good day today Happy'.  I'm talking, 'Wow, this-is-incredible, can't-stop-smiling, deep-in-my-soul HAPPY'  Just generally happy.  Not because of a particular thing or event, but.....just because.

Do you want to know the kicker?  I should be freaking out right now.  I am sooooo far backlogged on paperwork,  my office is a perpetual disaster zone, my good friend and I have taken on the role of putting together and leading a team for the Relay for Life, my pastor just asked me to take over the job of leading the handbell choir (which I feel woefully underqualified for...),  I'm trying to declutter our house and organize our family of four,  I'm hosting a GoodbyeJunk Challenge on this blog & on twitter.... I'm getting started training to walk a half marathon, with asthma... See? 

I.Should.Be.Freaking.Out.Right.Now.

But, I'm not.  I am HAPPY!  Go figure.

Maybe it's the Yoga.  Maybe it's Goodbye Junk.  Maybe it's HelloMornings.  Maybe it's Prayer.  Maybe it's taking real care of myself for a change, and looking at things with gratitude.  Maybe it's just the simple fact that I'm not trying to be perfect anymore, and I'm just trying to do my best little by little to make progress.  Maybe it's a combination of all of those things.   Whatever it is, I'm going to keep doing it, because it's working! 

Be truly glad.  There is wonderful joy ahead....

 - I Peter 1:6

May you find joy and happiness as well. 

This post is dedicated to my dear friends K & M.  I'm convinced that conversations with the two of you are a real part of where I've found this happiness. Thank you for the blessing of your friendship and support!

Happy & Excited Fights Sad & Sentimental

Today is the last day of school.  Hooray!  I, as much as my oldest, having been counting down to this day for a month at least!  No schedules.  No homework.  No getting up early.  No stopping in the middle of the afternoon for school pickups.  Just summer freedom and time together!  Bliss.

So, you can imagine my surprise when the tears started as I dropped him off for his last day today.   At 3:00, my baby will be a THIRD GRADER!!!  Oh my.  How did that happen?  Wasn't it just yesterday that I was fighting with him to give up his binky?  Or helping him get dressed?  Rocking him to sleep every night in my arms?

I thank GOD that my baby is still a snuggler.  That he still loves his mama and wants me there when he goes to sleep at night.  I am thankful that he's growing up to be a good, smart, kid.  I love that he's excited to do things with me, to show me things.  To share his world with me.   But I know that ALL TOO SOON, that time will end, for awhile at least. He'll be a teenager, too cool for mom who has suddenly become a huge embarrassment and who (in his mind) doesn't know or understand anything.  I am dreading that time.  It will break my heart.  But my time bonding, teaching,  and loving him now will carry me through (with a lot of prayer and help from God, I'm sure!).  And I know that we will come through it, and on the other side be close once more.  And someday, hopefully, I'll hear the words, "Mom, you were right.  I'm sorry for thinking you were such...."  Which reminds me, I need to go apologize and thank my parents again for putting up with my teenage years!

So, today,  I'm sad and sentimental.  But I'm even more happy and excited that I get the chance to spend the summer with my guy, bonding, playing, loving, and growing together.  I'm not going to let a single moment pass by... This is a summer to treasure!

May you be blessed with appreciation 

of all you've been given.  

Hold on to it.

Treasure it.

Don't let it slip away.

Kicking That Mean Girl's...You-know-what

So, 40 days of yoga.  I'm looking at that now with only 1 day down, and 39 to go, and it sounds daunting.  What was I thinking?  I am so already sore from just last night's kick butt Hatha Fusion practice.  It was great.  It was HARD.  It was exactly what I needed.  But that mean girl in my head keeps saying "You can't do this.  What a stupid idea.  You'll never follow through with it... Who do you think you are, anyway???"

Which brings me to the point of this post.  Excuse my language, but I am going to kick that mean girl's ass.  Seriously.  40 days of yoga.  40 days of telling that mean girl to shut-the-hell-up and step to the curb.  Get out of my life!  GO AWAY!

Why?  Because I realized something during a yoga class last week.  I was struggling, and miserable, and all this anger was coming out.  (It sounds weird, but sometimes in the middle of class, emotions/stuff just come out, and this time I just suddenly got SO MAD!)  So there I was, holding some pose or other, and just fuming mad.  Don't know why.  Then the mean girl started talking to me.  "This is stupid.  Why are you here? You don't belong here.  You're way too fat and out of shape.  You don't belong here.  You shouldn't be here, fat girl."  And I held the pose, and listened to her.  I even repeated it to myself "I don't belong here."  And then I realized something kind of earth-shattering for me.  That mean girl in my head isn't me. That mean girl in my head is the voice of... well, I'm almost afraid to say it because you'll think I'm crazy, but... the devil. 

Now, you may not believe in the devil.  Heck, you might not believe in God.  You might believe in part of it, or none of it.  I did.  I used to not believe in any of it.  Then I believed that there was something bigger, but it wasn't God.  Then I believed in God, but not about Jesus and the resurrection.  Then I believed in God & Jesus, but not the devil.  Until one day I heard something along the lines of "If you believe there is good and evil in the world, and you believe in God, and that God is good, then you kind of have to believe in the other side too, that the devil is there on the side of evil."  And so, at the risk of sounding like a looney-tunes religious nut, I believe in the devil too. 

My friends and I have had many conversations lately about our inner mean girls.  I've even said that we should talk to ourselves nicely, like the way someone who loves us, or God would talk to us.  Someone who loves us would be encouraging and supportive, not destructive and mean.  But it's so hard to shut up the mean girl!  I'm trying to be nice to myself, and do good things for me, but she won't shut up.  She keeps coming back, trying to tear me down.  And so, listening to her in the middle of my yoga practice, I suddenly had the thought... That's the devil talking.  That's not you...you're trying to make yourself a better, healthier person.  That's an evil voice trying to tear you down.   And just like that, the mean girl shut up and vanished, and the anger melted away.  Huh.  How about that.

Go out and kick some mean girl butt today!  ;)

Happy Monday!

Happy Monday!  Just logged in to do a quick post, and I see that I'm up to 5 followers!  Woo-hoo!  Thanks to all of you, whether or not you hit the follow button or subscribe ( I have no idea how to know about who is doing that), or if you just stop by once in awhile.   Please take just a second, really, just a second, and CLICK HERE for something I really want you to know.  Then come on back and finish this post if you're up for it.


So, now that you know how glad I am to have you here, here's the next Monday Morning Staff Meeting.
First, the roundup from last week, then I'll tell you about my big lesson for the week:

Go somewhere new.  We went to two new parks and found some cool play areas.
Read something.  We read several new books from our awesome re-opened library.
Explore something.  We were going to explore the new library, but someone got sick, so we had to postpone.
Build something.  We built more onto the tree fort with daddy.  Okay, so I just watched, but  3 out of 4 family members helped, so I say that counts. :)
Clean something.  Hmm.... cleaned A LOT.  Some major stuff, some daily stuff.  My house looks so much better now, and I just want to do more!  (See mom, you were right.  Eventually I grew out of the messy stage.  It just took 38 years... )
Grow something. Managed to keep my flat of Impatiens seedlings alive for another week.
Cook something.  Didn't do any new recipes, but still cooked, so that's good enough.
Plant something. Planted some stuff along our new path to SomeGirl's house.
Investigate/Scout something.  Saved for next week, due to sickness.  

So, what was the big lesson from the week, I'm sure you're dying to know?  Well, you may or may not know that I guest posted over here last week for Fraddling Friday.  I spent the week thinking about how I was fraddling.  Fraddle is doing something someone else loves because they love it, and you love them.  Because I was thinking about it all week for that Friday post, I spent a lot of time thinking about something I wasn't looking forward to doing.  And I started telling myself to think about it with a different attitude.  I started telling myself, "Be thankful, not resentful."  I started saying it to myself in my head, Be THANKFUL, not resentful.   I am THANKFUL, not resentful.  And then I started to be thankful for it.  Thankful for the chance to do something that would really make the day of someone I love.  Thankful to be able to do that thing.  Thankful for the chance to share that thing with the person I love.  And I stopped resenting it.  The result was that I wasn't stressed out and resenting that thing the whole time, and instead had a nice day.  

There are two quotes that I really like about attitude.  The first, is by Winston Churchill who said, “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”  He was so right.   The other, is from Francesca Reigler, who said, 

 "Happiness is an attitude. 

We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. 

The amount of work is the same.”

 

My to do list for this week is going to stay simple.  Just two things, really.  

1. Spend time enjoying my sister and her family visiting.

2. Be positive about things, even things I don't like, and choose happiness over misery.  (That pretty much covers everything, if you think about it...)

 

I am choosing to be happy and strong.  How about you?  Is there something you could change your attitude about and make life happier for yourself this week? Leave me a comment and let me know.  I'd love to hear from you!

May you be blessed with a positive attitude, and the ability to see the bright side of things this week.

Encouraging Weeds

Who says weeds are weeds and not beautiful, bountiful flowers?  This is the question my son and I were talking about on the way home from school recently.
He: Mom, what kind of flower is that?
Me: It's just a weed honey.
He: No, not the yellow one.  The pretty purple ones.
Me: Those are just weeds, too.
He:  Why is it a weed? It's so pretty!  What makes it a weed?

At this, I flashed back to an almost identical moment from my childhood.  We had gone down to the family farm to visit my grandparents for a week during the summer.  It was a house without running water, no cable TV, and so we spent a lot of wonderful time outdoors.  One day, after walking through the fields collecting all the prettiest flowers I could find, I got back to the house and proudly presented them to my grandmother.  I asked about what kind of flowers they were.  She smiled, and told me they were weeds rather than wildflowers.  Not that she didn't appreciate me picking them for her, because she did.  And she was very kind about it, but I still remember the feeling on not understanding how things that were so beautiful could be considered worthless weeds.

Seems kind of unfair to me, that so many pretty flowers that grow quickly and spread easily in even the toughest conditions, are deemed "undesirable".  Dandelions for example.  I know many people who are constantly working to banish these "weeds" from their yards.  I think the yellow blossoms are actually quite cheery.  And the little white puffballs that they turn into are the stuff of magical childhood wishes.  So why the negative feelings about them?  Those purple 'weeds' that my son was admiring are particularly beautiful when a homeowner has let them take over the yard.  It's a truly gorgeous sea of purple flowers when they are spread across a lawn like that.  But they are considered undesirable.  Go figure.

I can't help but think that some people are treated exactly the same way.  Just because they are in the 'wrong' place.  Maybe they've lost their home and are looked down upon for living in their car or a shelter.  Maybe they simply live outside the boundaries of what we consider normal.  Maybe it's something else that sets them apart.  Everyone has value.  Everyone has something good to give the world.   It might not look like we expect it to, but it also might be so much better than we expect too.  We have to look deeply inside ourselves to find out what it is we have to share, and we have to be open to the gifts that others have to share as well.  What can we learn from someone who is growing and surviving, even in the toughest conditions?  A lot, I think, especially in our neatly manicured little worlds.

Come back soon for the other part of this post, when I'll fill you in on the encouraging part...

Wish Flowers....Encouraging weeds Wishes, part 2.

May you be blessed today and always

by the beauty that is all around us.

Staff Meeting - Take Two...

Sometimes, it takes seeing yourself from someone else's eyes to realize something about yourself.  That's what happened this week.  I had two people tell me that my list from the Monday Morning Staff Meeting last week was scary.  I think one said it was scary, and the other said it stressed her out reading it.  Now, that list was a very reduced size list from what I would usually use as my to do list to set myself up for failure.  That list was my heavily-edited-to-just-one-or-two-things per area list.   Those two comment-makers would have had a heart attack if they knew what I wanted to write! I thought I was going pretty easy on myself.  And yet two people thought that it was scary and stressful.  So, it's time that maybe I really take an even longer, harder look at how whacked-out I am how I'm still being unrealistic in my expectations for myself.
Now, that being said, the list from last week did make a big difference in my week.  I felt a lot more focused, and on task, as long as I was getting something from the list accomplished each day.  I  didn't get everything done before Friday like I had hoped, but I also didn't beat myself up about it.  More of the list got done than not, and so I consider that a success.  I definitely found it helpful to sit down and have a 'meeting' with myself and plan a little.  But I do plan to rethink my expectations for myself, to be sure.

So, thank you girls, for the eye-opening comments.  I clearly need your perspectives.  This week is spring break, and so my list is going to be a little more focused on fun rather than work, but I'm hoping it's a lot more balanced, and not at all scary or stressful.  Since it's spring break, I'm going to consider the whole week an O.F.F. (official fraddling Friday) week.  Ten things for Ten Days without school. Ten ways to Fraddle (show love and spread joy).  Ten ways to live in the moment and enjoy time with my boys.  Here goes nothing:

Go somewhere new.
Read something.

Explore something.

Build something.

Clean something.

Grow something.

Cook something.

Plant something.

Investigate something.

Scout something.

  If we can make a game out of the 'cleaning something', then they will all be fun things too.  We'll probably be going somewhere new, to the Dallas Zoo, maybe taking the TRE to get there.  We're going to explore the newly reopened local library, build something at the Lego Store, plant some veggies for our garden, grow some of our seeds from last year, scout out new parks for the summer,  and investigate....well, I'll leave that open to my boys to decide.  So it could be anything from spiders to volcanoes to mud puddles.  But I know it will be fun.  And hopefully, this list was a lot less scary and stressful!  And I promise to work hard on keeping my next week's list unstressful too, even once we're back in the real world of school and work.

May you be blessed by taking it easy on yourself this week.  

You deserve a break!