Gathering My Lessons
I am constantly learning from my life. Someone special to me said that I could glean a lesson even from a recipe.
Which is what I did in my post, When The Recipes Must Go.
I call them Ahas. I can also stand on a Soapbox every once in a while.
And I learn some pretty big stuff from some little people in my life. The good and the bad and
the happy and the sad. My friendships are very important to me. The past holds some wisdom yet to be learned.
And my husband’s lessons are occasionally shared by his voice here. I may repeat myself, but guaranteed,
I’ll get you to think about life just a little differently.
Resistance/Horror vs. Acceptance/Change
This Corona Virus pandemic took we normal people for a ride we didn’t see coming. Surely it was an inevitability to the scientists who understand these things, but to the rest of us, this felt like another broadcast of the War of the Worlds. And we met the onslaught of information and commands with resistance and horror. We all get that feeling that it won’t be us, we hate to not be in control, and we are such creatures of habit that the grief of this change was ridiculously hard on us. Not to mention, the source that was giving...
read moreSafe for Just Five Things
Another word for my Just Five Things course, Safe. These are my first five immediate thoughts on this word. As a woman, my first struggle with safety is always from not holding back from saying and being who I really am. I have had stones thrown at me when I expressed theories and truths deemed unacceptable. People regard me in silent horror as I say what I think. I am kind but I’m not nice. That is unsafe. Safe from sickness? Someone in my family contracted the covid-19 virus and they were through it and well before they knew as the ...
read moreJust Five Things
I have joined a week long exercise in mindfulness and community expansion this week. Created and run by Michelle GD, The Just Five Things Course is asking me to pause three times a day and list five things based on the prompt word of the day. I must admit that “Gratitude” was a hard prompt for me to be inspired by yesterday. However, what came to my attention is that maybe I truly need way more intentional time carved out for myself for my well being. My boundaries are a little wobbly sometimes. Today is Home and I wanted to share...
read moreListless
Last week was like a test week for me, not that all the weeks haven’t tested me but it felt most certainly that way. I’ve just been unable to get enough separate time and that starts to eat away at my personality. I was feeling wobbly and sad last week. We had moment after moment of upset with the kids and I began to leak hope. And then a woman on Instagram wrote that she now understood what the word “Listless” meant. I am without focus for myself. I have been so bust throughout this “crisis” making sure everyone else has been OK...
read moreAre You in Feeling or Dealing Mode?
Where I was a dealer and not the feeler in the beginning of this lockdown, now no amount of cooking, cleaning, or wine is making this quarantine better for me. I was writing to do lists for a while. But even that is not bestowing me any sense of normality. I’m carrying my pain, my children’s pain, and concern for our mothers’ health. And all I really want to do is just spend a week alone. I make sure I get a walk in everyday. I do laundry and grocery shopping twice every week. I cook 75% of our meals. I do a collage every...
read moreMy Supermom Cape is Getting Threadbare
My supermom cape is beginning to feel a little threadbare. I have said from he beginning that having one child at home feels like three. So I’m feeling like I have 6 kids. And as dear as they would be to you when you met them, they are equally as torturous to me. Small people need to perpetually test their own power, importance, and lovability. They learn their confidence and self-doubt from their parents. In this case, Fiona is going after me to have her doubts assuaged. And that looks like not doing what she’s told, having fits,...
read moreWhat the Humane Society has Meant to Us
On the heels of my last post, Are You Struck too by Mankind’s Generosity in this Crisis , exclaiming that we must do all we can to give of ourselves now, this is a special post on the Humane Society here in our county. I want to share a little of our family’s story of how we’ve involved ourselves and tried to help them. When we moved here, we bought riverfront property and it was immediately apparent by the many mouths that came to be fed that there was a problem with feral cats in our county. At the time, there was a...
read moreNow is When We Need Self-Compassion
Now is when we need self-compassion.But what if I told you that self-compassion equaled feeling sorry for yourself. Boom, you’d say no, I’m not allowed to do that. I need to suck it up, do the hard things here, and put on a good face for my family. I’d get it if you told me that. I’m living that myself. Mothers are supposed to be solid and dependable for their people. But when both of my children found me this week to grieve on me, I knew that their feeling sorry for themselves was exactly what they needed to grieve...
read moreWhat’s a Sunday Feel Like?
My son said he wanted the weekend to feel like a weekend. A Sunday to feel like a Sunday. Because when you’re home bound, the days can start to feel the same-ish. So today, I made sure we didn’t wake him up. He had a “real breakfast” as in not cereal or frozen microwave breakfast sandwiches. And we didn’t give him too many chores. I asked him if it felt like a Sunday. He said “yes”. What is a Sunday supposed to feel like? I have always been a big supporter of special food and lots of luxury and doing...
read moreClueless to Our Futures, Responsible For Our Nows
My near 15 year old is in the other room playing Scenes From an Italian Restaurant by Billy Joel, a song popular when I was 15 years old. And when I was a 15 year old, I really didn’t regard myself with much self-esteem and never could have foreseen being a mother to a gifted pianist. We just don’t have a clue about what’s coming, do we? We can only do the next right thing; for ourselves, our children, and our community. We can choose choices we’re proud to have made alongside people we are proud to call our friends....
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