words of wisdom!!!!

Black-outs and freeze-outs

One night last week we were watching TV, dinner was in the oven, Kayla was practicing the piano and then, there was darkness. Complete and utter darkness. The power was out. Boy do I take electricity for granted. I learned a few things that night.

1. you should keep matches WITH the candles.
2. we watch a lot of TV.
3. two year olds do not understand why they cannot watch TV
4. dinner by candlelight is fun.
5. there are a whole lot of things you cannot do when you don't have power.
6. washing dishes in the dark is not effective.
7. the novelty of doing things by flashlight gets old fast.
8. it is nice to go to bed early
9. it is not nice when the power comes back on around midnight and all the lights and TV turn on too.

Then there was the COLDNESS. Boy oh boy, do I take having a warm house for granted. On Monday night, our house was really cold. I kept checking the doors and windows to see if one of the kids had opened them. Sometime, in the middle of the night, we figured out that the furnace wasn't working. By morning, the house was 57 degrees, not freezing, I know but way to cold. This is what I learned from not having heat:
1. I don't like to be cold
2. furnaces are expensive
3. tax returns come in handy

So if I have learned anything from this it is that I am grateful for all the modern conveniences and I am so grateful that I am not a pioneer woman and I have a few things I need to do to get prepared for a "real" emergency.

Freedom, sweet sweet freedom!

Organizing, sorting, inventorying, cleaning, purging. (I think I will call this the great purge of 2010.) I am getting so tired of sorting through things. I spent a whole day going through things and throwing things away and taking things to DI...and you couldn't see any difference. What a frustrating goal. I was starting to get discouraged but then I took a stack of magazines to be recycled and I felt...lighter. A tiny weight was lifted and I felt free- I am free from the shouldsthose magazines represented: I should make that recipe, I should do that craft with my kids, I should make my room look like that. I think I will get rid of the books that I "should" read, and the crafts that I "should" do. I am not anywhere close to where I want to be but I feel the warm breeze of sweet sweet freedom blowing my way.

I think one of the beautiful things about getting older is that you start to realize that you already know what you need to do. You don't need self help books or seminars, or magazines. You need to get rid of all that stuff and just live the life you want.

waiting for spring!

It has to come soon. I've waited so long. Please come spring. I need to feel the warm sun and I need to be able to go for long walks again. I need to see green again and I need to open my windows and let the fresh breeze blow through my house.

And I need to have lunch in the back yard and take the kids to the park and I need to pick some flowers and put them in a little vase on the table. I need to get my hands dirty and buy some seeds and prune the roses.

Fun in the Kitchen

Pizza Night

I let the kids make their own Mini Pizzas for dinner Aaron made the cutest little pizza, ate half the Canadian Bacon, and put a mountain of cheese on his little piece of dough.

Yum!

All food should be this happy (this one is Jason's)

My Sister, Lani and Kayla in their matching Aprons, making cupcakes from scratch.

Jason's Popcorn shirt

Books

I love books and I love reading! Have you read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society? Or how about The Hunger Games, Shearwood Smith's Posse of Princesses or Crown Duel and Court Duel? Les Mis? The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie? Good Stuff.


But then there is the not so good stuff. I recently started reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by a Nobel prize winning Author (who also wrote Love in the time of Cholera) and I don't think I will finish it. I know it is highly regarded by the literary community but there is stuff in there that I just don't want in my head, plus it is long, and (dare I say) boring. I don't want to waste my time on "just ok". I want to read good books that make me happy. So I am throwing in the towel and moving on- and If you know any good books I should read, let me know- and please warn me about the bad ones.

I resolve...

I have been reading a lot of your new years resolutions and thought I would add mine. These aren't really "New Years Goals". I have been working on them for a few months but it is a good time to recommit myself. Awhile back, I asked myself "What three changes would make the most difference in my life". Three sounded reasonable, manageable and even, dare I say, achievable. I have written before about how I felt like I got off track during the year I was pregnant, our house was for sale for nine months, I had a baby (early), we sold our house, and then there was the move. We developed a lot of bad habits during that time (hiding dirty dishes in the oven and eating frozen dinners all the time) and we lost some good habits. I wanted to focus on three things to get me back on track. Or at least heading in the right direction. I decided to share these because "a goal is just a wish unless you write it down" and what is more powerful than writing it down and sharing it? The three things I decided on are:



Spirituality. I let this slip for a long time. It is amazing how long you can get by just going through the motions. This is actually the one I think I have made the most progress on since I started working on these goals.



Getting my house in order. This is a long term goal. I plan on going through everything in my house, every closet, every drawer, every box, every paper pile. The nice thing about this goal is that if I go through one drawer a week I'll eventually get there. Slow and steady.



Loose weight/get into my pre-pregnant clothes/ eat better

why is this so hard? I have been working on it for months with minimal results. Frustrating!!! Sometimes I ask myself why not just BE, accept where I am and stop obsessing. But I don't want to give up so this is my goal.



I added on two bonus goals



be present and connected with my kids.

Speak my truth. I have, at times, let my silence be interpreted as agreement and I haven't asked for what I need. I don't want to end up one of those women who have completely lost themselves. I want to get back a little bit of this girl
Speaking of this girl... I wasn't even happy with my body then. What was I thinking?