Following the Beat of My Heart Once Again

I have dipped my fingers (and toes ... heck, I think my whole body is immersed) into approximately three family reunions; a spring getaway and a set-in-stone-end-zone for The Book Project. Thankfully these occasions are all separated by a season or two. Except The Book. The Book must be complete, out of my editing hands and into the hands of those who want it by this upcoming fall.

Deadlines are the only way that I get anything done around here.

Our Spring Fling getaway has taken on new life and we are lucky enough to add an aunt and a cousin to the mix. I think the new equation is going to equal FUN!

Our Summer Family (our immediate family) reunion has the potential to become more-than-we-expected. We have invited extended family into the mix. We may be lucky enough to have our family's Rising Star (who recently got a lead role in a movie that is being filmed in New York with other Hollywood names and faces!!) perform for us. That is, if he isn't too busy making movies ...

Our Fall Family (Dad's family) Reunion has taken on a life of its own. I threw the information out there and a few showed genuine interest so I said "Let's just do it!" and (I do believe that our family has 'sheep' somewhere in their lineage) where one leads, others follow. It has exceeded my wildest expectations. Not crazy-wild. But at least double what I originally thought.

Then there is the Summer 2015 reunion that is off in the distant future. I had thought that we may completely take that idea off the table but there are enough people saying "Let's still do it" or at least if we don't utilize the spot for my dad's side of the family, let's get Mom's side together. Maybe I should reserve two spots...

It is intoxicating being in the hub of this family communication. I literally sat at the computer desk all day. I sent off and answered emails. I made and answered phone calls. I sent and received texts.

I felt like an efficient secretary as I cleared through the chaos that took over the computer desk and kitchen table over the course of last week. I finally have notes and emails and information sorted into appropriate file folders. I do not have excessive 'windows' open on the computer screen. My brain waves are starting to correlate with the organization on my 'desktop'.

Once the frenzy of making this reservation is behind me, I can put up my feet and write a book. That is, if I don't start to plan every nook and cranny of my life.

I have been living a life of complacency for a few too many years. It feels good to be back in action again.

It all started with doing just one hard thing.

Follow the beat of you own heart today. Do the one hard thing that your heart and soul have been telling you to do. It doesn't have to be big. It just has to be something. Try it. And see where the momentum of that one step takes you ...

Do one 'impossible thing' before lunch today. I'll bet you will be glad that you did.

Could I Buy Just a Little More Time?

Wow! This week has sped by. I can't believe we are already heading into another weekend. There was so very much more that I wanted to get done with the week.

Pause.

I can't believe I just wrote that. The week wasn't long enough.

It wasn't long enough to find out the end of too many 'stories' that began this week.

It wasn't long enough to take care of the clutter that has been left in and around my world so that I can start the weekend with a clear slate.

It wasn't long enough to tie up a few loose ends.

It wasn't long enough to enjoy. Yes!, I very much enjoy my weekdays and the days were so consumed by living and planning and taking care of 'life' that I didn't get to sit down and savor the moments (aka: fall asleep on the couch ...).

Okay. Stop the presses. That last point makes me want to stop and ponder. Why do I savor the moments where I sit still and cannot stay awake?

What is it about that stillness that makes it the highlight of my day?

It is the part of the day where the presses do stop. My brain quits thinking and my body stops moving. Combine those two elements and I am down for the count. And loving it.

Last night, I was still awake and thinking at 9:00 p.m. I happened to be texting my brother at that time and he questioned why I was up past my bedtime. I had to stop and think for a moment. What was going on here?

I was enjoying my evening the way that a lot of people do. I accomplished a few small feats. I received a few emails that spurred me into action ... and thinking.

I feel like I got my money's worth out of this week. That said, could I buy just a little more time before the weekend?

How about you? Did you get your money's worth out of your week?

The Poker Game Called Life

I felt it trying to creep into the crevices of my day yesterday. It was pushing through the cracks but I wouldn't let it in.

Life happens. We think we have control over things. But we don't. We just have to work with the cards we are dealt. There are times that you throw your cards back into the kitty thinking you will draw something better in their place. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you don't.

Yesterday afternoon I received the news that I was expecting to hear (but hoping against hope that I was wrong). My little four-year-old daycare 'daughter' will not be returning. The cost-factor is placing too high of a burden on her family. I understand. I truly do ...

This news was buffered by the fact that another family contacted me on Sunday (before I knew what my 'new reality' was going to be) and they needed part-time &/or drop-in daycare from now until September and then possibly full-time daycare. The ages of the boys were a perfect fit and I thought this could be a good solution for the winter blues that are settling in. Some new blood, different ages and new personalities. I was pumped.

I was wrong.

I really, really like the mom. I would love to be able to help. But if the short time they were here were any indication of the attention that these guys would need (Mom says, "I just let them do whatever they want to do and I don't have a problem ... but he is having problems at school, fitting within the structure of the day"), I wouldn't have any time or attention left over for the rest of the children in my care.

The events of the day led up to a conversation with my 15 year old son before I closed my eyes last night. That chat led to a bit of a hangover of the reality kind this morning.

My Youngest was six months old when I first opened my daycare so he has no memory of the first few years before we found our groove and 'family ties' started to form within his friends that attended my daycare. He was comparing two completely different worlds but his words opened the door to insecurities that I thought I had left far behind.

I am scrutinizing who I am, how I am doing my job, whether this is what I should be doing and it has unleashed a whole new batch of self-doubt into my being.

I know that this change of events is going to end up to be a good thing. Trials and tribulations are a test of faith and stamina. This moment is serving a greater purpose and when I am through it, I will be grateful for having endured it.

Things have a way of working out in the end. They truly do. The path isn't the path I expected (I was quietly disillusioned to believe that the family that I was going to meet was the answer to my problem before I knew it was a problem) and I am going to have to work for this a little bit harder than I originally thought. But in the end, I will see the bigger picture and realize that this is the road I was meant to travel.

Am I feeling a large amount of regret for letting one of my daycare families go last month? You bet I am. But I know that we were walking down a very slippery slope together and things were progressing in a bad way. I know what I did was right for all concerned. Yet when I compared the family that I met yesterday to the little boy I used to take care of ... I realized how easy I had it (and it wasn't easy).

Life isn't easy. Not all of the time. It is not all sunshine and roses. But it isn't all winter and darkness either. Life has many seasons and I believe winter has encroached upon my daycare business. After every winter, there comes a spring. Without fail. It may be rainy, gloomy with an unexpected blizzard tossed in before the sun shines through. But spring follows winter. Every year.

I must batten down the hatches and conserve a little heat but I'll throw a little wood on the fire and see what I can do to warm things up before the sun shines down upon us in its glory.

Spring is coming. I don't know when. I don't know how. But I can feel it in the air. Somewhere ...

Do You Think I'm Okay?

I have a friend that will call me and ask me outright, "Do you think I'm (insert the question-of-the-moment here)?"

I ask the same question (without posing the question directly) within a great majority of the conversations that I have on a daily basis. I lay myself on the line a lot. This is who I am. This is how I think. This is my rational. This is how I think the other guy might be feeling. Quietly asking (without saying the words) what do you think? In other words, "Do you think I'm okay (in my imperfection)?"

Do we all need a little affirmation or is it just me and my friend?

I listen to the conversations that flow through my days. In so very many ways I hear people indirectly asking me the same things.

Raising children. The parents that I work for will tell me how they are dealing with a situation and I hear a question mark at the end of many of these stories. I am old enough to be their mother so I suppose that they think that I know more (based on my life experience).

Friends that are living imperfect lives. As wonderful as things look on the outside, there is always more to the story. The more I get to know people, the more I realize that I don't know. When someone opens up their door just enough to let me see that there is more than meets the eye, I hear them asking? "Do you think I am okay ... even after you know all of this??"

I like open ended conversations that leave unspoken questions within them. They open up a dialogue where two people get to bounce their words off of each other. We all know our own answers. They are often hidden underneath the clutter of life, stress, emotion, turmoil and not wanting to admit that we already know (that the answer that we don't want to admit) is our answer.

I don't like someone to jump in and solve my troubles. I like to volley words back and forth in a manner that I hear myself solve my own dilemmas.

I waiver in my self confidence. I have high confidence, low confidence and everything-in-between those highs and low confidence days. Sometimes I need affirmation that it is simply okay to be who I am, think what I think, be imperfect and be liked all the same.

I like that my friend comes out and directly asks the question. I know not to answer her. She simply needs to spill her thoughts out loud and hear her own answers. And ... the affirmation that even though she is not perfect, she is still okay.

We are all imperfect. And we are still okay. Imperfection is part of the human condition. And it is okay.

"We come to love not by finding a perfect person but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." ~ Sam Keen

The Many Faces of Junior Cat

Our Junior Cat is the most unique cat that I have ever known.

He follows me into the bathroom almost every time I go in. At first, I thought that it was because he had a captive audience and I could massage his head and ears and love him exclusively. This progressed to him standing on the floor, with his front paws on my knees and gently pawing at me if I did not pay enough attention. If that didn't work, he would jump on my lap. Lately, he has started to jump on the toilet tank and enjoy the view from there. He is pushing all sorts of personal boundaries but I do believe that the biggest allure (at present, anyway) is his fascination with water...

Senior Cat's steroid treatment has left him chronically thirsty and Junior is nothing, if not a copy cat at the best of times. As Senior finds enjoyment in hunting down fresh, new water sources he has a shadow as Junior must investigate anything that Senior is interested in. So lately, I find both cats waiting at the bathroom door for me in the morning so that I can turn on the bathtub tap (just a trickle) and create a fresh fountain experience for them.

I simply cannot help but amuse myself by snapping photos of Junior in his many forms:

Junior, relaxing. Cats tend to sleep on high alert but Junior has his own unique style of looking very unrestful while he is taking a cat nap out of his home territory (I believe that the only time he truly relaxes is when he is sleeping in my Youngest Son's room - the Cat Oasis of the house).

He spotted my favorite burgundy cardigan on the back of the chair the other day and immediately he had to check out this 'tent'. He reminded me of a kid with his unbridled anticipation of checking out a new fort.

Lately, the computer has held a great deal of fascination for him. He stands squarely in front of the monitor so you can't see beyond him. Then he will chase the arrow around the screen when you move the mouse. He is astounded at the way the keyboard creates movement - my Youngest Son said that Junior seemed to be correlating the idea that moving the mouse or typing on the keyboard was the reason behind the movement on the screen as he looked back and forth between Human Involvement on this fascinating new Cat Toy.

Then again, perhaps I am the culprit behind his newfound interest. The first time he showed an interest in the computer, I turned on a bird video for him to watch. Here, he is checking out the bird-sounds that are coming from the speaker. He is no fool. He knows the birds are not in the computer. They are in the speakers!

Speaking of bird-watching ... his most favorite spot in the house to watch the birds in our neighbor's trees is on the kitchen counter, where he gets a bird's eye view out of our kitchen window. We chase him off the counter every time we catch him, so he found a compromise. He hopped atop the fridge and discovered no one was angry at him for jumping on that spot. He can still check out the birds from a distance, so that seems to have appeased him. For the moment.

This expression is one that he wears the most often. I can almost hear a teenage voice saying/thinking with great attitude "What!?" "What are you looking at?" "It wasn't me!!"

This is one of my favorites. His 'yoga pose'. He has discovered that this is a real crowd pleaser and it is his way of getting a little attention when he sees a captive audience close by. I'm sure that he does this to hear the sound of our laughter...

His newest prey is the paint that is chipping off of our walls and door frames. Our corner moldings have been done terribly and there is a great amount of paint chipping off the corners of our walls. I do believe that he discovered this and loves to watch the paint fall off the wall. Because he is now not only helping the paint 'fall off the wall', but he has discovered that the painted door jambs provide the same entertainment and he is working at stripping those as well. Now? I do believe that he likes to make me run. He knows that he isn't supposed to be clawing at the walls and door frames, so when he wants a little attention (and no one is noticing his infamous yoga pose), he runs around the house clawing at the paint to make me get up and chase him.

Then ... he snuggles up and tucks his head upside down and curls up his paws (his most unnatural pose of all - anything curled up and cat-like is definitely something that he is copying from Senior or cat videos - his body simply doesn't enjoy being curled up and tucked in). And he looks like the picture of sweetness and innocence. Because that is exactly who he thinks he is. What do you think??

Good Enough is Our Friend

Slow and steady. Baby steps. Forward steps. Any steps!

I have been belaboring a writing project for about five years now. I have collected so much information that I am overwhelmed at the thought of putting it all together. I have been stuck in limbo for far too long.

This weekend was ideal. I didn't know that I had it off until the weekend arrived. Not knowing that I had two consecutive days off meant that I hadn't planned any extra curricular activities. Frigid, Arctic winter temperatures prevented me from even wanting to leave the house.

So I cleared out some 'office space' in my room-with-a-door and recreated my Holiday Oasis from my summer vacation (may I say, THE best vacation. Ever). It was like I was away on a mini-retreat for two entire days. And all I had to do was clear the clutter out of the room that I inhabited for the weekend.

I puttered. Slowly but surely. I cleared out some of the clutter in my brain and assembled my notes, scribblers and various other means of collecting memories. It took a good day to settle myself back into where-I-last-left-off. But yesterday? I started moving. Forward.

There is so very much more to do. I have created a monster. I have two computers and have been working on this project on both computers. One computer kept crashing and saving a back-up copy of my book-in-progress, so I have two files on one computer which do not match each other, nor the file on my laptop. Not only do I have three versions of the Book Project to integrate, I have my original outline-in-progress that I have been working from AND notes and scraps of paper, letters and emails to sort through (again). I must ensure that I have all of the information in one place (then get rid of the excess files!!).

I have done this to myself. It feels like an onerous task - simply ensuring that I have all of the information in ONE spot. And ONE spot only.

Then, the task will be to pull it all together in a way that tells a story. This is the part that has overwhelmed me.

The other variable that has paralyzed me is the fact that I have done this once before. As soon as the end product was finished, I was thinking of ways that I could do it better the next time. I have set the bar so high that I can't even see it any more. I feel like it is an illusive dream that may stay forever out of reach.

I have been talking myself out of the idea of 'perfection'. I know that it will never be good enough to meet my own standards. I know that there are many out there who could do so much better than I. I can already feel the disappointment as I fail to meet my own expectations.

I have been talking myself down for a while now. Then yesterday, I read this:

“Everything worth doing is not worth doing well.

Perfect is the enemy of done.

Good enough is the friend of done.

In sum: perfect is our enemy and good enough is our friend.

We need to do it and be done with it.

Mostly so we can have more evening couch time!”

~ written by the author of Momastery.com on her Facebook page

Perfect is the enemy of done. Good enough is our friend.

It is with that thought, that I will continue to forge ahead and put this project to rest. Sitting here in its incompleteness is draining me. I can already feel the energy that I will have once I finish this once and for all and print it off in its imperfect state.

One small step at a time. Perfect is the enemy of done. I will do my best and I will get this done. And it will be good enough.

Unexpected Blessings

There is an upside to most everything if you look hard enough. 

The weather forecast for this weekend has been cold, cold, cold. Rumors were that the temperature was going to dip to -60 degrees (with the wind chill). I don't think that it went below -50 though ...

Now why am I talking about the weather? Perhaps it is because I have the best jobs on earth. I run my daycare from home, I write from home and I have a bookkeeping boss that calls me and tells me "No one should be out in this weather ... don't come in to work."

I was granted an unexpected day off yesterday. Added to a day off that I knew was coming (that would be today) and I had an entire weekend at my disposal. As luck would have it, I have next weekend off as well.

So .... I dumped all of the toys out of the toy room, into the spare room ...

 ... and cleared myself some 'office space' ...

... and I am investing my unexpected free time on my Book Project. It is going slowly. But faster than it would, if I had worked yesterday.

I love this weather!! It granted me an unanticipated day off. 

What unexpected blessing have you found within the minor inconveniences of your life today??