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Forced family fun time

Even though it always starts as the most horrible thing I could do, the kids actually enjoy the forced family fun walk along the river. I haven’t made them do it very often in the winter because the cold and the whining together was more than I could handle. But, today was sunshiney and pretty out so we braved it. After the obligatory grumble, grumble, grumble they started playing catch and running around like…. well…. kids having fun.

I’m so glad we forced ourselves out of the house and enjoyed some of what Mother Nature has to offer.

Sometimes you end up being a bump on a log. She thought this was very funny.

And proof they can be normal.

It was so good for our souls. And so important to do. Because you have to enjoy that happiness in that moment. In every moment there is somehow, somewhere happiness to be found. But, some of them are more difficult to find the bliss in. So, for those – I like to have these extra moments of joy built up to draw strength on.

Here’s my true moment of happiness right here. There’s actually a video with a dance but since I love him I won’t share that. Happiness is being silly and goofy at just the right moment.  (They’re light up shamrock glasses and he’s got shamrock socks to match – you just can’t tell because you’re blind from his shoes)

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An active participant in fun

Today I played the role of “good mommy” and let Jacob ride shotgun in the suburban  rented for the weekend. It’s black and mafia cool looking, but we have managed to turn it into a crazy family car nonetheless. Here’s what I discovered today – being in the back seat is much more fun than being in the front seat. For example, I could reach through the seat and the head rest and tickle the back of Jacob’s neck. I could reach around the side and poke him. Then when he got angry and tried to squish me to death by backing the front seat right down on me I could swing my legs to the side, grab his seatbelt pinning him to the seat and wet willy him until he cried uncle.

Jenna and I laughed so hard in the back seat we thought we were going to be sick.

We played push your seat back and then flop it forward. We harassed poor Jacob stuck in the front. We played the “are we there yet? I’m bored” game until their dad got that cranky line that says shhhh I’m trying to focus on the road across his forehead. Then we laughed about that.

We took crazy car selfies.

 

Being an active participant in fun is so much better than being a passive participant. It’s so much more heart warming to be able to be a part of the fun than to just watch and enjoy the fun. It does not mean you actively have to get up and do something. In fact when I’m laughing so hard I can’t get up and do anything. It just means being engaged and involved in the fun.

It was by far the happiness moment of the day. I felt lighter for hours after it.

Happiness rocks.

I had my 5th Healing Light Yoga Therapy class today. It was so powerful I don’t even know where to begin. I need some time to process it. But I can guarantee that it’s what set me up for the belly laughing, gut aching fun I had later on.

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An Ayurvedic Consultation

Nourish, Vitality, Excitement, Desire

Those are my new life-loving words.

Today I had an Ayurvedic consultation with Asrael from Ananda Ayurveda. She’s the same lady who teaches my Healing Light Yoga Therapy classes and it has been so uplifting for my soul to have had her come into my life.

~ As a side note, as soon as I got on my Google Hangout chat with her my cat Ella came running from the other side of the house to stick her head in the computer and see “the yoga lady”. Ella spends a lot of time hanging out with me during classes and I guess was excited to see what was going to happen today.~

It was amazing. I wish I’d done this sooner, but I’m thankful I did it now. It was good to know that a lot of the things I’ve been feeling about what’s going on with me were in fact steps in the right direction. To find out that what I’m learning and trying to apply is actually working was pretty heart warming.

Of course there is a lot I don’t know and so to have her start to fill in some of the blank spaces fills me with gratitude. It was so wonderful to have someone sit down and walk through where I’m at and how I’m doing physically, spiritually, and energetically. To have someone hold my hand and help guide me down the path that I feel like I’ve been walking blindfolded and trying to peek out the corners feels like a weight being lifted off my shoulders (and my lower back and hips).

I now have better ideas on how to ground and nourish my self. How to regain my center of balance and power up that strength.

Interestingly, one of the things she suggested I do is to start Morning Pages which I did years ago after going to a course led by Julia Cameron at Kripalu. I did them faithfully for about 2 years, when I loved doing them and when I hated doing them. Then as I really got into those dark night of the soul times I quit doing them because they made me angry and upset. Ironically had I kept doing them I probably could have worked a lot of that junk out because that is the point of having all those feelings in morning pages. But, I couldn’t deal with that then. So now here I am…. back to Morning Pages. Great…. (it is great. It will be a good thing, it just won’t always feel like a good thing)

That was my happiness moment. I highly recommend doing it if you are able. It’s a wonderful way to be able to discover more healthful ways to live life. And think…. soon I will be able to give guidance similar to this to other people! It’s life-changing!

My other, naughtier, yummier, less Ayurvedic happiness moment came later when we went out for supper and I had this big old piece of chocolate cake for dessert. Oh, yummmmmm!!!!

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Purple hair

My happiness moment of the day was going to be that I got the purple highlights in my hair redone today. I first put them in late last fall and I LOVE them. They’re subtle enough that it doesn’t scream purple yet bright enough you can see the purple. Funky hair is fun. 

But then I was taking a selfie to show off the purple and Jacob photo bombed me. We laughed. I told him to butt out. 



So I took another one and he photo bombed me AGAIN. I love it when the kids are funny. It means they’re relaxed enough to joke around. 



Here’s a front on. 



Here’s a better purple view 



You can’t even see them all that well. But they’re there. My hairdresser liked them so much she was going to do her hair after I left. 

Purple power. I’ve got purple everywhere and will soon write about how purple fits into my coming out is the dark night of the soul. 

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Just flicker that light at the end of the tunnel will you?

I was talking with a friend this afternoon who is also thinking of selling her house. They’ve had a bunch of false starts over the past year about getting the house ready, having possible jobs fall through, having people want to buy the house and then back out… we can totally relate to each other’s unrest and uncertainty. We were chatting about it today and I said “I’m trying, I know it will work out, I’m strong on faith, just low on patience”. We laughed because – aren’t we all?

She said “It would be nice if God would just turn on the light at the end of the tunnel once in a while so we could see where we are going.”

I totally agreed. It does not even have to turn on and stay on, just one of those quick flickers so you can look around and get your bearings and know that everything’s going to be ok. Because it will be. One way or another.

It’s just the having patience part that is difficult.

Jacob got up early this morning and came and flopped on my bed while I sat in my chair drinking my tea and playing fetch with Ella. I told him that it didn’t seem all that long ago I could just pick him up and throw him down on the bed. My little-baby-who-is-now-a-man-with-deep-voice. I told him about how I’d throw him and then tickle him, until one day I threw him and then fell on top of him because I wasn’t strong enough to throw anymore.

He came and lay beside me in my chair, all stretched out looking so comfortable. I looked down at him and with fingers twitching said “Whey you were little Jacob I used to move my hands just like this and then come down and tickle you!!!” Which I then did. And he curled up in a little ball just like he used to when he was little Jacob and giggled and squirmed and didn’t want me to stop, just like little Jacob used to. It did my heart good to have that morning moment with my little boy, and he came to me later this afternoon and said “that was really fun with you this morning mom, it made me feel like a little kid again. We need to do that more often.”

My moment of happiness.

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Cilantro mint chutney and 44 days of happiness

In Ayurveda chutneys are the appetizers of the meal. Which makes sense if you think about the word “appetizer” – something to increase appetite. Not a mini meal before you have your main meal. They help both improve digestion and the absorption of your food, and can be specialized to nurture the different doshas.

There are many different recipes for this chutney. I seem to always make it with just 4 ingredients: fresh cilantro, fresh mint, a hot pepper, and fresh squeezed lemon.

I used 2 bunches of cilantro and 2 small packages of mint. I can’t wait until they’re growing outside instead of me having to buy them.

pretty, pretty….

Wash all ingredients, make sure you just have mint leaves – take them off the stems –  and put them in a blender. I used to use my Cuisinart food processor, but I found that the little green specks were impossible to get out of all the little nooks and crannies. So, I now use my blender. I have to cut up the cilantro and then add things bit by bit or it takes forever to blend up.

Once it’s all blended, put in a glass dish – enjoy!!

Today is day 44 of the 44 days of happiness. My happy moment came while I was driving kids from doing recycling to drop off a form at the library. Jacob was reading the form – it was for a teen night and so I had filled out his information – and he said “why did you put M as my grade?” Well, I had read it as gender, so I put M for male. But, since the three of us are huge Goldbergs fans I said “The M is for moron” (because that’s what the dad is always calling everyone – it’s how he says I love you). We started laughing so hard I had to pull the car over because I couldn’t see to drive (thankfully we were at a light). Those spontaneous belly laughs are what it’s all about!

I was thinking about my 44 days of happiness yesterday while I was out for my walk. This mini-journey has brought so much to my life. We have lived in such stress and chaos for so long that it was really easy to focus on that part of life. Which is a shame when there still are so many awesome things happening every minute. Finding one thing that made me happy every day has made me an overall happier person. I laugh more, I play more, I have more patience with the kids, I talk with friends more, I even lost some weight – clothes that haven’t fit for ages are fitting again. I’ve also been doing yoga much more regularly and that is so blissful for my body and soul. I’m 4 weeks into a 6 weeks course on Healing Light Yoga Therapy which is led by Asreal Zemenick. This session is about addictions and letting go of old beliefs and patterns, and man do I have some old beliefs and patterns that need to be let go. I hadn’t realized how addicting those ways of thinking could actually be. But learning to let go of what no longer serves me is life changing to say the least.

Overall I’d say that the 44 days of happiness has made me a better version of me.

I realized while walking that I was just starting to hit my stride with this whole happiness thing and that just ending it could very easily turn my focus back onto those things that cause me stress. And I don’t want to do that.

So, I have decided that in order for my 44th year to be a year of happiness, I need to continue to look for the happiness in every single day. Why not? I’ve had lots of years where the focus has been on  stress and anxiety and unease (no wonder my Vata is all upset) – why not have a year of happiness? It goes along with my intention of the path of least resistance and obviously I’ve intended on keeping this going from its conception as is evident in my birthday post.

So, now that I’m 44 and 44 days old I can say that I’m thankful that this year is off to such a blessed start. I feel happier and more blissful than ever.

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My (not so ) Secret Crush on James Barber

“Cooking, like sex and dancing, is a pleasure best shared.” (James Barber, The Urban Peasant)

Somehow I made it into my 20s not having any idea at all how to cook. Honestly, I don’t think I was very interested in learning. I liked eating, but I had no interest in how the food got to my mouth. I was perfectly happy eating a sandwich on my way to the barn.

Around the age of 22 I took a job at a busy show-barn and I was often so tired from working and riding that I had no desire to go anywhere anyway. Because we were in the country we had only 3 channels – one of them being CBC. This was a glorious time (in my mind) for CBC because on Friday nights they would show Mr. Bean, The Kids in The Hall, and This Hour has 22 Minutes. Even if I had the option to go out on a Friday night I would choose to stay home so I could laugh myself silly all night.

But at 10:00 am every weekday there was this man who would come on the CBC. A man who ended up changing my life. I fell in love with James Barber the first time I watched his show The Urban Peasant . I think part of the reason why I was unwilling to cook – once I moved out and had no other way to actually feed myself – was because I had no idea how to do it. What if I didn’t have an ingredient? Did that mean I had to scrap the whole thing? What if I didn’t measure something properly – would it be ruined? What if I followed the recipe perfectly and it turned out tasting like crap?

James Barber was cooking some sort of stew and was talking away and went to grab a spice. It wasn’t on the counter where he thought it was. He turned and went through his cupboard and it wasn’t there either. Instead of going into full out panic mode like I would have, he just said ‘Oh, I’ll use _______ instead, it will make it taste just as good’. I was like ‘you can do that???’ It changed how I looked at cooking. It sounds simple I know, but watching him free flow and create in the kitchen gave me the confidence to start experimenting myself.

Some of the the things were pretty gross that I made, but some of them were actually pretty good. And as I practiced they got better and better. I gained some confidence and some basic knowledge and started to really enjoy myself. I began taping his show (old-school on the VHS) in the morning so that I could watch it when we were done cleaning the barn -and I was so tired I could barely move. I started developing a real (one sided) relationship with him.

Years later my sister in law treated me to a cooking lesson with him. It remains one of the coolest things I have done. He was just as awesome in person as he was on TV. Full of passion and fun and life. He made all of us participants as excited about the meals he was creating as he was. I remember the food he made, I remember how it tasted, but probably what I remember best was what he said – it was something like: “If you ever move into a new apartment and you’re having difficulty meeting people, just put some onions in your frying pan with some butter and start browning them. The smell will be so amazing that people will start coming knocking on your door just to see if they can have a bite.”

Over the years I bought all of his cookbooks and made almost all of his recipes. Everyone around me got Urban Peasant cookbooks for their birthdays and Christmas.

I have always felt a huge amount of gratitude to this kind man who taught me not only how to cook, but how to love to cook. I think of him when the kids are creating in the kitchen. They approach it with the same freedom and joy.

Sadly he passed away in 2007 at the age of 85, but even that he did in a way that showed how much he loved the life he was living:

“He was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a cookbook when he passed away,” said his wife Christina Burridge. “There was a pot of chicken soup on the stove. He would have been pleased.” She said his death was sudden, unexpected and most likely a heart attack. (from his obituary)

He made me want to be like him – loving what I was doing. Living the life as they say.

My happiness moment on day 43 of the 44 days of happiness came early this morning. The kids were sitting at the kitchen table in kind of a stunned silence waiting for breakfast. With the time change it’s now dark when they get up so we sit staring at each other instead of the sunrise. Jacob slumped down in his chair and said “It’s still dark out, why do we have to get up before God gets up? This is wrong!”

Which I agree with, but they do have to go to school sometimes.

We went on to talk about how nice it had been to have these latest snow days off. Jenna mentioned how different it would be if I was working. I said that they would have to be dropped at a sitter, or have someone come in and look after them. Jacob said how hard it would be to have to go somewhere all summer long and not be able to just hang out and sleep in in the mornings. They both looked at me and said thank you for deciding to stay home with us so we can do things together. Jenna said she was so happy that it was me that was the adult who was with her and Jacob said that he was happy that we got to spend time together. I told them how happy I was that I was so blessed as to be able to watch them grow and to be there every step of the way.

It was a real heart warming moment. There is such a struggle for women – to work or to stay home – and both of them have huge benefits and also huge downsides. But this morning, in that moment I felt my inner sunshine as I knew that all the choices I’d made were the right ones for us.

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Tracing our Roots – Finding Ourselves – Passing it On

When I was 5 or 6 I had this Shetland-Pony-From-Hell (are there any other types?) named Tango. He was stubborn and ornery, and didn’t like anyone or anything except green grass. Sadly for him he was of the short roly-poly sort and his grass consumption was kept to a bare minimum – making him even more cranky and ornery and unpleasant. I didn’t know any better. I loved him. Had he not been starving to death he may have even loved me a little bit. If he did, he hid it well.

Pony Club was held at my uncle and aunt’s place and they had the best D-Rally and the best Cross Country course around (in our minds anyway). They were out in the middle of the Foothills with a wonderful rolling view of pasture land towards the Rocky Mountains. At age 5 or 6 I competed in my first D-Rally with my little treasure of a pony Tango. I don’t remember anything about the day except the Cross Country course. All of the little kids went at the beginning, so when it was our turn Tango and I shot out of the gate at a pace that would have given a snail whiplash. I was focused on the jumps and where we were going. Tango was entranced by the miles and miles of grass, grass that went up past his withers – and aware that the only thing that was stopping him from the gorge of a lifetime was this little peanut on his back and some flimsy grass reins made of binder twine (binder twine is like duct tape – it fixes everything).

Going up to the first jump I had lots of ambition and lots of energy. I kicked and yelled and willed him over that jump. We landed, he walked a couple of steps and then he just stood there blissfuly eating grass. I kicked, I yelled, I did everything I could think of. Nothing. Finally I got off and yanked-led him to the next jump. I walked him up to it, climbed on and kicked him over it. Naturally the same thing happened on the other side. Little bugger stood there in grass heaven while I kicked, yelled, and eventually got off and led him to the next jump.

This went on and on. I walked that damn pony all around the course. I don’t know how long it took me – but I was an E and the D1’s, the D2’s and the D3’s all went while I walked that course. This was way before cell phones, no one was tracking me although the judges at the jumps cheered me on and knew I was alive – there was no contact back to the main event. No one came out looking for me to make sure I was ok, although I did hear that my uncle would ask kids to see if they noticed me out there when he gave them their countdown to go.

It wasn’t until I was an adult and retelling the story that for the first time I thought “I wonder why I didn’t just turn around and go back. I knew I was getting eliminated. I knew I wasn’t going to place – what made me keep going?”

Well, that day was almost 40 years ago (gasp), and I can still remember the feeling I had out there on that course. I can tell you exactly why I didn’t turn around and quit. I was so mad at that freaking pony. There was no way he was going to win. It was a battle of wills and I was going to win it no matter what the cost.

I made it all the way around that course and I was happy. He ate his heart out for a few hours whilst having the inconvenience of having a little peanut on his back whacking away at him – I’m sure he was happy too. 



 What is the point of this?

My bedtime read these days is a book called 4 Acts of Personal Power. It was given to me by a friend in Quebec years ago and lately it’s been calling me to read it. The first act is knowing your family roots. Knowing that you are a part of a group, a chain, a process – not thinking and feeling like you’re floating alone in the world. We all come from somewhere, we all have roots of some type.

Every family has it’s own traits, characteristics, values. Some of them are good, positive ones that help the group and the individual. Some of them are either negative ones that cause harm, or outdated ones that no longer hold the virtue they once did. It’s about tracing back through your family and seeing what sorts of traits you want to pass on to future generations and which ones you want to halt in their tracks at your generation.

For me, this is a good one to be working on because I’m really feeling the ungroundedness of having spent too much time away from my clan. We have been floating about, a little isolated unit, for 10 years now and it has taken a huge toll on us. It is sometimes easy to forget that we are part of a whole, part of a larger unit, part of a group where we belong.

And much as I love my family, and am so thankful for the large unit of love and support I have, as with any family, there are traits I want to pass on and ones I want to halt in my generation.

My story about Tango showcases many of those traits:

Stubbornness can be a good thing. It made me dig in and keep going even though odds weren’t in my favour. It was something I wanted to do so I just did it. My ancestors had to be stubborn in order to ensure survival. They had to get up every day and feed cows whether it was nice out or not (and not happens a lot in Alberta). They had to keep working until the work was done so that they could eat, have a roof over their heads, provide for their family. It can be a bad thing as well. Refusing to see things from other people’s perspectives, not caring about other’s opinions, refusing to admit when you are wrong.

Courage I had to summon all my courage as a little thing out there, going through huge fields by myself. I had set my intention on something I wanted done and I did it. My great grandfather came to Canada from Ireland in the 1880s. He eventually started ranching in the Calgary area with his two brothers. But they left behind their home, the rest of their family and their friends to start a new life in an unknown wild land. That took an insane amount of courage that has benefited our family for generations to come. On the downside, sometimes you can be brave in situations that it’s not necessary for you to participate in, or challenge yourself in ways that aren’t safe or smart – just to prove that you can.

Manipulation – not sure there’s an upside to this one. It’s just something I’d like to bury in my generation and not pass on.

Strength – It took a lot of both physical and mental strength for me to fight that pony around the course. Physical and mental strength has served my family well over the years. It took strength to build a house, barn, ranch in an unknown land. Strength to raise a family in a new place. Ive drawn on this one a lot in the years that we’ve been gone. I think of my great-grandmother and my grandmother raising kids out in the country without neighbours close by, without phones, without running water. The strength it took my mom to carry and deliver us even though with her polio issues they weren’t sure how that was going to go. The strength it took her (physical and mental) to take my sister and I all over the place to all our activities. It helps give me strength to start over and over again in the moves we’ve done. Making sure the strength does not turn into bullying is something for me to be mindful of.

Competitiveness –  I was in a competition and damn-it I was going to finish. Quitters never win. The good thing is, if you win something in my family you know you’ve won because you were the absolute best (one of the highlights of my riding career came at a family reunion when I beat out my uncles at a steak race on my little English pony – not Tango – in my little English saddle). The downside is that family game night can be a little challenging to say the least.

These are all traits I see in myself. My challenge now is to focus on the positive aspects of all of them and make sure those are the ones that I pass down to my children. I mean, I know the kids will still get together in years to come and say “omg, mom’s coming over I hope she doesn’t do __________, when she ________ it drives me insane.”I hope to soon find out what _______ is that drives them insane so I can fine-tune it to pull out when needed hehe.

But seriously, I hope that we can keep passing down the best parts of ourselves to the next generation. I hope that we can continue to look back at past generations and learn from them. They contain a lot of wisdom that I feel we discount in our society.  This is why I’m such a firm believer in the fact that kids need to have a strong relationship with grandparents. Kids will listen to the wisdom from their grandparents. They don’t want to hear it from parents, and those parents in turn don’t want to hear it from their parents (the kids’ grandparents). But with the generations mixing at least there’s more stories, more values, more love being shared up and down the line.

Jenna brought home an assignment from school where they had to trace back their family’s roots in this area. They were supposed to count back how many generations of their family have lived here and find out what it was like when they first moved here. As you can tell, this is not a very transient town. Jenna was like ‘what do I do with this?’ I told her that since we were just rolling through she wouldn’t have the answers to a lot of the questions for this place specifically. But, I sure want to make sure that she knows where she comes from, knows where her roots are, knows that she’s part of a larger whole.

My happiness moment came unexpectedly today. I thought it was just going to be about enjoying a quiet walk in the rain with the dog this morning, and how I was surprised at how many of the regular walkers were out and how happy they all were. But, then I read this article (warning: he drops the F*bomb a lot) and it has become my new favourite thing about the day. Aside from the fact that I really needed to read this because I do give a F about too many things, I found it hilarious. I laughed and laughed and it was exactly what I needed. I’ve printed it off and I’ll have to read it a few more times. But it was exactly what I needed to hear. I get too wound up giving F’s where they aren’t needed.

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A shy introvert 

I have always struggled with the double whammy of being both  shy and of being introverted. It’s only been recently that I’ve really begun to explore the differences between what it means to be shy and what it means to be an introvert. For ages I thought they were different versions of the same thing and something I needed to change about myself in order to be a settled member of society.

Now I’m realizing that the two things, for me anyway, are completely different. I’m an introvert. It’s how I’m made. I like quiet and I like to retreat into my own head and into my own space – there’s always a lot going on in there. I get overwhelmed when I’m in big crowds and things are too loud. Being an introvert is something for me to celebrate. It’s a wonderful part of myself that should be nurtured.

Being shy is attached much more to my self-esteem. Being shy means not speaking up when I should. Not participating in activities I want to because I am feeling anxious or not good enough (whereas the introverted part of me is completely happy to go home, curl up with a good book and enjoy a cup of tea in the quiet). There’s a big difference between not going out and doing things because I don’t want to (introvert) and not going out and doing things because my self-esteem holds me back (shyness)

Or to put it another way, my introverted self never has FOMO, but my shy part suffers desperately from it.

id love to hang out but

Today I was reading about the third chakra in the book  Wheels of Life. In case you cant’ tell, I’m kind of obsessed with my third chakra lately. In the past week I’ve written about it here and here. She’s talking about raising kids and teaching them how to “fit in” or “conform” to society.

Social cooperation is certainly necessary; however, if it occurs through domination, it hardly deserves the term “cooperation” at all. It is then cooperation without desire, vitality, or the spark of fire characteristic of the third chakra. It becomes submission, which dampens and cripples our sense of power and will, and damages our self-esteem.

OMG, that is me. I made a conscious decision years ago to stop fighting the fight, to stop being different, to try to just fit in and be who it was I thought others thought I should be. You know, basically the last time I felt like I was really living my own life. I listened to voices that were louder than mine. I was young and didn’t really realize the power that decision would have over my life (thank goodness I’m older and wiser now and I can reverse such things). But, that was it – I gave up my personal power and became submissive to the needs and wants of others.

I struggle with this with the kids. I want them to let their lights shine, to be the best “thems” they can be. But there are certain rules in society we must follow aren’t there? Just the other day I snapped at Jacob and when he snapped back at me I pulled the “you can’t talk to me like that, I’m your mother – show some respect.” He came back with “I just talked to you like you talked to me”. Ugh. Totally called me on that one. Worst of all, he only spoke to me like that to show me how it felt. Point taken. I want them to become who they are not who they’ve been forced into being. I want the same thing for myself.

So, I will continue to honour my introvert, and continue to encourage the shy part of my being. Engage that powerhouse and see what kind of light shines out of it.

Happiness moment on day 37 of the 44 days of happiness came this morning. I went for a very chilly walk. When we lived in Rhode Island I was often so cold in the winter that the only way I could warm up was in a hot shower – the chill went right to the bone. This morning after our walk I felt the same way – just couldn’t get warm <As an aside, I thought I was moving to the South and that things would be warm here>. I went and had a shower. Part of being a mom seems to be being available and accessible to the kids when they need me – and nothing makes them need me like being in the shower. But, this morning no one was home. So, I stood in the steaming hot shower until all the hot water was gone. I can’t remember when I have last done that. Didn’t have to worry about anyone else needing water – no one else was there. The cat did get a little bent out of shape that I was so obviously enjoying something that she couldn’t come sit on or walk over. But even her angry face at the shower door didn’t take away from the bliss of showering until all the hot water was gone.

Angry Ella face waiting for supper

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4am visit by the boogeyman… early morning profound thinking

I was sound asleep in blissful dreamland when I felt a hand on me, shaking my body. Anyone who knows me will tell you it’s never a good idea to wake me up. I am not my best me when someone wakes me before my time. I shot up and was terrified to see there was a giant man standing over my bed shaking me. After breathing a couple of times and hoping to wake up from a nightmare I realized that this giant man was just Jacob. When did my little boy turn into this giant man?

“Mom, mom, wake up… there’s someone in the house.”

ughhhhhhhhh. No. No there isn’t. I lay there for a couple of minutes listening to the night sounds of the house. I knew that if there truly was someone in the house the dog would be attacking and since there was silence from below I figured we were safe. But, he insisted – someone was there. He’d heard noises like bubblewrap popping down stairs (Jenna and I had some good laughs at his expense at this one later on. I asked who would break into a house just to pop some bubblewrap? Jenna pointed out that I would do such a thing). Then he said someone had come and fiddled with his door handle. I said it was likely the cat trying to get in, but he insisted it was the boogeyman. I took him out into the hallway towards his room which was lined with filled clean, folded laundry baskets and the vacuum waiting to be used and pointed out that anyone trying to sneak down the hall would kill themselves tripping over all the junk in the way.

Finally I turned on the floodlights and did the walkabout of the house to prove to him that the house was safe. It was.

But, our moment of happiness today for day 36 of the 44 days of happiness came with the continued giggles at the thought of someone breaking into the house to pop all our bubblewrap.

He trundled off to bed leaving me to lie there thinking “great- it’s 4am. Too early to be up. Too late to go back to sleep.” So, I lay there pondering the great thoughts of the world. Actually, I started by thinking about how tired I was going to be and how I was never going to get back to sleep. Then I started thinking about my yoga class from Saturday and my spot of personal power. I was thinking about how I’d spent so much of my life looking for validation from outside sources. That finally I was starting to look inward for this validation. That at the same time as I’d begun doing this I’d realized that many of the people I’d been looking at to validate me were in fact huge energy drains on my system. How incredibly hard it is to spend a life trying to keep other people happy, and how often that came at my own expense.  I thought about how depleted I’d become and how difficult I was seeming to find it to regain strength and happiness and inner power. My first thought after that was ‘why bother, you just give all that strength away’. And that was my Eureka moment. My spirit was tired of replacing energy that I was letting get sponged away to fill other people’s emotional voids.

Not to say that we shouldn’t give with our emotions, our peace, our love. But, there are certain people who are takers. Who see your happy, peaceful, calm emotions and want them for their own and try to sponge them from you. I’ve had people like this in and out of my life my entire life. Once I’d started to realize the pattern I’d blamed them for stealing my energy, power, fun. But I’m realizing that the issue really lies with me. That while there is enough love, peace, power, fun to go around in the world for us all to have as much as we want – I don’t have to give mine away to someone else in order for them to attain it. In fact, all that happens is I end up depleted and they end up with a short moment of energy burst followed by a need for a “fix” again.

Somewhere in these thoughts I fell into a deep, deep sleep where I sorted all of this out in a way that had me waking at 6:30 feeling fully rested and at peace.



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