Gardening

They say it is a strength to know your weaknesses. Of course they also say if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. I'll have to say I'm in the first camp when it comes to gardening. I know many people who LOVE to garden. I'll even admit to being envious of others' gardens. However, the reality is that I don't like to garden. This probably stems from the fact that I don't like getting my hands dirty. Last year I decided  I would try to do a little container gardening. I went to the local nursery and purchased $37.00 worth of vegetables. I planted them, watered them and waited patiently for them to grow. The one bell pepper that I produced was about the size of a nickel. It was actually quite cute. My cucumbers and jalapeños were no shows. My tomatoes did grow, but I fought the birds as to who would get to them first. Luckily, my husband had some netting we used to keep them away. This year I've decided to spend my $37.00 at the Farmers' Market. As Gretchen Rubin likes to say, "You can choose what you do, but not what you like to do." Lesson learned.

Intentionally

Intentionally. To do something intentionally is to do it deliberately or on purpose. In the busyness of our days we often find ourselves just going through the motions of daily living. I've been guilty of this. Days turn into weeks which turn into months and years and this becomes your life. Do we ever stop and ask ourselves if this is really how we want to be living our life?  Are we being intentional in the choices we make? I've found that being more intentional in what I eat results in feeling better and being healthier. In being intentional with my money I find myself better able to handle my financial needs. Today I have been thinking about how to be more intentional with my time. Writer Annie Dillard says, "How we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our lives." She is more than correct in this sentiment. My days are a reflection of my life and I will live them intentionally.

Just Start

Covey says, "Start with the end in mind,"  and that really does sound sensible. It might be for losing a few pounds or paying off a debt. But when it comes to creativity, I think starting with the end in mind can often times be fatal. Fatal to the evolution of wherever the creativity will take you. Fatal to beginning the process, because you are not really sure how it is going to end. Fatal to the fear that it might not be any good, might not be recognized or win any awards. So maybe by holding to this idea, you don't actually have to start with the end in mind, rather the better advice is just to start. Start and see where that leads you next. Start and start again if need be. You might just be surprised when you get to the end and it ends up being so much better than you ever could have imagined. Just start!

Blogging

I'm quite pleased with my adventure into blogging. I've now posted over thirty times and have learned a thing or two over the last month or so. I'm using my own photos so there is no copyright infringement, and I'm really enjoying taking photos to compliment my postings. That in itself is a creative outlet. I'm keeping it simple and just using my i pad. I've learned to actually compose my postings in Evernote and then copy and paste it into Blogger. That is much easier than trying to write the text on Blogger. I'm allowing the writing to come naturally--whatever happens to be on my mind at the moment. It surprises me how often I am struck with something to write about. I'm quite pleased with the blogging template I chose. I like the simplicity of it. Finally allowing myself to express myself through writing in a public forum is a dream come true.  Overall, this has been a win win for me. Sharing it with other readers is just the icing on the cake.

Choices

Choices. Are more choices better? Or do they just complicate things? Sometimes I feel that I'm a little overwhelmed by choices. That's probably why I eat the same basic foods for breakfast and lunch each day, and why my monthly menu planning ends up being a shuffle of the same meals. It's not that I don't want to try something new, its just easier to fall back to the familiar. There is actually a name for this. It's called the familiarity heuristic. A heuristic is simply a short cut your brain takes to help simplify your day to day living. Our modern culture seems to take great pride in all the many choices it offers. I wonder, though, if all those choices just don't contribute to the busyness of our days and minds? Sometimes fewer choices seem more doable.

Time

To quote Benjamin Franklin, "Lost time is never found again." The reality is that you will never get back the time that has already passed. It gets you to thinking about how you want to spend the time you have today and possibly tomorrow. You reach that point in life where you realize that you have fewer days before you than behind you. I want to be more conscience of my time and the choices I make about spending it.

The Rules

One day as my husband and I were backing out of the driveway about to embark on the day's adventures, he made the comment about how it was fun to be breaking the rules. I remember I thought about his words for a few seconds and responded that I didn't find breaking the rules fun. In fact breaking the rules brought out more of an anxious feeling in me. I had found in my life that following the rules seemed to work better for me. The rules were a trusted friend. They gave me boundaries and guidelines. I liked knowing ahead of time what the expectations were, and then I would try my best to follow them. I think for me the lesson learned was that it is best to know your true nature, and even though that nature is different from others it is okay. To once again quote Shakespeare, "To thine own self be true." It works for me.

One Thing

Have you ever thought about something that you do easily? Something that just comes naturally to you and doesn't require much effort? Have you taken that thing and just brushed it off as nothing very special? As something ordinary because you've always done it so easily? What if that one thing was your gift? What if that one thing was the thing you were supposed to share with the world ? What if you never did because since it didn't require hard work and extra effort you thought it must not have been very special?  What is your one thing?

Scribbling

This is an activity I did in October in response to a blog challenge:

I dug through a closet and located my daughter's old box of 64 crayons along with a Christmas coloring book. As a child I yearned for the box of 64, but I think 24 was about as high as I got when it came to the crayon count. My favorite way to color as a child was to outline darkly and color in lightly. It always made for a pretty coloring experience. Today I colored Rudolph a nice shade of brown with a cherry nose. I colored his girlfriend silver, which I could do because of the box of 64. Now, I know that reindeers aren't really silver, but I was trying to think a little outside of the box. She was colored in the same manner as Rudolph. Actually, they looked pretty good. But, that was where I knew I needed to at least attempt scribbling. Messy is really out of what I thought was my nature. I found myself using a side to side stroke to color the forest friends. I just chose colors I liked and didn't worry so much about whether they were appropriate or not. Then I scribbled the sky and the background. It felt quite freeing and I found myself responding well to the mixture of colors. Finally, I scribbled over my perfect reindeer. It looked really good! I learned something. Maybe, I'm not so neat after all, and letting go of those conventions of how something is supposed to be is actually quite liberating. Besides that, it was fun! I also realized that having 64 color choices was kind of paralyzing. You know, too many color choices and all. I think the box of 24 is looking better and better.

Risk

Risk and mistakes. These are two things that I avoid. I find myself very content to stay in my comfort zone and not to venture too far outside. Why is this? As a child I was very adventurous and always up to trying something new. Of course at that age you are a beginner and that is perfectly acceptable. Learning to read, to count to 100, to ride  a bike, to tie your shoes are all something new. Each one brings its own share of mistakes and failures. But when does that change? When do you start doing only things you know you are good at? When does making a mistake suddenly become the worst thing ever. I admire people like my daughter who is always willing to try something new. Each new task she takes on is greeted with a healthy understanding that failure might be involved, but most mistakes can be fixed. I want to challenge myself to take on more risk and to try more new things in my future. I don't want to miss out because I feared I might do it wrong.

Control

Control. What do I actually have control over each day? Relatively little. I can't control the weather or the actions of others. However, I fool myself into thinking that I can orchestrate my own life in such a way to be in full control of everything. This is an illusion that I think will bring me peace of mind. I find my mind racing with thoughts of what I have no control over at this moment. In my attempts to assure myself that all will be well I choose worry. Often in life I look at circumstances and reflect on the lesson learned. What am I being taught? That I really have little control over what happens next and all the worry in the world will not change that. "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matt

6:34.

Saltines and Butter

Saltines and butter. I have fond memories of late night talks with my mother, all the while eating saltines and butter. As a teenager I hung on every word my mom spoke about her own teenage and young adult adventures. She belonged to the LSS Club- Lets Stay Single. This was actually pretty revolutionary in the early 1950's. Mom was looking for fun and adventure. She worked as a secretary and went shopping each Saturday for a smart new outfit. We talked about other things as well. It was the mid seventies and she confided that all her married life her choices had been made by her male doctor, male priest and her male husband. As a teenager of the seventies at that time and feeling quite liberated I struggled to understand how she could have lived her life that way. Her legacy to me was the opportunity to make my own decisions as I approached adulthood. My world was a different world from hers. My mother passed away soon after that, and I never did get to see the woman she would have become. She was smart, kind, generous, a champion of the underdog and was not afraid to speak her mind. I loved her more than anything. It has been thirty seven years and I still miss her. It's not an every day grief, but as I sit here tonight snacking on saltines and butter I sure could use her wisdom and love right now. I love you Mom.

The Do-Over

Oh, the power of White-Out. Yesterday I began the process of filling out some federal paperwork to assist my veteran Dad in his move to assisted living. It was quite a stressful process in my attempt to make heads or tails of the documents. I knew I had already made a mistake and fretted over whether I would need to run the paperwork off again and start from square one. After speaking with a VA counselor who is helping me with the process, he assured me that I could White-Out the mistake and correct it. This morning as I once again approached the task, I felt myself liberated at the freedom that one small bottle of White-Out provided. I was no longer in the grips of the possible mistake and was freed to just fill out the paperwork. I guess the White-Out represented the do-over in life.There really are few things in life that cannot be rectified by a do-over. As I continue on filling out these forms I'll keep that in mind.

Scrapbooking

I've always enjoyed scrapbooking. I had made several scrapbooks prior to the scrapbooking craze of the 90's. During this time scrapbooking was elevated to a whole new level. There were even entire stores devoted to scrapbooking; aisles and aisles of different colored paper, stickers, and letters. The possibilities were endless, and that was where the problem lay for me. In my effort to make the "perfect" scrapbook of my daughter's life I was paralyzed with indecision. I wasn't sure where to even begin, and so I never did. I was once again guilty of letting "The perfect be the enemy of the good." Years went by and my stack of pictures grew. It wasn't until I became historian for an organization I belonged to, and was responsible for their scrapbook, that things began to change. I kept my page designs clean and simple. I included photos I had taken and other mementos.  The scrapbook turned out great and I enjoyed putting it together. It was then that I realized that the scrapbook I wanted to make for my daughter was not all about some over the top design. It was being created with love to tell a story--her story, our story as a family. I'm only up to 1996, but step by step it is coming together and I am having fun reminiscing along the way.

Withering

Withering. For lack of water I noticed today that my plant was withering. I've been so busy, so distracted that I had failed to pay attention. Not paying attention to the small things in life may result in withering. Specifically, I'm talking about those everyday events that we gloss right over in our hurriedness. Yesterday, my eighty six year old father made a comment about how pretty the sky was. It was an ordinary blue sky with a few white whisps of clouds, but he was right. The color was magnificent. The true handy work of our creator was set before us to relish. Let us not wither in our attempts to get everything done on our to do list. Taking the time to stop and smell the roses will make all the difference.

Haiku

One of the things I like to do is write haikus. They are easy and fun. Just three lines long. Five syllables, seven syllables and five more. I remember a former gifted second grade student who could comprise haikus in her head. I'm not that good. But I do enjoy writing them about animals and nature. Here are a few I have written.

      

           Elephants can plod

          Slowly through the savannah

            Each one majestic

             Pretty butterflies

            Fragile wings that gently soar

             Colors in the sky

              

             Cows munching softly

            The sweet green grass of summer

              Mooing gently low

      

Simplify

Thoreau says, "Our life is frittered away by detail ... simplify, simplify." I can't help but believe  that he is more than right. Why do we over the years collect, accumulate, dare I say hoard so many possessions?  What do they represent to us that makes us not want to let go? At first our limited number of years makes the few possessions we own somewhat manageable. As we grow older it becomes easier and easier to add to our collections. Spend any length of time in a home and before you know it you're over run with clutter. Now you may be like me and do a good job of organizing it behind some closet door, but when is enough, enough? I can't help but ponder the words of professional organizer  Peter  Walsh, "When everything is important, nothing is important. "With winter almost over, it might be a good time to do a little spring cleaning and "...simplify, simplify." Managing stuff can be exhausting and I'm ready for a change. 

Vocation

Vocation. One little word, one big change. Our culture today insists that we find our purpose, our one true passion. We find ourselves questioning whether we have achieved that or not. Often we come up short as we look at our ordinary lives. Do they really matter? Are we really making a difference? Should we be doing more or something else. Vocation is the teaching that God places in front of us the people or "neighbors" that need our help. Cooking dinner for our family, spending time with our elderly parents, even changing our baby's diaper are all examples of vocation. Those small, simple acts that we sometimes find boring or mundane are how we serve our neighbor. We are not called to serve the whole world at once, rather those who cross our paths and need our help. This is a totally freeing concept in our attempts to do it all. It allows us to slow down just a little and savor those acts of kindness we do for others. Being important is not what matters, rather it is doing things of importance to those who God puts in our path. Take time today to notice your neighbor, who actually lives right in your own home, and know your everyday acts are enough.

1989

This time twenty six years ago I was pregnant with my daughter. Except,  at the time I had no idea if she was a boy or a girl. Back in 1989 the only reason they  did a sonogram was if there was some concern about the pregnancy. I remember getting ready for school in the morning dreaming about what life would be like with a little boy. The next day the dream would be about about a little girl. I must admit that when she was born, I was quite pleased she was a girl. Things were different in 1989. Pregnant bellies were still covered up. Photographs revealed balloon like clothing not bare tummies. Nurseries were pastels or primary colors. Names were kicked around for the entire nine months and were often changed at the last minute. Baby gifts were necessities and cute outfits came later after the baby was born. Infact, two sets of coming home outfits were bought, one for each sex. Announcements were handwritten, professional photos were taken at one month at Sears and bottle feeding was still an option. Babies were carried in carriers and not around their mother's neck. Names were Ashley, Taylor, Kayley and Brittany. There was no such thing as a reveal party and the only person taking photos in the delivery room was the dad. Perhaps  the most shocking thing for me today is that my precious baby girl will turn twenty six this month. Moms hug your babies and don't wish away any age or stage. You will blink and they will be grown.