My choice then becomes what to drink? No diet soda. Why? because of the artificial sweeteners. OK. All the other flavored drinks I’ve looked at have some sort of artificial sweetener. Not any better. Juice, Fruit2O, Sparkling Rain, all have either sugar (calories) or artificial sweetener (chemical crap). I went through this same mentality when I was pregnant. I would get three drinks into a Diet Caffeine Free Coke and have to throw it out. Mommy guilt, nothing good for the baby in that.

That leaves me with water. Thanks to friends I can infuse my water with yummy things like cucumber and pretend I’m drinking my water from the spa. But water, plain simple water. I will drink it and I will learn to like it.

**exceptions: two cups of coffee in the AM, white w/ half and half and sugar. And if I’m drinking out it’s rum and diet all night long. A girl must have her vices after all.**

To get a dopamine “hit,” make something that pushes you to the furthest edge of your ability, where you’re not only focused but learning and perfecting skills…At first, depending on how addicted to mania you happen to be, the excitement-grubbing part of your brain won’t want to stop obsessing about over-the-top experiences. It will cling to its fantasies about the next huge thrill…keep creating.

As you persist, your brain will eventually yield to the state psychologists call mindfulness. Your emotions will calm, even if you’re physically and mentally active. You won’t notice happiness when it first appears, because in true presence, the mind’s frantic searching stops. In its place arises a fascination with what’s occurring here and now. Though this feeling is subtle, it’s the opposite of dull. It’s infinitely varied and exquisite.

The aftermath of a creative surge, especially one that involves a new skill, is a sense of accomplishment and increased self-efficacy-which psychologists recognize as an important counter to depression…you’re left with the happy fatigue of someone who is building strength.

Pay attention to this process, and you’ll see that the motivation to be here and now will gradually grow stronger than the cultural pressure to seek excitement. You’ll find yourself increasingly able to tune in to the delights of the present even when you’re not actively creating. When this happens, you’ll be on your way to genuine happiness: abundant, sustainable delight in the beautiful moments of ordinary life.”

Go be creative!!!

From O magazine, February 2012, Martha Beck

What about the (much debated) “language” of love? And what to do when feelings of love and actions of humans don’t match? Loving someone can be easy, yes? Getting along through life with them can be tough. Is love ever wrong? Unhealthy? sure. but wrong? I don’t know.

We all yearn to be loved. We all delight in seeing someone’s eyes light up at our entrance. We all like knowing that someone has sought our attention, cares what we think, and has our back. I think we each have a desire to be known, and accepted. As a dear friend once stated, “I’m thankful for friends who know my shit and love me anyway”. I think it’s even deeper than that. It’s letting someone know your deepest thoughts and desires, wishes and dreams, weaknesses and failures. The love comes when the other person cherishes that information. The love comes when that person shares all of that with you. The love comes when you respect each other through it all. I think what kills love is when people stop respecting the information. When the people we’ve opening up to stomp all over our hearts or act like it didn’t mean anything after all.

A few decades ago as a teenager I had already come to a place where I decided I was done. Done. My heart had been broken, falling in love never ended happily ever after and I was done. Pretty jaded for a teen, but maybe that’s what the angst is all about. During this time I came across a book, I still have it. The title is, “The Next Time I Fall In Love”. It has graphs and insight on how we need to share on all levels equally in order to move forward healthfully in relationships. Basically the emotional sharing needs to happen before physical interactions, and the communication needs to continue at the same level of the “lovin’ touchin’ squeezin’ ” or else feelings get out of balance, people feel used, or possibly there is no foundation to build your relationship. This was fabulous information, and thus I kept the book to pass along the great wisdom to others.

Enter Jeremy Davis. A young man in search of relationship advice. Why he sought me out I will never know. But that’s how our story started. He found me during my time of relationship reflection, my time “off”. He was trying to make things work with another girl and wanted advice. And so I gave him all the advice I had at that time. As it turns out it was a whole train-ride’s worth. We followed it up with many long phone calls and a few heartfelt notes. For the record he didn’t follow my advice. He got his heart broken and I helped him put it back together. The rest is 23 years of history. We have history, we have depth, we have great love and respect.

After we had our daughter, Jeremy came up with a parenting goal for us, for her. Our goal is to love her in such a way that she learns how to give and receive love in healthy ways. If we can do that we will have given her a great gift.

Jeremy also said, “It’s not who you love, but that you love”. You heard it here first!

It can hurt to love and not have the feeling returned. It can hurt to love and not be respected. It can hurt to have loved and lose it all. Once you have picked up the pieces, dusted yourself off and continued down your path, don’t forget to love. Don’t give it away, or sell it cheaply. It is a treasure, treat it as such.

“I have many friends in New York who are not religious people. Most, I would say, either they fell away from the spiritual teachings of their youth or they never grew up with any God to begin with. Naturally, some of them are a bit freaked out by my newfound efforts to reach holiness. Jokes are made, of course. As my friend Bobby quipped once while he was trying to fix my computer: “No offense to your aura, but you still don’t know (swear) about downloading software.” I roll with the jokes. I think it’s all funny too. Of course it is.

What I’m seeing in some of my friends, though as they are aging, is a longing to have something to believe in. But this longing chafes against any number of obstacles, including their intellect and common sense. Despite all their intellect, though, these people still live in a world that careens about in a series of wild and devastating and completely nonsensical lurches. Great and horrible experiences of either suffering or joy occur in the lives of all these people, just as with the rest of us, and these mega-experiences tend to make us long for a spiritual context in which to express either lament or gratitude, or to seek understanding. The problem is- what to worship, whom to pray to?

I have a dear friend whose first child was born right after his beloved mother died. After this confluence of miracle and loss, my friend felt a desire to have some kind of sacred place to go, or some ritual to perform, in order to sort through all the emotion. My friend was a Catholic by upbringing, but couldn’t stomach returning to the church as an adult. (“I can’t buy it anymore,” he said, “knowing what I know.”) Of course, he’d be embarrassed to become a Hindu or a Buddhist or something wacky like that. So what could he do? As he told me, “You don’t want to go cherry-picking a religion.”

Which is a sentiment I completely respect except for the fact that I totally disagree. I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in God. I think you are free to search for any metaphor whatsoever which will take you across the worldly divide whenever you need to be transported or comforted. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s the history of mankind’s search for holiness. If humanity never evolved in its exploration of the divine, a lot of us would still be worshiping golden Egyptian statues of cats. And this evolution of religious thinking does involve a fair bit of cherry-picking. You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light.”

That was taken from the latter portion of section 70. Bold emphasis mine.

The older I get the more “one-size fits all” religion is harder and harder for me to comprehend. Does that mean I have all the answers? No. Does that mean I’ve got it figured out? No. To me it means I’m open to the possibility. Consider the possibility.

The little girl and I recently returned from a trip out west. Due to a savvy case worker and a six hour road trip we were able to reconnect with the children over lunch and a playdate at the park. Let me say this, there are alot of things wrong with CPS and the foster care system, but any social worker willing to drive six hours (each way) with three small children in one day so that we could all see each other gets some kudos in my book. We drove from WA, they drove from CA and we met in OR. As soon as the kiddos saw each other they were instantly “best cousins” all over again. At lunch they were making potty jokes, giggling and telling stories. The youngest babe sat on my lap and ate fries. It was delightful. After we filled our bellies we headed to the park.

We lucked out and it was a fabulous sunny day. We had packed snacks, sand toys, sidewalk chalk, and bubbles. They ran, swung on the swings, spun around, shot basketballs, blew bubbles, slid down the slide(s), traced each other in chalk, hopped hopscotch, and smiled for the camera. We were able to savor this family bliss for about 2.5 hours. It was not long enough. I had to make a conscious effort not to cry when it was time to say good-bye. I knew if I started they would follow and that would just be bad all the way around. We gave them gifts to play with on the car ride back to CA, we blew kisses and the social worker made promises of trying to get a visit to NC this summer. And instead of my heart breaking while saying good-bye, it grew. It grew as only a parent’s (guardian, care-giver) heart can. It grew the size of four small children (including our own dear sweet little girl) ranging in age from seven to one. It was great to see them all smiling, happy and healthy.

It was good to reconnect. Aug. 10th is the next court date.

Today is a perfect example of why I should take a scale break. I weighed first thing this morning, as per above and the scale produced a lovely number, I was thrilled. Oh happy day the new plan is working. Then I showered, dried off, blew my hair dry and just before I got dressed I wanted to see that beautiful (confirming) number again. The second time around the number was increased by 1.5. *sigh* seriously?  Where did my fabulous number go? I had seen the second number several times. There is nothing magical about the second number. Hm… maybe that means there’s nothing magical about the first number either. And why should how I feel be dictated by a number?

Then I saw this quote and it made me think that my days on the scale may be numbered (no pun intended)

“Balance is what you find when you step off the scale”

2100 calories on “rest” days

2400 calories on workout days, workouts ~500 calories, 5 days out of seven

This takes alot of trust on my part. Trust isn’t exactly my strong suit (stop laughing!) and 2400 calories sounds like, feels like and is more calories than it seems like should work. We’ll see.

2000 calories a day, 500 calorie workouts at least five times a week. This for twelve weeks.

Food is fuel.

Work-out #1 is complete, looking forward to workout #2 tomorrow. 

Strong, healthy girls! (By the way this what I tell our daughter when she asks why we go to the gym, “Because we need to be strong, healthy girls”)

I’m halfway to my original goal, ok, maybe more like three-fifths.  Still, I’ve got a ways to go.  Even though I’m extremely proud of my results thus far I knew I wasn’t going to be happy with myself if I settled.  So here’s to not settling!  Here’s to not being afraid of swimsuit season!  Here’s to being a strong healthy woman (and an example to our daughter).

Oh! did I mention I’ve committed to a 5K in May.  Yikes!

I don’t know that I’m siding with him so much as cutting him some slack.  Running a household is a job.  The schedules, shopping, maintenance, cleaning, childcare, it’s a huge job.  Ideally every home and family would have it’s own version of nanny/admin/housekeeper, but they don’t and these tasks fall to the adults in the family.  So what happens when one of the adults is out of town? Why is it expected that when someone else has to do that job that they would be able to step up to the plate immediately and hit a home run?  Why should we expect everything to be the same with someone else in charge?

If I had to do my spouses job I would be utterly useless, and that would be just figuring out the parking.  I don’t know how to run a team, read office politics, let alone the actual brainiac work that is IT Management.  So why then when I go away should I expect that he would know how to run the house like I do?  And why is how I do it the right way?

Honestly, from the time I started leaving for a weekend (when the baby was two years old) I was so thrilled at the thought of not being responsible for anyone else for two whole days that I didn’t really care what I came home to.  I’m happy that I have a husband who works a job that provides us with the cushion of enjoying extra things like weekends away.  Sometimes I take flak for prepping the pantry, laying out snacks, putting a casserole in the fridge, or planning an activity for them before I leave.  But isn’t this similar to what the teacher does for the substitute?  Wouldn’t I need some direction if I had to walk into an unfamiliar building and run a business?  If even for a day?

It’s my job to know that Friday is Spirit Day at school and our daughter needs to wear blue and a funny hat.  It’s my job to pack a nutritious lunch and have the pantry stocked so I can do so.  It’s my job to know the name, number and location of the vet.  It’s my job to know where all the vital household documents are. I’m on-call if the child gets sick at school.  Why is it my job?  Because we talked about it before we got married.  I’m a traditional gal and we decided that whoever could make the most money would work and whoever didn’t would stay home.  Most of the time I’m content to do it and yet like everyone else in their job it’s a grind sometimes.  I’m pretty sure though that no one else is signing up for it so it’s all mine.   Gotta love job security.