I’m Calling Myself Out

Ok, this is hard.  I’ve been languishing in sorrow for over a week and it’s time to snap out of it.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that grief is a bad thing and should be avoided, I’m saying that I still have a family to care for and a life to lead and languishing in “shadow comfort” isn’t doing any of us any good.

So, I’m going to start a new trend for us… well, for me - but the whole family can only benefit from it.  I’m committing, here and now and in front of all eight of my readers.  I’m committing to a half hour of aerobic activity, five times a week.  (Yes I know I’ll need to add strength training in there too, but let’s take it one step at  a time, shall we?)

I bought myself a copy of EAS Active for the Wii and I actually opened it today.  Then I decided to get in the pool instead.  I did a half hour of my version of water aerobics and quite honestly I think I deserve more than a half hour’s credit because the water was freeeezing.  But I’m glad I did it and I’ll do more tomorrow.

So, you want to join me?  Commit to 30 minutes of aerobic activity 5 times a week? Whatcha think?

Dreamboarding

I love to have a visual representation of the things that I’m working on.  I have a bulletin board in my bedroom and a white board in my laundry room.  I use them to write things on and pin things on. Whether it’s an article, an idea, a paint swatch, a piece of fabric, a picture clipped from a magazine or a piece of lace pulled off a garment, no longer wearable that I love and want to keep a piece of, I use these boards for my past, present and future.

I’ve been making collages for years!  I loved them when I was a child but then forgot all about them until I read Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Simple Abundance books.

I discovered her writing about the same time that I discovered the Franklin Covey system and I found that they worked really well together, keeping the left and right sides of my brain happy.  The creativity and the organized planning together, helped something “click” for me.

So the other day when I was running around the internet as I am wont to do while my children are finishing up their assignments, I came across a Dreamboard application available for FREE at Oprah.com.  I downloaded it and immediately started building!  It’s a lovely application, with terrific visuals and a huge library of images, but with the ability to use your own images as well. You can crop, resize, rotate, add text, it’s all very easily manipulated.  You can take snapshots of your board, to share with others as well and I am using it as my desktop background.

Click to biggerize in order to see it in all its glory!

The one caveat is that it’s a bit of a resource hog, so I found it best to just reboot when you’re done.  In all fairness I did have 7 other programs open, one of them being Photoshop, so your mileage may vary.

If you’ve never had a dreamboard this is a perfect way to get your feet wet, but even if you’re an old pro, this is a great little app to have on hand if you just feel like playing, or maybe want a little more privacy in your collaging.  Either way, I’m very glad that I found this app and hope that you enjoy it too!

Organic Buying Club

I’ve been toying with the idea of joining an organic buying club and the “horror kitchen” of the last house, among other things kept me from jumping in when I finally found one that I thought would be a good fit.  I kept annoying asking questions of one of the current members as well as the organizer and they were so nice about it; really answering my questions and dealing with my craziness concerns.

So when I moved at the beginning of this month, I signed up for the buying club.  Wednesday was my first pick up and I can’t tell you how pleased I am with my decision!  Look at this beautiful produce!

If you live in Florida, Annie’s Buying Club just might have a pick up in your area.  It’s definitely worth a look.

Yum!

My 10 Favorite Tear Jerkers

I’m a cryer.  I cry at movies, television shows, commercials, and songs.  I cry when my daughter sings, I cry when my son speaks from his heart.  I cry often, sometimes for no apparent reason and I am unapologetic.  My children have come to terms with it, they even joke, “Uhoh, Mom’s going to cry again.”  It’s a fact of life, there’s nothing I can do to change it and I’m not even going to try.  The truth is, I like to cry.  It’s cathartic, it’s cleansing, it keeps the yuckies at bay.  I have even been known to cry when I hear someone speak a profound truth, or when I come to truly understand something or someone.  It’s as though my body has a physical response to truth, love and beauty. Is it embarrassing?  Sometimes.  Like the time we were at Disney World watching the “Beauty and the Beast” show and I heard my father to say to his then girlfriend, “My daughter’s crying again, she cries at everything”.  It’s true, I do.

When I haven’t had a good cry in a while, I help things along with a movie.  Here’s a list of my favorite movies to cry along to.  Try one and tell me you don’t feel better afterwards, I dare ya.  Laughter might be the best medicine, but crying helps you cope.

In no particular order:

• Steel Magnolias - Terrific cast!  The 80s hair alone is enough to make you cry.  The best line ever comes from this movie, Dolly Parton’s character says, “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.”  I agree.
• Beaches - To this day, the theme song makes me sob.
• Boys on the Side - Again, the laughter and tears theme. Who can forget the party scene when Robin’s so weak that Jane finishes the song for her.  “Anything you want, you got it”. Bonus: Young Matthew McConaughey
• The Notebook - I didn’t expect to like this movie, thought it would be contrived and silly and it sort of was.  That being said, I don’t think I’ve ever cried so hard.
• Terms of Endearment - I remember going to see this for the first time.  One of the few that I actually saw in a theater.  I had to sit for quite a while before leaving, trying to compose myself.  That still happens whenever I watch it.  There’s one scene in particular, when the little boy starts to cry.  It slays me each and every time.
• Big Fish - The perfect blend of fantasy, emotion, and bittersweet moments.  Enchanting.  My favorite piece of dialogue in the whole movie is the exchange between Jenny and Will:

Jenny: One day, Edward Bloom left, and never returned to the town he’d saved. As for the girl, the common belief was that she’d become a witch, and crazy at that. She became something of a legend herself. And the story ended where it began.

Will: Well, logically, you couldn’t be the witch, because she was old when he was young.

Jenny: Well, it’s logical if you think like your father. See, to him, there’s only two women: your mother and everyone else… And one day I realized I was in love with a man who could never love me back. I was living in a fairy tale… I’m not sure I should have told you any of this… I wanted to be as important to him as you were, and I was never going to be. I was make-believe and… his other life, you, you were real.

• City of Angels - Beautiful and tragic.  Devastating.
• Pay it Forward - Moving and inspiring and then the end shows up and beats you to death.
• Under the Tuscan Sun - The one movie in the bunch that doesn’t deal with tragedy, these tears come from the fact that the heroine manages to create the family she so craved and her house indeed is filled with life and love.
• Phenomenon - Subtle and gorgeous film.  It tugs at my heart every time I see the wind in the trees.

So those are my ten favorite tear-jerkers.  What are yours?

Paring Down, Purging and Seemingly… Enjoying It?

No one that I know is unaffected by the current economic climate.   Even people who still have good jobs and are maintaining a decent income are cutting back, tightening their belts, or tightening their purse strings, and any number of other cliches that are cliches for good reason.  It’s an interesting sort of time we’re in and although it’s sometimes uncomfortable, I am finding that there are some really good lessons to be learned.

As things get a little bit tighter and a little bit more precarious, I look around and see a plethora of things that I purchased without thought,  that I over-spent on,  that don’t really fit my life, and that I don’t really love and I have decided to get rid of them.  As I thought about it and decided that this was, in fact, a positive action, I forced convinced my husband that he should do the same thing.  My threats well thought out and convincing arguments helped him to see what a good idea this was and we got to the task of taking inventory of our belongings.  Turns out, we’re not the discerning consumers that we thought we were,  and there are lots of things in my house that just don’t serve us.

I’m making four lists;

1. Things to Sell
2. Things to Donate
3. Things to Give to Friends
4. Things to Throw Away

There’s nothing that I hate more than waste, so the throw away list will have very little on it, I’m sure.  Truth be told, however, there are things in everyone’s closet that need to go into the trash, or be used as rags.  They’re taking up valuable space, not only in our closets, but in our lives and in our minds.

Room by room, I’m going to tackle this and this weekend I’m going to start with the kitchen.  Everyone knows I’m a bit of a foodie (Ok, more than a bit) and I have amassed quite the collection of gadgets and containers, cookware and utensils, I even have three sets of cheese knives and two sets of little ceramic signs that I can write on to help my guests differentiate the Stilton from the Bleu and the Smoked Gouda from the Jarlsberg.  I can probably get rid of some of them.  I have about 8 casserole dishes and 4 roasting pans, 7 round glass platters and two deviled egg platters (and I almost bought a third last summer, because it was so cute!)  See?  I can’t be trusted!

And it’s not just the kitchen!  I have hundreds of books, scattered all through the house.  Most homeschooling families have a closet full of educational materials and it’s time for me to sort through ours and give away those that we’re done with, schedule those that we still want to do and admit that some of them aren’t a good fit for us and send them off to a new home.   I have a bit of a penchant for self-help books and there are some that I’ll always keep close by (Julia Cameron and Marianne Williamson spring to mind), but there are lots of them, that I have enjoyed and should share with other people.

Then there’s the big stuff.  The bowflex Xtreme that we bought and don’t use.  The sewing machine that we spent way too much money on considering that I don’t know how to use it.  Well, that’s not exactly true.  I do know how to use it, the way I know how to use any gadget that you put in front of me, it’s just that I’m never going to be a seamstress and the occasional hem, or pillow cover, or dog bed can be made using a much less expensive machine. Someone else would appreciate it so much more.  Those things we’ll be selling and putting that money into our savings, for that proverbial rainy day that seems a little closer than it has in years past.

When I started this project, I had no idea that one of the by-products would be this sense of freedom that I’m experiencing.  I feel that this is a giant step toward the authentic life that I’m always looking for and talking about.  I had no idea that all of these things felt like nothing more than greater responsibility.  The shedding of them feels like a shedding of a skin that is no longer necessary.

More and more, I feel like this turn in the economy is a wake up call.  A call for us to all step up and really embrace what is good in our lives,  to help our neighbor, to appreciate what has been there all along, waiting for us to wake up and take notice.

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