Four Decades!?!?

I was sitting here this morning looking through pictures my kids posted from our trip to the Royals game last night. They are great! I had such a good time hanging out at the K with my girls while Arty watched the game (and we sorta watched the game). Of course, the only runs the Royals scored happened while I was off with the girls in search of ice cream so we missed all 3 runs!! The guys behind us offered to buy us ice cream again if I would just get up and leave for 20 minutes....the thinking being us gone was lucky!

I so appreciate the times I get to just hang out with my kids. It is just simple happiness. I realize I started being a mom nearly 20 years ago. Wow! Where has the time gone! By the time Riley goes to college I will be in my mid-fifties! That means I will have been a mother in my 20's, 30's, 40's and 50's! 4 decades of motherhood! I think many women would hear that and groan, pity me or both. The truth is, I love it. I love that I will probably be a grandmother before Riley is in college. I will never be lost for young people in my life and that is just the way I want it. I don't think in my 20's you could have convinced me to make this plan for my life. I would have been one of those women groaning at the thought of it. Although some days it may feel like chaos, the trade off is love, joy, silliness, camaraderie, friendship, intimacy and happiness. And I get four decades!

Sister Sister

I just got home today after spending a wonderful 1 day-2 night girls' weekend at Lake of the Ozarks. It was an amazingly good time. I got to ride in the biggest, nicest boat I have ever ridden in in my life. (Thanks Teri & Jay!) I spent hours on my paddleboard. The solitude and scenery of those hours was incredible. I spent time with friends and family eating, drinking, talking, playing games (which I won!) and having a generally wonderful time. I am so happy for the opportunity to recharge! But the most incredible gift came when I got home.

I grew up with 3 brothers and my entire life watched with interest my mom and her 4 sisters. Sisters are not like brothers. My mom and her sisters go to dinners, celebrate birthdays, take vacations, play bingo and talk on the phone. This is not the case with brothers! Now that I have 6 daughters of my own, I find myself imagining, with envy, the potential relationships they have the opportunity to build as they grow. But! many days, the way they get along, I'm just certain they are going to move to the 6 corners of the universe, never speak to each other, and have me spend my golden years endlessly traveling to and fro to visit grandchildren.

This weekend was a huge ray of hope. My girls pulled together and took care of each other in my absence (and took care of dad who is working 20 hours a day to bring a project in on time.) They went to the pool together. They watched movies curled up in my bed together. Ariele shuttled Riley to and from a birthday party. They all piled in Ariele's car again on Saturday night and went to Dairy Queen - one last hurrah before Mom came home on Sunday. It felt like a gift when Ariele told me how much she loves her sisters and how much fun she had with them this weekend. She said "we were all in the car headed to DQ and a Taylor Swift song came on and everyone was singing at the top of their lungs, even Riley, and I looked around and just thought my sisters are so cute". She said, "it just made me smile." She doesn't know it but I nearly cried in that moment. Then when I asked the younger girls how their weekend was Jillian was the first to answer and she said, "Ariele is the most awesomest sister ever! We went to the pool ALL DAY Saturday!!" Then my dear, tired as heck husband told me how Kayla and Seadon busted butt all weekend making meals, doing dishes...they even vacuumed and mopped the floors!

I am going to bed tonight sunburned and relaxed from a nice restful weekend at the lake. Which is more than I could hope for. But beyond that, I am going to bed with a heart bursting with pride and happiness for my wonderful family and the blessing they are to my life! Thank you, God, for the life I often feel I don't deserve. I am truly grateful.

Situp thou hast felled me.

Why can I not create a habit of exercise?

This has been my prevailing thought since. . . . well, since . . . .I was going to say since my first child was born...but the truth is since I put on my swimsuit for the first time this year. I have talked to a few people about their exercise habits and, no surprise, no one really has a consistent exercise regime. In the past week I have even been considering joining a gym thinking that would increase my motivation.

Today I decided to search how to create an effective daily habit. I did get results for websites on how to create a daily habit of exercise but I also got websites for reflection, prayer, positive affirmations, breakfast, smoothies, gratitude, vitamins and the list goes on. It's good to know I'm not the only person struggling with creating habits!

A habit is by definition a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition. Therein lies my problem. Frequent repetition hasn't been in the cards where exercise is concerned. It's not that I can't achieve frequent repetition. I have no problem with these habits:

• swimming pool
• television
  
• blogger
• facebook
  
• snacking at 10pm

I wonder if I create a reward system if I could start doing those hated situps each day because clearly a possible thinner midsection is not an impetus. And gosh, if I succeed at situps who knows what I can achieve...positive affirmations, a cleaner house, daily reflection, world peace!

Pfft. If you have any suggestions.....

‘A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.’ ~Herm Albright


Positivity with a dash of cynicism. I like it.

Positive attitude, gratefulness, happiness all seem to go hand in hand. I have been working on these attributes, these fruits of the spirit, for the past 4 years. It seems weird to think that I have to work on being positive, work at being grateful, struggle to feel happy but it is true. Events unfolded in my life leaving me anxious, tired, bitter and unhappy. The amazing and/or interesting thing is that the events that caused me to feel this way represented less than 10 percent of my actual daily life and yet the resulting negative feelings consumed over 90% of my daily thoughts and actions.

I can not remember what event led me to begin searching, climbing, clawing my way out of that hole. Today, it doesn't seem to be any one event or realization because thankfully I can no longer remember what it truly felt like being that depressed and sad. My point though, is that although I am "healed" from that depression, I still have to work at it. Each day, I make a conscious effort towards being positive, grateful and happy. Here are a few of my steps:

• Become aware of your self-talk and don't allow "stinkin thinkin"

• Be grateful for your life, your gifts, and your people.

• Don’t compare yourself to others but be inspired by them.
  

• There will be bad things, try to find the lesson (or the good).
  

• See failure as a stepping stone to success.

• Surround yourself with those who are where you'd like to be.

• Complain less, smile more.

• Do right even when others do wrong. More importantly, treat others right even when they treat you wrong.

I guarantee if you try these things there will be days that it feels like work! Hopefully the rewards will make it worth it. Things I have accomplished by allowing the fruits of the spirit to work in me:

Baptized into Jesus
Quit smoking
Overcame debilitating depression and anxiety
Raised three kids into adulthood (still working on 4 more!)
10 year relationship that is still going strong
Develop relationships with friends that go beyond the surface
Began writing


In Galatians, regarding the fruits of the spirit Paul says, "against such things there is no law". What he means is these are not seen as good only by those who believe in God. These are known to be positive characteristics by almost everyone, in most eras, in most lands.

Give it a try and be universally correct.

It's a Wonderful Life!

"What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner." --Colette.

I love this quote. I read it frequently to remind myself to count my blessings and to focus on all the positive in my life.

It hasn't been difficult to focus on the positive lately. Ariele and Hayden have done wonderfully this year in college. Ariele comes home this weekend. My littles are finishing up a great school year. The weather has been beautiful. I am eagerly anticipating summer fun. Hunter is making very positive, life changing decisions. Arty is keeping busy. We finally rented the Gardner house.

As I have pondered "attitude of gratitude" one of the realizations I have come to is that attitude affects everything. And recently I added not only does attitude affect everything but self-esteem affects attitude. Meaning:

positive self-esteem = positive attitude = gratefulness = happiness

I have been thinking about self-esteem. I have many teenagers in my house. Do you remember struggling to find your identity as a teen? It is interesting how much false bravado and pretend esteem kids exhibit. I understand it and I don't. What I want to teach my kids is you don't get healthy self-esteem from constantly telling yourself how great you are, or even from other people telling you how great you are. You get healthy self-esteem from behaving in ways that you find estimable. In other words, the best way to feel better about yourself is to do something worthy of your own respect: keep a difficult resolution, meet a challenge, solve a problem, learn a skill, cross something unpleasant off your to-do list. And one of the best ways to feel better about yourself is to help someone else. I find that when I do good -- I feel good.

As you think about this, remember that it doesn't have to be a huge commitment. It can be something really small. For instance, I derive immense satisfaction when I happen to notice trash in the street or the park and I pick it up, when I remember to use my green bags at the grocery store, when I smile at a stranger and they smile back, or I give the teenage busboy at Pizza Street a $5 tip not just because he did his job but because he was so friendly while he did it.

So try it yourself; throw away someone else's trash or say a kind word and brighten someone's day. "Do good, feel good" is a happiness truism that really is true. Act like a considerate citizen of the world, and you'll boost your self-esteem.

Resolution or Goal?

I think I may have been looking at this the wrong way. I read something this morning that got me thinking about the difference between goals and resolutions. The biggest difference is you achieve a goal and you keep a resolution. Understanding the difference will change how you approach the situation.

Some objectives are better characterized as resolutions, others, as goals. "Run in a marathon" or "Become fluent in Spanish" is a goal. It’s specific. It’s easy to tell when it has been achieved. Once you’ve done it, you’ve done it! "Write daily" or "Stop gossiping," or "Exercise" is better cast as a resolution. You won’t wake up one morning and find that you’ve achieved it. It’s something that you have to resolve to do, every day, forever. You’ll never be done with it.

It can be easy to get discouraged when you’re trying to hit a goal. What if it takes longer than you expected? What if it’s harder than you expected? And what happens once you’ve reached your goal? Say you’ve run the marathon. What now – do you stop exercising? Do you set a new goal?

With resolutions, the expectations are different and being discouraged can come easier and more frequent. Each day, I try to live up to my resolutions. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail. To not get discouraged I need to see each day as a clean slate and a fresh opportunity. I never expect to be done with my resolutions, so I try not to get discouraged when they stay challenging. Which they do.

For example, I made a resolution to practice an attitude of gratitude. Each day I have to re-commit to this resolution. It takes a lot of self-discipline to keep a resolution and to continue to commit day after day especially in the face of adversity or failure. I had a bad day yesterday. It is extremely difficult to be grateful all day when my day was consumed with laundry and errands and events at kids’ schools. So I failed. No problem. Today, I have a clean slate and the opportunity to improve.

What got me thinking about this is my resolution to blog. My mindset was that of it being a goal. I found myself feeling frustrated that I wasn’t achieving anything. There was no end. I was feeling discouraged. But now I have shifted my mindset. Writing needs to be a resolution for me. It needs to be something without end that I commit to accomplish each day.

Current resolutions - attitude of gratitude, blogging, exercise, weight control

Current goals - read Bible, learn to StandUp Paddleboard, take a photography class

Faith and Hope

Putting your faith in anything is difficult. Most people aren’t willing to risk failure or embarrassment for the possibility of success. We want the good life, but aren’t willing to take risks to achieve goals. We avoid potential success because potential failure is worse. Fear of failure outweighs Hope for success.

Fear outweighs Hope?

Similarly, we won’t have faith because misplaced trust can be painful. We don’t want to get hurt. I think everyone has put their trust or faith in someone and been let down. Gotten hurt. Instead of not having faith in just that person anymore, we begin transferring that mistrust in every Faith situation. And you have to admit, just about everything is a Faith situation. Isn't there a saying, "nothing is certain except death and taxes"? Anything that isn't certain requires Faith. How far does one extend that lack of Faith? Atheism?

Fear outweighs Hope and Faith?

It would seem to conquer Fear you would need to strengthen your Hope and Faith. How, then, do you accomplish that? Lack of faith and hope isn't limited to faith in God. I currently struggle with having faith in myself and feeling hopeful about my life in general.

For me: Reading my Bible, being grateful, praying and focusing on others are a few of the ways I feel I increase my hope and faith on a daily basis. I know that when I don't give attention to these things I feel my fears and anxieties rise.

Please leave your suggestions for increasing hope and faith.