Happy

Buddy is absolutely infatuated with Rosie's bus driver. It's the cutest thing I've ever seen.

I should re-phrase. Helen* is Rosie's van driver. We are sooo spoiled. Helen pulls the van up our long driveway and we don't have to leave the house until the second she turns on the flashing lights. Buddy accompanies Rosie and myself out to the van, and has started conversing with Helen every pick-up and drop-off.

Helen is the most kindest, sweetest person you could ever imagine. She is exactly the kind of person that made me feel okay about parting ways with my little Kindergartner last Fall. I knew my little girl was in good hands.

Buddy's latest thing is that he has to give Helen something every time he sees her, morning and afternoon. Whether it's a card, or a special rock, he's got it covered. He's been doing this for days now! And every day, twice a day, she reacts as though he has given her a piece of gold. I watch him watch her reaction, and see how pleased he is at how his small tokens of love are being appreciated.

Last week, as soon as Helen and Rosie pulled away, he tugged on my arm. "Mom, is preschool done? When can I go to Kindergarten?" He obviously wants nothing more than to hop on that van with his sister, and his "girlfriend" and see what the world has to offer. Not yet, little dude. I'm not in a hurry to see you both off to school every day. We have another 15 months left before that happens.

I did feel the need to just make sure he knew he didn't have to give Helen something every time he saw her. With the patience of someone much older, Buddy said: "I know that, mom. But I just want to make her happy!"

There's no arguing with that. In fact, it sounds like one of the main keys to any successful friendship or relationship. What if we all just tried to make each other happy without expecting anything in return? I really think our kids have life figured a bit more than we give them credit for.

These Boots are Made for Hiking

I bought my first pair of hiking shoes yesterday, and I'm still grinning.

I've got plans.

I'm not talking Appalachian Trail type plans, but I am talking about going into the woods much more than I currently am. My footwear was so woefully inadequate until now. Asics running shoes are not meant for deep wood, make-your-own-trail-as-you-try-to-follow-an-old-road-from-225-years-ago hiking. Neither are winter boots. You know how some women have a closet full of footwear? I'm not one of those women. I've been getting around in the woods with the most pathetic of shoes.

Not anymore! These puppies were on sale at a local store for 20% off. The moment I put them on, I knew it was meant to be. These were the first hiking shoes that did not pinch my toes or the bunion on my left foot. The brand, for those of you who also like a roomier toe space, is Keen. I. Love. These. Shoes. Did I mention they're waterproof?

(It occurred to me, as I thought about purchasing them, that I could do a price comparison online. The part of me that wants to save every dollar begged me to do this. But I shook it off. I still love a good, local, brick and mortar store. If I want them to stick around, I can't try to always get something cheaper online. For $5-$10 more, I help my local economy? That's priceless.)

I was able to break my shoes in yesterday on two separate occasions, but apparently a mark of a really good shoe is that you don't have to break them in. They're already super comfy, like I've been wearing them for days.

Between this, and a natural repellent to ward off ticks that I hope works, I'm now, finally, officially woods-ready. Bring on the trails, the non-trails, and all the beauty and majesty that nature has to offer!

Thoughts for the week

There have been a few sayings, expressions, mottos if you will, that have been rolling around in my head lately. Here are some of them:

1. Simplify. I love living in the country and enjoying its slower pace (if I can ignore the 50 mph traffic on route 9!). However, there are so many things that distract me from what's right in front of me. "Putting down the phone" has been one of the best things I've ever done. As soon as I pick up it back up, I get sucked into a world of back and forth emails and drama on Facebook. I don't need that. I want to Simplify.

2. Not every action requires a reaction. This has been a tough one for me to figure out over my life. I'm an Aries, after all! When something came my way that I saw as threatening or unfair, I would respond quickly. This is not so wise. When I'm seeing red, it is absolutely the worst time to respond. I am getting better at stepping back and letting the anger and frustration subside before reacting. And then there are some things in this world that don't require reactions at all. I don't have to fight every battle. I have to realize which ones are important enough to make a stand about, and let the other things wash over me.

3. The way people act towards me says more about them than it does me. This has been another hard one to learn. Yes, sometimes, when a person is acting more distantly then usual, it is because I have done something to offend them. But more often than not, it's because they're going through personal turmoil. We've all been there: when there's something difficult going on in our lives, we know we're acting "weird" around our family and friends as we try to deal with it. Something we can do for the people we love is to give them the grace to "act weird" once in a while and not take it so personally on our end.

I'm still learning, every day, how to improve myself, my relationships, and I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to finding that inner peace and strength that will get me through anything.

Daily Rituals

"Listen to your body" is something we hear time and time again. There is so much truth to it! With every year that passes, I learn to recognize my body's cues more easily. I've learned that not taking care of one part of my life will affect the other parts... not enough sleep turns to making poor eating decisions. Poor eating decisions turns to not feeling well, physically or mentally, because I'm not fueling my body with the nutritious food that it needs.

I fully admit that this past week has been a doozy, and I have not taken care of myself in the ways I know I need to operate efficiently. This got me thinking about the every day things, the daily rituals, that make me feel my best:

1. A minimum of 7 hours of sleep, preferably more. You better believe I try to get the "preferably more" on the weekend, despite reports that we should all be getting up at the same time every day! I think whoever decided that did not usually rise at 5:30am.

2. Coffee and breakfast, alone, in quiet, with my laptop, before the kids get up.

3. Quality time with my kids and my husband. Putting down devices and focusing on them.

4. Nutritious meals and snacks. Not overindulging.

5. Lots and lots of water. When I am consciously treating my body right, I can easily down 4 bottles of water before Noon. It makes all the difference in the world. I'm less hungry and I think more clearly. Do not under-estimate the power of water.

6. Connecting with close friends via FB and texting a few times each day.

7. Reading the newspaper. Yep, I'm old school. I love having the newspaper delivered and reading it every day over lunch.

8. Moving around a lot! I am happiest when I am up and about doing things, taking walks, doing yoga.

9. Getting outside. Sunlight, fresh air. Need I say more?

10. Ending my day with a few chapters from the book I'm currently reading.

All of the above make for the happiest, best version of me.

What are the daily rituals that keep you running at your best?

First Sentence

My kids are slaying me lately.

What I mean is, they are doing the absolute cutest things that makes me want to freeze them at exactly the ages they are now- 5.5 and 4. Earlier in the month, Buddy "won" me a beautiful broach at the Penny Social. A week later...

I was standing at the stove, going about supper preparations, and Rosie comes running into the kitchen. I don't know about the kids in your life, but my kids literally never walk anywhere. Can you imagine how much better shape all of us grown-ups would be in if we did the same? But I digress...

"Mama! I made something for you!" she says, excitedly. I smile because my little miss Rosie, who is not always in the best of moods after a long bus ride and an even longer school day, has transitioned and is now ready to engage. I bend over to look, expecting the usual house, rainbow, stick figures, and, instead, I see clear as day in all capital letters:

I LOVE MOM

My eyes immediately well up. She's come home from school with printed sentences, sure, but this was the very first time I had seen a sentence of hers that she had written at home, unprompted,and completely by herself.

I hugged her tightly and told her how much it meant to me. At that moment, Steve called on his way home from work, and I put him on speaker phone, and the three of us talked about it.

I keep that sentence she wrote in a special place. I never want to lose the first note my daughter ever gave me.

A Small Goal

One of the many things I admired about both of my grandmothers was their ability to identify wildflowers, cultivated flowers, birds and wildlife. While a bit of it did stick with me over the years, when they passed, I no longer walked with anyone who knew these things, and so many of the flowers around me went unidentified.

It was six years ago when I was pregnant with Rosie and we moved back here, to my childhood home. There's definitely a difference between how you see the land when you're a kid, and then when it's yours as an adult. I could not believe the multitude of flowers that sprung up everywhere around the yard, and how very few I realized I knew by name.

So, I had good intentions. The next spring I took photos of the flowers as they popped out, and since I didn't have a flower reference book, I compared to photos on the internet. I had some luck, but others I could not find. My project was shortly abandoned.

Fast forward to now. Our family friend, Jon, happens to be a plant and soil sciences major. He knows most all of the wildflowers, like my grandmothers did! With his help, after 6 years, I'm finally identifying the flowers on our property: Siberian squill, Bloodroot, Lesser celandine, and Creeping Charlie, to name a few.  We've identified 12 in total so far, and I couldn't be more thrilled.

I want to share this knowledge with my kids, like my grandmothers did with me, and if I have the pleasure of living to a well-ripened age, I'll share with my grandkids, too.

It's a very small goal that I am happy to be making progress on once again.

A Month Later

It's been one month since I put down my cell phone, and here's what I've learned:

1. A watch is a wonderfully useful device. I can check the time and not be bombarded with notifications of 8 emails and 5 texts.

2. Carrying a book on me is priceless. I can't believe I ever stopped bringing my book to waiting rooms in lieu of scrolling through my phone.

3. The anxiety we may feel when email after email from our boss rolls in is self-inflicted. Yes, there are many jobs where you need to be on top of your email at all times. Thankfully, my jobs do not require this. There isn't anything that can't wait a few hours. 24 hours of accessibility is something we have brought upon ourselves, and only we can reverse it.

4. You know what was happening when I was staring down at my phone over a month ago? Life. Kids wanting to show me a crocus peaking out of the leaves. Dogs wanting a scratch under the chin. The beauty of afternoon sunshine filling my kitchen, waiting to be appreciated. Now that I've regulated myself to only looking at my cell a few times a day, I am present. I am here. I'm taking it all in- the good and the bad- and not hiding from it behind my phone.

5. My expensive cell phone is also my camera, and I'm not going to feel badly about grabbing it to snap a photo here and there, as long as it doesn't completely interfere with the moment. It's great to capture an experience, it's not great to ignore the company of everyone around me because I'm engrossed in documenting every single thing.

6. If I feel like posting something to Facebook once or twice throughout the day, it's ok. I can do that, and walk away without scrolling through my newsfeed. The two do not have to go hand in hand. Facebook is one of the places where I chronicle my life, and that's not a bad thing.

7. I am schedule-oriented. If I tell myself I'm putting the cell down at x o'clock and not looking at it again until x o'clock, I can do that. My friendships have not suffered, I have not suffered. Nothing but good has come out of self-regulating.

8. Leaving my cell behind became more and more natural as the weeks went on. I didn't think twice about leaving it in the car when we visited friends last weekend. I was there to visit, and if there was a moment when I wasn't engrossed in conversation, I didn't need to take my phone out and swipe through it until someone wanted my attention again. What used to be considered completely rude has become commonplace. I want to teach my kids another way.

I've officially broken free from my "pacifier", and it really is freeing. There's no way I'm going back to the way I was before. I don't think it's coincidence that many more blog posts have come to mind in the past month. Simply put, my mind is now actively engaged in this beautiful world around me, and inspiration is there.

I can't wait to share it with you.