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Friday, August 29, 2014

5 For 5 Recenter: Day 4!

I feel like I've hit my stride. I don't know if juicing, working out, meditating and doing something for ME is just more on my radar of if it really is getting easier to be more consistent about these things in my life. It just feels like those things are sliding into place and I'm not having to force it as much That is exactly what I wanted from this.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Five For Five Re-Center: 3: On a Roll, with Curls

Day 3

I think I'm starting to get the hang of it! I actually got my meditation done first thing in the morning and my juice right after. My workout wasn't until 7:30 and was my prima barre class. PliƩ and up! I have been jotting my blog done while waiting to pick up Zoe after school. That seems to work.

I had a hair appointment to cover up all the gray and had her do my hair fancy. It was totally fun!

No profound thoughts today Just keep on doin' you boo!

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

5 For 5 Recentering: Day 2 Fancy Nails and a Theme

Hitting hard on day two! Everything ran late last night, but I had an amazing private yoga lesson and then got my nails done! By the time Tiny Dancer and I finally made it home it was time for dinner. Now this is where things usually fall apart for me. It is 5:30 and I still haven't blogged or juiced. This is normally where I would throw in the towel, call myself a major loser and give up two days in. Yup, that's me. Instead of giving up I managed to put the juicer together again and sat down and posted my blog. It was close to seven before I was done and my family was asking what in the hell I was doing, "Mommy's in the zone! Do NOT disturb her!

Fancy Nails!


In reviewing the commitments I've made for these five days of re-centering, I've noticed the theme of creating space for the things I love and to attempt to find a way from letting everything else encroach on my sacred ground. Last night I realized that this is important too. I need to find a way to honor it and not give in.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

5 For 5 Recentering

UPDATE

Yesterday was day one and I have to say it went really well. I pulled out my juicer and for a moment wasn't sure I was going to be able to put it all together. It felt like Christmas morning with a kids bike and a zillion pieces that needed to be put together... There HAD to be pieces missing, RIGHT? I don't remember this dohicky? Where does this go again.?

There is NO WAY this is going to make juice!


After taking my dad's amazing advice, "if at first it doesn't go...FORCE IT (and some banging and cursing) I achieved: Shrek pee! YAY!

Shrek pee!! YUM!

 I know, it looks gross, but after a day or two I will actually be out on a street corner selling my kids for kale. I know I'm weird  My poor kids.

My workout was my run. I was SO not feeling it. I got to the gym and hated my life and everything in it  for the first 15 minutes. I never really hit a great groove, I just got tired of listening to myself whine. I told myself what I tell Tiny Dancer when I've had enough of her shizz, "suck it up, Buttercup!" (I'm so making up T-shirts!)  Workout complete with an extra 1/4 of a mile thank you very much!

I got my meditation in too! Not at the perfect time, but I did it and got an amazing wake-up call for it!

Lastly, I got an amazing massage. Oh man! Like a good hair dresser, you really need to click with your massage therapist and I have spent the past two years trying to find another one after my last one abandoned me to go to grad school leaving me and my aching back high and dry.  I finally found someone who gives my low back the love it deserves.

GOALS
I'm a very goal orientated person. It must be from  all those stats classes pounded into my brain during  grad school. What do I want accomplish in these five days? When I was a therapist, one of the questions I used to ask clients in our first meeting was, "when we are all done here, what would you have liked to accomplished, learned or gained?" In these five days I want to feel back on track. I have been so scattered this last month! I want to take a breath. I want to feel centered and in control of my life and not like life is in control of me. I want to silence that screaming shame talk in my head that tells me that I'm being selfish, that the things I enjoy and want to accomplish are silly. I want to stop hiding the things that are not just important to me, but that actually energize me, nourish me, make me feel strong and whole...happy. I want to stop hiding who I am: writer, yogi, runner.



Monday, August 25, 2014

5 For 5 Challenge

With one kid off to college and the other back in middle school today, the house feels strangely haunted. I can almost feel their ghosts: the Boy Child clomping down the stairs, rushing off to where ever 18 year old boys rush off to. Tiny Dancer pirouetting across the kitchen floor. It feels strange. And lonely. And scary.

I'm having a rough time dealing with Boy Child's absence. The presence of his absence is every where. From the laundry room where I'm struggling to make  a full load of laundry, to the empty seat at the dining room table. Tiny Dancer feels it too. She called him to complain that she had to do the dishes now! Ok, so maybe she is not quite feeling it in the same way, but she is definitely feeling it.

Having my family dynamic so dramatically changed has left me feeling off-centered and ungrounded, at loose ends, spinning off the world instead of grounded firmly to it. But my quiet and changed house has also created a space for me to re-center and restore myself. I am going to take advantage of this space and set a 5 for 5 challenge. I'm committing to doing five things each day for five days that I know nourish my body mind and spirit. I hope to reconnect with myself, become re-centered and to adjust to my new family framework in a positive way.

My challenge is going to run from Monday through Friday. I have the house to myself and the time and space to devout to it.

1. Juicing.  I love the way I feel when I do even just one 16 ounce juice a day ( I am partial to kale, spinach, celery, apple and lemon). I feel less bloated (A LOT less), lighter and I have more energy. 

2. Move. I have been doing really well with exercising lately. I love my yoga teacher and my barre classes and  I even do an adult ballet class on Monday nights. I've been running as well and I'm working toward doing four races this fall. The problem is, I let life get in the way. My run is the first thing to go when things get hectic. For the next five days, I am NOT going to let life get in the way. I am doing all my workouts!

3. Meditate. This is another thing that goes by the wayside when things get hectic. In a perfect world. I would wake up an hour before Tiny Dancer and the pups and I would sit outside, enjoy the only cool part (relatively speaking) of the day and I would do my meditation and devotional reading. Sometimes that happens, but most of the time, I'm crawling out of bed just in time to get TD off to school. I am carving out time, even if it isn't at the "perfect time"

4. Something Decadent. This past month has been a killer and a trip to the nail salon, was just not going to happen. I am going to do one thing each day that makes me feel a little guilty for doing: shouldn't I be home doing laundry or something? Don't we need milk? and then, I'm getting the hell over it and doing it anyway!

5. Blog. I love my blog, but you wouldn't know it by the sporadic posting.  Time to show my blog and myself some love and blog about this journey, challenge, bullshit, whatever!

That is what I will be doing for the next five days. Join me if you so desire, You don't have to do the same five things, pick things that nourish YOUR mind, body and spirit and that you don't always let yourself do because you are so busy doing for others. Honor that voice that says, "I'd really love to get back to...!"  If five sounds too daunting then pick three! If you have seven things you really want to work on, then do seven. Tell me what you have picked and then give updates as to how it is going.

I'd love to do this with others so join in!


Friday, August 22, 2014

TGI Friday!

Welcome back! it has been a crazy couple of weeks. The biggest thing that has happened is that I drove my son 10 hours away and surrendered him to a small dorm at a huge college. It has got to be one of the hardest mommy things I have ever done! More on that later. 

My son as we were driving away. Notice the big smile! "See ya suckers!"
With summer at an end and reliable schedule on the horizon I am hoping to do what I have always said I was going to do and that is to make this a REAL (read: consistent) blog. I'll get there one of these days. More on that later too!

For today we are starting with the amazing Brene Brown's blog prompt TGI Friday!  Here we go!

Trusting Today I am trusting in my son. I don't give him nearly enough credit for being the amazing young man that he is. I nag, scold, and "get all up in his grill." I hope by now he realizes by now that this has everything to do with my feelings of inadequacies as a mother and nothing to do with him.

Grateful  I'm grateful for the opportunities I'm able to provide my son. I'm grateful we are able to send him to the college of his choice and that he doesn't take it for granted. He realizes he has a golden ticket and has promised not to squander it.

Inspired I'm inspired by all the moms who dropped their kids off at college and made it through that last hug goodbye putting on
a smile for our kids even as our hearts were asking, "how do I let go?" We can do this.


Are you a mom who dropped your child off at college? Or even kindergarten. How have you helped yourself through the letting go process. Any words of wisdom to share? And as always, please let me know what your TGI's for this Friday.


Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Photo Fun: Putting the Vacation back in Summer Vacation

I'm tired. It has been a crazy summer and except for three and a half glorious days in Vegas last month,  this summer vacation has been sorely lacking in the vacation department. The dilemma is I desperately want to grow my blog. I have a clear idea in my head of what I want to do, and I'm never going to do it by posting every other week.

For the past couple of years I have done Susannah Conway's August Break and during the month of August posted pics every day instead of a blog post. This year she is doing something different. Different is good, but I'm feeling pressured, which is so not the intention of the August Break, so I'm venturing out on my own.  I just want to document my day, sum it up if you will, in a photo

This first pic is Tiny Dancer and I at dance class. I'm the one in ballet slippers. We have been taking a ballet class and a barre class together this summer and I love sharing this with her. I think she has enjoyed it too. Love that kid so much it hurts. (I'm not even going to worry that my fifth needs some serious work! LOL)

Dancin' with my baby!
I'm challenging myself to post a pic a day through August! I will also try and come up with a cool sounding hashtag!