Happiness Project Launch Party....er...blog post!

This book really kicked me in the ass and got me to thinking. So much of life is spent working towards something in the future. I get caught up in that. "Once I do ____, or make ____, or go to _____, life will be happier!" I have a great life! I am happy right now! But I could be spending so much more time on NOW then I do. I was to appreciate life more, enjoy it more, spend more time savoring the now so that when I hit hard times, I have this to carry me through it.

So, I am starting my own little happiness project. I started by making a list of my own personal commandments to abide by, writing down some Secrets to Adulthood that I already know, and swimming in the essence of the Happiness Manifesto that I just posted in the previous entry. I have a couple resolutions to get me going on the first couple of months, and I am excited to see where this takes me!

My personal commandments of happiness are:

• Be Amber
• Let tomorrow come tomorrow
• Act the way I want to feel
• Remember the days are long but the years are short-savor it all now
• Be good to myself and others everyday
• Embrace the need to write
• Do it now
• Enjoy the process
• There is only love

My first month's resolution? Create more vitality and energy in life. I will be clearing out clutter of the physical, emotional, and mental kind. I will be taking superb care of myself. I am so very intrigued by this and cannot wait to see where it goes. Cheers!

you can learn more about or start your own happiness project using tools and outlines found at www.happinessprojecttoolbox.com.

Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Manifesto.

A Happiness Manifesto

• To be happy, you need to consider feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
• One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
• The days are long, but the years are short.
• You're not happy unless you think you're happy.
• Your body matters.
• Happiness is other people.
• Think about yourself so you can forget yourself.
• "It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light."—G. K. Chesterton
• What's fun for other people may not be fun for you, and vice versa.
• Best is good, better is best.
• Outer order contributes to inner calm.
• Happiness comes not from having more, not from having less, but from wanting what you have.
• You can choose what you do, but you can't choose what you like to do.
• "There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy." —Robert Louis Stevenson
• You manage what you measure.

Reasons my kid is awesome #547 and #892

#547: Today we were walking across campus and Emily said "Mom, do you remember that time we were walking down here and Ben jumped out of the bushes and scared me? I think he was playing psychic!"

#892: Emily is in the bath tub, picking her teeth vie her reflection in that circular metal knob thing (what are those for anyway?).

Em: Mom, where do babies come from?
Me: They come out of their mommy's vagina.
Em: But where before that?
Me: They live in their mommy's uterus until they have grown enough to come out.
Em: But how do they get there?
Me: They get there when a man and a woman have sex.
Em: What's sex?
Me: *deep breathe* Sexual intercourse is where a man sticks his penis in a womans vagina. Sometimes, it results in the woman becoming pregnant.
Em: *blank astonished look and long silence* *glance at her own vagina* *confused look back at me* I bet he forgot.
Me: What?
Em: The man, I bet he forgot about putting his penis in her 'gina!

Then she calmly returned to picking her teeth.

The Grandma Jo memoirs. take 1.

My Grandma Joanne was a remarkable woman. She never learned how to swim, and never left the country, but she was smarter than most people I know. When I was little she taught me the magic of growing things in the ground to sustain us. She would dig the holes, in rows of tilled soil, and I would drop the seeds in. Together we would cover this little spark of life and water it. Within the weeks that would pass, waiting for something to grow, she would teach me about flowers, let me walk the dog, and bake me cookies or make me milkshakes. When the corn stalks were tall enough to tower over both of our heads (she was a relatively short woman), we would run up and down the rows of the green silk stalks, laughing. I can hear her whimsical voice, "Come find meeeee" as she disappeared around the corner of a row.

She taught me how to write my name, how to crack the eggs into the batter, and the proper way to cuddle up on the couch. She would embrace me, surround me, and hold me in what I remember as her M&M blanket. A crocheted blanket that was the color of M&M's, her favorite candy. We would lay there and watch National Geographic shows or the Discovery channel. She used to grow pumpkins every year. And when they were still green she would take me and my cousins out there and carve each of our names in one. Our very own pumpkin.

My grandma had a very comforting smell. Clinique moisturizer, sunshine, baking, and love. When I was at her house shortly after her death, I opened a drawer of her sweaters and I could smell her. It was as if she were right there with me. Holding me one last time. I wish I had taken the time to hold her, at least one more time before she left. To tell her I love her. To tell her how very much she meant to me, how foundational she is to who I am and what I hold dear in this life. Her patience was unmatched. Her guidance and nurturing are some of the warmest memories I have. Her presence was a comfort to me.

I felt her here tonight. I could smell her. Standing behind me like she used to when I was waist high, with her arm around me so that I could lean back into her. I used to love being that close to her. So close that I could feel her chuckle. So close that her love would wrap me up and keep me safe and warm.

where are you going, my little one, little one?

The ways in which little girls play amongst themselves really baffles me. They compete, they cut each other down, and one up each other. Everything is a game of who has the better this or that, who is wearing the coolest ___, or who is the best at___. Just listening to it takes my self-esteem down a few notches and gives the creeps. Where do they learn this? What happened to the nice, playing together and being positive, uplifting friends stage? I liked that one.

This stage, not so much. As a parent who may or may not have an overprotective tendency, it is really difficult to listen to two girls sort through these issues on their own without intervening with a grouchy "CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?!" There is value in letting children figure out how to navigate through other peoples bullshit, but damn. There is that fine line. The line in which on one side I am explaining why the way those words sounded may have hurt the other persons feelings and suggesting we look for a better way to say it, and then there is the other side where I am dancing up and down madly, pulling my hair out (or imagine myself doing so in my head) as I say wildly "Will you two just knock it off? I am tired of listening to you to treat each other this way!" Depending on delivery, that last part might not be so bad but it seems that every time I say that, the response I get is "But we are just playing!"

When did playing become so mean? Or has it really always been this way and I have just done a really excellent job of blocking all of my own childhood experiences from memory? Of course, this also may be where the whole 'more friends that are boys than girls' thing comes in.

On the up side, I made some awesome gluten free cupcakes tonight.

Credo Week, day four: What is my faith?

What do I trust?

What experiences have taught me to trust?

Where do I look for strength and encouragement?

How do I celebrate my life and experiences?

What do I trust in that does not require explanation?

What has earned my unconditional trust and faith? Why?

I trust in the power of love for one another. I trust in strength of passions that drive us to become more authentic selves. I trust that the Universe wants me to succeed and has provided me with options to do so. I trust in my ability to listen to these things. I trust that this moment, as with the last, shall pass and make room for the next moment. Nature has a way of doing things. It may take longer than I want it to, but it works out in the end the way that it should. Childbirth is a perfect example of this. It hurts. It takes a long time, and your body does things you never thought it could, would, or should. But in the end, the nature of your body has produced a tiny human being and seen its passage into this world. I think all of life is like this. If I can only take the time to stop long enough to feel the natural passage from this step to the next, I will see what is meant to be. Or maybe I won't, but I will feel nature there at work. I trust in this process because when I quit believing in it, it was still there. Life was still happening all around me. Plants and animals and people, still living, breathing, loving. Still there.

Strength and encouragement is all around me. I can find it when I am looking, and sometimes, even when I'm not. Because it is in the nature of the Universe, and in the nature of people, to care for one another. I go to the mountains, or to the beach to sit and listen to the quiet drum of the earth that consoles me and strengthens me when I am down. I can watch the waves roll in and out and am reminded that life is like this. A wave rolls in, and I am close to divinity, it rolls out, and divinity is pulling me to where I might be meant to go. I trust in this guidance. And I trust in my ability to choose which way to turn. I trust in the ability to hear the divine through the people in my life. Wisdom can be found in the most wondrous, unexepected places. My daughter can find it in a slug making it's way across the sidewalk. I strive to be able to do this as well. When I listen to the words and experiences of others, I am strengthened in my belief in the potential of us all. When I trust their intentions and support, I am strengthened in my belief in myself.

I celebrate my life and experiences with my community. With my circle of loved ones. With my friends, family, my church. It is in sharing our joys with each other that I am reinvested in my faith. My faith in people, and my faith in nature. I celebrate out in the open, and I celebrate quietly inside of myself too. Even my failures are worth celebrating as long as they have jarred my consciousness enough to make me think in a new way about what I have failed.

I have unconditional trust and faith in the human experience. It is all that I can trust in sometimes. Life may be going in a direction that is not in my favor, but it is still an experience. My human-ness is the lens through which I experience it all, it is a foundation for my reception of and reaction to it all. All of life will be my human experience, whether I embrace it or not. I have unconditional trust and faith in my ability to choose. I have the power to view this all as an adventure, to let love in, to laugh and to learn. Just as I have the choice to hunker down and put my blinders on, as if this shall pass over like a terrible storm. And I have unconditional trust and faith in the experience of love. My faith is love. It is my experience of the divine. It is my expression of the divine. We nurture and care and support because of love. We defend and fight because of love. We learn and grow and move because of love. We accept, serve, give and receive because of love. Because of life.

Credo Week, day three: Why Am I Here?

What is my purpose?

What have I been doing with my life?

What would the last chapter of my autobiography look like if it were already written?

What will I do with my gifts?

My purpose in this life is to heal people. To give more love than I receive. And to help nurture the passions of people around me. It is through these things that I feel most fulfilled and content. It is through these things I will leave this world a better place. Or, at least my little corner of it.

With my life, I have done a tremendous amount of wandering around inside of myself, and my immediate surroundings, searching for what has felt true for me. Growing up, in my teens, I poured my existence into my Unitarian identity and experiences because it was the first place I found that celebrated who I was when I got there, who I was while I was there, and who I was when I left. Because of this, I put energy in my life towards creating that for others. I have not taken very many of the traditional paths that have come my way, and for a while, this bothered me. Until I realized that it is because I have done things differently that I know what I do, that I feel what I do, and that I would not have been satisfied doing it any other way. I have immersed myself in communities I never would have found had I gone straight to college. I have experienced ways of life that I wouldn't have had time for had I been busy "becoming my grown-up self". I have tried professions I wouldn't have found. It is through these experiences that I have learned a lot about what I don't want to be, and more than a little about what I do. None of these experiences even comes close to the experience of being a mom. By parenting my child the way I want her to be raised I have learned the kind of world I want to create around me. I have had to teach myself to be intentional about my life. The people I let into it, the food that I eat, the way that I speak, the way I show love. Everything. It is through caring so intensely for her that I have learned that my radical act of love and change in this world has to be through helping the lives of others, that is the only way it will feel genuine to me. I have been given a tremendous amount of love and support from those around me, in ways big and small, and for me to walk away from that and not pay it forward would be unfortunate. And ungrateful of me. I have been cradled at times I needed it most so that I could pick myself up again and keep going. It is through these gestures of love and generosity that I have learned just how much we all need each other. The walls that we as people and societies build up between ourselves do us no service. They prevent us from realizing how connected we all really are. They justify the times when we consciously choose not to be good to each other, and prevent us from seeing the damage we do to all, when we damage one.

I like imagining what the last chapter of my autobiography will be like. My life is a collection of stories already, what will it be like then? I will be an old, opinionated, content, crotchedy woman surrounded by the people I love. I will sit on my porch with Vanessa, wearing moo-moo's with our obscenely colored hair, being as honest and blunt as I chose; because I will have overcome my irrational fear of expressing myself at the expense of others to the point where it is at the expense of myself. I will have a beautiful garden that all the neighborhood will come to help in, to learn in, and to be in community together. The lives of hundreds of people will be healthier, and lived with more intention because of my work with them. My daughter will be grown, happy, and healthy, living out her passions with as much love and support as I can give her and as she will take. Hatchets buried, I will be at peace with the things in my life that did not go as smoothly as I had hoped. I will have traveled to many places and experienced many cultures and ways of life. I will have been of service to the people that I encounter. I will have known love of every kind. I will live in among the trees, in harmony with the earth and all the living things around me. I will be a modern day Mrs. Piggle Wiggle with a wild streak. Life will be creative, and beautiful, and lived.

With my gifts, I will do what I can to live my values and heal my surroundings. With my gifts I will draw in love, I will give away love, I will feel it all around me. With my gifts, I will help people realize their own, help them choose the life they want, help them realize it. With my gifts, I will create change and harmony. With my gifts I will live, so that others may also live.

Credo Week, day two: What is good, right, true?

WHAT IS GOOD, RIGHT, TRUE?

What values and authorities do I respect and why?
Who do I consider a role model?
What examples do I follow?
Do I base my ethical choices on rules, culture, consequences or something else entirely?
Does human evil exist and if so how so?
How could I change the world to be a better place and what do I do already?
What do I believe about ultimate authority, God(s) and/or Goddess(es)?
Who has the power to decide the truth?

There is plenty in this world that is good, right, and true. Too many people try to define this for everyone else, yet cannot define what it means for themselves when they look within. Maybe this is because when we look within, we have to face the times when we have not chosen what is good, right, and true? I have a special admiration and respect for people who know beyond any doubt what their values are. Or have the courage to evaluate and change accordingly so that they are true to themselves in this moment. I value and respect people who have the courage to broadcast their values to a general public that has no obligation to be joyous or even respectful of those values. I may not agree with another's values, but the fact that they are strong enough in their belief is something I envy at times.

I value those walks of life that take into account their impact on the world around them. I value the kindness and decency of treating others as you'd like to be treated, and I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that what we put out into the universe comes back to us threefold. I respect people who have the mindfulness to be able to see through the exterior that people put up and realize that we are all struggling at times, that what we portray of ourselves on the outside is not the whole person we really are, and that can treat everyone with patience and gentleness. I struggle with this sometimes.

I think everyone is a role model. Not necessarily a good one though. Some people step up to the challenge and responsibility and live their lives as a role model, wearing their values on their sleeves and letting their actions speak for them. Others tend to ignore or not see the potential they have in affecting change, or hide from that responsibility, because it is a huge one to live up to. It requires us to be accountable for our choices and actions in life. It means being able to know and explain why we eat, live, act the way we do. It also means acknowledging and accepting the times when we did not do right by ourselves or others, learning from it, and then incorporating that lesson into who we are. Not everyone is conscious enough of themselves to do this. Who do I see as role models is my life? There are so many. The first three that come to mind are my daughter, for her endless ability to see the magic in life and remember what is good and important. My mother, for her strength she has for others. I have never seen someone sacrifice so much or be so steadfast in times of struggle as she has in my lifetime. She is also a role model to me because she has exhibited that when you sacrifice of yourself too much, that strength becomes a weakness, and through her, I have learned to care for myself. And St. Therese of Lisieux. Her dedication to being happy in order to help others be happy is inspiring. In her book she talks about making a point to feel love for another nun in the convent who she was least fond of, by way of smiling at her always and greeting her with love. I think if we all took time to be nicer to ourselves, those we love, and especially those we don't, the world be a lot more stable.

Does human evil exist? Maybe in the choices that we make. I don't believe that anyone is inherently evil. The idea of original sin is silly to me. We are all a product of our environment and as we grow older we become our own person, and make choices accordingly. We each have to power to make our lives as good, happy, hard, or evil as we choose. To a large extent I feel all of life is a choice for each of us. It is easier to leave ultimate authority to a Diety for some, but when it comes down to standing there deciding to help the person who has tripped in the middle of the street or walk away, I am the only person debating what to do inside of my head. At the end of the day, I may feel my choice aligned with my Great Spirit, or maybe it didn't and it is fuel to try more next time. Ultimate authority rests within ourselves, we choose to give it up to someone or something else, but we have the ability to take control of it. Diety, to me, serves as guidance and gentle support, not ruler and judge.

At the end of the day, truth is decided within me. I live my life based on my intuitions, and so far, the times I have listened to it, it hasn't failed me yet.

Credo Week, day one: Who am I?

Who am I?

Who am I in terms of my cultural backround, my gender, my activities, my family and their history? What do the things I really enjoy say about who I am? What is my religious story, from childhood til now? Are there some beliefs I held when I was young that aren't true for me now? How have I become the person I am today? What experiences and beliefs have shaped me? Where is my life journey headed? (questions brought to you by Credo Week on facebook found here)

Answering the question of who I am conjures of images of who I used to be, and who I want to be, all of which mixes into a blur of who I am right now. It's fluid, I am constantly changing. That is one of the beautiful parts of this life I have been given, I am constantly provided with the opportunity to reassess who I am, where I am, and what I am doing. It brings me great joy to know that I can change that and it's not only alright, but a wonderful thing!

But who am I really? I am me. A woman learning more and more everyday to embrace femininity. I am a mother. First and foremost to my beautiful little girl, but also to the world at large. My gift to this world, or one of them, is my capacity to love and care for those who need it. It is in my passion to feed people. Not just food that sustains them, but to feed their souls, their minds, and their hearts. It is found in my desire to know what is behind tremendous acts of faith or displays of love. It resides in my ability to listen and feel the emotion behind the words. And it hides in the quiet embrace of spirit that I strive to feel all around me. I have discovered these gifts within me as a bi-product of being raised with a broken, dysfunctional, hilarious, marvelous family. One that destroys itself out of habit, has offensive and violent dedication to things that don't make sense. One that has faith, when convenient, and opinions galore. One that has hurt and neglected me. And one that has loved and held me. Climbing through the anger and pain to be able to see the beauty has taught me that this gift of who I am, it is because I who I was, who they are. I have the strength, and wisdom that I do because of them. I have the empathy and compassion in spite of them. And I appreciate the true gems found among them because of the failings of the rest.

I began life thoroughly confused by religion and God. The institution of church felt cold, uninviting and mandatory. God felt vengeful and unloving, a suspicious father figure waiting for the inevitable moment when I would display that I was, in fact, a bad person. Why would a diety create a body of people only to set them up for failure and eternal damnation? How was this a loving creator? As I got older, I realized I didn't ascribe as completely to the tenets of faith that those around me did. I craved more on a personal level. If I was going to follow God, I wanted to have a good long conversation with him before I turned over my soul to his care. My mother, bless her, never did what others tried to do, which is tell me what God's answers would be to my demands and questions. The acceptability and encouragement of spiritual exploration led me down many paths over the years and somewhere along the lines I realized I was a Unitarian Universalist. A community of love and respect, with the freedom to choose what I believe. It is through this open acceptance that I have felt the safety to question what I believe, to open up to myself and others about my doubts, my fears, and my joys. The resources to explore what other paths are out there that support my own personal spiritual growth. This has taught me to be confident in the life I choose to lead. This has provided me with a loving spiritual home to fall back upon when I need it most. And it has given me an avenue in which to give. To serve. It is through this service that I have felt most connected with a web of life, with Spirit. I can't define precisely what kind of diety I believe in, but I know that I have not found it in someone else's bible or law. I know it is there because of the serene and perfect moments in life in which I have felt it. And because of the moments which I refused to believe in it, yet found it was still there. I have felt it most often through the spirit of love and the way in which it enters and blesses my life. Through the people that I know, and the challenges I have.

I give because I love. I learn because I thirst. I write because I long to connect and share. I love because of what I have received in life. I am still standing because of my courage to keep climbing through the tears and laughter of love, hate, confusion, despair, contentedness, joy, sadness and ambiguity of life.

It is impossible to define who I am without defining the world around me and everything in it, because it has all contributed to the maze inside of me. But whatever it is, whoever I am, or wherever I end up, it will be amazing and beautiful.

There's a story in there...

...just waiting to come out. I can feel it. The words are brimming just under the surface.

The well feels dry, but I think I may be drowning.

Today I am scrambling around like a chicken with my head cut off. I am about to depart for the weekend, to attend the Unitarian Universalist Associations Pacific Northwest District assembly. While my body has been in constant motion this morning it has given my mind a lot of time to digest why I do this work. It's been an interesting conversation that I have had with myself.

For years, my involvement with my church has come from a place of gratitude for the spiritual fulfillment that I have gained from being a part of this community. It is why I took my position as a youth advisor. To ensure that the community that so vitally fed me during my teen years was there for others who needed it. It is why I took a position on the district board of directors when offered. Coincidentally, it is also why I resigned my position on the board three years later, because I felt like my energy would be better served elsewhere. (Not that being on the board was a horrible experience, I actually cherish the whole adventure, I was just pulled elsewhere.) It is why I have stepped onto planning committees and into sponsor and advisor roles. Because I LOVE this community. I care for the members. I feel interconnected to all.

Lately though, I have felt this thirst for spirit in my life. I haven't been feeling it come from my church experiences, and this makes me sad. I do not feel that I am in the wrong place, I still feel like this is where I would like to be, but where is the faith that I felt before? Has my nerdy love for organizing and business and leadership drown it all away? Or is it just that I have reached a point in my life where I am again needing to re-evaluate my own personal spirituality?

The Rev. Peter Morales, the UUA president, in November wrote an article that articulated very clearly that ours if a faith of service and action, that it is only through service that we experience faith. It also very clearly stated that hanging out is not a spiritual practice. While I agree that, in priciple, this is a faith of service and action, I cannot ascribe to the belief that this is the only way to experience faith. And I absolutely know that hanging out can be spiritual. Of course, this does depend on your definition of "hanging out" and how often you just "hang out", but I feel very confident in saying that some of the more spiritual experiences in my life have come from spending time in community with just the right people. That sitting around and talking has brought about some very foundation-shaking ideas for me. So if this is not a faith where this is something considered spiritual, maybe I'm not in the right place?

I am not saying that I am ready to throw in the towel, declare I am not a UU anymore, and disappear. I am a UU. I agree very strongly with our principles. I love the people and groups that I put my time and energy into here in this organization. But I need something more. It's time for a spiritual quest of sorts, I suppose.

It's also time to fold clothes so that I can pack.

Sappy mom, awesome daughter

Six years ago I was hugely pregnant and about to rip the head off of the next person that took one look at my large belly and asked "are you STILL pregnant?" or ask how I was feeling, and when I replied "fine" they would take one look at me and say "really?" or my favorite, the stranger with their hands on my belly asking "are you SURE there isn't two or three in there?". I think it is safe to say that I was slightly done with a stomach so big that I couldn't reach my feet. (Very literally could not reach my feet.) I was tired of feeling the urge to pee every time I laid down, yet when actually try, produced very little. And I was SICK of not being able to sleep. The being hungry constantly, yet only being able to eat a few bites before my actual stomach organ was too full because there was mounds of baby compressing it, that was getting old. But all that being said (and I am sure I could say more, if I thought about it long enough), I LOVED being pregnant. Talk about the fascination of being a walking science experiment. I loved that I had such a wonderful connection with Emily before we even knew her as Emily. I loved being able to feel her in there, tapping at insides or curling her toes around my rib cage, letting me know she was there. When I went into labor, I went shopping. I was pretty low on the crazy scale until that very moment when I went grocery shopping all by myself, having contractions every 10 minutes, and purchased $300 of food. Woo nesting! It was all I had left to do. I had scrubbed and cleaned and reorganized clothes and everything else I could think of. I was so ready for this baby. It seemed like an eternity within those months of pregnancy.

And then, fast forwarding through the parts where I was screaming so loud I thought I was listening to someone else scream (it really is an interesting birth story), there was my perfect, wailing ball of baby. The first three weeks were so very long. I didn't sleep. I couldn't sleep. I thought it was crazy talk when I would hear mothers say "I was up for five days straight after she was born" but nope, so true. I couldn't sleep, all I could do was stare. At how beautiful she was, and how perfect her little fingers and toes and ears were. How deliciously baby-like she smelled, how cuddly she was. I was so amazed that she came out of my body. I mean, I GREW a baby, and she came out of ME! Seriously, I have known where babies come from for as long as I can remember, but how often does the miracle of that truly sink in, other than right after you have accomplished the feat yourself?

And here we are six years later. We have survived the adjustment of separation, the first set of stitches, the first fights with friends, the first heartaches. We have relished in the wonders of nature, and REALLY gotten down with the puddles and ponds and mud. We have had dance parties and spa nights, we have sung and cooked and created together. We have fought with each other and cried together, and then comforted each other. There have been countless hugs and kisses and love notes and sweet words. And it is all still so incredibly magical. Not a day goes by where I think "what am I doing here? this isn't me or my life!" What other relationship can I say that about? Not one.

Six years of awesome. My little girl will be six in one week, and I can't believe how fast it has all been. It's a freakin' ride, yo!

And I am going to revel in all of it now so that when she is a teenager and hates me, I can ship her off to her Auntie Nessa's.

I am a hands-on learner.

There it sat on the plate. Steaming and taunting me with it's warm crunchy yet chewy goodness, with melted butter flowing gracefully over the side. "Eat me" it whispered in a seductive tone that only I could hear. "NO!" I answered, "you aren't good for me...I broke up with you last week, it's over!" "But you love me, and I love you. How can you leave me like this?" was the whiny, drool inducing answer. It went on like this for five minutes. I argued with it. I berated myself for not realizing it would show up here. But it wore me down. "OH FINE!" I huffed, as I bit into it. It was toasty, and delightful, and heavenly. Toast. White sourdough toast. Oh. My. Gawd. It has never tasted so good. I didn't even used to like white bread. Endorphins relished in the pleasure, and coursed through my veins.

Five hours later. It's so over. Again. My stomach has not hurt this bad since I can't remember. All from one lousy piece of bread that came with a fruit salad. Who the F puts bread with fruit salad? Oh, yeah. My favorite coffee shop in town. That's who.

Will someone remind me of this next time I wonder whether cutting out gluten is REALLY that necessary?

With this whole new adventure into integrative nutrition, I get to meet with a health counselor, so there is loads more intentionality being poured into how I treat myself. I consider myself a healthy person, and pretty knowledgeable when it comes to food issues, and I think that because of this, I take for granted that I feel good. Or, really, that at one point, treating myself or feeding myself a certain way, made me feel good. And once I start taking it for granted, I quit paying as much attention to what my body is telling me. Now that I have this permission that the universe and I have granted myself to pay attention to ME ME ME, I am noticing things I was not aware of before. My goal for the last two weeks, set by my health counselor and I, was to focus on breakfast. Make time to make it, to eat it, and to feel it. While, it has been hard getting up a little earlier in order to make this happen, it has been a wonderful experience. First off, the cliche sayings about breakfast being the most important meal of the day are so true! Who knew that eating something before setting myself in go-mode would make me so much less grouchy and impatient? Secondly, with an exercise called the breakfast experience, I have finally been forced to recognize that I have a gluten intolerance.

Now, as a short background, and a child and teen, I battled a number of health issues, a lot of them dealing with my digestive capabilities, or lack there of. In treating myself for these issues (such as Candida) I had to cut out a gigantic portion of everyday foods. I was horribly bitter about this deprivation, and was positive that it was ridiculously unfair. I was so jaded by my resentment that I had no room to appreciate how being so much healthier felt. I celebrated the day I could again eat pizza. So, over the last year, as I have quietly noticed my low energy levels, the sore throat I get when eating white bread, or any number of things, I would shove the thought out of my head and refuse to entertain the possibility of cutting out gluten because what a pain in the ass, right?

So, this breakfast experience, I was forced to look straight at the fact when I ingest high gluten content foods, I am miserable. I may not notice the smaller symptoms at first, but the more I eat, the worse I feel. Here all along I was afraid at how much work being gluten free would be. But I bit the bullet and did it. I have been gluten free for about a week now and oh my goodness, what a difference. I have more energy, no more waking up with sore throats, I am not constantly and slightly congested. The energy boost alone is enough to make up for the effort it requires. And, I am even enjoying the effort that this is all taking.

So, yay for listening to myself, and honoring my needs.

my happiness project

Lately I have felt this pull towards something I cannot define or see. It's an urgent kind of tug, on my heart. It's not scary. It's just there. So much of my life is focused on "doing". Doing homework, doing the endless amounts of housework, making lunches, helping Em do homework, doing work that might in the long run make me money, doing what I said I would, doing what I feel like I should. What happened to just being? I feel like I worry so much about getting things done that I am missing what really matters to me most. What is scary is that sometimes, when I stop to think of those things, I don't remember what some of them are. I feel like I start to lose myself in this to-do list that the world around me never stops contributing to. It isn't that I am unhappy with my life, quite the opposite. I am more happy now than I have been in a really long time. I just feel like I could appreciate it more. Or take more time to actually see the things in life that are beautiful to me. I want to stop being so focused on what I have to do next so that I can take time for what is in front of me right now. Too often, I push those things aside.

So, here I am, sitting with this feeling, and I happen upon a book. The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. And it is all about what I had been feeling, organized by a slightly OCD writer (I mean that in an envious I-wish-I-could-lay-it-all-out-like-that kind of way). I start to read this book and it is so much what I want to do with my life. There is so much awesome right now, I don't want to just glaze over it anymore. I don't want to settle for hoping my loved ones know how much I appreciate them anymore, I want to hold myself accountable for enriching those relationships and seeing that they know I love them. I am tired of my mental and physical clutter holding me back from enjoying life more. And, as if you hadn't guessed already, I am starting my own happiness project. In the book, Gretchen Rubin picks 12 areas of her life that she wants to boost happiness in, or appreciate more. One for each month. She even has little bullet points in each area that are specifics of WHAT will make that happen, and she lays them all out on a little chart so she can give herself check marks or X's at the end of the day to rate her progress. How organized can one person be? Anyhow. My happiness project. I don't really know what it is going to look like yet, or how it will play out, but I do know that I would like to be living my life and conducting myself with more intentionality than I have been. God bless the inventor of auto-pilot, you were a genius, it's just not how I want to live my life.

I am excited about this. I am kind of a nerd for organizing things, even if my household disarray doesn't reflect that all the time.

Emily Tells a Story:The Girl in the Sunshine

The little girl in the sunshine.
The little girl went to the sun. She saw a beautiful flower! Aaand. She couldn't believe her very own eye! She saw a hill of butterflies, flowers shaped like butterflies, and they were actually butterflies! She saw pens and two ballerinas. And her name was Rosie Antella. And she, her other friend, her last name was I and her first very name was Olla. And she had a cousin name AUNTIE NESSA! She didn't have wings but she was a fairy godmother. And this little fishy swam by and she saw this beau-tee-full ring and a little tiny monkey that said "oooh oooh, ah ah, I'm the fairy godmother, I'm the fairy godmother!"

AND. She saw a little green, BIG BIG thing. And it was her daddy. Her daddy was named Jordan. And a little girl said "Oh!" Her name was Sami. And she saw a purple pillow in the chair and keys on a cottage door. She turned it and undid the door knob and saw three lovely bowls of bacon and soup. She tried the very big one. "OOOoh, too hot!" She tried the bacon "Oooh too cold." SO she tried the mommy's soup and it tasted like monkey's butt. And she tried the Momma's bacon and she said "Oooh, too corny." And she tried the baby's soup "Oh, just right!" And so was the bacon so she ate it all up.

Then the three lovely rainbows came back. And the Papa rainbow said "Someone has been trying my soup with bacon!" And the Momma said "Oooh, someone has been tasting my bacon and my soup". And the baby said "Well, someone ate up all my soup and my bacon. And my cupcake that had a dog shaped like Tonee. My very lovely dog." And she said "Oh! Oh! Oh!"

And the end.
Emily and mom

Angsty parenting crises...almost.

I had one of those moments today. You know, one of those 'strapped for cash mother of a female growing up in this materialistic superficial society' moments that I have known was coming but also dreading it. I just thought that I had a few years before it got here.

Emily and I were in the car driving home from school. It was sunny, the birds were out and singing, spring was showing budding signs of it's glorious return, and then she said it. "Mom, I want to wear fashionable clothes". *Insert sound of record scratching here*

Me: *cough* *think quietly before opening my mouth* "Well...honey...what are fashionable clothes?"

Em: "You know, like, skirts and cute shirts, and tights!"

Me: "You have all those kinds of clothes don't you?" *thinking to myself 'ohmygawdpleasesayyes'

Em: "Yeah, you just don't lay them out for me."

I can't tell you how relieved I was at this revelation here at the end. No, this isn't the beginning of the battle with my child about how me and my broke ass are the reason she isn't popular and has no friends, it's just that I don't pick out the right clothes from her closet.

Me: "Well, I would love it if you got up in time to pick out your own clothes in the morning!"

Em: "But you don't wake me up!"

Me: "HAH! I spent about 45 minutes trying to wake you up this morning..." (My child is famously NOT a morning person. At family camp this year, after a night of karaoke, when I tried to rouse her for breakfast, she literally threw her pillow at me. I am lucky she has lousy aim.)

So you get the point. Crisis adverted, for now, and hopefully for at least two more years.

Spiritual Nourishment.

The following post is from my NEW blog that I will writing, in addition to this one, and referring people interested in health counseling to. I really liked it so I decided to cross post, as I will probably do from time to time. If you want to check out the other blog you can find it at:

http://gracefulexistence.wordpress.com

Anyhow, enjoy!

To live content with small means;

To seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion;

To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich;

To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;

To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart;

To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.

To let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.

This is to be my symphony.

-William Henry Channing

This has been my favorite quote for a very long time. I remember the first time I read it, it gave me chills. A few years ago my daughter and I took a very large piece of cardboard and painted on it with finger paint using our hands and feet, and then I painted the above quote on it. It has been on my wall for years, in all it’s DIY, frayed edged, crayola paint glory. It wouldn’t be considered a fine work of art by anyone outside of my home, but to me, it is one of the most exquisite pieces I have ever seen. And not only for the emotional attachment and memories this calls forth when I look at it. But also because each of the lines of this poem is such a concise and gentle reminder to me to be present in my life. Today, the last line is what has stuck in my mind. “To let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.”

Rarely do people think of spirituality when thinking of nourishment or nutrition. And often, when hearing that word, people think of church. But I want to challenge us all to remember that spirituality is not necessarily equivalent to a brick and mortar church, or even a certain religion. It is something much more personal than that, something that not anyone but you can identify. What is magical in your eyes? What is something you see, do, hear, feel that calms your mind and leaves you feeling happier, less burdened, or lighter? For some it may be a church, but for others it could be yoga, meditation, dancing, cooking, drawing, or so much more. It is something they do regularly, something they look forward to as a moment they take for themselves. They do it because they want to, not because they feel they have to. I urge you to find what in your life provides you with this.

You may be wondering what this has to do with nutrition and wellness. When we have something meditational or comforting to fall back on, it gives us the opportunity to care for ourselves instead of seeing to our other responsibilities. It is so rare that busy people take a moment to stop and focus on their own body, how they are feeling, and what they are needing, let alone meet those needs and indulge themselves in something lavishly rejuvenating. Having a spiritual/meditational/comforting practice in our lives also helps us reduce our stress levels, free up space in our minds and hearts to meet all the other needs we have, and helps us love ourselves and those around us more. When there is something that we do in our lives to help ease the burden or weight of the day, we sleep better, we digest our food better, our mood is better and this all in turn improves our health.

So what will you do today that brings you solace or rejuvenation?

I am embarking on an exciting journey. For the last year or so I have been searching for a path that would allow me to fulfill more of my needs and I am beginning to walk down a new road that I feel will do just that. I love the feeling of excitement, curiosity, and unfamiliarity that is overflowing with possibility. Today is the first official day of my program with the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. For roughly the next year I will be learning how to make better choices with my life, change the way I eat, and the way I live, in order to feel better. I will also be learning how to help other people do the same for themselves. Just thinking about this new journey gives me the chills, in a good way! There have been so many people in my life that have supported me, cradled me, loved me, pushed me to listen to what I want to do and then help me get there. I know I have said this before, but I am truly blessed.

Here's to a new adventure...