Monday, October 24, 2011

1. Who do I love and why?

My husband - because he is an amazing man, he loves me for me, he believes in me, he makes me laugh every day, he wrote the most heartfelt wedding vows and most importantly, he gave me our son.  Our love story is so perfect in its imperfection and given the chance to re-write it, I wouldn't change a single thing about it.  I'm so glad that we chose each other.  This life is so much better, more fun, more sweet, less scary and less uncertain because we are walking through it side by side.
My son - because he is so much more wonderful than I ever dreamed. He is so sweet, affectionate and has an easygoing temperament.  He also has a very distinct sense of humor. Just the other night he was watching my husband play ball with one of our dogs and he was laughing so hard he cried.  He's only 10 months old! I didn't know babies could do that. 

My mom - because she has taught me so much about love and how to be a good mother. She has been an example of strength, perserverance and hard work.  She has a heart of gold and it's been so fulfilling to see her now as a grandma.  The  way she looks at my son, with such love in her eyes, will be tattooed on my heart forever. 

My friend Sherry - because she has a big heart, taught me what it really means to be a good friend to someone else and helped me to understand my own worth.  She has celebrated life's biggest highs with me and was there to help me through the lowest lows. 

This list is not exhausive, nor is it anywhere close to complete.  But it's a start - I gotta lotta love in my heart!  More to come some other day.  It's 9:30pm and time for me to kiss my husband good night.



Thursday, October 6, 2011

Questions to tackle in this blog

Who do I love?  Why?
What do I love about life?
What is my purpose?
What are my dearest values?
Where do I come from?
Where am I going? How am I going to get there? Who's coming with me?
Why do I keep hearing weird knocking noises coming from the icemaker or is it the chimney?
How did I get so lucky to live the imperfect, happy and serendipitous life I've been living?
What is the legacy I want to leave this world?
Who am I?

My goal is to address one of these questions each day over the next 30 days.  It's my commitment to myself and honoring my need to write.  I am hoping that in doing so, I will reach some decisions about what I want to do with this blog.  Interestingly enough, many of my favorite blogs, began as personal journals and evolved over a couple of years into full time work from home for some amazing women.

I honestly don't see myself going that route.  But hey - I'm still new to this blogging thing and I shouldn't close the door on possibilities I haven't met yet.





60+

I knew I had been neglecting journaling/blogging for awhile, but geez! I had no idea that more than 60 days have passed since I wrote a post.  I think part of why it's been so long is that I still haven't quite decided how I want to use this blog and who I want to have access to it. 

I believe in transparency and most who know me will tell you that I'm a very open person.  However, I am congnizant of privacy concerns, online safety and reactions from friends/family.  And then there's the social media policy at work.  Clearly work-related issues are off-limits.  I don't know that I just want to focus on personal life and put myself and my family out there.  And then I wonder if I'm being hypocritical.  One of my favorite ways to pass some time and wind down is to read blogs of other women.  I suppose that makes me a bit of a voyeur too.  Hmmm.  I think I have a bit of a character conundrum to clear up. 

I won't solve it tonight. But at least I'm writing about it and trying to work through it.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Beautiful

The weather today was perfect.  Just perfect.  Sunny, clear skies and a temp in the mid-80s. 

So many people, myself included, have been complaining about the weather as of late.  It's been ridiculously humid the past couple of weeks.  Heck - the whole summer so far has been humid.  But today, blissfully, we got a break from the officially tropical and oppressive humidity. 

Unfortunately, aside from the time spent in my car driving back and forth to work today with my window down and the sunroof cranked all the way open, I really didn't get to enjoy it.  Several times today I found myself stealing glances out the window in my office or a conference room where I was sitting in a most unpleasant meeting.  I suppose I could have taken my Jimmy John's sandwich outside and sat near the fountain for a few minutes instead of heading back through the skyway to my office. I think the only reason I didn't do that was that I knew once I went outside I would have had a really hard time removing myself from the granite bench and heading back indoors for the rest of a gorgeous afternoon.

Then, to continue today's trend of not enjoying the outdoors more, once I was home I didn't really manage to get outside again.  As soon as I got home I hugged my little guy, kissed my big guy and settled into the recliner to feed little guy.  Honestly, it was hands down the very best part of my day.  Literally the minute I changed out of my work clothes and took my little guy into my arms and snuggled him and covered his chubby little angel cheeks with kisses, all the stresses and worries from my day at work melted away into oblivion.  A little later as I was giving Hunter his bedtime feeding, he stopped nursing, looked up at me with his blue eyes, smiled and started giggling.  It was so sweet and unexpected.  I had no idea why he was giggling, so I laughed.  And then he laughed again.  And I looked over at my husband and said, "I am memorizing this moment and tattoing it on my heart. I never want to forget this moment in time."  And now, as I write this, I feel my cheeks pulling into a smile.  I can still feel his weight in my arms and the softness of his baby fine hair brushing my arms. I can still see the milk dribbling out the right corner of his upturned mouth and the little glint in his crinkled eyes as he looked at me grinning away.  I remember feeling my body shake as I giggled, then laughed along with him.  Most of all, I can still feel all that mother/son bonding love run through my veins. 

And, that, is beautiful. 

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Toad Hollow, population 4

I'm going to make a miniature version of one of those signs you see when entering a city so I can post it above the window well outside our basement laundry room.  In case you haven't heard, Minnesota has been alternately cooking and drowning the past several days.  This has led to a doubling of the toad population in our yard. (And a train derailment due to the washout of a train trestle over a creek that feeds into the Mississippi River - but that's a post for another day.)

Prior to all the rain, two toads (one big and one little) made their home in the window well.  It's a good environment for them - it's shaded, there are some leaves and bricks in the bottom to provide cover and (when the light in the laudry room is turned on) they have plenty of bugs to eat.  Tonight when hubby went out to cut the lawn he found two more toads (one more big and one medium) in a different window well.  Thinking that they would fare better in the laundry room window well, he relocated them.  Right away they started snacking on the skeeters and other insects.  We'll check on them tomorrow and see how the colonists are faring.

The Backup Plan

Sunday night hubby and I watched this movie after getting the little guy to sleep.  It felt a lot like a spontaneous date night in - complete with a bowl of microwave popcorn and a Diet Coke.  We laughed all the way through the movie and kept looking at each other and saying "That was totally us getting ready for the little guy!" as J. Lo and her cute farmer alternately shopped for baby gear or checked in at the OB GYN.  It felt good to laugh together and steal those moments while the little guy was fast asleep in his room.

The bit about the custom stroller was apropos and appreciated by hubby since he was in charge of researching and picking out our stroller.  He, stereotypically like a lot of other men, is fascinated by useful gadgetry.  He also had some very stringent criteria for picking a stroller: it had to be lightweight, easy to fold, manueverable, comfy handlebar for pushing and some storage space.  After spending hours pouring over online reviews, google searching and taking test spins in store - he decided the Baby Jogger City Mini was the way to go.  I'm really happy with his pick.  It's super lightweight, folds up with one hand quickly and compactly and moves through crowded stores, sand, and grass with ease.  My only complaint is that all the creature comfort accessories (i.e. cup holder, belly bar, toddler tray and infant car seat adaptor) all had to be purchased separately.  If we'd had twins, I'm not sure what he would have picked.  Knowing him, he may have tried to "design" something custom like the moonlighting customer poaching Babies R Us clerk in the movie. 

Monday, July 18, 2011

At a crossroads

I find myself moving past denial and into acceptance of the fact that the world is going paperless.  This has been a traumatic transition for me.  I've been journaling since I was nine years old.  I love the smell of bookshelves filled with a mixture of hard and soft covered volumes.  I have a weakness for pretty thank you cards.
Lately I'm journaling less - even though I have more to reflect on than any other point in my life.  I haven't added a new book to my three full bookshelves in I don't know how long.  Just this week I emailed a  thank you instead of reaching for a notecard and putting pen to paper. 

So, in an effort to embrace this change and use it as an outlet for creativity, I'm going to try my hand at posting musings, photos, questions and insight here. 

I'm not sure that anyone out there will really care about what I have to write about, but does that really matter?  I'm doing this for me. I feel compelled to write.  To reflect. To feed the part of my soul that is nourished by words and pictures.

To document this one precious life I've been entrusted with.