Wednesday, August 29, 2012

A day in the life

Tuesday 8/28/2012
This was our day.
It's not important.
It's not life altering.
But it was kind of fun in places.
Stressful in others.
Always more to do that time to do it in.
Including capturing it in picture form.
So here are some highlights.
Just the good stuff.
 
 
Ben got his first tooth.  His first real tooth.  It appeared on Sunday. In celebration I gave him an apple slice on Tuesday.  He wasn't sure what do.
He figured out it.
 
This is the current state of my produce corner. I keep on meaning to bottle or freeze the tomatoes, cook the zucchini and yellow squash and baby potatoes for dinner, boil the yams for Ben, leaving the pears, bananas, and avocados a sanctuary all their own to ripen and be eaten as pleased.
 
Breakfast of champions!  A Kefir, banana, peach, strawberry smoothie and a banana bar with cream cheese frosting.  The smoothie should balance everything out right??
 
We went for a walk.  Ben in his hat and me in mine.  That should work off some of those cream cheese calories right?  Ok, I don't really care about the calories, but we both enjoyed the fresh air.
 
The zucchini was used!  Oven baked zucchini chips to the rescue!  Surprisingly tasty too!
 
I finally got the chance to use my multi-pack of sharpie markers.  I'm a sucker for office/school supplies and have been wanting these for a long long time.  I found them on sale for $4 at Staples and they were mine!  So much better than $12!  I would post a picture of what I did with them, but it would ruin a birthday surprise for someone else.
 
Ben LOVES bath time.  Loves. The bathroom gets a shower every time he gets a bath!
 
Nothing like a little chocolate to end the day and something on Netflix to end a day.
 
More happened.
David was here for some of it.
He worked at CAPSA all day, came home and quickly grilled burgers for dinner and headed off to a Young Men's activity, thus his absence in the photo portion.
 
All in all, not a bad day.
 
 


Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Simplify

Remember that first of the year word that I'm too lazy to link to?  Well my goal was to simplify my life and be resourceful.  To provide on a shoestring budget.  To let go of things and find ways to do others.

I've felt a need to really take stock of where I am right now.  It's always interesting to look back and compare how things actually have been to how you thought they would be.  Simplicity came in different forms. 

*Instead of getting rid of stuff and decluttering the world, I've collected more.  But it's stuff that I love rather than just happen to have.

*I've simplified my daily structure.  Housework is no longer mandatory.  Sanity is.  There will be some sort of food on the table but the floor may not always be clean.  Or at least as clean as I like it. And that's okay.

*I've learned to combine things.  For example if I'm going to get regular exercise then it's going to be with Ben.  Gone are the days of a really hard workout.  Here are the days of a long walk with a stroller and stops to check on my baby's happiness.

*On a related note, I have let go of competing.  I'm realizing at last what real beauty is.  It really does have nothing to do with a waistline.  More on that later.

*I have let some things go.  Not physical things, but things nonetheless.  As it turns out my brain was more cluttered than I even knew!  I've decided stop being tossed about by every negative thing that comes my way and decide if I really want it taking up brain power.  If it's actually worth taking up brain power.  Why does negative seem to automatically outshine the positive?

The resourceful front has kind of been a joke. Here's what I've accomplished so far.

*I can mash fruit and vegetables for Ben to eat rather than buy the bottled baby food.

That is all.  That's it!  By this time I thought I would have made my own laundry soap and shampoo! But I get all scared of those unknown things like... borax!  It goes right along with my inability to finish my quilt because I have to change the needle on my sewing machine (with the needle that is purchased and still in the package in a bag just waiting).

So there you have it. I think next year I'll cut it down to one word and hope for maybe a month of success before laughing it off like every other New Year's goal I've ever done!  And perhaps that word should be: finish-the-dang-quilt!

Happy Wednesday my friends!

Monday, August 20, 2012

Six Months!


Can you believe my baby is 6 months old!


Me neither.


But it's true.
I tried to think of what I would be doing as this time of year if Ben wasn't a part of it.  And thinking about life without him seemed so very boring!  He has brought more laughter, more smiles, more joy than I ever thought possible.
LOVE this little guy.
What a great 6 months!

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Own it, and be Beautiful


David and I had issues.  I use the past tense because that's what it is, in the past.  We had issues.  You see, we weren't getting along all that well.  We were getting on each other's nerves.  I felt like my needs weren't being met.  I needed him to change.  I needed him to be someone I could rely on, someone that could help me be happy.

He needed me to change.  His needs weren't being met.  I was not helping him to be happy.

We're not really sure when it started.  We think it reared it's ugly head when I was having all those issues with pregnancy.  Then comes the delivery of our sweet little boy and a whole new set of changes needed to be dealt with but this time with no sleep.

I needed David to come home and be a rockstar.  Someone who would walk in the door and be the strong person that I could lean on after a trying day.  The person who would make everything okay.

He needed to come home and be back in the arms of his rockstar.  I was to be strong and make everything okay after his trying day.

Do you see where this is going?

Everything came to a head a few weeks ago.  I pulled the airing of grievances card and made us have a good old pick each other apart session so he could change and be what I thought I wanted.  What I thought I needed.  I thought that's how things would be fixed.  By being brutally honest with each other.  Laying it all out on the table and picking it all apart and seeing what needed to happen.

My plan backfired.  (Shocker huh!) It created... issues.  Issues that weren't there before.  Things were said that hurt but rang true.  Well, trueish.  And some just seemed absolutely impossible to fix.  Like changing the stripes on a zebra.

I need it to be understood that we weren't miserable, we weren't a mess, we weren't hating life, we just weren't as happy as we had been in the past.  We still enjoyed each other's company, something was just... off.

We parted ways for a bit so we could think and take stock of what had just happened.

When did everything change?  What happened to us?  We used to be madly in love with each other.  We used to be completely happy with each other.  We used to have fun and talk about everything in the world.  The thing that drew us together was that we could be ourselves.  No pretenses.  No fundamental need to change.  We loved each other, were wildly attracted to each other.  We used to be enough for each other just as we were.  And being enough for each other made us better.

These were the questions that I pondered.  How on earth could I change so much so that we could be happy again.  How do I change my being?  How did this relationship become so... complicated? And then it hit me.  Something I learned back in the days of single hood.  Independence is attractive!  Being an independently happy person, genuinely happy without relying on someone else for it... is attractive.  It makes people beautiful. It makes others want to be around them.  It gives others permission to be themselves.

I used to be that independently happy person.  That is what had changed.  I was relying on David for my happiness and creating an impossible and extremely taxing job to his already full load.  No wonder it wasn't working!  I was asking the impossible.  I had set him up for complete failure.

I am in charge of my own happiness.  David is in charge of his own happiness.  We are in charge of Ben's happiness until he's old enough to take some of that on himself.

It was simple.

Overnight there was a spring back in my step.  There was a smile back on both of our faces.  We enjoy each other's company.  We talk about everything in the world.  We smile, we laugh, and we genuinely like to be around each other once again.  We are enough for each other.  Nothing needs to change that we didn't already know about before this whole thing began.  Our quirks are okay again.  And I am wildly in love with my husband again and he didn't have to change to make that happen.  It just feels so good.

I have more to say, about genuine beauty, about body acceptance... embracing your flaws.  Owning yourself and being beautiful.  But this is enough for now.