I am often so stingy with myself- perhaps it is related to my recovering perfectionism, my constant inner critic telling me I don’t deserve nice things because I haven’t been good enough. Or perhaps it is from my scarcity complex reminding me how little income I’ve faced before and that I should be constantly scared of being back in that situation. Whatever the reason, it has been a long, ups and downs journey of learning to be more generous with myself- generous with my time, my money, and my expectations and forgiveness. Continue reading
grace
On Catholicism, PBS, and Fine Arts Funding
I want to start this post by writing about a little story I’ve been sharing amongst some of my mom friends. It’s a story about what’s been happening when we bring our kids to church- particularly about what happened this past weekend at my daughter’s baptism and at mass the day after. And while it was a beautiful weekend for my daughter, these stories focus on my son… Continue reading
Creating: Finding the Beauty of Cards
I have to admit a social faux pas that I am guilty of on a regular basis- I frequently forget to send cards on special occasions. I mean, unless we are talking Christmas cards then odds are good I don’t even have stamps on hand because we pay all our bills online now. I can’t tell you how many times I know I’ve disappointed people because I am just really bad at this social gesture of kindness and thoughtfulness but two things have started to help me rehab myself out of card negligence. Continue reading
Excuse the lack of posts…
It’s been a whole week since my last post and this one is going to be quick and not include any fun pictures…
Basically we are taking the month of January to make some choices about the rest of the year. So a lot of things are up in the air and not really in a place for me to write about them publicly. I’ve been doing some journaling and, as I posted last time, I’ve been doing some catch up on scrapbooking our past year in most of the free time that I would use to write posts.
We’ve also been trying new recipes that aren’t really set recipes or easy to document – the biggest winner by far was a spinach and arugula salad with honey goat cheese, strawberries, and cashews/walnuts. I thought about writing a post but it was so simple and we didn’t even make our own dressing.
I’ve been sewing more but am not ready to post a bout it yet, especially since some of the projects are gifts I don’t want to show before I’ve given them.
And most importantly, I’ve been seizing the opportunity of having a little more time this month to go spend time with people and build up my local community (or catch up on phone dates with my extended community!) I’ve been trying to see shows or trading off on babysitting with my husband so he can see them. I’ve been trying to get to know some other moms more and planning playmates that are so much harder to work out once I’m in show mode. I’ve been taking time for dating my husband again and for taking care of myself a bit more, because we all seem to need a reset on that about this time.
And I’ve been focusing on not judging myself solely on output and achievements. So it hasn’t bothered me to miss a few scheduled posts the way it would have last year.
That being said, I still plan to get back into the swing of 3-ish posts a week. I’m just giving myself time and grace to get there 🙂 Now off to enjoy the weather this AZ weather!
Parenting questions that haunt me at night…
I remember getting a few strange responses when I started announcing my pregnancy to friends and family. In amongst the congratulations I had people ask me the following questions (could not make this up if I tried): Continue reading
7 Things I Learned from Losing my iPhone
I called a mulligan on my morning today. I had a really rough start with no coffee, a night of fitful sleeping, some emotional stress, a crazy baby who has discovered that he thinks it is HILARIOUS to throw things we need into the trash and then watch us dig for them, etc. etc.
Beauty and Belief
I didn’t get a chance to write this post Saturday to wrap up the month of “beauty” because I spent most of the day helping one of my closest high school friends get ready for her wedding and then helping her celebrate. .. And that’s kind of perfect because there are few things in life with more concentration of beauty than weddings. Weddings take a lot of crap, and sometimes with some good reasons since the “wedding industry” can certainly be absurd and there are some potentially problematic signals it sends to people whose vocation may not be marriage, but allow me for a second to gush about why I believe weddings are kind of amazing and all sorts of beautiful.
Photo by Millie Holloman
Photo by Leah Vis
I have been to many weddings in the past ten years. (I’ve been IN many weddings in the last ten years…) and I won’t lie, I sometimes wondered, especially when I was in school and taking on debt while not making any money, if the expense of travel and already short supplied time were worth it. Before I experienced my own wedding I wondered if the bride and groom in all the excitement of becoming husband and wife would really even remember who was there. But they do. And you remember if you were there too. I can hands down say that every road trip, terrible plane ride, and penny were worth it to help support the unions of people I love. And I still remember the weddings I didn’t make, and feel good knowing it was unavoidable and not for temporary reasons like money. I remember who was at my wedding.
Who I danced with, moments when I caught their eye during our ceremony and saw their smiles, how it felt to see their hands extended in blessing and prayer. I remember who couldn’t be there and the love they sent and how much I know they wanted to share the day. Continue reading
Alphabet Resolutions 