5 Things I’m Grateful for…

..on this hottest day in 15 years:

1. central A/C
2. a working refrigerator
3. iced tea
4. enough money to at least pay the electric bill
5. running water, even if it is running warm

What are you grateful for?

The Week Before my Birthday: a bounty of abundance!

Tomorrow, 11/7, I turn 44. I’m not upset by that number at all (although 5-0 might scare me). That’s because I have it good, and my life is filled with blessings. Earlier this week, it was the time of the month – a bit early – and I realized around Monday night that I was being a class-act bitch, thanks to pain & hormones…

…and a lack of gratitude. Because really, women can blame PMS all we want, but we are the ones in control of the bitch gene. And given the super-crap year I had before the last few months, it’s time to step up and acknowledge my blessings:

1. An awesome, 100% supportive husband;
2. Two beautiful, healthy children who are actually sweet and well-behaved;
3. Amelia in a really great school that is great for her;
4. Zoe’s vocabulary suddenly blossoming and sleep coming nightly;
5. A lovely family;
6. Fabulous neighbors and long-time friends;
7. Facebook & Twitter & my blog expanding my contacts, reach and friendships;
8. A job, work, ambition, a novel shaping, a career coming together;
9. The Yankees won the series; and
10. I won a contest – jewerly en route!

I’m gonna go for broke and say that’s the tip of the iceberg.  There are good days ahead for my family and I’m embracing them, giving God all the thanks, even while I’m shifting my spiritual gears again still trying to find my way closer to Him.

Happy Friday folks! Share your abundance with us too. peace out!

-g

wOOt: Had to share, good day!

Well, not perfect, the kids were a bit, shall we say, rambunctious today?  And our dog destroyed the plug on our vacuum cleaner, but those worries are for another day.

Good stuff, good karma coming my way.  Lots of great opportunities, not just for me, but maybe something awesome for Chris, which fell in his lap due to a series of completely unpredictable “coincedences”.  (You know I don’t believe in those right?)  Don’t want to say much, just keep your fingers crossed.

And a nice thing happened today: Zoe  was waiting for the bus and started COUNTING my lawn lights.  She’s only really up to three but how awesome is that?

Amelia also got accepted into private swim lessons this summer. We are very excited about that!!

Will share more on the exciting stuff coming your way right here on this blog.  Just wanted to give my quick update and Thank You Lord for the day.  have a good one!

Mommy Guilt

Does anyone ELSE have this? I have a ridiculous amount of Mommy Guilt.

Today I changed service providers for our kids’ TSS. We just changed TSS because of an incident, but the real program is that the program is in the next county and it’s nearly impossible to get our kids to an eval every 4 months without taking costly time off. Still, I feel guilty changing…

The local charter school just got approved, so I’m registering Amelia there. She’s not a shoo-in. If too many seats fill, which is likely, there’s a lottery, so I’ll have to also proceed looking at her local public school, which also doesn’t look bad. It’s silly to feel bad because school’s are loaded in my area. Still, I feel guilty applying…

Something else recently happened, that I won’t discuss, that I had to change another provider for my kids, which turned out to be a wise and wonderful decision, but for a little while I felt guilty…

I know it’s ridiculous, because all these things are being done with our kids’ best interests in mind, but in addition to all the mommy guilt for everything else (like being human on occasion),  it’s too much to bear stupid guilt.  So I’m done.  No more guilt.

Not only that, but sometimes Fate steps in when changes are required. Last year we had all those issues with our daycare provider, and kept them (when we shouldn’t have). Then Chris got laid off and it was a moot point because it was no longer in our budget at all.

On the other hand, I can relieve some by showing my appreciation for those who’ve done a good job.  Amelia’s teacher has been outstanding this year, and Zoe’s staff has pulled through really well, especially when her schedule at preschool increased by a day.  So no guilt but just plain gratitude for people who care about my kids and do their jobs really well.

Share your mommy guilt stories, AND your appreciation for the people who care for your kids.

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Grateful

Last night, my salary got cut AGAIN, drastically.  It made me depressed, especially since my work load will clearly be ramping up at work.

So, the only logical thing to do is to get down on my knees again and thank God for the things I do have. Can I get an amen?

Reasons to be joyous:

1. We are all healthy.
2. Amelia is doing VERY well in school.
3. Zoe knows all the letters.
4. Our new dog is awesome.
5. I have fantastic neigbors.
6. Chris’ contract work is getting extended.
7. I have good friends who are helping me through.
8. I have a beautiful home.
9. I have tenants in my other home.
10. My mortgages will most likely be reduced.
11. I have a great babysitter for work.
12. I’m a darn good writer, and a better web designer than I think.
13. Most important: God loves me.

Even if I didn’t have 1-12, I’d still have that last one.  And so God, thank you for being with me, through the incredibly difficult past year. Thank you for the hardships, becuase they have made me stronger, lighter, and closer to You.  Thank you for the rays of sunshine in this deep valley, because they show me Your love.  And thank you for this life, because it is precious, it is a gift, and it is spectacular.

Chime in, share what you’re grateful for, even if it’s something painful.  Mom Blog will pray for you too.

Namaste.

Happiness, work & stress

Wow, what a night last night was. As I’ve discussed, my husband got laid off a few months ago. Since then, he’s looking for full time work and has taken a temp job. It’s a techie job, not managerial, and it doesn’t pay as well of course as his old VP job.

Well, last night he told me that he was, and I quote, “happy”. It’s been a long, long time since he’s said, probably since he’s been at a managerial level position, probably for several years. He actually had an interesting conversation with his doctor about how his stress levels have come WAY down since he’s been temping.

Isn’t that funny? The things we think we want are not necessarily the things that are good for us. God has taken the painful family trauma of a layoff and turned into blessing.

Imagine that.
happy Friday, readers…

Turning a Bad Day into a Good One

I’ve been gone a while – busy celebrating the holiday with my family, which was NOT the plan for this weekend. The plan WAS to potty train Amelia, starting on Friday (I had a very short work day) and ending yesterday.

The problem was that we hit a very rough patch. Our gas got turned off (without due notice) Thursday night, which was a surprise to us. That means no oven, no dryer (and no clean clothes, since laundry was backed up), no heat, no showers. Friday morning, I woke up with a killer sinus headache and it took a few hours for medication to work. That left me feeling groggy and cranky. I had set up Amelia, who did not sleep late as expected, with a bathroom chart, stickers, underwear, candy and strict instructions to Grandma to load her with liquids and put her on every 20 minutes as I came down and managed this and arguing with the gas company. Instructions were not followed, Amelia peed everywhere, and the gas company wouldn’t stop by before SUNDAY.

Chris had spent several days in New York on business and came back to 3 hours of traffic. He was feeling under the weather, and had learned that he had been cheated out of 4 years of raises and bonuses by his old job. He was tired, sick and needed a shower. We decided that we could not do without baths or showers for 5 people for 2 days. Chris found the nearest place. Yes, it’s true it cost a buncha money to salvage the weekend, but I’m so glad we did.

Bear Creek Resort was, in a word, AWESOME. It’s a ski resort, 5 minutes from here. The room was clean, comfortable – truly 5 star. The bed was the SO comfortable. We stayed for 2 nights, and Chris and I got massages. They had an indoor pool, outdoor pool, 2 hot tubs, and a huge spa outdoor hot tub, two restaurants, and a great staff. They have packages as well, we would like to go for our 10th anniversary, THAT’s how awesome this place was.

Not only that, but the 4 day weekend seemed to roll SLOWLY by. It was just amazing. If the children even LOOK at a pool, they are wiped out and sleep like babies so that was wonderful. Chris and I had a date in the nice restaurant and then at the cafe bar. Back home, I found the energy to finish the untold loads of laundry and we bought a little grill and did some gardening (yea, imagine, me city girl, brown thumb gardening. Needless to say, I was CLUELESS about weeds, but that’s a whole other post.)

After feeling like something scraped off of someone’s shoe by Friday afternoon, I was definitely feeling, may I say, HAPPY by some time on Saturday. My allergies vanished on the mountaintop. We are psyched that we can bring the kids for snowtubing and that there is daycare, should the whim take me to ski (LOLOLOLOL). Don’t know, but it felt like the perfect holiday, and for that I’m grateful.

Good Day, Good WEEK

Yesterday was an EXCELLENT day.  How so?  Well, believe it or NOT, I have new business prospects…of the kind I WANT.  Zoe got a temporary medical assistance card, pending her disability diagnosis, which means it looks good for her to have it permanently.  I was tired, but got off my lazy, post-work butt and made dinner a little later to play (read: do therapy, lol) with the kids.  My teacher thought I did a wonderful job on my assignment (NOT perfect, but I totally knew where it failed) and THAT got my self-confidence up.  This weekend my nephew held a surprise party for my sister and we told each other how much we loved and missed each other.  And my sister looked like she really loved my gift.  My whole family is behind me with my struggles with the kids. Finally, my out of town brother visited my house, and gave lots of tips on building a home since he’s built two (or maybe 3).

There wasn’t much sleep yesterday but I felt too good today to get down. Spring is REALLY on the horizon and I’m just soaking up the goodness of the moment.  This weekend I’m going to my first writer’s group meeting.  Everything has this sense of falling into place perfectly.  All I can do is be humbled and thank God for this abundance, and continue my faith in good outcomes.

Dream Houses, and other Albatrosses

This weekend we took a trip to one of the NUMEROUS local builders and looked at a house. We have been doing this since we moved in, primarily, I guess, because we bought this house site unseen, and if we had seen it and some of the other models, we might have made a different decision. Needless to say, we will be prepared should we EVER rebuild.

ANYWAY, this was the “elite” section for this particular builder and they threw in the kitchen sink. The homes were lovely, but we had wanted to see the bigger model and on Saturday we went.

I could see by the look in Chris’ eye that he agreed with me: Of all the models we’ve been seeing, THIS one was our dream house.

Now, it’s not an option to build right now, so I didn’t know what to do with this information. I just keep picturing it in my mind, seeing Amelia immediately getting comfortable on the kitchen island and all that. But I’ve been listening too a lot of Joel Osteen and working hard on making my dreams come true, so I thought, Why not? Yes, I prayed for the house. I know it’s nuts so I threw in how it would be an offering and we’d open our home so people who had no one to spend the holidays with could spend it with us (assuming Chris get on board, of course).

But OF COURSE spirituality is not about THINGS, and I’ve been following this wonderful Eckhart Tolle course on Oprah.com and I KNOW I need to let go of things I want, but 2 things happened while pursuing the “dream home”:

1. the line of thought about opening our home – why do we need to wait? We have a nice sized home now. Of course, we’d need to be involved with something (like, oh, I don’t know, a CHURCH) to allow us to be in contact with others. Besides, we spend most holidays alone now anyway and I hate it.

2. we discussed our present home situation and dissatisfaction with our current builders, esp in terms of poor customer service, with the dream home builder rep. She, to her credit, said, “Well, maybe you don’t like your home because of your poor experience with the builder. I have a similar situation with my home, and all my friends too just love my home.” HM. There was the reminder: maybe I’d love this house more if I forget my bad experiences and thought about investing time, money and construction to make it my dream home.

Then, I heard Suze Orman on Oprah this week. I only watched about 15 minutes of it, but many things occured to me. Even if we COULD build a new home, should we? Shouldn’t we just spend the next 5 years eliminating debt, building nest eggs, and making a sizable emergency fund? Shouldn’t we just dump our old house first (and soon)?

We are blessed beyond measure. Due to some things happening in the economy, believe it or not, my husband’s company is doing very well. This is EXTREME blessing because guess where he worked a few years ago? If you said “Bear Stearns”, you’d be right. And he had the sense to sell his stock immediately (dummy me would have made him keep it). My company is growing too.

You want more blessing? Not only do we have nearly the best plot in the community, our side of the street doesn’t have runoff or cracked foundation issues like the other side. I have a great university nearby. I have amazing resources in this county for my kids.

There are no accidents. We ARE blessed beyond measure. If I don’t get a bigger house ever, who cares? Gives the kids something to strive for as they grow. And if I DO get it, then how awesome, let’s share. peace out people…

Note: wrote more at my Art Remarkable blog on my writing dream, check it out.

Bad Day

Ever have a day where EVERYTHING goes wrong?

It’s like instead of everything I touch turning to gold, it turns to doo-doo.

Nothing I’ve done at work, and stuff that should have been finished tonight will (God willing) be finished tomorrow.  Really, I hope!

Snow/Ice/rain/nightmare storm meant I had to pick up kids from daycare at noon, and try to work around them.  Never mind that I’ve never driven in this kind of weather before (hands were shaking when I got to daycare), but then I had to put up with antics like Amelia sticking her head in the toilet bowl.

For what it’s worth, she’s NEVER done that before.

Still can’t get my page to work and I have to work all night to figure out why.

OK, so that’s the bad, but what’s the blessing?

1. I spun out a little bit on one of the 100s of sharp curves while driving home, but no one was in opposing lane and I recovered immediately.  I actually count that a LARGE blessing.

2. Driving home I wasn’t shaking – drove behind various snow plow trucks and so it wasn’t too bad.  But better yet, I’m no longer afraid of this weather.  (Forget who was copilot, He actually took the wheel.)

3.  My Gevalia coffee pot came this afternoon.  God bless those poor UPS workers.  (Don’t I feel bad!)  Anyway, a nice new coffee pot (my old one smells like FEET) and 2 bags of coffee and filters for $16 total ain’t too bad!

There is blessing in everything.  I was going to ask you to pray for my XSLT sheets to work, but instead pray for Chris who will probably take 3 hours commuting home from Delaware.

Thanks!

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