Day 130: Celebrate!

I am worth celebrating!

Friday was my birthday. I had nothing special planned and really wasn't all that excited. Then I found out my mother-in-law was coming over to look after the kids so I could go to an early dinner with my husband. Nice! Very nice. I grabbed my movie cup (our theatre has special cups that we can get refilled for a buck all year long) because Iron Man 2 just opened, just in case. It turned out that my husband thought I was worth celebrating, too. We never went to the movie; instead we went to a baseball game, complete with a fireworks show. As if this weren't fun enough, after the game my favorite band, Jars of Clay, gave a concert for an hour!

Just dinner and a movie would have been swell. It felt so wonderful to celebrate and be celebrated. What a gift! And... upon further reflection, this is a gift we can give ourselves, too. Little splurges here and there (lunch out with a magazine, painting toes, buying a new pen in a fun color, eating dinner out on the patio) can help us celebrate. We're worth celebrating.

Day 121: Glimmer of Hope -- It's Working

Lost as I am in the whirlwind of teaching, grading, working and keeping house, I noticed something this week. I was still really tired but it has been the right kind of tired. The fact of the matter is I am busy all the time -- I accept that. But that I've-been-hit-by-a-bus tired hasn't been in the picture this week. Even on the tired days, I managed to get dinner made, get kids to bed, get schoolwork done (even if not as much as I'd like to see happen), get groceries, etc. I even smiled through it. So something is working.

I am worth the effort to take care of myself. Taking care of myself means:
*doing nothing for 20 minutes, at least twice a week
*taking my supplements (iron, Vitamin D and a few other things)
*getting some exercise (still shooting for daily...not quite there yet)
*cutting out sugar (oh. my. goodness. this is hard)
*ditching soda... again
*read for fun
*get outside for some fresh air daily
*acknowledge daily that there is only so much a human being can accomplish and be ok with that

There's more to do and learn, but for now this is plenty. When this stuff becomes routine, I'll add more.

Day 118: Breathe In, Breathe Out

Apparently this is a bad, bad year for allergy sufferers. Plentiful winter rains here in the desert guarantee a bumper crop of endless greenery and all that green stuff tries to replicate itself much too quickly. The pollen counts are unbelievable. My standard antihistamine regimen has fallen short this year, leaving me gasping for breath for the past two days.

It takes a lot of work to consciously breathe all day long. The chant "breathe in... breath out... breathe in... breathe out" is almost audible in my mind. (I am fairly certain that hearing voices is still not en vogue, psychologically speaking, so we'll leave it at "almost audible.") Over and over as the hours pass I find myself straightening up in my chair and willing myself to breathe evenly. What does this have to do with my worth? What does this have to do with anything?

Basics. Breathing is basic -- we're born knowing how to do it. Even my kids who needed oxygen or visits to the NICU had an innate desire and general idea of how to breathe. We know how to breathe and we don't have to think about it. We take it completely for granted. That is, we do until we can't do it easily. As soon as a cold crops up, or allergies explode, or asthma threatens, or a rogue pillow in the middle of the night plants itself on your face, you suddenly have to think about that next breath. You see how fundamental an exercise getting oxygen into your lungs is. You achieve a sense of acute awareness at how dependent you are on a single element.

A great deal of our lives (at least my life) is spent in the "take things for granted" mode. Even our stresses are somewhat normal for us. When we cross the line, however, into extremes, we discover our utter dependence on something like oxygen. We discover that this moment, right now, is slipping past us. We don't exist in the past, we don't exist in the future. We only exist right now. Now is as basic as it gets. It occurred to me during breaths 23,535 and 23,536 that I have been focusing moment by moment for the past two days -- that's not a bad thing. I think we end up in trouble when the crisis of our extreme passes and we're not so dependent on consciously breathing in and out, consciously focusing on the now. We easily slide back into taking for granted again. The trick is to let go of the stress but not the focus.

I am worth focus. Right now. Being as centered as possible in the current moment is crucial. It's crucial for completing a task, reading a book to my kids, keeping my mood in check, and so on. It means learning to tolerate noise or utter silence or difficult emotions -- realizing that these things pass, just as the moments do. I only have to master right now.
Now... how to do that? Beats the tar out of me. But I'm working on it. Tonight's agenda, however, is breathing. Be well.

Day 116: Holy Rusted Metal, Batman! Kryptonite!

I blinked, I read, I lost time again. My reading suggests some sort of black hole. If I were a drinking woman, I might suspect blackouts. Unfortunately I have to admit that my time loss is not chemical, nor is it science fiction related. I just spend too much time creatively avoiding work. Scratch that. There is nothing creative about checking my email, Facebook and a host of internet fora -- those all just suck up time. Those things are my Kryptonite.

I read an interesting phrase today: show me your checkbook, I'll show you your values. A reasonable twist to that for me would involve a day planner and how I spend my time. Darn, growing is painful. It would seem that I've forgotten a basic principle in choices: to choose to do something also means to choose not to do something else. Choosing to indulge in my Kryptonite means I'm choosing to ignore other responsibilities -- responsibilities I willingly took on because I know they are good and essential for me and my family.

I'm worth better choices. It's hard to change habits -- we don't even have to think about our habits until they start to get in our way. My Kryptonic habits have to change. I'm taking a superhero approach to this. I've got to learn to listen to that Spider sense tingling in the back of my mind when I'm about to check email. I need to pay attention to the brain drain my electronic Kryptonite has on my SuperMom powers. I need humor, too (hence the wild Batman & Robin phrases), or I'll go nuts. But above all, I need to keep trying to change my wayward habits and master myself.

Day 110: Revisiting the 20 Minute Homework

Several weeks ago I mentioned that my doctor had given me homework: twice a week I am to sit for 20 minutes and do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Some more connections I'd like to share have been made in my mind.

My routine bloodwork showed a Vitamin D deficiency. How someone who lives in the Desert Southwest can be Vitamin D deficient is beyond me, but there it is. Guess what? Sitting outside for, oh, 20 minutes a day is a way to boost Vitamin D production in the body. Sure, walking, gardening or some other activity outside works, too. But for now, sitting suits my purposes nicely. How interesting that the "sit still and don't do anything" advice dovetails with the "get outside for a few minutes and make some Vitamin D" advice.

Guess what else dovetails nicely in there? Drinking enough water. Trust me, if you sit out in the desert sun for 20 minutes, you will be thirsty and thus guarantee better water consumption. A well hydrated person is a person who can function throughout her day.

Sitting still and reconnecting the weary brain cells is... well, to be honest, it's aggravating most of the time. However, I am starting to truly see the benefits. I've done it enough to note a difference in the day when I make that time for myself. The funny thing is that I feel I'll never get everything done anyway -- and what I've noticed is that I never can get it all done, regardless of whether or not I've taken a few minutes out for me. Interesting, isn't it? I can't do it all anyway... but if I take 20 minutes out, I feel better and actually manage to get a great mountain of work done. I'm worth 20 minutes!

Day 109: Notebooks, Chaos, and Balance

Notebooks are my salvation... and my downfall. I've been trying to jot down my random thoughts, to-do lists, ideas, discipline issues with the kids, and a host of other mundane, but oh-so-necessary, tasks in notebooks because I forget things so easily these days. Do you see the problem already? Notebooks is plural. My notebook situation has become as bad as my mental situation -- the thoughts are now strewn around my vehicle, living room, kitchen, bedroom, school room, and a few other places that I can't remember (I bet I made a note in a notebook.). Instead of collecting my thoughts in safe place, I've scattered them to the winds of my life. In short, the only improvement is that I now usually know that I'm forgetting something, but I still have no clue what.

How does this relate to my worth? Good question. I've noticed that I am very hard on myself for not remembering things. Just yesterday I was exasperated with my nine year old for not telling me he was done with an assignment (you know what I'm going to say next, right?)... and when I huffily asked him why he was playing instead of telling me he'd finished, he and the fourteen year old both quietly said that he had told me and I had responded with, "Good. I'll be right with you." (This is the part where my head hits the desk and I begin to groan and sigh.) It's so easy to beat myself up over this -- it's hardly the first time it's happened. But before I get to far on berating myself for being inattentive, or side tracked, or whatever, I also have to take note that the boy told me while I was in the middle of teaching the teenager and the little kids were playing loudly in the next room. Multitasking anyone?

My working theory on this constant state of forgetfulness is that multitasking creates chaos. Don't get me wrong -- a certain amount of plate spinning is required in life (think of the circus act where the clown runs back and forth to spin plates on the ends of sticks... plates that he has to keep spinning lest they crash). This goes back to what I said before: I am worth my sanity. There is only so much a person can do in a day. There are only so many thoughts a person can follow in a given period of time. Motherhood is all about constant interruption and correction and somehow finding joy in between. No matter what role I'm playing, there are only so many plates I can keep spinning at once.

Maybe this means I'm worth taking myself less seriously? Oh, I'm not saying I should ditch any of my responsibilities or let them all go to pot. It just seems logical that there must be some line in the sand that I've crossed... a line between joyful living and overbearing burden. I really do think there's a way to build a fence on that line so that a balance can be struck. How to do that? That's the question of the day.

April 19: This is hard without my laptop! :(

I am trying to hard to be diligent with my blogging.. as I am not one with loads of follow thru! But without my lap top this is becoming difficult. I have a (Dino) computer that takes forever to load and then it looses things.

I am whiny today!!! SO it would be fitting for me to follow up with my last post...

CARALYN SAID...

My daughter and I have been talking thru this worth thing since I have started it. I am amazed at the insight she has at such a young age, and she challenges me as I know she is watching with "worth" vision since we have started talking.

One day recently she asked a very awesome question. "Mom, what exactly does a woman of worth do?" Mmmmmmm, this is a question that will be answered for years to come... The ACTIONS of a woman of worth, what a great question! So I asked her what she thinks are worthy actions, and who does she see them in? She said her teacher from last year Mrs. Stone. She said that she is kind but firm in her boundaries, and that she is very accepting. I said "Yes, this are worthy traits!"

We have a little contest to share with each other when we see a worthy action.

I am really thankful to God for bringing me thru this. If for no other reason than my daughter at 12 focusing on worth based actions rather then the latest trend in the teen magazine.

I AM WORTH SEEING WORTH IN OTHER PEOPLE! Phil 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.