Gratituesday: March is Marching

Here it is ...Tuesday again and nearly the middle of March.  Steve and I had a night away on Saturday and it was glorious. I took one photo and one video of the band we saw (Steve's current favorite, Houndmouth) and that was all. No social media blitz, just us. We walked in a  beautiful park with hundreds of other folks happy for warm weather, walked to dinner, walked to breakfast and really just hung out, just being together.

Glorious.


Tonight I am taking him to see one of my all time favorite bands, Modest Mouse. Such a treat to see two bands I really like in a span of four days. Spring has sprung and with it, live music again.

March 10 Gratituesday List

• Parents who will hang with our girls while we go recharge our marriage
• Friends who send MMs  with our photos on them as gifts
• Sunshine on Sunday (I have a sunburned  nose)
• Answered prayers in the middle of the night
• Daughters home from traveling safely
• Pure Barre challenge. 20 in 31 days. I am on number 7 in 8 days. 
• Sisters who create workout videos so I can not go to the gym
• Family to miss!  So lucky to have a large family on both sides that we keep up with on social media

Girl cousins

Gratituesday: Exercise and Yeast

Gratituesday started as a plan for me to be present in my thankfulness for my blessings. The little things in life that make me happy or a better person. I am easily bogged down by negativity of others and my own self talk. This is a way for me to "count my blessings" as my ever chipper Grandmomma used to say.

 Gratituesday List

• Nutritional yeast. I have used it to ween off grains by adding it to last night's salmon cakes, this past weekend's waffles, today's frittta...
• Saying "yes" to reading to 4th graders. They all clapped when I finished. I was on cloud 9! 
• Juicing. Not delicious, but I feel amazing after. 
• Steve drinking the juice with gusto. 
• Steve challenging Travis to 100 burpee challenge and me jumping on the bandwagon. Goodbye bingo jigglers! Today is day 43.
• Pure Barre for offering a 20 in 31 challenge. I'm sore already.
• Modest Mouse in Chattanooga. Getting me through my winter-no-music- festival-doldrums! 
• Sophomore year, for not being junior year. 
• 8th grade, for not being kindergarten. 
• Chattanooga Library, for feeding my obsession! 
• March, for reminding me May is almost here.

Gratituesday: Wine, Exercise and Bookclub

Gratituesday is  back! I have slowly gotten back into my blogging routine. Lots of thoughts rambling around in this head of mine. Harder to put them on the screen. However, I feel better when I do, calmer in the brain area.

Gratitude is something I try to instill in my children as well as in myself. Being a grateful person is hard sometimes. I get caught up in the fairness of things, perceived or real. I live a pretty great life of my own choosing. My kids are amazingly healthy and full of life. My husband loves me and is doing a job he loves. Pretty great, right?

Here is this week's gratituesday list.

Gratituesday: Lately

Gratituesday in a list:

• Teenaged daughter who are kind, polite and free thinkers
• Friends who text me randomly and don't mind when I do the same...                                             out of sight is not out of mind
• Sisters who give me art for my birthday
• Husband who still  grabs my butt 
• A 10 year old car with no car payment (fingers crossed it keeps going)
• My new Fitbit that has me getting up and moving around
• Pure Barre...I love/hate it about 4 times a week. Stronger abs, harder challenges and cute tights
• Hard lessons that I sometimes actually learn
• My nephews, niece and brother-in-law who are still hanging in there after a long, long journey of watching my sister-in-law come unwound. Her memorial was last weekend.

Life is full of hard things. Death seems to be all around me lately. A friend's college son, my sister-in-law, two friends and my brother lost their fathers...we are all delicate creatures  and we are all called to lift one another up.  The little things are what makes life so much more bearable and in fact wonderful.

Dirt: Gratituesday Mardi Gras

Sometimes all you want to share with the world is the polished, beautiful side of your life.
The Facebook side as I like to call it.
Photoshopped and pretty. Like our life is one big Mardi Gras parade.
We all know life is not like that. Not at all.

I have seen this float in real life.

Gratituesday: Pasta

Is it just me, or is pasta just the best thing in the whole wide world? Especially if you are like me and you have relegated it to the thing you eat maybe six times a year? Steve and I have considerably cut grains out of our diet the past few years and pasta was one of the first things to go. That was fine by me, since I never have been one who LOVES pasta. That is more Steve's territory.

Gratituesday: A New Year

2014.

For real?
I spent New Year's Eve 1999 in Florida with my sister, Jennifer and several of Steve's college roommates and their wives. We had a fairly low key night of wondering what would happen for "Y2K" as the media dubbed the "horribleness" that awaited us at the stroke of midnight.

Gratituesday: Thanksgiving

This week, people will be gathering around tables to give thanks for their many blessings.

Mine are too many to count and I always feel put on the spot when it comes to the round table thanks.

My friend posted on Facebook at the beginning of the month "What if you only woke up with the things you had been grateful for the day before...?" WHOA! 

The post was a reminder to be thankful for the big things, family, health and pets, in my case. 

I often play the house on fire game. You know, what would I grab if my house was on fire...?

Family and pets. 

Not wedding photos or family heirlooms. 

My kids, husband and pets. 

So...while I am truly grateful for lots of wonderful blessings that I enjoy, today I am grateful for these specific things in my life, which I would save from a fire, which I would be devastated to wake up without tomorrow, which I am truly grateful.

• Steve (who sends me amazing pictures like this one...funny and goats)
• Delaney and Ellie and their wonderful hilarious selves
• Jake, Maybelle and the odd couple, Hagrid and Charlie
• My wonderful parents who support and love me 
• Steve's parents,who are awesome grandparents
• My amazing sisters who are my rocks and keep me sane (and sometimes insane)
• My brother, brother-in-laws (3) and sweet sister in law
• My eight nephews and three nieces
• My Uncles and Aunts, who are indeed amazing

Gratituesday: Marriage

*Gratituesday was yesterday and I was remiss in posting this on time*

A  couple that we are friends friends with are going through a divorce. 

I cannot say whether it is messy or just a divorce, as I have no experience in these matters other than my parents and I don't remember that.

The sadness that envelopes my heart when I speak to her is really heavy. He is not interested in sharing with us, and that is perfectly fine. I am not exactly comfortable with being in the middle, so to speak. But she is one of my best friends and so I am a listening ear and hopefully a comforting hand.

Steve and I like all couples, go through patches of not communicating well and not listening well. 

We are sometimes ships in the night, passing and leading our own separate lives. I can see how easy it would be to veer off course, away from each other.

Marriage is hard. 

However, we made a pact before we got married that we would work at being married. 

As children of divorce, both of us knew that it would be a hard road. That has been the beacon that has carried us through a lot of stress, arguments, tears and misunderstandings. 

The beacon is our love and our dedication to each other. The reality that we are in it together. We chose this path, hard or easy. That carries us through. 

Right now, I try to be in the moment with him. I love him so much it hurts my heart. He is funny, caring and smoking hot. And he is my partner. 

The forethought to think marriage through before we got to it has been one of the only things we have actually planned in nearly 20 years together. Everything else...seat of our pants. 

I like to think it is my most valued possession.

For that I am grateful.

Gratituesday: Lunch in a park

Today, I sat in a park right by my office and ate a wonderful salad and looked at the water. 

The sun was the perfect temperature, where it feels warm on your skin, but not blazing hot. 

There were people walking their dogs and a woman being trained by her trainer. 

THAT was my Gratituesday. 

Gratituesday: The Fox

Gratituesday is back!

Yesterday my kids showed me the video for one of the most hilarious songs I have heard lately.

I told Steve last night that I am so thankful for silly songs, rather than the twerking cr@P that has been all over the radio lately. The world is such a scary place to raise daughters.

Well, scary place in general.

So, instead of licking hammers and dancing around naked with fully clothed men,

I am grateful for

"WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY?"

Gratituesday: Momma got a message

I am so excited I can barely stand it. 

Someone gave me advice over a year ago to be open to new things. 

That is not a common feeling of mine. I tend to be wary of things. Some call it controlling, I call it cautious. I married the opposite of cautious and it has been a grand adventure.

 

 

But I digress. 

In my effort to be open to new things, I have started saying "YES". Yes to volunteering for a fundraising event. Yes to my daughter's request we try a new church. Yes, to a new hair color that I have toyed with for months. Yes to new friends and being "friends"  on Facebook with people. 

Yes, to a new job opportunity.

 

Yes, yes, yes. 

I saw a Facebook post by a mother of friend of Ellie's whom I have gotten to know a little from dropping Ellie off at their house and sitting and watching her daughter and mine play lacrosse.  She is a friend of a friend, an acquaintance. 

The post was really a help wanted ad looking for an administrative assistant for a business she was starting with her partner.

I contacted her immediately without even thinking about it. After we spoke on the phone, I arranged to meet with them both. Their enthusiasm was contagious.

Long story short, I have been working a few hours here and there and start next Wednesday. 

Open and YES! have led me to a new job, one that uses my skills. One that I am excited about. 

One that I am really looking forward to starting.

I cannot thank said advice giver. She has brought more into my life than I could have ever thought possible. The lesson I take away is this " God puts people in your life for a reason. He speaks through them, uses their skills for His purpose and blesses them for being open. All we have to do is be open as well to hear His message for us. " 

 

I am so grateful for Sunshine Girl and her "be open message", for my new bosses and their enthusiasm and for my husband, the original adventurer in my life.

Gratituesday: Swimming

This summer, I have watched both my girls swim. 

 

I love to watch them swim in meets. Not because they win (which they both do sometimes) but because they are doing something, well. Something that I am not good at in the least. 

My girls are my heroes.

One goes to practice when she can, making the most of practices and often demanding that her coach make them harder.The other has been going twice a day, at first by my choice, but now by her own.

 

I am so grateful for swimming. The skill to swim along with the skill  to push oneself through the next level of ability are priceless lessons. 

PS These are photos of past years...this year I have taken exactly NO photos of my swimmers, with the exception of a quick instagram photo here and there...because I am too involved in actually watching them. It's been great.

Gratituesday: A girl's best

*This is a late post as I was crazy running around all day yesterday.

In a girl's life, there are several constants that know  her secrets.

Her sisters, if she has them.

 Her  best friends. 

Her  hair dresser.

My hairdresser has been my constant for at least 8 years. (Neither of us can remember when I started coming to her). I have followed her to three salons and trust her completely.

When I started seeing her, I had been in the process of growing my hair out...for 5 years!

I would get frustrated when it got to that awkward phase and have whomever was cutting my hair chop it off. Over and over again.

I sat in Monica's chair and told her I wanted to grow it out. She looked me in they eye and said "If you are serious, and only if you are serious, I will help you grow your hair out." So, I told her I was serious and two years later, I had truly long hair.

I love her almost as much as my husband. Literally. 

She is a great hairdresser. She listens and remembers about my hair, my kids, my husband. 

She always makes sure I really want whatever it is I have asked for, sometimes refusing to do whatever it is (bangs took two years before she would do them and I am growing them out.)

 

Yesterday, she went against her better judgement for the first time I can remember (I am sure there were other times and she just kept it quiet) and dyed my hair dark. I know she is expecting me to be unhappy about it, but I actually like the change.

Monica took my request and made it pretty.

I am not necessarily a vane person. I don't spend money on clothes, barely wear makeup, hardly keep up with trends, never get my nails done, and I barely brush my hair. But, I believe that good color and a good hair cut can make being lazy about the other stuff alright.

I am so lucky to have such a great hairdresser in my life.  One who makes me feel special and pretty, who listens and and administers tough love, and who really cares about her craft. 

Today, on Gratituesday, I am grateful for Monica Sax, hairdresser extraordinaire.