This was another one of the items that got done during our trip to Big Bear/LA:
20. Stay up all night
When I originally made this list, I had intended this to be one of those “stay up all night and have fun” items.
And yet, it didn’t work out that way.
As I already mentioned a few weeks ago, when we were in Big Bear, we lost power and I had to stay up all night to feed the fire to make sure it didn’t get too cold in the house and the kids would be ok.
David slept on the couch, Nathaniel in his pack and play and Jake made this concoction from the pillows of the couch and all the leftover sheets and blankets. While they all slept, I stared at the fire in the dark. I tried to read my book but the light was not strong enough. I tried to play games on my iPhone but I was worried it would run out of battery. I told myself just another 20 minutes since I put a new log every 20 minutes.
At midnight, I set the alarm on my phone and told myself I’d lie down for 8 minutes. I woke up 20 minutes later and the fire was almost out. I freaked out and woke up Jake who fixed it. Then I went back to staring at it.
In the middle of the night, Nathaniel woke up and cried for a while. We stared at the fire and then as he fell asleep, David started having bad dreams and woke up. After a while he fell back asleep too.
From 3-4am, Jake was also awake (which was really helpful because by then I was really getting tired.) The last few hours were the roughest as everyone slept and I was too tired to read or even play. My eyes kept closing and I had to walk around to keep myself from falling asleep.
At 6am, I finally woke up Jake and told him I had to sleep or I would pass out. And I fell into a deep sleep from 6-7 even though I could hear Nathaniel shrieking.
It was one of the toughest nights of my life and I have no intention to repeating it aver again. I hope that I don’t ever have to.
The journaling reads:
Of all the things that are good for my soul, books come first. (Okay, the people come first, but we’re talking about “things” not people.) There’s nothing like reading to calm my soul, to help me escape my world and plunge into someone else’s and to forget about any stress I might be carrying.
I have always been an avid reader. When I was little, books were my escape and now that I’m all grown up, books are still my escape. I love a great fiction book with good characters and their ordinary lives. I don’t need constructed world or some mysterious plot, I just like the everyday stuff.
The thing about books is that they don’t ask for anything from me. They don’t tap into my creative or emotional energy. They don’t require me to think and use my brain as much as my work does. No computer skills required. Just a comfy chair, a warm drink, and this week’s novel. And I am in heaven.
This is one of the reasons I make the effort to read a book a week. I’ve learned that it’s good for my soul.
The following is cross-posted from the Weekly Gratitude Blog. I will post there every Tuesday and decided to post those posts here, too. For those of you who read both blogs, I apologize in advance. Some weeks the content might be different and other weeks, exactly the same.
For the last week or so, I’ve been reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book, Committed which is about marriage. I have many thoughts and feelings about the book but the passage that led me to today’s post was about how generations and generations of women in her family have given up personal hopes and dreams in favor of their family. Here’s the passage:
The women in my family, anyhow, are very good at swallowing disappointment and moving on. They have, it has always seemed to me, a sort of talent for changing form, enabling them to dissolve an then flow around the needs of their partners, or the needs of their children, or the needs of mere quotidian reality. They adjust, adapt, glide, accept. They are mighty in their maleability, almost to the point of superhuman power. I grew up watching a mother who became with every new day whatever that day required of her. She produced gills when she needed gills, grew wings when the gills became obsolete, manifested ferociuos speed when speed was required, and demonstrated epic patience in other more subtle circumstances.
My father had none of that elasticity. He was a man, an engineer, fixed and steady. He was always the same. He was Dad. He was the rock in the stream. We all moved around him, but my mother most of all. She was mercury, the tide. Due to this supreme adaptability, she created the best possible world for us within her home.
I am an engineer and I am lucky enough to have been able to achieve many of my dreams and yet so much of this still speaks to me. In my natural state, I aim to please people and I will bend and contort to help them out. Nothing makes me happier than to see my husband and kids (and loved ones) happy. I will do countless sacrifices to get them to be happy and feel very guilty if I cannot (or choose not to) prioritize their happiness over mine in certain situations.
And I don’t regret that. I love making my family happy. I don’t mind sacrificing for them. It doesn’t feel like a burden because it’s a choice I make. And I know many other women who do that, too. I think women, as a gender, are pleasers (yes I know I am generalizing) and tend to sacrifice personal joy and happiness sometimes.
Yet, it’s important to take care of oneself, too. I know that my husband and kids also like to see me happy. They feel better when I am happy and smiling and rested and taking care of myself. So this month’s theme is one I am going to take to heart. I think it’s important to feed the soul. When life gets too hectic (as is often the case) we tend to forget that. We do the urgent and then the more urgent and then we collapse in bed and then do more of the same the next day.
It’s important to take time for yourself. Even for six minutes a day. That’s not so long. I told myself last week that I would like to mediate for five minutes everyday. I tend to be very fidgety and I am always doing stuff or talking so staying completely still and completely quiet for five whole minutes would actually be hard for me. But it might be good for my soul. So is taking a walk and noticing the flowers. Or connecting with a friend. Or eating a healthy lunch. Or getting a manicure. Or journaling.
Sometimes a few minutes spent on yourself gives you enough positive energy for the whole day which then means you’re nicer to your kids, husband, workmates or even strangers. It means you’re more productive and optimistic. These are the dividends of self-care. They are worth it.
You are worth it.
So pay attention to yourself. See how much time you’re taking for yourself. See what gives your soul a lift and try to squeeze some more of those things each day.
This was one of the items that got done during our trip to Big Bear/LA:
21. Finish all the consulate work in LA
I’ve been married almost eight years, had a kid 5 years ago, and became a citizen 4.5 years ago and had another baby 9 months ago. As these things happened, I was supposed to notify the Turkish government so they were aware of it.
Then Turkey changed their social security cards and mine became obsolete. And then my passport expired. So now, none of my paperwork is valid. My kids are not Turkish citizens and I have been putting off taking care of this for a long, long time.
During our trip to Anaheim for CHA, I decided to finally take care of it all. I had done the marriage part through New York (we got married in Boston) so I brought all the paperwork they needed, some photos, some cash and I was ready.
Except they had no internet so none of their systems were working. My kids were sick and grouchy and we all wanted to go home already.
Thankfully a very kind woman who works there felt sorry for me, gave me all the forms to fill out and took my money and my details and said she’d take care of it all for me and to call her in a month to follow up but I should be all set.
So I gave her all my documentation and we got back in the car to go home.
Assuming they don’t lose all my identification, this was a very successful and short trip.
And most significantly, it’s done. Done. Done. Done.
You know how sometimes you put something off so long that it feels like a huge burden. That’s what this was, so it’s a big deal that it’s done.
The journaling reads:
Last year, one of the teachers in David’s preschool told me that I should get some workbooks for David. “He’s showing an interest in the ones we have at school and I think he might like to have some at home,” she said.
So I got a bunch of workbooks for us to do together. David devoured them. And then my sister brought some from Turkey when she came to visit. David devoured those, too. He colored them, he put stickers in the right places, he connected the lines. He just loved working his way through the different exercises.
This year, I got him a whole set of new workbooks. Ones on math and letters and thinking skills and we regularly sit together and work on them. He’s not even five and he can already read and write all of his upper and lowercase letters. He can count to who knows what number and he can do basic addition and subtraction. All because he wants to.
And because these magical workbooks make it so much fun.
The following is cross-posted from the Weekly Gratitude Blog. I will post there every Tuesday and decided to post those posts here, too. For those of you who read both blogs, I apologize in advance. Some weeks the content might be different and other weeks, exactly the same.
In my opinion, the people who give up on their resolutions fall into two categories: those who never start and those who can’t keep it up. Today, I wanted to talk about the first set since I think those might the people who’re likely giving up on this project right around now.
Let’s say you read about Weekly Gratitude somewhere and thought it would be a lovely idea to do it in 2010. You spent some time thinking about your format or maybe you had big ambitions about making a fancy album with beautifully designed pages every week. You might have even begun the album but you never really did a page. You just couldn’t settle on a format. You’ve been meaning to do it but we’re already on week 4 of the year. Now you’re so behind, it doesn’t even seem worth it. Is it worth it?
Absolutely.
Let me repeat that: YES! It’s WORTH IT!
You can still begin and you should absolutely do so. The great thing about this project is that it doesn’t have a timeline. The calendar year is an imposed timeline and not a natural one. The best time to start practicing gratitude is……
now.
Not in January 1 or February 1 or any other time. It’s just now. Scrap the fancy format you intended to do, give up on the beautiful layouts, but don’t give up on practicing gratitude. If you’re struggling with getting started, simplify. Simplify a lot. Take just one photo a week, or jot down a few words. Even a single sentence each week counts. The goal is to take a moment (however small it may be) and pay attention to something that makes you feel grateful.
You don’t have to go back and create ones for the first few weeks of the year. Start from this moment on. Lori doesn’t put dates on her art and I think that’s a marvelous idea, gratitude doesn’t have anything to do with a timeline. The goal is to notice more. To look around and see the things that are wonderful in your life right now. If all you end up doing is taking a moment for ten minutes a week and thinking of one thing that you’re grateful for, I think you’ll still find the exercise to be powerful and beneficial.
All this is to say, you can start now. Don’t tell yourself that it’s all over cause you haven’t begun yet. Don’t punish yourself by making yourself go back and do all of the previous weeks. Don’t fret if you did week one and skipped weeks 2 and 3. It doesn’t matter. You can start now and you can continue now. Don’t worry about impressing others. Don’t worry about the quality of your art or words. This is not for other people. You don’t have to share it with anyone. This is for you.
This is so you can see the good things in your life and nothing should get in the way of that.
I don’t mean to sound preachy or like I’m scolding. I really just want to encourage you. I want you to know that this one resolution can be started anytime. It’s not tied to January 1.
Today’s as good a day as any so if you’re in doubt, today is the best day to start this project.
Ps: If you have friends who has intended to do the project but gave up and aren’t even reading our blog anymore, please send them this post. Encourage them to start. I wholeheartedly believe that they will be grateful to you for encouraging them.
I used this simple YouTube movie to figure out how to make a hat.
I already knew how to decrease and there’s nothing else new here except for knitting in the round which I happened to have the needles for but I had never done before. I used some yarn I had and since the yarn was bulky, I used 64 stitches.
Here’s the hat:
The hat took me about a week on and off. I really didn’t spend much regular time on it. It was quite easy to be honest. The hardest part of the very ending cause I was down to like six stitches and it was getting really hard to keep knitting. And I don’t have a crochet hook so I had to improvise for the very ending.
Here’s me wearing it.
I think it ended up being a tiny bit too short for my liking. I would have liked it an inch longer. But the great thing is both David and I can wear it (I have a small head.) and it’s soft and warm.
I’m not a hat person but I might actually wear this around. I like it.
Even though it was one item, I think I might still like to learn how to knit socks, too. Looks pretty hard!
The journaling reads:
I have been on the design team for A Million Memories for over two years. While I love the kits and I adore the community, I’ve been telling myself that I need to quit. I have way too much on my plate and my preferred layout style is too clean and plain to be on a kit club design team.
But I can’t seem to do it. Even though I feel guilty and sometimes even frustrated about the whole thing, each time a new kit arrives at my door, I’m like a kid in a candy shop. I tear that box apart, and I immediately start designing layouts in my mind.
This kit is the reason I do at least four layouts a month. Many months, this kit is the only layouts I do in a month. I often wonder if it weren’t for the kit, would I take the time to sit and make layouts? Regularly? I’d like to say “yes” but I honestly am not sure.
As of now, the A Million Memories kit is the reason I get to capture our stories regularly. And I am very grateful for that.
The following is cross-posted from the Weekly Gratitude Blog. I will post there every Tuesday and decided to post those posts here, too. For those of you who read both blogs, I apologize in advance. Some weeks the content might be different and other weeks, exactly the same.
Before I changed the design of my blog, I used to have a tag line that read “Extraordinary Moments from an Ordinary Life.” I’ve had my blog for over ten years and, in that time, I’ve had many different tag lines but none of them rang as true to me as this one.
Life is so extraordinary. Especially the simple, ordinary day.
Last week, I was sitting at my kitchen table, feeding my nine-month-old some cereal and fruit while I helped my older one practice his lowercase letters and kept an eye on my email. And for a split second, I took a moment to look at my life from an outsider’s perspective and I felt a huge rush of gratitude. There was nothing extraordinary about a baby eating some solid food and a five-year-old practicing letters. Yet, everything about it seemed extraordinary to me. Did I really have two amazing boys who made my heart sing? This wonderful laptop to check my mails on and the great kitchen to prepare meals in? (I don’t even cook, imagine if I did.) I felt thankful for the warm house. (It was raining outside and my home last year was not insulated at all so I would be freezing if I were still there.) I felt thankful to be able to live such an ordinary life. To get to get up, feed my kids, help my kids, do my work, all in the comfort of my home. To have a kind, loving husband. To have a job. To have arms, legs, and a healthy body.
I know that some of these things might seem inane to some of you. I complain about many of these a lot of the time. There are days when I am tired and I don’t want to have to feed my son one more meal or I want my older one to be quiet so I can think. Days where I wish I wouldn’t have to respond to one more work email. Some days I am so tired, I wish I could sleep all day. And don’t even get me started on my body and what’s happened to it after having had two kids. (I don’t mind the stretch marks, but I would love to lose the weight.)
And yet, I love my life. There are so many good things about it. There are so many miracles that happen everyday. The tiny hug from my boy or even just a giggle. The baby’s soft hands on my face. Some small accomplishment at work. A hug from my husband’s strong, loving arms. These are miracles to me. Miracles of the ordinary life. The lives we get to live. How similar they are and yet how uniquely different.
I thought this would be a good week to celebrate the ordinariness of our lives. The fact that we get to have ordinary lives. The little extraordinary moments that fill each of our days. I hope you’ll take some time with me to observe, cherish, and be grateful for the extraordinary miracle of the ordinary.
EDITED TO ADD: As it always seems to happen, I found this incredible video in Jena’s blog today and I had to come share since it fits so well with my topic. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.
There are several tutorials online for camera straps, but I like this one the best because:
1. It’s removable so I can wash my strap if it gets dirty and since I carry my camera around all the time, chances are, it might.
2. It covers all of the strap, including the leather ends.
3. The stitches are on the sides and not in the middle (which bothers me for some reason.
4. It’s really simple. (really important cause I suck at sewing.)
The hardest part of this whole thing was choosing the fabric. I had several ideas and I couldn’t decide for the longest time. Finally I went with the one I loved the most. The one I loved touching. I felt bad using the fabric. I wanted to save it. But I am trying to let go of that “I should save this for a special occasion” habit. Life is now. I use my camera all the time. This means that I will get to see and touch this fabric every single day, why shouldn’t it be the fabric I love?
So I picked the one I loved the most. Then I measured. I measured 100 more times. I was so scared of cutting. I kept thinking I was going to get it wrong and I didn’t have more of this fabric if I messed up. I should have done a trial run with another fabric but I don’t have a lot of time on my hands and I wanted to just go for it and have faith in myself. So I just took the plunge and cut.
The directions have a bunch of ironing which I knew I wasn’t going to do since I have no idea where my iron is. (Still packed I think.) The nice thing about this fabric was that it didn’t really require ironing. I folded and stitched the opening through which the strap goes in and out.
I didn’t do the pockets in the tutorial cause I didn’t want them, so I just went ahead and stitched the whole thing. I then turned it the right side, checked that it was fitting and then stitched on the edges which made it a much tighter fit, but, thankfully, it still fit!
And here it is on my camera. Low quality photo cause I had to take it with my other camera.
I love it! I love touching it. I am so glad I used this fabric I love.
The journaling reads:
I am full-time work-at-home Mom. I have a relatively demanding job and an eight-month-old baby and a five-year-old son. I have no help. My older boy goes to school from 9 to 11:45 and I spend two hours of my day driving him there and back.
The rest of the time, they are both at home with me. I have to make food, nurse, put down, pick up, change diapers, and do the million other things that come with being a mom. I also have to attend meetings and video conferences and send email and resolve problems, and the million other things that come with being an employee.
Most days I can balance the two okay. But there are times when everything seems to happen at once. The baby is upset but something from work really needs my attention at that very moment. During those times, I am extra grateful for these little puffs that Nathaniel loves so much. Once he’s properly fed, I know I can give him a handful and he’ll eat quietly while I give undivided attention to my work.
The following is cross-posted from the Weekly Gratitude Blog. I will post there every Tuesday and decided to post those posts here, too. For those of you who read both blogs, I apologize in advance. Some weeks the content might be different and other weeks, exactly the same.
The first official week of the year has been a tough one for me. I am someone who thrives on routine and the holiday season is far from a regular weekly schedule, so I was looking forward to the first week of the year. Looking forward to everything going back to the way it was.
Well, it didn’t exactly work that way. My little boy decided to sleep less and cry more. My older one complained that he needed to be entertained and I just couldn’t get back into the groove of work. At the end of every day, I felt worn out, depressed and like I got nothing done. I was so busy and so disorganized that I didn’t even get a chance to look at the todo lists I’d made, let alone make a clean one.
I had decided at the beginning of this project that while I did the art once a week, I was going to write three things I was thankful for every day, at the end of the day. I post on my blog daily so I just added this section to my posts. And I’ve now been doing it for 11 days. Even during the roughest of days, I had to take a moment and think of three good things that happened that day. And, to be honest, I was able to without a problem.
Just goes to show you that even when the times seem really tough, good things happen throughout the day. If you take time to pay attention, you will notice them. This practice reminds me every day that wonderful things are happening in my life right now. All the time. And when I am so tired that I can barely get up, it’s good to remember that.
So here’s a challenge for you if you’re up for it: for the next week, write down 3 things you’re thankful for every day. Every night before you go to sleep. Jot it on a piece of paper. Anywhere that works for you. Don’t leave it to the morning because I promise you’ll forget. Just give it a whirl for a week and see how it makes you feel.
I hope it will be as rewarding for you as it has been for me.
