Gut Genug

I keep hearing gut genug (good enough in German) in my head this week.  I always liked this saying. I like that there are three hard g sounds in two words and that when you say it, it sounds final.  Like there are no questions to be asked once it is said.  Of course, that applies to a lot of things said in German, even the pleasantries.  Germans are generally not a people to leave things at good enough so the fact that they have a saying for it makes me feel like sometimes gut genug really is gut genug.

Bill has been on the road for the past eleven days and it will probably be four more until he is actually home. This is not new to us, he has travelled a lot in the past, but it has been a long time since he was gone this long.  There was one time he was sent to NC with a one way ticket and I lost my mind and put my two year old and baby in a car and drove to Chicago to stay with my sister.  So, it could be worse but this is also the first time he has been gone more than a few nights since I started working full time.  

I am a little weary.  Single parents and military husbands and wives, you people are heroes.  I get worn out being the only adult in the house, the only one thinking that things should not be this dirty or chaotic or that there should be food other than Cheese-Nips in the pantry.  I have shuttled kids back and forth and back again until I dread getting in the car.  Of course everyone had a million appointments or field trips or things to do these past 11 days.  Naturally we would be busiest when down to one driver.  

I was feeling overwhelmed and sorry for myself until I started hearing gut genug and gut genug gave me a whole new mind set.  It tells me that things aren't the same when Dad is away, so stop killing yourself trying to keep it up.  House is dirty?  Is it so dirty that someone will get sick?  No?  Run a vacuum around, clean the counters and declare it GUT GENUG!  I did wash the kitchen floor at 9pm the other night but only because I was tired of sticking to it.  I really weighed the pros of cleaning it - no longer sticking - to the cons - didn't want to- and the pros won out.  So in this case, slightly better than gut genug.

I find that gut genug really applies to eating.  The boy is a TERRIBLE breakfast eater on school days. I have to stand over him and say "Eat.  Eat.  For the love of God, EAT."  I took this 15 minutes of horror away by deciding that bars can be breakfast. Not only can they be breakfast, they are a great breakfast!  No plate, no mess and best of all, I can press it in his hand on his way out the door and he can eat it on the bus.  

it's a breakfast gut genug!

Plus, now I know he is eating at least 200 good calories and not the 7 he got from his three bites of waffle.  Dinner?  Dinner can be sandwiches!  Throw some veggies on the side and feel like a good mom.  You know what else can be dinner?  Food someone else makes and you drive through and purchase!  This is brilliant!  M started texting me repeatedly the other day to stop and get Torchy's, stop and get Torchy's. I told her no the first three times and then stopped to think why was I telling her no.  Why not stop and get food and not spend the next hour cleaning up the kitchen, cooking and then cleaning it again?  So I did.  And we sat and ate and laughed. A lot actually.  She regaled us with music that I am sure the boy will end up in trouble for at school, but it was in the moment.  She was sharing!  Gut genug wins again!!!

Finally, gut genug applies to laundry.  I refuse to buy the boy more long pants because he will not need them in three more weeks and he is growing like a weed.  Normally, I try to get a load of laundry done midweek so he has clean pants.  This time I looked the other way as he wore the same pants a few times.  Clean underwear?  Yep.  Gut genug.

I really feel that gut genug has kept me from crawling into the fetal position and weeping while chewing my fingernails off.  I find that weekends are very hard to fill the time without Dad.  Today I went to kettlebell while the kids ate carbs and watched cartoons.  Everyone was happy.  Later we are going to see the Lego movie.  Two hours of not answering to "Mom?"  "Mom?!?!"  "MOM!!!!" will be great.  Plus, it is a late afternoon show and I plan on buying the large popcorn in the hopes it will fill them and no one will ask what is for dinner.  GUT GENUG!!

Did I Enjoy My Day?

Did I enjoy my day?  This is a great question being that today is Valentine's Day and we all know how I really feel about Valentine's Day.  

Subtle, right?

So, I did giggle as I wrote this poem and stuck it with some candy in SG's lunch.  I pictured her opening it and rolling her eyes, maybe smiling a little and then sharing the candy with her friends.  She would know I loved her and was thinking about her, even if it was in a lame poem kind of way. The boy got some too and he told me that I "Wowed!" him with that.  This was enjoyable.  I also like that a friend plagiarized my poem for her own kids' scavenger hunt.  It made me feel famous!

My coworker is a nut about Valentine's Day and she took it upon herself to make me just love the day.  Beginning on Monday, every time I left my desk when I returned, I would find Valentine's gifts on my desk.  Candy, candles, notes which read "Rebecca, Happy Valentine's Day!", but the best were the pick-up lines.  She turned my desk into a display of pick up lines.  They were funny, they were terrible, they were printed on pink paper and they were everywhere!  My favorite?  "My love for you is like diarrhea, I just can't hold it in."  By the end of the week, my desk look liked I was the one who loved Valentine's Day.  The fact that she had one of our office aides hang all of these ridiculous styrofoam hearts directly over my desk did not help.

This one says "Marry Me."  I threw out the one that said "Boy Toy".

Alright, slightly enjoyable.

Our group of favorite kids alternated between dressing up for the day and dressing in black for the day.  They all looked great and complimented each other on their outfit, red or emo, and made each other things. (Me?  I went emo.)   They made me stuff too and not only did I enjoy that, I LOVED IT.  I also laughed that kids I don't know all that well knew my feelings about Valentine's Day and gave me candy with the same rushed remarks about "too bad about not liking Valentines." I also got some quality time with a few of my favorites and got to dispense my wise advice and they made me laugh and, yes, I did enjoy that too.  

There were a lot of romantic gestures of love out there in high-school land today.  Boys strode in with their arms loaded with flowers, candy, stuffed animals.  Our library gets crowded in the morning - 300 kids on average - but I watched one boy with a giant bear get across the sea of people like he was walking on air because his eyes were focused on his girlfriend the whole time.  Beautiful until the PDA tongue kiss I had to shout down.  I heard one boy who is not one of my favorites encouraging another boy to write what was in his heart.  What?!?!  Interesting, I thought.  I did not see anyone crying in corners or openly weeping as I had feared.  Of course, I did not get out of the library once today, so who knows what went on in the hallways.

My own romantic gestures of love will have to wait as Bill is stuck in Dallas for awhile and having a bad time of it.  He has had a terrible day and I am not enjoying that.  I did promise him a new juicer as a token of my love and his voice perked up a little.

We had a dance in the library for our Life Skills kids  (Special Needs) and their Amigos.  These are regular kids who make a point to get to know the kids in Life Skills and say hi to them when they see them in the hall and spend time with them when they can.  It was awkward, like any teen dance.  We had a few dancers, but mostly some standers and some huddle up and gigglers.  Did I dance?  You know I did.  One boy made me a Valentine that said I was nice and pretty.  Enjoyable.  The absolute best part though?  There is one boy who doesn't talk, doesn't do much and has a bathroom incident at least a few times a week.  This absolutely beautiful girl came up and asked him to dance with her and he shot out of his chair to comply.  The look on his face was so happy I had to walk away to my desk for a minute because, um, I may have been moved to tears.  But just a little.  Don't worry, I was back chasing down kids who were skipping and trying to hide out in the library and was kicking them out within a few heartbeats.

I know, you are waiting to see if the Grinch's heart grew three sizes today.  Drum roll please.............. No. I still hate Valentine's Day.  I still hate red roses, I still hate convenience store stuffed animals and the absolute canned and forced romance and I definitely hate thos hearts above my desk.   However, I do love the crazy people I work with who go to great lengths to show me up and laugh while doing it.  I like that showing up with lipstick on makes people react as though I am wearing a crown.  I love my group of kids who make me laugh and teach me new words and how to really use the apps on my phone.  I love that my boy thought I was "impressive" during my workout and I love waiting for SG to get home from her dance so I can hear all about it.  I love my wonderful husband and hate that he is out of town period, not just that he is out of town on Valentine's Day.  

But, the question that was asked was did I enjoy my day?  Yes, I did. I did enjoy my day.  And I will really enjoy taking those damn hearts down on Monday too.

Shot Through the Heart

I think that one of the best parts of my job is that I get to do different displays each month about world events, local happenings, things that interest me or holidays within the month.  This month I was especially pleased as I got to do a display highlighting my intense dislike for Valentine’s Day.  It actually made me giggle to staple a large, broken heart to my bulletin board and surround it with other hearts that were emblazoned with the best break-up lines ever.  Oh don’t worry, I made it educational by tying books to it by saying that sometimes love bites and making sure our vampire love books were displayed below. 

Every kiss does not begin with K

What is wrong with me, you ask?  Nothing!  Or what is wrong with my husband?  Again, nothing.  He is a romantic and thoughtful man.  I just really hate the saccharin forced romance of Valentine’s Day.  I groan at the red candy boxes everywhere and the combo stuffed animal/Mylar balloon that seem to be in every store.  Gentlemen, if you are buying your woman a fair-quality stuffed animal at the gas station, that is not romance, that is convenience.  Ugh and the red roses.  I hate red roses.  I hate the smell of decaying youth that they give off, I hate the baby’s breath they surround it with and I just hate the sight of them.  I had a man in my life that bought me red roses for everything. I smiled nicely the first few times before I told him I really do not like red roses.  Guess what I got for the next Valentine’s Day?  Yup, red roses.  They were not just any red roses, but roses that were mostly dead because he waited until the last minute to buy them.  Oh, and he used my credit card.   Bill was well versed on this story when we got together and I proudly say he has never succumbed to buying me red roses, or any roses for that matter.  I think that my favorite flowers are those picked by little hands out of the grass and presented with a beautiful smile and pride.  Now that says love!

They say it is romance, but I think disappointment is the main theme of Valentine’s Day.  I dislike it most for its promise that big things are going to happen today!  If you are in a relationship, you will feel entitled to a wonderfully romantic day and if you are single, you can’t help but hope someone is going to notice you and surprise you with declarations of love.  I remember both my sister and I being sad at home one Valentine’s Day where we were not expecting anything but we couldn’t give up the hope of expecting anything either.  When the doorbell rang about 5pm, we started a stampede to the door that took down everything in its path.  I don’t think I had ever run that fast!  It was a flower delivery man!  It’s for me! I know it’s for me!  Was it from the guy in ECON?!  How did he find my address?! I knew he liked me!! Oh, wait, they were for her.  Sniff.  I am sure I spent the rest of the day writing bad poetry in my room.  Even grade school children are not protected from this bitter disappointment.  Sure, everyone has to bring a Valentine for everyone else which is nicer than it was when I was a kid.  However, then there are the moms who know their Valentine’s Day is going to be a wash so they project their need for a beautiful day onto their children.  They have their sons take flowers or candy or something special to a girl at school.  Great for that girl but what about the other girls who get the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Valentine like everyone else?  That kind of disappointment should not be felt so early on in life.  I remember holding a sobbing SG after her 4^th grade Valentine’s party where she was not one of these singled out girls.  I regaled her with my own horrible Valentine’s past and at the end she felt better and I needed a drink. 

I fully expect a lot of high school relationships to start breaking up next week.  I am prepared for weeping and wailing come Tuesday as young men panic at the thought of being romantic or buying a gift and decide it is easier to just break up until after February 14^th.  Apparently there is some sort of carnation sale going on as well and you know there will be hurt feelings, sadness and what?  Yes, disappointment.  There will be kids with armloads of flowers and kids with none.  There will be the girl who bought a flower for some guy who doesn’t even know who she is and the guy who bought one for a girl who just told him that she likes him but only as a friend.  Ouch. 

I am sure there are a lot of wonderful stories out there about Valentine’s Day.  I am sure people fell in love, or were reunited or proposed to and that they hold a special place in their heart for Valentine’s Day and think that I am somehow damaged by my dislike for it.  Maybe I am who knows? I just don’t think Hallmark should be the one telling me when I should be romantic, or making me feel bad because I have just read through thirty cards and there is not one that truly conveys my love/lust for my husband in prose.  I am truly grateful that they do not celebrate Sweetest Day in Texas the way they do up north and that I don’t have to go through this forced romance twice a year.

Guys, you are kind of damned if you and damned if you don’t, so at least be original.  No red roses and no gas station purchases.  And if you girlfriend sends you a Valentine’s before the actual day it is because she knows you are busy and will forget and you need to send something right then, don’t promise something big later.  (Sigh, another of my Valentine’s past).  Ladies, guard your heart.  We have been beaten down with the imagery and Kay jewelry ads for so long that even the hardest heart among us is expecting big things.  Go gentle into Valentine’s Day.  It is not going to be your best day ever.  It is not going to be so romantic that people sigh when you tell them.  And for heaven’s sake, if your man buys you an outfit for your personal time together, do not tell me.  I won’t be able to look either of you in the eye ever again.

The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!

First, let it be written and let it be read that I am in no way maligning teachers.  I think that although Canadian poet Shayne Koyczan was talking about his grandfather when he said "not every superhero wears a cape", he could have just as easily been talking about teachers.  Too many kids in too small a room, not enough supplies and state mandates that continually change are all in their day's work.  The elementary school teachers deal with runny noses, tying shoes and bathroom issues all while building the framework of education for our children to grow on.  The middle school teachers deal with hormones gone wild and easing our kids into learning how to open lockers, how to transition between classes and how to grow as a person and a student.  High school teachers also deal with hormones gone wild, compete with cell phones and help lead these kids into young adulthood.  Superhero work for sure.

This said, I have to ask, what is with the rush on our kids?  I feel it is wrong that I have to google how to help my 4th grader with his math homework.  (Partially my own issues I know, but also shows the scope of what they are expecting kids to learn).  I remember years of simply adding and subtracting in elementary school.  Years to memorize my multiplication tables, and I wasn't pressured to take a test to prove I could do it all in under two minutes.  Why do they have to be fast?  Why are we running a race with our small kids?  I have one child who can write in cursive but chooses not to and I have two children who cannot write in cursive at all.  Why?  There is no time to teach it.  Remember when it was a whole class and got it's own grade?  I loved handwriting because I wasn't really learning, I was just doing and it meant I was a big kid.  That and being able to use pen.  I haven't had a kid bring home a crafty project in years and that makes me sad.  Messy, gluey projects are what makes grade school fun!

We are lighting fires under our big kids too.  We are asking 14 and 15 year old kids to try and pin down what it is they want to do when they grow up in order to choose classes for the next four years.  At 14 and 15. I couldn't even wash my face properly at that age and I clearly remember having a panic attack about choosing a major at age 18 and in college.  Not only are we asking, we are providing the opportunity to take college classes while in high school.  Between this and AP and IB courses, some kids are graduating with almost two years' worth of college credit.  Which is good for the parent's bankroll, but is it good for our kids?  Do they get to be kids if they are up until the wee hours of the morning doing homework?  Our big kids are stressed and they are anxious.  And again I am left wondering, why all the rush?

It's that state testing, isn't it?  The "No Child Left Behind" boiling down to treating every single student the same and expecting them to churn out the same results at the end of the year.  

I have one kid who may never pass one of these tests legitimately and one who gets such bad anxiety that she fails the first one and will worry for months about taking the makeup.  They have benchmark testing to see if they will pass the big test at the end of the year and they have practice testing so that they can see what the big test will be like.  They learn how to circle key words and underline numbers.  They learn to completely fill in the bubble on their scantron.  The emphasis on learning sadly replaced with the emphasis on learning how to test.  For kids with learning disabilities it is even worse.  More rushing when what they need is more time, accommodations that help but make them feel embarrassed to use as they get older.

Another thing I see with all this rushing is that there are no deadlines anymore.  Got a bad grade?  Take the make up test.  Forgot to turn in your homework?  Just get it in before the end of the six weeks.  Life does not always give you do-overs but we are teaching our kids that deadlines are negotiable, that we will wait for them, that we are not as important as what they have going on and that everything can be a debate.  We are rushing them into being little monsters!

I wish that we could get a handle on what we are rushing for and see if it is legitimate.  Are we in competition with the rest of the world?  Yes?  For what? Gold?  The Northwest Passage?  Space Travel? Is it worth creating kids who can test but don't remember anything they learned?

Calvin got it.

I wish that everyone would just simmer down.  I would like more glue and less math in grade school.  I would like us not to give phones to our middle schoolers because it makes them forget how to read.  Let's show our high schoolers what stress is really like by having them multi-task: work, do extracurricular activities AND homework.  I wish our teachers could spend more time on the subject they are teaching and less on the test for that subject.  This state testing is like kryptonite to their superpowers.  I am weary of TEKS, TAKS, STAAR and other acronyms rushing my kids through school.  I am not sure how we fix it and I am not sure how we keep from being caught up in the rush that is going on, but I am looking for the brakes and hope others are too.

Little Steps, Little Steps

Did you know that by today, January 17th, most New Year’s resolutions, especially those concerning diet and exercise, have failed? I read this on the internet so I know it is true but even if it is not really true, I have no trouble believing it either. New Year, new you? Please! Enter gag sound here. I did not make any resolution to lose weight or be healthy yet as I am bombarded by commercials telling me to slim down, to firm up or just plain stop being fat and lazy, I almost find myself caught up in the hype. Almost. Then I remember that it is January and that January is hunker down and survive month, not change your life month.


 Let’s think about why these diet and exercise resolutions fail so quickly. First, we start these goals on New Year’s Day which immediately sets us up for failure. More than likely we have spent NYE drinking and you know you need a greasy burger and something deep fat fried to soak up the extra alcohol still in your stomach, not whole grains and veggies. I am all for quinoa, but not on New Year’s Day. Plus we have just come off of the eating frenzy known as Christmas. We have made merry. We have eaten and drank with abandon and our bodies now really like and expect cookies, candy, cheese, fancy appetizers and more. They want it to be washed down with wine and beer and drinks. They do. And when we don’t give it to them, our bodies get mad. They growl, they make us feel weak and headachy, not strong and healthy. So we break down and give them chocolate. We give them wine. And then we feel better. All except my sister-in-laws in Canada who are half-way through a 30 day juice cleanse and made of stronger stuff than me. As well as my sister and cousin who apparently only eat one square of Ghirardelli chocolate a day. My cousin says that the wrappers deter her from eating another one. I can see how it would slow you down, but not deter. Plus if you use your teeth to open the wrapper, you are one step closer to the chocolate inside! 

Next, January is a cold month. A sit-by-the-fire month, not a get-up-and-get-walking month. I enjoyed that recent “polar vortex” we all went through because it only got down to the 30’s here and that was at night. However, for those of you up north in the bitter, bitter cold I imagine it was not as enjoyable. I also imagine that you did not come in from shoveling your driveway and reach for some cold carrot sticks. You went for a hot beverage. Or a big bowl of stew, chili, soup and bread hot from the oven. Yum! That is what a body needs after shivering all day. And a cookie too. 

Brrr!

For you northerners, January is a dark month. What do you get up there, two or three hours of daylight right now? There is nothing sadder than leaving the house in the dark and coming home when it is dark. This does not lend itself to your new exercise goals, does it? You are not going to go to the gym after work. You are going to come home and put on your pajama pants and a pot of tea. And what goes well with tea? Cookies. 

I think we would all be a lot happier if we made January "Little Steps Month" instead. We don’t need to lose 10 pounds this month. We could just try to eat a little less. You don’t have to join a gym with a million other people and wait in line for a stair stepper. Just walk your dogs, or your kids, one night a week. Or sit on the floor during commercials and do sit-ups or push-ups or planks until your show comes back on. Little steps, little steps. We can do that! And then we can feel accomplished which will keep us motivated. If we are motivated, we might try another small thing and then one smaller thing and we will keep being successful. This will be very important come March when the weather gets nice and we start wearing shorts and exposing our legs to the world again. (And shaving.) Razors in March, swimsuits come May, the pressure will be on and we will rise to the challenge. However, for January with its cold and dark and February with its diabolical Valentine’s celebration, let’s just take small steps and feel accomplished. Who’s with me?

Ch-Ch-Change

Ahh, my two weeks off for Winter Break were lovely.  Everyone was happy to be home and happy to step out of the rush of school and work .  Pajama day?  Sure.  Movies in the afternoon?  Definitely.  Board Games?  Well, if we have to.  You have to, so sit down and play.  Even being sick for half of it was alright because I didn't have to worry about calling in sick or things piling up. 

Yep, pure relaxation.

It was great.  You know what is hard to do after two weeks like that?  Going back to work!   Anyway, I came back to work on Monday and it was a staff development day so I thought there would be some meetings, lunch out and chit chatting as we all caught up about our time off.  Sadly, there was none of that.  Only change and with it, pandemonium.    Mold was found in some classrooms here and four of the classrooms were being moved in the library.  Right that minute.  Additionally, the big copiers and laminator and paper storage were also being moved in with us so we had to clean out the storage room.    There were teachers moving in, there were movers pushing things and pulling things and showing up with boxes of this and that and whose was this anyway all day.  My coworker summed it up as a “real shit-show” and she was right!    We decided as long as there were burly men moving things, lets have them move the bookcases we wanted to move one day.  Which meant moving more books than I care to remember.  It was non-stop all day and I left exhausted. The exhaustion lingered and I can only chalk it up to all the change.  You may not know this about me, but I am not a real fan of change. I don’t know why I am so bad with change, but I am.  I guess it could be because I like order.  I like sameness.  I like knowing what comes next. I do not like chaos. I do not like guesswork and I especially do not like the unknown.  

There are many things I am good at: spelling, baking bread and purging closets.  Spelling because my mom made me look up words in the dictionary, baking bread because Bill said once that if he was a stay-at-home-mom he would be baking our bread (Challenge issued!  Challenge accepted!) and purging closets because I moved 13 times in my adult life and it got easier to toss things rather than box them up again.  Unfortunately, there are many things I am also quite bad at: math, pronunciation and change.  Math because it did not come easy to me, therefore I hated it.  (and I may have spent most of high school math writing notes to my BFF Amy).  I missed two weeks of school in second grade getting my tonsils out and I am convinced that is when they taught proper pronunciation and why I can spell a word and tell you what it means, but butcher it when speaking.   And as for change?  Change is icky.  Change is scary.  Change makes you do things you don't want to do.

However, if I am going to live this year thinking I am so damn blessed, than I am going to have to learn to deal with change in a better way.  I cannot ostrich my head away or shut down when faced with change.  I also cannot be a whirlwind getting everything done and then hiding from all the newness.  I should probably not over-caffeinate and engage in theological and political debates with students in a sad attempt to not have to deal with the newness around me.  (again my coworker got to say "It was a real shit-show!").  I find that sarcasm is a good way for me to deflect those icky change feelings, so I will continue to use that.  When sarcasm loses it shine, I may move onto snark.  Hey, thinking about this, this is not any different than what I do day to day, so maybe it won't be so hard!

 Feeling empowered by these thoughts, I tried taking a new way home this week and guess what?  Cut twenty minutes off of my drive time!  Look at me saving fossil fuels and my sanity all because I tried something new.  I made a change!  I cannot guarantee that I will be positive and sunshiny about change, but I can say I will try not to run from it.  I will also try to meet it like an adult and try to not panic when changes are imminent. I will try.  However, right now it is all about order and sameness because it is Friday night and Friday night is pizza night and really, a woman can only change so much in a week.  

  

My New Year's Intention

I have apparently reached an age where copious sobbing while reading books and watching TV commercials is normal.  I am not sure if it is a lack of hormone or an overabundance of the batshitcrazy hormone, but I find it happening more and more.  It makes me think of my Aunt Pat and what an unabashed TV weeper she was.  We would often stop over and find her watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie with tears streaming down her face.  As a kid I thought she was nuts, but as an adult I find myself growing misty at the thought of the Ingalls family and wish she and I could sit side by side weeping and watching.

The Apple commercial this Christmas that showed what looked like a disengaged teen on his phone during a family get together?  Apple about killed me when it showed that the kid had been filming a family movie the entire time.  Hot tears and boo hoo on that one.   Yesterday's news segment which showed women of all ages and races being courageous and brave was resonating with my inner Rosie the Riveter and I was feeling courageous and brave.   But then at the end, when they showed the woman about to have some terrible surgery dancing in the operating room and encouraging the staff to dance as well, there I was crying again.  Instant ugly cry.  Hot tears, sniffing, and all I could think, all I could say was "I am so damn blessed."

I am so damn blessed.  Aren't we all, really, in our own way?  We have had years when even though I knew we were blessed, I forgot it.  I ignored it.  I harrumphed when I was reminded of it.  I was too caught up in clinging to the life raft among the shit storm of our life that I didn't have any energy to give thanks.  (Actually it wasn't even a life raft, it was more the door from the Titanic and all five of us were huddled aboard) 

2010 for sure.

 Don't we all forget how blessed we are every day?  I know that I do.  Therefore, my new year's intention for 2014 is to remember, every day, that I am so damn blessed.  

This is so beautiful in its sentiment but I have no idea how I am going to carry that out every day. I am afraid it will be like when they hand you your baby for the first time and you see him/her and think "I am so damn blessed" but that turns into "I am so damn tired" within three or four days.    I am already thinking about Screaming Tuesdays and how hard it will be to feel blessed and not harried, hurried and mean.  I work late on Tuesdays and by the time I pick up the boy and get home, I have spent 1.25 hours in the car and we have exactly 12 minutes to eat until he needs to be at piano lessons.  I come through the door like a nightmare and am yelling at him to eat, the girls to do something, pick up something, the dogs to go away. I then get to piano and listen to him play beautiful music and reflect on my yelling and feel like a terrible person.  Should I focus on what is getting done rather than how it gets done?  Would that give me that "I'm so damn blessed" feeling rather than "I am so damn busy" neuroses?  Maybe.

I don't know how to do this, but I want to do it.  I want to walk around with my glass half-full and not worry that it is only half full and not all the way full.  I want to be so grateful for my health, my husband, my kids that I give thanks for all of them, every day and not just when commercials make me cry.  I want to encourage other people to feel the same way and if they are in the shit storm years of their life, well, I want to tell them to just hold on and be grateful later.  

So that's it.  I am not promising to lose weight, eat less, exercise more, swear less or be a better person.  I am not saying I will stop complaining or play board games instead of letting the kids watch TV.  I don't swear to make this the best year ever.  All I am going to do is to remember that I am so damn blessed.  And I am going to wear it like a pair of comfy pants and let the whole world see.