The Word 2012

Commit is my word for 2012.

Paul suggested it after I was giving him a description of the type of things I wanted for my year and it has somehow stuck. Its not a pretty word, its not super inspiring but it is what I need to do.

I want to commit to myself, no one else.

I want to run the city to bay so I commit to running everyday.

I want to blog more so I will commit to taking more photos and being here more.

I want to save more so I will commit to being more frugal.

I want to commit time to myself, I will be investing a lot of time in Luke this year and I want to remember to take time for myself and remember to keep balance and happiness in my life. And as always be thankful.

The Cheerleader?

I have a bit of a long story to put down here and am struggling with where to begin..... (I hope its not too deep :P ) As you know I have been meditating lately and it has been helping me a lot during the day to stay calm and be productive. I had been thinking  that I should be running and feeling guilty that I hadn't been. Lets just say that it was on my mind! I had been thinking that as a mum isn't it crazy that I can find the time for one of these activities but not both! How on earth is that finding the balance- I can look after my mind but not my body that is just crazy! I had short conversations with both Ali and Kathie Link (in my sidebar) about running and I was getting the running itch. Then with everything that has been going on with Luke ( my focus has really been on him in the last few months) I have been having some conversations with his Kindy teacher  who reveled to me that she is in training for a marathon.

Blake had no idea what this contraption was for, he kept asking "is this what you are supposed to do on it?"

 Digging a little deeper she explained to me that she had overcome some large obstacles, last time she was in training for the same marathon she tripped and shattered her knee and had to have a pile of major surgery and was told she would never run again. Yet here she was in training for a 42km marathon. Can I say I'm impressed. So I just had this all going through my head, not only that but the big 3 0 is looming and I feel like I still have a lot that I want to do before then also on one hand time with Luke means that there are things that I wont be able to do (like starting selling handmade stuff suddenly got pushed to the bottom of the priority list) but on the other hand more time at kindy for him and school only just over a year away I am beginning to see the light of getting some more Mamie back and being able to fit more into the day whilst they aren't here.

After discussing all this with Paul my question was should I 'just do it' ? should I make a goal? Well I have. Yep.  I am thinking I might do our city's fun run which is only 12kms, next September. That's a small enough goal right? I certainly don't want to bite off more than I can chew! I cant possibly get my feet on the road everyday with the boys here but I do own a cross trainer so I most definitely can hop on that everyday.

Any way after all this I finally come to my point.... Over the weekend I told my family that this was something that I wanted to do, quite honestly this is something that I have thought about doing for a very long time (but fat gals don't run do they?) and often even dream about running.  Not one of my family members were encouraging! I got a whole lot of YOUR CRAZY and YOU CANT , even though I politely mentioned that just before winter we were hiking 7 kms up mountains with often a 20kg Luke on my back- but anyway! 

I totally get where they are coming form and It made me question how often am I encouraging to the people around me- How often do I cheer them on? How often do I tell them that they can do it- that they are amazing and strong. How often do I tell them that they are doing a great job? Truly no where near often enough! Not even close!

How often do you encourage others?

October

So Today is the 1st of October! LOVE LOVE LOVE October LOVE! Why? Because its my birthday month!!! LOL. This is about when the people I  love around me  would say "crazy Mamie"  And this year I refuse to repress, this year this month there will be more than 31 happy dances ( lol wouldn't you love to see that) and let  me explain why. At the beginning of this year I read 'the happiness project'  as you know being happy is a great way to help find your balance. I did find that the book in my opinion a little on the side of shallow happiness- rather than deep happiness but in saying that there are so many ways to be more aware of what will make you grumpy in a moment and what will make you happy and that in the overall picture can boost your happiness. So over the last few months I have been popping in to Gretchen Rubins blog 'the happiness project' and one of her posts this week struck a note with me. The post was titled "Do you often (or ever) feel a Wonderful, Joyous, Childhood Feeling of expectancy?' I am exactly the type of person who easily feels this way, but since becoming an adult I have been repeatedly told that I shouldn't feel that way anymore, that that feeling fades, that adults don't get excited about Christmas and they don't want to get up early on Christmas morning or get excited that its there birthday, bah humbug they say. WELL NOT ANY MORE!!! I am that kind of person and I think that I need to rub of on some of those boring, grumpy adults.

Today is the perfect day for all of this The First, for those of you who haven't been round here my birthday is the 31st- yup Halloween and the last day of October. Today is also the first big party day of October, we are going to one birthday party that is celebrating 3 birthdays and 1 retirement then in the evening we are going to my SIL party, all with just family but still its a great time to be excited.

For all of this month everyday I am going to be doing three things- blogging, running and meditating. So expect to see lots of me here! :)

Happy First of October !!!!!!!!

A little balance

This Year I have been focusing on finding my balance and really sitting in that balance of happiness everyday. I fail often, very often but overall I have been finding it easier to bring myself back to a happy place and getting there quicker with practice day by day. One of the things that I had intended to do this year but hadn't been making a priority is to meditate. In the last week I have been meditating for up to 20 minutes every day. I keep meditating very simple all I am doing at the moment is sitting and  breathing and letting breath be a gift to myself. I have found it a huge gift! Especially with two noisy little boys running around all day it is easy to become stressed and I have found that there are so many times throughout the day when I have somehow forgotten to breathe. Also I have noticed that on the days that I meditate my day is so much smoother and I get far more done. It is easy to feel like you are running so fast but you are getting no where.

As far as finding enlightenment or even finding God for right now I am happy to just have a quiet place in my mind and may be on my quest my path may meander down the road and trip over God somehow that may be nice but a little quiet is all I'm searching for right now. Generally in my normal life i am quite a spiritual person and this is quite difficult when you live with an atheist :) . My beliefs about God have changed very much over the last few years. I was bought up in a very christian family, my grandpa was a minister ( he is now retired and is 96 years old!!)  I have an uncle who is a minister (and married Paul and I), my fathers family is also very religious, my mother  recently forced me to say that I believe Jesus lived and died just so I will go to heaven with her! I have huge issues with religion- too many. May be it would be easier if I let you know what I do believe. I believe that we come from love when we are born and we go to love when we die (all of us!! for what type of loving almighty god would exclude anyone? its not a club!). I believe that I am a spiritual being having a human experience and therefore I believe that God resides in me as me (yes I have read eat pray love) and I believe that god is love.

 Through the balance and happiness that I am continually searching out comes lots of questioning and that questioning has been leading me to a simpler life where I would rather make. grow. eat. simply because it makes me happier. Learning new skills and having something in my hands that I created makes me happy and has always made me happy since was a little girl and made things with cardboard boxes and poster paint. Following your bliss is all about asking yourself what really makes you happy (this year I also read the happiness project by Gretchen Rubin) and there are so many ways that you can question what you do in life and what you love but at the end of the day I am learning that I do not make.grow.eat (and I guess that I am learning to pray again lol) for political reasons or for environmental reasons or any other reasons but simply because I love it, simply because it makes me happy. And that is all the reason I need.

I hope that that is not to heavy for a Monday, over the weekend I was thinking about why I love blogging (following my bliss) and was thinking about how it is one place that I can be me. I can choose to share whatever I like here- it is not about being a mother a wife a daughter or a sister although I love being those things and share them here. It is not about censoring what I say but about creating some kind of journal about my life, I am no longer sharing just my scrap and craft shares, for a long time I have been putting more about me here. Its a really nice place to just be me.

The words Bliss and Nourish have been popping up a lot for me lately and I have been asking 'what is my bliss?' so... 

What is your bliss?

Later I will share what I did this weekend!