{Musings} Seasons

{via Amy Weiss} 

(Not so) fun fact: I have depression. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably know that I had postpartum depression after Cal's birth. What fewer people know is that I have had depression since I was ten. That doesn't mean that I've walked around in a fog of melancholy for the last seventeen years; I have gone years without a depressive episode. What it does mean is that it probably isn't going anywhere. While there definitely is a pattern to my depressive episodes (basically, hormonal changes = total upheaval), it doesn't appear to be an isolated event.

For this reason, I have always deeply loved Paul of the New Testament for sharing about his "thorn in the flesh" in 2 Corinthians 12. He begged the Lord to take it from him, and his loving, compassionate Heavenly Father told him, "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness." Paul responds to this difficult statement with an amazing attitude, responding with gratitude for his trial and the opportunity it gives him to rely on the Lord.

Like Paul, I have begged the Lord for my own "thorn in the flesh" to depart from me, and also like Paul, so far the answer has been no. There have been times when I have gone several years (the longest I've gone between without being deeply depressed was when I was dating/marrying Scott -- hooray for marrying a good man!) and thought, maybe I am done with this, finally. But so far, that has not been the case.

I recently read another book by Madeleine L'Engle (read everything she ever wrote, right now!) (but this one was The Irrational Season) where she discusses healing vs. curing. She talks about how when we pray for healing, we are often actually asking for curing. We want the cancer to be conquered, the pain to be soothed, the sadness to be erased. However, God doesn't always fix or erase the problem; instead he gives us strength to endure it. Of course, we can't use that strength unless we are willing to accept it, so if we are angry that the problem still exists -- if we are seeing only that we haven't been cured -- we are not always able to be healed.

Recently, I was in a season of depression. Not a horribly severe one, but definitely more than a bout of sadness. I was going through massive hormonal changes (read into that what you will), had low energy levels, and felt sick. Cal and I went through a month when we were sick three weeks out of four, and in addition to that Cal has been feeling particularly two lately (dropping his nap, screaming loudly and in public, refusing to eat food and throwing it on the floor). I was having a hard time getting out of the house, performing my basic responsibilities, finding joy in anything (you know there is something wrong with me when I don't even want to read).

When I am sick, I always notice the moment when I start to feel well. There is nothing better to me than suddenly having that return of energy, being able to breathe again, being able to eat again. I haven't always been as good at noticing the same thing when my mental and emotional health is restored -- I think often it is a more gradual thing. However, this time it coincided with feeling physically better and spring descending on Los Angeles (and yes, you can tell a difference. The temperatures are not that different, but there is something in the air that feels better and more joyful when winter is over! And also, swimming). And recognizing that I am okay again, that my depression is in remission for a while, and being able to feel energy and happiness again, almost makes it worth it, just like those first gorgeous days of spring in contrast to a harsh winter almost make up for the months of grey slush and overcoats.

I know there are seasons of depression left in my life, and that I am not going to be cured from this disease in this life. I also know that the love of my Savior can temper the darker seasons and offer me healing and solace as I endure them, and that there will be flowers and sunlight on the other side. And while I wouldn't walk backward through the last several weeks, I know the joy I feel today is stronger because I've passed through them.

{Musings} Happy places.

I am a natural pessimist. I've been working my whole life to overcome this personality trait, but it doesn't come easy. When stressful things start to pile on my head, my tendency is to sink into despair with a groan, let's be honest. The last several weeks have been particularly hard with sickness, stress at work, the terrible twos, and so on, so for today, I am making a list of things that really make me happy when I am down (not the things that are supposed to make me happy). Here they are:

:: Playing the piano and singing super emo songs that I loved in high school and college

:: Reading anything by Madeleine L'Engle (If she were still alive, I would probably go to desperate measures to meet her. As it is, I am going to be tracking her down in the spirit world when I die because I would love to talk to that lady)

:: Making a mug brownie.

:: Stealing squeezes from Cal.

:: Talking to Scott and getting advice from him (He is better than any therapist)

:: Reading a book

:: Writing

:: Making lists :)

:: Talking to my mom and/or sister

:: Watching a funny TV show like Parks and Recreation or Friends

What helps you when you are down?

{Musings} On beauty.

{via}

Tonight, I find myself thinking about beauty. About perceptions of beauty, standards of beauty, art, music, beautiful people. Possibly because I spent about twenty minutes looking at pictures of Oscar's dresses that cost more than I make in a month of "hard labor," haha. I go through phases of my life when I am accepting of my body and phases where it is harder to look past the scars and stretch marks and ... not so toned bits.

But really, my point tonight is not to beat the dead horse of "be your own beautiful, magazine standards are not reality, etc." Instead, I'm thinking of beauty as a more abstract concept. I'm thinking of simple ways to fill my own life with beauty. There are times I'm better at this than others -- I've been known to buy myself flowers, I feel like I have reasonably good taste in art and music, I try to get outside in nature and experience the magnitude of something beyond myself.

But sometimes I slip away from that. I stress about how none of my clothes look good on me, on the crumbs underneath the chairs, about the fatigue that keeps me from accomplishing what I want to, cleaning the house, being productive.

All this to say, this week I want to focus on simply filling my life with more beauty, whether that is listening to music that is truly good instead of what is one the radio, taking a few minutes to tidy up the black hole that collects all the clutter in our home, putting on makeup before work so I don't feel like a slob when I look in the mirror. It takes a little more effort to put beauty in the world, especially when we are tired and drudgy and don't want to do anything but curl up in a ball under a soft blanket and watch Friends until falling asleep. I think beauty is a need -- I think that is why we seek it in others, why humanity produces art. I've been neglecting it lately.

{Musings} Take pleasure.

{via}

The other day I was feeling particularly joyful. I can't remember now what made me so happy or what in particular was going right at that moment, but I remember breathing a sigh and just relishing the moment.

Then an epiphany hit me -- part of the reason I was so happy in that moment was that I was noticing it.

It's no secret that we are all a part of the "distracted" generation -- we look at our phones, listen to podcasts, watch TV shows on handheld devices, communicate with people halfway around the world. Every few days I notice some article (on my phone, haha) talking about how we all look at our phones too much, that we are missing the world around us.

I don't think phones and WiFi are the only piece of the problem, but I do know that for myself, one of the biggest deterrents to my happiness is the fact that I don't experience it in the present moment. I think in order to experience pleasure, we have to make a conscious effort to do so. It is so much easier to gratify our need for stimulation with newsfeeds and instagram, but if we sit down, taste our food, smell the flowers, feel the hand in ours, read something that actually edifies instead of simply drowning out the blank spaces in our heads, see the sunset, we might experience more of those perfect little bubbles of happiness.

I'm not very good at slowing down, but this week I'm going to try and seize those moments of pleasure.

{Musings} Green eyes.

Lately I've been grappling with the green-eyed monster. I'm envious of those who get to stay home with their kids, the vacations I see people post about on instagram, people in good shape. People who get to spend their weekends with their families. People who feel confident in their jobs or their parenting or any aspect of their lives, really.

Today at church, we had a lesson on prayer, and the emphasis was strong on prayers of gratitude. I think gratitude is the antidote to the poisonous green-eyed monster riding on my back, although the moments before starting seem like a high mountain to climb.

How do you beat off the insidious advances of jealousy?

{Musings} Just say no, or just keep going?

{Fitting right in with the topic of this week's post, I haven't had the time to do everything I want to with this blog the last couple of weeks. I have a lot of links that I've been wanting to post, but putting those posts together takes a lot of time and I haven't found it yet. Hopefully soon. I miss blogging when I don't do it.}

A few months ago, a new Mormon Message came out that was somewhat controversial. If you are unfamiliar with Mormon Messages, they are short videos meant to be uplifting and inspiring. Here it is below:



If you don't feel like watching it/don't have time to watch it, the gist of it is that a very busy mother gives of herself all day long, making sacrifices, and ultimately misses the chance to see a family member from out of town because she was so busy doing things for other people. Then it shows all the people she helped that day and the way they were blessed by her actions. The overall message is that she did more good than she ever could have known, despite her frustration and exhaustion.

I saw several blog posts pop up about this video (all of them by women). Some said it moved them to tears and helped them realize that what sometimes seemed mundane in their lives truly had meaning. Other women said that they felt like this video was promoting women working themselves to the bone and that it was vilifying women who try to take care of themselves.

I fall somewhat in the middle. As self-doubt is my M.O., my immediate reaction was guilt. How many times have I told myself that I need a rest, that I need to go to bed early or read a book, instead of helping someone? But the other half of my mind said, "But you do need a rest, sometimes. You can't save the world if your tank is empty."

This video and my own internal dialogue about it were several months ago, and I'd all but forgotten about it until one night a couple of weeks ago. I'd been really busy, really tired, and Cal was having a lot of temper tantrums. I felt like I was trying to save the world and help people all the time (self-aggrandizement and self-pity... one of the uglier results of me not getting enough sleep) and I found myself praying to my Heavenly Father, "Can't someone help me out once in a while?!" And of course, about an hour later, one of my lovely and very, very busy friends brought me a dinner she had made because she happened to be thinking of me. Cue shame at my ungratefulness.

I was doubly taught by this experience -- first, I was reminded that God is mindful of me and my needs, even when I am not acting particularly worthy of His notice. But secondly, I realized that this friend, who has plenty on her plate, took the time to notice the thought that someone might need her help and acted on it, even though she probably would have liked to take a nap or do something fun in her free time.

So the question remains -- how do you balance that need to help others, to look beyond yourself and love your neighbor, without becoming so exhausted that all your happiness is leached away? As I was pondering this myself, a verse from the Book of Mormon came to mind. The context is that a king is delivering a speech to his people and discussing the need for them to serve the poor and needy. Then he says,

And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order. (Mosiah 4:27)

This verse has impacted me before, but it was definitely a good reminder to me of priorities. I can't run faster than I have strength. I can't go and go and go until I collapse into nothing. But I do need to keep going, and try to improve. My personal interpretation of this is that we should push ourselves a little harder than we are comfortable with, so we can grow and help others, but not push ourselves so hard that we don't have any energy or joy.

What I hope for this fictional woman is that this day is out of the ordinary for her -- that there will be other times when she can relax in a hot tub with a good book, go out with friends, get a good night's sleep. I believe we do have to sharpen the saw, recharge our batteries, take your pick of the resting-up metaphors -- but not just for our own good. We take the rest stops when we can get them so we can "run with patience the race set before us," serving and loving others and finding our own joy on our way through life.

{Musings} Interruptions

I am a planner. I think part of it is because Scott and I are so busy that we have things figured out pretty far in advance to function, but I think part of it is just who I am. I genuinely love sitting down with my fancy Erin Condren planner once a week and writing in everything. I remember my first planner, in the sixth grade -- they handed out these big, spiral notebook sized planners with all these planning tips and advice and I was obsessed. I can't put my finger exactly on why I love to have everything planned out, but from writing my weekly menu to outlining my medication schedule at work, I get a kick out of planning. 

So, it follows that I hate when my plans don't come to fruition. I think this has been one of the hardest things for me about both motherhood and nursing. On my unit, the doctors meet once a day and discuss each patient's plan of care and make new orders and changes to that plan. Nothing upsets your day like coming back from a break to see that the doctors ordered two units of blood, a biotherapy treatment, and extra lab draws. And motherhood is even more this way -- you can plan all you want, but you are dealing with (at least) one completely irrational little being that has his or her own idea of how the day should go. I think both my career and my role as mother have helped me to let my carefully laid plans go a little bit, but I think it will always be difficult for me to have things go awry. 

I've been thinking about this in terms of life's journey as well. A lot of my big epiphanies are related to cancer, because I am around people who are having their plans rerouted by cancer every day. Today I was reading a blog post by the mother of one of my former patients who had recently had a checkup scan. The news on that scan was not necessarily bad, but did leave a lot of questions for that family on whether or not the cancer would return in that child. I found myself wondering, How would I live with that, always wondering if the cancer was going to come back? How would I be able to get through life on a day to day basis with that heavy question hanging in the air? 

I am visiting my parents in Idaho right now, and have run into some acquaintances whose lives have changed by other such moments -- a woman whose husband was diagnosed with cancer this year, another one whose parent has a terminal illness. These sudden swerves in what looked like a straight road have me wondering how I would react to similar circumstances in my life. My own knowledge of the road ahead is shrinking -- Scott has less than two years left in school, and we have no idea where we will be after he graduates. We are hoping to expand our family, and there is no telling how our next child will affect the dynamic of our family, if that child will be healthy and well, and of course when that child will make his/her appearance. And it goes on and on. 

There is a quote from the second Anne of Green Gables story, Anne of Avonlea, that helps for moments like these: 

All Mrs. Morgan's heroines were noted for "rising to the occasion." No matter what their troubles were, they invariably rose to the occasion and showed their superiority over all ills of time, space, and quantity. Anne therefore felt it was her duty to rise to the occasion and she did it, so perfectly that Priscilla afterward declared she never admired Anne Shirley more than at that moment.

Rising to the occasion in life's uglier, more stressful moments is not one of my strengths, although it is one of the qualities I pray to develop every day. I feel like if I can learn to rise to the occasion in the small interruptions in my life, maybe one day when the larger ones hit me, I will be able to endure them with grace. How do you manage to rise to the occasion when you want to just throw a screaming fit when things go awry (or is it just me that wants to throw a screaming fit)?

{Musings} Self Care

{via}

About a year ago, I completed a six-month new graduate nursing residency. It was arduous. I was spending hours in classes each week in addition to working 12 hour shifts on the floor. The workload alone would have been difficult, but in addition to this I was adjusting to a completely new career after having been out of school and the workforce for a year and having a baby at home (of the 50 of us in the program, only 3 people including myself had children).

During this residency, we had several meditation workshops and "debriefing" pow-wows and cushy feelings talks to help us get through this program. The words I heard like a mantra was "self care." It was the answer to every problem, every hangup. "You need to take better care of yourself." Those words made me want to scream. When did they think I was going to take care of myself, between classes, work, taking care of my home and family? "Go to the spa, get your nails done, spend a day at the beach." I wanted to raise my hand and say, "You're kidding, right?" And I don't think I'm the only one. Whether you're at home around the clock, subject to the demands of little people, working a demanding job, or filling some combination of the two, we all get burned out, and sometimes the prescribed methods of relaxation are not realistic.

The point of this is not to complain about what I am or am not able to do. Even though the constant refrain of "self care" was annoying to me during a time frame when it seemed like yet another task on my towering mountain of obligations, I do think that it is important. I think frequently we praise the woman that sacrifices everything to serve others, forgetting that if we allow ourselves to burnout we are of no use to anybody. I don't believe that every day, but I'm trying to. It's still a struggle for me to move self-care from the to-do list to the place where relaxation lives (a place I am not well acquainted with).

Recently, I had a rare day all to myself. I only had one day off in between work days, and Scott had decided to take Cal to see his family in northern California. As a result, I had one Saturday with and empty house and the freedom to do whatever I wanted. And it was interesting deciding how to spend it. I made a list of all the things that I wanted to do:
:: yoga
:: running
:: scriptures
:: meditation
:: piano
:: baking
:: reading (I need a day for this alone)
:: watching a movie
:: writing
:: going to bed early
:: doing my nails
:: temple
:: beach
I did most of them, surprisingly enough (the baking and writing didn't make the cut), although I wanted to read for about six more hours to be truly satisfied. It was amazing. I don't know when I will have a day like that again, but I hope it happens within the next year, and I wish I could gift a day like this to everyone.

However, I felt a little discouraged a few days later when I was back in the swing of life, Cal was throwing tantrums, and I had two 12 hour shifts heading in front of me without the laundry or the grocery shopping done. I was feeling burnout but self-care wasn't an option. I was frustrated -- I'd had my day of "self care" and already I was feeling drained again. Then I had a little lightbulb moment -- I don't have to spend an entire day doing these activities to be rejuvenated. If I can consciously choose even just one to do for a few minutes every day, maybe my tank could stay full enough to keep me going. So often I fall into the vortex of mindless internet surfing or eating mass quantities of goldfish crackers/chocolate/handfuls of brown sugar (emergencies only, I promise!) when really, maybe I just need to untangle a Bach fugue at the piano or read something other than Huffington Post Parenting articles. And while I certainly wouldn't say no to a massage at a beachside resort, I think if I can find a way to incorporate these things daily in small ways, the whole concept of "self care" won't be such a joke to me anymore.

What do you do for "self care"? How do you find the time to incorporate it?

{Musings} Why I Stopped Hating My Body

{image via}

I can tell it's January at work. Where a week before, the work room was filled with candy, cookies, soda, and chips, the table is now bare. Everyone is "being good." The gyms are packed; Google Express suggests I order healthy cookbooks and whey protein powder. It's tradition to make goals at this time of year, and I'm going to take a wild leap and guess that a high percentage of those goals involve being healthier, thinner, stronger.

I'm certainly not immune. I'm jumping into 2015 with a few fitness goals of my own. However, in the last several months, my focus has shifted from wanting to battle my fat cells into limp, starving submission. I'd like to be thinner, yes. I'd like to make healthier choices, yes. However, the self-loathing voice that used to drive my exercise and diet choices (or, more commonly, berated me after I didn't make good diet and exercise choices) has been quieted, and the difference has been dramatic for me.

I've never been skinny or had a body that I would want to show in a bikini. Part of this is because I love food and haven't mastered the art of restraint, part of this is because I dislike physical discomfort, and part of this is because my genetics did not equip me with a fast metabolism but did bless me with a generous butt and a short upper body (so I eat one potato chip and get a food baby). For most of my life (read: up until a few months ago), the fact that I was heavier than my ideal plagued me constantly. I was one of those girls that talked about her diet all the time (while simultaneously stress-eating chocolate chip cookies). I went more than a year past having my son wearing a maternity swimsuit, because I was afraid to try on a non-maternity one-piece. Sometimes I would get ready for church and I would look in the mirror and cry because I didn't like how I looked.

In some ways, this got worse after I had my son, because not only did I have a body shape that I didn't like (and it was worse than ever after having a baby), but my body had also failed me. It hadn't gone into labor on its own. Once it had been forced into labor, it wasn't able to deliver, and my son had to be cut out of my abdomen via C-section. Once he was out, I produced only a fraction of the milk he needed. I felt completely betrayed by my body. I didn't just wish that I had a different shape; there were moments when I hated myself so much I couldn't stand to look in the mirror or at photographs.

I accepted myself more as I made some healthier choices. I lost twenty pounds. I ran seven miles. I fit back into my pre-pregnancy jeans. I did yoga, slow and easy, moving my body to feel good rather than to lose more weight. But the turning point for me came through someone else's tragedy.

There was a patient on my unit who was beautiful, body and soul. She came through experiences that would crush almost anyone with her faith and spirit completely intact. And then she passed away very suddenly. I think everyone I work with was stunned by this loss -- one of the nurses said, "It sounds cliche, but she really was so full of life."

I'd had other patients I'd cared for die before, but for some reason this one was frequently in my thoughts, and as I was saying my prayers and remembering her family, I realized just how blessed I am to be in this body. This body is free of disease. I ran three miles this morning. I can eat without throwing up, and don't need calories infused into my veins. When I want to move, my body obeys me. I even have some "extra" blessings -- I don't need glasses to see, something my husband reminds me is a huge blessing. I was able to get pregnant and have a baby, even if his method of coming into the world wasn't "perfect."

I think all my life I had this idea that I should be grateful for my health, my mobility, my senses, but in those pondering moments after this patient passed, I realized that it wasn't just a cliche, but a true gift. My perspective passed from feeling that I should be grateful to actually feeling grateful. I don't know why I've been blessed with a whole body, when I see so many sweet children with broken ones. But I know that this realization erased the hatred away. I don't know if I'll ever fit into a size six, or produce enough breast milk to feed a baby without formula, or have a flat stomach. I do know that I exercise more and eat better now that my actions are motivated by love rather than fear. The journey of appreciating with gratitude the body I have and treating it the way it deserves to be treating is just beginning, but I've finally started walking in the right direction.

The resolution post.

Yes, I make resolutions. In fact, I make them so religiously (and frequently -- New Year's isn't the only time) that I was shocked when I saw an article saying that only 40% of Americans do. (Keeping them -- and sometimes even remembering what they are -- is another story.) I am a planner -- I thrive off figuring out what I want to do and how I'm going to do it. Sometimes (okay, usually) this means that I bog myself down with plans and paralyze myself until I flop on the couch and read for two hours straight or have a Netflix binge rather than utilize my son's nap time to be awesome. But in the meantime, on this plan-making day of all plan-making days, I have been thinking up goals for the new year.

I have a few different things I want to try this year. One of them is having a "word" for the year. I've noticed a few of my favorite writers mentioning words that they focus on in different times of their lives. These words tend to be more sophisticated than mine (the one that comes to mind is ousia, a Greek word for essence, cited by Madeleine L'Engle in Summer of the Great-Grandmother). But lately, I've been thinking that I should focus on the word confidence. I feel like most of my problems stem from the fact that I have terrible confidence, so I want to work on this problem. I haven't come up with a plan for it at this point, but I'm hoping to do some meditation and pondering on this word and come up with something more.

There are also a couple of awesome fitness challenges I am jumping in for January. The only last through January, which seems much more doable to me than saying, "I shall lose thirty pounds in the new year!" (One of my goals last year was to lose 40 pounds in 2014. I didn't do that, but I did lose 20 pounds, which on this side of it still feels pretty good). One of them is Yoga With Adriene's 30 Days of Yoga Challenge, and the other is Jessica Smith's #FitinFifteen. Both seem compatible with what I actually want to get out of exercise, and both are free and can be done in my house. Win/win.

Then I have my "traditional" resolutions. They are:
1. Incorporate a swear jar where I have to put money in every time I swear. (Not that I swear sooo much, but it has been slipping out more lately, especially at work, and I want to have better language and more self control).
2. Stop picking at my arms (this is kind of ridiculous. Does any one else have stupid habits like this that they just can't break?)
3. Check email/social media only three times a day.
4. Write a "musing" every week and post it on this blog.
5. Do some sort of "self care" every day. (I.e., something that makes me happy when I am stressed, instead of mindlessly going through social media or eating lots of sugar).

Finally, I am starting over with the DayZero Project, which is completing 101 things in 1001 days. They aren't all lofty goals -- more like bucket list type tasks, as well as some things that I've been putting off for weeks/months. The goal is to do these by September 28, 2017.

1.     Have another baby
2.     Run a half-marathon
3.     Do NaNoWriMo
4.     Move to a new state
5.     Read A Suitable Boy
6.     Sing in public
7.     Make a buche de noel at Christmas time
8.     Do the Women in the Scriptures challenge
9.     Finish reading Preach My Gospel
10. Give away a Book of Mormon
11. Watch the sunrise
12. Make family yearbooks
13. Finish Cal’s baby book
14. Go to a temple I’ve never been to before
15. Submit something I’ve written to a publication (ex: Coffee + Crumbs, HelloGiggles, Segullah, Literary Mama)
16. Go camping
17. Watch all the Harry Potter movies
18. Take Cal to the Thomas exhibit at the museum
19. Take Cal to the natural history museum
20. See Taylor Swift in concert
21. Hit my pre-baby weight
22. Play the guitar
23. Finish my Classics club list
24. Try Moroccan food
25. Eat at Ariel’s Grotto
26. Spot a celebrity “in the wild”
27. Learn another Bach fugue
28. Learn another Beethoven sonata
29. Learn another Chopin nocturne
30. Re-decorate our bathroom
31. Visit a new state
32. Visit a new country
33. Adopt a kid for Christmas
34. Finish reading Anna Karenina
35. Go on a hike
36. Fly a kite
37. Make fennel chips
38. Watch a sunset
39. Get ice cream at a Ben and Jerry’s shop
40. Go dancing
41. Water ski

 42. Snow ski
43. Eat at the Farmer’s market
44. Eat at Napa Rose
45. Be a stay-at-home mom
46. Take Cal to Olvera street
47. Start doing Barre3
48. Take a prenatal yoga class
49. Have another hot cocoa party
50. Have fondue
51. Make macarons again
52. Visit New York City
53. Eat a Laduree macaron
54. Read on the beach
55. Donate platelets
56. Make a lip scrub
57. Clean the mold out of my shower
58. Eat at my favorite Indian food restaurant in Cerritos
59. Have papusas
60. Get a haircut
61. Read the sequels to Little Women
62. Sew… a thing.
63. Finish my Halloween wreath
64. Make a white and blue winter wreath
65. Start collecting the Willow Tree nativity
66. Get a massage
67. Get a manicure
68. Go berry picking
69. Visit Jenna in Michigan
70. Dress up for Halloween
71. Get a pedicure right before giving birth
72. Go to the commissary
73. Watch the fireworks at Disneyland
74. Get a facial
75. Make a white stocking for Christmas (to put my gift for Christ in each year)
76. Go to San Francisco
77. Make peanut butter pie
78. Go on a picnic
79. Go to the observation park @ LAX
80. Make my own herbal tea
81. Go to LA Times Book Festival again
82. See a play
83. Watch all the Lord of the Rings movies again
84. Make a rainbow layer cake
85. Go to a military function
86. Have a mother/sister/daughter weekend
87. Make potato pancakes
88. Go to Noah’s ark exhibit
89. Go to a splash pad
90. Make something in my Le Creuset pot
91. Freeze breakfast burritos
92. Write in the Literati Café
93. Make Christmas ornaments with Cal
94. Make decorated Christmas tree ice cream cones
95. See the temple lights at Christmas time
96. Update photos in family photo collage
97. Make homemade ice cream
98. Get pretty vases for the kitchen
99. Buy some tub containers to organize Cal’s train tracks.
100.  Learn some new skills in Italian
101.  Speak French to someone

All right, that's enough crazy lady for today. Happy new year!

{Musings} Intro.

There's this book I love called Simple Abundance, by Sarah Ban Breathnach. It is one of those daybooks where there is a short daily chapter. The book is all about womanhood and finding joy despite the stress and pressure and busyness that assaults us on a daily basis. I love it and have probably read it four or five times, starting when I was about fourteen. I usually go through it about every other year, although there were a few years in college that it escaped me.

In this book, there are dozens of suggestions for living life with more grace and abundance. Every time I read it, there are things I try and things I ignore, picking and choosing depending on where I am in life. A few days ago, one suggestion in particular leapt off the page to me. After going into the way writing 365 meditations on an abundant life changed her, Breathnach challenges the reader to attempt writing her own meditations.

I know I've read that page before, and I think I considered the idea. But this time, this reading, it sounds like something that is absolutely indispensable. Lately, I feel like I walk around, collecting little meditations of my own, forming them into sentences in my mind, and then forgetting them when I neglect to write them down. I've always done better with goals and deadlines, so here they are: This year, every week, I am going to write what Breathnach calls meditations. I'm going to call them musings instead, since the word meditation suggests silence to me, and what I'm trying to accomplish is the opposite of silence.

I'm not sure exactly what will happen. I've been ambivalent about how much of myself I want to share in this public space, one moment feeling like I overshare and need to tone it down, the next feeling that if I ever want to be a good writer, I need to get more comfortable with being raw and free with my emotions. So, I'm not sure where this train is headed, but I'm jumping on for the ride.

I'll be posting once a week, Saturday nights or Sunday mornings. (Let's not be too picky -- I'll be lucky if I get it out at all). So here's to fifty-two musings on life and finding joy, this time next year.