Getting Into a Funk

30 Days of Happiness: A victory for urban chickens

A city council member introduced a bill in July to ban chickens from the "urban services" district of Nashville, and it was indefinitely deferred last night at its third reading!  I'm more than happy today, I am ecstatic! 

30 Days of Happiness: Sometimes the best days.......

 

are spent not doing much at all.

30 Days of Happiness: Silas

 

 

I think about the day Silas was born every day, the joy his birth brought to all of us six weeks ago is impossible to measure!  

30 Days of happiness: Life in the Garden

 

 

 

There are few things in life that please me more than observing nature.  The perfection of a butterfly's wings, the intricate design of a spider's web, the vivid colors of a flower, a honeybee doing her work are things that are easy to overlook if you don't slow down and pay attention.

30 Days of Happiness: Just *because*

Yesterday was a great day for no particular reason.  We didn't do anything exciting really, I didn't write the next great novel or paint a masterpiece.  But we did take a walk together (I love how much the four year old will tell me when we are on walks together) and we built a fort inside on the bottom bunk.  The baby took lots of short naps that required little intervention on my part and got 1,000 kisses from his brother.  I made an awesome dinner using mostly ingredients from my garden.  Just small, every day occurrences that I wouldn't have given much thought to before doing the "30 Days of Happiness" project.  Amazing what a small shift in perception can do!

 

We are feeling under the weather around here, so I missed yesterday.  I will try to catch up and keep up though!  If you are visiting from Erin's blog please say hello, I'd love to visit your blog if you have one!

30 Days of Happiness: Transitions

We dropped Ian off for his first day of "school" this morning.  What an event!  It was a blur.  Throngs of parents and kids everywhere, hanging of backpacks, unpacking of nap mats and lunch boxes.  Silas started wailing after about five minutes so I was glad Lee came with us!  Of course I had forgotten to label Ian's backpack, his lunch bag, his change of clothes and every other thing he brought.  I am a total rookie.

Some of the kids were crying, but  Ian couldn't have cared less about us leaving him, his teacher is an old friend of mine and her son (his best friend in the world) is in his class!  That made the transition super easy for both of us.

Lee ran into an old friend dropping off his own son at the school, he used to hang out with him at the bike ramp when he was in his early 20s.  This guy was even there the day Lee fell and broke his jaw (a major life changing event for Lee) and they were both quite sheepish at running into each other in a preschool parking lot. Lee got a laugh (and a groan) out of how much time had passed since then and how life has changed for them both. 

I have to say, the parents all looked very interesting, like people we would be friends with.  We live in an "eclectic" neighborhood with lots of artists, musicians and other creative types so that's not surprising I guess.  Lots of familiar faces too.  I'm looking forward to being part of a new community of adults and kids!

Having a kid that's ready for school has been making me feel quite old and quite parental, I've spent most of my 30s feeling like an overgrown kid so it's been quite an adjustment!  It's interesting how something as common place as this can create so much contemplation and self-reflection, especially my role as "mother" and how to balance that with all the other things that make up who I am.  It's such a cliche but time is passing so fast, and milestones like this with the kids makes me think about my own mortality in a way that I didn't before I had kids.  It's a real blessing though, the reminder that life is short and should be lived to the fullest every day! 

It feels good to have him there.  I can't wait to hear his stories about his first day when I pick him up this afternoon!

30 Days of Happiness: Let it go!

So a few days into this "Days of Happiness" project I am realizing that I spend way too much time during the day being *unhappy*.  One of the main sources of this unhappiness seems to stem from things not being "just so" in my environment.  Staying home full time with my kids means a lot of time inside the house (especially with a newborn) and I often feel so overwhelmed and discontent with my surroundings that it has a permeating negative influence on my mood!

I've realized that there's way too little playing and spontaneous fun in my house, and way too much worrying, fussing and guilt.  Don't get me wrong:  I take my responsibility as the "home manager" seriously and there are things I definitely need to do during the day to take care of myself and the family.  Too much clutter and mess makes me crazy and unproductive ((like when you want to start a craft project, but your sewing table is messy so you have to clean it off first, and then you can't find the fabric you need because it's mounded in a corner somewhere, and you don't have the right size needle, and then the baby wakes up and your time is up) so I am working on clearing out the junk and setting up a system for doing things around the house. But there has to be a balance!  I don't want my kids to grow up remembering me as never having time to play or always being in a crabby mood.  So a mix of being smart about what has to be done around here and a good measure of letting it go so I can have fun with the family is what I am working on.

Being the "homemaker" I really do set the tone for the whole family in a lot of ways, my mood and energy has a direct effect on everyone that lives here.  So I choose to be happy even if my house is a wreck.  It will get cleaned up..........eventually!  The reality is it never all gets done anyway, even if I do fret and worry and obsess over it, so why not at least have fun amidst all the mess?

Really it doesn't look all that bad when I post the pictures, if I was reading someone else's blog and they showed these photos I wouldn't even bat an eye.  But I'm posting them today to say life is good even if my house doesn't look like a magazine picture!

I also wanted to say "hello" to all the people visiting from Erin's blog, if you leave a comment I promise to visit your blog if you have one!  I love connecting with people that read my posts. And thanks again Erin for this great project!

30 Days of Happiness: Bedtime!

I walked in to Ian's room last night to this sight:  Lee laying down next to Ian, reading him Charlotte's Web.  We've been "dividing and conquering" since Silas arrived, and I was walking around the neighborhood with the baby in a sling trying to calm him down a bit for bed time while Lee turned his attentions towards Ian.  It is such a blessing to have a partner that is fully engaged in all aspects of family life, we are all so lucky to have each other!

Ian's blowing me a kiss in this shot, I'll leave you with that sentiment for the weekend!  Hope you have an excellent one.

30 Days of Happiness: Tomatoes!

It makes me so happy to see these bowls of tomatoes (some perfectly ripe and ready to be blanched, peeled, seeded and frozen and some plucked early to avoid the bugs) sitting on my counter!  I love that they all came from my garden, I love the different colors and sizes and shapes, and I love having them to use instead of store bought canned tomatoes in the cold winter months.

They look so beautiful in their bowls that I will hate to stick them in the freezer later today!  Luckily I've got a few more batches coming in that will take their place.

30 Days of Happiness: Brothers!

Erin over at Bluebird Baby has started a new round of "30 Days of Happiness" and I thought that joining in is just what I need to catch my breath and appreciate all the little bright spots that are whizzing past me at lightning speed!

This picture is from this morning, Ian loves going into the bedroom right as Silas is waking up so he can say "Good Morning Brother"!  This usually gets a big smile from Silas.  We all tend to gather in the bedroom right after the baby wakes up, it's a sweet time to be together as a family.

And since I didn't announce it on the blog, Silas Phoenix was born July 21 at 9:45 a.m.!  He's right at five weeks old and is such a blessing.  The labor and delivery were amazing, I'll have to write about that experience another time! 

Thanks Erin, for the inspiration!