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Revolutions for my 40th year of Gratitude and Love

Maybe I should have started this 3 months ago when I turned 40. Maybe I wasn't ready.

There were a few unwritten Revolutions that are coming to fruition.

~Wash the dishes so you have a clean kitchen to wake up to in the morning.  Getting breakfast and lunches ready on a school morning sucks when there is already dishes in the way.

~Cook.  I like to cook but I have been very lazy about it over the past several years. I am actually making a meal plan for the week each Sunday. Making a shopping list and cooking.  Crock pot prep is ready to put in the crock in the morning.  I'll let you know if it's any good.

~Eat out less, make and bring lunch. The lunch thing is hard sometimes, but I really should just make 3 instead of two.  Huh, bimbulb moment.  Make 3 instead of 2.
Duh

~Do my best to stop the laundry hill from becoming the laundry mountain. Ah Laundry - if anyone knows how to make that chore more enjoyable please let me know. Let us all know.


There is this voice in my head that sounds a lot like my Mother, that tells me that I could do more. That my productivity does not need to stop once the kids go to sleep.  I just want to shut down but then the laundry piles up, the dishes, we eat more mac-n-cheese, and I feel like I am not being the Mom or wife I want to be.  Perhaps the desire to be the cook with me, bake together, keep on top of the house hold chores, have really regular sex, craft making, blog writing, fun, supportive, loving, giving and YES I still find time for me - person is someone else's idea of what I should be,  but at least at the moment, it is what I want for myself. Plus I want to go back to school and be a great massage therapist too. I realize that is a tall order, and insanity is a real possibility, but I am gonna spend this 40th year trying.

Love Be

listening to sleep

Not sure I will make it to 11 tonight. I think a bath and bed is in order pronto.
I have never been much of a sleeper and 40 sure feels 40 at the end of a day.
I didn't see 6am this morning more than long enough to reset my alarm for 6:55. I would like to see it tomorrow. It changes my whole day. A peaceful beginning sets the tone for the day plus there is just wanting to get up and be grateful for the day the Lord had made. No a groan and burrow as so often happens. I fight sleep though too. At night I get into bed and watch TV on my laptop and boom it's 12:30 and I am toothpicking my eyelids open.  I guess the kids come by it honestly.  Neither R nor I are easy to sleepers but he sleeps so soundly I am jealous. L, poor suck, sleeps like me, but M is lucky, she sleeps like her Dad.

Listening to myself isn't a strength of mine. Trying to do better.

Yeah I know, I said daily I didn't say interesting.

Love Be

Joining the Masses

It's Sunday January 5th, 2014


So not really New Years, but I like Sundays as a start date / time.

It's funny that many of us know what feeds and fuels us but for a myriad of reasons do not follow the path that would make us most happy and healthful and (very underrated) Peaceful.

For example I know If I shut out my light by 11 and get up by 6 my life is much calmer. In fact I always find I wish I had gotten up earlier because I find that time so productive and peaceful. The house is asleep and the world is quiet. However, I find myself up at 12:30 or 1 am and struggling to get out of bed after hitting snooze 3 times.

Another thing that really helps me and makes me feel connected to myself is writing. Blogging or whatever. So as part of my 40th year Revolution (yes I meant revolution) and kind of a New Years one too I will give myself the gift the annoying and inconvenient gift of blogging every day for one year. It can be anything I want. It doesn't have to be words, but it needs to be daily.

I will explain the 40th Year of Gratitude and Love, A Revolution, at another time. For now I will leave you with the ramblings I used as my message for church today:


New Years Revolutions
This is the day that the Lord has made
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

This is the day that OUR Lord has made
Let US rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118: 24 says rejoice and be glad in the day that God has created. Everyday God has created. Open our eyes each morning rejoicing in the day. I can tell you the prayer I issue after a night of visits from my little guy and my own restlessness is rarely that of rejoicing. It's more like, OH GOD . . . morning already! Followed by: Lord, please help me get through this day. Already looking for the end before the day has even begun.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Well, as we welcome in 2014 many of us take this as an opportunity to initiate change in our lives. I am all for change, but 40 years has shown me that New Years Day, or the beginning of School or, okay, it all starts fresh this Sunday rarely is the fresh start we are yearning for.

How many of you read the title of todays message and thought, Oh she spelled it wrong? or may not have noticed that is says revolution instead of resolution? Notice that there is only one letter difference between the two words but one of them can change to world.

A few years ago I realized that I have very little ability to maintain resolutions. I want to but like so may I am not on my list of important things to take care of and so the resolutions slip away. Instead I decided what I needed was a revolution. Internally, I needed a drastic change in how I think and act towards myself. Honestly how many of your resolutions focus on something outside self improvement. I don't deny the need and value of self improvement, but perhaps a change of view in how we do that is in order.

The other night I sat down and watched Oprah's final show. Anyone see it? No guests, no gimmicks, no giveaways. Just Oprah talking, telling her fans how much they have meant to her, how she feels about her journey and some valuable lessons she learned along the way.

The first thing I really heard was this:

YOUR LIFE IS SPEAKING TO YOU, WHAT IS IT SAYING?

If you are willing to sit and listen. Spend time alone and quiet with yourself what is your life saying to you. What if that was your first revolution? For me, giving myself this kind of quiet time would be a real revolution in how I spend time with myself.

Any of you who have watched Oprah knew how she felt about Gratitude. So as the show progressed she talked about how living in gratitude changed her life. Helped her see her world and her life differently and how, "In gratitude, we grow." I have found that gratitude can be a struggle, and a great gift. After the show was over Youtube offers me other show or ideas with a similar theme and I found myself watching this Upworthy post about 365 grateful. A photo project by a woman who at the end found out her husband was so much more than she had given him credit for. We will play that clip at the end of the service. To that end I have a gift for each of you. I hope I have enough. These are small, because it is the little things that often have the most impact. Write a line, tape or glue in a note a picture or flower, but everyday as Revolution number two make the effort to commit to paper something you are grateful for.

For me out of gratitude comes love. I think so far it is my most favourite thing to preach about. Jesus made all of his decisions and all his actions came from a place of love. Jesus was one of us, he must have had similar feelings of fear and anxiety, putting yourself out there like he did has got to have been scary. Very few of us since them have done the same. There are some and from them there are lessons in love to learn. Mandela - I do not know if the world truly understands what we have lost now that he is gone, but he has a legacy and it will go on.

So act not from a place of fear, but from love.

Revolution three: Don't be afraid. It is fear that is driving this country, this world and often my own life. To love, without fear, is to accept that what you have to offer is valuable. That what you have and who you are is a gift worth giving to someone else. To lots of someone elses. Love like you are perfect. Do not save your ability to share yourself for when you meet societies projected physical standards. They are simply that, projected, and not the reality of what is beautiful, that is so subjective, personal. Do not hide from yourself and others your beautiful trueness just because you aren't the vogue model. She should be so lucky as to know you. I am lucky to know you. To love you.

Fear is the ugly underbelly of our lives. We do not project, protect, voice and share because we fear, the snide remark, the judging glance the smirk and giggle. Don't do this, this is not the legacy we should share.

Love. Be loving. Give it and receive it graciously. There is more than enough of everything to go around if we are brave enough to share it. And remember, God wears many many faces. One of them is yours.



(http://www.upworthy.com/you-take-zillions-of-photos-with-your-cellphone-why-not-try-something-new-with-them?c=ufb1)