Monday Rumination List

Here's what I've been up to thinking about this past week and weekend-

reading

Just finished (last night) The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak.  Not my favorite writing style, but it was a fascinating and touching story.

Grey loves 'reading' us Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann and both kids crack up at the ending of the book.

This article over at the Good Men Project:  The Case Against Saving for College .

This Defense of Disney Princesses article.  Gem is not into princesses (yet) and I've been relieved about that fact, but this was a reminder that there are some redeeming parts of being princess-crazed too.  But was good to read this article to balance the former about the Princess Filter that says, "...I wanted to analyze how unnecessary it is to collapse a heroine into one specific mold, to give them all the same sparkly fashion, the same tiny figures, and the same homogenized plastic smile." .

watching

This video about how kindness is a boomerang put out from LifeVest Inside.  After watching it myself, I sat down with both kids to watch as a 'movie on the ipad.'  I narrated it for them saying things like, 'Look, that man helped the boy up.  That sure was nice.  The boy is feeling happy and thankful now that someone was so nice to him.  He's looking around thinking, hmm, someone was nice to me and now I want to be nice to someone too.  Look!  He is being nice, to that lady!..." and so on and so on.

This video about Mama Hill from Soul Pancake

Smiling about this video where subway riders make signs for the conductors to make their day better (or at least sillier).  Makes me miss living in the city a whole bunch.

eating

We had two meals last week that our whole family loved - as in both kids were markedly chowing down on dinners that didn't include mashed potatoes or pizza (win!)

We had this version of Korean Beef using (just plain) ground beef.  I had to leave out the ginger (because we didn't have any) but it was delicious -served over  rice- and the kids ate it up without any whining.

We also had this Chicken Pot Pie Soup and everyone happily devoured it.  Gemmi at two bowlfuls and then leftovers the following day.  I crockpot'ed the chicken first (in chicken stock until it felt apart into shreds) and then just put all the soup ingredients together at the end.  I used frozen corn & broccoli (because that's what we had on hand) but the original veggies from the recipe sound awesome too.

new happenings

Brandon is participating in Movember and will not be shaving his mustache for the whole month.  I love when he is able to rock a beard which is only occasionally when he's on vacation since his job has a no-beard rule.  He certainly can sport an awesome beard, but he's never only done the 'stache - so I'm anxious to see how this develops.  It's to help raise awareness and funds for men's health, so we're proud and supportive of our Mo'Daddy.

And, I attended my first CV Alumni Association meeting last night and was so glad I did.  I have lots of brainstorming ideas rolling around in my mind this morning and I'm excited to start the new year working with an organization that is dedicated to our high school alma mater that we still love and want to be a part of as adults.

personally loving

After visiting with my dear friend, JP last week (Hi, Jess!) I came home feeling inspired to get our home to feel more beautiful and purposeful.  Visiting with JP always gives me some sort of inspirational boost (like last year's push to make a family yearbook!) and this year, it was being inspired by her home that really feels like each thing she has in it is either beautiful or purposeful.  Since the visit, I've already re-organized our kitchen task center cabinet and color-blocked my dining room built-ins.

triumphs

I've finished our 2011 Yearbook!  Phew, it was rough to get it all done since my pictures were saved all over the place, but it's finally done and ordered from Shutterfly! (eek!  tiny Booboo!) I've been working on it little by little all this year, so now I can get started on slowly putting together our 2013 yearbook:)  I'd like to go back at least to 2010 when Grey was born so we account for at least the start of a 2+ family time...eventually.

Also, thankfully using up the extra pumpkin puree that I inevitably have leftover after making Brandon's birthday pumpkin roll.  I've also made pumpkin gobs and pumpkin & oat morning bread/muffins.  Yay for no leftovers!


working towards

Starting to think about and plan projects we can do as a family on World Kindness day (November 13).

Running everyday in November (although I missed Nov.1st, bleh).  My new running mantra is:  It doesn't have to be for long and it doesn't have to be fast, just go run.   Greyson and I went together to Roxbury park and he rode his bike alongside me jogging.  It wasn't my fastest running (ie. roughly 18 minute miles -hah to stay at his pace) but it was 1.3 miles in and one-on-one time with him- so count it.

Cleaning out more of our 'dumping zone's (like our kitchen task center cabinet above).  We have a lot of these dumping zones around the house (laundry room, upstairs office space, our bedroom dresser, etc) and I want to slowly make my way through them in the month of November to get them organized in a way that they can still be used as a dump for things (because inevitably they will be) but in a more organized way that it won't actually look like a dump.


What are some of the things you ruminating on this Monday morning?

being married, personal reflection, and family

you are born one day and are like,
oh, hello people that made me a home to live in
and share your food with me
and listen to me cry
and share midnight laughs with me about bats being trapped in the bathroom
cool, this is my family.

And then you do that for a really long time (18 years give or take) and it's sort of like okay,
these are my people
and they get me
and I love and hate them at the same time
and its awesome.

I am lucky in that I have a truly amazing family (as does my husband) and although there are moments when we all feel like wringing a family member's neck - at the end of the day, these are the people that would go down swinging for me.  no questions asked.  These are the people whose name I hear and a little flame in my heart strikes up and whispers, 'mine.'

2007

and then marriage is sort of like saying,
hey you - over there - random person that I really like.
How 'bout we both leave our families
(that we've known and been loving and making memories with for our whole lives)
and, ya know, just make up our own family together?
because that's how much I like you.

That's something I really love about marriage- that it's the conscious decision that you like being around someone enough that you want are choosing to create a brand new family (love/hate, go down swinging, 'mine' thing) with some random person out there in the world.  Like out of every person on the planet that I really don't have to care about at all - I really freaking care about you.  Let's get together for forever and make something new, like say, a family.

When B &I laugh at the same time in public at some obscure inside joke, when we have parties where my mum and mum-in-law are sitting together laughing with their grandkids on their laps, or I see our kids' faces light up at the sight of us, or when the kids giggle or share together or even when they egg each other into naughty, sneaky behavior, I think - we made that.  We made a family (love/hate, go down swinging, 'mine' thing) where there was none before.

Brandon and I have been married for five years and together for nearly fourteen.  We really freaking like each other.  But that doesn't mean that marriage isn't hard.  That we don't fight or disagree or need to find patience with each other's quirks and differences daily.

Brandon and I are both very, very different from each other - which is probably why we work so well, but can also lead to some disagreements that can feel like an impasse.  And an impasse, a happy family does not make.  (fyi: i had to look up correct yoda grammar)

Besides being different in lots of things, we also have different love languages (him: physical touch, me: quality time) which tends to leave each of us feeling neglected occasionally during busy weeks.  In the heat of an argument, it's really hard to see any other perspective than your own (is this for everyone or just us?) so we have found it helpful to step away from speaking and write it out separately before coming together to talk about what we wrote.

Recently, we did an exercise to get down our feelings and also think reflectively on how we could each try differently/better/more effectively at making sure the other feels loved.  We each had time to fill out a chart labeled with:

Ways I show you Love  (purpose:  Look!  I do love you and here's my proof...the everyday variety)
Ways I feel Love (purpose:  And actually, when I really think about it, you are giving me love that I sometimes take for granted because its the everyday variety - shame on me)
Ways to show Love to improve (purpose:  I know there are things that I can do better to show you my love that I am not doing because we are so busy or tired or just plain lazy, I'm sorry.  Taking note, now.)
Ways I'd like to feel Love (purpose:  here are exact examples of how you can make me feel loved in the near future)

We don't have this displayed anywhere in our house or anything, but it was helpful to each have our own time to reflect and 'speak' our peace without the other's personal argument blinders up.

One of my improvements in the list was that I need to try harder to be visibly excited when B gets home from work.  I (shamefully) am normally so tired at that point of the day that I toss him a quick, 'hey, how was your day' while trying to peel children off of me and reattach to him for a moment of freaking peace.  I want to try harder to stop what I'm doing, take note of what it sounds like when he walks in the door, and relish in his arrival back home to us (is there any other part of our day that is exciting as that moment?  the sound of the door handle clicking and sliding across the front carpet, dogs barking and wagging tails, kids shouting 'Daddy!', and his voice calling out, 'hello, family!'...why, oh why don't I cherish this more?  It will be so short-lived, Tabitha, please do better).

Brand reflected that he wants to be more a part of our weekly routines by choosing certain evenings or weekends that are 'daddy days' or 'daddy cooks dinner days.' (sometimes it feels like we lose all routine/schedule when Daddy comes home which makes me feel unorganized and sort of invisible).

It's wasn't revolutionary by any means, but it was a helpful way for us to say what we needed to say and also look at ourselves as a contributor (probably main contributor) to the other's happiness and frustrations.

Being married to someone is no picnic everyday; it takes work and patience and so much personal reflection that it is downright silly.  But when you get right down to it, the fact that we were two random people that have decided to make a family together -that of all the people out there that we've ever met (and those that we haven't yet), we chose each other to make a family where there was none before - that's pretty mind-blowing and amazing to me.  Certainly worth any amount of work, patience, and personal reflection.

Kindness update

I wanted to give a little kindness update on how things are progressing this year for our commitment to 12 months of Kindness.  You can read more about the project here and also see more in depth descriptions of our scheduled monthly kindnesses at the dedicated blog at The 12 Months of Kindness Project.

Things have been going well for our 12 months of Kindness 2013 project - nearly over at this point and I'm already thinking about what might be in store for next year's planning.  

So far this year, we have completed these planned monthly kindness activities:

January:  Local EMS membership & donation

March:  Cookies and thank you letter to the local fire department

April:  Donation through Oxfam America Unwrapped - Grey's birthday choice

May:  Studer Scholarship to local high school seniors

June:  Donation to the Humane Society

July:  5th Annual Beer Olympics to benefit Miss Tay

September:  Donor's Choose donation

October:  [currently working on] Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF

You might be able to tell from above, that we missed doing our kindness activities for the months of February (grandparent date) and August (serving at the food kitchen).  The missing events are lingering in the back of my mind and I keep telling myself that we need to try our best to get them wrapped up before the end of the year.  That's the great thing about kindness - it's never too late.

The reason that we are so dedicated to our 12 months of kindness commitment and making sure that it is planned and recorded is because being kind is always meant with the best of intentions - but the truth is, life can slip into the day and derail your intentions.  So unless it's marked down and scheduled - it is really easy to intend to do a monthly act of kindness (see our months for February and August for proof!) and then so quickly and easily can that intention slip away with the dirty dishes piling up and kids running around wild.  That's also the bad thing about kindness - it always feels like something we can get to later.

Besides are regularly scheduled acts of monthly kindness, we always have opportunities to sprinkle kindness throughout the year too.  The sort that brings fun and companionship into kindness:

April:  Alumni Basketball game to benefit a local high school's mission trip to Central America

August:  a huge delivery of goods to the local Humane Society for my birthday (gifts from my family&friends for donations)

September:  The Gladiator Run to benefit TACA (Talk About Curing Autism)

October:  Buying Jammies for other kids for The Big White Farmhouse's Pajama Drive.  (Ashley's drive runs through Halloween, so there's still time to participate yourself!)

And of course, there is the everyday kindness that presents itself regularly and constantly.  Like holding doors open for the person behind you, reminding the kids to generously say please and thank you, helping family in a pinch, making time for google hangouts and long catch-up phone calls with friends, biting your tongue when its just not worth the argument, choosing to update our statuses with happy and funny news rather than complaints or rants.  

I am uplifted daily to find inspirational stories and amazing acts of kindness, patience, and love.  I seek these out because it is the reminder that I need to keep fighting the good fight.  That people are good, that people care about one another.  At times, it is vital to seek these things out as other stories flood my newsfeed and television of disappointed, disenchanted, and disengaged people who can't find the good in their days.  And so I seek out the grateful, enlightened, and enthusiastic stories from those that look around and see potential and kindness and are so thankful for life it brings tears to my eyes.

Each of us have the opportunity to act in kindness every single day.  Each of us get to choose whether we bring light or darkness into other people's interactions and experiences with us.  Whether we, ourselves, experience more light or darkness in our own days.  Which are you bringing to the days of those that get to experience you?