Eight Chapters

I just finished my assignment for Lenten Book Club and finished the next eight chapters in the book "How Big is Your God?: The Freedom to Experience the Divine" While the previous eight chapters left me feeling a bit Ho-Hum about the book these last eight have been really thought provoking and have lots of highlights throughout. I'll share some of those highlights with you. They speak to me and sharing them with you, my dear reader, will give you a glimpse of the me I strive to be:

Get rid of the material things in your home, and you will learn how to be free. Chapter 25

If you want a relationship with God, you must make space in your life for the spiritual. Chapter 26

If you give away something that you're attached to but you haven't enjoyed, it will haunt you for the rest of your life. Chapter 27

People, Places, Things -- enjoy them so you are not possessed by them. Chapter 27

Live life with a beginner's mind. Theme of Chapter 28

If you don't experience the Divine inside you, you won't find God anywhere. Chapter 30

While you are holding on to your children they are changing...the relationship that you have today is not the one you had yesterday and is not the one you will have tomorrow. Chapter 32

The present moment is eternal time. Chapter 32

I am striving to live in the present moment.  Whenever I have a quiet moment with Chloe I often say--You will never be this little again. That one thought magnetizes and magnifies the present moment for me. I experience the present most fully during my day at those times. I hold her close, feel her soft skin, breath her in and I just try to BE. With her. In the moment. Peace. Happiness. And a glimpse of the Divine.

Slow Down, Christine.

All of the blogs I'm following seem to be getting into the holiday spirit. Everywhere I look there are gift giving ideas and decorating ideas and shopping tips...there will be none of that here. At least not today, but maybe not ever. It isn't that I'm not in the holiday mood: my tree is up, my advent wreath is out, the kids are busy making lists, I'm threatening "Santa's WATCHING!" at every turn. There's plenty of holiday talk going on around here, but at the moment I'm busy trying to take in a lesson from the universe and an important lesson for advent: SLOW DOWN.

Here we go again: Two Tuesdays ago I ran into a deer (not an uncommon occurrence where I am from!) and this Tuesday I had another eye opener.  I slogged out to my car in the cold rain, umbrella-less, with 100lb baby carrier slung over my arm, and sleepy kids in tow and got in the van to take my oldest down to the bus stop. (I really wish the bus driver could pull up in front of my house which is only 6 houses away from the stop. This isn't even a bus...it's a MINI VAN. There is no reason the driver should have any trouble navigating on my street. But, I digress.)

Jim drove the van last. Now, hear me: I am not blaming HIM. I am merely explaining why the following events were more likely to happen on this day.  He had the van pulled squarely at the end of our driveway. It would have been quite simple for me to back out of the driveway. All I had to do was slowly apply the gas, keep the wheel straight and go in reverse. That isn't how I roll. I don't like to back up. Normally I have the van positioned in the driveway so that I can do one three point turn and head out of the driveway nose first. But in order to turn myself around on Tuesday I had to do multiple three point turns to get there.  At a certain point, I began to think: How many more three point turns do I need to do to get this van turned around?  Then there also came a certain moment in the three point turn madness that it was too late to turn back. I did one more three point turn and then I thought, "This should be fine, I'm going."  It was raining and darker than usual at 7a.m.  And I misjudged how much room I had to maneuver.  And ooops. This happened:

Yes, I sideswiped the house!

I forgot all about it (duh!) until I let the dog out later that morning. I went around to check out the damage and that's what I saw.  Sometimes I'm a real ditz. Now I had to face Jim. I knew he would be frustrated with me.  I already felt horrible about it, but I couldn't put off the inevitable phone call where I have to explain my crazy logic to my logical husband:

"Why didn't you just back out of the driveway?? I had it parked perfectly for you to do that!" I know, dear, but that isn't what I am used to doing every morning and don't you know that I live my life on auto pilot half the time and I just want to do things the way that I do them so they can be done and I don't have to think about them anymore? 

Do you realize how horrible this sounds?  I did. He was angry and I started to cry. Not because he was saying anything untrue. Not because he was being cruel. But because I just don't think about things sometimes.  I just do what I do because I always do it that way.  I don't assess the situation to make the best possible choice all of the time. This is something I don't like about myself, so it's really hard to admit.  

So from that point on, I started to have a bad day. I felt like an Eeyore--at least I could hear his voice in my head "it's raining..."  "I messed up my car..."  "I'm too tired to exercise." "This is boring." There were bright spots in my Tuesday:

We got our new kitchen table.

Ava drew this adorable picture. It's me happily doing many different exercise moves. I can't get the picture to go right side up, but you get the point. I love the picture of me doing a push-up (it's on the left of the screen).

And Jim brought me flowers when he came home from work. I hardly ever get flowers.  He must have felt bad that I was crying. He probably didn't realize that I was being harder on myself than he was being on me...but the flowers were a nice surprise and brightened my day.

I hope these downer Tuesdays don't continue!!  I think if I can practice what I so often preach in my blog about living in the moment and being present in the moment that things will turn around for me.  If not, I'm sure I'll get another knock on the head to get me back on track!

Just What I Needed

So last Tuesday evening on my way to my faith sharing group meeting, I hit a deer. I wasn't going fast and I almost missed him but I bumped into his backside and sent him scampering off into the woods with a hind leg dangling. I felt horrible about it, but there wasn't any damage to the van and I was fine. I debated calling Jim or turning back home but I'm glad I decided to go on. I was reminded that night that I need to be more present. (I thought I learned this lesson already!) I guess I'd been not so present over the past few weeks. Instead of living in the moment, I was living inside my mind. I spent most of the last 3 weeks or so alternating between the following thought processes: How do I go about getting this house unpacked? Checking off my to-do list. Worrying about where I had to be and what I had to do next. Minor irritations resulting from little girl overload and a lack of adult conversation. Feeling sorry for myself. Wondering when my husband would be home. All these thoughts were wearing my down and slowly taking a toll on my overall happiness...and I didn't even realize until after I hit that deer and had a mini melt down during my faith sharing group.

I realized then that I needed two things to happen. I needed to come back to the present moment. Breathe. And focus. And I needed to spend some QT with the hubs.

This weekend I got to do both. It was the first full weekend that Jim didn't have to work! He has been working so hard lately (by the way, I am SUPER grateful that I have a husband who without fail gets up early in the morning and goes to work everyday to make a living for our family.) and he hadn't spent a Saturday at home since we've moved in! I know it's been hard for him too because he'd like to get things done around here. Anyway, this weekend there was none of that to worry about. On Friday my sisters and their boyfriends came out to sit with the girls and Jim and I went to the city to watch the Pens play (they won in the shoot out!). On Saturday, we went to a dinner, a fundraiser for the school where we send the girls, and we had a blast! We sat with my parents, and sister, her boyfriend, and a couple of friends and had the liveliest and most fun table in the room. None of us won anything, but you would not have known it because we didn't let it spoil our fun. I love Jim even more when we are in these settings because he really shines. It reminds me of some of the reasons I fell in love with him. He is fun and friendly and funny. I am so lucky to have him.

This weekend was a breath of fresh air for me. I feel rejuvenated. I feel like myself again!