Tag Archives: Happiness

Humor, Life, Parenting

Mother Flipping Day

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Tonight, I was already on my last nerve when I got cut off not once, but twice within 5 minutes.  So when the lady in the lane next to me saw my turn signal and sped up to prevent me from merging into her lane, I did it.  I gave her the bird.  And I don’t mean the bluebird of happiness.  So there you have it.  I’m a Mother Flipper.

Today had been one of those days.  A nothing-has-gone-right, is-it-over-yet kind of day.  After my “kind gesture,” I was sitting at a stop light behind a pick-up truck that had a brown tarp covering something in the bed.  In my impatient state of mind, I was tailgating so had an up close and personal view of the tarp.  Apparently, one corner of the tarp wasn’t tied down.  When the light turned green, the wind got under the tarp and I swear that corner rose from the dead and turned into a hideous monster with its arms flailing wildly.  The edge of the tarp was even frayed like teeth.  I literally SOL’d (screamed out loud).  As I realized how ridiculous I must have looked, then I LOL’d.  I looked at the tarp again.  I think I may have seen a finger sticking up.  Probably in response to me following too closely.

When I got home, I tripped on a shoe at the front door and as I stumbled forward, I had a vision of me doing a somersault and landing on the floor.  Good thing I didn’t.  Then I would have been a Mother Flipping Flipper.

(Addendum:  Now that I give it some thought…with the mood I was in, perhaps what I thought was a monster was actually my reflection!)_____________________________

The tarp monster:

Parent, Parenting, Uncategorized

There they go, just a walking down the street. Singing Do Wah Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Do.

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This school year, we had a dilemna.  Are Eric and Greg are old enough to walk home from school alone?  After going back and forth (and back and forth and back and forth), we decided yes.  Since we live less than a mile from the school, we do not have bus service.  Up until this point, someone has picked them up every day.  There are walking paths and sidewalks the entire route home and there will be 4-5 kids walking together.  No big deal, right?

Today was the first day of school.  They were very excited about the big walk.  As the day progressed, scenarios went through my head of things going wrong.

  1. What if they forget they are supposed to walk home and stand out in front of the school waiting for me.   The other Moms will think I forgot to pick up my kids on the very first day!  How embarrassing will that be???  Yeah, my first “worry” was what others would think, not safety.  Mom of the year here.
  2. One of the paths goes near a busy road.  What if they are goofing around and go off the path?  What if they get too close to the road with the cars whizzing by??  At least my SECOND worry was safety.  I redeemed myself.  A little.
  3. What if Eric and Greg get in an argument?  They have reached the age that arguments between them usually turn physical.  I pictured them rolling around in the grass, wrestling and punching as their buddies cheered “Fight. Fight. Fight.”
  4. What if they get lost?  They could be wandering through the woods hours later in the dark.  We’ve walked that way many times so that thought was most ridiculous, but it was still a thought.

I finally calmed my fears by deciding to walk half way to meet them.  That was a good compromise for the first day.  I knew they wouldn’t be happy to see me intruding on their “big boy freedom” but that’s ok.

At dismissal time, I strolled out of the house thinking of a good response to the “why are you here, Mom?” question when I met them.  “It’s just such a pretty day, I decided to walk also.”  That wouldn’t really be convincing as I had sweat dripping from the 95 degree heat.  Oh well, stalker Mom it is.

I got half-way to the half-way point when it dawned on me – there are two different ways they could walk home.  We hadn’t discussed which way they were going to walk.  If I picked the wrong path, I would miss them completely and they would go home to an empty house and think Mom didn’t even care enough to be home to see how their first day went.  I turned around and walked back home.  At least they won’t know I was helicopter Mom now.

Twenty minutes after dismissal passes and they still aren’t home. Common sense told me dismissal takes longer than normal on the first day and the kids aren’t going to sprint home, but I still wondered if one of my premonitions had happened.  To the car I go.  I drive to the end of our street and as I turn onto the next street, I see them.  Almost home.  Not on the route I was walking on to meet them, of course.  They were happily walking on the side-walk, grinning from ear to ear.  I thought about slouching down in the seat and backing down the street back to our house so they wouldn’t see me, but it was too late.

They walked over to my car and, as predicted, Eric says “What are you doing?”  I sheepishly respond, “just checking.”  He gave me the one eyebrow raised look that I know too well.  As they are standing in the road by my car talking to me, I realize that THIS moment is probably the LEAST safe moment of their walk.  Way to go Mom.

After the friends go to their houses, Eric and Greg sprint home.  They get to our driveway faster than I can drive there.  They race to see who can get on the video game system the quickest as they yell “we don’t have homework, but YOU do!”

I guess they really are ready to walk home alone.  It’s me that isn’t.

Happiness, Uncategorized

Rejoyvenation

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I have a constant battle between my should-do list and my want-to-do list.  I tend to feel immense guilt over doing things that are enjoyable when the dreaded list is hanging over my head.  How can I be using my time to do something fun when I don’t have time for everything that needs to be done??  I don’t have the energy to do it all, so I should use all my energy on the “more important” stuff, right?   WRONG!  We must find the time for enjoyable moments in our life and block out the nagging voice telling us not to, even if just for a few minutes.

It rejuvenates the soul to do things that bring you joy.  We must rejoyvenate!  Say that out loud and it sounds like a bad jersey accent.

Doing something joyful in our life is like turning on the faucet and filling a sink with water.  But once we turn the faucet off and only focus on the must-dos, the water slowly drains out.  It starts leaving the sink with a slow swirl, then gets faster and faster as it turns into a mini tornado and goes down the drain.  Must be where the term “draining the life out of me” came from.  Continuing to do things that bring you joy will keep that faucet on.  Even if you can only find a few minutes a day, a dripping faucet is better than nothing.

Once you feel the swirl of the water in your life start going to the drain, you need to put a stopper in it by doing something that holds the happiness in the sink.  If you do things on a regular basis that keep you happy, that happiness will build up and slowly clog the drain.  This is one time where a clogged drain is a good thing.  No liquid plumber needed here.  If you have a happiness clog, that will be a back-up on days where you forget to put your stopper in.  The clog will keep your sink from draining as quickly.

So what do you do to fill your sink?  That answer is different for everyone.   For me, it is things like fostering kittens for a local rescue.  Yes, it takes up time and energy that prevents me from doing other things, like say pulling weeds in my garden.  (For someone else, pulling weeds may be the rejoyvenation, but for me it is a miserable chore.)  Looking at a little kitten’s face that was saved from being euthanized replenishes much more of my energy than it takes away to take care of them temporarily.

There is, of course, the have-to-do list that is necessary to find time for.  Like feeding the kids dinner.  No matter what I say, they still want to be fed every night.  Go figure.  But if you really analyze the have-to-do list, there are probably little ways to shorten it.  Even if it means lowering our level of expectations on some things to free up some time, and energy.  The real question is, in the grand scheme of things…what matters more.  Having the time and energy to enjoy yourself or something like clean baseboards.  What if there is no energy left once the have-to-dos are done?  Hopefully if we force ourselves to find the time, the energy will come with the merriment.

The past few days have been the kind where the must-dos have taken up all of my time.  I’m feeling very drained today.  My sink is empty.  Maybe a few drops left at the bottom, but pretty empty.  I feel like I’ve been going non-stop and still have more work to do but I put everything on hold for a few minutes to write my blog.  My blog is starting to be a form of rejoyvenation for me.  A little.  (Even though I’m still adjusting to the stress of putting my writing out there for the world to read.)  Writing is turning the faucet on to a trickle, slowly dripping a little joy into my sink today.

Do something that brings you joy.  Turn on your faucet.  Clog your sink.  Rejuvenate your soul.  Rejoyvenate!!

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Pretend I’m saying this in my best fake Joisy accent…If you feel the war-der  swirling oudda yous guys’ sink, just say fuh-getta-boudit to wha-cha doin’ and think aboud whadj-ew gonna’ do to rejoyvenate!  Yeah, I never was good at fake accents.  😉