Posts from — November 2008

Last night I made a dinner of spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce.  While I normally enjoy cooking when I have time to spare, lately making dinner feels so rushed.  I am known for completely missing the “cooking” window in the evenings, despite my 12 year old’s incessant questions “What’s for dinner, Mom?”  Cereal, if you don’t leave me alone.

And Time Ticks By

Maybe it’s the fact that it gets dark so quick and the days end early that compounds the rushed feeling.  Or maybe it’s because I feel like I have ADD while I’m trying to learn about the latest in social media and  keeping up with reading a bunch of blogs of people I now love.  Some nights I think I am nuts, my hands on the keyboard, with panicked breath, looking through my Google reader, just one more blog, just one more…oh and here’s a great twitter note, I’ll just add my ten cents…  And time  t i c k s  by…and guess what?  It’s waaay past my bedtime, and oh shit, I didn’t write a THING, what am I doing ?  And I can’t keep pointing to “what he said” or “what she said”, I’m supposed to be creative, right?  I thought I was, until I met all these other really great creative people who seem to publish my ideas right out of my head.  How did they know I was thinking that??

Oops, I forgot what I was doing..

So, the problem is, that when I do cook, I end up leaving it unattended…sometimes too long…because I’m writing one more email, researching one more article, one more one more…and low and behold, and dinner gets burned.   This happened again last night, making the sauce.  I burned the damn sauce, sheesh I make myself crazy. Last week I forgot I was boling water for my breakfast, and boiled it down to the pan.  My son kept saying, Mom what smells like cheese?  Well, that’s burned pan, my son, how come you didn’t know that?

Putting off what needs tending to

But as I think about these not-so-great patterns, I really don’t want to burn down this house…I wonder about what the bigger message is here.  Burning the sauce, in my mind, is just another way of putting things off that need tending to.  Making food is creative, just as writing is creative.

It’s the world’s way of telling me to wake up, finish what you start, and don’t leave it for “others” to take care of cause it will burn.   Sometimes I’m a student, sometime’s I’m the teacher, I don’t need to be both at the same moment all the time.  Make room for both without guilt.  I have work to do here, just as we all do.  And I know there is room for all of us and our ideas, it doesn’t matter who thought of it first.  The point is to get it out there, and stop worrying about it being right or good enough.

And by allowing myself to focus on what I’m doing at that moment, I can realize the most joy in those moments.  Nothing is better than sitting down to a delicious meal, and I am a good cook.   And nothing is worse when I burn things, and ruin the goodness that was to be.  (and feel those unspoken thoughts of “what was she doing on the computer AGAIN”)

So I ask myself, where else am I burning the sauce? I’m sure I can come up with a few thoughts, but more importantly I am making a commitment to myself to focus on the “here and now” and be my best self in what I do, whatever it is in that moment.

What about you? Are there places in your life where you are burning the sauce?

Veteran’s Day is one of those holidays that doesn’t get enough recognition.  Well, it does but it doesn’t.  It’s one of those holidays that just sort of passes by, maybe a parade or ceremony in our areas, but nothing that is really over the top.  And it is too bad, because it deserves equal fanfare as July 4th.  It’s just as special, and possibly more near and dear to our hearts because it represents a lineage of family who fought for our country, year-in, year-out.  It’s our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, cousins, neighbors, our families and friends.  They deserve fireworks, and all the fanfare that we can muster.

My husband’s got an Uncle Dick, who is quite the character and lady charmer (in a good way), recently completed a detailed geneaology project, which tracked his mother’s lineage all the back to the Mayflower.   It even goes back to England and some King lineage.  He published his findings in book that recorded every family name.  It’s quite impressive.

But what was also obvious was their dedication to serving this country.  So many generations, this family participated in just about every war.  And we have several near and dear to our hearts out there fighting now. (Donna & Jason, James, Jay)

So it’s for them, every veteran, and every active duty personnel serving today, that we share our heartfelt thanks for doing your part and being in service to our country.  You help our freedom reign.

Thank you

This time of year is always magical to me, the color and smell of the leaves, the deep blue skies, the crisp air, the crunch of leaves under my feet.  Fall is a time to let go, to release those leaves that no longer serve our purpose.  A time to get rid of all those attachments that aren’t really working out anymore.

There seems to be something going on at the underlayers of our thoughts and consciousness, and I wonder about the natural cycles that take place in our lives that we don’t necessarily relate to the seasons.  When we think about the American Indians, they lived their lives around nature and the seasons.  I find it hard to believe that those intuitive knowings have completely disappeared.   But, not to get too serious, yet stay in the spirit of letting go, I’ve put together my “Let-it-Go” list:

- The Saintly, come in under the radar,  Italian Veil of Guilt – I’m getting very good at seeing it coming cause I’ve been raised with the best of the best , but I am also known for throwing out a good guilt trip…

- Saying yes and pretending to comprehend a conversation even when I know I have no freaking clue because I’m not paying attention.  Usually I am interrupted while in the “business zone” as my son calls it…especially when he wants something, and I say “yes” just to get it done.   So far he’s tried to get several new video games, a new guitar, concert tickets, permission to do things he shouldn’t … all have been thwarted…so far.  It’s an on-going battle.

- Saying No – in so many dimensions – especially to the Fire and Police Associations who need help supporting the families of officers/firefighters who have died in the line of fire – how do you say no to that?  But really, I can’t swing it this time….

- Intentionally missing the “cooking window” for supper before announcing that “we haven’t had pizza in awhile”, which we all know is B.S.

It’s also time for renewal, planting for spring, and making room for a period of quiet gestation where things gather energy and prepare for emergence.  Then spring comes – and none too soon because I’m already feeling bitchy about the cold.  But, a little fertilizer doesn’t hurt during the quiet time, so here’s what I’ll tend to over the next few months, with the hopes of emerging in the spring with new habits:

- Reduce my ADD behavior online.  I’m all over the place.  I need to set up a schedule that forces me to close my email, Twitter, FriendFeed, and FB accounts.   Either that or someone will find me hunched over my computer frozen stuck reading the screen, typing endlessly to people who my husband calls “my friends” [emphasis on "friends"].  I need a better balance.

- Making time for me daily and not feeling guilty about it.  (talk to the hand)

- Not procrastinating everything – oops, wait a minute ….just kidding…

- Work up to lead guitar on Rock Band.   The rest of the band likes me just where I’m at…on bass   I won’t be pushed in the background anymore!  So there.  I may even grab the mic.

What about you? What are you “letting go” this season?  Tis’ the season to shed those leaves.  Would love to hear your thoughts.

Do you remember when the first time you ever memorized something – like the dreaded times tables?  You memorize and memorize, giving the brain a workout, over and over until you are bored silly?  Then all of a sudden, there you are at the math test and a lightbulb goes off you realize you have access to a whole new level of information?

Its almost like walking through life with your head facing down, and then you look up, and you’re in an entirely different place?  Like a quantum leap of sorts… Well, that happened to me recently and I wanted to share.

Some may know that I’ve been training in tai chi/kung-fu going on 2 years now. It’s one of those things that I’ve come to truly love and look forward to like nothing else.  The gym never worked for me, I’m not a big fan of exercising in groups, I prefer private lessons.  Of course, the budget doesn’t allow for alot of those, but my one indulgence is this art.

Even pilates grew tiresome and eventually didn’t fit into my schedule.  There’s something about martial arts that taps into a deeper part of my soul.  But it’s not all roses, there are some weeks when I feel like I’m doing the same thing, over and over, and get annoyed.

It’s always those moments though, that have the greatest to offer in a sense of learning.   So the last 2 months or so we’ve been working on a series of forms to develop a “type” of energy or jing that does all this funky stuff.   I feel so incredible afterwards, so alive.  So, some of the basic training elements are simple – squats, punches, kicks, wax on, wax off type stuff.   You do it over and over.  And over and over.   But sometimes a class can be like sex without an orgasm (as my SIL used to say) – you do it over and over…and over and over and nothing…  but I digress…

But then, over the weekend I had one of those moments…I get the click-click-click, the sound of the tumblers in the lock all falling into place.  And I’m looking into a bigger world with greater understanding.

I was doing one of the forms we had been practicing, and I felt it, I felt the power that my sensei has been talking about.  Zing…Whoa….omg what was that?  Then it was just “there” like it was always there. But I had never felt it before, quite that way, until that moment in time.   I’m not going to describe “what” I was doing because it will be confusing to explain (one of these days I’ll get a video rolling)  but that isn’t really the point.

The point is that I’ve discovered I am living for these poingnant moments, to deepen my understanding, to rediscover something I already knew, and take those quantum leaps.  As it is with most things, its the transition points that give us all the leverage, and we just “exist” in the moments in between.

What about you? When was the last time you had a moment like this?  Would love to hear about it.

Until next time…