Category Archives: On My Mind

Words to Live By

A new year, a new beginning, blah blah blah. Really, 2015 feels no different so far than 2014, and I don’t plan on making any resolutions, but I do have a few goals for the year. I’ve seen other people choose words as a theme for their year, but instead I thought I might choose a good quote for the year. However, I had a really hard time choosing and narrowing one down. Making decisions is my least favorite thing. So, instead I’m going to share the list that will serve as the inspiration for my 2015, and there is a theme at the very least. I want to make this year a great year. I want to read more, I want to laugh more, I want to be mindful of the present and I want to make it all count. Good and bad, I want to experience my life rather than just hurrying through the days.

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
― Albert Einstein

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“Where there is love there is life.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it’s yours.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Life is to be enjoyed, not endured”
― Gordon B. Hinckley

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”
― E.E. Cummings

“The past has no power over the present moment.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always … so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Looks like someone has a case of the Mondays.

I won’t lie, it was a very long weekend and what we were hoping was going to be glorious, spontaneous and exciting ended up being slightly painful at times. I’ll post some pictures later, but apparently our timing was off. Phoebe had a cold, which made her cranky and tired and Enzo… Enzo was being the epitome of a 2 year old. Not listening at all, being incredibly sassy and overly crazy, and had one of those fun embarrassing meltdowns in front of dozens of other parents and well-behaved children. Needless to say, Monday morning couldn’t come soon enough. Also, taking antihistamines always makes me feel groggy anyway, but for some reason I’ve been randomly breaking out in hives for a couple of weeks. My doctor said to try antihistamines for a week and to wait and see if whatever it is will work it’s way out of my system, but apparently it’s time for an allergist. Woohoo!

Hard to believe those baby blues could ever be anything but charming, right? HA! I’m sure it’s just the age, and something we’ll get through. He really can be sweet and charming when he wants to be, but he can also be so incredibly stubborn at times. The second mattress cover arrived, so we’ll be taking away pull ups at bedtime, and I’m sure he’ll rebel in the beginning as he’s been rebelling every morning when we say it’s time to change into undies again.

I get it, I’m sure it’s a control thing and right now while we think we’re giving him some control in being able to go potty by himself, he’s probably viewing it as something we’re forcing him to do. Never mind the treats and stickers and prizes he’s earned for potty victories… nope. This morning he said he didn’t want any of them, but we’ve made it this far, so there’s no way we’re going back to diapers. I really think it’s just a matter of being inconvenienced by having to stop playing for a few minutes that he doesn’t like.

Oh, these tricky toddlers. They can make you want to pull out your hair one minute and then do something incredibly sweet the next. This weekend wasn’t one of our finest parenting moments – we both lost our tempers more than once, especially after a certain someone slammed his sister’s fingers in a drawer after being told several times to stop playing with said drawers. Was there a full moon or something I wasn’t aware of because man alive, he’s never been this naughty before. Okay, vent/rant over. Seriously, though… parenting is hard sometimes, and I’n not going to pretend it isn’t.

Be that as it may, he’s my little terror, and I wouldn’t trade him for the world.

Randomness and thoughts on self-sabotage

Much like this post, we are random sort of people. It’s good that the kids fit in so well, although I imagine when they’re older they will look at us with confusion, but also that look that teenagers give their parents when their parents are being… parents. They’ll roll their eyes and give us pitying looks, their poor ridiculous parents. And then I’ll have to remind them that once they thought we were pretty cool.

I know, I know, this post has zero direction to it, much like our lives at times. We have plans for the future, but in all honesty they’re a bit foggy. We sometimes plan for the weekend, but more often than not, we just wait and see. There is a lot of waiting and seeing. I like to think we’re living in the moment, but I’m not sure that’s exactly what it is.

Perhaps I should finally finish reading that books I picked up so long ago… Face the Fear and Do It Anyway. Uncertainty scares me and rather than actually living in the moment, I kind of put a bubble around myself. Rather than seeing endless possibilities as a great thing, I see it as a frightening prospect, even if I’m not entirely happy with how things are at the moment, in which case I should change things, but change can be unnerving. It’s a really silly thing.

I think what I need to do is set realistic goals and not subconsciously sabotage them, which I’m really good at doing. I couldn’t figure out why suddenly I was having trouble sticking to a budget, and ultimately, I’ve figured it out. If we save and meet our goals then there will be no excuse but to jump into the unknown, however, if the money isn’t there and other things don’t work out then nothing will change, which isn’t better, but it’s comfortable because I know it and exactly what to expect.

So, no more excuses. Time to actually set some dates on some goals and put forth real effort to make them happen. Every time I see Enzo struggle with change, I am reminded of how hard I struggle with change, and I want to learn how to roll with it and show him how to do the same. I have to be a strong role model in these kids’ lives, which means I need to step out of my comfort zone and become a stronger person.

Are you having more?

There are days when the kids are just so cute/hilarious/awesome that I try to convince Josh that we should have at least a dozen more. Okay, that would be ridiculous, but how can we just stop at two when we make such cute babies? It would be a tragedy to stop now!

Girl hormones will tell you crazy things and make you completely forget all of the sleepless nights, the pain of childbirth, the fact that your body is totally different then pre-children. Admittedly we did go back and forth over having a third for a while… but ultimately have decided that two is a good number for a variety of reasons.

Let’s be honest, kids are expensive and having three kids in day care made us both cringe, and I don’t know that I’m the type to be a stay-at-home mom. Plus, we wouldn’t wait until Enzo was old enough to leave day care/pre-school because that would mean we’d be that much older and that would be a fairly big gap (to us) between Phoebe and a potential third baby.

We also thought about travel and the fact that right now while our cars don’t have a lot of space, at least we aren’t being forced to buy a bigger vehicle. One day we will because we have lots of plans to go on road trips, and it would be nice to have extra seating, but for now I really like my car and would like to keep it for a while longer.

Ultimately, we looked at our ages, and while we aren’t old by any means, Josh will be 50 and I’ll be almost there when Enzo graduates from high school. We have plans to have a life once the kids graduate and go out on their own, and we want to still feel fairly young when that time comes.

Sure there are days when a little part of me taps on my shoulder and tries to convince me that we shouldn’t stop, that I’m not ready to stop, but this was always our dream… since before we were married. We talked about having a boy and then a girl, and that’s exactly how it worked out, so I’d say our family is complete. As Phoebe gets older and more independent, I treasure these lingering days where I still get to feed her a bottle and snuggle her before bed, but definitely get excited as she gets closer to being done with bottles entirely.

While I wanted to keep them babies for as long as possible, now I love watching these new toddler milestones happen as Enzo gets older. He has such a great imagination already and he also knows exactly how to break me – I can only resist the dimples and whispered “Please” so many times before I cave. Yep, I’m ready to be the mama of a toddler and a preschooler – I’ll leave the babies to someone else.

Friday Funday!

Today is my favorite kind of fall day. Driving to work it was overcast and the clouds had hints of not only grey, but bits of blue and gold. That combined with falling leaves and muted Fall colors made the morning seem very dramatic. Perfect for curling up with a thrilling book… preferably in front of a window with a lakeside view – might as well go big since I’m imagining this entire scenario.

Rather than links, how about an awesome picture of Phoebe that wins?

Happy Friday!

Dino and Bunnies

Every day adventures