blessings - great and small

blessings are all around us - some are easy to see - a prime parking place, a baby's giggle, a gorgeous sunset, a perfect meal - and some you have to look to find.

today, i attended the funeral service of a little girl who attended Gymboree. she was adorable, the cutest pigtails you've ever seen and the most beautiful smile. i can't say i knew her well. they didn't come to class every week - but i do remember her - so sweet and so happy! i never knew she had medical problems most of her life and that she spent a lot of her short life at the hospital undergoing procedures and tests. you'd never have guessed that seeing her at Gymboree chasing bubbles, dancing, climbing, sliding, singing.

today's the kind of day it's easy to see blessings. they're everywhere. you see the world clearer on days like this. you recognize what really matters. sitting in that church today, filled to the walls with people honoring that precious girl's memory, it was crystal clear to me what life is all about.

it's about love. family and friends (our chosen family, really) and time spent with them. reaching out every chance you get to say "i love you" "you matter to me" "thank you for touching my life"

because although we all know this, we don't practice it near as much as we should - tomorrow is not guaranteed. (as i write this, the sun just broke through the clouds and is shining on the ocean brilliantly. i think ella is perhaps agreeing with me :) all we have for sure is this moment, right now. i only wish it didn't take events like this to make me remember how fragile life is - how precious each second is we're given.

but that's human nature i suppose - to get wrapped up in minutae that in the grand scheme makes no difference at all.

and so today, i would like to thank ella for reminding me of the blessings - great and small - all around me. and i want to send out love to all of you reading this - you have all touched my life in some way - and i am truly grateful for you.

may joy be in your heart today knowing you are loved - and please reach out to someone today and tell them you love them. we all need to say it more - and hear it - and mean it.

love, love, love,

tricia

pushing through

it's been a tough week. the voices inside can be deafening - and defeating. and exhausting. i'm tired of listening to them. i choose to push through the negative right now.

today i'm taking another step towards my dreams. towards shining my light out into the world even further. i'm - as they say - feeling the fear and doing it anyways. yes, it's a risk and there's a chance it won't work - but what if it does? what if i'm the best baby signs instructor the world has ever known? what if there are parents and babies out there needing to communicate and play and learn and i didn't do it?

so, here goes. i'll do my training next week and then start to market myself. and open up to all the possibilities. baby steps. moving forward - even if it's only by an inch.

so, today i am creating possibility for expanding my dream of helping parents and children communicate. i am creating new avenues for me to challenge myself. i am creating a more abundant life.

i am creating me!

alone time

i love being alone. too much i think. i have books and tv and the internet and a phone call to my mom every couple of days and work to keep me from being a complete hermit. but i often am amazed at the effort it still takes me sometimes to do every day things. interacting with people in any kind of social atmosphere that i'm at all unsure of or not familiar with is terrifying to me.

and yet, i interact with people all the time. i just make myself do it. and i keep thinking it will get easier. and i suppose, on one level, it does. but inside, i'm still that little girl who would get my little sister to go up to the counter and order the ice cream cone because i was too scared to do it myself.

being alone this week has brought back to me how comfortable i am with shutting out the outside world. it's not healthy for me, though. not physically or emotionally. it makes me sedentary and passive and lazy.

so, i picked up the phone and made that phone call i've been putting off this morning. with a little nudge from the universe. and it went beautifully. and with this new opportunity i will once again be forced to put myself out there. to speak to people about my passion and make connections and stretch beyond my limits.

thank you universe, for pushing me and thank you me for moving forward and not pushing back too hard.

Okay, I'm ready

I had a medium breakdown the last day or so. I say medium because I didn't completely lose myself, but it wasn't just a little crying jag because of pms, either. it was me, speaking the truth. which is still so hard for me. i, as so many of you, have spent a lot of my life trying not to rock the boat. saying everything's fine. making sure everyone's okay. which eventually led to me hiding - hiding things from others, but the worst of it was me trying to hide from myself. with food. with tv. with gambling. last year i did a good job facing those demons. with stepping into the light. but, as i said in my previous post, this journey isn't a straight line, a steady upward path toward health and wholeness.

it's a messy, twisting, glorious, challenging (there's that word again), road that gets dark sometimes. i'm proud of myself for yesterday though. the shadows surrounded me and i cried and panicked and beat myself up and took on waaaaay too much as my responsibility for about 24 hours or so - and then, i looked at what was really happening. so, we have some debt. we haven't been responsible with our financial health (they key word in that sentence is WE - i am not alone in this). now we know the real numbers and we can take steps to move toward that financial health. he's back to work now and i'm exploring other opportunities for my income. and that's it. it's not a death sentence. a cross i have to bear. it's one facet of our lives that we need to get healthy. and we will. one step at a time (with a couple of trips, stumbles and backwards steps along the way).

amazing what happens when you look at the truth as opposed to hiding things away. and breathing helps too - a lot.

i'm ready for the truth.

i'm ready to see what life has to offer me.

i'm ready for all the blessings coming my way.

thank you for all that 2009 has in store.

letting go of expectations

i'm always amazed at how quick i am to beat myself up for not living up to my own expectations. no matter how unrealistic they are. last year i committed to losing some weight. and i did (yay me!) - but it was a process, a up and down, back and forth, ebb and flow. some days i made healthy choices and some days i didn't. and i succeeded in the long run because i kept myself moving - yes, sometimes it was "backwards" movement, but i still kept moving.

as the years fly by and i get older and see more of the world and the fascinating people that live here the more i realize that life is made up of these crooked journeys and shades of grey. sometimes, i think about how much easier it would be if everything was labeled clearly - to get here you have to do this and this and this. to find a best friend you go here and ask for one. the people in the white hats are good, the people in the black hats are bad.

but then, the world would be a lot less interesting and colorful and challenging if that were the case. (although some days i long for less challenge :)

i was all filled with inspiration and ideas and lofty goals a week or so ago - and then a day passed, then two and then i thought, see - you're not gonna do this again. you say you're going to take pictures and blog and "create" but here you are letting day after day pass by and you didn't create a ding dang thing. oh, those old tapes are difficult to erase, aren't they??

the truth is though, i did create - i finished my vision boards!! and hung them up even, the healthy one on the fridge

and the other two in our bedroom where i see them every time i go to sleep and wake up

and i've been taking my camera with me all over the place, to work, to the farmers' market, on walks. i finally organized our bedroom some - got some clothes together to donate, put away all the christmas stuff, sent off some stuff in the mail i've been meaning to do forever.

so, i am creating - take that, inner critic!!

i'm not posting every day, or taking photos every day - but i'm keeping myself moving. i even started that list of 100 things i love about me - i'm only on 25 but hey, if i do 25 things every couple of weeks, i'll be to 100 in about 2 months and that's further ahead than i was three months ago, right?? ;)

wishing you all a creative day today and remember to congratulate yourself for what you are getting done and not spend so much time beating yourself up for what you're not getting done.

2009 - My Year to Create

don't you love the possibility of a brand new year? so much to look forward to, to anticipate, to promise yourself, to begin. i have lots of projects, lists, things, ideas, dreams i've been putting off because the time wasn't right, or i didn't have enough money, or i didn't have the right body type, or i was just plain scared to start something else and not finish. well, today, this first day of january 2009 i'm giving myself permission to begin as many things as i can - and to finish them if possible of course - but it's really about giving myself the okay to just GO! start, dive in, stop waiting. the perfect time will never be here. and in the meantime life just keeps whizzing by.

a precious soul, brandi, http://lovingtheexperiment.blogspot.com/ clued me in to a blog by Christine Kane www.ChristineKane.com/blog. i love this idea and have chosen my word for the year~

C R E A T E

there are an infinite list of things i'd like to create more of in my life. from photography projects to more time spent with friends/family to daily blog entries to more wealth in my life (both financially and spiritually) and on and on. i'm so excited about this word, this year.

today, i have started several new projects - a photo gratitude journal, a series of vision boards (see photo above), this blog entry - and there are 3 lists for sure that i know i will be working on today - 100 things i love about me, 100 things i want to do before i die and doug and i are going to create a list of 12 things we'd like to do this year together - 1 outing for every month. i'd love to hear what word you'd like to focus on this year and/or if you have anything you've been putting off creating that you could start right now - i hereby give you the permission to begin!

hooray for creating - i can't wait to see what happens!!!