Welcome to My Adult Self

 As I sit to write I can see the sunrise out my living room window. The field across the way has frost on the grass and the puddle is frozen. The sunrise is deep pink and the mountains have some snow on them and look dark blue. It is such a peace filled moment. I have been looking for the moments of wonder everywhere faithfully. This is one of them. I have been getting up at 7:30  each morning for a while now because that feels like a good idea. I don't exercise (yet) or eat breakfast or really do all that much but try to sit without people needing me. I hope to make this an earlier time soon and then add in exercise and devotion and other healthy rituals that I can extend into my later years. But I feel joy at the fact that I can pull my aching bones out of bed at 7:30. Self discipline is a gift that I have often cast aside. 

  Another friend send me a podcast about neuroplasticity and our brains and some ways to take control of anxiety and other negative patterns our brains may be wired into racing to and to reprogram into gratitude and positivity. I have not been following all the steps but looking for wonder and focussing on those moments is one of the steps to take. As I write it's been just a few moments and the sunrise is gone. There is just the palest pink left in the sky. The sky is quite white really and the day may be grey but that sunrise was such a stunning start for my eyes to begin with this morning. 

  I am so grateful for people in my life that encourage me and want me to be able to move forward. Lately I have had a few people that have been consistent in teaching me and sharing with me what they are learning and how it is transforming them. It inspires me so much. 

  Another friend had this life altering encounter with her adult self. She felt like she often viewed and lived life in an older teenager or young adult state and that was a hard place to operate out of. When she was able to welcome her adult self in everything felt so clear, so right, and good! It was such incredible to hear about this experience and I wish I could be brave enough to welcome my adult self in more often.

 There is so much to learn isn't there? So much to work through and to process in this life. God bless you as you go through it all. It's not easy but when you go through life looking at everything like a capable mature adult there is so much more you can do! It's a beautiful thing and I hope I can get there.

xo

  

Throwing the Apple Away

  Today I fished an apple core out from under my bed and threw it away.  My baby can run around now and there are apples all over the house. The apple had been there for days and was dried out. It was such a little thing ~ throwing the apple away ~ but no one else was going to do that. 

 Today I went out into the field as the sun was rising. The field was covered in a thick frost. Each individual blade of grass and clover had its own frosty dress. It was beautiful, and as the sun rose and slowly filled the field it was both cold and warm. The ground frozen but quickly softening. My son came out with me but then was distracted by a neighbour friend coming out to say hi as well. It was glorious to take a moment and hard to take a moment. My body always has pain now. I stretched and prayed.

  Today I took clothes from all over my daughter's house and put them in her washer then her dryer. I folded clothes, I washed floors and her toilet and mirror. I washed dishes and organized things. I made an apple crisp from her ageing apples. I put away the cloth diapers and hoped to bless her heart.

  Today I baked two chickens and made mashed potatoes, I nursed the baby each time she asked for 'nanas' and I read some new books to my five year old. I listened to my ten year old explain his made up video game that he has derived from a series of books he wrote. I listened to my eighteen year old explain about his fingerboards and techdecks. I put stamps on my daughter's Christmas cards and got them mailed. I picked up my daughter from basketball and saw her run laughing to the van her face alight with joy. I listened as my daughter told me about her baby's lip and tongue tie revision. 

 Today I felt and thought of the suffering of dear ones who are going through sickness, death and loss. I thought of the mourning and the motions and the aching of their souls. I wished the world was not such a dark hard place. I wondered what heaven would be like. My five year old and I talked about heaven. My notions of heaven are vague and hopeful. I want it to be a place where I feel like myself, and like I am so deeply loved, and where I am whole and worthy. I think that it will be so. 

 Today I ate chocolate ice cream and apple crisp and whipped cream and I ate rice cakes and soup with my children. I washed so many dishes, and kept people hydrated, and drank hot chocolate and thought about the inflammation that the sugar would bring to my body. I revelled in the golden light of the sunset that spread such filmy warmth over everything for just a small time.

 Today is now becoming tonight and my hands are dry and cracked. I spread moisturizer over the baby and she tried to steal a quick lick of it. She has such blue eyes right now.

 Life has so many stages ~ and they are all precious in their own way. I am so thankful for this time and for this day. My days are filled with picking up the apples and throwing them in the garbage. Of looking out the window or running out to the frost and sun, of giving the cats more food and water, of changing another dirty diaper, of reading aloud all the stories, of giving smiles when I can and making a cabbage poultice for a chest infection. My days are filled with service and love. Thankyou for it all.

xo

Wonder

  A friend mentioned to me that she wanted to see wonder more in her life and that got me thinking about it. Today it was everywhere. 

 Right now I have a one year old that is becoming her own person. She can't talk in sentences and just knows a few words and right now so much of her world has to do with me. It is such an honor I can't fully express the beauty of it. She just wants 'up' 'up' and she sees me in pictures on the walls and points me out. She wants me to snuggle her and put her new boots on her and take her everywhere and the absolute wonder of this love. I am so thankful to have gotten to experience it. 

 My five year old today told me that she was sorry she had said I was as horrible as Satan :) We were on a walk in the cold and dark. It had just stopped raining and I was carrying the baby and we were walking the dog. My five year old feels things so deeply and is able to express things articulately and recognize what she is going through. So we were talking about all sorts of sad happenings. She has celiac disease and that causes her so much sadness, we are rehoming our dog and that is breaking her heart ,and there are other things she needed to talk about. I was trying to tell her how beautifully she was expressing everything and working through it and she just welled up with tears saying that she felt so bad about some horrible things she had said about me in anger. We were just walking along in the dark and just had our wonder moment and it was the most precious.

 Myself and my oldest daughter and my two youngest daughters went to a store today and my oldest had her new born baby. My one year old was running away over and over as fast as she could :) So my oldest let her run while I kept the sleeping new born and picked out some clothes for my baby. My oldest was expressing thankfulness that she had not had to have a c section and felt so strong and able to manage the heavy one year old at just two weeks postpartum....that whole scenario? Wonder

 The rest of my family is away right now at a property that is so beautiful and full of snow. Where we live there is grey rainy days on repeat and no snow. Their joy at being there and being in the snow....You got it ~ Wonder

It's always there even in the darkest hours ~ the wonder. Yesterday I was having panic attacks and crying on repeat and wishing that I could pull it together ~ feel less~ be more etc etc and it was hard to be in that. Today I cleaned for hours and wished I was with my family and yet there was wonder all around me.

May there be wonder all around you and may you see it

xo