And That's How I Know It's Going to Be a Good Year

I decided last week that 2015 is going to be a good year. I had no proof, and no particular basis for that decision. It was just one of those things that popped into my head, and I decided to go with it.

And although technically the new year started almost a week ago, it didn't actually feel like the new year until yesterday. My husband was back to work, my kids were back to school, and I could settle back in to my routine of normal life. (Or, at least, "normal" life.)

It was lovely. The house was quiet. Things actually stayed clean and put away after I cleaned them and put them away. I got to go grocery shopping by myself. And I got to catch up on the two issues of Entertainment Weekly that had been sitting neglected on my side table. Like I said... lovely.

But there were two other very specific things that happened yesterday, and I decided to let them set the tone for the year.

First, I decided to step on the scales. I had been purposely avoiding that over the holidays. Because calories don't count if you don't think about them. And I knew I wasn't going to do anything about it until after the holidays anyway, so I decided that ignorance was bliss. So of course I got on the scales expecting the worst, and thinking about how much I was going to have to work to take off the extra holiday pounds.

Only... there weren't any extra holiday pounds. In fact, there were 4 pounds fewer than there had been at the beginning of December. I don't know how that happened, but I'll take it. And I'll appreciate it for the awesome way to start a year that it is.

The second thing that happened was at the end of the blissfully quiet trip to the grocery store that I mentioned. I decided to restock my fridge, and picked up a case of Redd's Strawberry Ale (because it's delicious. Trust me. You should totally try it.) Being well past the age of legally purchasing alcohol, I didn't think anything of it. Until the cashier asked for my ID.

I said "really?!" And she said "yeah!" And then she actually looked at it before approving the sale. And I know, some places require ID before any alcohol sales. (But I've been there many times, and they don't.) And I know that some cashiers always make it a habit to card everyone, regardless of their age. But I'm going to choose to believe that she really needed to see my ID because she thought I looked kind of young. Because being almost 37 and having to prove that you're over 21 will make you feel good. Every. Time.

So here's to a fantastic year, my friends. I hope yours is off to as great of a start as mine is.

The Return of LML Monday

Those of you who have been with me for a while might recall a thing I started a couple of years ago about wanting to see more LML (love my life) in the world, and less FML. (You know what that one means.) If you haven't read it, please go check it out.

Not long after the idea for LML, the idea for LML Monday came along. In a nutshell, it was all about focusing on life's little happy moments, finding reasons to smile, and trying to make Mondays suck a little bit less. If you haven't read that one either, please check it out too.

Sadly, LML Monday kind of died late last year. I lost momentum. It fizzled out. Things happened. More stuff happened. It wasn't that I stopped seeing the LML moments. They just never made it to the screen. And that always kind of made me sad, but I never did anything about it. Until now.

As I mentioned last week, I'm kind of at a point of new beginnings right now. (Or at least I'm trying to be.) So in keeping with that, I thought I'd try the revival of LML Monday that I've wanted to see for a long time. Join me, won't you? Let's see where it takes us. :)

I'll leave you with this, as we start the week...

A New Beginning. Again.

If you've followed this blog at all over the years, you know that I've had my fair share of stops and starts. There are always several factors involved each time, but the end result is that I just stop writing for a while. And then eventually I start again. And stop again. And... you get the idea.

That's just the way things go sometimes, and I've learned to accept it. And each time it happens I do my best to make it a learning experience, and be happy with the opportunity for personal growth. Because as frustrating as it might get sometimes, there will always a bright side. You know that.

So I take the time that I need, and I work through it, and then I start again. Because that's what you do when life gets you down.

And so that's what I decided to do. Again.

As I sat down last week and started thinking about writing again, it occurred to me that it had been a while since I had checked in with ABC Wednesday, and I wondered where they were in the current round. Of course (because that's just always the way things seem to work out) it turned out that the new round was about to start. Perfect! So I decided to take it as a sign that I was meant to participate. :)

I don't know if I'll finish the round this time, any more than I know if I'll stick with any of my current plans. But there's a reason that the "get back on the horse" cliche exists. You have to do it. Usually several times. So here I stand, back on the horse, trying to be brave.

On a related note, if you find yourself curious about why this happens from time to time (or just want to know something a little more personal about me) be sure to come back next Wednesday. We'll find out together if I'm really as brave as I think I might be.


*****

Want to read some other awesome "A" posts from this round? Be sure to check out ABC Wednesday.

When the Refrigerator Dies

I have to be honest with you guys. At times it is super-easy for me to find the bright side of the situation. Other times... not so much. Yes, I eventually always get there. It just takes a little more work during those more interesting times. Like last night, for example.

Our fridge has been doing this thing for a while where the freezer section frosts over and the fridge part starts losing its ability to stay completely cold. So we have to scrape out the ice (which oddly is not as much fun as it sounds) and wait for things to cool back down.

Up until now it's been a relatively minor inconvenience, and has yet to outweigh the major inconvenience and expense of having someone come out and fix it, so we've just been dealing with it. But this time it got worse. This time, despite our best ice-scraping efforts, things did not cool back down right away.

It didn't take long before the reality of un-refrigerated food set in. I got frustrated. I got a little sad. I got a little angry. Then I got over it, and set about the task of cleaning out the fridge. Sometimes all you can do is suck it up and deal, after all. No use crying over spoiled milk, right?

Anyone who has ever done it knows how much fun cleaning out the fridge isn't. And cleaning it out because it isn't cold any more and all of your food is now in various stages of spoilage is even less fun. (Do you want to know what happens to a brand new tub of cottage cheese when the fridge goes out? I didn't want to either, but unfortunately now I do. ... Best not to think too much about it.)

So after I put the kids to bed last night I got to spend a little time bonding with my garbage disposal. (I'm pretty sure the disposal enjoyed it more than I did.) And as I got through the more obvious stuff that had to go, I realized how long it had been since I had really examined the things that live on the back shelves.

You know those things. Like the almost-empty jar of pickle relish. And the almost-empty jar of salsa. And the jar of mayonnaise that you don't remember buying, or even understand why you did, because nobody in the house is ever going to eat it. Why are those things still in there?

Yeah, I know why they're still there. And it's only partly because we're all too lazy to clean our our fridge until we absolutely have to. It's also because we don't like letting go. (I wrote about this idea once before, as you may recall. But apparently the Universe thought I needed another reminder, because here we are again.)

So as I cleared away all the things that had no more purpose in my fridge (no more stupid jar of mayonnaise!) I realized how good it felt to be tossing away the unneeded clutter. Not only was it incredibly liberating, but it also helped me to better see the things that I could use, but hadn't because they had been left hidden and unnoticed. (Hello BBQ sauce. Nice to see you again.)

And then I realized how much unneeded clutter I've had in my head lately, and how much I really need to let it go, for the sake of my sanity (and that of the people around me.) I might have to live with the chronic pain, but I don't have to hold on to the negative emotions that spring up around it. Those are really hard to let go of sometimes, but I have to try.

So thank you, broken refrigerator, for making me clear away some unnecessary garbage, and for reminding me about an important part of life.

Bittersweet Moments

When you're a parent, you live your life for your kids. You care for them. You teach them. You help them develop into the people that they are going to be. Some of your proudest moments are when you see your kids accomplish something new on their own. 

But those are also some of your saddest moments. It means that your babies aren't babies any more. It means that they're one step closer to independence. It reminds you that they are growing up, and that one day they will fly away.

It happens much too quickly, too. One day they're babies...

You blink once, and see how much they've grown...

And then before you know it, your babies have been replaced by these wonderful little people. You're proud of who they have become, but at the same time you marvel at how quickly it flew by.

My little people have recently entered a new phase of their lives, and I'm handling it about like you'd expect. 

Our "morning routine" changed this week. In the past, they would always wake up before me in the morning and either play or watch cartoons until I told them it was time to get ready for school.

But this past Monday they surprised me. This time when they came into my room a few minutes before my alarm was set to go off, not only were they already completely dressed (shoes and all) but they had already brushed their teeth too. No more help needed with the toothpaste or shoelaces, it would seem. 

They still needed a little bit of help with their hair, and they needed me to get their vitamins (because the lids are child-proof, but also because "we know we're not supposed to touch those on our own.") 

So I still got to feel a little bit useful. But I still recognized the moment, and what it represented. And as proud as I was of their growing independence, my heart still ached just a little bit.

Reclaiming Power Over My Pain

Despite how much it hurt getting out of bed this morning, and how difficult it was to walk all day, and the vice-like headache that's been squeezing my temples since early this afternoon... it's actually been a really good day.

For some time now (weeks, at least - maybe months?) I've been thinking about how I want to reevaluate my approach to pain control (and health in general.) But, for a number of reasons, I've been dragging my feet. I had some passing thoughts, and had begun a little research on a few fronts, but never really got my head in the game in any serious way.

But over the past couple of weeks, motivated in large part by the events of Pain Awareness Month and Invisible Illness Week, I've been starting to focus a little better. And I've come to realize that I've been somewhat less than proactive about my pain management for far too long.

I got into that routine that sometimes comes with a chronic illness. Your doctor visits become so mind-numbingly routine that you start to do whatever the doctor tells you without even really questioning it. Take this medication? Sure. Have these tests done? Okay. You want to try injecting something else into a different part of my body this time? Sounds great. It just goes on and on.

Then this morning I got the final push that I needed, and came to a firm, no-more-denying-it decision that I am going to take back the control over my health. I was mentally preparing for this afternoon's visit to my pain doctor, and thinking about the two main things that I had to report. 1) The latest set of injections that we tried (because "they might help") were, in fact, no help at all. Several hours and $80 worth of nothing. And 2) The pain killers that I'm on have started giving me headaches, and that needs to stop.

And then I had the epiphany. Why am I spending so much time and money for other people to do things that aren't working? Shouldn't I really start focusing my energy in a new direction?

This will be a process, of course. But I'm hoping that I can learn some new things that will actually change how I live with my illnesses, instead of just going through the motions like I've been doing for so long. It's not that I'm completely walking away from medical care or anything. I just really need to take a more holistic approach, and I need to be in charge.

Sometimes making the decision to change is the hardest part. And sometimes, once you make that decision, you just know that you're finally on the right track. This is definitely one of those times. And it feels great.

Some Other Beginning's End

One of my favorite songs in the late 90s was "Closing Time" by the band Semisonic. (Still is one of my favorites, now that I think about it.) It was just one of those songs that came out at the perfect time to really resonate with where I was in my life. I bet you probably have some songs like that too.

Closing time

One last call for alcohol, so finish your whiskey or beer

Closing time

You don't have to go home but you can't stay here

This song always comes to mind whenever something in my life comes to an end. And today marks the end of the current round of the Ultimate Blog Challenge, so of course it's been in my head all day. Today's the day when so many of us are wrapping up our final posts of the challenge, and trying to decide where we go from here.

There have been some conversations among bloggers over the past month about what we will all do when the challenge is over. How much has the daily blogging changed us? Will we keep up the habits we've developed through the challenge, or will we revert to our previous selves?

I have to say that my perspective as a blogger is much different than it was a year ago when I completed my first UBC. When that challenge ended, I lost so much of the motivation that I thought I had gained, and almost immediately slipped back into my very undisciplined sporadic blogging. I think I had kind of burned myself out, and just couldn't keep it going.

I can't say with completely certainty what will happen as I move forward, but I can say that my motivation is different now. And this time I feel like even though it's time to leave this particular part of my life, it doesn't mean that I just have to go back to where I used to be.

So gather up your jackets, move it to the exits

I hope you have found a friend

Community means a lot more to me than it did a month ago. I still haven't had as much time to get as involved as I would have liked, but I have gotten a lot more involved with other bloggers than I ever did before. I've discovered some great people, and some excellent blogs. And I've definitely found some friends.

Closing time

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

Endings can be (and often are) sad. Or scary. Or confusing. Or, at the very least, filled with uncertainty. But like I've said before, it's all about where we choose to put our focus. And if we accept that when one phase of our lives ends it usually just means that it's time for the next phase to begin, it can make things a little easier.

So what do you do when you come to an ending? Do you just "go home" to what's familiar, or do you look for something new? Did you make connections along the way, or did you keep to yourself and miss out on the rewards of new friendships? Do you focus on what's ending, or look ahead to what's beginning?

I for one am happy to be moving forward, and ready to see what new exciting challenges come next. I hope you are too. :)