You're my friend so much!

Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's Day ~ patron of love, young people, and happy marriages...
Who can not love this day!
The boys and I have happily cut out paper hearts and glued on sparkles for several hours. They are really excited for tomorrow. They know they will be handing out and receiving valentines. They each have a bag with their name on it to put their cards in.

They helped me to make valentines for their teachers too.


For Beren, his biggest challenge today was trying to understand why he couldn't eat the gummie bears that I bought for his class. I made 11 little bags and tied them with a blue hearts ribbon.

Spending this time with the boys is the best! Beren's Valentine's Day cards are 3-D dinosaur cards. They're cute! One of them is a triceratops and it reads "You're tops!"

Fenn's are Clone Wars, and he helped me write little notes to his classmates.
Here are a few of my faves...

Thomas - "I bet Thomas would love a jedi!"
Aiden - "You're the best bro ever!"
Kate - (we had to do 3 different cards for Kate until Fenn was happy.) "Kate is pretty."
Willow - "A really nice girl!"
Emma - "She teaches me how to gurgle right..."
Caleb - "You're the best cool dude ever!"
Carter - "I loved your birthday party!"
Michaela - "You are so important!"
... and my personal favorite
Madison - "You're my friend so much!"

Bent-over...

What's my sandwich? Or rice or whatever. I'm back to these basic questions. I'm thinking about them abstractly b/c it makes it a little easier to deal with. The three things that take the biggest trays in the bento box are:

LOVE, CREATE, WORK

Love - I'm compelled to do this love thing. Sometimes recklessly, but always deeply and involuntarily.

Work - This is something I'm good at, whether painting a room, making a sandwich (sorry for bringing that up again), or working on computers. Point me in the right direction and I will go--sometimes not getting up from a computer for hours. Not that this is healthy. Work tends to bring me stability and joy. Someone else is steering the ship.

Create - I struggle with this one the most. I'm not sure it makes me happy, but for sure I can catch a buzz. When I'm not doing enough writing practice I find myself playing the violin, or snapping off a role of film at the backyard, or decorating a cake to look like a transformer.

When I become aware of how much I'm doing that is not actually writing, then I quit all these other things to focus once again on writing. Turning back to what I love the most (outside of family) takes all my energy and effort. Writing is a constant battle against a terrible voice that keeps nagging at me to stop. For me this is the worst sort of confrontation of lack of self-worth. I almost never experience this in my daily life. It's only when I dare to stretch out and write that I feel this way. Nearly every time.

And so to do writing practice is less pleasure than a deep need. Like water. Sometimes when I'm forcing myself to drink more water, I remember something my sister once said, "Water sucks." I don't drink enough water like I don't do enough writing. And I suffer for it.

Get Bent-o!

So I literally have done nothing but think about this bento thing, where bento life = convenience life. That's what I am trying to distill all this into. I listed my priorities -

1) My children - love

2) Writing - creativity

3) Career - work

4) Health - mental and physical, inner being

5) Serene environment, outer being

6) Do something for others, give

7) Receive

8)

Is it possible to spend an hour on each of these things everyday? Is it possible to live in the moment without thinking about doing something else to take me out of that moment?

I have a friend whose life seems to be like this: she's a nurse (career), she paints watercolors to sell online (her art/creativity), she volunteers at an animal shelter (does for others), she has a family (love), and a beautiful home that she loves (outer being). She appears to be happy (inner being). She seems to be doing something right, which goes to show me I need to do more actually, rather than less, and that I need to focus my energy.

Ok, so...

1) Love -

This one is easy. My love for my boys is pure, whole, and life affirming. As a mom, I've realized that the decisions I make for them end up being healthy for myself as well. This "mom thing" is a good deal. It's essentially saved me. Helped to save me. I typically tend not to have healthy habits.

In the interest of caring for my boys I set my goal as this - 1 hour with them every day, just to hang. This won't be hard; I'm already doing this. As for romantic love? I'm not interested in working on this right now.

2) Create -

Make time for 1 hour a day to write. This I don't currently do. This is going to be a new practice. Practice. Practice. Love and practice. It seems odd that to be creative one is required to do something so banal as practice.

3) Career / Work -

I spend so much time at work. With this one I need to scale it back and not let it overtake my soul.

4) Inner being -

Going to start meditating twice a day everyday to help manage stress. At this turn, I honestly am aware of my stress level and need to destress as much as possible. Besides meditating, maybe spend a half hour a day trying to be aware of my inner self? I don't know how to do that, but in yoga there is a lot of talk about being present and concentrating on breathing. I will start with that.

Also, schedule all dr. appts and attend all. I usually keep up w/ this stuff.

5) Outer being -

I have said that my goal is to attain a calm environment. Spend 1 hour a day on achieving this through cleaning, organizing, etc. This is where tolerations come into play. Cleanliness is a type of wealth, so sayeth Suze Orman. And I agree with her.

6) Give -

I am voting to help the Rett girls. Last month I helped the Cure JM group win $250K. I need to find a way to give a little more. I can spend half an hour a day on this... It means more than giving a dollar to the guy on the corner. And I always feel bad if I don't have a dollar when someone asks for one. No, this giving needs to be in person. I need to be physically present. Present yourself to become present and your presence becomes a present. Whatever.

7) Receive -

I wrote this one b/c if you give, you must also receive - opportunities, love, good will. This one means being open. There is goodness to be had.

8) _______________ -

There must be an 8th. Eight is my lucky number (along with three) and there cannot be only seven, which is my most inauspicious number. I will figure out 8 in time.