The Potty Chronicles

Sage used her training potty a couple of months ago but for some reason I immediately put her back into diapers.  Maybe I wasn't ready to make the transition yet?  I don't know.  Today was the day, apparently.  Four successful trips to the potty, no accidents.  She pulled up her panties herself.  She sort-of wiped properly.  The confidence she gained from doing these things on her own!  Suddenly she seemed taller and less like a baby, more like a grownup.  No!  Please slow down, my child.  I want to savor every moment...

Tomorrow we will do pretty much the same as today: drink lots of liquids, wear panties without diapers and make frequent trips to the potty; wear diaper during naptime and bedtime.  Same on Saturday, and then maybe Sunday or Monday we will try sleeping without diapers.  Maybe.

What Your Home Says

Your home reveals your true personality.  From your choice of curtains or blinds -- or the absence of them -- to flooring, you tell visitors to your home precisely who you are, where you have been and where you are right now in your life.  I read this a couple of days ago and thought I would take an honest assessment of my home.  Here in astonishing and embarrassing detail is what I discovered:

1.  Books are the gold-standard around here, because we hold on to these little dust-collectors FOREVER.  Even if they have already been read and are not worthy of a second read.  Shelf space -- what's that?  Oh, just put the overflow of books on the floor...over there...next to the gigantic furniture that's entirely too big for our living space.

2.  Our furniture is entirely too big for our living space.  With some creative staging, it's at least livable.  But still a pain to manage.

3.  Our furniture reflects another person's personality, not ours.  Everything in the living and dining rooms came from David's father's house.  It all matches and is exquisite, but it definitely is too big and too nice for us 'natural' people.

4.  We are too natural.  What's a little sand on the floor?  Or countertops?  Or barstools?  I feel bad when I see sandy footprints on the rug.  But not bad enough to sprint to retrieve the vacuum and clean it up RIGHT NOW.  Later, later.  Adventures first (see previous post.)

5.  Adventures always come first, home management is pretty low on the list of priorities.

6.  Our adventures are represented by books (see #1), photos and small mementos from friends.  Friends' art, or my cherished Don Quixote wood bookends, or my rock collection.  Plants, books about plants, PHOTOS galore of plants.  Photos of Sage or stuff to put into her baby book ABOUND.  She really is the boss around here.

6.  Anybody reading this will wonder if my house is sanitary.  It is!  It's clean!  Sort-of.  Mostly.  It's just disorganized...and cleaning requires moving stuff from one place to another...argh, I'm getting dizzy just typing about the ordeal.

And we have curtains.  But we still have not put them up.  Every day, another exciting adventure supplants my desire to feel planted.

Remember me?  The woman who preaches about simplifying your life?  Well, lately I've been away from this blog because I was too busy complicating mine.  Not because I wanted to, mind you.  Circumstances were that I had to, in order to make things simpler in the long run for me and my family.

OK, enough of the cryptic-speak.  Here's what's been going on...

Our business (http://www.nativedave.com) began in Plano, a suburb of Dallas.  Then we moved to Corpus Christi.  Then the economy took a header and nearly 'disappeared' our business.  Then interest in our services picked up.  Then David had to travel to Dallas almost every week to meet with clients and to attend to family affairs.  So now, here we sit, catching our breath, catching up on designs, trying to catch up on housework (did some super strain of mosquitoes invade our home and pull out every single book and toy while we were away???)  No amount of coffee could give me the energy to tackle this insurmountable chore...believe me, I'm testing this theory.  Daily.  The living room alone makes me tired just looking at it...

So with all this trekking back-and-forth, I've had plenty of time to think about my life now, where I've been and where I want to go next.  In a nutshell, I need less stuff and less space so I can have more time for more adventures.  By adventures I mean going places, sure, but more than that.  I want new and different experiences with new and old friends alike.  Like surfing.  A new friend surfs, her husband surfs, and she's invited us to join them for a surf day.  Or like finally FINALLY writing at least one of the kabillion books I've worked up in my creative brain over the years.  An old friend reconnected with me on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com) recently.  She is a published author now!  And working on her fourth novel!  I'm so happy for her...and inspired.  I don't know if other creative people feel this way, but in order to put myself out there, I need uncluttered, somewhat clean space.  All the stuff mucks up my brain and distracts me from my thoughts.

It's not Sage's toys or books.  It's the totality of too much stuff for our home.  It's the disorganization of stuff that, when organized, surprisingly has several "identical twins."  (Really?  How many hammers do we need???)  It's the piles of clothing that nobody wears, nobody has time to donate to a thrift shop or women's shelter.  It's the working hard to afford a house big enough to store a bunch of stuff.  I don't want my life to be ruled or defined by stuff (or constant, obsessive cleaning of stuff!!!!)  Ha ha.

My future life will contain much less stuff.  And will be more mobile.  And there will be chocolate -- oh yes -- lots and lots of chocolate for everyone.

Earth Day Month

Every year, my entire world stops during the month of April.  It's the month of Earth Day, my mom's birthday, David's mom's birthday, and our anniversary.  We book a gazillion events and presentations because THIS is when most people are thinking about making ecological and economic changes to their life and landscape.  I'll probably write more this week (spotty posts, I assume) and should return to regular posts the first week of May.

Celebrate life, y'all.  It's too precious to take for granted.

I don't know

The past few days my Facebook status updates have deviated from my usual "oh it's a great day to run on the beach."  Lately, they read  more like self-help maxims than snippets of my daily routine.  I didn't intend to run into Jack Handy.  Something else is guiding me...my inner writer's voice, perhaps?  She is whispering to my fingers, and for the first time in my life I'm not resisting, not ignoring my muse.  Gab on, sistah.

Jitters

Well, it's happened. I posted this URL on Facebook. No longer will this be a place just for me or family...now all my friends, acquaintances and business contacts know about my secret hiding place. LOL. It's a good thing. Scary but good. Intimidating yet not overwhelming. Revealing my deepest thoughts frightens me. It exposes my vulnerabilities. But if I'm to become a better writer I need to put myself out there.
Brace yourselves.

Your Best

I love to learn new things.  I especially love learning ways to be a better Me.  Whether it's innovations in nutrition or fitness that help me be healthier, or ground-breaking technologies that help me be more eco-focused, I am compelled to strive toward higher standards.  But let me be clear: I'm not pursuing perfection.  I'm human, a spiritual being who intends to do the right thing in every situation.  Still, I get angry.  I have blah days.  Sometimes I feel insecure about my appearance or my relationships or the fact I've not achieved my goals as a writer.  Most days I feel great about me, though.  I know my heart is filled with love and authenticity, my mind strong, my body healthy.  I'm not perfect, nor do I want to be.

Perfection is unattainable and I'm not interested in spinning my wheels trying to achieve something that is not even possible.  Waste of my precious moments!  It isn't that perfection is difficult...it's IMPOSSIBLE.  Not just for me, for everyone.  Because THERE IS NO SUCH THING as a perfect human being.  We have emotions and lapses in judgment, and thereby are incapable of being perfect...consistent...robotic.  I'm always up for a good challenge, but not a physical impossibility.  Striving toward perfection would be as sensible as striving toward being 21-years-old again.  (Not that I actually want to go back to that period of my life, but you get my point...I hope.  :-)

What I really want, is to feel my best, to do my best, to give my best...to be my best.  I want to be as healthy as I can be on every level.  As a mommy, a wife, a writer, an entrepreneur, I work really hard.  I want to be the best I can be at every role.  Not better than you or her or him, the best Me I can be.  I nurture others so they can feel, do, give and become their best.  If I'm my best, and I encourage the people around me to be their best, then I'm doing my part to make the world -- and my life! -- a better place.  My best and your best -- not perfection -- is always good enough.