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Cultivating Through Grief

Life has plowed full-speed ahead this year, and it’s all I can do to hold on for the ride. So much death and change has marred my 2013, and my heart has broken for my family several times over. At the onset of the year, I had grandiose plans to unveil courses, workshops, consultation and coaching packages, and a revised sliding scale tutoring fee schedule. I wanted to ring in my big three-oh in style. I wanted to celebrate my happy occasions with my family. Instead, I’ve found myself attempting to cultivate my life worth loving under very tense circumstances. I’ve opted to take time away from my job to focus on that which matters most — family. It’s all about my family — as individuals and as a unit. And at the moment, I feel like we’ve been set back quite a bit. We need time for grieving. For loving. For simply living. It may hurt now. It may feel like an unpleasant, discomforting state of being. Yet I know that we are all going to come out on the other side as a stronger family. Our strife will pave the way for stronger bonds and lots of love. Silly things like mortality and distance may mock us at the moment, but we will continue to cultivate thriving lives. I refuse to allow 2013 to break my spirit. I worked too hard for the last quarter of 2012 to prepare for 2013 — my determination to cultivate a lovely life for my family will only strengthen. I know that one day my children will be in their father’s shoes, and I want them to know that their parents were loving, caring individuals who did everything in their power to provide for them, teach them right from wrong, and instill good values in them. I want them to pass along the value of cultivating a life worth loving, even when life doesn’t feel worth loving. Life is always worth loving,

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#ThankfulThursday #LiveTheList Challenge

 

You may recall I decided to participate in Nicki’s Live the List Challenge. Here’s the list, with our completed aspirations crossed off:

  • Have a picnic at Crawfish Springs
  • Take a day-trip to Atlanta
  • Go to AWA (Anime Weekend Atlanta)
  • Go bowling
  • Move into our own place
  • Fix the van (Mind you, part of it was forced)
  • Work towards getting Meredith a license to drive
  • Visit Florida
  • Explore Chattanooga
  • Get White Castle (NOT the freezer aisle stuff)
  • Go to the mall in Chattanooga
  • Hold a Cultivate 2012 conference
  • Pay down our debt
  • Transfer some or all credit card debt to a 0% introductory APR card
  • Make Electrate Editorials a viable business
  • Go to the moves as a family and/ or as a couple
  • Find a local place that sells orange blossom honey
  • Test out local pizzerias
  • Try Choo Choo BBQ
  • Go to One-Eleven
  • Make muffins with Tati
  • Teach Rob how to cook
  • Rob wants to learn how to hit two baseballs with one bat
  • Teach Tati how to jump rope
  • Take the kids to a baseball game
  • Potty train Brian Jr.

It doesn’t look like much, but it was a fun year — and we still have an entire month left in 2012 to accomplish more goals. Whatever we don’t get to this year will be added to next year’s list. We definitely want to keep trying to live up to Nicki’s challenge, and we were very grateful to cross off wishes on our list.

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#ThankfulThursday Happy #Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my U.S. readers! Today’s the set day in our country for which we sit down with family and friends over big meals to give thanks for all that we have. My family celebrated on Tuesday because I was scheduled to work today, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still going to observe the tradition of thankfulness on this day celebrating gratitude. Here’s a list of all the things I’m thankful for this year:

  • We have our very own place to call our own, with our very own kitchen that we don’t have to share with anyone else.
  • I’m still employed and helping my family regain our financial foundation.
  • Our van still works and provides us the mobility to get from Point A to all our other points in life.
  • My children are more than spoiled by relatives — they have much to be thankful for (and to clean up).
  • We’re enjoying four seasons.
  • My community loves and supports us.

May your Thanksgiving (or ordinary Thankful Thursday) be a day of appreciation and gratitude!

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#Reverb11: Photo

Photo (Written by Tracey Clark): Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.

Well, this isn’t exactly a “good” picture of me, but I didn’t feel like I took “good” pictures this year. The battle of the bulge has been rather troublesome this year, but this picture captures my essence. My husband took this earlier this year when we were enjoying a meal of baked ziti, salad, and Italian bread at the table. That door is the door — the separation that maintains our privacy. On the surface, this picture shows that I’m a married mother who really doesn’t mind a messy baby. He was eating — you want me to aggravate him between bites to wipe up the drool and crumbs? There’s no shame in wearing your food well. If you want to go a little deeper, this picture shows you exactly who I am and who I strive to be. I’m the mother who values quality family time around the table — and a good meal. I want to enjoy as many of these moments as possible. I want to nourish my family with love, good food, and strong values. And most of all, I want to be able to dictate when and how often we enjoy these meals. Not some schedule. Not some work stashed in a brief case (or in my case, a messenger bag). Me. Strong-willed little me. They’re growing up so fast, and I want to experience it.

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Reverb 10: 5 Minutes

Prompt: 5 minutes. Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010.

Okay, so I may have cheated a bit — 5 minutes to write a post seemed grossly inadequate, though. In the same vein, I also don’t intend to fully share the memories I jotted down in my allotted 5 minute time frame. For the most part, I came up with a lot of family memories that I would like to remember for as long as possible. Birthdays, holidays, family gatherings — the typical. I already discussed my youngest’s first birthday.

This year’s Halloween wasn’t too shabby, actually. For the past few years, we haven’t had really good pickings when taking our kids door-to-door. People are either not home, don’t have candy, or pretend not to be home (yeah, be thankful I’m not teaching my kids about the trick part of “trick-or-treating”). As for our candy dish, we usually get left with a ridiculous amount of candy — and I like handing out candy I enjoy. You can guess what usually happens to our leftover candy stash. This year? We had a boatload of trick-or-treaters. Now mind you, I had quite a few who didn’t even bother to put on a costume, but the novelty of it earned them handfuls of candy. I was overjoyed to hand out most of my candy stash. The kids had a great time, too. Per our usual Halloween celebrations, we ate some “dirt cups” (crushed oreos, chocolate pudding, gummy worms) and other “ghoulish” treats. Our little baby “Yoda” had a blast celebrating his first Halloween, too.

As for the rest of the memories I’ve chosen, know that these are memories that remind me that my life is enriched by wonderful people. Situations might seem dismal, but it’s the people in our lives who make it worth living through. As for my input on the halfway point of Reverb 10? I’m noticing recurring themes of time, family, silver linings, gratitude, opportunity, and dreaming big.

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