January 31, 2016-Working on those New Year’s Resolutions!

This week I’ve actually been fairly productive on taking action toward those New Year’s Resolutions I wrote about in my first entry for 2016.  Here’s the steps I took toward successfully meeting my goals for the year so far:

2. Join that running club I talked about last year or get involved in some other sort of social activity (a book club at the library, perhaps) or a yoga or art class. 

I haven’t joined a running club, but I did attend a Hot Yoga class twice this week. It’s something I’ve been wanting to try, so I went for the introductory week long special and attended two different sessions. It’s was quite an experience. I’m not sure if I will continue or not, but I did enjoy it and am glad I tried it. Because I ventured out for that class, I am now ready to try out some others in the community.  I’ve done some further research and this week, I would like to attend a Zumba class and a more traditional yoga class at another local studio.  I know I will eventually find that class that I can most connect with since I have gotten the hard part out of the way and taken the first step of visiting and researching some local classes already.

4. Find and commit to that service opportunity in the community that I talked about at the beginning of last year and still have not accomplished. 

 I looked further into the Big Brothers Big Sisters as well as the Court Appointed Special Advocate volunteer positions and felt as I have the last 1 ½ years of living here…it’s not what I am called to do right now. I just couldn’t figure out why until I took that step to actually sign up for it and also spoke to my husband about it.  Here’s where I’m at right now. I have a 12 year old who I need to focus on and being a Big Sister to a young girl in need or an advocate for a child in difficult circumstances would be too much of an emotional and time investment that would take away from my immediate family needs at this time in my life. I know myself, and if I volunteered for one of these positions, I would want to give it 110%, so either the children I was volunteering for would not get what they needed from me because of my family OR my family would suffer.  So, I went back to the drawing board, to a website I find in my first few months of living here called VolunteerMatch.org. And low and behold, I found an opportunity I haven’t come across previously that I knew immediately was perfect for me and for my family. It’s an organization called the Sound South Children’s Reading Foundation, and there are opportunities for me to read and do crafts with children at day cares and/or libraries in the area (children who might not normally be read to for 20 minutes a day or exposed to literacy at an early age) as well as opportunities for my son and I to help sort and sticker books at their warehouse or deliver books to some of the organizations where they stock them for family literacy programming.  I couldn’t believe how perfect this was for me, so I have already been in touch with their volunteer coordinator, and I am waiting to receive an application from them so I can get started. I am hoping it will become a service opportunity I can really sink my teeth into and use my experience in this area to help them whenever and wherever their greatest need lies at the moment. 

In addition to this, I also took another tip from Toni Birdsong’s “More than a Bucket List” book and decided to sponsor a child financially through the Compassion Organization. I chose a child from Indonesia who has the same birthday as me. I chose Indonesia because my trip to Bali several years ago was such a blessing to me, spiritually and otherwise, and I wanted to touch a family in that country as much as their people and culture spoke to me when I was there.  I chose a child who had my same birthday because I wanted not to ask for something for myself this year (as my birthday is coming up soon), but to give something to someone else, so it’s a birthday present both for the child I have chosen to sponsor and for myself. 

These two service opportunities give me the ability to still serve my family and my job effectively, but allow me to satisfy my need to make a difference in the world, to have a greater sense of purpose in life.  I can’t wait to see where these experiences will lead for the future! And I can still look forward to being a Big Sister or a Child Advocate later on, when my own children are grown, and I can devote more time and energy to another worthy child. 

5. Last, but most certainly not least, make the most of my weekends with family and friends and plan more “outings” to get outside in nature, to enjoy this beautiful state, and to spend less time cleaning and resting and instead enjoy doing and being. 

I am getting a bit of a slower start on this one, but last weekend, I decided to look at things to do in the area, and I found the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, so my son and I spent some quality time there on Saturday afternoon.  It was totally worth it! It was so fun to watch the visiting artist’s creative process in the Hot Shop and to see the wonderful examples of glass and mixed media art (mostly from artists right here in the NW) in their galleries.  This was the purpose of my New Year’s resolution, to enjoy time with family and enjoy what’s available to do and see in the area, since you never know how long you will be in a place, and usually we tend NOT to explore the places we reside. We vacation elsewhere, right?

I also recently took my husband to check out a new home brew place in Olympia, Cascadia Home Brew as well as a fairly new Hawaiian restaurant in the area I’ve been wanting to try (The Lanai). Sometimes, it’s the little things that make the weekends a slight bit sweeter than just staying at home and relaxing (like the Kahlua Pork and Coconut Cake we had at The Lanai Café…Lol).This weekend, we are going to a hockey game for the Seattle Thunderbirds.  We have been to 1 already this year and a couple last year, but it’s definitely something the whole family enjoys and is always well worth our time and money for tickets.  Next weekend, I hope to be up on the mountain snow tubing in OR (which is something I’ve never done before), but no matter what, we’ll be having fun because we’ll be spending quality time with each other and my husband’s family!

What’s Bucket List item or New Year’s Resolution can you start working toward this week? We only have one life to live, might as well make it an adventurous one! Hoping whatever you do that you enjoy it.

  

January 24, 2016- Love Letters

This week, I decided to “live with compassion,” and one of the things suggested by Toni Birdsong in the book, More than a Bucket List includes the following: “write each of your kids a letter. Tell them all the things they are doing right.” So, that’s my entry for tonight, love letters to my boys, letters which I will also personally mail to them, so they will have them forever or as long as they want to keep them. J

To my First Born (Sweet Pea),

When you were born, your dad and I were simply enamored with you. That’s the only way to describe it.  You were so much more than we could have ever wished for or dreamed of in a child.  As you have grown, 14 years now, I am still enamored of you.  You are so polite and respectful of others, calm, cool, and collected in a crisis, and a joy to be around.  You are doing so well in school, even though I know school is at that stage now that it’s more work than fun. You demonstrate awesome sportsmanship in whatever game or sport you choose to play, and you are a kind, compassionate brother, even when the two of you don’t get along so well. Sibling rivalry is normal, no matter who you are.  J You are a people pleaser in all that you do. Make sure, though, to stay true to yourself and what is best for you.  It’s important to take care of yourself too, so you can stay healthy and happy.  Your laid back personality, sly grin, and helpful attitude are my most favorite traits about you, and traits that just seem to come naturally.  It’s just how you were made.  You’ve always been that way.  You are quiet and observant, shy and fun loving all at the same time.  It’s what makes you so popular with your friends and adults.  I love you, dear son.  I hope you always know that I am there for you no matter how many miles, countries, or continents separate us. 

All my love and a few hugs thrown in there too,

Mommy

To my Baby Boy (Mr. Gant),

Our life with you started out much more hectic as you decided to enter via emergency surgery, but when it was all over, and I was resting with you peacefully in the Kwajalein hospital, your dad and I (and the entire tiny hospital on the even tinier atoll) were just so pleased that you entered the world happy and healthy! You are the exact opposite of our first born, your brother, but no less loved.  Now that we have had 12 wonderful years with you, I can say that you are so smart. The way you do math in your head and impress your teachers at every turn with how well you do on tests and how respectful you are in class make me so proud.  Your natural curiosity about anything and everything reminds me of myself when I was younger. I love the age you are at now when we can go to places like museums and really enjoy and learn together.  Your little kid laughter when absorbed in a good movie gives me such joy, and your unbridled silliness, which allows you to sing and dance in a grocery store without hesitation, has always been one of my favorite things about you.  You are my class clown with manners, if there is such a thing.  You have such a strong, stubborn, independent personality, which I believe will serve you well as you grow, even though it sometimes gets you in trouble at home at this age.  Just remember to stay true to yourself, stand up for what you believe, but don’t forget to listen and learn from others as well.  There are so many experiences and people that will come into your life that you can learn from to become wise.  Be open to what they have to teach and wait to hear them out before speaking your own mind. You are so loved, my baby. Whatever you need, you know I will be there for you. 

Love and many, many fast kisses,

Mom

January 18, 2016-Practicing Gratitude

So, this past week I decided to follow the advice by Toni Birdsong in “More than a Bucket List” and practice gratitude, so here’s my list for the week.

Monday: Today, I am thankful for co-workers who are more like close friends than just co-workers.  I am lucky enough to work with people that allow me to can cry on their shoulders at any moment of the day and support me however they can. And these are friends who I rarely, if ever, hang out with outside of work, but I love them like friends I’ve had my whole life.  In just a short 2 years (not even quite 2 yet), I know I could call or count on them to be there for me whatever the need.  That’s pretty special, I’d say. 

Tuesday: Today, I am thankful for the gift of being able to see people in a new light, a new perspective. It’s so easy to settle into our first impressions of others or to simply allow conversations with those who know others well to affect how we view someone, often before we’ve even met them.  Today, I got to know some new people just a little bit better, and I was so pleasantly surprised to see them on nothing but a positive plane, even though I had been led to see them otherwise.  It was nice to know that I have the ability to set aside what others have said or seen in a person and decided to share with me and view them the way I think God would have me to see them.  Yippee…I feel a little bit closer to heaven today. J NOT TO SAY that this is something I am able to do every day, or even regularly, but it is nice to know the ability is down inside me somewhere.

Wednesday: Today, I am thankful for parents who willingly give so much of their time and energy to coach our kids.  My son’s basketball team has been coached for the past 2 years by a mother of one player and the sister of another. The head coach took the team on last year because if she hadn’t, we wouldn’t have had a team at all because there was no one to coach. Then, she took it on this year simply because. And even though she didn’t PLAN to coach, she gave it 110% along with her high school assistant coach, and it warms my heart to see how much she cares and what she has done for these kids. Coming from a small island where EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYONE, I expected a slightly less personal touch or connection to my child’s sports coaches and programs (especially since it was a Parks and Recreation program, not a department I actually worked for like on the island), but in many ways, it was more special because I didn’t know the other parents from “Adam,” so to speak, and I felt their hearts and appreciated their dedication even more than those I spent every day with on the island.  I guess a small town is a small town, wherever it is.

Thursday: Today, I am thankful for not having to run in the rain and for my dog, Gunner, who gets me out there to exercise and enjoy the fresh air, even when I really just want to go sit in my recliner and veg out in front of the TV. It has been rainy and foggy and cold here for a while now. The snow around New Years was awesome, but the black ice was not, and now I’m tired of the cold and the rain.  So, it was nice today to have a break. I was able to run with my dog without having soaking wet shoes at the end or having to stand in front of the fire at home to warm up and dry out.  I am thankful for that.  If it wasn’t for my dog, I KNOW there would be many days I wouldn’t get out at all.  Thanks to him, I do run in the cold, rain, fog, light, dark, extreme heat, and even snow.  Best day ever was running in the snow, surprisingly! It was “SNOW” much fun! Lol. 

Friday: Today, I am thankful for purposeful work. I have often said that when my work does not have purpose, I have to seek that purpose elsewhere, such as through volunteer activities in the community. So, although it may have taken me a little while to find it here, I am feeling much more purpose in my work here now. Today, I stayed an extra hour and 45 minutes over my time (not being sure whether or not I’ll get paid for that extra time) because I felt what I was doing had purpose and meaning for the people I was working with, so I stayed, paid or not.  That’s a good day for me, when I want to be there to finish what I started because it means something. I never would have thought that teaching, that working with children, that being a government employee would have been my fate. I’m a writer. That’s all I wanted to be when I was young, but now, I’m not just a writer…I’m supporting the work of the US military. I’m helping families do what they need to do to keep our country free. I’m making a difference in the lives of many, many children of all ages.  And most importantly, in my mind, I’m supporting and assisting the caregivers in providing the best they can to all the children and families they serve. 

Saturday: Today, I am thankful for the funds to make those small improvements to the house, to go out to dinner, and to indulge in little luxuries. My husband and I picked out some new hardware for our bathrooms to upgrade what the house came with when we bought it a couple of years, and we purchased some things to help organize the garage, etc…It’s not things that are necessary, that we absolutely needed, but I am thankful we can invest in our home in these ways.  I am also thankful we could go out to dinner tonight at a new Hawaiian restaurant I have been wanting to try.  It was a nice date night that brought us back to the islands we have been to visit so many times when traveling back and forth from our island home to the states all those years. 

Sunday: Today, I am thankful for my husband and his handy man abilities. Without him, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything with the new hardware and garage organizers we purchased yesterday. He spent most of the day working hard to ensure our new bathroom hardware was installed correctly and the garage was put together most efficiently. He also changed the oil in my car and is always taking care of little things around the house. His entire list was home chores that I would have had to hire someone to do, so I am very lucky to have him. 

January 10, 2016

Okay, I suppose 10 days rest from the blog is enough for now, and it’s time for me to get serious about what goals (New Year’s resolutions as some call it) I would like to accomplish in 2016 and write them out for the world to see (so it sets it in stone, so to speak).  Thank you to all those who followed me through my journey in 2015 to complete one writing prompt EVERY DAY for the year. I did accomplish that, and it was a test in discipline for sure.  It may not have been best-selling thoughts every day. Some days it was not more than a sentence or two, but I did my best to at least consider and put down my thoughts for every prompt (or a topic of my own choosing) for 365 days last year.  Yea!!

Unfortunately, the focus on that goal (along with other things in life) got in the way of me accomplishing my other New Year’s Resolutions, so in the spirit of retirement plan “roll-overs,” I would like to “roll-over” those resolutions as well as add a couple of new ones for 2016.  So, here goes:

1. Stop spending so much money at COSTCO, buy only what is REALLY necessary! Okay, I’m kind-of kidding on this one, but seriously, I thought moving back to the states, I wouldn’t spend as much being on a tighter budget with bills and all. When we used to come back to the states once a year, a trip to Wal-Mart meant spending a couple of hundred dollars each week for a month, then spending another hundred or two to mail everything back that we really needed (or thought we needed) to our tiny rock in the Pacific.  We also did clothes shopping, enjoyed eating out, going to the movies at an actual indoor theater, visited zoos and amusement parks, etc, etc, etc….So, I figured, at first, we would spend some money getting established in a new home, get our fill of eating out, have some fun participating in activities we had missed out on for so long, and then settle into life in a more normal stateside way, but then we joined COSTCO.  Now, we only go once every other month or so, and we do stock up on all the staples of a household, but we can’t seem to leave that place without spending more than I ever spent at Wal-Mart in several stops on vacation! It does make me wonder how much I have fallen back into the trap of American consumerism. Do we really NEED to stock up on all this stuff? It’s something to think about.  We still really enjoy going out to eat and spend more than we should in general, so I think it’s something as a family we could consider and make sure we are not just spending to spend. 

2. Join that running club I talked about last year or get involved in some other sort of social activity (a book club at the library, perhaps) or a yoga or art class.  I think it’s important to make those connections, so that WA becomes not just where we live, but our home.  This is something that even after almost two years, I think we are still working on, making it home.  I have been joining a friend from work in the JBLM runs on base, which is like fulfilling part of this resolution from last year….joining a “running club” of sorts, but I need to be a part of something closer to home more regularly to really make those permanent connections. 

3. Be a more active participant in marketing and selling my children’s books here in the states. I sent an e-mail to the library system here (to which I never got a response), and I found a international school bookseller interested in selling one of my 3 published books to schools around the world and signed a contract with them, but I haven’t taken the time to really get involved in the reading and writing community here.  The library is the most logical first step, and being involved there in a volunteer capacity promoting my books (donating free copies and reading for children’s hour or something like that) could actually help me accomplish my next goal for the year (#4 below).

4. Find and commit to that service opportunity in the community that I talked about at the beginning of last year and still have not accomplished.  I did find some opportunities that I would like to look into (such as being a Big Sister to a child at the Boys and Girls Club OR being a Court Appointed Advocate to children in need right here in my county). It could be that getting a start on #3 will help me find a service opportunity I had not yet discovered and take me in a different direction, but with #3, there’s some selfish motivation with promoting my books and all, so I want to make sure that I do include a volunteer job that it not at all about me, but instead about benefitting someone else. 

5. Last, but most certainly not least, make the most of my weekends with family and friends and plan more “outings” to get outside in nature, to enjoy this beautiful state, and to spend less time cleaning and resting and instead enjoy doing and being. 

So, how does the blog fit into all of this? Well, if you look back at my goals, most of them have to do with me getting up and DOING SOMETHING! I feel like my year of blogging in 2015 was about looking within, analyzing life, and developing my introspection skills and then writing about what I discovered inside, but this year is going to be about coming out of my shell into the real world outside myself (not just the written, online world).  I will attempt to be less of an introvert, put myself out there, and do something good in the world.  I hope to use the book, “More than a Bucket List” by Toni Birdsong to help me with this, and I will write about my progress along the way. It will not be daily, but hopefully at least weekly as I want to be able to say I have done something for someone else or off my “bucket list” at least weekly, so we’ll see. I know it all sounds like pretty lofty goals, but if we don’t reach for the stars, we’re not stretching ourselves enough, in my opinion.  I never thought I’d be able to write every day for a year, but I did, so it’s on to bigger and better things, things that benefit more than just myself. Wish me luck! Happy New Year!!