goodbye and farewell

I'm officially retiring the blog and this will be my last entry. Thanks for over 5 years of continued readership <3 I hope you all have very happy and very fulfilled lives. All the best in 2012!!

Love Jenny & Alice xo

pretty awesome

...

Oh but I love this season!

To address the comment on my last post:

For a really long time I wrote about my kids. Now I don't feel like doing that anymore. I'll probably stop posting to this blog soon. I don't know. It just doesn't hold the same fascination for me that it used to. in a lot of ways, this blog was a boost to my morale when I needed one pretty badly. The nice comments about my kids or the agreements with my opinions made me feel good about myself and I was excited about the comments I got and I really did click back to read about my readers. For a long time, the network with MomLogic was important to me. It made me feel important.

Then somewhere along the way the external stuff stopped being important... and I realized that my relationship is happy, my kids are wonderful, I'm fulfilled as a person and there isn't a lot I feel like sharing and I'm not sure why.

Lately I'm living in this happy bubble with the ones I love and enjoying keeping my life private. It's peaceful. There's nothing I want or need, there's nothing I have to prove to anyone outside of my bubble and there isn't really any advice I have to impart on this blog that doesn't make me feel like I'm imposing myself on other people.

There was a time this blog was a really important part of my life and that time has passed... I'm at peace with it. It is what it is. 

Zen Self-Mastery

Along with my bible studies, daily devotional readings and constant parenting best-practices research, I've also been studying Zen, specifically Dick Sutphen's "Self Mastery". As a world leader in Personal Development, he's imparted some amazing advice.  I have learned to accept the things that I can't change and to accept the things that I spent years wasting my time on - like changing circumstances, events, and people. His teachings have taught me that 90% of what happens we can't do anything about. When we try to alter what is inalterable we become miserable trying to fight it or trying to change it. When we accept that what is - IS - we find inner peace. As one of the parables he quotes in the book says:

"Hot is hot. Cold is cold."

How powerful is that?!

He's not advocating acceptance of all circumstances, just the ones that are inalterable. If you have it within your power to change it, by all means - have at! But if you are trying to change another person (like your partner), or a circumstance (like we all work on Friday's) or an event (like we all have to pay taxes) then you might be able to force the change, for a little while, but eventually it will revert to it's default. Accept it now. Let it go.

Another power concept is how he addresses guilt. It's teaching me that what has happened has happened, and there is nothing I can do about it now. I can't do anything about the future either, so there is no point feeling guilty for things that might happen or worrying about what might happen; it may not even come to pass. The only thing I have any control over is what happens right now.

it's the funny things

This website ALWAYS cracks me up. No matter what mood I'm in, no matter what kind of day I'm having, it's kind of like prayer for my funny bone. Enjoy.

http://www.hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

"Where are you trying to go, sad legs? There's nothing over there.  Do you even know what you're doing?"

Can't stop laughing.

10 minutes well spent

How to address your child's whining in 10 mintues. We can all spare 10 little minutes, can't we?

http://www.ahaparenting.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?PostID=144015&A=SearchResult&SearchID=3075638&ObjectID=144015&ObjectType=55

giving begets giving

Another power sermon in our church* this week, and I was so moved by it that I'm still reeling with its complexities.

We watched a clip from 20/20 about the Red Paperclip guy. You know, that man that started out by trading one red paper clip and eventually traded himself into a brand new house (for free!). It was tied to the parable of the mustard seed.

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field; Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. (Matthew 13:31-32)

This visionary man admits that what started out as a desire to end up with a free house - became, along the way - a quest filled with granting wishes. Wishes for a piano or years free rent, or recording time, or to meet a celebrity, or to obtain a collectors edition of a Kiss snowglobe, etc.

Then, something remarkable. Our minister called out to our congregation "who among you has something you would trade?" and the response was immediate "a single wine cooler!" Lots of laughter and the wine cooler was traded for a pillow (I believe) and as each trade grew in complexity from free baby sitting time, to a designer scarf, to an elegant dinner for 6, to a weekend at a cottage in the Laurentians, and finally culminated by a trade for a brand new ceramic top stove, I was totally and completely blown away how a single wine cooler became a brand new stove.

I see the message in the mustard seed. The smalled seed (the red paperclip) becomes the biggest tree (a new and free house) and one person can and does make a difference. Down to the very smallest things we do every single day.

Our challenge this week was to perform one act of kindness a day and to expect nothing in return. I am keeping my eyes and ears open for my act of kindness today.

*United Church, the faith I was baptised and confirmed in.