My Best Effort

"speak quietly to yourself & promise there will be better days. whisper gently to yourself and provide assurance that you really are extending your best effort. console your bruised and tender spirit with reminders of many other successes. offer comfort in practical and tangible ways - as if you were encouraging your dearest friend. recognize that on certain days the greatest grace is that the day is over and you get to close your eyes. tomorrow comes more brightly..." — Mary Anne Radmacher

Some days are just like that.

My Heart

I was sitting in the kitchen today, looking across the room at the refrigerator...but not really looking at it, if you know what I mean. I was in a cloudy, soul searching kind of haze...not seeking hearts, but seeking answers instead, or more specifically...the answer to the question, "what am I seeking?"...when my own heart jumped right out at me to say "Hello!"

This picture of my kiddos hangs on my refrigerator in one of those plastic sleeve things with the magnets on the back. It was taken three years ago at Christmas time, while we were at Home Depot picking out our Christmas tree, and I laugh when I remember the chaos that ensued right before I took this photo. Pushing the big cart with the tree laying on it, suddenly deciding while I'm standing in the middle of the isle that I needed to capture this moment, wrangling everyone together, sitting Griffin between the two girls...praying they wouldn't let him fall. There's more, right before I took this Griffin stuck his finger up Madison's nose and made it bleed, they were all either crying or complaining, and people were trying to get around us...but what I ended up with was this...this picture that I love, and a moment that I love to remember. It was hard then, but I cherish it now.

When I think of the question, "what am I seeking?" I think my honest answer is a life that is easy, or easier. But why? Looking at that photo of my kiddos reminds me of a time that was not easy at all, and I wouldn't change it for anything.

I think I'm just going to answer my own question now with the word "more". My heart wants more. More experiences, more memories...be they good or bad...but more ways to fill my heart.

Thank you heart, for jumping out at me today and delivering the message that I was looking for.

Tree of Love

I think I found the Tree of Love today...

Look at all of these little hearts hanging out on the same little tree.

I'm really having a lot of fun with Chrissy's "heart" and seek game. I have always been one to see things in things (the wallpaper in my bathroom as a child was especially interesting). I wonder...do they want me to see them or do I want to see them? All I know is, once I put a call out to the universe that I was looking for hearts they have been popping out at me everywhere. It makes me want to be really careful about what I wish for in the future...if that's how it all works. (new car, new car, new car)

Anyway, I would like to direct your attention to this little heart from the Tree of Love...

Do you see it? It might be a bit of a stretch. I stared at it for a while on my monitor, deciding whether or not it was "heart worthy"...

...and then, during my careful examination, something else popped out at me. What the heck is that? A face? Who's face? It kind of started creeping me out!

Then I just decided, it must be Cupid (even though my first thought was Lucille Ball), because it is the Tree of Love after all. :)

Embracing Ugly

I found a heart in the pattern of my couch today. It jumped right out at me, and I almost completely dismissed it. Why? Because I think my couch is super ugly.

Close to eight years ago, a good friend of mine was getting rid of her couch and loveseat. Nothing was wrong with them...absolutely nothing, except they were ugly. I guess ugly is relative here. I should say, "not my taste at all", but we had just moved into our new house and had a lot of space to fill, so I said, "sure" and "thanks", and then immediately went on the Surefit website in search of slipcovers.

I love the slipcovers, but my kids do not. They think they're itchy. The covers don't end up staying put for very long either. After a few hours, they have "slipped" off, and then someone uses it for a blanket, then it ends up on the floor where the dog lays on it, or someone spills juice on it, or...you get the picture. So, back it goes into the laundry pile, where it usually becomes a last priority. So, needless to say, we are usually in ugly couch mode...unless company comes over.

So, when the heart jumped out at me today I had a real dilemma. If I took a picture of the heart and posted it as part of the 14 day challenge, well then you would know that I had an ugly couch. Isn't that sad? I actually have great concern that you will judge me based on my taste in furniture. I didn't notice it when it ended up in this post here, but I gasped and hoped that you wouldn't notice either. I actually have a lot of really cute pictures of my kids that I don't share because they are sitting against that awful background.

I know how ridiculous this sounds. I know you don't judge me based on the pattern of my couch, but apparently I do. So, I'm coming clean. I got past wearing my pajamas to the store, so I can do this. "Hi, I'm Kelly, and I have an ugly couch."

And, actually after giving it way too much thought today. I decided that I love my ugly couch. If that couch could talk, it would tell you about sick kiddos, cozy naps, nursing babies and imaginary sharks. It has been the cradle to all of the happiness, sadness and messiness of life...of this little life that is mine. So, I am embracing ugly today, because I'm noticing that it's actually kind of beautiful.

(p.s. I was also noticing that the "heart" kind of looks like a pair of sad mittens too, or is that just my imagination telling me that it can't wait for spring?)

O.K.

Hey! How are you today? I'm O.K., or okay, or (as I prefer) okey-dokey.
I'm still knee deep in Soul Restoration, house cleaning, and disliking winter.
I came across this quote the other day (really, Kelly, another quote?). It's a longy, but a goody. I hope you enjoy it...

“I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it — I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes.
Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know — but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me.
However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me.
I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.” - Virginia Satir

I like "Okay". It's simple. It's easy. It's enough, don't you think?

...and speaking of O.K....remember the Perfect Protest with Brene Brown back in September? She has been mentioned a lot by the ladies over at Soul Restoration. Have you read her book yet? I haven't, but I really want to. Anyway, the mention of her made me want to go back and look at the video she made (I'm somewhere in the middle). Check it out! Hopefully, it will put a smile on your face today. :)

(p.s. Can you believe it's February already? Thank goodness! For the next fourteen days I'm going to be playing "heart" and seek (looking for hearts in unexpected places) with my friend Chrissy. Doesn't that sound like fun? And, just the ticket for taking the winter blahs away! )

Hope you're doing okay!