It’s 4:06 AM and I’m wide awake.  WIDE-stinkin’-AWAKE.

It’s been one of those nights.

Little Bit came stumbling into our bedroom around 1:00 because her alarm clock had gone off in her room and woken her up. SuperMan put her back to sleep but then I was waking up every fifteen minutes because I was afraid he wouldn’t come back to bed and he’d miss his alarm clock going off. Finally, I went and got him so we could all sleep properly (read: I could sleep properly!) and all was well.

Storms were blowing in and there was a lot of thunder and lightning, but I drifted back to sleep in spite of the light and sound show outside.

And then it happened.

The thing that is GUARANTEED to ruin my night’s sleep if it happens.

That sick, gross, scare-the-PJs-off-of-you feeling.

You know the one.

The one when you feel something CRAWLING ON YOUR ARM while you sleep!

oh.my.gosh!

I was out of the covers in no time – cowering at the foot of the bed like a scared little thing. I had slapped the heck out of my arm, and I think I killed whatever it was, but there was no way to know for sure.

Poor SuperMan was awakened by my gymnastics (and shivering, quivering and whimpering, probably) and came around to turn on the lights and check to see if he could find a carcass or something. (and this is why we call him SuperMan – I mean, waking up at 3AM to rescue your wife from random bug attacks! totally awesome!)

The creature was no where to be found.

Which, really, didn’t make me feel any better. The rational part of my brain said he was probably long gone (or dead) but the emotional wreck part of me (that was clearly in charge at the time) said that he could be anywhere, lurking and waiting to crawl on me again.

Sleep just wasn’t going to happen.

So, here I sit at my computer with a cup of chamomile tea and watching the storms out my office window.

Good thing I don’t have any early-morning meetings today. I may need a nap later.

But, you know, I shouldn’t be surprised.

It’s been one of those weeks.

Tuesday, you will notice, had no blog post.

That was because I was suffering from PTSD (not really) from a dentist’s appointment.

Last week I broke a crown while munching on some peanuts as my afternoon snack.

So, Tuesday morning I went to get the crown replaced. It’s a long story, but it was a temporary crown that had gone way past it’s “Best if Used By” date.  They were going to give me a new temporary and order me a new permanent crown.

Now, you have to bear in mind one thing: I DON’T DO DENTISTS.

I have a serious, major fear of dentists. There aren’t many things that get me as anxious as dentists – except maybe bugs crawling on me in the middle of the night…

But I had no choice. I had to go and get this raggedy piece of tooth fixed.

And there I sat, Tuesday morning, with my little green “bib” on my shirt trying to read (and reading the same paragraph forty-seven times without knowing what it said) and waiting for the dentist to come in.

I won’t bore you with all the details – but it was a Murphy’s Law kind of visit. They broke two temporary crowns on two of my teeth while trying to fix the one that was broken. I think we went through five or six temporaries before they got two to work on the two teeth they were working on.

It was fun, let me tell you.

I had so much adrenaline running through my system I was a quivering, shaking mess.  I could barely walk out of there because my legs were like jelly.

And I had two of my girlfriends giving me moral support as I gave them blow-by-blow accounts from my cell phone.

And I get to do it all over again in a couple weeks when the permanent crowns come in.

Oh joy.

Oh, I see SuperMan is up – getting ready for work. I guess I’ll go chat with him while I finish my tea.

Thanks for keeping me company this morning.

I hope your week has been a little less eventful than mine. Or, if it has been eventful, it’s been more fun!

I think you probably can tell by now that I’m a planner.

I’m one of those people who does everything with a plan.

everything

I’ve lived by to-do lists and long-range plans for years. As long as I can remember.  Even if they are not written down, I have them in my head.

As a young woman, I had five- and ten-year plans….plans that included which age I’d be married, have my first child, etc. I had it all figured out.

And, as Life would have it, those plans didn’t quite pan out the way I had imagined.

Of course, they turned out just fine in the long run, they just happened on a different timeline than the one I had imagined.

That’s how the past week has been, too.

I had imagined this week to be slow and easy, with the girls resting and relaxing (after our hectic last week of school, holiday weekend and crazy recital-filled weekend) I was planning to get all sorts of work done on my work projects – maybe even doing a little extra here and there.

Alas, that was not to be.  BOTH girls got sick.

Can you say “toss the plan out the window?”

I mean, seriously – just chunk it on outta there.  ‘Cause it just ain’t happenin’ this week.

Late, late nights nursing miserable girlies.  Busy days refereeing cranky girls and administering medicines.  Washing, drying, comforting, cooking, cleaning and doing it all over again.

Work? Well, I fit that in here and there in fits and starts. In between four doctors’ visits and all the nursing/mommy duties.  Thankfully, I have a very understanding boss and a flexible schedule.  I’ll be catching up today and tomorrow for sure, though.

It was a miserable week. Honestly.

But, in the middle of it all, I kept reminding myself that what I was doing was the most important thing of all.  And trying to focus on the fact that while my plans weren’t going to pan out, everything was going to be OK.

And that is a tough lesson to learn, my friend. 

Especially for someone like me… who likes to be in control and on task in everything she does.

It’s hard to relinquish that control, go with the flow, and accept that sometimes you can’t plan everything and manage that plan to fruition.

Now, I don’t know why my plan for this week didn’t happen… or what the bigger picture was in all of this – except maybe to remind me of this very thing I’m writing about? – but I do know that the more I fought against the changes, the more they happened.  The more I rebelled against going with the flow, the more I felt like I was trying to swim upstream.

It wasn’t until yesterday afternoon, when I was just about at my breaking point – just about in tears because I couldn’t get photos to print for my Project Life project (NOTHING went right!!) – that I realized I just needed to chill out, give up, and let things go for a little while.

So I spent last night intentionally trying to relax and let go. I didn’t check email or Facebook.  I didn’t worry about whether or not the pictures printed.  I let SuperMan put the girls to bed and I ate an apple and watched some mindless TV for a little while.

And, after a good night’s sleep, I am feeling much better today. Much more able to cope with whatever life throws my way.  And to roll with the tide.

I’m sure it won’t last long.  I already have post its with lists all over my desk – things to do today, things to get at the grocery store, office supply store, WalMart, things to cook for Sunday night’s dinner with our Small Group, etc.

I will be back in my full-forced planning mode very shortly.

But, hopefully, I’ll be better able to flex when the need arises.  This week was a good lesson that when I don’t it is just not worth it.

 

We're visiting family this weekend – enjoying a little break after the hectic end of the school year.

It's hot as blazes down here – in the 90's every day – but the weather is beautiful if you don't mind the heat and humidity.  Which, ironically, I don't seem to mind as much as I used to. I'm sure it's the fact that I'm almost half the size I used to be. There's a lot less of me to heat/cool these days and I seem to gravitate more towards heat than cool now. Quite the change.

But enough about me.

I wanted to share with you what Mom and I did today.

We went to the farmer's market.

So fun.

They have a weekly Saturday market down in Forsyth Park. If you're ever in Savannah for a visit, it's worth a trip – even if you only go to people watch.  But Mom and I managed to go together and we had such fun.  They had beautiful veggies, organic fruits, meat vendors (with organic, grain fed beef, etc.) It was a bonanza of goodness.

We cooked some of these patty-pan squash for dinner tonight. Grilled them with olive oil, garlic and salt/pepper/onion powder. Soooo good.

It was fun to hang around with Mom and check out all the stalls.  The girls were off on an adventure with SuperMan (story to come) and so we had some good one-on-one time.  Something we don't get very frequently and that is very special indeed.

The rest of the day was relaxing and even included a nap and some serious swing-time. They have the greatest swing in their backyard and I love stretching out in the sunshine and watching the clouds go by as I swing.  

Awesome weekend – and we're just getting started.

 

This was in my inbox the other day:

Dear Incredible Girl,

When you've done all that you can do, and you still feel like you have so much further to go, when you feel like all that you have to give still isn't nearly enough, when it seems that you will not be able to keep up everything that needs to be kept up for one minute longer —
stop and breathe.

Look. Really really look at what you are expecting of yourself.

You are an incredible girl. You are amazing and strong and brilliant. But friend, you are also a human being. You cannot do it all. You cannot always hold everything together perfectly, and you cannot be perfectly composed every single day. It's okay to have 'off' days. It's okay to feel weak and overwhelmed and have meltdowns once in awhile. It's okay. YOU are okay.

Everything is going to be okay. It is.

Let yourself have days to be a perfectly imperfect human being. Let yourself feel what you need to feel and process your life the way you need to process it. Let yourself BE.

Bad days will pass, overwhelm will dissolve, and the sun will come up again tomorrow morning, just like it does every day. There will be a brand new sparkling day waiting for your tomorrow, waiting for you to hold hands with all of the joy that it is offering.

You are just right. You are doing great. You are fabulous!

And you are very very very very loved.
xoxo

"A little bird told me" – your Daily Truth from The Brave Girls Club
www.bravegirlsclub.com

 

I just love this.

Absolutely love it.

Why is it that we hold ourselves to impossible standards?

Why do we feel like we must be perfect in everything we do?

And when we fall short (as we almost must do) we feel like we’re worthless and berate ourselves instead of celebrating our successes and accomplishments, no matter how large or small?

When did this become the norm?

And why?

And is this what we want to teach our children?

That good enough is never good enough?

I don’t.

I want my girls to push themselves to be all they can – to stretch beyond what they think they can do and find out what they really can do but I also want them to learn that, as long as they have tried their best, that is good enough.

That they don’t have to measure their success by external yardsticks – by what others think or what others expect – but by their own hearts and their own rulers. 

That giving it your best effort is good enough.

And learning to be okay with that.

And maybe, just maybe, while I’m teaching them, I’ll learn it myself.