It's All Relative

Save a heart, it could be your’s.

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ribbon heartsMy mom did yesterday. We hope.

She’s a proponent of preventative medicine and goes for all the health screenings. She read an article in the newspaper about a new heart disease screening process (something with the CAT scan, I didn’t get all the details) at a local hospital and signed up. I don’t know how new it actually is, but the insurance companies don’t pay for it, so the hospital (who is doing a study) offered it at a subsidized, read affordable to the public, rate. So she signed up and went, fully expecting to be given a clean bill of health.

She wasn’t.

Three major blocked arteries and an appointment with the cardiologist later, she’s a bit freaked. We’re all in a state of shock. She feels like she’s been a walking time bomb for stroking out or having a heart attack. Except for slowly increasing exhaustion, she’s been asymptomatic. She goes to Curves several times a week. Doesn’t smoke, drinks moderately, eats pretty healthy.

She said she saved her own life yesterday. I’m proud of her.

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It's All Relative

Attitude Adjustment please

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Well, the universe is telling me I need an attitude adjustment, not in a bad way, but a few slight tweaks to help manage life smoother.

Apparently, I need to focus on parenting this summer, and not working. That’s not to say I shouldn’t work, mind you. My struggle has been how to get all my projects done with all the stuff that I’ve been doing. The day to day stuff…going to the pool, going to the library, going to soccer (finished now but replaced by basketball), setting up the new fish tanks, taking care of the class bunny (for one long but fun week), yadda yadda yadda.

Between kiddo’s stuff and house stuff, where’s time for my stuff?

My stuff being:
-catching up on my way overdue book reviews (almost done one!)
-reformatting my blog to a website with a blog and uploading the new content/links/etc. (I did manage to move it to a paid site and figured out how to install WordPress on the new server and do the export/import. Woo hoo!)
-Input all the books for sale on Half.com
-Take pics and set up stuff for sale on ebay.com
-continue to edit book reviews
-write new book reviews
-write regular blog posts (though I don’t know what that actually means. 1Xweek? 2Xweek? More?)

And that’s just for my main site. Then there is the online store I want to open that will cover all my Reiki stuff and then the NorthCarolinaReiki.ning.com site to set up and promote.

That’s a whole lot for 11 weeks of summer, which has shrunk since I started counting when kiddo got out of school. Down to 9 now?

Maybe I need to get him in more library programs since I do manage to write when I’m here. Tuesday I worked on a book review while he was doing a program at the University City library. Now I’m at the Davidson library and he’s learning about bees.

Next week we’re in a co-op camp, so no free time for me. The following week we’re in Maryland. Then back to co-op camp.

So, this became a woe is me for my lack of time, which is where the attitude adjustment comes in. I was stressing myself out about not getting stuff done, not being forgiving of myself for being tired or grumpy or spending time with kiddo. If I had a spare moment, I often didn’t want to write or spend time at the computer because I was too tired or unfocused. After dinner or kiddo’s bedtime, forget about it. Never happens.

I was/am beating myself up and creating a ton of internal stress and anxiety. No one is creating this pressure but me. But I feel like I’ve been talking about these things for so long, it’s time to work on them, but when I’m ready to work on them, I can’t. And when there’s time, I’m not ready. Catch 22. Frustration. Anxiety. Stress.

So, the Universe has told me to focus on the important stuff. My son’s summer. To make it fun and exciting, but not at the expense of my work, instead of focusing on not doing my work well.

The next step, how to make my work work within the confines of my life. Do I start getting up at 5 am? 6 am? Do I set up different schedules for camp days, activity days, and free days and then feel free to blow it off at will? (It is summer vacation, after all.) Do I even have the self-discipline to stick to a schedule?

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Decluttering, Inner Peace, Living Simply

Divide and Conquer

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Rather a strange title coming from a Quaker, don’t ya think? It felt rather militaristic to me when I wrote it, but has nothing whatsoever to do with military tactics.

In actuality, it has to do with simplicity and peace, two of the Quaker ideals. In this case, peace of mind and peacefulness in the home, a basis for which other types of peace can germinate.

My house and my mind have been overrun with clutter. Yes, both. I can’t sleep at night because my brain won’t shut down with all the ideas whirring and ghirring. (more on those another time) My poor son couldn’t play in his playroom since there was just too much stuff. Saturday night, the Universe spoke and Sunday morning, I followed through.

The mission? To get rid of half of my books. Just mine, not the shared books or my husband’s books. Also, to get rid of half of my son’s books. He is six and we hadn’t had a book purge since moving to Charlotte three years ago. His bookshelves were due. He was happier to do it when I explained that a) I was doing it too, b) some of the books would be sold, and c) the rest would be donated to our favorite thrift stores.

Four paper bags of donated books later, one Rubbermaid tote full of books to sell, one garbage bag of donated stuffed animals, and two trash bags of trash and broken toys, the toy room is manageable again. The grownup bookshelves are emptier and more organized (no more books piled on top of other books) and the living room and hall are free of toys since they now have a space to be.

Decluttering the living room allowed me the space to be quiet with myself and my business idea notebook later in the afternoon. I managed to write down all the pieces of my business empire jigsaw and see how the pieces fit together. My first entry in that notebook goes back to October of last year, so now eight months of whirring and grring can be laid to rest and I can move onto the next phase and grind away on something new.

My summer goal is to divide my physical imprint in half by slowly sorting through my closet, my garage (with boxes still unpacked from the move), more books, and just the stuff I have in this house. I can encourage my son to do the same with the collections of toys that seem to be here just to be here and hopefully encourage my husband to do the same. I’m hoping that by clearing out my stuff I’ll create the space and the peace he needs in order to continue the process.

When my husband left for work this morning, I said, “Look! I’m a writer who’s actually writing.” That hasn’t happened often of late, but who knew that the benefits of decluttering (and listening to my Inner Spirit) would have such far reaching benefits for me. I didn’t. Now I’ve a cleaner house, a draft business plan, a long blog entry, and a clearer mind — all in 24 hours.

Wonder what’s next? 

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Parenting

Three’s Class Project

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Our Class Project

It’s Silent Auction time at Piedmont Progressive Preschool. That means that the teachers need to come up with a suitable art project for the class to work on that can be sold at the silent auction. Suitable means within our philosophy. But, boy, that’s hard.

Why? We don’t do directed art projects. We set out the materials and let the kids have at it. What happens, happens. We tell them that they are the boss of their art. They decide when it’s done, how it’s done, etc. And if they want to throw it in the trash, that’s fine with us.

Well, it sure was hard to step back and let ’em go. We, the teachers, wanted to step in and stop them before the kids decided they were done.

The project? A large art canvas divided into squares. Each kiddo chose a square and got to feather paint with the primary colors. Sounds pretty, huh?

First kid….swiped some blue. “I’m finished,” he declares and marches back into the classroom. Okaaay. We can handle that. Looks good.

“Look teacher, I’m making purple,” another says as he’s mixing paint with two feathers. Totally filled the square but created some fantastic texture with the feathers.

Little P. created some beautiful rainbow smears, but then didn’t want to stop, even with some rather rabid encouragement from moi and my co-teacher, and a delightful moosh of brown developed in spots. Some of the rainbows survived. We taught our artiste well and she resisted all of our efforts to stop when WE wanted her too and her square is delightful.

The final product looks beautiful. It really does. We grownups struggled with the definition of what was beautiful and who should define it. We struggled with creating something “saleable” for the silent auction while still not defining what was “art” to the munchkins. I think we all did OK. What do you think?

OK…so I can’t get the picture to load. I’ll mess with it AFTER the Silent Auction. Right now, I’m off to party. Toodles.

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It's All Relative

It’s been a struggle lately….

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It’s been a struggle lately. Struggle to blog, to write, to get up for work, just to function even. I’m not sure what’s going on. I even spent most of yesterday on the couch watching TV, simply for lack of energy to do anything else. Unfortunately, I couldn’t enjoy it since all I could focus on was what I wanted to be doing (editing, writing,laundry,and not watching TV) instead of what I was doing. My brain wouldn’t shut down and I couldn’t even nap. After picking kiddo up from school and a short visit to the park, I did manage to clean the kitchen and the two fish tanks.

Thankfully, we’re both on Spring Break now. The drive to and from kiddo’s school is really becoming a grind, especially coupled on the three days a week when I have to rush back to this part of town to work at the preschool.

My little friends have been a grind as well. We had a great day on Wednesday, but those days have far and few in between. Who knew that these three-year olds could wear us out so much? *polishes halo*

I had a great brainstorm during the drive home for a new blog, about the preschool and parenting, and figured out how to lay it out and came up with four blog posts from this past week alone! Yikes! Will my brain ever shut down???? I can’t do it though, at least not yet, not until I hear if I get the teaching assistant job I’ve applied for. So yesterday I was pretty frustrated with the morning going the way it did, so unproductive, and the afternoon drive becoming too productive and overwhelming.

For now, I’ve decided to just incorporate those blog posts into this site. Why not? It’s been such a struggle getting this up and running, I can’t be adding another project.

I ordered a Quick Pad from e-bay and it should be arriving this week. I love those things. (I had one a few years ago that died after being dropped one too many times.) It will help me with my writing productivity. My internal editor shuts off! It’s so easy to carry around and do two minutes here and there and have multiple items going at once.

Feels good to actually write…

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Uncategorized

Press Release: It’s Not Too Late to Register for Summer Camp!

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Contact: Sharon King, Director
Phone: 704-510-1022FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

It is Not Too Late to Register for Summer Camps!
Registration is still open for Summer Camps at Piedmont Progressive. 

Looking for summer camp activities for your 3 – 9 year olds? Consider Piedmont Progressive Summer Day Camps. There are two week-long sessions still accepting registrations: Around the World in Five Days (July 30-August 3) where the kids take a global expedition and travel each day to different lands, explore their cultures through art, cooking, dance, music, and story telling; and Nature Expeditions (Aug 6-Aug 10)where they explore nature through activities that include hikes on the nature trail, feeding the birds, gardening, cooking, singing, and games and creating art with natural and recycled materials.

For more information or to register, please call 704-510-1022 or visit www.progressivepreschool.org.

Piedmont Progressive Preschool is a unique program in the University area that offers children the opportunity to learn and explore the world around them in a safe, supportive, and open environment. The school’s philosophy is child-centered and play-based with an emphasis on nature and the arts. They believe that children this age learn best through discovery learning experiences.  The preschool is located at 9704 Mallard Creek Road (across from Mallard Creek Elementary) in the Piedmont Unitarian Universalist Church building and is non-sectarian.  

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