Friday, August 24, 2012

Today, I am filled with gratitude for:

• A day of peace and quiet at work.
• Discovering a new (to me) blog that really caught my fancy: www.npr.org/thesalt
• Listening to new music at work on NPR, making the day a little more exciting and fresh.
• Email exchanges from my dad filled with the promise of surprise.
• Catching myself daydreaming about our night before and getting butterflies. I love that this still happens after 10 years of marriage.
• Hearing my sister-in-law so excited about getting two new puppies, brother and sister, after school today for their daughter/our niece.
• Catching up with Phil. Completely astonished that I've talked with both brothers in the same week.  I feel more connected to them both this week than I have felt in years.
• Our own family after-school adventure for our first twilight tour at the Deer Valley Rock Art Center.  What a gem of a place and we can't wait to go back.  It was a very interactive tour, and visiting this hidden spot smack in the middle of sunset and moonlight was special. I think we will try November for their Native American festival and another in March where we will get to try roasted agave!
• Lily thanking us on the way home for taking us to do things like that and for being the best parents ever.  Score!
• Hearing Lily excitedly share her story of how she did Reiki for all her friends at school today who got hurt and how they all felt better after. "But mom, I do mine a little different than you do," she said as she demonstrated with her hands and arms from the backseat.  "And Harlee said, 'The Kuntz's have magic in their fingers!' "  So touching!  No pun intended, but pretty appropriate.
• Meeting the two new puppies, Toby & Roxy.  Welcome to the family!  We are so excited to get to know you better and for Molly to have some new friends!
• Putting Emmy down for sleep and having a few minutes to break into my new Yoga Journal issue.  Found another 21-day challenge, new music, delicious smoothie recipes and more.  I love these bite-size challenges that give a great introduction to things new, fun and healthy - gearing up for September 9th Fitness Challenge!

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

I am in awe that for two nights in a row, I have done everything that I need to do and it's before 9pm.  A huge improvement over too many nights prior of getting 4 - 5 hours of rest and nearly doubling that last night and tonight!  I can tell that both my brain and my body are thankful for rest.

Tonight I am also grateful for:

• Rain impossibly born of dust clouds tonight and its lovely companions lightning and thunder.  How nice to hear the pounding of rain on the pavement, the rush of water in the street outside, and the rumble in surround sound as I type.
• Craigslist!  We have saved so much money making purchases on Craigslist.  So excited to be able to help Lily get going on her big girl two wheeler that we scored for $45 this weekend!
• Calming Jars - both the concept and how much fun the girls and I had making them Sunday night.  I initially thought it would be a good outlet for Lily when she has a sensory overload moment to "get her mads out," just shake the heck out of it and watch the glitter fall, much like a snow globe.  But after reading the post again on Sunday, months after I had originally pinned the idea, I thought it might be great for Emmy too.  The girls love their jars, but we have yet to try them in the thick of things.
• Arizona monsoon clouds that have decorated the sky the past couple of weeks giving me pure, soothing art to look at every day while traveling in the car.  Although this is the hottest time of year, it is one of the most beautiful with wide expanses of multi-colored sky in shades of gray, purple, blue, orange, gold, pink, and some of the purest white billowy skyscrapers of storm clouds stacked upon each other and towering up from behind mountains.
• Meeting a new friend and discussing over lunch our experiences from the perspective of mothers what it is like raising our daughters who both have sensory processing disorder.  I'm so excited to get the girls together and to get to know each other's family!
• Reconnecting with my favorite sensory processing book called, Raising a Sensory Smart Child, and realizing that they have a Facebook page with so much useful information, posts, discussions, and more that I am so excited to spend more time on.
• Rearranging my workstation today and feeling so much more productive with lots more workable space than I had before and much more ergonomically comfortable. 
• Talking with my brother tonight about progress, reality, fears, and love.  So wonderful to hear his voice and hear him for the first time, Jake in the raw.
• Tincture from Chakra4 Herb and Tea House called "Take a Chill Pill" that I really got for Lily that supports nervous system function, but that I used last night.  That along with another Chopra meditation finally helped my shoulders relax after a couple weeks of increasing rigidity. 

Catching My Breath

Breathe deeply in, fill my lungs, expand my belly, relax my shoulders, and exhale.  Catching my breath from a couple crazed weeks.

Ahhhhh.

This is pure joy to be here right now, at the page, in review. 

• Sunset on my way home one night this week.
• Finishing something that I've started several times over: The newest of Deepak Chopra's 21-Day Meditation Challenges, Free to Love.  Although it took me 29 days to experience 21, I feel so grateful that I kept returning to the challenge even though I got derailed multiple times.  It was such a peaceful, nurturing gift to give myself and I definitely have noticed benefits.  For probably the first time in my life, having this conversation with myself when the thoughts of self doubt and outer criticism invade:  But do YOU love YOU, Karen?  Yes!  I answered, Yes!  And that's what's most important; starting within.
• A week long visit from a very dear friend.  To be there for a friend by phone is a completely different experience than being there while sharing the same living quarters.  I learned so much about us both, our friendship, and my own family in sharing the week with her and am grateful for every minute. 
• Visiting a farm in Chino Valley, AZ and getting acquainted one-on-one with three miniature horses, two full size horses, two donkeys (Butterfly & Larry), three of the largest goats I've ever seen in my life, three alpaca that I've never before seen in my life, chickens, geese, an awfully mean rooster, a Flemish hare, and six dogs. 
• A successful week of open enrollment, our busiest time of the year at work.  Still multiple weeks to go to carry out the rest of the event, but I feel very positive in the great flow and response we've received thus far.
• Lily LOVES her 2nd grade teacher!
• Being able to attend our lunch n' learn this week, "Being healthy in an unhealthy world" and following it up with choosing to buy only organic milk from here on out for our girls.  This is something that we've always felt we couldn't afford, but after learning more about what's added to our food (so much of our food), we decided this is something that we longer can afford not to do.  I feel so much healthier just having it in the refrigerator!
• For our second Saturday in a row, getting back to Bountiful Baskets!  For $15, we picked up our box filled with romaine, kale, carrots, tomatoes, onion, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, pears, apples, bananas and grapes.  It all just looks so fresh and vibrant! 
• Attending a square foot gardening class and realizing how little I know about gardening. This is something I've been wanting to do for quite some time, but for now feeling at peace with maybe starting a few things in some pots and calling it a day.  This will definitely get shifted to the back of the list of future starts;)
• Recognizing that I have limits and making better choices about my precious resources.
• Finishing online traffic school this weekend to clear up my ticket.  Go Speed Racer!  Ironically, I am now a Speed Racer expert thanks to my Easy Fast Cheap Online Traffic School! 
• Emmy and I sharing the best fresh mango of our lives (last week's Bountiful Basket) at the dining room table yesterday afternoon; one purple glass bowl filled with beautiful yellow/orange mango, two forks, and lots of laughing as we tried to beat each other to the last piece.
• Laughter with friends.
• Deeper emotions shared between two friends.
• Andy and I doing one of the things we do best together: pitching in as a team to get the job done, no matter how down and dirty it is.
• Accepting family for who they are.  I have realized this week that we are akin to an ocean.  The waters can range from calm to tumultuous, but recognizing that this is the way it has always been and probably how it always will be helps me see the deep down love for and beauty in each other, even though superficially it waxes and wanes with the rise and fall of emotions and experiences, both shared and as individuals.
• This link shared by a dear aunt: Thirty Indispensable Writing Advice from Famous Authors
• Bedtime.

Finding Comfort in Gratitude

Sunday, August 5, 2012

It's the end of the night at the end of a very difficult week, an eve and a sunrise before starting yet another difficult week.  Difficult is, of course, relative; but for us, this week was right up there on the charts.

I was making lunches for tomorrow in the quiet of the kitchen tonight, the place one is most likely able to think when it's bath/shower time for the girls at the other end of the house.  Having just zested a whole lemon, I sliced it in half and put half on top of the hand-juicer.  I then placed my open palm onto the lemon half and pushed down onto the juicer  in small circular motions to squeeze out all that lemon had to offer.  All of a sudden, I noticed how lovely my hand felt moving over each of the grooves I made in the lemon with the zester.  It was also the multisensory experience of it all: fresh lemon wafting up in my nostrils, the new sensation in the palm of my hand, and the much needed few moments of quiet in my mind, even though the house was anything but.

Ahhhh!  Something to be so very grateful for in that very moment.  The beautiful simplicity of it all, and that I was able to get out of my head into that precise moment of real time: being present, as many would call it.

Now as I'm typing, I'm thinking that the 21-day meditation challenge I've been participating in is really working, possibly subconsciously sinking in!  This is very exciting!  I could sense by today and the two and three weeks leading up to today that I haven't been ready to relinquish myself to now.  For some reason, I've chosen to make myself suffer, moreso than I would have otherwise given the events of the week alone.

Anyway, that was a side note for myself.  Back to my lemon.  As I indulged myself in that experience for a minute or two, it made me want to immediately get back to gratitude - to be thankful for this moment that moved my soul back in my heart instead of in my head where it's been swimming around, or floundering rather, for much too long.

So here I am, back to the page, to my religion of giving thanks.  Period.  No more counting though, I think just reflecting, writing, feeling, and believing in my thanks will be most meaningful this time around:

• That my parents take the time to enjoy each other's company through bike rides, sharing meals, lake swimming, art festival walking, games, live music and so much more.  Grateful for the example they set after nearly 39 years of marriage.
• Their patience on the phone this morning as I walked them through all 300+ slides of our vacation photos because I wanted them so much to be enjoying it right there with us while we were away.
• A splash of coffee in a mug of warmed vanilla almond milk sprinkled with cinnamon.
• One-on-one time with each of my girls today.
• Lily's desire to add to her small rock collection.  Definitely something we can share and take great joy in doing together.
• The deep, full, relaxed breaths this experience of gratitude is giving back to me right now.
• A sunset hike together - our family of four, and Molly too.
• Taking in the beautiful 360 degree sunset sky and desert views that our neighborhood affords us the pleasure of.  I needed that fix of nature today more than I could have ever known.
• Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, even on a 110 degree day.
• Ending my night with gratitude and day 16 of the 21-day meditation challenge.