Oh my! Oh yes!

I am fully in love with Liz Lamoreux right now.

Every morning I get up early to help Terry out the door. I've been doing it for years now. Some people think I'm nuts for doing this, but the truth is, I'm a really light sleeper so if I didn't help him I'd just be laying awake in bed watching him. So I get up. I make his coffee and bagel, pack his lunch into his cooler and kiss him goodbye.

Sometimes, if I'm ferociously tired, I go back to bed. Though that never seems like a good idea when it's time to get up with the girls. So I try not to do that. I stay up and have some time to myself. Mostly I watch PVR'd shows or surf. But that isn't very productive or fulfilling. It feels like I've wasted precious alone time.

I've been reading a lot of posts on Leo Babautas site lately. One post talked about creativity and how to make it a habit. I have clicked through so many posts, reading and nodding, that I can't pinpoint which one said to do something creative first thing in the morning. Before you do anything else.

I figured I'm already up, why not try this. So instead of vegging yesterday morning while I waited for the kids to get up I worked on sorting photos (more on this later).

Now, an odd part of my personality is that I crave solitude and silence but often find being alone a tad eerie. Hence spending so much of my alone time surfing or watching telly. Or, yeah, eating.

But I wanted to do this. Which brings us back to Liz. I remembered that I'd been wanting to listen to some of her recorded messages on her site. But good lord does my attention wander at warp speed in front of the computer. This girl can barely sit through a YouTube video.

Solution? I turned on a video and worked while I listened. Brilliant. I got so much done with a soothing voice in the background. More than I've done in months.

Then it happened. Liz said something so brilliant, so true, that it literally made me yell YES! As she was talking about "your corner" and making it beautiful she was talking about bits and pieces of stuff. It could be anything. Doesn't matter. What she said was "Those stories can't sing if they're in Tupperware boxes".

Isn't this so true? So true. The fact that I have my grandmothers camping journals doesn't matter if I don't know what bin to find them in. The fact that I have pictures of my beloved childhood toys doesn't help me if they're in a jumbled mess and there is no journaling beside them to say that I actually loved those toys and wish they were still around. And all the pretty paper in the world is only clutter if I'm afraid to cut into it and it's just sitting there.

I am resolving to finally let go of my fears, and more importantly my inertia, and empty those bins. Clear my corner and make it sing.

Perhaps if I show you an embarrassing picture it will help to motivate me to clear it up so I can show you a pretty picture.

Here you go, the ugly truth. It's kind of colourful and treasure-seeking-ish but the truth is, it's dysfunctional. To even find something I know I have takes so long I give up, turn off the light and go away.

Good morning, Saturday.

It's almost 7:30 and it's still dark outside yet I've been awake for over two hours now. Sigh. Terry had to work today so I got up with him and woke Chloë to get her ready for hockey. She wasn't feeling well at all and decided to miss today. Funny, though. Now she's behind me playing ball with the dog. No sign of illness at all. Conveniently, it is now too late to get to hockey. Hmmmm. Duped?

Looking at pictures of her in all of her hockey gear makes me so happy for her. And so proud. I think it's amazing that she is getting so many opportunities to explore herself and find the things that move her.

Spring is coming! Right?

Valentines Day is over. Groundhog day was weeks ago. We had a winter thaw last week and had temperatures of 15C. They didn't last though and this morning it was -16C again.

I've dealt with it fairly well this winter. We've been super busy with Chloe having hockey four times a week, both girls in swimming and ballet too. Plus, being forced to go out daily to walk Angus let's me enjoy weather I'd normally hide from. But here is the cold, hard, late February truth; I'm done. There you have it. No sugar coating, no rose colored glasses. I want flip flop weather and I want it now.

Please?

A long week. A cold for me and nobody else. But there is just soooo much to do to get ready for December. So much that I did...nothing.

Well, that's not entirely true. I sat down last week and made a list. A monster TO DO list. I was feeling scattered and like I had one million things I should be doing but couldn't just pick one and do it. So, along came the list. And, it's big. But I find it so much easier to have something to look at and tell me what to do. It's too bad that a stay at home mom can't have a boss that assigns daily tasks.

I also took time out to do this on Thursday;

I got the inspiration from one of my favourite bloggers, Meg and she wrote about it here;

http://megduerksen.typepad.com/whatever/2010/10/craft-thursday-12.html

I love Meg. I love her positive attitude. I love the colours on her website. And most of all I love that she remembers to take pictures of her Craft Thursday. Cause I didn't. ;)

Well, then....

Clearly I'm not all that great at this blog thing. Which is rather curious, seeing as I spend HOURS every week in front of this computer.

This year, like very year, has gone quickly. But my word stuck with me and I'd have to say it was one of the more productive years. Instead of putting things off, I managed to stay with TODAY a lot. Not all the time. Let's not get carried away, now.

I was painting the playroom/massage room AGAIN today. I keep repainting that room and never liking the colour. I hope I'm happy with this one. I went way out on a limb and painted it...are you ready for this...white. Well, off white. Swiss Coffee to be exact.

So looking forward to working in the room now.

Whhhhheeeeeeee!

I did it. That was easy. :D

Now, how do I add stuff on the sides?

Sick babies....tis the time of year.

Interesting. Same time as last year, both girls have been sick on and off for weeks now. Hannah had the worst of it, having some bizarre hive outbreak for two full weeks before it ended in two days of fever. Chloë is home sick from school again today, which she doesn't seem too sad about.

As for me and my TODAYS, well, some are better than others in terms of focus and getting stuff done. My oh my, do I have attention problems. I start something and then find myself in another room doing something else. Sigh. I wonder if I could nail my feet to the floor until I finish what I'm doing? I've found using my timer (a la Flylady) works quite well. I set it for 15 minutes and something in my brain knows not to move from that task until the timer rings. Must do this more.

Thanks so much for those of you that commented on my Word of the Year post. It really meant quite a lot to me. More than you'd think. In fact, Jerries comment last night prompted me to get my butt in gear today and post.

Now...my goal for TODAY is to spruce up this little blog. I think a new picture is in order, don't you? Now if only I could remember how I did that.....