Renewal

17 March 2013 by Crystal Leave a comment

How do you know when it’s been a good year, full of smiles, chaos, afternoons in the snow, evenings by the fire, art classes, birthdays, and good friends?

When you haven’t had the opportunity or energy to blog since the calendar shifted into a new year . . . and now it’s March!

It has been a good year. And now it’s time to catch you all up on it. In the next few weeks I’ll try to catch you up on where we are, as well as where we’ve been.

To start with, I had a few ideas around the New Year of things I want to embody in the coming months. I don’t typically do resolutions. Anytime is a good time to make a change in my mind. So I’ll refrain from the “r” word and just say that I felt an overwhelming urge to incorporate certain things more fully into my life.

The first is gratitude. Numerous studies have linked gratitude to improvements in relationships, overall well-being, and perceived happiness. Think about it: when you express gratitude for something you have to first be able to notice the value in the people and things around you. And when you thank someone in your family, or they in turn express gratitude for something you’ve done, doesn’t it make you feel valued, loved, more appreciated and worthwhile? This article from Scientific American sealed the deal. It talks about “science of feeling good” and what can happen when you use things like gratitude to accentuate the positive in your life.

The second one is intimacy. I want more date nights with my hubbie. Period.

The last is inspired by a good friend of mine. Even though she is older than me I have watched her adventurous spirit with awe over the last year. After leaving her house I greet the world with new eyes. I want to treat everything like it is new and fun, to savor it all, and not waste time putting all those things off until “someday.” It’s a bucket list type of mentality that means simultaneously slowing down while also grasping opportunities to try new things and experience what is here, now, in this place and time.

One of my main goals this winter was to learn how to cross-country ski. After two seasons of being stuck in the lodge watching Mr. A and Towhead downhill ski, I was determined to find something Lil Moose and I could do outside together besides throw snowballs at each other. After a friend gave us an older pair of cross country skis, all I needed to do was get boots and poles, and a pulk the Moose could ride in behind me. A trip to the local ski shop and craigslist, in partnership with my birthday and Christmas money, got me set up. And I have been a happy mama ever since.

You know you’ve found something you love when all you can think about is when you can find another day to do it again!

Another friend was sweet enough to lend us a pair of small starter skis for Lil’ Moose that strap on to his snow boots. The up and downside to this new piece of equipment was that we figured out that one of the boy’s feet has a bit of an inward rotation to it. We called it to the attention of our doctor to get it on the medical radar and make sure that we didn’t need to do anything about it immediately. The consensus was to watch it closely until his third birthday, at which point if it is still there we will see about a gait analysis and treatment.

Another aspect of the blog I want to add in the new year (that’s not so new anymore) is a section called “What’s on the Table.” I’ve always known our lives center around that flat expanse of wood that fills one half of the kitchen, but I’ve also realized in the last few weeks that the books, objects and activities sitting at the far end of the table say a lot about us and what we’re up to at the moment. It’s a convenient way to give you a glimpse of those things that are often a big part of our lives, but not momentous enough to devote an entire blog entry to. As this week, it might appear as a book list from the ever-rotating stack of literature we’ve checked out from the library. It’s a space to highlight fun recipes and kitchen experiments I’m trying. Photos may appear of the spontaneous craft projects that have sprouted from my daughter’s imagination. The latest obsession of both kiddos lately is science experiments, either from our trusty little book, Pocket Pal Science Experiments (ed. Katie Hewat 2009) or from the Lab-in-a-Bag Smarty Pants Science Kit that Towhead got for her birthday.