Little Victories

I think successful lives are made up of lots of little victories.  Major victories are rare and sometimes fall flat of our expectations, but minor victories are always there.   Different things constitute as victories for different people on different days but, what matters is that we keep fighting our dragons.
Today was a good day for me and I needed a way to remember it--so on another day when it seems like it takes all my effort just to get out of bed I can remember my little victories.
Today despite anxieties and people phobia trying to get the best of me I managed to:

• Call and change my dentist appointment
• Ride several buses alone 
• Renew my bus pass
• Go to Service Canada and get my permanent SIN
• Swim at the Sports center
• Plus I managed to swim 3.5 times as many laps as my previous best number of laps before I was too out of breath to swim laps.

So how about you?  What dragons have you managed to conquer/evade today?  I would love to hear about any victories large or small that you might have had recently.

Reflections on February

If January was amazing, then February was good.  In February I feel like I managed to get into the swing of working hard everyday without burning out.  I developed a system for keeping track of all the things I am working on and I managed to average two blog posts a week for the month despite not managing to get out a single post last week.   I am starting though to get the feeling of sameness that comes before I usually crash and burn.  Sometimes, I get up and think what's the point of doing x, there'll just be more to do when I am done.
It's kind of amazing by lowering my expectations,  I have actually improved my  result.  I fear though that I lack direction.  I think it is time  for goals...  not big massive goals like I used to make...instead I think it is time for me to start making tiny goals.  My daily to do list is already a sort of  informal goal list and it's been working well for me.  But I think I would like to make a more formal goal  a I will do x everyday for x amount of time kind of goal.   I think I am ready because instead of dread or worrying I will screw it up I am excited.
Enough about goals.  Lets see what I've been doing for the past month.  Some of these photos you've seen and some are on the queue of things I still need to blog about.

I finished Noah's Ark early in February

Conversation heart letters were written and received with glee.

My super simple Valentine's dinner.

Gluten free mini pies.  YUM!!!

The cutest bird hat ever.

An adorable hat and diaper cover

A bad picture of some homemade buttons

chocolate peanut butter shapes

A lovely set of ombre hand towels.

March is my favorite month of the whole year.  I was born in march and when I was little I thought that the month of March had been made just special for me.  You see when I was in kindergarten I learned about this amazing holiday that everyone celebrates by wearing green and making awesome Irish food.  And since I was little and easily confused I decided that since St. Patrick's day was near my birthday, green was my favorite color, and I loved corned beef that the holiday must have been created especially for me.
March also brings us nearer to my other favorite holiday  Easter.  Plus it usually starts getting warmer and greener, two things I am very much a fan of.  So I am excited for March.

Hopefully you are excited for  March too.  I have lots of great things planned for March.  I am going to show you guys how to put a faux leather finish on an old steamer trunk, and how to make homemade buttons. I am considering participating in Knit and Crochet Design Week.  I also want to share some recipes, and show you some of the other projects I am working on.  So Check back soon.

What is your super power?

In January I told you that I wasn't doing any resolutions this year.  It's going to be hard to describe this but that was totally a turning point moment for me.  I feel like I finally gave myself permission to be me just as I am now and not who I might be in 5 years or even tomorrow.  That person is not real, she doesn't exist yet and she might not ever exist.  And somehow I don't think torturing myself with self criticism and overwhelming goals etc in the here and now will help her.
I suffer from a couple of auto-immune disorders, debilitating migraines,  and severe depression.  I usually don't tell people this, because I don't like trying to explain something most people simply don't understand.  I don't like the weird, pitying looks or the unhelpful advice that I have received. I don't like being made to feel like I am pretending to be sick because I look just fine.  So I have learned not to tell anyone and to pretend like I just fine.  I am explaining it to all of you now, because it plays into what I have learned in my experiment over the  last month of just trying find peace.  Sometimes as I pretend to everyone else that I am not sick,  I convince myself that I am not sick.  I am not sure I ever realized this before, but as I have stopped trying to meet any specific goals and simply tried to do things in the moment that make me happy and comfortable I have started to realize that most of the time I push my body too hard.  I can put a smile on my face and pretend to the world that I am just fine, but I have to tell my self the truth.  I have to realize that I am sick and I need to pay attention to my body.  Listening to my body has helped me so recently, by stopping whatever I am doing when I start to feel tired or hurting,  I have actually been able to get more done rather than less.
That's all well and good you say but what does being sick have to with superpowers?  Nothing.  And everything.  We all have weaknesses I have just described a few of mine to you and we all have strengths--superpowers if you will.  When we fight our weakness--either by believing they are insurmountable ( I love that word it is so much fun to say) or by pretending they don't exist, we are paying our selves a great disservice.   Paying so much attention to our "negative" traits, draws our attention away from what we are good at.  So as I have began to seek balance in my life and gave myself permission to be imperfect.  I started to see that I was awesome; I could see all sorts of things that I was good at that I had ignored because they hadn't fit into my narrow vision of what I wanted.
Everyone has superpowers some of them are silly and some of them seem unimportant but they are part of what make you unique.  Your superpowers are the things that you are really good at, things that make your heart sing, and the silly things that only you seem to do.
So what ARE your super powers you say?  Well okay okay... I am good at talking, but in recent years I have become a superstar listener.  I am a good teacher, patient ( well most of the time), and a great sight reader--both music and books. I can read at the speed of light, and  I am great at reading aloud,  good with kiddos, I know how to relax and have a good time ( doesn't sound like much of a super power but trust me it can be).  I am good at cooking, crocheting, knitting ( well learning to be), and learning.  And last but not least my super power is creativity--I always have at least a dozen crazy ideas cooking in my brain.  I wish I was a little better at following through with them but that is a story for another day

I have had a lot of fun in January.  I have learned a lot about myself and you know what at least for today I like me.  That feels great to say.  I Like ME!
So what are your super powers?

No More New Year's Resolutions

I dislike New Year's Resolutions. As I was thinking about if I wanted to make a New Years Resolutions this year, my hand started to shake and I started to cry. I told myself I was being silly and that making a goal would help me to be foicused and feel fulfilled, but the feelings persisted. I started feeling guilty about not completing my goals before I had even decided on a goal. I have had some difficult struggles, with self-esteem body image, and depression in the last few years. The last thing I needed was something else that made me feel terrible. I tend make huge goals, get overwhelmed and quit after the first two weeks of January. Then I feel guilty and haphazardly start and break a series of smaller goals throughout the year.

I like the idea of New Year's Resolutions--the idea of starting each year with a purpose and improving on the previous year. But it was obvious to me that setting mighty goals was not the way to achieve this, at least not for me. So I thought for a while about a way to start 2012 with a purpose without initiating a panic attack. As I thought, it came to me that I like to do lists better than schedules, and general ideas better than rules; I tend to think of rules of something put there to be broken. So I have decided that instead of a resolution I would choose a word--just ONE-- that epitomizes what I would like to get out of this year. I have chosen Peace.

More than anything I want to be comfortable in my own skin, to find joy in everyday things, and just to over be, umm well, at Peace.

Over all I think I am more of an idea person than a goal person we'll see how this works out.