We Are Smitten

One of our favorite places to eat, is 'EAT' which is a fairly new restaurant here locally where the ingredients are all-natural, and the produce is locally grown. Very organic. We've never been disappointed in the menu, but you don't know what's being served that night until you get there.

The kids most recently ordered the carnival-style turkey leg with 'local' salad, and were glad to see it was served with a can of soda they hadn't tried yet. One sip and their eyes bugged out like little addicts. J & I quickly snagged the cans to see what the fuss was all about and quickly realized it was like drinking cotton candy. So I'm looking at the side of the can at the ingredients and nutritional facts to find it has NO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP!! We make an effort not to eat too much of that around here. The sugar is pure cane sugar, and by golly you'd better hang on.

That's all.

Abundance

One thing I intended to work on this year 'off' was a better attitude, or a more healthy perspective, towards my daily life. Isn't it funny how we (maybe it's just me) may wake up and realize, "When did my brain get trained this way? Have I always looked at things that way?" Those kind of questions that pop in and confuse me to the point that I think, "Man. I need to stop thinking and eat something," even if it's just a banana, it usually relieves me of the stress of trying to figure those things out.

For example, somewhere along the backroads of life, I picked up the philosophy of scarcity. I'm not sure when or how this snuck its way in, but there is an over-riding feeling that things, opportunities, blessings, etc. will run out. I've never even thought that there was anything wrong with me thinking this way, but in reading a worthy blog I frequent: www.thatcoolbroad.com , I see there is hope of abundance.

She is worth checking out. What drove me to her site was an overwhelming feeling of being sick and tired of the narcissism of today's average society, the celebrity gossip and just basically the falseness we are being inundated with every time we turn our heads from the tv to the radio to the grocery store. She, and a few thousand other people, happen to think like me - which is a comfort, isn't it?

Anyway, she mentions that to help in changing your way of thinking, and being more content, having a mentality of abundance, rather than scarcity, allows you to free yourself up.

I like that.

I'm going for that.

If you know me, remind me of that. :-)

I Love Bedtime

J & I pretty much split the household and parental duties pretty nicely. We usually don't even need to have a conversation about it, I just pick up where I feel it's necessary and he does the same. I make dinner, he cleans it up (sometimes). And vice versa. I clean the living room, he runs to grab the vacuum to follow me. And since we've moved in over here, he puts L to bed, and I put C to bed. We'll each have some hang-out time in the other's room, collecting kisses and saying goodnight, but for the reading-until-they-pass-out time, we have our places.

I know, from listening to L at breakfast the next morning, that J repeats a lot of L's favorite stories from, "When he was a little boy" over and over. Sometimes they're the same, sometimes not, but L definitely has those stories by memory and has volume after volume in his Daddy collection. I think it's wonderful, and J shared many of those stories with C when she was little.

While they're in there talking about the adventures on Maple Drive, getting in trouble for...whatever, how he got this scar, or that scar, etc., C and I sip our tea and usually start by talking. I've already got the recap of her school day as soon as I pick her up from school (another favorite part of my day), but somehow, when she and I are cuddled up in her bed, (which, by the way, is the most comfortable one in the house - unfair!), the brief summary given after school stretches and the details come. She asks questions about things that are on her mind, we talk about what girl trips we'll take this summer, I read to her from her bible and tell her my favorite parts and what Jesus means right there, and so on. Sometimes she reads to me, if it's not too late. Tonight I even brought my laptop and we did online multiplication flash cards. Then we cuddle and tell each other how much we love each other, I try not to fall asleep in her bed, and then leave her to her dreams. (Then, usually, I go back into L's room and give him one more kiss while he's sleeping.)

I love these days. And I love bedtime.