Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Outer Order = Inner Peace

I am working on testing the theory that outer order can bring inner peace. Not that I am completely lacking inner peace, but I could always use more. Nor am I so completely disorganized that I can not function, but once again, most of us could be a bit more organized as well. In order to reach my goal I have decided I need my house to look like it is on the market to be sold, all the time. Yes, I am staging my house, but not selling it. The clutter is slowly but surely disappearing. This time I am not just moving the clutter from one place to another, like some people do when company is due to arrive. No, I am going finding place for everything, and sometimes (more often than not) the place is the garbage can. However, standing between me and my perfectly staged home is a disease. Yes, a disease. An affliction. I have a horrible, awful, non-communicable disease. I am afflicted with flat surface disease. If I see a clear, clean, flat surface, I have an urge, no a NEED, to put something on that clean, flat surface. Mail, books, glasses, keys, you name it I will put the item on a clean flat surface instead of its rightful place. It is a sickness. The last few weeks I have been fighting my inner clutter demon. Forcing myself to file or shred papers. Coaxing myself to shelve books and putting my keys in a special bowl, just for my phone and keys. It has been torturous. Unlearning clutter-making attacks every fiber of my being. No, I have never liked the clutter, but it is a hard habit to break. However, I have noticed, when I go to bed at night and the counters and end tables are tidy, I feel a certain satisfaction with myself...perhaps even some additional inner peace. And each day I can honestly say I am waking up to a fresh, clean, start to the day.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Positivity, DCN's, & Laughter

Today I am writing to cheer myself up. I caught myself having a pity party over the little potholes on my road called "life". I tried to use positive thinking to turn pull myself out of the pity pool, but more often than not anymore I need to write in a journal to really distract me from myself. So today I am blogging my journal, since I am pretty sure I am not the only person on the planet that can get caught up on the little stuff. My son often reminds me of this because he has been known to make the statement, "I am feeling a little glum". Yes, at the age of seven he says "glum". He is his mother's child and tends to make less common vocabulary choices. Anyway, we all get a little glum and the only solution is to focus on the positive. However, when making laps in the pity pool it is often hard to get positive. It is a real conundrum. Thus, I write it all out, or at least the really nagging things, and then I look on paper and see that really my life is not in Suckville, or even in the same county. Then I am not so glum. Sometimes.

If the writing it out does not stop the gloom and negativity, I head right to the DCN's. What are DCN's? (You know you are wondering) DCN's are Dinosaur Chicken Nuggets. Now you are wondering, what the hell does that have to do with anything? Well, DCN's (you just say the letters, never the words) are exactly what my kids requested for lunch a few days ago. I was not clued into the lingo, so it when something like this...

Daughter: Hey, umm, we were thinking some DCN's would hit the spot.
Me: Umm, first of all who is "we" and second what are DCN's?
(insane laughter from son (who is in another room) & daughter)
Son: (yelling from another room) DINOSAUR CHICKEN NUGGETS.
(more laughter from them, and now from me)

Thus was born the DCN phenomenon. It is just a funny thing to hear, and fun to say, and even tasty to eat (occasionally). We do not really have DCN's in the freezer regularly, which makes it even funnier that my kids have taken to calling this food by its initials. It makes me laugh every time I think about it. Yes, it is ridiculous. No, it probably is not funny to anyone else in the world except the four people that live in my house. The point is everyone has a DCN in their life. Something funny that can bring a smile to their face, and a lightness to their heart. Life needs these little things that keep us from taking ourselves too seriously, or to encourage us to get out of the pity pool, dry off, and get on with life on a more positive plain.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Never Forgetting

Today is September 11, 2011. Ten years since so many lives were horribly cut short, and it seems all Americans lives changed that very sad day. Today, ten years after the fact, with so much media coverage of the opening of the memorial and the remembrances of those who were lost, I had the opportunity to talk to my kids about what happened and why 9/11 is significant and part of our national history.

My daughter was had just turned two in 2001 and my son had not yet been born. So for obvious reasons neither had much of a concept of what happened or why. Seeing video replay of the World Trade Center under attack today was the first time either one had seen the horror. (I did not let my two year old see the constant coverage 10 years ago, not knowing what her little growing mind would retain) They both had questions. What happened? Why would a plane do that? Who would do that? Pretty much the same questions I had ten years ago. So over lunch we talked about terrorists, Osama bin Laden, and the resilience of the American spirit. Do they understand now? No. I do not think I ever will either. However, they do understand that we, as Americans, can never forget, nor can we live in fear.