The Gratitude Project: September in July

It's pouring down rain outside, and inside it's cozy. It's pumpkin spice latte weather in July. I have a steaming mug of coffee next to me and I'm wrapped up in a blanket on my couch. My inbox has more work than I can do and my fingers are ready to get typing.

Reasons my two year old might be crying

Reasons my two year old might be crying:
I buckled her car seat.
Her brother is talking to her.
Her brother is looking at her.
She's not a kitty cat.

Is there a psychological condition for this?

Heidi: "I want to watch the Doctor Who with the scary dolls! Please can we watch the Doctor Who with the scary dolls? That one's my favorite! Momma, why do the scary dolls touch Amy and turn her into a scary doll? Momma, if the scary dolls touch little kids they turn into scary dolls and then they turn other little kids into scary dolls! It's my favorite!"

Uhhhhhh.....

It's all a matter of perspective

Gratitude changes the way you see the world. I've been doing a Gratitude Project for a few months now, finding things to be grateful for. Sometimes it's hard to be grateful. Sometimes I just plain forget. Sometimes the best I can do is "I'm alive," and sometimes it's hard to even feel grateful for that.

But slowly, I'm getting better. And life is getting better. Not that actual circumstances are changing, but that I'm beginning to see them in a better light. And when I can see hope in the world, I react better and create better circumstances for myself and for all of us.

And really, it's amazing what a difference gratitude can make in the way the world looks.

For example, there are two ways I could describe what is happening in my house today.

1) The kids are going crazy and are playing with dirty outdoor stuff that's not even proper toys. The ambient sound in the house is equivalent to a heavy metal concert and just as unpleasant. We're going to be eating hot soup on a hot day because our diets no longer allow for normal sandwiches and we don't have salad in the fridge at the moment. The house is a total disaster and all the shoes are in the living room.

Or

2) Heidi is crowning Ion with the "Crown of Truth," which is a broken tricycle tire, because childhood imagination is amazing. Rori is trying on all of our shoes pair by pair because childhood fashion is also amazing (as is the getup she chose for herself this morning. She managed to find an entire multi-layer outfit full of items that don't match each other in the slightest.) Emory is sleeping peacefully in the back bedroom. There is broccoli cheese soup simmering on the stove because Bear Creek Soup is the gods' gift to busy families everywhere. Ryan has converted the kitchen table into a makeshift shop and is drilling out some sheet metal to fix the running board of our van. We have a massive van that fits our whole family, and we're not paying the dealer hundreds of dollars to fix it because Ryan likes to tinker with stuff. Basically, we're the Weasleys without the wands and I always wanted to be them. I'm living my dream, I just didn't know it came with so much noise.

See? The difference that gratitude makes.

I could go for having the Scourgify spell though.

Equality for our children, equality for all

This conversation happened yesterday:

Me: "Heidi, something very important happened today. Now you are free to love anyone you want. You can marry a girl or a boy."
Heidi: "I don't wanna marry a girl or a boy. I wanna marry a prince."
Ion: "I wanna marry a fire truck!"

You do you, Bubba.

Love and marriage

Today I am grateful for 6 wonderful years with my love! What incredible things these six years have brought - four beautiful babies, millions of hopes and dreams, and so many lessons in how to love. Here is to 6 more years, and then 12 after that, and many many more years of learning and loving together. I love you more than I ever manage to tell you. 

The Gluten-Depression Link, or Why I Cried Over A Tricycle This Morning

There's a lot of information out there that links depression with gluten sensitivity. Now I'm not a doctor, or a scientist, though I've got some friends who have mad microscope skills, so I generally go with what Doctor Google tells me when I have health-related questions.

Doctor Google or my in-laws. It's excellent to be related to people in the medical profession when you have an emergency question at 3 in the morning.

But about gluten sensitivity, I go to my other in-laws, who actually deal with Celiac disease on a daily basis. And they've told me that gluten sensitivity causes all sorts of problems one might not think about. Like depression.

But taking gluten out of one's diet is a majorly huge pain in the butt, which is why I did it for a few weeks 2 years ago and then quit. And ever since I've been wondering if I might feel better if I weren't eating gluten.

So a couple of months ago we decided to cut gluten out of our diets again. I've been feeling good. Decently high baseline. Avoiding gluten is still a pain in the butt. And things that contain gluten are really, really yummy.

So yesterday I ate a whole two crumbs of a cake we'd gotten for everybody (except me) to celebrate Father's Day. (I'd gotten my own GF treat so don't go feeling sorry for me and my left-outness.)

And this morning Ryan, um, bumped the tire of the kids' tricycle when we were taking the kids to school. And I burst into tears. I may have yelled. I just might have gotten really really mad.

That tricycle was the symbol of a better life. I imagined the kids riding it up and down the driveway in front of our dream house. I REMEMBERED when Rori got that tricycle for her birthday. It was THE KIDS' TRICYCLE. And now it was BROKEN. And we were NEVER GOING TO GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE and life was NEVER GOING TO BE BETTER and I just might as well stop even trying because what was the point? Life was going to be hopeless forever because a tire on a tricycle got bent.

The replacement part costs $5.

I had a complete breakdown because of a $5 tricycle tire.

It took chocolate to get over it.

Two crumbs, guys. That's all it takes to go completely insane. Two freaking crumbs.

No more gluten for me.