A Mindful Life

Claire is better; her fever broke yesterday. Now I have a sore throat and a low grade fever, and I hope this passes just as quickly.
My morning started with feeling punky and then turned odious. (Warning: somewhat gross details follow.) I was eating my toast at the table and Claire was playing on the floor. [...]

I’ve never participated in this meme before, but Gerry does so I thought I’d do a quick brain dump. Reader beware: the quality of what comes next might be less than intelligent. I should also mention that the meme focuses on 10 things one is thankful for; I wrote it more generally, though it could [...]

I sit at the dining table, just having put Claire to bed at 7:45 p.m. Husband is out seeing a movie with a friend; he deserves an occasional fun outing too. The challenge has been that last week I started doing something different with Claire’s schedule, and today I’ve decided it probably isn’t working out.
Before [...]

In between shopping for a new car seat, providing the usual care for Claire, doing laundry, buying groceries, vacuuming and mopping, watering outdoor plants, and making lemon buttermilk pies for a potluck, I’ve been squeezing in another book. The library books are momentarily set aside so I can complete a book I started months ago, [...]

My energy seems to have returned, which makes me feel cheerier and optimistic. This shift occurred over the weekend when I got some time to myself.
A Guatemalan friend recommended some authors to me, so on Thursday I dove into Antigua and My Life Before, by Marcela Serrano. I finished yesterday completely satisfied with the [...]

Well first, it takes time and energy, which are increasingly scarce for me.
Second, and more importantly to me, it creates an often one-sided relationship with people. It puts people in a spectator role and removes incentive to connect directly with me, because they already know what’s up in my life.
That doesn’t provide the most [...]

In addition to riding the swing, pulling up grass, scrunching sand between our fingers, and generally trying to put all interesting items in the mouth:

And happy, happy news! Uncle TP is coming for a visit to meet my Little Eclaire in August! It’s funny, because he came out in August last year for a visit [...]

For reasons I don’t want to go into (mostly because they’re boring), the past couple days have been rough for me. I am raw and short on energy and patience. At a stoplight, I had my right turn blinker on. It’s an option to turn right on red (unless there’s sign prohibiting it). I was [...]

In an attempt to break out of my safe little rut, I tried a new pattern. It’s not as though the stitch is difficult; it involves binding off and picking up stitches, but I’d never tried changing directions before. This is an accent scarf, and it’s intended to be worn to jazz up an outfit. [...]

One thing I’ve noticed about having a child is that one parent typically takes the majority of the pictures, which means more time spent behind the lens than in front. That would be me. My sister intends today to get some shots of me with Claire. This was one from the early morning. I look [...]