Some Funny photos

Wahooooo.....christmas is fun!

Crisis Nursery

Todays paper featured a wonderful new organization in Rochester, and I'm going to look into volunteering there. Its called the Rochester Crisis Nursery, and is a Nursery where children can safely live when their parents are expieriencing a self defined crisis. It can be anything from a single parents babysitting crisis, to a death in the family. They won't turn away anyone who is expieriencing a crisis and is in need of childcare. Since Olivia's birth my heart has been heavy for single parents, and I often wonder how they manage, especially when life happens. Check out their website

www.cngr.org

"l never knew that I had to learn about myself"

My dear friend Joann just "flew" in for one of our late afternoon visits. She pops in for about 30 minutes, and we cover more topics than Hannity and Combs on primetime television. Joann is exactly double my age, but in our beliefs we are far closer than the gap in our age could ever offer. Joann and I have tender hearts that are very affected by the state of our world. We share this, and are able to talk to each other as two kindred spirits are able to. What I love about Joann is that she is always able to offer me advice that comes from life expierience, and a similiar heart as mine. Today I shared with her that "I never knew that I had to learn about myself." She said that sentence should be the title of a book, and I agree with her. That sentence is true, so true. I never knew that we have to get to know who we are as people. I feel like an artichoke, and with every layer that I'm "willing" to peel away, I get closer to understanding who I am, and what charges me. The "willing to peel away" is the part that often mixes us up as women. We're so scared to really get to know ourselves, even if we don't think we are, that often we just keep getting caught up in our day to day lives, and end up living for others, instead of living for our hearts.

Eckert Tolle talks about our emotions, and how to get to the core of them. I want to share what I learned from him. Whenever you're feeling an overwhelming emotion such as anger, pay close attention to your physical reaction. Paying attention to how something is physically making you feel, will help stop your ego from taking you on a wild painful ride. When we're expieriencing a strong emotion, our ego will keep feeding our brain with images that overwhelm us, but if we center and pay attention to how we're physically feeling, it can stop the ego dead in its track. I've been practicing this and adding a 3rd component. I tell God how I'm physically reacting, and that keeps me even more centered. When we learn how something physically affects us, we are better able to tune into why things bother us, and we gain an awareness about how an emotional situation really affects us. This process has had a profound impact on my life in just a few short weeks.

I have used this with countless patients that I work with and they too have expierienced some liberation from their own pain. My best example of my own personal painful issue, is that a few weeks ago I was on my way to someones house, and I didn't want to go. My mind (ego)was racing with all the reasons why I didn't want to go. I then stopped, and made myself identify my physical reaction to this painful situation. I felt the following; my stomach hurt, my head hurt, my stomach felt nauseous, and my throat felt alittle tight. I stayed the course the entire way to the house and continued identifying my physical reaction to this painful situation. My mind stopped racing becuase the EGO couldn't feed it anymore. I still have alot to work through, but I'm taking this step towards getting to know myself, and having more stillness in my life.

ALL GONE!!

I have to blog this quick little cute story from tonite. We took Olivia to get her photos done. We even brought Grandma Z along for the fun. We had 3 outfit changes becaues I wanted to have her pic taken in her first birthday dress, christmas dress, and then this other casual dress that looks cute on her. Normally I would have never brought along 3 dresses, but the place said we had unlimited time so I thought "What the heck." Olivia can be a hard one to make smile, and of course tonite was no exception. Dave and I were running around the studio yelling "Boo" to her, which is the only thing that would crack her up. Grandma Z was singing "Jiggity Jig" and the photographer was waving some toy duck all over the place, all trying to get those perfect picture smiles. By the end of the session I felt like I had just spent the last hour at the Gym, and I had broken out into a full sweat trying to get lulu to smile. So we had the 3rd dress on, and the photographer got a fair amount of pictures from Lulu when all of the sudden Olivia sat down on the floor, layed back and yelled"All Gone!" When Olivia says "All Gone" she means "All done." She says it whenever shes done doing anything. All of us starting cracking up....she literally ended her own photo session. Then she got up and left the studio area and just started leaving, she was officially "All done." I have to put that in the baby book because I will never forget watching her do that...it was priceless!

Takin it to the streets

I took Olivia on her first neighborhood stroll today, without the stroller! Hip Hip Hooray! It was so fun to walk along side of her, and watch her explore the neighborhood by foot! She was ready for action today, and loved being able to visit the neighbors and neighborhood pets. I took the walker along with us, but she ditched it two houses away and started making a run for it. So we walked hand in hand, even though she didn't seem to excited about holding my hand. :)

We have a walker!

This weekend Olivia started walking! Its been so prescious to watch her toddle everywhere. I have to mark it in the blog so I know the actual day that it started. The day was Friday December 1st, she was 13 months old. I know I'll forget to write it down so thankfully we have these wonderful blog inventions. Its so exciting to see her explore her world in the upright position.

I also want to say a happy birthday shout out to our favorite 2 year old, Hannah Jane! Happy Birthday sweetie! I'll think of you at 10:45 pm, since your mom said thats the time you were born. We all had a blast at your party today. Livy was estatic to spend an afternoon with you, and we loved meeting some of your extended family. I was thanking Daybreak 2 all the way home for bringing you guys into our lives. Happy Birthday Hannah!!

December 6th, 1976

This Wednesday I will turn 30 years old! Yikes! I actually am feeling quite uneventful about the whole expierience. Oddly enough, it isn't feeling like the milestone that I thought it would be. Perhaps I'm so caught up the Christmas cheer this year that my birthday sort of feels like just another Christmas celebration. My dear friend Ashley called last night and grilled me about the birthday plans, and asking why I hadn't requested a huge party to celebrate this "monumental event" as she called it. I gave her all of the usual excuses, "we just bought the house, we just threw Olivia a huge party, we need so much for the house, parties are expensive, and the list went on." All of those things are very true, but the birthday isn't going uncelebrated. Dave and I have a few fun plans that I'm looking very forward to. On my actual birthday we're having dinner as a family, and eating "Pasta Olivia" which is now my favorite dish but its origins date back to my pregnancy. We named it Pasta Olivia because its the one dish that I always craved, and the only one that she would let me keep down. So we'll have dinner as a family that nite, and then on Thursday Dave and I may take in Handels Messiah at the RPO, which hasnt' been done in over 10 years by the RPO. I am dying to see this performance as I'm sure its going amazing. Then On Saturday Dave and I are heading off to Skaneatlas for a full day of fun planned by Dave. Its their annual Charles Dickens festival, and we're going to have lunch at a beautiful Inn that my mom sugggested. Last but not least, Jenn has invited us all over to her place on Sunday for some birthday fun! :) I'm really looking forward to spending time with her, Avery, and Keith. My sister will be also be in town Sunday to join us. So I have some really nice plans for my birthday, and they're all things that I'm looking forward too. Its all about spending quality time with the people I love, and ringing in the start of a new decade.