Celebrate the Small Things ~ On the Road to Contentment

Last week I met a new to me blogger, VikLit of Scribblings of an Aspiring Author through DL Hammon's Blog Blitz. I'd seen her weekly “Celebrate the Small Things” blog hop all over the place, and now found the founder!  I'm joining in, because it fits so well with my word of the year focus on CONTENTMENT.  

This week I'm celebrating the work I've done on straightening out our finances. We've done Financial Peace University TWICE, yet it seems that every few years we need to do a re-set and basically kick ourselves in the rear and start behaving responsibly with our money. Lots of unplanned expenses lately (which if you've been reading Life is Good even for a little while you're familiar with them...I let it all hang out ;-) 

I'm happy to say we've found some great software that's really helping. It's called YNAB which is You Need A Budget. Yes, yes we do. So far we're liking the 34 (what's up with 34?) day free trial very much and will most likely buy it.

I'm also celebrating some victories in my continual battle with my body image. Some of you know my history (anorexia – there, said it out loud again – and every time I do it gets easier).  I don't like being this size. I struggle constantly with food. 

Alcoholics “get” to just quit drinking. Not saying that's easy AT ALL. My point though is that we can't quit food cold turkey. Well, we can, been there done that and that's the problem...Food is constantly there as a source of stress. My success is that I'm feeling good about my weight for the first time in a long time.  

Maybe the weird combination of meds keeping me breathing is helping me in some way. All I know is that I'm wearing jeans that haven't fit me since 2010. I wasn't going to say anything to anyone, but hey, it's celebration day, so there you go. (To read more about me and this topic here.)

I'm also celebrating my wonderful kids and all they've done for me lately. They have really stepped up and done all their chores and most of mine, and mostly cheerfully. 

Yesterday The Transporter had a very difficult job to do to get his mother to her friend's new apartment. Elevators out of order...four flights of stairs for asthma girl not a possibility...but he (and Mr. Maintenance) found a way to get me up there! (I know you're going to be wondering...we got let into the residents parking garage and drove up to her floor, well as close as we could get anyway and that was enough.) He did all that while carrying a vase of flowers. 

OYT is going on his first overnight youth retreat this weekend which is a huge step for a shy guy and I'm so proud of him.

What are you celebrating this week? Since it's an ongoing, weekly hop, you can join too! Or just leave me your celebration in the comments so I can cheer with you!

~Tina

Please Blitz Jeremy, and Yeah, I Finally Gave Away My Piano

Before I get to my silly post for today, I want to encourage you to visit the A-Z Challenge Blog.  One of our co-hosts, my buddy Jeremy, broke his ankle, had surgery, and is needing some bloggy love.  As a team of co-hosts, we wrote his "About Me" feature as a surprise.   (There are more coming up in the following weeks leading up to April about the most of the rest of us).  He's also being Blitz Attacked (see Friday's post).  I ask the favor that you visit the A-Z Challenge Blog even if you're not involved just to say, "Get better soon!" or whatever fits your style. I know the encouragement will help him heal.  Thanks.

*****

My piano has a new home, and it’s a good home.  Yet I’m a nostalgic person, and the big hole in my family room reminds me that though something may have sentimental value, I’m in the place where I need to let go of that which no longer serves a purpose for me, and can bless someone else. Then I have more room to get myself and my essential stuff organized.

I can’t play the piano anymore.  I used to sit down to keep in touch with enough frequency that I could still play “Color My World” by Chicago.  The reason I could play it was that it’s the only song that was taught to me without sheet music, so I’d sit and let muscle memory take over, and the song would just flow.  It’s a really neat feeling when that happens.

I’m going to take a little side trip here and explain about the lack of sheet music, which I know you’d expect the math nerd and recipe girl to need.

I had to have a ride to the bus-stop.  We’d moved, but I still got to go to my originally planned junior high.  Therefore it wasn't always a good time for The Nutritionist to pick me up when the bus dropped me off.  I'd just go to PieGirl’s house.  Sometimes for hours.  We sure didn’t mind!

She not only taught me that song, she introduced me to Billy Joel and we’d sing “heartattackackackack” at the top of our lungs while listening to “The Stranger”.  She tutored me, patiently, since I couldn't cook ANYTHING at the time, in how to make a perfect apple pie from scratch.  She was good at so many things, and such a good friend.  (I can still make apple pie, by the way.  Though I'd pick playing Color My World.  I also know how to buy a good pie.)

Here in my present, The Transporter, along with already kicking some serious talent around on electric guitar, wants to learn how to play the keyboard.  My former (practice saying it, Tina) piano can’t hold a tune (oh, that wasn’t on purpose but I like it), was ancient, and was taking up real estate that could be used for a keyboard.  (So could The Transporter’s own room…but any parent of a teenage boy knows that to make the normal laws of physics apply in said space, you need to add to the equation what a guy is willing to do to keep his room clean…)

We've had an ad up on craiglist with full disclosure of my former piano’s pros and cons, and had three calls in a month.  I thought the ad had expired, honestly.  Yesterday a family, with four little girls 9 and under, came to get it.  All four want to learn to play.  Mom is a pianist, and surprisingly, was very happy with what she found.  “It has all its keys.  All its keys make a sound.  We have someplace to start from, and we can put our money into fixing it up.”

They had driven two hours, rented a trailer, bought tie-down straps, and were ready to go.  I had a delightful time with SuperMom while the (now four, due to the strategic arrival of my three) strapping men got that old relic out the door and secured in the trailer.

Good-bye, Grandma Vivian’s piano.  Swissie and I had fun with our lessons, and it was lovely being the caretaker of this family “treasure” all these years.  Good luck to the four little girls whose names all begin with A, and to homeschool mom and super nice dad.  Enjoy.

~Tina, who wonders if you know how much dust accumulates under a piano which has been sitting for thirteen years…And yes, I could actually play that.  (Mine didn't have the little riff at the end though.  This was the closest I could find.)

Send an Unexpected Valentine: Join DL Hammon's Blog Blitz Team

Getting Blitz-ed by DL Hammons Blitz Crew is like getting an unexpected Valentine, on any given day.

DL started the Blog Blitz last year.  Here are his words:

What would it be like if the support, encouraging nature, and community spirit of the blogosphere were ever focused on a single blogger? A few of us have experienced that sort of attention via book launches or other publishing announcements, and still others have achieved that level of awareness through the popular blogfests we host.  In most cases there is a lot of work that goes into generating that amount of interest.  What I'm talking about is being suddenly thrust into the spotlight, without even lifting a finger. What would it feel like to be the recipient of that kind of exposure? Could something like that even be possible? Can the power of the blogosphere be harnessed and directed?

You can read his whole post about it here.

I’ve been a blitzer since almost the beginning, and I gotta say, this is a neat gig he’s got going.  Sometimes I feel like I’m Santa sneaking into someone’s house and leaving a little note for someone to find.  Or truthfully, on the average blitz day, like a tired-just-got-off-work-and-almost-forgot last minute arrival at a party that’s been going on all day.  Either way, I’ve gotten to meet some really interesting, deserving, special, struggling, overcoming, surviving, and completely surprised bloggers.

Can you imagine a blog post all of a sudden getting HUNDREDS of comments, out of the blue?  Wanna play?

The rules are simple.  DL picks the bloggers.  He sends out the link to the team a few days ahead of time, and sometimes the reason for the Blitz Victim.  Other times it’s a random number generator recipient.  We go read and comment on the post.  He’s even kind (and smart…) enough to send out a mid-day reminder on Blitz Day in case our calendars are malfunctioning or our day is.

The only way you can GET BLITZED is if you’re on the team out there also doing the work of surprising the bloggers.  He’s currently working on a goal of 500 participants.  At last peek, the list was at 392 participants.

I think a wonderful Valentine for DL would be a lot of people signing up TODAY.  It would be like HE’S getting blitzed.  Of course, for that I need your help.  I’ve never asked this before, but would you tweet about this?  Here’s the bare link:

http://dlcruisingaltitude.blogspot.com/2013/03/blog-blitz-wanna-join.html

Here’s a sample tweet for you to copy:

Join @DL_H Blog Blitz team: http://dlcruisingaltitude.blogspot.com/2013/03/blog-blitz-wanna-join.html

I’d love for him to hit his goal soon.  He’s currently on a blogging break to finish one of his novels, so it would be a great surprise.

Spread the love.  Join the team.  Spread even more love: invite others to join the team.  You just might be the next recipient of a whole load of bloggy love some unexpected day.

~Tina

P.S If you join, grab the badge and link it the same link I provided because it has the sign-up list.  THANKS.  Just like the A-Z Challenge, this is about community and supporting one another and holding each other up and encouraging one another...in other words, TWUE WUV!  Happy Valentine's Day.

Friday Flex Time

The time when I blog short bits about stuff that's bugging me, or has delighted me, or is just plain what I want to write about. Anything goes...

Teaching a 15 year-old to drive really is fun.
I'd thought it would be this big, scary thing, but I guess I'm lucky. The Transporter is so good, mostly what we talk about is various routes to places. He's excellent at knowing where places are around town after spending most of his teen years using his bike for transportation with his buddy, SkinnyBoy. However, cutting across parks and driving the wrong way down alleys is generally frowned upon when in a motor vehicle, especially when it's the big, blue, prison van, which has been my mode of transport since my lovely lady (1994 Volvo 940, smoke grey, and the youngest in our fleet) died on me over a month ago.

I miss my girl, and her turbo, but I do feel rather tall in the van (something this 5'4” girl doesn't feel very often) and invincible since it seats 12 and is 8 cylinders and a 350. Parking that behemoth is another story. Of course, The Transporter is an excellent parker too, which he never fails to tell me...

Good news is, that after the all the fixes that DIDN'T solve the '94's problems (though they were quite necessary, just not enough) THE problem has been identified , and as soon as we have a Saturday without snow I'll have my new fuel pump installed and be all set. So in other words, not this weekend.

I get totally irritated when those signs where someone in the establishment has control over the letters and changes the signs SPELLS THINGS WRONG.

This irritates more than just the fact that the sign MAKER can't spell. It means NO ONE there, NOT EVEN THE OWNER, can spell, or they'd get that sign guy out there to fix it. Either that, or everyone is blind. Or they've looked at it so many times they don't notice. Whatever the reason, if you want to showcase your stupidity for weeks on end, be my guest. I'll eat/shop/give someone else my dollars who CAN spell. Does this bother other people or is it just former English teachers like me?

We Coloradans joke that if you don't like the weather, just wait 15 minutes.

That couldn't have been illustrated better than today. I was outside after lunch checking in my backyard in prep for spring, and it was sunny and warm and I realized I'd have to change to shorts from capris before I went for my walk. So I sunscreen, I change clothes, I fill a water bottle, put the bare essentials in my pocket, and leave the house.

It's now a grey, cloudy, extremely windy day, and I'm very glad I grabbed a long sleeved shirt on my way out. I'm not deterred though, because I'm feeling good enough to drive to the park to do laps, thereby getting to walk further without a big commitment. This is necessary when your lungs are healing and you never know when they're going to scream “done”. Well lo and behold, they are nowhere near done when it starts to rain! I still ended up walking 50% further than any walk since my slow recovery started, though. So though this is a weather story, it's also a contentment update. Go me! I walked for 35 minutes. That seemed impossible in August when I couldn't even do the stairs.

What bugs you? How did it go teaching your child/children to drive? Does your place have weird weather? What are you content about?

~Tina

P.S If you haven't heard about The Blog Blitz yet, click on the badge to the right to learn more about this totally cool way of spreading some bloggy love.  The idea is from DL Hammons of Cruising Altitude 2.0.  You have to be signed up as a blitzer if you want to GET blitzed, and trust me, you do :-)  Not talking drunk.  Go check it out!