Day 3 of the 30- Day Writing Challenge: What truly matters or do you really think you’ll live forever?

I want to continue the “what truly matters” trail of thought from yesterday’s post. Cause I liked it. And because I was thinking about it a lot lately.

Why do we live like we are going to live forever? Like we’ll never die? Like we have so much time left? Like what others think about us is going to make any difference at the end of our lives. Like how much money we made or how much stuff we owned is what will make us feel like we truly lived when we look back from our deathbed.

Why do we not do what truly matters? Focus on what truly matters. Live what truly matters. Automatically. Everyday. Every minute. Without even thinking about it.

Why is it not our default way of living in this world? Why do we need to get all enlightened and evolved to actually start doing it?

Why can’t we just get it? That life is short and time is precious and should be spent on what truly matters only. Or at least significantly.  Why do we know it, but don’t really know it?

I wish someone could write a book that everyone would read and it would just click. And everyone would just be and do what truly matters. No need to meditate in the woods for years or read hundreds of self-help books. We would just read that one book and get it. Like Click and that’s what I am now. That’s how I live in this world now. I know what truly matters and I am doing it. I am living it. Without excuses. Without deviations. That’s my autopilot way of living from now on.

I would love to have that book. So I can read it and wake up the next morning with all of my fears being gone. With perfect clarity. And perfect determination to live my life with “what truly matters” in mind every second of every day.

But I guess until someone writes that book I’ll have to do it the hard way. The little steps way. The getting clearer and more conscious one day at a time way. The one step forward and two steps back way.  I am not a big fan of this way. It is a hard way. It is a not so fun way. Or maybe it is too much fun. Depends on how you look at it.

So here is my little step forward that I made in the beginning of the year: (Step forward toward a more conscious way of living that is).

Along with my yearly goals and resolutions I came up with a bunch of keywords. The keywords  that will help me do more of what truly matters. The keywords that will guide my year and help me stay more focused on you know what. What truly matters, of course.  I am going to count how many times I used this phrase in this blog post.

I wrote the list of keywords in January and revised it again in February. Couple keywords had to go actually and some new ones were put instead of them. I gained more clarity.  Cause we are doing it the little steps, learn the lesson-adjust the course way.

Here is the list. I put it in front of my yearly goals. This way the goals had to resonate with the keywords.

Creativity (myself and kids). What I meant is I would like to do more creative stuff myself and with the kids. Because that’s what matters to me. I want to live my life creatively. As a result we have lots of crafty projects going on in the house. I am writing again. I do art projects with Nicholas. Well, baby doesn’t care about my creativity that much at this point, but we do dance and sing sometimes.

Let go. I have a lot to let go of. But what I mostly meant was I’d like to let go of my desire to get certain results from my actions. I’d like to do my best, follow my inspiration and then let go. Why? Because when you are too attached to the result, fears tend to creep in. What if it won’t work? What if I fail? And then you don’t take any action. No expectations = more action sometimes. For me at least. And action is what truly matters.

Show up. This should probably go before the let go one. Show up. Do what truly matters and let go.

Follow the inspiration. Pretty self-explanatory

Challenge yourself. That’s what I am doing now – writing for 30 days in a row. I’ll come up with more challenges too. We grow with challenges. We evolve with challenges. I’d love to get some other results from my challenge. Like get more readers to this blog. Or at least as much as I used to have before I went on a long haitus. But really, I try to focus on the challenge itself only.

Celebrate the family. My husband says I am good at it. I want to get better. I want to have more traditions. And more thoughtful celebrations. And more picnics in the hallway. And movie nights with candles. Cause that’s what I will remember at the end.

Conscious parent. I really need to get it this year. They are growing too fast. I want to be fully present. Always. I want to stop correcting and start teaching. And make them feel always loved.  And have lots of fun with my babies. And savor every moment. This is what Truly matters. This is what matters the most.

Those are my keywords.  Like I said I’ll keep revising this list. It’s a process. Staying conscious about what truly matters takes practice and lots of little steps. It’s worth it though. Because we won’t live forever. And you better start now.

Maybe you can do your keywords too. Or something. Anything. To help you with what truly matters.

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I am on a challenge to write every day for 30 days. To rediscover my voice. To gain clarity. To tap into what inspires me. I don’t edit and English is my second language, so pardon my mistakes. Thanks for reading.

Two extremes. Which one do you choose to focus on?

Yesterday was the day of two extremes. We have those quite often around here. What are the extremes? Funny that you asked. Beauty and ugliness, of course.  But rest assured – the beauty prevailed. It always does.

It started with the baby not sleeping most of the night. Actually, no. It started with two stupid parents who went to bed at 2 am in the morning. The baby who slept peacefully up until that moment decided to wake up. And stay up. For quite some time.

So the morning started with raised voices rushing Nicholas to get ready for school as I was grumpy and refused to be a conscious parent. I hate raising my voice in the morning. Sets the wrong vibe for the day. I hate rushing Nicholas. Childhood is the time when you should not be rushed. That was the ugliness.

Then came the beauty. It was an observation day at school.  I was able to sit quietly in the corner of the classroom for 3 hours and watch my boy do his work. I loved every minute of it.

Nicholas goes to a little Montessori school that has lots of character.  And we are lucky to have it just 5 minutes down the road. I love Montessori philosophy. I love this particular Montessori school.

My heart was filled with love and pride when I was watching my baby. How mature he is for a 5 year old. How much he learned in just 6 months of going to school. How he interacts with other kids. How he interacts with his teacher. How he was blowing me kisses and looking at me with a “I know we need to be quiet” smile every few minutes.

That was the beauty.

The rest of the day kept fluctuating between the two.

We had more raised voices and even couple “time outs”. I am not a “time out” kind of parent. I don’t want to be a “time out” kind of parent. I really don’t believe in “time outs”. But after sleepless nights and too many things on the to do list “time outs” tend to show up around here as we are short of patience.

We had more beauty with the park and the swings. Because baby turned 6 months yesterday and she loves the swings!

And Nicholas telling “Happy Birthday” to Ava Victoria over and over again and asking me to do something special.

And special we did. We had a picnic. In the hallway.

Cause Daddy comes home too late from work for us to have a real picnic in the park. Hey Daddy, we really need to get you quit that job soon.

We had candles. Which are the best at transforming ordinary into extraordinary. On a budget.

And black bean burgers with fries. Cause big brother loves them. Fries is a special occasion food in our household.

We had balloons that baby looked at cautiously at first but then loved. And special lemonade from Mason jars that Nicholas made by mixing what we had on hand  – sparkling water, Life water and stevia.

And cheers.

Nicholas cheered for the baby to always have lots of love. He always comes up with cheers like that. My sweet boy.

We had dessert from wine glasses.

Here is the inspiration for the dessert. Mine doesn’t look as pretty though, but it was good. I used coconut yogurt instead of Greek yogurt as we don’t eat dairy.

And the big girl who turned 6 months? Oh, we love her so much!

She ate her first food.

And drank some water from a sippy cup for the first time.

We can’t believe she is 6 months already. Almost crawling and sitting on her own. And eating food. And playing with balloons. She is our cuddlebug. Our little gift.

These two little miracles are my everything.

But how often do I forget about it in the moment. How easy is it to get caught up in the mundane everyday routines and lose track of what truly matters.

The ugliness crept in again right before bedtime. It was getting late and Nicholas wanted to play and I again rushed him to get ready for bed and raised my voice again. And then baby was screaming because she got tired.

And I told Keith that I needed to get out of the house for an hour. I wanted to go to the bookstore and just be by myself. He said: “Just feed her and I’ll do the rest”.

And there I sat in the rocking chair feeding her and all of a sudden the beauty visited again. Those few minutes of calmness in the dark room helped me stop the crazy ego mind that was making me feel something that was not true. Making me focus on something that did not matter.

And with beauty came clarity. Pure clarity. I didn’t want to go to the bookstore anymore.

Yes, we get stressed and tired. And there are things that need to get done. And there are sleepless nights just like all new parents have. And there are mistakes and regrets.

But we have two healthy, happy, amazing children. We have “I am sorrys” which is what I did right before Nicholas fell asleep. Crept into his bed with him, hugged him tight and said “I am sorry”.

We have picnics in the hallway. And balloons in the ceiling.

Because that’s what happens when you don’t tie them good enough and when you have high ceilings in the house.

We have our family. And our love. We have dreams. We have it all, baby!

And I bet you do too.

It is really silly to talk about gratitude. Everyone knows how important it is. Everyone talks about appreciating what you have. But do we always remember to do it? Every day? Several times a day? How cool would it be to remember to do it several times a day? How would your life change? Think how rich you truly are and how much you do have to be grateful for. It almost hurts when I start thinking about it.

How much beauty is everywhere! Just waiting to be noticed. And how much clarity you can get if you just stop for a minute and shift your focus. To what truly matters.

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I am on a challenge to write every day for 30 days. To rediscover my voice. To gain clarity. To tap into what inspires me. I don’t edit, so pardon my mistakes. Thanks for reading.

i want to write

I do. I really do.

Seems that I lost my voice. I didn’t write for such a long time. I am not sure myself why.

We had a baby. She is 6 months now. She is 6 months today actually. Time does fly. Feels like just yesterday we brought her from the hospital. But I digress.

6 months is a magical date. That’s when the excuse “I just had a baby” stops working. So I realized that I don’t have any legitimate reason to not write on this blog anymore.

But I am afraid.

Afraid to start and stop again. Afraid that this site is not me anymore. For some time now I thought of starting a new blog. But wasn’t sure what exactly it should be about.

Funny how it works. The thing we want to help others with is usually something we struggle with ourselves. I learned that awhile ago.

Clarity is what I need myself now.

So in order to gain it I came up with a challenge. Something that I really want to do. Something that will help me with overcoming my fears and gaining clarity myself.

What is the challenge you ask?

I will write every day for 30 days in a row. One post a day. Or more if I feel like it. About anything I am inspired to write on that particular day. Literally anything. I will not edit. I will not over-think. I will just write.

One rule though.

I am not a diarist. So anything I post should have some value to people who read it. At least I should believe that it has value. It might be practical value like  “this is a great vegetarian recipe I tried today”, or value in the form of inspiration. Inspiration can be very practical too sometimes, you know.

That’s it. Everything else is up to me. And my inspiration.

What do I want to get out of this challenge?

I want to see what topics will surface. I want to know what floats my boat these days.

I want to rediscover my voice.

I want to be me.

I want to rediscover my truth. Unedited and vulnerable.

I want to let go of perfectionism.

I want to dare. Because being who you are and showing your truth is always daring. For an introvert like me anyways.

So hello world.

Check out my about page for my new picture with the new baby. We are happy around here. We have our struggles and not so pretty moments. But we also have candles that make everything better. We are happy. And I am grateful for that.

Let the challenge begin. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

P.S. I’ll be posting pictures too. Everyday unedited pictures. I might do videos. We’ll see. Here is one for today.

My writing setup. Laptop. Candle. My babies. And my oldest baby’s bakugan. We like leaving cool stuff like this on mama’s desk.

What Would The World Look Like If More People Dared…?

To start. Something worthy.

Or just something new.

Or just something.

To figure out how they can make a difference.

And commit to their Vision.

To ignore the fear.

Or to dance with it.

Or just accept it as a part of life. And take action anyway.

To realize that their imperfections really don’t matter.

To stop doing what’s not working.

Or do it despite all odds just because it feels right.

To say: “I am proud of you” and “I love you” every day. To themselves.

To take a break.

To let go.

To start over. And again.

To reinvent themselves.

To dream. Big. And then some more.

To take little steps and big leaps toward that dream.

To stop complaining.

And take responsibility. For everything.

To allow themselves to shine. Fully.

And take a nap when they need to.

What would the world look like?

Allow yourself to dare. And see what happens.

on life purpose + starting a business and the best thing you can to do to succeed in both

I found a copy of the check a few days ago. The date on it is 1/15/2009. This check is very special. It is first $198.05 that I made with my business. My first money ever made with my own business.

That check got me thinking. It made me realize how far I am now from who I was and where I was in January of 2009. I grew so much personally and professionally. And I wanted to share with you the main lesson I learned on my journey.

I didn’t have a website yet back then, that was the money I made promoting someone else’s product as an affiliate via Google ads. I won’t even tell you the name of the product because it was so unrelated to what I am doing now. It looks silly and inappropriate. But without promoting that product I wouldn’t be where I am now.

So I am getting to the main point of this post. [click to continue…]

Love Is…

Love is the shortest way to happiness. For women at least. Love is everything for us. Don’t argue. It is.

I am happy today. I have my love with me. I am happy I didn’t settle for less. I am happy I took the steps to get here. I earned my happiness.

Do you really need to earn happiness? Don’t you deserve it just because you are here? You do. Silly me, I didn’t need to do it the hard way. I have no regrets though.

Today I am happy. I thought Valentine’s Day will be special. This is our first Valentine’s Day together.

It doesn’t feel special. It’s a usual day. I feel happy. Just like I do every day.

I feel gratitude. I am grateful to be with the man who loves me. Understands me. Cares for me. Accepts me. Forgives me. He is always there. Always present. I feel his love every minute. Every second. He is perfect. Perfect for me.

Not really sure what the purpose of this post is, besides to wish you Happy Valentine’s Day. And to remind you that love is everywhere. And you deserve to be loved. For who you are. Now.

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