On Writing

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I write every day and sometimes this is a challenge. Like today.

I have a ton of things that happened that are somewhat interesting – maybe, but maybe not.

And some things I don’t always want to share. Or at least not right away.

Some things might be controversial, so I try to avoid sharing those or if I have a strong opinion, I prefer to keep quiet and keep the peace.  Probably boring… but it works for me.

Today involved boring and non-controversial stuff that is not really even worthy of sharing and doesn’t make for a good story.

I was present, taking the car in to check the tires, shopping, chopping veggies and cleaning fruit and making food ready to eat so everyone can grab and go! That was actually fun. I love to have healthy food prepared and watching my kids gobble it up as I clean and make it readily available.

My mom used to always cut fruit up for us for dessert and it was the only way I really enjoyed it. I think I loved that she prepared it and I got to watch her do it.  Isn’t that weird? I still love watching my friends (AL and ML) cut up fruit and veggies and love when they make them for me. They taste so much better when they do it!  Maybe that’s what my kids think too.

I think Juliana ate half of what I was preparing for the week, as I washed and chopped and packaged.  Probably not really half, but she was so happy enjoying herself eat as I worked and I loved having her in the kitchen with me. It was all worth it.

That was probably the highlight of my day, besides practicing hand stands in yoga. I have a lot to still practice!

There was one other really cool thing I learned about today and that is about Honor Flights.  The Honor Flight Network is a non-profit organization created solely to honor America’s Veterans for all their sacrifices. They transport our heroes to Washington D.C. to visit and reflect at their memorials, with all expenses paid. The inaugural Honor Flight tour took place in May 2005.  Tonight at my PEO meeting, another PEO who volunteers with this organization, came to share her story about the organization with us. She showed us a slide show and told us about how the organization works. She also brought a star guest, who was a veteran who actually went on one of these flights. Hearing his story and seeing him in tears as he remembered all the people who recognized him and cheered for him at the airports and honored him was so touching. It gives me chills just thinking about his story.  He will be 95 next year and still drives.  He reminded me of Algin Hughes, our PopPop and Colonel!!

If you’d like to learn more about Honor Flight and wish to make a donation, please visit their website:

  
Honor Flight Bay Area Foundation:  www.honorflightbayarea.org

And then just like that, sometimes writing has a purpose that shows up just by beginning to write.  Who knew?

nAMaste and thank you for reading my writing. xo

Free to BE You and Me

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 It’s Memorial Day and I am married to a veteran.  We take the time to reflect and remember that our freedom to BE is a gift from those families who chose to sacrifice and give of themselves and we are grateful. 

Today we celebrated with veterans in Santa Clara and smiled at Denny and his wife Marilynne who shared stories with us as we admired their courage and history in serving our country.  I loved this moment and loved their hugs and kisses. There was an instant connection through our gratitude and recognition of their service and I was touched by our spontaneous interaction.  I wanted to hear more of their story. Denny teased me and handed me his biography. He was decorated with several honorable medals, including a Purple Heart and a Navy Cross. He was a true gentleman and I admired his pride and character.

   
     

We are thankful for our veterans and their families, especially PopPop and MamMam, Algin Hughes and Elaine Hughes.

Life is good and we thank you, veterans. xoxo

Family Time

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My sister and her girls came to see us to make memories together over Memorial Day Weekend. I am so happy they are here.

I love seeing the cousins playing together and being with my sister and just hanging out. We don’t even care what we do. I think the highlight of the day was pretending to watch a movie and taking a nap instead! 

I love the simple things and today was just right! 

   
 

   
   How are you spending Memorial Day?

Love from our family to yours. xoxo

Celebrate Good Times

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I am still in celebration mode with the end of the school year wrapping up and have more good times to share. We’re tired and we are arguing a bit more than usual, and yet we keep on going, of course!

We came to celebrate Charlie today for being recognized for his math skills.   

 

After his award assembly, we had another celebratory party to recognize the Future Scientists and Engineers of America. They had their last class today and celebrated with cake and chips and fruit and drinks.  

 

We found the bench at the elementary school, which is dedicated in memory of Lynn Rose, who served as a mentor and giver to our community, and who Juliana was given a memorial award to in her honor last night. We ran into teachers who congratulated her and told her that she was well deserving.

 
And one last celebration was being able to all join Christian for his swim team awards.  He’s come along way and has been dedicated to practicing every day even with his injuries. 

 

I am proud of my kids and am glad that they have found activities that they love.

What are you celebrating this week?

Life is good – celebrate!!

xoxo

Embodying Here I Am

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Here I Am is about being present and enjoying this life journey. It is about living life to the fullest and practicing being kind and loving and patient and giving and sharing and learning and helping others and making mistakes and getting right back up and celebrating all that is good again and again.

It is about being flexible and accepting and flowing with what is, yet adapting and learning and choosing to make the best of every day.  It’s about being perfectly imperfect and okay and working hard and never giving up.

Tonight was an academic awards celebration at Juliana’s school.  There are so many smart and talented kids in our community. I was so impressed by the number of students that were recognized for having a 4.0 grade point average the entire year.  Juliana was one of the recipients and we were very happy for her and all her hard work and dedication to giving her personal best.

I was really impressed with everyone and so happy that 12 of the 15 math award recipients were girls.  For the science awards, 8 of the 12 recipients were also girls!  This speaks volumes for our emphasis on the STEM program and GAINS program at our school.  

My proudest moment that brought me to tears was when Juliana was chosen to receive the Lynn Rose Memorial Award. 

   

This award touched my heart because it represents all I want for my daughter.  Lynn Rose was a remarkable woman who touched so many peoples’ lives before she died of cancer, leaving behind 4 children. She was the epitome of representing love and giving freely and helping others and building a community. Everyone loved her and her contributions to our community. Juliana’s contributions to our community, including her school, family, friends, strangers and church were recognized in front of everyone. She was singled out and given beautiful roses and her name will be engraved on a plaque that will stay in the office. 

Juliana represents the qualities that I value and wish for all women. She is – Here I Am!  Congratulations on your recognition tonight. I am so proud of you.

Congratulations to all the award recipients tonight.  You represent the best and the brightest in our community. Thank you for being awesome. 

nAMaste

My Daughter, My Gift

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I am in love with her. I truly love her soul and her spirit and her mind and her whole entire being. I admire her and enjoy her company and I know this is such a HUGE gift. 

It wasn’t always like this and I will treasure this time as I know mothers and daughters don’t always understand one another and our time might come. But for now, our relationship is a-m-a-z-I-n-g and I am soaking it all up, every day.

I love that she wants to be with me and shares stories and time together.

She is helpful and kind and funny and loving and wickedly smart and intuitive.  I love her wit and sarcasm and humor and she makes me laugh every day.

Today we folded laundry and made dinner together and danced in the kitchen after school.  I cut up watermelon for her and she made the marinade for our dinner. Nothing fancy, just sharing time together and working side by side and I loved her for this and so much more.

We took selfies in the kitchen and sent them to my sister so that we could all connect and be virtually together near and far, sharing this one wonderful life for a moment.

 

curly girls

  

her curls

  

my curls post workout

 

Life is good. Live it up and love the ones you’re with. 

xoxo

Celebrations Begin

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It’s that time of year.  

Time for new dresses and nice outfits and more work and stress and anticipation and anxiety and excitement.  Don’t cha love it??

The end of the school year is upon us and we are busy preparing and getting ready for all the fun and living it up.

It is definitely a busy season building up to the crescendo and then we can relax with the beginning of summer.  Juliana is counting down the days.

Tonight we celebrated Charlie by attending his classroom open house and seeing his work.

  This was the forced shot just for me…he didn’t understand why I was taking pictures.  This is the FB worthy photo when actually he looked and felt more like this:

 I think he just wanted to eat his celebratory cookie and have me leave him alone.    
After the classroom visit was his concert with 149 other classmates.  I can’t believe one person can lead that many people so gracefully and calmly. I watched him tune probably 50 violins and violas before the performance. He was able to do that while still maintaining order. I was so impressed.  I was also impressed with our kids’ talents. I was thankful that Charlie stuck with it this year and practiced and learned how to play a new instrument.

   

We have a great, multicultural and supportive community.

Life is worth celebrating!

nAMaste 

Play for Teens and InBetweens and Adults Too

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When was the last time you stopped to play? Do you play anymore? I still play nearly every day but for not enough time, that’s for sure. I’m still goofy, but probably not as goofy as I used to be. 😉

Being creative and playing are so important for all of us, yet somehow we forget when we get all grown up and stuff. This life stuff and school stuff puts so many demands on us. Let us never forget to let out the steam and to lighten up.

I got to thinking about this topic while we discussed and I defended the craziness of the Stanford (Marching) Band (SMB) at dinner last night. If you’ve ever seen the SMB, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  They are just plain silly and playful and are the mirror opposite of what their school represents. They are the epitome of yin and yang.  They don’t follow the normal rules. Actually, they were behaving badly and have been recently banned from performing at away games for this upcoming season for violating school policies. I’m all for fun and games and being silly and lightening up a bit, but I do still believe in being respectful and following the rules. Here are a couple of links to stories about the history of the irreverence of the band and the recent trouble they’ve gotten into:

Scatter Band 

Stanford Band Behaving Badly

Lsjumb_scatteringSource: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lsjumb_scattering.jpg

Another playful thing that people are talking about are coloring books for adults.

Have you heard about this latest rage? Well, I don’t know if it’s a rage, but “The Secret Garden” is on the Amazon best seller list lately, so there must be a demand for tehse adult coloring pages.  We need time to relax and make pretty things just because we can.  I love it and even have one, with new markers too, thanks to my sister!  I think we need to get off our electronic devices too and play and color again.

Here’s a link to a recent story about adult coloring books:

Adult Coloring Books

Another connection I noticed recently is that adults who are needing to and wanting to celebrate life and to go outside and play at places such as the recent Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco. Grown people are dressing up and laughing and playing and talking to strangers, dressed up strangely themselves, and they’re happy and maybe drunk too. But they need to go outside and dress up and run and to laugh with their friends.   Here is a link to the wikipedia about the infamous race:

Bay to Breakers

I thought I was done with my list but two more ideas popped up and these are the Muddy Buddy races and Burning Man. Adults are needing to play in the dirt and sunshine with their friends and they want to be out in nature, dressing up and being free to celebrate living with no expectations of who they are supposed to be, for a weekend in the dessert.  This is fascinating to me.

Here is a link to a Muddy Buddy Race:  Muddy Buddy

IMG_1526

photo credit: IMG_1526 via photopin (license)

And here is one to Burning Man:  Burning Man

Dillon Bracken attends the Burning Man 2014 "Caravansary" arts and music festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, August 30, 2014. Over 65,000 people from all over the world have gathered at the sold out festival to spend a week in the remote desert cut off from much of the outside world to experience art, music and the unique community that develops. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart (UNITED STATES - Tags: SOCIETY) FOR USE WITH BURNING MAN RELATED REPORTING ONLY. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. NO THIRD PARTY SALES. NOT FOR USE BY REUTERS THIRD PARTY DISTRIBUTORS

Dillon Bracken attends the Burning Man 2014 “Caravansary” arts and music festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, August 30, 2014. Over 65,000 people from all over the world have gathered at the sold out festival to spend a week in the remote desert cut off from much of the outside world to experience art, music and the unique community that develops. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart (UNITED STATES – Tags: SOCIETY) FOR USE WITH BURNING MAN RELATED REPORTING ONLY. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. NO THIRD PARTY SALES. NOT FOR USE BY REUTERS THIRD PARTY DISTRIBUTORS  Source: http://burningman.org/

Have you been to any of these events or colored in a book lately? What do you like to do to play and feel alive?

Play is good.

Life is good.

nAMaste BEloveRs  xoxo