Life Cheerleader

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

As a child, I always wanted to be a cheerleader, but I wasn’t that coordinated and my dad didn’t want the same thing for me. So I waited and took a different path.

I love the energy and joy and dancing and celebrating that cheerleaders create. They energize a space and they look pretty and happy and they’re always smiling and people enjoy watching them jump up an down. Their spirit is contagious and they get other people to acknowledge and see the good and to shout it out in silly and fun ways.

Sometimes in my family I feel like I am a cheerleader, just not all that fancy. I like to lift people up and watch what everyone is doing and celebrate life and laugh and cheer.

I like to encourage each of us to follow our personal dreams and I like to get the rest of us to witness and see their gifts and talents and shout out loud. I like to be our family cheerleader. I want each of us to win and to be happy and successful at whatever “game” we choose, and I want us all to participate. One of our family mottos is to work hard and play hard. And celebrate this one beautiful life, everyday.

I like to lead my family in cheer as we watch each other perform the tasks of life I like when the rest of us celebrate together and dance and play with me as I lead the cheer. Or if they want to lead, I love to follow along and chant out loud and smile and be silly.

I want the spirit of joy to be contagious and I want us all to feel the excitement that life has to offer all of us.

How about you? Are you the cheerleader in your family? Do you have a cheerleader?

Let’s go! Let’s go! L-E-T-S-G-O

Let’s go!

21Jun2015

A Legal Marriage

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

Our marriage is officially legal – we’re 18 years married happily ever after!

I love this picture because it represents us. I like to take a picture in front of this bush every year on our anniversary and he wants to hurry up and get it over with. It has become a joke. And now the bush is spotty and patchy and kinda funny looking, but today he played with me after getting frustrated, of course, and I got my memory photos. Thank you, honey!! You’re a good sport.

He’s the yin to my yang and I adore him. He makes me feel safe and he adores me and our kids. We enjoy each other’s company and just being together.

So that’s what we did today. We celebrated Father’s Day with the kids this morning with breakfast at home. We played a board game together and just hung out.

Afterwards, we celebrated our anniversary by driving up to the city, just the two of us. We love just driving together and exploring and walking and talking and just being a couple. So that’s what we did. We wandered and explored and discovered the Cellermaker Brewery that Jeff has been wanting to visit and had our first little date.

cool fence door

We wandered on to explore the renewed Hayes Valley and loved popping into the little stores and seeing public art being created in a garden area for Burning Man.

The sun was shining and it was a gorgeous day to wander and explore.

We found this fun little clothing shop with this cool display of air plants which I love. We were chatting with the sales ladies and talking about my birthday week and Father’s Day and our anniversary and they asked us if we wanted to take photos in their photo booth since they were also celebrating their store’s birthday. Of course we said yes!! I love photo props and playing.

It’s hard to believe the fun continued and we just kept living it up.

We had a romantic dinner at Abisenthe in a cozy little booth and then walked over to see The Book of Mormon at the Orpheum Theater. That was an interesting experience and I’ll leave it at that.

Thanks honey for spending the day with me and our kids. Happy Father’s Day! Happy Anniversary! Happy Life!! I love you!

Happy Father’s Day to all the loving papa’s!! Thank you for loving your kids and their mama’s.

nAMaste

xoxo

16Jun2015

Here I Am Another Year Older

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

I still love birthdays. I think I always will. I love the excitement and anticipation of celebrating life, can you tell?

Today was the first time I had limited expectations of how I wanted the day to unfold and having limited expectations created huge amounts of joy.

I was content and at peace and so very thankful.

I did everything I wanted to do. I enjoyed friends and family in several ways. I loved all the phone calls and texts and cards and gifts and Facebook celebrations.

Each member of my family made a homemade card. They decorated the kitchen and had coffee and breakfast ready for me when I got up along with very thoughtful gifts.

I got to play dodgeball and keep away, enjoyed lunch out with my kids, pedicures with my daughter, happy hour with friends, being spoiled, watching the Warriors win, and having more friends come back for cake!

I am happy and filled with gratitude for this one, beautiful, imperfect life I am living, perfectly imperfectly.

nAMaste BeLoveRs

11Feb2015

Heartbroken

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

Today I Am sad.

Grief comes in waves and you never know when a wave is going to come crashing.

Today is Chase’s 18th birthday and he’s celebrating it in heaven, while the rest of us remember and grieve in our own ways.

I can’t imagine what the pain feels like for his mama and dad and brother and sister, if what we are feeling is like this.

The only thing I know is that we have to keep paddling to not drown.

And so we moved through our day, doing what we “had” to do, yet feeling such an extreme loss and feeling confused, not really understanding why.

I know that he was loved and that his family is loved beyond words, beyond gifts, beyond what is. Everyone wanted to share in the pain and to love them through it, providing tangible and intangible help.

Maybe that’s all we’re supposed to do. Just love, and wait and be kind and lift each other up while we wait for this feeling, this wave of grief, to subside.

Wishing us all peace and love. xo

Love you.