everyday life

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

simple.

it doesn’t have to be complicated.

i choose to share my everyday life to share a story of one person practicing living in the moment, perfectly imperfectly, and doing my best.

i don’t always get it right, but the beauty is… there is always just another moment beginning to start and try again. there is hope. for us all. always. and if we don’t like what we’ve done or what we’re doing, we can change. for real.

i laugh at myself. i tell my kids when i mess up. i thank them for teaching me every day, because i still don’t have this life thing and parenting tweens thing all figured out. don’t you wish life came with a manual?

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Today’s joy was delivered in several ways.

I exercised and felt alive and felt muscles that are building, thanks to Lysia and her TRX training. Thank you.

I sat quietly and had my nails done, because I’m practicing discipline this week. I am a nail biter, and have been since I was 5 years old. I am practicing discipline this one way, and enjoying the sweet rewards of being pampered and practicing sitting still, which is hard for me.

I am also practicing discipline by doing Weight Watchers. I love to eat and drink and be merry. A little too much. So last week I decided to practice discipline this way too. I have to say, I am enjoying living a less gluttonous life style.

The real joy came from being with my kids today and not being too busy.

Charlie had friends over to do homework and they were pretending to be Santa Claus and the North Pole.

Charlie was Santa and the girls were tracking his arrival on their computers, before falling asleep right before Santa arrived at their house with toys. I wish you could have heard the dialogue, as it was too cute!

I made a kid friendly meal for dinner – baked teriyaki chicken with rice, broccoli and grilled pineapple brushed with butter and brown sugar. I sat with them and shared stories and enjoyed them climbing all over my lap, making fun of my stupid, big cheeks that make my eyes shrink when I smile. I love that they want to play and tease me.

When I went to drop off Juliana at her event, I took Charlie with me to see the Christmas lights.

I love that he loves Christmas, and I know I’ve already said this before, but seeing him enjoy it makes me enjoy it even more. Loving this moment.

These were a few of my favorite things… what were your favorite moments from today? What made you smile?

10Nov2013

GGG – Day 9 – Play

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

“Life is more fun if you play games.”
― Roald Dahl, My Uncle Oswald

Gratitude Gift Giving – Day 9 – Play

How do you play?

Do you play everyday and what do you play?

Do you find joy in addition to your work and responsibilities? I do and hope you do too, every day. It makes life more enjoyable that way!

Today I played tennis with Julie for 90 minutes in the warm sunshine. We rallied back and forth, sharing conversation and tips and just enjoyed playing together. We tried new techniques and shared ideas about how to improve our serves, our shots and our accuracy. We laughed, we played our long, competitive set, and we shook hands when the match was over. We both felt thankful that we had time to ourselves before getting on with our daily work, feeling fulfilled and satisfied. I think play releases stress and is an important part of our days. Thank you Julie for playing with me.

After my tennis game, we went to watch Charlie play his soccer match. I liked seeing him playing with his team and having fun too.

Tonight I was lucky to get to play again. Tracy invited a few girlfriends over to play some games and to just hang out together. I LOVE playing board games and cards but typically don’t take the time to do this, unless I’m on vacation. Isn’t that silly? Thank you Tracy for this great idea. I had a great time and can’t wait to play again.

We played a really fun, creative and artistic game called Dixit. It gave us time to think and strategize and share and chat and guess and hold secrets and then discover the correct answers. There was a sense of friendly competition and it was fun to learn how everyone thinks differently and to discover their choices. If you’re interested in checking it out, the game is available for sale on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Asmodee-5511302-Dixit-International-Version/dp/B001OH9EDW

Make time to play… it keeps you young and happy!

“Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.”
― Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr

This was the next game we were about to play before it was time for me to leave to do my “job” sharing this story.

5Feb2013

Day 195: Time Together

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

My house is a mess! It looks like a whirling dervish came spinning through in just one day, as yesterday it wasn’t this bad. I was gone all day and when I came home with the kids after school, and actually noticed the clutter and chaos, I started to get short and snippy with the kids, hoping they would magically make it all disappear. Of course my agitation, created their agitation which was counterproductive. So instead, I changed my approach and apologized and offered hugs instead of demands. Then we worked together to make our “castle” a bit more organized again so we could enjoy it. And then we did.

We made dinner together, unloaded and loaded the dishwasher and then had time to play again. We all felt better, although I can’t say the house is spotless, but we’re better than before.

Juliana and I made a small batch of rice Krispy treats in her new heart pan. She loves to bake and I am planning to spend more time with her baking, like we did when she was little.

After dinner, Char and I made time to read together on the couch. We’re reading a traditional Dutch chapter book about the characters Jip and Jannike. I just love their names and their black and white images. After we sat together reading, he wanted to see pictures from home. We looked at old pics from my Facebook account, and re-liked one that made it new again in my photo stream. We then looked at my online photo library. Luckily I’ve categorized a few chapters, but most are just sitting in folders. How do you organize your digital prints? I am so not good at this! We took some selfies to add to my uncategorized collection!

And Christian is now at an age that he’s happy on his own. He finished his homework and then was building his dream stadium using the Sketch Up application on his computer. He wants to be an architect someday, and so hopefully through his play he also learns a few skills. It’ll be cool to watch and see if his path takes him in this direction.

It’s so hard for me to play together at the end of the day, when all I want to do is be done and clean up and relax and write. But today I’m happy that I chose to play. How have you played today??

Namaste.