Life Simplified? Not so much!

It's true that 2010 was supposed to be the year I simplified, but really things are not simpler. I think getting okay with the way things ARE is perhaps a more realistic goal. In early April I did finish my ProCert and last week I received my Professional Teacher Certificate to show that that is behind me. May and June should have been less demanding and complicated by thanks to the stress of ProCert by May I had shingles (not a terrible case, but exhausting) and in June my oldest daughter graduated from high school. So no time to rest or recover.

Summer has treated me well though or really I have been better to myself: regular exercise, healthy eating, time with friends and travel.

In late June I went to AVID training in Dallas (AVID = Advancement Via Individual Determination) with 12 collegues (all men) and learned a lot and had a great time. Thankfully I work with great people who are also a great time to hang out with. By time I returned home I was glad to find drier air, cooler days and food that was not beef or BBQ.

By the end of July my family of four, plus my wonderful mother-in-law hopped a plane for 11 hours and flew to Beijing, China on a tour. Dallas weather was cool and comfortable in comparison to Beijing this time of year. It was a fabulous trip. I climbed to the top of a section of the great wall, walked hours through the Forbidden City (no longer Forbidden), rode a rickshaw through Hutong and older section of the city, and ate Chinese food until I was ready to go back to beef and BBQ!

We came home after just 8 days grateful to have gone and equally grateful to be back. I spent two lovely weeks in my own home before heading out again with my daughters to my Dad's house in Eastern Oregon. He now has what I call a "gentleman's farm" overlooking the Umatilla River with grand views of pastures of horses and the curving river. We swam and tubed the river and ate delicious home cooked food courtesy of my step mother, Dee. My teen daughters even let me read to them at bed time for old times sake.

Now I am nursing a pulled ham string and wondering how to stop time to extend my vacation. I've already been back to my classroom to prepare things and have meetings. Students will be back on Wednesday. I'm not ready, but I know they aren't either. By 8:20 on Wednesday morning I will be prepared to begin a new school year. I don't think things will be simpler, but I think I am finding better ways to go with the flow and enjoy the moment.

Simplify

Today marks the end of my holiday vacation. I am currently laying on my bed under a multicolored fleece blanket my mother made for me with my cat, Cleo, nestled into the crook of my knee. On New Year's Day I acquired my daughters' cold...no not H1N1, just a regular cold with a cough. Several days before I had already decided the theme of 2010 needed to be SIMPLIFY. I made this resolution after spending a typical two week holiday racing around like a lunatic wrapping, baking, cleaning, and cooking.

The actual moment of clarity came as I sat on the couch next to my 17 year-old daughter Elysse who was frantically knitting a scarf for her boyfriend that she began on Thursday and needed done by Saturday, although she has done very little knitting in her life. This project was my idea and thus, my fault. She had been trying for weeks to come up with an idea for a special gift and finally resorted to asking her mother for ideas. There was no time for shopping and my other ideas she proclaimed as too lame. As I sat next to her on Christmas day watching her try to knit faster, I was visited by the ghosts of my Christmas projects past: baking a yule-log cake for eight hours that tasted terrible, sewing a comforter cover for the guest bed the night before the in-laws arrived, hand beading fringe for velvet scarves for my daughters (then ages 9 and 6). Like Scrooge, I had an epiphany. This is not what I want to teach my daughters, to do more, making Christmas, all other holidays and most of the other months of the year something to get through instead of something to enjoy.

So this is my vow to myself this year. Each day I will find one way to do something more simply or just to do less. I hope this will create more opportunity to appreciate the good parts of life and find time to create the things I enjoy making.

Today my one thing is to lay in bed. It was actually my mother-in-law's idea. I was standing in the kitchen prepared to bake multiple loaves of banana bread before we had to throw out bananas when Lavonne suggested I go lay down. She thought this was the best path to improved health. I went immediately upstairs. I may or may not make banana bread in the future, but not today with a cold.

I think I will follow the lead of my cat and curl up for a nap. Less is truly more.