Sunday meanderings

Birds are king to me…

Over the last few days I’ve been getting some random thoughts about things so I’ve been writing them down.  I also came across some neat quotations I’d like to share with you all.

• Something that bugs me.  Why is it just because I have five kids do people always ask me, “How do you do it?  How do you have the time?”  I usually get this when they find out I like to blog regularily, or create things or the fact that I have a small design business.  I can’t tell you how much this aggrivates me.  I get this almost all the time.  It tends to make me feel as though I’m doing something I shouldn’t.  It insinuates that perhaps I should be devoting myself around the clock to my family.  Uh uh.  No way.  I can’t do that.  In order to be a good, interesting, and productive mother and viable  person, I have to develop my soul, nurture my interests and create a space for myself.  I know of people who are ‘all kids’ and nothing else.  I could never be that way.  Not a chance.    By the way, do you want to know how I do it?  My secret is I’m not a perfectionist.  I don’t do everything as well as I should, but everyone gets a piece of the mom pie, including mom.  And I am here for my family all the time while I’m doing it.  Just ask anyone who knows me.
• The other day my black cat snuck out.  I hate when this happens.  I usually never let him out because, theoretically, he is an indoor cat.  He returned a few hours later and around that time we were grilling and found a freshly killed sparrow lying on the grass by the back door.  I felt so sad for that little bird, seeing it lying there, still warm from the life that had just minutes before been present.  Ever since I was a child, dead birds have tugged at my heart.  They sadden me.   I used to have little funerals for birds when I was a kid.  I’d wrap the lifeless body in a little hankerchief or tissue and place it in a box with some small  flowers from the garden.  My friend and I would make a little hole with our sand shovel and then bury it.    Even today birds are one of my favorite animals.  What is yours?
• Lately I’ve had this desire to reconnect with old friends.  I’ve started tracking some of them down and found that a couple of them seem apprehensive or hesitant to contact me back.  I don’t think this reluctance has anything to do with me personally, rather, I think sometimes people are afraid of change, renewed relationships, or even of letting people back into their lives.  I welcome old friendships.  Life is so short.  How can you not? 
• It occured to me that self-confidence is something you project outwards and self-esteem is something you project inwards.
• Did you ever pray for something to happen and one day, by surprise quite the opposite happens?  I believe this is God’s way of answering in a very loud, deliberate way.  This happened to me a little over a month ago.  I’ve since stopped asking God to intervene in  this particuliar thing.  I figured He obviously is leading the show and know’s what he thinks is best for the situation.
• To me, having a clear library card is very freeing.  If I don’t have my card hosed up with fees and lost books, I have the freedom to borrow books whenever the mood hits me.  Having a library that is bursting at the seams with so many choices is such a luxury to me. 
• Make use of your body’s ingenious design.  Move, stretch, walk and run a little every day.
• Sometimes picking your battles means letting go of a need to engage in them.
• The real test of friendship is, can  you literally do nothing with the other person?  Together can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?
• It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.  Who are your 4 a.m. friends? 
• Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain.  It’s not something you learn in school, but if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship,  you haven’t learned anything.

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