One Little Word

I am the super duper loser of keeping resolutions of any kind. 

I have the very best of intentions every night as I try to fall asleep. The next day I am going to be superwoman. I am motivated. I am amazing.

The dawn comes and the children start screaming at each other and life is the worst because we can't find a shoe/hairbrush/bra/you name it, we can't find it. Nobody likes breakfast/lunch/upcoming dinner and we have to complain loudly about it. Nobody likes touching when they sit in the car so the kids scream about it all the way down to school every morning (We have a SUBURBAN FOR PETE'S SAKE... THERE IS PLENTY OF ROOM!!!). When the kids get done with school they either walk into the quilt store whining about how jerky their sibling was on the walk from school, or if they get off the bus I get stopped by the bus driver and told how so and so was breaking all the rules on the bus. Then there is at least 2 hours of homework and whining about it. Then the dog poops all over the floor and the cats are insane. And to top it off we have to whine and scream about bedtime.

I. Am. EXHAUSTED. It is every day.

We've talked ourselves blue in the face, tried to lead by example, and let's not forget the spankings.

Any motivations of amazing feelings of the night before of any resolutions I may be working on go away. I am too tired to work on bettering myself when all I want to do is crawl under the scalding hot water of a shower that will take the stress off of my overloaded shoulders..... or immerse myself in my latest binge watching show on Netflix (currently it is ONCE, Parks and Rec, or my all time favorite-that I have probably watched at least 7 times through- 30 Rock)

Around the middle of December I heard of a movement called One Little Word. You pick one word to work on throughout the year. Just one.  I thought about it and decided that I could probably commit to one word. ...... and then I had to figure out what it was. Heath? Love? Listen? Embrace? Read? and then it dawned on me....... DOCUMENT.

My word for the year is document.

I looked back on the past 2 or so years and I realize that there is a huge part of me missing. Documenting.  Blogging, picture taking, scrapbooking, the proof I am there. I am alive. It was all missing.

I thought about why it was missing. It was something that brought me great joy and a feeling of being complete. And I realize it disappeared after getting my heart broken and "dumped" by my best friend of 10 years. The friend that we called each other 30X a day just to say a funny thing then hang up. The friend who was my go-to person. The friend who I considered family. I loved her children so much and had the thought that if something ever happened to her and her husband I wouldn't hesitate to adopt them all. The friend who shared in all the parenting milestones because she was going through them too. All our kids were the same ages practically.
And just like all families go through ups and downs- so did we. There were times we got at each other. There were quarrels. There were discontented times. But they always blew over.
... until the last time.

One thing happened. I needed a day to calm down. During that day I got cut off and blocked from EVERYTHING. A piece of me died that day.

I have never been let back into that friendship. It still hurts me. 2 years later it hurts.

I stopped scrapbooking because every single picture of all of the outings with my children had her family in them. It hurt to look. It hurt to remember. So I stopped.

A few weeks ago I decided- I wasn't going to be hurt anymore. Those pictures were of a joyful time. They are wonderful memories- even though the friendship is gone now, it doesn't mean it wasn't super fun while it happened. I decided I was going to look at those pictures, and see those memories with joy from now on. Joy that I had that friend in my life. Joy that my children had best friends. Joy in the memories.

I started scrapbooking again two weeks ago.  I started taking pictures of the mundane things that happen in life so they can be documented. I sledded with Alli and Miles (I hate the cold with a passion... if you really know me, you know this is a huge thing).  Basically... I started to live a little bit more and documenting along the way.

I think this is One Little Word I can stick with.

And even if I don't blog as often as I hope and wish to from now on, I will still be documenting in other ways.