People think a soulmate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever. Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave.
And thank God for it.


- Richard from the book Eat, Pray, Love

"you can choose what you do; you can't choose what you like to do"

I'm reading a fantastic new book - The Happiness Project.  Loosely related to the (dare I say) self-help family, it is the author's year long quest to recover genuine life happiness and to live that happiness every.single.day.  It was recommended by my book savvy bff, Carissa (props to her), and is also where I found "emotional contagion".


I'm reading the chapter "May: Be Serious About Play" and she (the author) is reconnecting with the kinds of "play" that make her happy.  Honestly happy.  Not the activities she wants to enjoy, but the ones she truly enjoys.  During the process, she writes that someone asked her "What did you like to do when you were a child?  What you enjoyed as a ten-year-old is probably something you'd enjoy now."


This peaked my curiosity.  What did I like to do when I was little and would it have any relevance on things i'm doing now? 


When I was 5 I enjoyed...
barbie dolls - could've played with them for hours
making mud pies with old pie tins and "cooking" with my Fisher Price stove
swinging outside
dressing up with mom's clothes and shoes
pretend work: waitress, teacher, nurse
playing "house" in my tree house in the woods
disney movies - a "magic kingdom family disney movie" always aired on sunday nights


future goals: to be a teacher during the day and work at mcdonald's at night.  and to live in my little-girl bedroom with my husband when we got married (sounds more like a nightmare than a fantasy).


When I was 10 I enjoyed...
exploring in the woods
dressing up with mom's clothes and shoes
rollerskating and bike-riding
real cooking - or rather, making concoctions that only i would eat
swinging
reading - but not school-assigned reading.  i loved ramona quimby and charlotte's web.
barbies, on occasion - though i'm certain i wasn't admitting it to my friends
dancing - mostly ballet
disney movies


future goals: sadly, i don't remember.  but if i had to guess i would say to be a teacher or a doctor.  i was very interested in being a doctor until i realized that i wouldn't give shots, was disgusted at the thought of cutting someone open, and didn't like nasty smells.  i do know that i wanted my parents to come and live with me and my husband in our house (we're making progress).


When I was 15 I enjoyed...
driving my worn-in chevy blazer
reading - un-school related reading
keeping a journal of my thoughts and activities
writing poetry and short stories (constantly writing at this age)
watching 90210 when i got home from school - yea, i said it
swinging on front porch swings
flirting with boys - oh so important
camping
sleeping late


my future goal(s): to be a teacher.  to learn to play the guitar (which i did many years later).  to fall madly in love (also did that... a few times).  to get married, start a family, and have a dog (done, done, and done).  to be extremely wealthy with lots of "stuff".  to buy a beach house for my parents to retire in (maybe one day).


Sometimes we try and force ourselves into these little boxes of what we should like to do instead of taking stock in what we DO like to do.  This exercise helped me to realize a few things.  I have always been interested in cooking and given the money and time would chef-up tremendous meals every night.  I probably should have been a teacher.  I am still obsessed with dress up - clothes, accessories, and especially shoes.  Although I really want to read great classic literature I am usually distracted, happily, by new best-selling fictions.  I traded in my roller skates and bike for a car and boys.  The times when I kept a journal were some of my happiest and most self-aware.  It is likely that I will never again be afforded the luxury of sleeping late - late being anything after 9:30am.  It probably wasn't the best move to quit dancing at the age of 11 and it might be interesting to try my hand at adult ballet - I would totally rock a too-too!  Though it might be hazardous to say aloud, I prefer to sit on the couch and watch mindless TV over heaps of other activities.  I miss the smell of campfires in the Fall but exploring in the woods holds no interest.  I'm excited to have an excuse (with Sully) to re-watch all of those great Disney movies.  Swinging is an activity that should be enjoyed at any age whether on a playground or a porch - it encourages freedom and simplicity.
 
 
a few new goals for 2010: 
-buy a bicycle and actually use it
-go roller/ice-skating
-buy an outdoor rocking chair and find a park near our new neighborhood with swings
-write a children's short story
-start a journal - realistically i will aim for one entry per week
-arrange a weekend camping trip this fall

I finished the Twilight series on into the late hours of last night. FINALLY. I made it to the ending that I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for since the beginning of the year (I took a looong break in btwn books 2 & 3). And now that i've read the last page, i'm left with lonely feelings - like a friend just moved away. I have devoted so much time to Bella & Edward and now they are gone, collecting dust in a nook on my bookshelf. I read the first 700 pages in a flash, but carried out the last 50 over the course of 3 days hoping that another 50 would magically appear. You have to be a book lover to understand how involving it is to read the stories of these characters and get so deep in that you actually develop a personal attachment. What are Bella & Edward doing right now? Oh yea, that's right, they're just characters in a book, NOT REAL. These are the thoughts in my head. Needless to say, the series was amazing and I closed book 4 last night with contentment stirring through my mind.

To all you pregos.....

One of my very first gifts as a pregger was the Jenny McCarthy book Belly Laughs, compliments of my sweet Carissa.

With no idea what to expect, I dove in yesterday. Teary-eyed on the first page I wondered, what has my friend gotten me into???

Jenny writes, and I quote...

To Evan-

the little man who changed Mommy's world.

Thank you for filling my soul with giggles and

allowing me to experience the kind of love

I had only read about in fairy tales.

You are my sunshine.



Waterworks!

Fortunately the phone rings shortly after "sunshine" and I was forced to suck up my blubbering and put on the professional face. Maybe it's a good rule of thumb for pregnant women NOT to read "these" books at work. I'm certain that somewhere, some poor male customer's comfort level has been compromised because he mistakenly walked into the office of a woman who just read the above paragraph. But who cares what they think anyway!

My journey with Jenny continues.

Who knew such fascination lay in a book of pregnancy. Actually, I guess it should be pretty fascinating considering it does lead up to the moment where we squeeze something the size of a watermelon out of a hole that's the size of a lemon. So scratch that.
But, seriously, this lady really knows her stuff. After "sunshine" it was ALL sunshine. In fact, it has been nothing but non-stop laughter since the first page of the first chapter. And not normal laughter. You know what I'm talking about. The out loud, uncontrollable, people are staring and pointing, deep, I just did the equivalent of 1,000 crunches LAUGHTER!
This girl, god love 'er, actually goes into detail about weighing her own boobs. The woman weighed her boobs. My kinda girl! On page 59, I almost peed myself when she said, "I have a food scale and I just had to know how they'd compare to a meal, so I plopped a breast up on the little metal tray. Each breast: 5 pounds. That's ten pounds of breast. Think of that in terms of chicken and you'll quickly see that your breasts could feed a family of eight or ten people."
I couldn't thank my dear friend more for sending this little treasure of laughter my way. I may have cried in the following pages but it was only from my inability to control bursts of hysterical cackling. This lady is dead-on and I suggest ALL of you bun-baking females rush out and buy it.
When you do finally get it, read the "Psycho Chick" chapter TWICE, and know that we're all in it together!!!
I'm off to purchase a food scale, so until next time......
Love & Hugs!