Day 182- Coco Love

I feel bad today. I am supposed to be lifting people up and showing love and albeit ultimately this WILL be about showing love and doing the next right thing it just wasn't the way I expected my first love project post to look like. Unfortunately for you my love posts are falling on a time where love hurts. Our sweet chocolate lab Coco is sick and the medicine isn't working and she is increasingly becoming lethargic and less spunky and well, less herself. She turned ten years old this past November. Husband and I found her at a rescue near our home and she has stuck with us ever since.

The pit is growing in my stomach as I recall yesterdays events and how my husband crawled in the backseat to comfort daughter #2 as she realized as much as her eight year old brain would allow that Coco wasn't getting better and that meant heaven was the next stop. I cried as I watched them walk with her down our road. A road Coco frequented freely and daily...she is the gypsy of our neighborhood, fierce protector, hates fed ex trucks, loves peanut butter and cheese but simply loves her family more than all of that.

As we as a family figure out what the next best thing to do is for our beloved family pet we are laughing and crying and remembering silly things that Coco has done to leave her paw prints on our heart forever. Love does hurt sometimes and I think that is a tough lesson to learn. Glennon Melton over at momastery.com is the resident love bad ass. She says that life is both beautiful and brutal...and coined the easy phrase brutiful. The next few days or weeks will be that for the girls I am sure...and we will do the best we can to let them bob and weave through the emotions of losing a family pet.

I found this article in my arsenal of saved reminders on how to live, love and let live... Dogs are pretty smart and  this was a perfect time to share it... Enjoy. My favorites... #1, 4 and 9.
Stay with me players...

Love in my hand

On this heart day where people are talking about love and what their significant other is doing to celebrate the love that is shining so bright in their village... I am giving myself a gift.  I am loving myself enough to lean into this crazy idea. Staying true to my passions.  I am starting a new project for the next 182 days. It looks like this... For the next six months I will post about what I did to love big on that given day.  Love, it's a word that is thrown around a lot - but what do we do to show love?  Do not roll your eyes or hit x. Stay with me here.

I need a deadline because you all know I am a serial fizzer outer read here  to catch up! I figure if it is out there in the Internet abyss for you all to see then maybe I will finish it.  And show some people love along the way.  And maybe no one will read it or care. That is kinda scary. But I'm doing it anyway. Authentic. All the way.

So I am now responsible for actually living out my mantra... Love big or go home.  

I don't know what it is going to look like- maybe I will want to put a fork in my eye by day five. I am hoping it motivates me to continue my trek through the trenches and build my love empire and continue to conquer the walls I tear down and build again and again.  My dream is, for one day the walls will come down forever and I will feel safe and loved in my own skin to just BE. 

Today was a good love day.  I have a twisted affair with food and my husband loves my homemade italian meatballs - I don't make them often. They are messy and time consuming and frankly I have to have just the right ingredients for my grandmothers recipe. It goes hand in hand with "THE Sauce" and I'm not talking Ragu. It's a labor of love. The girls helped me all day and prepared for his homecoming. I made him meatballs, spaghetti, amazing bruschetta and a delicious dessert pizza. I had to make him think he wasn't getting a warm cooked meal - enter maniacal laugh. Imagine his delight when he opened the pizza box and found this 

He was happy.  So today that is what I did to show him that yes... I do love you. 

Look here, I am not always loving big.  In fact there are days when it is dark and swampy in my world and love is just a word that means nothing. I am snappy and my face gets squished up and wrinkles appear in places that I didn't know I had. I am jumpy and yelly and impatient. Don't forget judgy.    I want to love.  To love. I want to love big and do.  So this is where my passion meets paper.  I have 182 days to get it right in some small way and or big way to show that love does win! 

Maybe you are out there and asking what the heck is she thinking? I know, right! But there is a job to do. And I am choosing to take on this love project.  To love my God, love myself, love my husband and daughters and love my village ... just to start.  

182 days to love and share my progress with you does seem a little daunting.   I may go flat before I even start but I'm willing to try.  Love does.  And I am ready to do.  

Stick with me players. This could get interesting!  

My Thursday Heartbeat Song

my head was pounding when I woke up. I begged the meds to kick in, Quicker. I knew the day was going to be a doozy...party weeks at school are always like that. which I don't get - it's like Christmas- same day every year, and it shouldn't sneak up on you like your first chin hair, or your daughters first crush but it does. Party weeks are always busy and last minute gifts and favors and snacks and the list goes on to just add to the mayhem. And we always say, It snuck up on me!

So I was expecting mayhem and headaches and a dark day...instead I got something else.

I think you know by now I am a fan of dance parties... I love to sing loud and make up silly moves. I think it may be a little scary to watch. But guess what...I don't care!  Me and the girls dance party usually daily...today daughter #2 was studying her bible verse and I rudely interrupted as my song of the week came on...HeartBeat Song by Kelly Clarkson. I figure the first ever winner of  American Idol was okay to stop studying for 3 minutes. Yes. I did stop studying with my daughter to dance. There will be a time that they will not want to dance with me...so I am not letting that sneak up on me.

In the middle of all the mundane, fantastic, life stuff that happens as I try to keep things somewhat stitched together as husband is gone all week. My heart is bursting... I just feel like I have to shout it. So many things about this day snuck up on me... Like:

when daughter #1 said with a new grin I have never seen before, "See ya in the car players!"

or how about when two of my struggling students rocked their science test. Not that I didn't expect their greatness but it still snuck up on me and made me yell YES!!! I may have fist pumped. Okay I did, I totally rocked that fist pump.

or how about when we dance partied on the way home and daughter #2 says, "I just love you guys"

or how about when daughter #1  made me an egg for dinner - BEFORE herself. She showed me her servant heart and the fact she can make breakfast for dinner snuck up on me.

or how about as daughter number 2 danced and twirled and practice her ballet with such purpose that it made me dream of what her future will be on the horse or on the barre - that moment snuck up on me.

or how about how we rocked our chores as a unified team tonight with only one pouting episode and I didn't yell until bedtime!

So my heart is full tonight as I get ready for Donut Friday and a fun day with anticipation and buzz surrounding Valentines day. I hope you have a wonderful heart day without too much expectations or disappointment because really every day can be full of special moments, moments that sneak up on you and make your heartbeat faster...so turn it up and let it happen.You don't need a stinking holiday for that! (that's a whole other blog post...so I will shut up now!)

Even if you have forgotten for a while what love looks like...its there. Love is all around, turn it up and let it happen...after all love does win if you let it.

And tomorrow's dance party would be the most awesome dance party evah if Uptown Funk and Heartbeat Song could join us for our 16 min drive to school...someone make that happen!!!!

#gratitudeandchocolate

I am not exactly where I thought I would be. I don't really get too upset or angry  about it - its more of a confused state. Discombobulated.  I fell down the rabbit hole like Alice and then woke up... I look around and it doesn't look familiar but it doesn't feel wrong either. But it is a struggle for me daily to figure it all out. And as my girls get older it is even more important to get it all right. Every Day. And I fail at it miserably.

It makes it hard in this digital age for me to not be confused because I am constantly reminded of what my life should look like, feel like and be like as I watch everyone else's unfold via the highlight reel. I'm not a social media hater... just the opposite in fact. I am a social media junkie. I Instagram. I Facebook- (less and less but I do) I tweet. I pin. I blog. I skype. And yes, I use hashtags.
I teach technology for the love of Pete. I can't hate it. So when my church is offering some real Biblical truths about the tech world I live in... Consider my mind blown and my heart busted wide open to receive the good news. Or bad. Depending how you look at it. You know me by now...I will look for the sweet in it!

It applies to me so much that through the whole first service this past weekend, I sat there mouth open dragging on the floor. I am sure I looked like a bobble head in the chair, nodding and agreeing and having light bulb moment after light bulb moment. Or it could be that hubbie may or may not have leaned forward and pointed at me and said..."are you listening?" Um. hello, Sweet Baby Ray's Yes. I am all ears...

Here is my truth:
I know I am on my devices too much... and I tell my daughters to get off of theirs. Great parenting, right???  I blame it on my job, but that isn't fair. I need some moderation*
I feel I do celebrate wins and lay off the Eeyore type of posts or hum drum negativity...or even in appropriate content. Again- I am having to set an example for my daughters and students alike... So I am anxious to apply the Biblical truths that were shared last week and in the upcoming lessons. Crush comparison, celebrate others victories (big or small) and finally have a heart filled with gratitude...and chocolate.  Chocolate is good. Maybe I just need some balance??? 

Are you curious yet????

So here it is ... watch the video. It is 27 minutes short and that is worth your time. That is less time than an episode of Full House, a quick washing machine cycle or the 27 minutes you lost trolling Facebook this morning... Put down trivia crack and I beg you to take the journey with me... Whatthetech? is a journey we all could learn, love and grow from? Right? Kapish? #doit. #youwontregretit.

*I am not good at moderation. I believe all in is the way to go...