It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

With fevers a blazin'

And coughs are abounding,

We are lacking cheer....

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Yes, flu season has hit our home with full force this year.  I appear to be patient zero in our current mess and lucky for me, I seem to be over the worst of it.  Little Miss has been down for over a week hard.  All she does is cough and sleep.  Hubby is putting up a good fight and his Fisherman's Friends seem to be a constant companion.  The only one who seems to be keeping it at bay is the teen who honestly does the least to prevent illness.  He has had a couple days here and there where he has felt under the weather but seems to rally.

What is a girl to do in the middle of all this!  It is hard to see my family suffering.  My patience is growing thin with this not so delightful virus.  It is really a recipe to be quite cranky myself. 

Instead, I seek out the good I can find.  I choose gratitude.

The top of the list is the reminder that although my family is sick, they will recover in a short time.  I'm sure many of you have heard the story about little Hudson Pedlar from Spruce Grove.  I had the pleasure of volunteering on a playschool board many years ago with his momma when she was pregnant with this sweet boy.  What started out as the flu in their house has turned into every parent's worst nightmare.  Hudson has been in the hospital since mid October.  He is winning his battle but his life will be forever changed.  My heart breaks over their pain and struggle that they have already endured and the uncertainty that still looms in the future for them. 

I am blessed.  My family, although they are suffering, will hopefully be done with this bug soon.  It has slowed down much of the past couple weeks at a particularly crazy time of year.  That is a blessing.  I am getting lots of cuddle time in during the day while I read to my Little Miss.  I will continue to choose to look for the little things to be grateful for.

Yes and No....

So it has been awhile since I have blogged.  Is there a really good reason?  Nope.  I have had a blog topic floating up around in my head for a few weeks so really no excuses exist.  It was a poke from a fellow team member (thanks Mr. Dyble) that shoved me into my chair at the computer....

It is that point in the year where we spend time evaluating how things are going.  Really, we should be doing this all the time but December always seems to naturally bring it out.  Add to that the need to sit down and put down goals for the next year and it is the perfect recipe for some self evaluation. 

In many ways I have not had a great year.  My numbers overall are horrible.  My consistency has been non-existent.  I did reach the goal of receiving my second degree brown belt (earlier than anticipated) but as far as actual countable, visible kung fu I feel like my year fell off right after that.

Why?  It simply has to do with simple math and a couple simple words.  Each and every one of us has a limited number of minutes in each day.  It is our job to choose how we spend them.  We have the opportunity to say yes and no in each moment as to how we spend them.  Some moments feel like they are decided for us but ultimately, we are basically in control of at least our perspective and our attitude.

I said a big yes back in June.  It has been a life changing yes.  This yes was a good decision.  This yes has impacted nearly every moment since I said it.  Yet, with the simple math of time each yes has some corresponding no's.  Yes, I chose to homeschool my daughter.  I do not feel like I said no to any of my goals that I laid out before making this decision.  Yet, the simple math has lead to many no's in my days.   My time is far more limited than I anticipated.  I have yet to establish new routines that will make adding some of the other things back in sustainable.  I did not blatantly say no to anything yet by not saying yes and acting on it right away, it became a no.

The challenge that I am finding laid out before me is how to better balance it all.  I have not taken anything off my plate that existed before my big yes.  I was a busy person before without a lot of extra space in my days.  I have worked at learning to say no to new things which is really hard for me.  I will likely need to continue to look for some deliberate no's to say so that there are less inadvertent no's in my life.  Really it boils down to being mindful of the consequences of my choices in each moment.  Each yes I say in each moment, means I am saying no to something else.  It is these no's that I need to keep an eye on.  I have the power to choose.