happinessoverhaul

For the record: I'm not from Belgium.

This clip made me smile, and then cry. I don't know why. It's a happy clip, absolutely NO reason to shed tears. But they were flowing abundantly. May be it's because I'm home sick. May be it's because I feel emotional about going back home exactly a week from today. Who knows... Every so often, my laughter seamlessly morphs into a cry. I'm just silly like that.

All it takes is a shift of focus. Or new glasses.

Its tax season and like every year I have waited until the last moment to prepare my taxes. So yesterday I was sitting at my desk, cranking it out late at night, in order to still make the fiscal deadline. Nothing like a little adrenaline rush.  

 

With each data entry into my computer, I heard little voices. You know, those voices in your head, representing your old money beliefs? Or those of your parents, that you unwillingly have taken on as well? YOU didn't believe money was dirty, until your mom told you to go wash your hands, right?

The power of words (and also: go vote!)

Totally abusing this outlet to shamelessly exploit promote my boy's chance to win a little sum of money. He is part of a dance crew and went to NYC yesterday to dance in a Clearasil dance competition.

He's the kid putting pimples on his face, freaking out over his own look and trying Clearasil. In other words: he is the short guy up front. Don't say I said that. He does not like being shorter than kids in middle school (and he's a sophomore in high school). Speaking of the power of words, huh? His whole life long, his nickname was "Shorty", until one day I joked that this nickname might be turning into a self fulfilling  prophecy. We stopped laughing. And we stopped calling him Shorty. We're not quite ready to call him "Evan Enormous" yet either (that's like calling your chihuahua 'Brutus'), but we hardly ever say Shorty anymore, just to not hurt his feelings be on the safe side.

Repeat after me: all is well, all is well, all is well

I read a lot of blogs. The one thing I don't like to read, is when other bloggers apologize for having been absent for a while.

First of all, I don't think anybody really noticed. But also, I don't want to read about how busy work is, that your mother in law is staying with you for a month or how the cat has been peeing on your bed for 10 days straight and that’s why you had no time for us.

So I won't even bother apologizing to you. You probably didn't even notice I was gone. And you definitely don't want to hear me whine about feeling seriously overwhelmed. But did you know? I have only 11 days left before we leave for Holland (which should be stress in and of it's own) and only 10 days left after we come back from Holland (jet lag and all!) before we move!

(Oh, yes, by the way! We found a new place. WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME? Because we have yet to see the lease contract. And as long as I don't have a signature, I will try to curb my enthusiasm. We all know what happened the last time I got excited about a new house. I still cry about that one. But hopefully this week I can show you some pictures of the next new house. DO I LIKE IT? It's okay. It was our only option. It is more expensive then where we live now, with less of the extra's (like eh... water view! gone!).

TWENTY days to move 3 years worth of crap! Minus the packing and unpacking for Holland.

If I give up sleeping for a while, I might just make it. It's just me who is doing all the organizing, planning, packing, making dump runs, sorting through things. Twenty days is NOT much. The new house has no storage space, so I need to seriously go through all the stuff in the basement. This, dear internet, is NOT easy. My basement is full of stuff I will use one day, but now I will have to either give it away or sell it (which… duh…. 20 days is not enough to add a yard sale to the stress). And the old house needs to be left behind all clean and in old condition, meaning we have to put back a lot of stuff we had changed and removed.

I think I am hyperventilating.

ALSO. IN THOSE 20 DAYS LEFT? I have to finish two whole years of taxes. Which will take me a good 7-8 days to enter all those data.

Oh dear. I need a drink.

Showering once is not enough.

You don't wake up one morning, take a shower and leave it at that for weeks, only to complain three weeks later that you stink, and thus proclaim that taking showers doesn't work!

You don’t go to the gym once, do 100 sit-ups for your abs and never return to them again, only to complain a few months later – looking at your belly flab – that sit ups don’t work!

Feeling hopeless? Sad? Overwhelmed? Stressed? All of the above?

IT'S ALL AN ILLUSION, PEOPLE!

Watch this video, I am liking it a lot! Not so much what they're talking about (because - if you're anything like me and you're really into this law of attraction stuff, you have heard it a million times before, although... hey, will you believe he is even touching this topic? "How are you doing? I AM IN CONTROL, thanks for asking, how are you?").

However, it's Monday morning repetition is the key to success, so it can't hurt to watch for a few minutes. Plus, you HAVE to see the little card trick he does (or actually, our mind plays on us).

Where can I get some of these cards? I know some people who can use the daily reminder!

I risk, therefore I am.

I finally did my "about me" thingy. There, on the right side of the blog, above my picture.

When Lexi and I did our blogging course this winter, the teacher mentioned several times that my "about me" stuff was missing.

It's  not that I didn't want to fill it in, I just didn't know what else to say about myself. After all, I had already made an ass of myself here.

Lexi suggested I would point out to you that I am from Holland and therefore you should read this blog with a dutch accent. But that wasn't enough. So I just left it blank. Last night I finally got some inspiration, sparked by a question of my 7 year old.

Go on then... read it for yourself! And come back to let me know what the biggest risk was you ever took. (yeah... now you have to go over there and see what I'm talking about). 

GRATITUDE: the email that lifted my spirit

From a dear friend this week:

Jess, for some reason I was just remembering the first time I ever saw you - I think it was at Laura Etners day care, before we even met. I remember you had this colorful scarf around your head and your hair was all piled up in it and you were dropping Imani and heading towards Featherstone to take pottery class. I just remember thinking, "ok, that girl needs to be my friend!".

Not sure where it came from, but I remembered it. I do recall feeling a real swagger to your energy, like a confident stride saying "I don't care about what all you country bumpkins are up to, I'm getting my groove on today".

I did think all women on the island were country bumpkins back then... now I am one myself. Come on... you'd think I would be into crochet if I still lived in AMSTERDAM?

My kinda crack.

Knitting, crochet, any repetitive craft really, is like meditating to me. It calms my neurotic monkey mind, it settles me down and it gets me into flow.

That I end up with a cute new throw for my sofa, is an added bonus. This one has a while to go before it will resemble anything like a blanket, and it might just end up in my big box of other UFO's (Un Finshed Objects), but hey... at least I'm distracted in the  meantime.

DO NOT EVER MESS WITH THE "CURSED HOW'S" (like I did)

I vibed low all day yesterday and today.
I cried, I felt completely down, depressed, blue, whatever you may call it. Out of sync. It started last weekend, when I received some upsetting news from Holland. Then came Monday. My husband went to work, the kids left for school and I was left behind with nothing but the dishes, the laundry, the taxes and the most overwhelming sense of loss. The miscarriage is over. It's gone. I'm drained.

Melodramatic and like a terrible actress in a B-movie, I let myself slide down onto the kitchen floor and I sobbed and sobbed until I realized that it was really cold on those tiles.