Remodeling This Life

Isn’t that a great mantra for life? I try to keep it in mind throughout my days. I try to bring inspiration into my life that helps fulfill that mantra. I try to surround myself in things that help me to love and live happy.

Flowers - whether in the garden or in vases around my home, they add color to any space and bring a smile to my face. Especially when picked by my kids.

Family - surrounding myself with photos and art of my family makes my home feel more welcoming, cozier and more casual so anyone can feel like they can walk in and kick their shoes off and relax. Being surrounded in personal touches like that is so important for my feeling centered and helps me remember who is important in my life.

Music - playing music keeps my spirits upbeat. Choosing the right song for the mood keeps things lively. Whether it’s dancing with my kids in the kitchen to Jimmy Buffet or singing alone at the top of my lungs to Tom Petty, something about music just helps bring emotion and happiness to the forefront of my mind.

Being Outdoors - from gardening to sitting and relaxing while the kids splash in the sprinkler, nothing brings happy to a day like being outside. I can get dirty, goof around and feel like a kid again when I let myself be carefree outdoors.

Laughter - No day is complete without a good laugh. Reading silly books, telling silly stories or making up knock-knock jokes is always good for a belly laugh and it’s something I constantly strive for to keep my life real. And of course, there is nothing better than laughing at myself.

Quiet - I don’t get a lot of it, but when I do, I try to make the most of it. Sometimes it’s not until 10 p.m. that I get some quiet but I need it before I can end my day. I love to get up before everyone else and drink my coffee quietly outside but some days I have to settle for 20 minutes in the dark at night with a cup of decaf tea to wind down my day.

Color - I love vibrancy and am not afraid of color. Red is my favorite color because it’s full of energy, evokes emotion and is bold and daring. It also goes with anything. I love a room that I walk into to be bold and pop and not just blend into look like any other room in any other house. If I can’t say I’m not afraid of color, how could I not be afraid of other things? It’s just COLOR! Nothing to be afraid of. I save that for truly scary stuff.

What’s your mantra for your life and how do you implement it in your day to day? Feel free to share in the comments or your own post!

Every night when I am tucking my daughter into bed, we read a few stories and then we lay together talking, about the day that is ending and the day that is to follow. She’ll say, “What day is tomorrow?” and I tell her the day of the week and then she’ll ask, “What are we going to do tomorrow?”

Sometimes we have “big” plans like a trip to the pool with some friends or an afternoon at the park for kite flying and a picnic. Sometimes we don’t have anything planned so I’ll ask her what she’d like to do and we’ll make a plan. Other times I’ll tell her that we aren’t going anywhere away from the house but we’ll decide what fun things we can do around the house and yard together.

Well, today, the plan for the day was that my mom was coming by first thing in the morning and picking her up to go to the airport to get my dad. My daughter LOVES the airport so she was giddy. Then I told her that they were going to take her to the zoo. Even giddier she got. And a little scared. She loves animals but she also loves to be scared of them. So we talked for a while about the different animals that would be there and how no, they can’t eat her.

She dozed off and I continued to lay there with her thinking about how to her and all children, life is all about a series of experiences and things to do. It doesn’t matter big or small, but they love to do things. I don’t know about other kids, but mine never asks about what she’s going to eat or wear or buy or who she’s going to talk to and what will she say when she sees them.

All the things that we start to get caught up in as adults take us away from the true act of living the life we have. Instead of filling our days with thoughts of conversations gone wrong, friendships that drifted apart, purchases we can’t wait to make, how we look, what others think of us, if we think more like a child and spend more time thinking of the things we can DO with our life, I think we can find more inner peace and confidence and joy. No one ever gushes about how great their trip to the mall and waiting in lines and eating fast food was that day. Replacing the consuming with things that make up true life experiences like playing in the sand at the beach or planting seeds and nurturing them until they bloom makes life so much more fulfilling, so much more joyful, and full of pride in seeing a life being lived rather than one slipping by.

Some may say that I am an obsessed girl. I prefer passionate. I can’t think of another word to describe how I feel about having discovered the beauty in simplicity and frugality. I have found a love, appreciation, and respect for little things in life. It has not been an easy road to get to where I am today but definitely one worth taking.

The simplicity I have discovered over the past year of my life after all my family went through is just so simple. It’s like for so long we were making everything harder on ourselves by trying to seek external happiness and the approval of others. Letting those things go and knowing that it’s all from within that you find happiness and approval has been like moving mountains in my life. It’s a huge weight lifted.

And now, instead of a life of words, of whining, of complaining, of hoping for better when - I’m just living my life. My life has turned from one of words to one of action. This has come about mostly because of my full on embracing of frugality and all the beautiful things that it brings to life. Instead of the main action of my life being swiping a piece of plastic when I want, need or have a whim for something, I am creative - I am using my hands not for writing checks and entering pin numbers. I am using my hands to make things, to build things, to create and to shape my life into a beautiful, simple specimen. I’m adding love and care and handmade, homemade goodness to my life and those around me.

Tired of talking about what I want to do, what I want different, what I don’t like, I am a woman now that loves to act. To change things I don’t like, or to change my viewpoint about them and see them in a positive light. There is so much pain and suffering in this world. The last thing the world needs is someone like me - living a life of splendor compared to much of the world although not compared to the rest of America - whining about my children’s bad behavior, or wanting more cash in the bank or needing this that or the other thing. A shift has taken place within me that has made me realize my small place in this world. I can make the most of it through doing and acting. I can lead a simple life that involves days of digging in the dirt and creating a home as a haven, and making food, sewing (yes, sewing! I started sewing again this week!), using the hands I was given to provide for myself and my family or I can keep sitting and waiting for another day, another time, when there is more of whatever I may fool myself into believing I need before I can be happy. I choose to act today instead of waiting for tomorrow.

I wrote last week about Small Things and how they can make a big difference in the world. Since writing that post, I have been more aware of so many other small things that make their way into my life daily. Perhaps it is the slowing down of my pace in life, looking at more of what’s around me and concentrating on making room in this little life for experiences and emotions rather than stuff stuff and more stuff that has helped me begin to see these things more.

I’ve experienced a knowing smile from another mom struggling out of the grocery store with food and kids and keys and bags. I’ve had friends reach out in their own small ways to help through my health chaos of the past few weeks. And on Monday, a day late, but here nonetheless, arrived a card from my father. Hand picked by him at the store, handwritten note to me about how proud of me he is and how great my kids and I are. Maybe not monumental - other than the fact that he bought the card himself, wrote it himself, stamped it himself, addressed it himself and mailed it himself. Not really like my dad at all . I was surprised - happily - at how something so little could mean so much and I called him to tell him so.

Maybe it’s my old age, my new perspective on what I find important in life, something…but these small things have really started to show me that it doesn’t take moving mountains to make a difference in mine or someone else’s life.

I am challenging myself to keep on top of these things. To speak up when I think something about someone that will make them feel good. I am going to keep trying to do my own little things to make others smile and try to bring a little more happy and positive and a lot less negative to the people around me. It’s starting right here at home and I am making hubby join in. Mr. Doomsday himself has even started to say a lot more little nice and appreciative things instead of grumbling most of the time. See! I’m changing the world! Wanna join me?

I was tagged last week by Lynnae at Being Frugal for a meme about making lemonade when life hands you lemons. I have actually written a post before titled just that, When Life Hands You Lemons. I’ll pull a quote from that post I wrote back in December.

Living simply has proven to be quite fun and fulfilling. Living in a home that is 100% your own and your taste is so valuable. I think back on the projects we’ve done, with kids underfoot, and what wonderful memories those are going to be someday. Showing Bug pictures of her putting tile down in the laundry room, painting our bedroom, helping with whatever she could. That’s home.

So that post was all about our home and what we went through to end up here and how we’ve made the best of it, but more than making the best of it, we’ve made something really truly wonderful. Not like those things that you hear like “wow, you look great for just having had a baby!” or “your house looks fabulous for having once been a crapshack!”. Crapshack once or not, we’ve made a wonderful and beautiful home with no need to even put a little footnote about what it once was.

I don’t want to write all about my house today though and how this lemon of a house turned into quite a gem that I have become very very attached to.

I want to write about my separation from hubby a year and a half ago. I don’t want to write about it, but it’s a part of me and it’s cathartic to do so. I still think about that time every single day. I think about how hard it was on him, on me, on our daughter, on all of us as a family. As I have said before, my hubby has depression. Last year, the lovely little life I had and the world I knew as rosy and wonderful caved in when his depression turned to anxiety, sadness, anger, and resentment at me, the house, our life, everything around him. It was a very dark time in our life together. It all came to a head when I packed up our daughter in the middle of the night one night and we drove 45 minutes to stay with my parents.

I was scared, I was sad, I was angry. I can still remember laying in bed at my parents house that night, curled up with my then 2 year old in my arms and sobbing myself to sleep. I had no idea what I was going to do. I was 7 months pregnant and had myself, my daughter and soon another baby to take care of. My mind raced with thoughts of going back to school to get another degree, finding a job to support us, where would I live?

Time passed. I didn’t talk to hubby for a while - probably only a few days at the most but it seemed like an eternity. We started making arrangements for what I would do and how we would amicably part ways. We had been seeing a counselor together for a couple months before this all happened and he decided he would start going to her again by himself. And then, finally, he admitted to me one day that he did indeed have depression, that I was right all along and that he wanted to get help for it.

I know that was so hard for him, admitting that he had a problem. He wanted so badly to just be able to say it was everything around him causing him pain and that he himself was fine. If only he didn’t live in this house, work at that job, or wasn’t married to this woman. But he knew, deep in his heart that it wasn’t any of those things making him miserable. It was his depression talking.

As he slowly picked up the pieces and started putting himself back together, everything else started to fall back into place also. He wasn’t so tired anymore so he had energy to work on the house. He wasn’t angry anymore so he wasn’t wasting his evenings arguing with me. He wasn’t resentful anymore so he started showing appreciation for what was around him again.

It took about 3 or 4 months which doesn’t seem all that long but it sure felt like it to get everything back together. He got the house into condition for us to move back home. He was a new person that day that we came home, me and Drew and baby Eli who was 2 months old at the time. It was a long and very hard time for me, our kids, him, all of us together. I take nothing from that time but gratitude. I am so thankful to have a man in my life who wasn’t too proud to get help when he needed to. Thankful for a marriage that has become much stronger because of what we’ve been through.

We still have our stumbles and we still have changes and transition ahead but in the end we know we want to be together and we want to make it work whatever it takes. Not everyone gets to see what we did together and have a bright and happy ending that results in a respect, appreciation and understanding like we have. Many people take for granted that their relationship works. While I think that is great, I think that what I have learned is that no marriage will work day in and day out for all of two people’s days without a lot of effort, a lot of respect and no taking for granted.

Me and hubby, we have a long life together ahead of us. I am confident if we made it through that, we’ll make it through anything. If that’s not lemonade, I don’t know what is.

Other bloggers have shared their own When Life Hands You Lemons posts as part of this meme, including

Skimbaco. She started the meme after having a sad event happen to her a couple weeks ago but wanted to see the bright side of it.
Mommy Gets PAID shared a heartbreaking and heartwarming story about her grandmother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s.
Debt Kid shares his story of losing his home.