Today's Lunch

Fresh produce for today's thai veggie wrap lunch! Recipe forthcoming...

Just One Thing

I wrote this blog post last week in the middle of finalizing my daughter's wedding. Ironically (but not surprising), I ran out of time to post it (or was too busy multitasking!), but think the message is an important one for us all to remember: Just One Thing.

I have this persistent myth that I need to be multitasking. That in order to get things done, I can't waste anytime. I can't cook without simultaneously recording a blog. Without making phone calls for the deliveries that are expected today. Here I am, three days before Margo's wedding, trying to clean out the pantry, make Kombucha, make breakfast for the guests that are here, coordinate making sure we have peonies for the bridal flowers in stock at the wholesale dealer that we're going to tomorrow, the list goes on and on.

I have clients calling me, friends asking me to do favors, and trying to do it all at once. Oh, and while cleaning out my refrigerator at the same time - because I have house guests coming - I spilled olive oil all over one of my upholstered chairs in the kitchen. Then my daughter comes down and wonders what smells like it's burning, which is of course the breakfast I'm trying to make. She ends up telling me that I need to learn to do one thing at a time. Which is exactly what the workshop I attended this fall told me as well: One thing at a time.

But how often do we start on one thing and we get stuck and then we don't know what to do and we get frustrated and give it up, which is where a coach or even a friend can help you to finish that one little task. Help so you can check it off your list and feel better.

I started hiring all kinds of coaches - a business coach, a finance coach, someone to come help me clean out the garage and the basement. It's not that I can't do it, it's that I won't do it. I hate to do it. It's painful. How do we make things joyful?

Just One Thing.

Every day we have an opportunity for lessons learned. Yesterday I made a commitment to be joyful and today, I find good advice from my daughter: just one thing.

Carpe Diem.

Choosing Joy Today

Someone in my Cultivating Joy class this morning said, “You seem so calm considering you are about to host your daughters wedding here.”  Yes, it is true that this will be the “Biggest Party that I have ever hosted” and it is easy to worry about all the things that are not perfect in my quarter of a century old home.

My dear friend Peggy Hillman gave me great advice after our Yoga Dance Class on Sunday.  She said every great event has three parts, the ANTICIPATION, the PARTICIPATION and The REFLECTION.  We have a choice on how we view and experience each one.  

I could very easily worry about the weather, the impending cicadas, the once beautiful pink roses that the deer have eaten, and all of these things that I have little to no control over.  But today I choose to anticipate this joyful occasion with great excitement and joy instead of fear and worry. 

How often do we let fear and anxiety get in the way of a joyful experience?  My daughters often remind me how high strung I can get when I get into perfectionism and overload before entertaining.   I’m sad to think how many opportunities to enjoy the process and the planning have been wasted.  How the pursuit of perfection creates an unattainable ideal and with it, associated stress and anxiety.

Just Four Days left and my son and daughter came in yesterday!!  I know that Saturday will come and go so fast so I want to acknowledge how grateful I am to have my family home and a few friends to witness the beautiful union of Margo & Thomas as well as our great big newly extended family.  My only wish is that every one of my family friends and neighbors could be here, but please know that you are so in my heart.

Today, I choose joy and excitement.

Carpe Diem.