Family Game Night

Today's blog is one of my Life’s Little LaughablesTM

When my daughters were babies, I heard a co-worker describe his family game night with his children.  It sounded so idyllic to me; a family having a weekly game night where they eat pizza and bond with laughter and good times over games.  I couldn't wait for my kids to be old enough to be able to play board games and for us to have a fun family game night.

Fast forward several years and I excitedly dived into our first evening of fun!  I quickly learned however, that reality did not quite match my idealistic expectations.  What was meant to be an evening of joviality ended up being an evening of frustration and short tempers.  I tried many different games over the course of the last several years, all having the same outcome.  That is, until my daughter's latest birthday a couple of weeks ago.  I am happy to say, we have a new favorite family game...one that we actually enjoy playing together: Telestrations.

The game is for 4 - 6 players.  Each player has a notepad.  They choose a subject from the card they have, write the name on the first page and pass it to the next player, who then has to draw the object on the next page.  The third person then gets the pad and has to guess what the image is and write it on the next page.  The best part of this game is the reveal at the end.  We love seeing how far from the original word the picture ends up being.  (Telestrations is kind of like the game 'Telephone' and Pictionary combined).  I have added a "Best Fails" sheet to the game box so that we can enjoy looking back at what previously caused us great laughter.  Here was one of our "Best Fails" from our last game:

The first person writes the word.

The second person does their best job at drawing the word.

The third person then has to guess the drawing. (I was the guesser for this one...I couldn't figure out what the 'mom' had on her head, but I sure noticed the mean face...perhaps my answer stemmed from a guilty conscience that I have been too crabby lately.)

The fourth person draws the previous word.  This depiction made me laugh out loud.  Now THAT is one ferocious momma!!

The fifth person guesses the previous drawing.  How my 9 year old got a dinosaur-like creature from a drawing of a person, REALLY had us all laughing out loud.

Enjoying the laughter and positive family bonding,

Me

Motivational Moment:

Today's Moment is dedicated to the newest member of my family...our 6 month old kitten:

May you always have new, intriguing adventures.

May you view the ordinary with a new perspective.

May you have a best bud you can simply hang with during your day.

May you always enjoy fabulous, restorative sleep!

Sweet dreams; sleep well.

SG

Embracing Life's Imperfections

This is an x-ray of my 12 year-old daughter's spine.  The only reason I can now appreciate the beauty in this imperfection, is that the pediatric orthopedic told me she is fine (no surgery required) and that she will live a completely normal life with this slight curve.  When I first saw the x-ray, I was absolutely terrified.  It came as a total shock for me as I had no idea anything was amiss.  I have since learned that the majority of scoliosis cases are discovered in females, in puberty, for that is when they experience the biggest growth spurt and this anomaly becomes noticeable.

Because I appreciate humor, I have to add that the doctor made me laugh by walking into the room and immediately upon seeing the x-ray said, "That's not impressive.  And believe me, you want to have an orthopedic surgeon say they are NOT impressed with your x-ray!"  I wanted to jump up and hug the woman!  She was very cool and pretty much made my day!

It is amazing what we take for granted in life.  We assume our children will be born healthy, have no health crises during infancy and childhood, and that they will make it safely into adulthood, living long, healthy lives.  This way of thinking may sound like I am living in a fairy tale, but then again, I really don't think anyone undertakes the journey of having children thinking of all the possible horrors life can throw at you.  In fact, NOT thinking about all that can go wrong, is probably the only way we should raise our kids, which is optimistically.  And, of course, there are no guarantees for a healthy life, but all we can do is take one day at a time and deal with whatever comes our way the best we can, with love and acceptance being our guides.

I have three daughters who have their imperfections (thankfully they are minor ones), but they are also three, very smart girls and each bring their own personalities and talents to this world.  I am blessed to have the privilege to raise these precious souls.  My job is to nurture them and love them with all my heart so that they can grow into their full potential for their life's journey.

Embracing My Journey One Discovery at a Time,

Me

Motivational Moment:

Today's Moment is one of my Life’s Little LaughablesTM:

We were ordering food at a drive-thru for lunch the other day and the parking lot is right by an intersection.  I was busy with ordering and was only paying attention to the drive-thru.  My 9 year-old all of a sudden asked the question: "Hey, aren't they L-walking??" I had no idea what she was talking about.  And then my 12 year-old said: "You mean Jaywalking?"  It made me laugh out loud because I certainly missed the connection to the appropriate saying.  When I looked, there indeed was a family walking across the street, far away from the cross-walk.  And after all, "J" is only two letters away from "L"; she was close to naming the occurrence correctly, so who can blame the kid?  ;-)

May you experience many laughs today!

Hugs and Love, SG

A Moment of Kindness Makes a Difference

This past Friday at work was a particularly stressful day.  One of my projects is at a critical juncture and people are feeling the pressure.  Unfortunately, instead of cool heads prevailing, there are many short-tempered, hot heads dominating the communication exchanges.  Most of the day was spent with people heatedly arguing with each other.  I truly wish I had a magic spell that could make everyone get along and communicate peacefully, but unfortunately I haven't figured that one out yet.  However, in the midst of the storm, I was able to experience a rainbow - even if it wasn't realized until a day later.

A friend of mine was particularly frustrated and was starting to send many heated emails to the team. I was worried that if I said anything to him, it would make matters worse.  However, at one point, I just felt the need to immediately go see him.  I wasn't really sure what I was going to say; however, I just KNEW that I had to go right then.  When I got to his desk, he was typing an email.  I did not see what he was typing, I merely put my hand on his shoulder and said that I was coming to him as a friend.  I asked that he shut off his email for the rest of the afternoon and not respond to anyone.  I suggested he go take a walk and cool down; get some space; take a moment for him.

He did not seem to take my words well, as his responses were curt.  He said he just left for lunch and that he was fine.  I left his desk feeling disappointed that I could not reach him.  It actually bummed me out for the rest of the day.

Here is where the beautiful part comes in.  It turns out, when I went up to him, he was about to send out a very negative email that would have been particularly damaging to him.  He said that I did reach him and that I most likely saved him his job, for which he is grateful.  Here are his exact words: "My family will never know what you did for them!  I hope you can appreciate how powerful your words became at that moment.  I can't explain it, but your voice was all I heard, telling me to walk it off."  When I told him I thought my words did nothing for him, he said: "You could not be more wrong.  Your words changed everything.  I cannot even find the depth of words to convey my gratitude."

His words brought tears to my eyes.  He is always saying to me that things happen for a reason.  Was it his angel that sent me over there?  Fate?  Serendipity?  I honestly don't know what it was - but I absolutely LOVE the phenomenon.  I love that I was compelled to go see him at a defining moment and that my words reached him and made a difference.

I guess the entire point of this blog was to share, what I feel, was a truly beautiful, fateful moment.  And to always encourage you to reach out to others when you feel they need it, as you will never know the impact that your moment of kindness will bring to their lives.

Spread kindness and sunshine.

Lovingly,

Me


Motivational Moment:

Today's moment is dedicated to the many people who have left this life recently.  For some odd reason, it seems like there have been many deaths in the past two months (at least for my family and friends).  As stated in a previous blog, my friend lost her life to ALS at the end of November.  Then my uncle passed away in late December.  Two weeks later, my cousin lost her mother and two coworkers lost close loved ones (one lost his father and the other lost her girlfriend).  I went to two wakes, one day apart last week, and both of these wakes contained this Irish Blessing:

May the road rise to meet you,

May the wind be always at your back,

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

The rains fall soft upon your fields and,

Until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

I just love the warmth that this blessing brings to people.  And while talking about death may not seem appropriate for a motivational moment, I whole-heartedly disagree.  All the wakes I went to were filled with love and laughter and wonderful family bonding.  And as we get older, we are going to experience even more loss to those close to us.  However, this is the cycle of life.  This is what it is.  We must embrace it and love it and see the beauty in our journey; it would be foolish to spend our time here in any other way.

Peace and hugs,
SG