Day 70: Start the day with a walk on the beach

Today began with a long walk on the beach in search of seashells. I finished the walk by swimming in the very warm Gulf.  I can’t think of any better way to start the day. It was made better by the company of my family which included a very excited Zach.  

Day 69: Create My Commandments

I finished compiling my all time favorite quotations into what I will now refer to as “My Commandments.” These are all from artists and thinkers that have influenced me profoundly.

1.      Dismiss whatever insults your own soul. Walt Whitman

2.      Simplify, Simplify. Our life is frittered away by detail. Henry David Thoreau

3.      Laugh Often and Much. Ralph Waldo Emerson

4.      Imitate Jesus and Socrates. Ben Franklin

5.      Be the change you want to see in the world. Ghandi

6.      The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences. Eleanor Roosevelt

7.      Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. Yeats.

8.      The last of human freedoms- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way. Viktor Frankly

9.      Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5

10.  Changes in latitude, changes in attitude, nothing remains quite the same… if we couldn’t laugh we’d all go insane. Jimmy Buffet

11.   Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. Mark Twain

12.    Practice non judgment. Take time each day to be silent, to just be.  Chopra

13.    Don’t be afraid to be happy. Enjoy what is beautiful. Love with all your heart and soul. Believe that those you love, love you. SH Payer

14.    Life is a self fulfilling prophecy.

15. If I had my life to live over again, I would have sat cross legged in the grass and not worried about grass stains... Erma Bombeck

Day 68: Watch a Great Movie a Second Time

Today I re-watched a movie called The Pianist. This is a   movie about a Polish piano player, Władysław Szpilman during the Holocaust.  Szpilman managed to escape death and lived until 2000. The story reminds me of the importance of art (music, painting, literature) even in the midst of war.  I had seen the movie years ago and re-watched it because of the impact it had on me. When I read or watch a Holocaust story, I am always struck by the essential recentness of this event. My grandparents were adults.  There were phones, and cars, and records, and movies and celebrities. There were refrigerators and roads and radios. This wasn’t ancient history; it was literally just a few decades ago. Can we ensure something like this never happens again? I really don’t know.    

Here is an excerpt from his biography:

Everyone in his family was deported in 1942 an extermination camp in the East. Szpilman managed to flee from the transport loading site with the help of a family acquaintance who grabbed him from the crowd and shooed him away from the waiting train. His name was Itzchak Heller and he worked as a Jewish policeman in the ghetto. None of Szpilman's family members survived the war. Szpilman was left in the ghetto as a laborer and helped smuggle in weapons for the coming Jewish resistance uprising. He avoided capture and death by the Germans several times. Szpilman remained in the Warsaw Ghetto until it was abolished after the deportation of most of its inhabitants and went into hiding.
As set out in his memoir, Szpilman found places to hide in Warsaw and survived with the help of his friends from Polish Radio and fellow musicians. In November 1944, Szpilman was hiding out in an abandoned building when he was found by a German officer. Surprisingly, the officer did not kill Szpilman, but instead after finding out that he was a pianist, asked Szpilman to play for him on a piano they had found. After that, the officer showed Szpilman a better place to hide and brought him bread and jam on numerous occasions. He also offered Szpilman one of his coats to keep warm in the freezing temperatures.

Day 67: Girl's Pool Day

Of course after an afternoon at a convent, it would only make sense I should meet some of my friends for a girl’s pool day.  It was a great day spent in the company of girls unafraid to voice their opinion or butt in. We started a book of rules to be added to with each additional get together. The main rule we all agreed was to make time for each other and continue to make dips out of cream cheese. 

Day 66: Go to the Visitation Monestary

Day 65: Stop my Baby Maker

Today I began a procedure of permanent birth control. It wasn’t a hard decision having brought into this world two very healthy, beautiful,  intelligent and precious children.  I also have the pleasure of being a step mother to another two amazing kids. So with four kids between us, we felt sure that our family is complete. However, it was a bitter sweet moment to think that chapter of my life is permanently over. I have found more joy and fulfillment in motherhood than any other aspect of my life. It is truly my reason for being.  But babies are loud, messy, expensive and demanding and not something I want in my 40’s unless I can return them to their mother.  So I was thirty minutes early for my appointment.

The kids and a the hubs

Day 64: Create a budget

I spent some time this morning actually planning and typing out a budget.It occurred to me that if I stop eating out and shopping at Target, Kohl’s, Gymboree, Gap,  and Hobby Lobby I should be able to save thousands each year. By the time I post this blog, I have lost the budget, eaten out at least five times and shopped at every store within a mile vicinity of my home. I didn’t vow to stick to a budget, rather just create one. Done.