Reflective Thursday July 23, 2009

 

“It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.” – The Bhagavad Gita (an ancient Indian Yogic text) 

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I have just finished this book.

 

I loved it.

To say I loved it  is quite an understatement really. It’s one of those books I could read over and over and over again and not ever get tired of the words. It made me think a good deal about my own life, as I’m sure it did for the million other people around the world who read it. The author takes herself on a search for the meaning of pleasure, devotion, and balance. All of which are very thought provoking subjects for me lately. I have been in a bit of a search mode, it seems.

What should I be doing with my life???

Always the eternal question.

As if what I’m doing with my life is never enough.

I was raised with a mother who never sat still. Always going, going, going. I sit still quite a lot. And would have to admit there is a good amount of guilt involved with that sitting as well. “I should be up doing this, I should be out doing that.” Except, is that what I really want? Or rather is it just my mother’s voice ever resonating in my head?

I love my mother, don’t get me wrong. But she and I are two completely different people.  What revs her engine of life and motivation has absolutely no stimulating result on mine. But whatever it is, it’s still there, in the back of my head all the same. And frankly, it annoys the hell out of me.

All this I finally realized this morning. I rose roughly around the delightful hour of noon, stumbled into my kitchen after kissing the sweetie good day. I slipped easily into my daily ritual of coffee, made lovingly lately in my personal stovetop espresso maker, one of the first gifts Daniel ever gave me. I sat there groggy, waiting for the water to rise in temperature, waiting for the rewarding hissing and popping noise of the darkly delicious liquid spouting up into the metal carafe. I love days like today. It’s Thursday, which is always my day off. I  feel especially satisfied with my laziness on my days off, as if it’s my right or something. Every other day I always feel the slight or sometimes not-so-slight tug of guilt. The coffee finishes and I settle into the sofa, book in hand, smile on the lips. Before I realize it, the coffee is finished and so is the book. This book in which the author takes a year and dedicates it to prayer, reflection, pleasure….. basically a year she dedicated to herself. It was a life of balance. A life of simplicity. And so it was this morning, after pondering the details and images and lessons about life that this book evokes, that I had my epiphany about my life and my mother. 

I don’t have to be going a hundred miles an hour like she does to have a fulfilled and happy life. 

I don’t need anything more in my life to make it better. It’s fabulous just the way it is.

I don’t need some crazy career that takes me away from home 50 hours a week. 

I do not require a perfectly clean and organized home (which, I might add, I am not in the least bit able to accomplish anyways) to have a happy life. 

Let’s run through life as I know it, shall we:

I have a comfortable home in which I live. 

I have a man that loves me and supports me mentally and emotionally in a way I never knew possible. 

I eat VERY well. Every two hours, in fact.

I have a family of friends that surround me with love and entertainment. 

I have my health. 

What more do I need? What more should I want? Nothing. The only thing missing really is one thing. 

Allowing myself to be content with these things. And I am, content. I have everything I need. The rest is just frosting. Sure there are things that I still want to do for self improvement. But really, the only thing I want to do lately is just be content. Content with this life of simplicity. 

 

Summer Reading July 19, 2009

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.  Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”  ~Groucho Marx

 

I have been reading a great deal this summer. We don’t have cable here at the Jandt residence and the new HDTV does not always care to cooperate. So reading had taken precedent. Which, to be frank, I prefer anyways. 

 

My summer book list is as follows:

This book was good, but nothing that I’d read again.

 

 

Yes, I’m STILL reading this book. This book that had taken me a year and a half to read! It is just so emotionally exhausting at times. I would read for a while and then have to put it down for a few months. I’m finally on my last chapter. Yay! Love the book, would highly recommend reading it, even if it takes you a year.

 

 

Just finished this book and promptly passed it on to my future sissy-in-law. Love love, love love loved it! A highly recommendable read. Read it SOON. Laughter and snorting shall ensue.

 

 

 

This is what I’m currently reading and loving. Apparently it will be a movie coming out soon staring Julia Roberts, which of course I shall have to see, just to critique it properly after having read the book. Yes, I plan on being on of those people.

 

 

Next on the list, just as soon as I receive it in the mail. I keep waiting impatiently for it to arrive. It is the first book in the Southern Vampire Series, which is the series of books that the HBO True Blood show is based off of. I’m currently addicted to True Blood, so much so that I have decided to read the books. I hope they are just as fabulous.

 

 

I am eager to read this one as well. There’s orphans and white magic and black magic and disturbingly handsome cousins named Edmond and queens in danger and ladies-in-waiting and mystery and intrigue and anything else you could possibly want in a summer read. 

 

So pray tell, what does your summer list look like? Anything I might like??

Is It Really Almost August?!?! July 18, 2009

I can’t believe it. It’s 2 weeks till the wedding. Holy crap. 

Dress: check

Shoes: check

Wedding rings: check

Pretty red flowers to wear in the hair: check check

Marriage License: Oh dear. Haven’t gotten that yet, but I think I still have a little time. Definitely something to put in the Moleskine, on the “To Do” list. 

Something old: my dress is used, so I’m thinking that counts.

Something new: my shoes.

Something borrowed: Does someone have an old picnic basket they would like to lend me??

Something blue: Daniel’s eyes. Not sure if they count. Pretty much grasping at straws at this point. 

 

In two weeks, I shall be posting pictures of me in a pretty wedding dress with flowers in my hair. Until then.