Daily 5 - Day 2

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Here are today's five moments of laughter, joy, smiling, success etc. The moments I'm celebrating and finding life in today:

1. A friend of mine had the following as her facebook status this morning, loosely paraphrased by me, "My daughter peed on the kitchen floor. She was trying to be a good girl and clean it up. Unfortunately, she used a broom." I laughed off and on all day as I pictured her rather precocious, curious daughter (who must be around 3 or so now) trying to fix her mistake and be "good" by helping to clean up the mess she'd made, but going about it in a less than helpful way!
2. Peanut M&M's are high on my list of things that satisfied and brought smiles today
   
3. A glass of red wine from a bottle left for me by a dear friend
4. A realization that certain things I've been struggling with don't have to make me a victim - that I have a certain degree of choice in that.
5. Finding a book that I am really enjoying reading, and feeling inspired to learn again, even if it was something as little as looking up the definition of protean (see my post earlier today) and reveling in the knowledge of a new word, rolling it around within me and letting the joy that came from a bit of a revival of a love of learning (I haven't felt that in a while) roll around inside me for a bit.

And, with that list of five, I'm off to finish up a few emails, and then curl up in bed with my journal and book, and then hopefully sleep deeply and well tonight.

Holy Cannoli

My current favorite exclamation when feeling slightly overwhelmed is "holy cannoli!" I don't know where it came from, but I find myself using it rather frequently these days.

I'm having a "holy cannoli" kind of day today. A bit shocked at the variety in the day. From moments of completely deadness, with nothing on my plate, to moments where the amount of things on my list seem to be overflowing.

In other news, I was reading over lunch since our server was down and I couldn't give my brain a rest by playing a game online. In the book I'm reading, I came across a word I was familiar with, but couldn't define, even given the context in which it was used. The word was "protean" and the definition can be found here, but it essentially means that something is flexible or changeable. (I hear some of you who know me well, jumping at the joke to be made here, the one that says no wonder that I didn't know the word, it would certainly never be applied to me!) Having read the defintion, the word makes total sense in the context in which it was used.

I'm noticing, already, a difference in me, by making the commitment I wrote about yesterday to show up here with a daily list of five things that in some way brought joy. I'm more aware of the little moments in the day that I'm laughing, of the things that truly made my insides smile. I'm more aware of the things I'm thankful for, because I'm focusing on them, jotting them down, so I can choose the best of them to make my list for the day later tonight.

One of those things that made me chuckle was a facebook status update from a friend (actually two different status updates have made me laugh today, but one is a serious contender for my list tonight, so I'll leave it for now). His status read: So and So used to have a handle on life, but it broke. And oh how I chuckled in knowingness.

And with that, holy cannoli! I've got things that must get done by the end of the afternoon, and I'm off to tackle the list!

A Variety of Quotes

There have been a variety of quotes stacking up in my inboxes, or in notes I've jotted to myself the last few days, all of which have hit my heart quite hard, and I'm feeling compelled to share at least a few here this morning.

This one, from an email I received, struck a chord, as I have been in the midst of so much relational upheaval, and finding both trust and the need to not lash out (I haven't been successful) a very challenging thing:

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." (William Shakespeare)

This next one appeared yesterday on the calendar that sits on my desk. It didn't hit me quite so hard at the time, but as I revisited it this morning, it struck, as I've wrestled with what it means to love and bless, even when my heart is not in it:

"Did the Lord Jesus choose? Did he not offer his arms wide open to the nails of the cross so that no one might be excluded from his love, be that person the most selfish and most ungrateful of human beings. ... The Lord Jesus suffered and died for all. In the name of his love, all, without exception, have a right to your love." (Little Sister Magdeleine of Jesus)