The Good Stuff

This funny thing has been happening with me lately and I wanted to share…in hopes that you may feel the same, or start to! As I was driving my daughter to VPK this morning, we were singing in the car. It was a song that had good meaning, no bad words, nothing I would be ashamed for her sing elsewhere (you mom’s know what I am talking about) and it brought tears to my eyes. That’s the good stuff. I started thinking about how I have seen the world changing in a positive light…I feel like there are more “feel good songs” than there used to be, more people wanting to make a change in their own lives for good. More people wanting to get back to the basics and the good in life…simple things…people wanting to “reduce, reuse, and recycle”, people wanting to support the small business, people making sure our children can grow up to be morally capable of taking over the world. Then I started thinking that perhaps it’s not that the world has changed around me, but instead that my perspective has changed. Honestly…maybe it’s a little bit of both, but I can’t say for sure. What I can say is that I took this post I wrote about balance and I have been doing my best to apply my own rules. I have been learning it’s ok to give a little sometimes. When my Etsy shop goes on vacation so I can spend time with family, I don’t stress and feel guilty anymore…if I don’t have time to post to the blog for a few days, that’s ok….life goes on! I deeply love and adore design and sharing, so I do it as often as I can…but that doesn’t mean it has to be 24 hours a day. This also doesn’t mean that I accept being mediocre, but that I am finding balance that works for my life. With the reduced amount of time online, I also am making sure that what I spend time on are things that build me up, inspire me, and make me better in some way. I love to stop over and read things that make me think of the “good stuff” in my few free moments…

I am sure you all saw the most recent cover of Time Magazine pop up all over the internet last week, as did I. I choose not to read the posts about it {though it was tempting to spend hours watching good drama unfold…right?}. Really though, it wouldn’t do me any good to read about people judging one another, judging themselves, and feeling judged…on both sides. My friend Courtney posted a link to this blog post last night on FB and it is right on point! You should read it!! I love everything this mom said and I felt like it made me better for taking the 3 minutes to read it. Spending time finding positive inspiration is GOOD STUFF!

For mother’s day, my daughter’s class filled out a questionnaire and it was really funny. When the teacher was reading them aloud, we were laughing at some of the answers to “My mom’s favorite thing to do is…..” and I sat there terrified that my princess was going to answer “work” or “email” …funny-yes, sad-yes, but true. I do adore my work…so much I have to keep myself in check so that it doesn’t become an obsession…it is already an identity I am proud of, and a job I am so lucky to have, so there are times it’s hard to not get lost in it!! When I heard my daughter’s answer was “give me hugs”, I smiled from ear to ear…that’s the good stuff.  That makes it ok that I have to say no sometimes, put the shop on vacation once in a while, and blog when I can…after all my favorite thing to do is hug the ones I love! That, my friends, is the good stuff!!