Busted by Nicole...

Yesterday I was busted by Nicole in my purge and prune efforts. And here's the progress. We both handled it with much grace.

We went to HUF (Hand Up Foundation) to drop off an entire car load of recycling, mine plus a friend's. It was alarming to see how much waste just two families generated in a relatively short period of time, I think it may have only been a couple of weeks. And my friend didn't even include paper...

After we dropped off the recycling we went upstairs to shop for a skirt for Tianna, who has a manners mixer on Monday. She doesn't own a skirt...and we didn't find one at HUF either.

What we, no excuse me, Nicole did find, however were three items that I had previously purged from our home that she wasn't ready to part with but probably wouldn't have missed had she not come nose to nose with them. Ugh. Busted.

So what did I do? Since I had barrelled on ahead and disposed of her stuff without permission (I violated her boundaries) I did what any unreasonably reasonable mother would do and bought them back. No fighting, no arguing, a simple apology and acknowledgment that I had crossed the line.

What line have you crossed lately?

Eliminating the Word "Maybe"

OK, I know I am a total techno peasant. Probably sub-peasant. I need to rotate the photos before I get to this point, but somehow don't manage to squeeze that step in before sitting down to post, and in the grand scheme of things decide that posting and adding a sideways photo is better than no photo at all. Thanks for your support in yesterday's comments. I know that "maybe" always is heard as "yes" so I decided to boundary that word also. My life has become all about boundaries. I have come to the unhappy conclusion that I had none, or at least no healthy ones as a kid growing up and it has made me inept in this area of my life, which is way too big and has to stop. So I am working on it through reading the wonderful Boundaries book by Townsend and Cloud and spending time with a great Counselor.

So this is just going to be a quickie update, a longer post later, which will include a full fledged review of the book Churched, by Matthew Paul Turner, yeah, the one I keep talking/writing about. Remember that adding your comments gets you entered in a drawing to win a free copy.

So boundaries I established yesterday and leading into yesterday were:

• Not driving to NYC. I accomplished a lot in the catch up with Outreach related work and some writing work I needed to do. Remember to send me/tell me your pregnancy and childbirth stories if you haven't already!
• I took a walk; it was a gorgeous day and I enjoyed the sun stroking my cheek as I did my short loop and marveled at the brilliant foliage colors. I have also stopped, for the most part, talking while walking so I can be present in the moment, and quiet my mind while I walk.
• No Dunkin' Donuts for anyone. No coffee for me, no junk food for the girls.
• I responded to Tianna's new found vigor at harassment for a cell phone by saying, "you may present your case to everyone (dad too) later at the dinner table. I have told you how I feel. You are welcome to state your case and we will discuss it. But if I hear about it one more time before then you will spend the rest of the evening in bed without dinner." Period. It worked. She did make a feeble attempt at, "I really want a cell phone" to which her dad simply replied something to the effect of saying she would be sixteen before she knew it, time flies when you get older. (She will be twelve next month).
• I timed out my mommying at nine to watch the presidential debate stating that I had spent all evening being available and had warned them that at nine I was off duty. That worked too.

So as to "Maybe" I told them that it just allowed too much wiggle room and room for unnecessary debate, so I was eliminating the word from my vocabulary.

When I told Howie my plans for eliminating the word for at least the time being, his dry wit response was, "Well, maybe you'll be able to do that..."

Have a great day, see you later!