This Week Remember

Just as you are. Right in this moment.

wear it, declare it, hope for it, name it, try it, risk it....

because this is life right now, right here 

this is my thought for you today

love you more than a deep breath xxx

Make My Week - Little Inspirations

This week I've been remembering Christchurch and 4 years on

Encouraging myself (obviously I'm raising boys but it doesn't work so well in the context of the quote to change it to 'and may we raise strong boys!)

Smiling

and dreaming.

This week I've been making little quote images to make magnets with - simple? Yes but some weeks require simplicity and speed :o)

What do you need today?

Take the one that's right for you xx

Joining in here

love you more than the right word at the right time xxx

To Everything There is a Season

I am a great believer in seasons in life - in the ancient words 'to everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.'

and for this reason I love the beginning of a new year or rather the drawing aside in life to seek and to listen for what a coming season may hold, to listen for the direction in which to head, to watch and be ready to align my sails for the wind.

On the 1st of the year I talked about 'things I want to achieve this year' but this post is about the person I want to be this year. In 2012 my word for the year was contentment.

This year I don't have a word as such I have some attitudes that I feel like are seasonal for me

Responsive - this is my word for my marriage, my mothering and my faith. These things matter most to me in life and to these I want to live 2013 with a responsive heart. To hear, to respond, to centre my life around these things.(this is not about doing it is a state of heart and a way of being)

First Fruits - In Jewish culture there is a value of first firsts, that is the giving of the first of your crops, the unspoiled livestock...In Maori culture the first taonga (treasure/bone carving) or other 'hand-crafts' you make are always given away. Last year I wanted to work on generosity and this year I want to work on being less selfish. In order to do that I am setting my sails to bring my firsts and best of.s to others. I won't always manage (I'm only planning on making one mail box!!) but I want to try and give the first ones I make away in order to help me be less self-focused.

Fruitful - kind of hard to explain and quantify but I feel like I want to be fruitful this year as a person - relationally,  creatively, in my faith - I want to bring and offer rather than take and receive so much.

Encouraging Creativity - I really feel like this year I want to encourage others around me in their creative journeys, to cheer them along, to give people around me permission to be creative and to value their creative contribution to the world.

I love these words, perhaps they sound lofty and ideal and certainly they are much harder to measure than general creative goals like whether I built a letter box or not but I think in life we need both.

We need the over-arching seasons that bring us encouragement or confidence or hope and we need the practical doing of day to day. Behaviours and actions repeated over and over that in the end make up the larger unfolding seasons.... well that's my take on it anyway.

Do you have a word for this year?
Do you take time during the year to stop and listen and wait for direction?

B.M.W.B #47 - Commentary

On Sunday evening we had dinner early and went for a walk together. Usually the boys would have headed off and done this while I made tea and I wouldn't have minded but I am being more mindful these days. More intentional to be involved to include myself in the adventure.

Having boys makes me acutely aware that if I don't choose to hang out there will be a time that they stop remembering to ask me.

While we were there I did some commentary on what they were doing. It is just as it sounds - being like a sports commentator and describing with enthusiasm all that they are doing.

The boys love this so, so much. Of course it shows that you are really paying attention - you can't make a comment on the moment they swerve to the side when you aren't watching.

I love watching them grow, seeing their delight. I love the special moments The Atlas and I share when we see them doing something that is as sweet as all the good things we know rolled up into one moment.

I do love these boys, unashamedly - they are my delight.

This year I am making more of a conscious effort to have quality moments with my boys. B.M.W.B (becoming the mama I want to be)  is my way of recording and hopefully inspiring other mama’s too. 

 Simple. Achievable. Intentional: becoming the mama I want to be.

If you haven't entered my giveaway yet please do.

Make My Week # 33 - Inspired

At our church when people have a new baby they are made meals by people for a week. It is so wonderful to be on the receiving end of these. Recently we've had 3 friends give birth and I was making a meal for one set last night. I always like to do a dessert and I quite like the cupcake thing.

The new big sister (19 months) has this gorgeous top that is made of wide pink and green stripes that looks a lot like a watermelon. So Bounce and I made them some watermelon inspired cup cakes to finish off the meal.

I always feel like doing baking as make my week is cheating (because my baking isn't flash and I do it every week) but I am trying to embrace creativity wherever it comes and value it. I am often amazed and inspired by other people's baking and see them as very creative. Here is one such source of tempting inspiration!

To see what other people are creating click on the Creative Spaces button on the right.

Do you have rules for what counts as creative pursuit? Where do you most express your creativity?

Do You Have 8 Inches to Spare?

I was reading this post the other day on the Frugal Kiwi and I thought 'why not'?
Don't get me wrong I love my hair and but mainly it has grown to Biblical lengths because I am too lazy to maintain it. Growing up my mama's attitude was always that we could do whatever we liked to our hair because it would grow back. I pretty much always had long. By the end of high-school I could tuck my hair into the pockets of my jeans.

Today I made an appointment with the delightful Rebecca of Huntsbury Hair (really lovely salon if you live in Chch and really reasonable as well) and with her help I now have 10 inches of hair winging its way to America to be made into a free wig for a person suffering with cancer and hair loss.
I have donated mine to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths programme.

Last year a friend of mine shaved her head to raise money for a friend battling with cancer and I remember thinking how amazing that was - I must say I am too vain for that! But when I heard about this I felt like this was something I absolutely could do.
Unfortunately unless you want payment for your hair there doesn't seem to be anywhere in NZ you can do it and even if you do donate the recipient doesn't get the wig free.

SO.....here's my new do! I am very happy with it and I hope my hair brings someone else encouragement at a difficult time for them.

You only need 8 inches minimum to send... do you have 8 to spare?? Thanks heaps to Frugal Kiwi for the inspiration and for helping me to flex my generosity muscle.

Laying It Down

These words come from a gorgeous little booklet called 'What I Think and Read About Worry', by Corrie Ten Boom and woman who hid Jews during the war and spent time in a concentration camp. The latter part of her life was all about healing and reconciliation between victims and perpetrators of the war.

Worry is about carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength - carrying two days in one. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. There is just one day in the calendar of action, that is today. Planning should include a wide swing of days. But action belongs to one day only - today. We get tensed up about the future....it uses up energy you need for today's business of living.

May you find the strength and grace you need today to let go of the worries that belong to the future.

Miriam x

Enthusiasm

This week I am thankful for enthusiasm
I love how my boys have bucketfuls of enthusiasm
How kids are SO enthusiastic

How they haven't decided they are too cool to show how really excited they are about life, presents, surprises, snow, dancing..... and the rest

Being naturally enthusiastic makes it difficult for me understand how adults can be so underwhelmed when they win something or are given something or see something amazing - I wonder if it is a way of responding they have learned, to be underwhelmed, is it self-consciousness or something else?

Me I'm all for enthusiasm. I love the quote that says

 'nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm'

What emotion do you love to witness in others? These photos will be more properly explained in my B.M.W.B post next week - it's a good one!!






Joining in with other people exploring gratefulness

Read more:
Becoming the Mama I Want to Be B.M.W.B posts
Gratefulness posts

Perspective

Often times it is so easy to get caught in the stream of concerns and cares.... and these are most often about nothing important. Our perspective on life is so limited to the direct moment, confrontation, desire, frustration that is immediately in front of us.

How quickly we forget success past, perfect moments, carefree days and get stuck in the swamp of stuff that is right now.

There is a gorgeous verse in the Bible that says, 'Who of you by worrying can add a centimetre to your height or even one extra day to your life?' Age-old wisdom, relevant.

Today I am grateful for this little man who sits on my back and plays with my hair, who is absorbed in every moment, present and connected. I am grateful for the age-old wisdom I see played out perfectly in young-life.

Other grateful people at Meghan the marvellous photographer's blog.



What has captured your thoughts this week?

Mother's Day

Today I am celebrating the 'career of my life'

Being a mother is all-consuming, regardless of whether you are full-time, part-time, unemployed.... motherhood trumps it all in terms of your thoughts, hopes, fears, emotions - every mother is a full-time mother some of them just get paid to do other stuff as well!

This week I've loved watching the preparation for first football game of the season

Celebrating with a little boy who wrote his name all-by-himself for the first time

and watching our boys paw over photo albums delighted to see themselves and re-live some of our adventures.

And there have been sleepless nights and burst ear-drums, puddles to jump in and skinned knees, tears and laughter and huggles..... and all the patchwork of life together.
Happy mothers day to all the mama's out there and especially to my own mama - constant inspiration to aspire to as a mama.

Would You, If You Could? + giveaway

A while ago a few of us blogged about our dreams... you know those things we don't want to talk about because you fear they will never happen, or people will judge you, or you will sound silly.
At the same time I was approached by a New Zealander Jolene Stockman who had written an e-book about this topic. She asked me if I would consider reviewing her book. A big risk for her (this book is her baby) and for me (what if I didn't like it?)
But I did like it.
Jolene has written this book specifically with teenagers in mind but that does not mean it can't be appreciated by adults as well. Her book is called 'Total Blueprint for World Domination'.

It is a book that brims with passion and enthusiasm for making your personal dreams a reality, but it is much more than a 'you can do it' motivation guide. The book is also a workbook at the end of each chapter there are places to pause, questions to ask yourself and exercises to do.       `````
And it takes things a step further - it asks you to go to the edges of your dream and work backwards in steps to look at what you can do right now to make those things happen. For me this was the chapter that was most valuable and challenging. It's all too easy to dream, to talk about what you want to be 'when I grow up' but not to actively pursue that by the things I am doing now.
The book is very readable. It isn't long or arduous but it is a book you can really take time over and let it challenge your behaviour and your thinking if you want to.
Here are two of my favourite quotes from the book:
Feel the incredible deliciousness of being able to do something right now.
You have always made a difference from the time you entered the world to this moment sitting in your skin. You affect people around you. You affect the world. Everything you do, and everything your don't do.....you make a difference right this second. Whether you mean to or not.
Jolene has been working hard to make her own dreams realities and I think she is a wonderful example in a long line of New Zealanders and women who have chosen to make and be the future they dream of. Jolene has generously decided to donate 2 of her books to readers here as a kindle book or PDF .
Leave me a comment, tell me your dream, tell me about a person that inspires you or just tell me I'm awesome!
2 winners drawn in 2 weeks time May 25th
extra entries if you share through your platforms - blog, tweet, fb...

The Heart of the Matter

Dear Readers  – I am asking for your help. I am asking you to journey with me. We live in total privilege in a world that does have enough resources to feed its people….but there are people around the world, 27 million of them, who live in slavery.

Does that embarrass you? Does that totally overwhelm you? Do you feel like you can’t make a difference? Caught between helplessness and guilt?

I have joined with a group of women who are creative, talented and enthusiastic about making lasting change for people. We call ourselves ‘unfolding hope’ and we are raising money to donate to a charity called Free The Slaves - an organisation aiming to eradicate the trade and enslavement of people within our lifetime.

Would you read the pages at the top of this page under “unfolding hope” and would you donate to our efforts? There is a place to donate button on the right.
Thank you so much for your encouragement to me and for allowing me to raise my voice.
Miriam x x

“None of us is truly free while others remain enslaved. The continuing existence of slavery is one of the greatest tragedies facing our global humanity. Today we finally have the means, and increasingly the conviction, to end this scourge and to bring millions of slaves to freedom”
—Desmond Tutu
Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa
Free the Slaves International Advisor

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do. – Helen Keller.

Who we are, what we do, how we give – this is our chance to change the world – please join us.

Find more information under ‘Unfolding Hope’ at the top.
Thank You.
and I am linking in with blogger extraordinaire and all around awesome lady Simone