Magical Thinking

I'm having a less than stellar week. I'm on emotional overload and running very empty on single parenting and have felt pretty near getting in bed and not getting out multiple times this week, and its only freaking Wednesday! I'm not normally much of a poor me, or I like to think I'm not anyway. I've got a good life and a million reasons to be grateful, but the ruts in my mind have been running me off into the weeds. Thank god for the help of a warrior confidant and dinner maker tonight! Lisa, you are a life saver.

The other life saver appearing just in the nick of time was a reminder of the power of positive thinking, or maybe I will call it magical thinking. I happened upon this wonderful idea over at Inchmark to keep a glass mason jar on your desk to record all the magical little quotables children say; the things that make raising kids so damn precious and worthwhile but are usually so quickly forgotten in busy adult brains. The thought of getting up in the morning prepared to document something wonderful my kids are bound to say is enough to help me face tomorrow. And I love the thought of getting to revisit something wacky from Flynn's 2 year old mind down the road.

I also got a big boost from reading 1000awesomethings. As ever, its the little stuff in life that is worth considering and so many of the things posted here are examples of all that we look past daily without realizing we just might be experiencing a perfect moment of joy.

Inspired by 1000 things, I officially started my awesome summer things list. Part to- do and part hopeful, it instantly made me feel happier to put it all down on paper and focus on future. Sometimes living in the now ain't all its cracked up to be! I really am a list maker at heart. I have miles of lists sitting on my desk right now and I have gotten satisfaction from writing every single one of them. I should start saving all my lists as proof positive that the road of my life was paved with good intentions.

Here are a few of my good intentions for this sure to be very glorious summer:

play croquet in someone's backyard

throw horseshoes as much as possible. ringer!!

have a fire in that amazing, huge outdoor fireplace at liberty park that i've fantasized about for the last 5 years

watch a roller derby match

make gazpacho

can pickles and jam and salsa, peaches and tomatoes and applesauce

pick berries at the mcbrides berry farm

take the kids to vernal to look at dinosaur stuff

project a movie onto a sheet and watch it outside under the stars

camp in the red rock desert and look forward to the sensation i always get that i'm home

camp in the uintas (maybe moon lake?)

camp at bear lake and let flynn dig in the sand all day

go to the drive-in movies in mt pleasant with my dad and eat popcorn and red vines til we're sick

keep my humming bird feeders full and let cleo attempt to "train" a hummingbird (one of her recent goals)

hike mt olympus

get a fly fishing lesson from nile

take my cruiser bike out for a spin with my mom on her cruiser

skinny dip

do shadow puppets in a tent, jeff reed style

have weekly bbqs with friends

make homemade granola bars

go to bees baseball games

make lots of lipton sun tea just like my nanny marcie used to make with secret ingredient:cinnamon sticks

help cleo run a lemonade stand

go to lagoon

take someone, anyone, out to see spiral jetty on the great salt lake who hasn't ever been there

enter something into the state fair

turn 35 and hope for a good 35 more....