nothing...

I've spent the last three work days doing things for other people. All my work is piling up.

I have nothing left and it is only Wednesday night.

Tomorrow I have maybe 2 hours to myself. That is a wee bit stressful.

Mindful.

I'm sitting in the car outside a random house waiting for my daughter to finish a music lesson. There is something coming up so she had hire an accompanist to help her practice. This is in addition to her usual lessons. 

Lots of waiting as a parent. Lots.

Work has been stressful. Most of my week has been helping other people. Then I go home and try to get some work done, all the other stuff I needed to do that day but could not.

And dealing with a little smugness with a sprinkle of rudeness. That is hard to take some days.

A year or so ago I started looking into the big idea of mindfulness. One strategy that I learned about was listening to sounds. Try to just concentrate on just one sound, nothing else. Just that one. Then add in a second, consciously hold both sounds simultaneously. 

Hold two sounds is really hard.

After doing that for a while everything just relaxes.

Sitting in the car now with the windows down a bit. Just holding two or three bird songs in my head. Some days it is really hard but it always helps clear my mind.

Saw this on the stairs today.

I had just wrapped up teaching some 5th graders about germs and how they spread. I was walking (kinda running) down the hall to another classroom to help with a skype issue when I saw this. 

I love this idea and fully believe in it. It is like karma, just put that kindness out there. The world does not always return it to you but that kindness will land on the person who needs it.

This idea opened me up today. This message set on a better path.

I'm sure after a while it becomes invisible to some but not me, not today.

So what is your kindness that you will set free into the world?

Love/Hate Relationship

I have tried almost everything to get it to work. Consulted people and the web. Dumped money, time and effort but the results have yielded nothing.

I am about to give up on it. Totally start over.

Today I decided to give it one last try.

If my lawn does not start turning around this year I am starting over from scratch. Ripping it out and just buying sod. Well... paying someone else to do it for me. I am starting to realize that I am not a lawn guy.

I have a magical book.

A friend of mine lent me a book the other day. She said it would only take me like a night or less to read it. So far four nights later and I'm only on page 166.

Why is this book so magical?

It never fails. I pick it up and someone starts talking to me.

Last night while the kids were at karate I was so sure I could finish the book. I'm pretty much a quiet guy, sticks to himself and doesn't say much. Two parents talked with me the whole hour. I'm not sure that ever happened before.

The family was out today. I decided to get a bit of reading in, two words later they come back home!

I am hopeful I can finish this thing tonight!

By the way I think I am the last person on earth, or maybe just this house, who has never read about the one and only Ivan.