I had lunch with my 17 year old daughter last week and as I walked away I smiled to myself and thought was a successful time it had been. And then I laughed out loud as I realized how my views on what constitute "successful" have changed beyond all recognition since having kids. Here is a brief summary of our lunch:
We met at a restaurant near to where we both work that serves lovely pasta. While I was waiting for her to appear (of course, she was late) I looked at their menu and and decided to choose something off their very reasonable 'Lunch Specials' menu. When Emma arrived, she was starving and took a very brief glance at the Specials menu before declaring there was nothing there she liked. No problem, I said, choose what you want from the normal menu. After perusing for a few minutes she decided on a Gorgonzola pasta dish. I knew she wouldn't be able to eat a normal-sized portion so offered to share it with her and just order a salad. I wanted the Mixta salad, which I'd fancied from the Specials menu, she wanted the Caesar salad, as usual (what is it with all teenagers - why do they always order bloody Caesar salad?). We ordered the Gorgonzola pasta and the Caesar salad. I ate most of the salad as she disliked their homemade dressing.
She then spent most of our lunch texting on her phone, which is supposed to be forbidden, but apparently it was "Just one more text, it's very quick, just making important social arrangements". We did, however, manage to squeeze in a few conversational sentences without getting into an argument, in between her texting and shovelling food in her mouth, before we got the bill. As we were leaving she somehow managed to extract $7 cash out of me to go back to her work (a fashionable clothing store) as she absolutely had to have this bracelet which was the last one there and she'd left her wallet at home.
As we left she smiled happily, told me she loved me (hmmm, wallet-love?) and actually allowed me to put an arm around her and graciously leaned her head towards me so I could kiss her forehead. This was thrilling as I am not normally allowed to touch her. I walked away thinking what a nice lunch it was before giving myself a mental head slap and reality check.
How has your thinking changed over the years? What do you accept now that would have been completely unacceptable a few years ago? (Like farting when you cough, no longer being able to do star-jumps - did I ever want to? - or longing for bed at 9pm, to sleep not for any hanky-panky.)
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Oh my goodness. What an exciting and busy life I am leading at the moment, which has meant I have not been able to get posts on my blog. One day I will be more organised and write blog posts in advance (oooh what's that flying overhead?).
So, I wanted to update on my meditating month and a few 'miracles' that have been happening recently. Some are small and some much bigger, some I can tell you and some have to be a secret for a while! Oooh I am bursting to tell something really exciting but I don't want to jinx it, so I'm going to keep quiet until it is all confirmed.
I have been pretty good at my meditating. Sometimes at weekends I have simply got too busy and forgotten, but am working on that. But I can already see the little miracles happening in my life. I know that if I can appreciate all the good things that I will create more things to appreciate and a lovely upward cycle will continue. So here are some of the fab stuff that's been happening:
Work
I am currently temping (full time) for this amazing events management company. The work itself is quite boring but I just love working here. Mostly because the people I work with are so lovely. But also because every 5 minutes we get a treat of some kind. Here are a few that I can remember offhand:
- When it is quiet (which, thank God, it was all through April) they are quite happy for us to do other things, like write or blog.
- Free bagels every Monday (4 kinds of bagel, 3 types of cream cheese).
- Taco Truck - every so often they hire one to drive into the carpark below and everyone is allowed to eat as much as they like during the 3-4 hours. It was delicious and I discovered I was saying "Taco" all wrong. I was being very English and pronounding it "Tacco" but really it was "Tarco". Well, how was I supposed to know and explains why I have so much trouble ordering at those bloody awful drive throughs at Taco Bell.
- Lunch - they are always providing scrummy lunches if we have training. Last time it was 3 different delicious pasta dishes, 2 different salads and 2 types of bread. Yum. But not good for my gluten-free, dairy-free diet!
- Easter - they hid eggs with chocolates inside all over the office and then dressed someone up as the Easter Bunny and we were all given an easter egg with a $2 note inside, with random eggs containing $50 notes!
- $100 gift cards - given out when you have worked hard (obviously I have not had one of these).
- $10 gift cards - given out when a colleague says you have done something really good (I forced my friends to say nice stuff about me and I got a 10 bucks Starbucks card).
- But I have saved the best til last ... in August they are taking ALL the staff (there are 80-85 of us, including temps) to Las Vegas for the weekend, just for fun. And we are all going to be staying at The Venetian Hotel, which is bloody gorgeous (and was on my wish list of places to stay). AND they recently decided that instead of sharing, we can all have our own rooms.
How fab is that?
Writing
My writing group reformed at the beginning of the year as the Write On, Mamas! We decided to make it more of a cooperative group with everyone helping out and contributing, rather than driven by one person. It has simply been amazing. All these talents that had been hidden previously have come to the surface. We have gone from a core group of about 5 in January to 38 members and growing, and are going to self-publish an Anthology this year. Here are some of our recent achievements:
- We already have an agent interested in our Anthology, who will also help if we self-publish
- We have a sponsor for the launch party
We have a spot in the increasingly popular Litcrawl (this is like a literary pub crawl, which happens as part of Litquake - the largest literary festival on the West Coast - in San Francisco). The Litcrawl is really sought after and getting a spot in a real coup. It means that 5 of us will read something we've written aloud to a rowdy, possibly drunk crowd in a bar, or art gallery or even a laundromat! A bit like an Open Mic, I suppose, but not 'open', so just a mic. I will let you know if I get chosen to read. The subject: Mommy Sex!
Also, my very exciting secret news is under this heading, but sshhhhh Secret Squirrel!
Silly stuff
- Kindle. I have a brand new Kindle Fire at home I hadn't yet had time to work out how to use (it's really my husband's which he needs for work, but I am obviously going to nab it). I keep thinking that I really must take it out of the box and then just can't be bothered to work out how to use it. Then, at work yesterday, for an incentive program I am working on, everyone is getting a Kindle Fire and I was shown how to turn it on, charge it, connect it to wireless internet, load up a pdf document, and add and remove favourites. So now I know how to use the damn thing I might actually open the box at home. Any suggestions for my first upload?
- Mountain Play. They do these amazing plays on the Mount Tamalpais in Marin Co which are supposed to be fabulous. I have wanted to go since I got here, but my husband wasn't keen to go again and I hadn't got around to organising it. Last week, one of my lovely American friends emailed me to say she had FREE tickets and would I like to be her guest. Yes please. But my son Tom wanted to go too, and no sooner had I mentioned this but she somehow managed to have another free ticket drop in her lap. Normally you have to hike up the mountain (apparently all part of the experience, but in the hot Californian sunshine with my dodgy knees?) and wouldn't you know it but my friend also has a FREE parking pass which means we can just drive up and park at the top.
There has been other wonderful stuff happening too, little things, but I am in danger of being verbose again!
I love this meditating lark. My manifesting ability is getting really good. Now, just gonna go and work on that red Ferrari ...
