Write2Unpack

This is it, blog post #91 and the last post of 2016. Maybe it’s the winter solstice, the long nights, or the cold weather, but I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on the last year. I took an amazing trip to Hawaii and camped with my husband and two youngest sons in Hana, I stay-cationed the heck out of our deck and backyard pool, and went on an incredible trip to New Orleans with some wonderful friends. There also were some not so great things, things I want to change or make better in 2017, and that’s the inspiration for today’s post.

In my accountability group we were to list 5-7 things we want to focus on in the next 12 months.  Mine were:

1. Mother & wife
2. Family & chosen family
3. Finances
4. Enterpreneur
5. Household
6. Fitness
7. Enjoy life

Then we were to write a short, specific sentence about what those goals were. Mine are:

1. Mother & wife: Continue family dinner Wednesdays and make a point to do something individual with each child and The Best Husband Ever at least once per month.
2. Family & chosen family: For those of you who don’t know, my chosen family are those people who aren’t bonded to me with blood, we’re bonded with love. I will send “thinking of you” cards, or texts, or phone calls once per month.
3. Finances: Create a monthly budget – and stick to it.
4. Enterpreneur: I want to make at least $2,000 per month by writing or other businesses to make up for my decrease in wages.
5. Household: Spend at least 1 hour per week or 7 hours total each week on my grounds/gardens, and 30 minutes each day or 3.5 hours total each week on animals. I will even combine these so that when I’m outside working I will throw the ball for the Labrador With Never Ending Energy.

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6. Fitness: I will exercise at least 12 days per month and drink at least 80 ounces of water daily.
7. Enjoy life: I will read at least 4 hours weach week, plan movie/game night, chaperone scout camp and cold toes (winter scout camp), plan stay-cations with TBHE, and plan Worldmark trips for us as a couple and us as a family.

For the sake of brevity I didn’t write down all the specifics, but you get the idea.

Now it’s time to focus on being successful at keeping my resolutions. I know there are a bunch of ways to increase my chances of success, and for me the main one is going to be setting realistic goals for myself. For example: “Fitness” doesn’t have to mean finally running that half-marathon I’ve been trying to train for over the last four years, it can mean exercising 12 days per month – and exercise can mean elliptical, yoga, hiking, running… even shoveling snow for 45 minutes.

As I look forward at what I want to prioritize this year, I also reflect back on 2016 and the things I don’t like: I don’t like the extra weight I can’t seem to shake, I don’t like the fact that my husband’s legs don’t work very well, I don’t like having a messy house and gardens that are all weedy. We all have things we don’t like, or aren’t working for us, and this year I’m going to use that dislike for the things I can’t control, and refocus it on the things I can control.

In order to be successful with my 2017 priorities I will need all the energy I have. I only have so much energy, and instead of giving my energy to anger and frustration for the things I can’t control, this year I resolve to take the words of Elsa to heart and just “Let it go.” This year I resolve to let go of the negative energy I spend on things I can’t control, and refocus that energy on the things I can.  I can’t control the fact my husband can’t walk more than a half-mile any more than he can (he can’t), and instead of being frustrated about it, I’m going to refocus my energy on the things we can do and find new things to enjoy together.

This week, my reader, I invite you to reflect back on 2016 and think about what worked, and what didn’t.  Think of the things you didn’t like, and what ones you actually have control over. Write down 5-7 things you want to prioritize next year. Then write a short, specific sentence about what that goal is and how you’re going to do it. Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, I invite you let go of the stress over things you can’t control, and give your energy to the things you can.

My thoughts are my own, but my pictures are generally found on Pinterest (you can find anything there!). If you like what I write, please share with your friends or someone you think would like it! I’d love it if you follow me on Facebook (Melissa Gale), Instagram (write2unpack), or Twitter (@write2unpack). If you have any topics you think I should talk about, reach out to me at write2unpack@gmail.com. Oh, hey, and if you sign up here to follow me you’ll never miss a post!

I was driving my 12 year old to jazz band and the song “Heathens,” by 21 Pilots came on the radio. My son asks me, “Mom, what’s a heathen?” It’s a pretty cool song, (check it out here) and a little creepy, but I had a hard time answering the question.  That got me to thinking about heathens, pagans, and of course, today’s winter solstice.

Today is the shortest day, and longest night, of the year.  If you do a quick search on the internet about the winter solstice you will find all sorts of articles about people gathering at Stonehenge. Stonehenge is believed to have been constructed approximately 300 B.C. on England’s Salisbury Plain, and people travel from all over the world to see the giant stone pillars erected in a circle. It’s one of the places on my Bucket List too.  I’m not sure when I’ll get to see it, but I plan on making the trip.

So what does the winter solstice have to do with Stonehenge? Stonehenge is directly aligned with the sunset on the winter solstice. This could mean that it was designed around the earth’s solstices and equinoxes – a sort of calendar or way to track the passage of time for the Druids.

When I started looking at the winter solstice, I found an amazing amount of information that link directly some things we do today and ancient practices. For example:

Everyone knows the earth is tilted and as it rotates around the sun (as we journey through our year), the amount of sun either increases or decreases due to that tilt and the earth’s location on its orbit – that’s why we have seasons. The earth has major latitude lines (the ones that run lateral, or sideways, around the earth), like the equator – it’s at 0° latitude.  Here’s a quick picture for easy reference.

One of the major latitude lines is the Tropic of Capricorn. During the winter solstice the sun is directly over head of the Tropic of Capricorn. December 21 is also the day in the zodiac when the sun moves from the fiery sign of Scorpio into the earthly (stable) sign of Capricorn. The winter solstice is the longest night of the year. Some believed the veil between the worlds was at its thinnest during this long night, and if they spent the night in meditation and reflection they would gain insight into their future.  I’m sure this is the time many of us reflect back on the past year and plan for the new one.

In ancient times, the winter solstice was the day of the last big feast before food got scarce. They would slaughter animals so they didn’t need to feed them through the winter, and the wine and mead they made previously was finally ready to drink. This is also the time of year when we gather with friends and family and have big feasts, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or just family dinners.  It’s the time of year we gather our loved ones around us and serve filling and warming foods.

The winter solstice is significant, observed and practiced in almost every culture in the world. Remember December 21, 2012? The Mayan calendar ended on that date and many people believed that the world would also end. Obviously that didn’t happen!
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Back to Stonehenge and the Druids.  Druids are pagans. Pagans don’t believe in the Christian God, but neither do heathens, so what’s the difference? I looked up the definition for both and here’s what I found:

“Pagans: a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religion.”

“Heathens: a person who does not belong to a widely held religion (especially one who is not a Christian, Jew, or Muslim) as regarded by those who do.”

Not really different, and still didn’t answer my question. I did more poking around the internet and finally came up with: the main difference between pagans and heathens is that pagans seem to believe in more nature-based gods. Wiccans, a religious cult of modern witchcraft with beliefs rooted in nature, are considered pagans and not heathens.

People get all sorts of weirded out about that word, “pagan.” They envision cloaked figures standing around a bon fire, ritualisticly tossing in babies to appease the gods. Honestly, what first came to my mind were Wiccans and cloaks, but then I did a little research.  The word “pagan” is derived from the Latin “paganus” meaning “villager, rustic”. In ancient times, as now, people in the more metro areas would have first access to all the newest and greatest tools, education, and religions. They would look down at the rural villagers who were poor, dirty and didn’t have the tools and knowledge they did. When a new religion would emerge, the metro people would have this great new set of beliefs, and the villagers (pagans) would have the old, different ones. That’s really not scary.

Aren’t we supposed to embrace everyone, even those who believe differently than we do? And if a pagan is a person who holds a religious belief other than those of the main world religion, what would happen if the main world religion became Wiccan? Would the Catholics, Muslims and other Abrahamic religions then be considered pagan?

Regardless of your religious beliefs, this is a great time of year to gather your family around you, eat wonderful foods, and reflect back: think about what happened last year, what worked, what didn’t, and what you want to do differently next year.  This is it – the darkest, longest night of the year. So look on the bright side (literally): now we’re gaining sunlight every day!

My thoughts are my own, but my pictures are generally found on Pinterest (you can find anything there!). If you like what I write, please share with your friends or someone you think would like it! I’d love it if you follow me on Facebook (Melissa Gale), Instagram (write2unpack), or Twitter (@write2unpack). If you have any topics you think I should talk about, reach out to me at write2unpack@gmail.com. Oh, hey, and if you sign up here to follow me you’ll never miss a post!

It’s important, critically important. Spouse, Girlfriend/Boyfriend, Partner or Lover… whatever you want to call them. The hustle of the holidays is here and my available time, already pretty small, is even tighter. I was talking with The Best Husband Ever last night after the boys were in bed, and we talked about how much we need that time – the time after the kids are tucked in before we go to bed. That time is so important to us I thought it deserved its own post. Let’s talk time.

Everything takes time: kids, friends, lovers, work, pets and chores. When we get super busy, say around Christmas for example, we tend to give our lovers the short end of the stick. They get the “us” that has been working all day, then went to the store to do some Christmas shopping for the family, then stopped at the grocery store, then came home and made dinner, wrangled kids and then, finally, have a minute to sit down and our patience and understanding is probably not what it should be.

How many times have you gotten to the end of the week and not had a real conversation with your lover? Oh sure you’ve talked about kids, or work, or that asshole that cut you off, but you haven’t really spent any time connecting with him/her. If the world goes to shit TBHE is my support. He shoulders the weight of the finances, the house, the kids – everything I do. He’s my partner in life. I need to remind myself that he’s the one I’ve married; not my work, not my kids, and keeping the house clean is certainly not more important than he is – and I need to make the time (and be patient and kind) to reconnect with him.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Just “make time.” Yeah, right, I know. But there are ways to carve out a little time to reconnect with your lover. Let’s talk about some:

1. When the kids are down. My boys have an 8:00 bed time, usually they’re all brushed and read and tucked by 8:30. My bed time is 10:00 at the latest. That’s an hour and a half my husband and I have on our own. It doesn’t work every night, of course, but most nights we’ve dedicated that time to sit and talk to each other. We watch TV and talk about the kids, our day, politics, how I hate politics, things we want to get done, why that one string of solar lights has never really worked the way it should… sometimes we even talk about difficult, “real,” things like how his MS is getting worse and what we’re going to do about it.  Regardless, I cherish that time and protect it fiercely as my time with TBHE.
2. Plan for it. Plan date night and then follow through with it. You can do it. Your lover is worth an hour once a week, or once a month to have lunch, or dinner, or a quiet car ride to look at Christmas lights.
3. Turn off the radio, cell phones. If you’re running errands together try turning off the radio and putting your phone down and actually talking to each other.  You have a captive audience!  What could be better?

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4. Is there something that you and your lover both enjoy? The Ex liked to spend a lot of time tinkering in the garage. In order to spend time with him I went out with him and asked him about what he was doing. He taught me how to do body work and rebuild a tranny. We worked on rebuilding a 1967 Pontiac Firebird 400 together. It doesn’t matter what you do together: dancing, cooking, or hiking can be great time together and allow you both the opportunity to really connect with each other. If you can’t think of anything, make a list of things you’d both like to try and then start checking off the list!
5. Sex/Intimacy. You knew this was going to be in here, didn’t you? What’s more intimate and “reconnecting” than sex or being intimate with your lover? When we’re so tired from the day, and burnt from taking care of kids, spontaneous sex usually isn’t in the cards. Plan time to be intimate with each other. That connection will be the glue that holds you together during the tough times.

So, there it is, give it a try. Heck, try a couple of them and see what wonderful connections you can create with your lover by simply making quality time for them.

I know it’s a crazy time of year. Honestly, it’s always a crazy time of year. There is always more to do and more that needs your attention.  This week, my reader, I encourage you to be diligent and watchful to make sure things that aren’t that important don’t start nosing in on the time you should be spending on things that really are important.

My thoughts are my own, but my pictures are generally found on Pinterest (you can find anything there!). If you like what I write, please share with your friends or someone you think would like it! I’d love it if you follow me on Facebook (Melissa Gale), Instagram (write2unpack), or Twitter (@write2unpack). If you have any topics you think I should talk about, reach out to me at write2unpack@gmail.com. Oh, hey, and if you sign up here to follow me you’ll never miss a post!