Sharing recipes, crafts and frugal living, the challenges and triumphs of parenting a neurotypical child and a child on the Autism Spectrum. Yoga Instructor said goodbye to her nightly glass of Chardonnay to give up habits that were not serving her purpose in life! The CocktailMom name remains, however with a new focus on healthy and authentic living.

5/12/2014

Friendships come and go...




Is there someone you have lost sight of recently? How could you reconnect?
Facebook has been a wonderful way to reconnect with long lost friends for me. Take the Facebook emails a step further and meet in person. Look the friend in the eye and truly listen to the story of her life. Be present and open your heart to forgiveness. Don't allow past arguments, hurt feelings or time to ruin the possibility of your future relationship. 

But it's also okay if there isn't a future relationship and you remain "Facebook friends". People come in and out of our lives for a reason. I believe that the Universe puts people in our lives at that exact moment for a purpose. Maybe we needed the support at that time in our lives; raising children, a job, divorce. Or maybe we both needed a friend while we experienced something great in our lives; a marathon, college, summer camp. That person is a part of our memories. 

"Instead of dwelling on the pain of saying goodbye to a friendship, look at it as a chapter that was filled with many memories and now lessons that will forever live with you. Sometimes we are welcomed by friendships that aren’t meant to last forever, but are meant to teach us and help us grow on our beautiful journeys." 
-Joey Parker is Editor-In-Chief of The Joey Parker Movement

If you choose to meet face-to-face remember that we all have grown up and changed. You are a different person than you were in college and so is the person sitting across from you. Be open, be present and honor your spirit.

5/11/2014

Happy Mother's Day!


5/05/2014

Saying Goodbye to Childhood Mementos


I keep telling myself...it is just a bowl. But here I am with tears running down my face after discovering the huge crack on the bowl's side as I fished it from the bottom of the sink overflowing of dirty dishes.

It is just a bowl. A physical object that just so happens to hold a lot of memories. I'm not the type of person that holds on to a lot of items. I love to purge, clearing out the closets and attic several times a year. Each of my children has one small box of mementos from birth, that I continue to add to periodically. I live by a strict rule: if you don't use it/play with it, it goes out of the house. This mindset has enabled me to live in small spaces, to travel lightly and move from place to place with ease. It has also encouraged me to surround myself with the things I really love and care about. There is no question about what I hold sacred in my life.

It is just a bowl.

This bowl is from my childhood. A small plastic bowl with Mickey Mouse's face on the bottom. My sister and I would fight over who would get to eat breakfast cereal out of it, in our childhood minds it was comforting to see his face smiling at you at the start of each day. I don't know how I was lucky enough to be the one to leave my parent's house with it but I've carried this bowl with me throughout college, five years in New York, cross country to Seattle and back again to Maryland. It's made it through several cut throat purge sessions and reorganizing.

It is just a bowl.

Now my children have been using it. My youngest son uses it each night for his before bedtime snack when he claims he's starving. I don't know if he'll notice that it's gone, if he has fond memories of it yet. Maybe when he's older and sees it on a shelf of an antique store, he'll smile to himself and insist on buying it because it is more than just a bowl. It is a memory. It is comfort. It is home.
I'm going to miss you Mickey.

   

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