Tag Archives: mama kat’s writer’s workshop

The best part of my day

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I love hearing the happy sounds of my child stirring after a good night’s sleep. I love feeling his arms around my neck and his head on my shoulder as I breathe in his scent after almost 12 hours apart. I love his smile when he sees me sneak into his classroom at the end of the day, his running leap into my arms, excited to see each other after a long day at school and an even longer day at work. I love the happy chatter in the car on the way home and his increasingly animated tales about what happened (at least in his mind) at school.

I love when my husband comes home from work and all three of us sit around the table for dinner. I love my first sip of wine for the evening. I love relaxing with my husband after the kiddo has gone to bed.

The best part of my day, though, is when I can finally curl up in bed with my book.

reading before bed

No story can be as entertaining as my child. No fictional hero as wonderful as my husband. But reading before bed means I did it. I made it through another day. No matter what that day was like, I’ve made it to the final level of the game and I can finally escape into whatever other world is waiting for me.

Sometimes it lasts only five minutes (before I fall asleep and drool on the pages). Sometimes it lasts for hours (the silver lining of insomnia). But no matter how short or long the time is, it’s all mine.

Mama’s Losin’ It

Writing Prompt: 1. The best part of my day is…

The year of momentum

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I’m a planner. By the time eighth grade rolled around, I already had my entire high school course load mapped out. My senior year in high school barely began, and I knew every class I was going to take for my college major and which clubs I was going to partake in. My dad would chuckle and remind me, “When people plan their lives, G-d laughs.” It wasn’t long before I understood my father’s meaning: I graduated from a college I never intended to attend; I reside in a place I never dreamed of living; and my career doesn’t remotely resemble what I studied. Still, I plan. But with much more flexibility and the knowledge that it can all go to s#*! at any moment.

Last year, my planning stalled. For lots of different reasons, I threw my hands up in the air and asked, “Why bother?” You know what happened? Nothing. I didn’t blog. I barely wrote. I created virtually nothing. I stood still. Sure, I thought about doing all those things, but life circumstances paralyzed me. Spending the better part of the year spinning my wheels, I ended the year (in terms of my personal goals and passion projects) in virtually the same place where I started. And that felt BAD.

As 2016 was moving toward the rear-view mirror, I stumbled upon Belong Magazine on Instagram; and as I got to know the founder, Brooke, through her daily photos and accompanying words, she became an inspiration. I recognized her struggles with her goals as my own, and her encouragement to take baby steps became a mantra of sorts in my head. The one thing I did a LOT of in 2016 was read, and so I added books like Gretchen Rubin’s Better than Before: Mastering the Habits of our Everyday Lives and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear to my reading list.

All of this inspiration led to my one little word for this year…

momentum: one little word 2017

Belong Mag’s Instagram post a few days ago sums up the reason behind my word momentum perfectly: “If you don’t take a step forward, you’ll always be in the same place.” In her book, Elizabeth Gilbert told a story about her mother that beautifully illustrates the concept of doing your future self a kindness. This resonated with me to the point of almost haunting me. It is my future self that I must keep in mind when faced with the choice to move forward or remain in place. From something as simple as trying to decide if I should take five minutes to make a sandwich for lunch, I think of future me, who is going to be hangry if I opt to do something else with that time. When it comes to my goals, I must also think of the future me and make decisions that leave her in a more positive place than she was.

What is your one little word for 2017?

Mama’s Losin’ It

Photo credit: Mubarak Fahad via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

 

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