{"id":1328,"date":"2010-10-13T21:53:30","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T04:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/?p=1328"},"modified":"2010-10-13T21:53:30","modified_gmt":"2010-10-14T04:53:30","slug":"finding-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/finding-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Right after Geli was admitted to the hospital (mid-Sept), I was really struggling. <\/p>\n

I was sad and angry and upset and frustrated and so many other chaotic emotions. I was sitting on my couch feeling sorry for myself and right in the middle of a fairly awesome pity party, I decided to stop. Feeling sorry for myself wasn’t helping me very much and so I thought I’d try to look for things around me that I find joy in.<\/p>\n

\"Rainbow<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Right in front of me, on my ottoman, was my diaper basket. It’s where I keep my diapers, wipes, a few burp cloths and receiving blankets and sometimes some books or toys. I had just re-stocked it earlier in the day and I had created a rainbow from the diapers. The sun was shining in through my windows and….well…..it made me smile a little. So I went and got the camera and decided to take a few pictures of some things that made me feel happy.<\/p>\n

\"Sleeping<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

The baby was sleeping, and so I figured that at the very least I had a few minutes to look around and freeze those moments for myself. It’s so nice when babies sleep. Mmmmmmmmmm snuggly babies! Just the thought makes me smile.<\/p>\n

\"Mostly<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

At first, it was a little bit slow to find the things that brought me joy, but once I started really looking…….I realized that my floors were swept and mopped and man, did they ever look good. I never used to clean my floors all that often and now I have to and while I don’t enjoy cleaning them…..I sure do enjoy them cleaned.<\/p>\n

\"Perfectly<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

As I wandered into the kitchen, I saw the vegan Banana Bread Muffins that I had made earlier that day…….and they were DELICIOUS! Another smile!<\/p>\n

\"Birthday<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

On the corner of the counter were the supplies from the Birthday party that we’d just had for Xani and the bright cheery colors made me smile again.<\/p>\n

All of this smiling was pretty amazing, as I’d spent most of the two previous days crying and feeling quite sorry for myself.<\/p>\n

\"Folded<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

As I walked into the dining room, I saw a laundry basket FULL and OVERFLOWING with neat rows of folded laundry. I love the orderliness of perfectly folded stacks of laundry. If they are all sorted by person or room…..even better. (Those are little boy underwear and not Jon’s, just in case y’all were wondering!<\/em>)<\/p>\n

\"Sweet<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Jeremy had come home from school that day because he said he was not feeling well. He really wasn’t acting or looking too terribly sick, but he did look so cuddly and sweet all snuggled into the couch with his jammies on. I sure love that sweet boy of mine.<\/p>\n

\"Blue<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

I looked outside my window and the sky was so blue….this picture doesn’t even represent just how glorious the sky looked that day. <\/p>\n

\"Stages\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

As I stood out on my deck to take the picture of the sky, I looked down onto the patio and saw my poor neglected hanging basket. In the chaos of this summer…..well……well, it mostly died. So we had taken it down from the front door area and moved it to the patio before we threw it away. With the rain we had recently had, some of the flowers that were apparently only MOSTLY dead had managed to come back to life. I loved that in the one plant, there were the 3 stages of life. There was the young new growth, the blooming flower and the dried out dead pieces. <\/p>\n

\"My<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

We have the most amazing backyard. It’s HUGE and the kids LOVE to play back there. As much as I’d love to be in our own house and not in a townhouse….there are some amazing advantages to living here right now; and this is one of those many advantages. <\/p>\n

After I took all these pictures, the kids came home from school and we had a great afternoon and evening. I need to remember, more often, to STOP and to LOOK for the things around me that bring me joy instead of focusing on all the crap in my life. Seeing all the things that I have right around me that are beautiful and wonderful and focusing on the happy things, really makes a HUGE difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Right after Geli was admitted to the hospital (mid-Sept), I was really struggling. I was sad and angry and upset and frustrated and so many other chaotic emotions. I was sitting on my couch feeling sorry for myself and right in the middle of a fairly awesome pity party, I decided to stop. Feeling sorry … Continue reading “Finding Joy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-me"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1328"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1330,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions\/1330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}