My husband and I took our little man to the zoo yesterday and we of course had a fabulous time! Our son is a a few months over two years old and he is finally to the point of being able to appreciate and notice all the different animals, so while he was watching and pointing at all the interesting new animals my husband and I found ourselves watching our favorite animals, humans. I find it very interesting to see how strangers interact with their friends, children, and of course other strangers, I'm pretty sure I missed a calling to be an anthropologist.

  While we were looking at the lions there were a couple of moms standing to the left of us with about five children between the two of them and one was wearing a baby in a really cool rainbow colored sling, my initial thought was "crunchy moms" then in the 5 seconds of standing there one of their children whined about wanting a snack and the other mom offered some of her childs cookies then the convo went something like this: "Oh, thank you, but I'm not sure they are dairy free." then the other mom started looking at the ingredients list and assured the first mom it was dairy free and organic. see.........how nosy am I? My second thought was "vegan" but just as I was thinking that my husband whispered as we were walking to the next exhibit "are those moms that we hate?" I swear he is just as nosy as I am, and clearly a drama queen. Then I had to explain there could be several reason for the dietary restrictions including lactose intolerance which he immediately understood because our son happens to be lactose sensitive and we have to be careful but not 100% dairy free, and I explained further that I don't hate any moms as long their kids are loved and cared for why should we care if its different from how we do it? He agreed and we walked on to find the food court because we also had a hungry boy on our hands. While in the food court we made a startling discovery our child was not the most well behaved one in the room (he wasn't the worst either) but lets just say we got a few evil eyes from our table neighbors, which irritated my husband because he felt like we were being judged for our parenting skills, and that can feel pretty hurtful because I feel every parent really does the best they can. Then my husband quietly asked me, "how do you decide who wins in parenting? Is is based on how they act now, or what kind of person they become later?" and I had a bit of a pretend stoner moment where I was like "woah man....thats, like, really deep!" but seriously how do you know? All I hear about on facebook is Mommy Wars and the War On Breastfeeding and for lack of a better term I find it...........really freaking dumb! So what if someone judges you or even you just perceive yourself being judged! Is it right? NO! But put on your Under-roos and don't worry about what other people are possibly thinking about you. You cannot control what other people think, you can only control your own actions and what you put into this world, and I want to put in empathy and comradery with the people I encounter. Its human nature to have first impressions and make judgments, I don't feel guilty for that, but its a whole other story what you choose to do with those judgments that make it wrong or right.

A reflective essay on the year of yes

Apparently I have been yes-ing is up all over the place this year because I've barely posted about what I've said yes to and the after school special lessons I've learned in the process, so I am here to fill you in!

I HAVE SAID YES TO:

• 5 different hair colors! (One of them being purple, my favorite!)
• Going to a new bible study without knowing a single person. It ended up changing my entire outlook on a relationship with God and understanding the fullness of his love for me. Truly life changing and I ended up making some wonderful new positive friends!
• Starting two new business ventures! (One of them I had to step away from due to lack of time to focus creatively but maybe I will be able to reboot it in the future)
• Learning to crochet!
• Moving to a different state!
• Planting a garden! (I only planted parsley, Swiss chard, and carrots, but it was so magical to put seeds in the earth and watch them grow! I didn't follow the instructions on how to plant and thin out the carrots because I didn't believe they would grow, which is so silly, right? But they did grow but they were tiny because I didn't give them enough room to grow. But they were so cute!)
• severely limiting our tv and Internet time so that we can focus on family and learning time.
• Hopping in the car and taking spur of the moment road trips.
• Keeping better tabs on our money and spending less (this was more of a necessity BUT we rocked it and learned that it was okay not to say yes to every 5 dollar whim we had and in the end were able to say yes to more meaningful expenses) 
• Paying down a few debts instead of avoiding them, I swear it has cut my anxiety in half knowing I am taking action.

There are so many things that we said yes to as a family and so many personal attitude adjustments that I made. Some of them were things that I probably would have made anyway because as humans we are constantly learning and changing but it was really nice to be consciously aware it. I would have to say that the biggest take away from the year was I gave up on "perfect." All my irritation and feelings of inadequacy that I felt in my life, stemmed from comparing myself to others! I would see these "perfect" families with "perfect" houses and "perfect" jobs and I would think "if we could just have that or do this, then we could be happy" and finally I had an Ah-Ha moment where I just realized how ungrateful and wasteful I was being with my time and thoughts by thinking that way. I know for so many people that is a crazy simple and no brainer thought, but it has actually taken me 28 years to figure that out. My little family  and I have slowly began to try to simplify our life by cutting out clutter in all forms. I will be honest and say that we are more successful on some days than on others because. hey, we are humans. I guess for the year of 2016 we will continue to say yes to things that benefit us, such as living simply and being grateful. Hopefully we will be able to share some entertaining stories along the way.   

I-said-a-hip-hop-a-hippie

Something happened when I became a mother that I never expected to occur, not only did I begin the journey into parenthood but I also slowly morphed into a dirty hippie! Something strange happened almost as if when I gave birth somebody threw the switch that allowed me to see the planet with and all the beauty and ickiness combined. I got really frustrated with all the corporations, chemicals, injustices, and the worship of waste. I was so frustrated because I just felt "this isn't right, and I want a better earth for my son, and all the other kids out there" but what could I do? I'm just one person, a speck of dust in this universe, nothing that I do alone can make a difference, but I slowly started making changes that I felt were right for me and my little guy. The biggest change probably happened after my older sister watched a documentary about this island of birds that had zero contact with humans and yet they were finding pieces of plastic and feeding it to their babies. The babies died with bellies full of plastic, it was heartbreaking, and caused her to make a pretty drastic change. She decided that she was going to live a zero waste lifestyle and say no to plastic at all cost! I will admit at first I though she was being a little bit of a weirdo, but then I went and spent a week with her, she wasn't preachy, she was genuine, she was still the same sister....minus plastic. While we were at her house we would go for daily walks on the beach and she would pick up any bits of garbage that people had left behind, after one walk we had collected a huge bags worth of intentionally left behind garbage and it made me angry! I realized though that even though it was just a small patch of beach, by her collecting it and properly disposing of it she actually was making a huge difference. I made a conscience decision then to really be thoughtful about what I am purchasing and not unnecessarily buy plastic items, (not saying I am living a zero waste lifestyle but I have become more aware) also if I am on a walk and see litter I pick it up.

This is a bag of garbage from the park I go walking in all the time, the litter situation is out of control but if I continue to do this everyday that I go then I'm going to have some very happy turtles and geese that won't have to worry about feeding their babies dangerous plastics by accident.

Stop! Picture time!

I'm sure you have heard the phrase "Stop and smell the roses" obviously meaning to enjoy the moment while you are there in it. I don't think I really have a problem with noticing details and trying to enjoy the beauty around me but something I do have a problem with is taking pictures of the details I am admiring. I get very self conscience about taking pictures because my only camera is an an iPhone and I have severe camera envy. I guess with all the wonderful blogs out there with their professional quality photos I feel like my iPhone wouldn't even do the subject justice. As part of Project-Get Up Off Of That Thing, I have been pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone. The other day I was having to run a few errands and it was a gorgeous day and the flowering cherry trees have been bursting with so many blooms they looked like giant pink cotton balls dangling on the trees!

I thought about just driving by and just hurrying up with my errands but I'm so glad I didn't! It ended up raining for a few days and so many of the petals fell off that they didn't look like the same trees!

You can't expect for the beauty that you see today to be unchanged tomorrow, so by all means, stop! And take the picture!

Get Up Offa That Thing!

"Hi, my name is Claire, and I have motivation problems. "

Welcome to procrastinators anonymous everybody! I'm sure that I am not the only human to have a serious addiction (yes, addiction) to procrastinating, but this is the year that I have stood up and said:

"ENOUGH! I will say yes, and I will follow through, I will not regret one more missed opportunity!"

I am the type of person that feels like I have to basically have every duck in the planet in a row before I can even start work on something I have been obsessing over for years because if I don't do it in a specific order it might fail.....so nothing ever truly gets accomplished and my bucket list is painfully missing a crapload of check marks. 

I think I finally was able to be honest with myself after my son was born. I actually had a legitimate excuse to not get things done, or that's what I told myself until I realized he was probably the only long term project I ever gladly stuck with. That honesty with myself sort of sucked. I'm ashamed to say instead of making a change then, I sat around telling myself what a lazy failure at life I had been and how It probably didn't matter if I pursued any goals at this point. Which is truly ridiculous I'm only 27 for gosh sake! As of this month though I have had the song "get up offa that thing" by James Brown stuck in my head on repeat almost like its my mantra and I have made a huge effort to say yes to myself when my first thought is no, later, or tomorrow. I have to override my instinct and yell inside my thoughts "TODAY! NOW! RIGHT THIS MINUTE! GO!"

My hope for this blog is to be even the smallest inspiration to anybody else needing encouragement to take leaps of faith in whatever area they need help in. I'm calling this new yes attitude: Project-Get Up Off Of That Thing. I will probably get more in depth in future but it's about saying yes to bettering yourself, your home, and your planet, I really hope that you guys will join me in this as I dance around to some James Brown and fist pump while shouting "TODAY!"