10 Things to Live By

10 Awesome (and really random) Ideas/thoughts I Live By

1)  Have Dance Parties.  Invite everyone over all ages and turn on lots of loud music and everyone just dance and dance and laugh.  I have one almost everyday in my house alone and it's honestly THE BEST THING EVER.  So I want everyone I know to come over and dance with me.  And bring their favorite songs. Are you with me?  COME OVER . . . 

2)  We should eat cookies all day long.  I wish we could cookies for breakfast lunch and dinner.  Let's change the rules.  LET'S DO IT!

3) I love my children and I'm inordinately proud of them.  And probably, I'm blind to half their failings but I honestly can't worry about it.  Because they are insanely cool.  They.  Just.  Are.  And I can't take any credit.  They came that way.  I just get to watch them.  And sometimes yell at them when they are being a little too cool.  I got to keep them within the limits of coolness.

4)  Be a good friend.  Be there for them to celebrate, cry, and eat.  Especially eat.  If you have good friends, and you just need one or two of them, then life is guaranteed to be really good.  It's a fact of life.  

5)  Try something new every day.  I've been doing this as often as I can and I'm telling you, it makes you so brave (and sometimes it hurts you).  My latest thing--skiing through the trees.  I've never done that because I knew I was going to die and break something (in that order).  But then I thought as I watched my whole family disappear into the trees for the 900th time and I was skiing along on the boring stuff, What the heck?! Might as well break something doing something fun with my whole family.  So screaming at the top of my lungs and simultaneously laughing my head off, I flew through the trees.  Yes, I did run over Finn (I have no control while laughing) and hit a tree, but I lived!  I LIVED!  Whahoo!  

6) Dream Big and make it happen.  Friends really help with this.  My latest dream I'm going to turn into a reality: Hike part of the Appalachian trail.  Even reading A WAlk in the Woods and all the things that could happen to you that used to scare me, they just make me dig in my heels and say, Bring it.  I'm going to hike darn it.  

7) Live Big.  Don't be afraid of feeling and engaging in this madness of life.  My sister Anne's second favorite movie Something's Got to Give has this wonderful part where the main character is totally heart broken, she's sobbing and sobbing and sobbing more.  When her daughter, horrified by her crazy strong emotions, says, Get it together, Mom, she turns to her daughter and says, Oh no, THIS is what living is.  This heart break and hurt is real living!  I love that part.  I think of it all the time.  It's better to try and put your whole self into something and maybe fail than never trying it.  So, do those handstands, watch a whole series in one night, run a marathon, hug strangers, take risks, eat cookies (oh yeah) for dinner  . . .   Whatever it is, do it big and with your whole heart.

8) Say yes as often as possible.  That movie Yes Man . . . it's truth!  Saying yes changes you in the best of ways.  You have to be careful because as my darling friend Carla told me, saying Yes to something means you have to say No to something else.  Very very good advice.  But I've found as I've been trying my hardest to say Yes!  that what I'm usually saying No to is my own selfishness and that can get a big fat NO more often.  I know when I say No, it's because I really can't.  Yes has got me onto roller coasters, make me hike Angles Landing, introduced me to some of the coolest people ever, gotten me into schools, fed some hungry people, helped so sad souls, and most of all freed me from myself.  My life is honestly AWESOME because of that one WORD.

9) See a need, fill a need.  This is what I'm trying my hardest to teach my children (it's a work in progress . . . ) to look around wherever they go and see what needs doing and do it.  Set the table for grandma, sweep a flour, hold a crying baby, fold some towels--whatever!  It's a practice to stop when you see someone in need and ask them what you can do.  Live your life with your eyes open enough so that you can see the needs around you.  Then fill it.  Easy peasy.

10) Clear the way for those who come after us.  I went on this walk with my older sister and every time she passed a bit of trash on the road, she bent down and picked it up.  When she saw something knocked over, she straightened it.  If a rock was in the path, she moved it.  What are you doing? I asked her.  I'm making everything a little better for the person walking behind me, she said.   And she does.  I know because I walk behind her and the path is always better and clearer for her going before me.  It is my prayer, my daily prayer, that I can in some small way make the path of those following me better.