#365Gratitude Day 244: Brushing up on what matters

Missy gave me a good, hard spanking with the bath brush tonight. I needed it, too. ​

I'm accountable to her for my choices. It's something I've asked her for, and which she both enjoys doing for me and because it makes her feel powerful. ​

This past week, while I really rocked at my writing, I made some rather poor eating and exercise choices.  I was over my calorie budget and only had two days of exercise to show for it. 

I didn't feel good about it, and told Missy so when I sent her the weekly report my food and exercise journaling tool compiles for me.  

I asked her if my opinion about the report mattered. She said, "your opinion always matters."  That made my heart melt. 

I told her I needed to be punished for my poor choices, and sure enough, she took care of me. 

After she sent me to get ready for bed.  In a little bit she will cuddle me to sleep.  

My bottom aches and my heart is over full. I'm so lucky she understands me, loves me, and takes such good care of me.  

#365Gratitude Day 243: Rabidly good at giving bubble baths

On Sunday I gave Leah a bubble bath.  I'm not the bubble-bath-givologist that Missy is.  (She's like the best bubble-bath-giver ever.) But I'm a good study, so I think I did a good job.

One of the things I did was let Leah suds me up with a big glob of the stuff, so I wound up looking like a rabid dog.

After which I barked at her like a crazy dog.  She laughed herself silly.

Good times.

#365Gratitude Day 242: The Cute Girl Compression Method

Friday night some of our Kids™ (adult age players who are in our family and belong to us) came over for the weekend.  Katiebug and her girlfriend, Leah.  We hadn't had a visit with both of them in ages.

We spent nice quality time, ate several meals together, snuggled, watched movies, and hung out. They also did us a big solid favor, helping us to move out of a storage bin we no longer need or want.  

We did this Saturday.  It was a bit of a comedy of errors.  I made the assumption that it would be super easy to rent a big van from The Home Depot for a few hours (it wasn't) and instead went with U-Haul.  My last minute decision resulted in a whole lot of shuffling about that made us drive to a place kinda far from our house or the bin to get the van, then have to load it up in a hurry.  

Some of what we moved/got rid of was old beds.  We had two in storage.  Mattresses are a horrible pain to move.  Mommy had the idea of putting one on a pull cart at the storage bin, and Leah had the great idea of folding it over and using something to weigh it down.

The something she suggested was in fact, herself.

Note Leah's adorable moving co-ordinated ensemble.

 This worked out great.  We employed the Cute Girl Compression Method twice, and got the van loaded up in short order.  

Then after a now-comical-but-not-then-funny-in-even-the-slightest-way discovery that Goodwill doesn't take mattresses but that the Salvation Army does, we were able to unload the stuff we were giving away, and bring the rest back to the house.

This all took about 2 hours longer than I thought it would.  (Side note, I'm also very, very grateful to my sister-in-law who used her charm and clever trickiness to bamboozle the angry counterman at the U-Haul place out of charging me a $250 "You're an idiot Mako" fee.)

After which we all went out for well earned milkshakes and burgers.  

I'm grateful for all the clever help and resourcefulness my family gives me.

#365Gratitude Day 241: Again

I have this loosely held belief in reincarnation.

I can't tell you exactly what it is, or exactly how it works.  But I can tell you some of the things which inform it.

First, way, way, way back I stumbled across The Egg, written by Andy Weir.

Here's a great little YouTube performance of it.

Then, years later I began listening to Alan Watts lectures, and heard his take on it.

It's eerily similar.  It's not some sort of spooky, ineffable, vague mystical process, either.  The essential idea is this - you're "I".  Me, too.  When you think "I'm reading this," or "I think Mako is a bit of a hippie woo-woo oddball, with this reincarnation nonsense.", or perhaps, "It's way too early for this, and I really want a large coffee and some eggs." you're identifying yourself as "I", the being that is oneself.

I too, am this being.  

So is every being that feels that way.  Which is every being, simultaneously.  That's how it is right now.  Which, by the way is the only time there is, ever was, and ever will be.  You're every one and everything, all at once, everywhere.  

I know.  The first time I really got this, it made my head pound like someone had struck it hard with a large mallet.

(I suppose to be fair, the way Andy Weir's story spins it, there's God and you, and the way Watts talks about it, there's not even God there.  It's a quibble.  Adjust as needed.)

So years go by, and I've got this idea floating around in my head.  On Friday I found this excellent cartoon.

"A kid is manifested by God, sent down to earth, comes back an old man, and babbles on about what a great time he had playing down there.  God listens as he prepares to make dinner for their guests.  "What are we having?" the man-kid asks.  "EVERYTHING!" God says.  "Somebody's coming over for dinner?" he asks again.  "Yep, God says, EVERYBODY."

It's maybe on the other side of the quibble I mentioned.  But it's the same idea.  Again.

I'm grateful every single time I see it.  

#365Gratitude Day 240: Just hop off the bus, Gus

A big part of mindfulness is recognizing that we are not our thoughts.  We think them, but are not them.  It is possible to mindfully detach from our thoughts and observe them.  Easier said than done though.  This is an immensely difficult task to wrap your mind around.

I stumbled across an article this morning about a great technique for doing just that, called the Mindbus Technique.  It's a visualization.

Imagine you're driving a bus full of noisy passengers.  The passengers are each the various negative thoughts you're having.  I'll use me as an example.  Today I need to: do about 45 minutes of work on my book, go swim at the gym, come home and work for the day, including some emails I really don't want to send, and some paperwork I don't want to do, and change the cat litter, too.   My bus has several noisy passengers on it:

There's Mr. That'll-Take-Forever, Miss I-don't-have-the-time, and Mrs. What-Difference-Does-It-Make.

So I make sure they're all seated (safety first, even for them!) and put the bus in gear.  Eventually we get to each of their stops, and I see them walk off the bus, one by one.  As each leaves the bus, it gets more and more quiet, until it's just me, driving the empty bus.  Take a few good breaths, and listen to the silence in your brain, I mean bus, I mean brain.

Ahhh.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go park this empty bus and get some writing done.