Author: Joyful Mama

So I have let this go for a while. The truth is that life got hard and habits and patterns are a tricky thing. As much as I got used to writing everyday, it was easy to go back to not writing everyday. It also got harder to find joy. The bottom line is that marriage is challenging, being a mother is challenging, being a daughter is challenging, and the list goes on forever.

What I like about this blog though is that it is mine. And writing this right now feels wonderful again. And finding the joy is unbelievably important and I wonder if my challenging days could have been fewer in number if I just got back on here sooner. But in the end, I didn’t.

Anyway, today was the first bike ride of the season that I participated in. My kids have been riding for a while and my son mastered two wheels a while ago. Today, I got my bike down from its winter storage in the garage and I joined them. Exercise also feels good when times are tough and spending time with my kids always feels good too. And yes, we are Yankee fans.

Today was awesome. I thought it would suck but it was great! I finished by Girl Scout training to take my troop camping. It was a few hours the other night and eight hours today (no, we didn’t get to leave early). I learned how to tie ropes and I started a fire and set up a tent. I was so inspired that when I went home, I set up my own tent that I got for Christmas two years ago but had never even taken out of the box. The women I met and spent the day with were awesome. We made lunch together and enjoyed the day talking about Girl Scouts and so many other things as well. I now fully plan on not only camping with my troop, but camping myself as well with my family and our friends. Very excited and very joyful!!

Yesterday was tough. I think it was the first day since I started this thing that I actually thought that there was nothing joyful. It’s weird because I had that meeting that I was happy to be invited to and it went well and I went to see Billy Joel! But marriage is hard and some things just don’t work out the way you plan. Despite that, Billy Joel sang “Downeaster Alexa” and that is just one of my favorite songs. It reminds me that I was raised on Long Island, that our beaches are great, but that our waters are changing. It reminds me of the childhood that I spend on a boat with my family (good childhood memories). In the end, that was my joy.

This is my question, do people in California even know who Billy Joel is? He is a legend on Long Island but he is from here. Does the west coast glorify him as the northeast does?

This is an odd thing to give me joy, but here it is. I am reading this book as part of a class I am taking this year at work. Students come to the classroom everyday with a story behind them that teachers are often unaware of. They have their own struggles that they often left only a few minutes ago, and then we expect for them to sit, concentrate, and learn. Often this is challenging.

My childhood was not perfect, and while my life has not been nearly as traumatic as others, it certainly hasn’t been free of trauma either . This book gives me joy in that it provides some explanation for why I am the way I currently am. I believe that we are all the result of past experiences, our childhoods included. There are some habits that I have that I struggle with and yet I continue to perpetuate them. This book gave me a clearer understanding of why I do some of the things I do and provides me with the hope that these habits can be changed. That hope gives me joy.

I have mentioned before that, as much as it’s not my number one priority in this world, I really do love my job. It allows me to use my education, it gets me out of the house, and it provides me with money. All good things! In addition, I hope that I am having some kind of positive influence on the students I encounter day after day and year after year. I hope.

I go to work everyday and I do my job. I do not expect praise for doing that job; I get a paycheck. But every once in a while it is nice to be recognized for what I do everyday. Years ago, I was handed a brand new course that the high school was offering. I was nine months pregnant with my second child and, despite that, I was given this brand new course to teach. I am not a complainer (at my job) and I am not entitled enough to think that I have any right to refuse, so naturally the class became mine and it is now a major part of what I do everyday. It turns out that a different district is now looking to add the same type of course to their curriculum, and I have been invited to speak with them about what we do. It isn’t just me, of course. There are two other teachers who I work with and then a few layers of administration who will be present as well. I don’t need praise, but I was happy to be included in this discussion.

Again, another wonderful coach! My daughter had lacrosse tonight. Two years ago, I was so resistant to her playing another sport, but I was totally wrong. Her coach and her teammates are the best and we have clearly become a lacrosse family. When I picked her up tonight, she told me that she got hit in the face with another player’s lacrosse stick. Of course, this was not intentional and just the result of the game. She was fine. Despite that, the coach called my husband later in the night (This isn’t a sexist thing! They are friends.) and explained what had happened, how well she handled it, and provided a critique of her playing. Once again, this man is a volunteer!!! I am so grateful for the people who are a part of our school community. I hope that everyone has people like these around them. 🙂

I was so impressed today when I got to my daughter’s softball practice. The girls were getting their uniforms tonight and the coach had them in adorable gift bags with glittered tissue paper. Each girl also received her own bow with her softball number on it. The coach immediately gave his wife and her Cricket credit for the bows, but the thought and the generosity behind it was incredible. Like me, she is a working mom, and I know that finding the time to do things like that can be very challenging.

While there are times that I do not care for my school district, it is the people who are a part of it who keep me from moving. My neighbors, my children’s friends and their parents, our friends, the coaches, and all of the other volunteers make me proud to live where I do and proud to be a part of this community.

If anyone is looking, I’m sure you have noticed that I haven’t posted any pics of my kids or family. Today is a hard day to avoid that though. It was a day filled with sports. As a kid, I didn’t participate in any of these sporting events. I played the piano and had playdates, but I wasn’t in a team until I entered middle school and it became something to do at school. My husband’s childhood was all about sports and that is the path my kids are taking. There are benefits to it that I didn’t realize until this weekend. First, the teams are comprised of students from all of the elementary schools in the district. So now, when my daughter goes to middle school and high school, she will know kids there. Some of these kids are already in other extracurricular activities she does as well. Second, a lot of the kids on these teams have siblings. So if my son is at my daughter’s game, he plays with the other little brothers and vise versa for my daughter. And third, the parents are all the same. A mom on my son’s lacrosse team will also be at my daughter’s game because she is the district photographer. It is networking for everyone and I love it! There is a community in sports that I didn’t know existed.

As I have now said a bunch of times, Girl Scouts has become something that I have started to truly enjoy. With that in mind, I decided to have a “Movie Night” with the girls. We got pizza and watched Troop Beverly Hills (I loved that movie when I was their age) and it was awesome to hear what 9 year olds think of the 80s. They were surprised that “bra tops” existed “back then” and didn’t care for the hair at all. It was a fun night.

I am a serious emotional eater. Serious! I have spent more time trying to overcome this than is reasonable and honestly it makes me sad. I have done well with it for a solid month and half, but tonight I just felt like a treat. It wasn’t even my idea, which makes me feel better about it. My husband suggested it as a Friday night treat for the kids and I was just tired of saying no. He calls it “living life”. So I got the upside down thing from Dairy Queen. What is it called? And it was delicious. The greatest challenge for me is to not let the entire month and a half go because of the “treat” and so tomorrow’s goal will be to get back on course. That is the hardest part for me and where I have gone wrong in the past. But for today, the blizzard (that’s what it’s called!!) gave me a bit of joy.

Today was brutal. Probably the worst day since I started 365 Days of Joy. Between the students in my classes and the educational experiences of my own children, this was an extremely stressful day. Extremely.

I found joy at the end of the day during my daughter’s dance class and then during her Girl Scout meeting. My daughter is genuinely good at dance, and I often wonder if we should get rid of the sports and just let her take the six dance classes that would make her incredibly happy. Then for Girl Scouts we travelled to a local animal rescue for a tour and information on animal care. The girls in my troop are obsessed with animals and it is just refreshing to see them have such compassion for animals who have not had the best experiences in this world. I really would have found joy if I had taken an orange tabby cat home today, but I didn’t. 🐱

Girl Scouts, as I have previously mentioned, has caused me quite a bit of stress over the years. I have this dream of taking my troop on a genuine camping trip; camping with a tent and a fire pit where we cook our own meals. This sounds like a purely magical experience to me!! This dream takes quite a bit of training though, and tonight I completed the first part of that training.

I went by myself. My co-leader wasn’t available to complete the training with me. Of course, there was a room pull of people who went in pairs. Ugh. And then an announcement about working in groups!! Well, in the spirit of Girl Scouts, I am so thankful for the kind woman sitting next to me who asked me to join her group. It was a Girl Scout moment as it should be. I am excited to camp and to train to camp with these other women who seem to understand the true meaning of being a Girl Scout.

This year I decided to sign up for a Reading Challenge at my local library. There are fifty different categories and a different book must be read for each category. 50 books in a year!! When I signed up for it, I felt that it was an unrealistic goal that I would not be able to complete. I signed up anyway though, and I have to say that I have enjoyed it immensely. I am also almost halfway done with my 50 books and it is only the beginning of April.

My joy for today is a series of books that I have found as a result of this Reading Challenge. I am a person with a very high level of anxiety and some of the categories caused me a lot of stress when I first read through the list. I have a hard time with horror novels and true crime dramas. These topics just cause me a ton of anxiety and give me more things to worry about, and I don’t need that at all! So someone in the Facebook group for the reading challenge suggested the first book in this serious (the book pictured is the second book). These books are my new obsession. As an anxious person, I can absolutely handle reading them. They are light and funny and yet have crime and mystery in them as well. I have found myself reading them and finding ways to fit them into different categories on the list so that I can continue to read them and complete the reading challenge all at the same time. Being able to read something that in the past I would not have even attempted, out of fear of my anxiety, gives me great joy!

As much as I was thrilled with the success of my children on their recent report cards, my daughter is not a greater speller. In my attempt to help her with this in a way that is fun, I brought her Scrabble over the weekend. This is secretly a bonus for me. My husband hates Scrabble and I love it, so now I have someone to play with me and I can claim it is educational! We played for the first time tonight. I love that we are working on something educational, but even more that we are just spending quality time together. It is a game that only she and I play and it is time for only us. That brings me joy.

This is a crazy time of year for our family. Each kid plays two sports, plus dance, Girl Scouts, work schedules, end of the school year activities, and on, and on, and on. Dinner always becomes a stressful thing, but today I actually did the “meal prep” thing that everyone else is always talking about!!! I have tried so many times before but never actually got it together. So today I made meatloaf and meatballs and some corned beef that was left over from St. Patrick’s Day. We will end the week with chicken just to get back to the healthier side of dinner. Starting the week with the feeling that some of my stress is lifted brings me great joy.

My son does not have a lot of patience. He actually has zero patience and is very easily frustrated. It’s genetic…..on his father’s side. Today, my daughter encouraged him to ride a bike without training wheels and began the process with him. My husband then joined in and very soon he was on his way. Of course, there was frustration, but then he saw his friend coming down the block, on his bike with no trainings wheels. This was the best dose of encouragement for my son and made learning to ride without training wheels a fun thing to do with the help of his dad, sister, and friend. He did it! No more training wheels!