A hard goodbye...

to facebook? How could that be? And isn't that sad? Not that I'm saying goodbye to Facebook (at least for the foreseeable future), but that I experienced a visible reaction in my gut to doing it? Wow... I had no idea how much I used facebook as my "drug" of feeling connected to people.

What if I miss something?
What if I'm invited to anything?
What if people forget about me?

Really?

What happened to the good old fashioned getting together thing? Well, we do that, but FB allows us to set up a time, place, location and then we spend that time attached to our phones because something else might be going on that we need to be in the know about in order to make plans to do it all again. Have I lost the ability to be fully present with whoever I am currently with? Have I lost my ability to be fully present with my kids? Have I lost the ability to spend some quality time with my husband in the evenings?

Being home with my kids during the day is a good thing... but it is also a hard thing for a person who craves adult interaction and affirmation. I'm lonely. Facebook became my place of saying "hello world... I'm here... guess what I'm doing... no, you don't have to guess because I'm going to tell you and then I'm going to obsessively check back to see how many people "liked" it or commented on it. One or two, great, it was good to see you. Ten or 11, wow, I must be something. People must like me... oh, wait, I haven't seen 2/3 of my "friends" for years. All they "know" of me is what witty (or not) saying I just posted on facebook. The likes/comments are not really saying anything about what they think of me. Bottom line, I've been feeling a bit lonely these days and I'm finding my increased facebook use isn't really helping. Anyone surprised?

So, this is an experiment. Will taking a break from facebook help me to form better connections or will I just continue to feel lonely without my drug to numb me to that loneliness? This is kind of scary, but surely it can't be worse.

So what does the next several days, weeks, months... maybe even a year hold? Perhaps nothing will change or perhaps I will change my obsessive checking of Facebook for obsessive checking of who has viewed my blog. (I do that too.) However, without facebook how will anyone find me here? Maybe I don't want to be found here (cyber world), but here... right where I sit.

That, my friends, is what I want to find out.

On my bookshelf

 I just finished reading Brene Brown's book The Gifts of Imperfection. Wow, what a breath of fresh air AND a huge challenge for me at the same time. I saw myself over and over again on the pages of her book. I'm still chewing on so much of what she has to say. I found myself asking all kinds of questions of myself and realizing the answers are so a part of the journey of becoming authentically ME!

Here are some of the quotes that struck me:

Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen. (p. 49)

Brene challenges her readers to:

• embrace the courage to be imperfect; to set boundaries to allow ourselves to be vulnerable
• exercise compassion; realizing that we are all made of strength AND we all struggle
• nurture connection and belonging AND to believe we are enough.

Mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite grace, joy and gratitute into our lives. (p. 50)

Sometimes choosing being real over being liked is all about playing it unsafe. (p. 52)

I started realizing how much I want to fit in with "the crowd" and wondering how much I've lost of myself in the process. I don't even know what I really like to do anymore.

During my reading of this book and viewing Brene Brown's TED talks (all of which I highly recommend), I came to the realization (one of many) that I spend so much time on the computer because it numbs my feelings of being alone and being afraid to reach out. My journey begins with deactivating my Facebook account and searching out face to face connection. I may update that journey now or perhaps you'll hear about it during one of our face to face conversations:-).

Time to Plant?

For some reason I'm not very motivated to bring down my garden book and start to plan. Perhaps it is the 19 degree weather we woke up to this morning (yet, Daryl rode BIKE to work) or the pile of snow that remains outside my front door (even though it is GONE everywhere else). Maybe I just need to make a baby step and get my notebook from the closet... Spring WILL come, right?

Elizabeth's Monkey Birthday Cake

The 10th cake has been made and partially consumed! Daddy does it again. His labor of love for his 2 year old little girl.

Daddy hard at work shaping the cake and making the fondant.

Creating the arms and legs (at this point, I went to bed!)

Mr. Monkey... ready to celebrate Elizabeth's birthday!

Family Birthday dinner

Mashed potatoes, green beans, teriyaki chicken, rolls... yummy!

Happy Birthday to you... (she started singing "Happy Birthday to Nana")

Blow out your candles

Daddy and the birthday girl

Cheese!

Guess Who's 2?!?

Elizabeth Anne!

Two years ago at the time of this blog posting... we welcomed this little girl into the Olson family. She has delighted, frustrated, loved on, smiled at, bothered, laughed at, yelled at, screamed at, brought so much joy to us every day since and we wouldn't trade any of those days for the world!

Elizabeth Anne, at 2 years old, you...

• have found your words and they come tumbling out more and more each day. You're favorite sentence recently has been "G bothering me!"
• love to run. The evenings are spent with 3 little girls chasing each other around and around the "loop." 
• sleep pretty well at night. We hear you yell out every once in a while.
• are dropping your nap (sniff). You spend nap time playing with the animals in your bed, including "reading" them books.
• enjoy reading and singing. You like to be the one to choose "thank you Father" as our meal-time prayer (and will argue with Grace about who really chose it).
• really like people and are rarely shy around new people. 
• have kept your blue eyes.
• love baby dolls and babies. You will sit to feed your doll a bottle and then change their diapers. You are watching Becky closely when she cares for baby M. "Elsa" is the coveted doll even though or maybe because Elsa belongs to Grace.
• know how to push all of Grace's buttons to get her to yell. Recently it has been to call her a baby!
• are very snuggly and mommy is so thankful for that as you are becoming less her baby and more her little girl.
• don't really like the snow, but that could be because it is so hard for you to move around. You do like to be pulled on a sled.
• enjoy the water as much as your sisters did at that age and want to desperately for mommy to let go of you when you are in the water.
• like to eat the tips off markers. On Friday you, in the moment that mommy turned her back to you, got quite a bit of black ink in your mouth during an art project at Art Haven.
• like watching "funny videos" with your siblings, although your attention span with anything on the computer isn't as long as theirs.
• love playing hide and seek... although hiding with you is a pretty high likelihood that we will be discovered pretty quickly.

We thank God for you!

Happy Birthday, Lizzle!

We love you!

Mommy, Daddy, Hannah and G

Something's missing...

our little girl's tooth!

Can I just tell you how excited she was/is that this happened?!?! For her it is another sign of growing up, something she eagerly awaits with each inch taller, each start of school, each baby tooth falling out. Daryl and I... well... I have to confess that there was a bit of grief. How can this be happening already?!?! Didn't we just celebrate the arrival of that little tooth? For that matter, didn't we just bring this wee girl home from the hospital and wonder if the crib we got was too big?!?

Life is so much this... the celebrating and grieving right up next to each other. Watching these latest stages happen... Gracie talking about going to school... Elizabeth figuring out how to climb out of her crib... has definitely helped me to enjoy the moments. These, too, will all pass way.too.fast. The house will become clean and quiet... sigh... that sounds nice too. There I go again grieving and longing all in the same moment.

Grace ~ 3 1/2 year old tomorrow!

Almost 2!

"Nemo" 2013

Well, the sun is out, the snow piles along the streets are turning into mushy, icy, dirty mess, so there are still plenty of reminders of this past weekend's storm. Hannah missed two days of school, so we had a four day weekend. We were going a bit stir crazy by the end, although we did get out in the snow a bit.

Around 11:00 on Friday morning, the first flakes started to fall. Here in Gloucester the temperature was hovering just at or above the freezing mark, so the snow didn't lay in the streets right away. The plows were out in force keep any bit of slush pushed back.

View of our backyard off our back deck... looks a little trashy back there... maybe some snow will help.

Our back deck

 By mid- to late afternoon, the snow really hadn't picked up very much. I must admit I was starting to doubt. Perhaps the "historic storm" was going to fizzle?

Back deck around 3:30 or so

The snow was starting to pile on the streets

The girls decided we needed to have a tea party ~ so tea and brownies it was (yeah, we pretty much stayed in our PJs).

The girls caught Nemo and were dragging him around the house. The noise inside sounded a lot like the snow plows outside!

I think Nemo "caught" us. Just before Daryl and I went to bed, I took this picture out our back door.

This is what the view looked like out our backdoor when we woke up the next morning. So much for the "fizzle" theory!

Our neighbor across the street... their side of the street got the snowdrifts. The front side of our house wasn't so bad.

This street comes right down to the front of our house. As you see, it hasn't been plowed yet, when it was...

A lot the snow from the previous pictures ended up in front of our house!

Hannah and Grace came outside with me for a little bit on Saturday... it was still REALLY windy and still snowing.

The steps down to our backyard was an huge snowdrift. We slid down it to get into the backyard. (Daryl cleared it out on Sunday.)

Grace and Hannah in the backyard.

Hannah "swimming" through the snow. This is the same place the turned over trashcan was in the earlier picture. Looks a little nicer, eh?

I don't have a picture of it, but Hannah and I climbed to the top of Beacon Street hill on Saturday afternoon. The cars were still banned from the streets and the streets still had a bit of snow on them. Twice we slid down the hill. That was fun! She would have kept doing it, but I was feeling self-conscious of the neighbors watching me unable to steer the sled. Next time... I'm just going to enjoy myself.

So we survived the Blizzard of 2013... no power lost, just a few tempers (as this came at the end of 3 consecutive weeks of illnesses)... Today the temperature is almost 50! cRazy!