CELEBRATE This Week XCIX (99)

I’m glad you are here to celebrate! Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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Today marks 99 weeks of claiming celebration.I know I’m supposed to have something special for week 100. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile. Thinking about how I should do this or should do that or should…should…should.
I’ve decided, instead, to release myself of should.
I’m counting on the magic of celebration to to move us. There are no bells or whistles or extraordinary giveaways planned for next week. Instead, there remains the standing invitation to pause and celebrate. I hope you’ll make time to celebrate next week and to invite a friend.
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Right now it would be easy to think of all the things I should have done. Instead, I’m claiming celebration by documenting this —

  1. Andy and I both slept off colds over the holiday weekend. Only partly awake, I shuffled into the kitchen in the late afternoon. I blinked when I saw them gathered around the kitchen table, playing Monopoly. They smiled at me. “Feeling better?” they asked. “Look, we made our own snacks…You can’t play board games without snacks, right?” I rubbed the sleep away from my eyes and smiled. It’s a powerful thing to see all those (miserable) hours of sitting around the table (with snacks to entice them) and insisting on fair play transformed into their independence and enjoyment of playing together.
  2. Jay asked, “Will you help me figure out what to do with a class? I’m having a hard time and I thought maybe you and Dad can help me figure it out.” Wow
  3. Sam said, “We need a new rule, Mom. You come home right after school and don’t leave until after I’m in bed.” It’s been a rare week when I’ve been gone every afternoon and evening. I’m grateful for his sweet reminder that spending time together makes a difference.
  4. We watched a super fun movie all together on Friday night. I savored every moment of all of us together.
  5. I read Sunny Side Up this week. So did Sam and Steph. We plan to talk about it over coffee and hot chocolate on Saturday morning.
  6. My friends from high school all sat together around a kitchen table for a visit. It’s been 20 years since we’ve done that.
  7. Kate is snoozing at my feet. I’m beginning to get  used to having a constant protector.
  8. I get to talk writing every Friday morning with a good friend.
  9. Stephanie can run the cross country course without stopping. Her dimples are gorgeous when she smiles and she smiles real knowing she can run the whole time. I love her mental toughness.
  10. The weather changed. It was chilly and grey and rainy. I loved it.

Thanks for joining today!

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9 Comments »

  1. Each word of this celebration post drips with joy!!! 🙂 I am grateful that you reminded me about releasing the “shoulds”. I NEED that reminder. Hope you are feeling strong and healthy! 🙂

  2. Amazing celebrations this week, Ruth! You sure have some amazingly awesome kids there! I have also been working on releasing myself from the self-imposed sentence of “shoulds.” Life is so much sweeter without them.

    Jennifer

  3. Wonderful celebrations – especially love #2, 3, 5, and 10! Love that next week is another week of a standing invitation to pause and celebrate. Your invitation to celebrate is a blessing to all of us.

  4. Love hearing about all the good things in your life, Ruth, and thank you for the wise words about 'should', a challenging one to release. Have a lovely next week, cold free!