Birthdays!

I admit it, my birthday is by far, my favorite day of the year. Yes, I do love the attention (wow, I admitted that, too), but my birthday is bigger than New Year's in my book.

Of course, a party or some type of major fun is planned, hopefully surrounded by your favorite people. Even the ones who can't be there, feel close in spirit, in your heart.

For me, it gives me a good time to re-evaluate my year, my life, my everything; kind of like a midway stop to make sure I'm on track. Some years, the re-evaluation may be like a quick annual inspection on a vehicle. Other years, it may involve a complete overhaul.

I've been asked before why I put such a big emphasis on birthdays. I have heard "It's just another day." or "Birthdays are for kids." No, it's not. Birthdays are for everyone. Everyone has one. A person's birthday is that one special day to celebrate that one special person...yourself.

Birthdays are about the celebration of life; the journey that has brought you this far, and the hopes, dreams and plans to take you to the next and beyond. Birthdays celebrate the fact that without you, this world would be different.

Raise your glass, toast with me! Happy Birthday to my 31 years that brought me to 32 in any way possible. To the years ahead of me, may they be filled with fun, smiles, learning and love.

Morning Commute

Very rarely does my morning commute involve cursing, banging on the steering wheel, or bumper to bumper traffic. I consider myself rather fortunate for my commute, even though I still secretly wish to work from home. Yet, my commute is a short one. 25 minutes tops usually, and that even includes dropping off the little ones. My drive takes me through town, a town I love, through the country on two-lane highways, and a small stretch on a fairly quiet portion of the interstate highway. Not many would complain about that commute. My favorite thing of my commute is rolling down the windows (weather permitting, of course) and blaring the tunes, singing right along or playing air drums on my steering wheel. Tunes ranging from Vivaldi and Beethoven to The Beatles to Kenny Chesney to Chevelle.

This morning was a particularly good morning for my commuting jam session. A tropical 77 ° with a warm breeze makes for a pleasantly uncommon Texas morning. The sun still slumbering behind a gray blanket of clouds keeps the air as cool as can be with weather from tropical storm Alex in the forecast. My mellow spirits began to lift as I lowered my windows and starting jamming to the playlist below. Check out the links to hear my morning tunes for today.

• Tonic: If You Could Only See
• Civil Twilight: Letters From the Sky
• Lit: Miserable
• Chevelle: Send the Pain Below
• Kings of Leon: Sex on Fire
• Gavin DeGraw: I Don't Want to Be
• U2: Where the Streets Have No Names
• Coldplay: Talk

What music makes your mornings? Are your commutes just as pleasant, better, worse?

My New Theme Song

This song has nothing to do with losing weight, even though it's the theme song for the new show by Jillian Michaels, Losing It.

This represents me living, living as me and just me, not all of my encompassing roles.

Learning To Live by Beth Hart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF2loBxux48

I keep my head on straight
And my eyes wide open
I try to move forward
Wishing and hoping
I took a hold of myself
In the middle of November
Don't you look back now
Is all I can remember

I feel like I'm leaving
Like I'm leaving home
Like he clouds are parting, and I'm not alone

[Chorus 1]
I'm learning to live
Living to learn
Starting to sing my song
Right, or wrong
Breaking away
Setting me free
Free to be, my own me
I'm learning to live

I got my vanity crisis
From my beautiful mother
I'm not gonna go there
I'm anything other
Take another deep breath now
It's just one more hurdle
I'm breaking this line
Before it comes full circle

I feel like I'm leaving
Like I'm leaving home
Like he clouds are parting, and I'm not alone

[Chorus 2]
I'm learning to live
Living to learn
Starting to sing my song
Right, or wrong
Breaking away
Setting me free
Free to be, my own me

I found a place, where I can lay my shit down
Somewhere that I can finally be myself - be myself

[Chorus 2]
I'm learning to live
Living to learn
Starting to sing my song
Right, or wrong
Breaking away
Setting me free
Free to be, my own me

[Chorus 1]
I'm learning to live
(Living to learn)
(Starting to sing my song) living to learn
(Right, or wrong)
I'm breaking away
Setting me free
Free to be, my own me
I'm learning to live

Admist a Metamorphosis

Currently, I am wrapped in an invisible cocoon. Thinking, deciding, wondering, pondering. Changes in my heart, my spirit, my soul are necessary for the butterfly within to emerge. Yet, the transformation process is a slow one to progress forward. The changes began nearly two years ago, slowly, independently, quietly within the dark corners of my mind. As days passed and I looked deeper inside myself, the changes began to grow louder until my voice broke the silence and announced my needs.

Since declaring my necessities, I have stepped within myself and began to wrap my doubts, my fears, my questions around me creating a numbing cocoon, in which I can hide and delve into the depths of my mind. I protect myself with a disguise of someone who used to be me. This clone, or other me, walks daily through my life. The other me lives like I do, yet numb, broken, nearly empty. Still, I hide inside waiting for the day I break through and emerge from self-preservation, eager to live and let life fill me again.

Green Giveaway

We are always on the hunt for products that make our lives greener. Here's one product that I really need to remember to order. ReUsies. An adorable way to rid plastic baggies from our kids' lunches!

Right now, a great sale is going on. If you would like to get some ReUsies, they are having a sale right now! You can save 10% on orders of 3 or more, simply enter code "3ORMORE" at checkout!

If you're not ready to purchase some of your own, try to win two Reusies, one sandwich size and one snack size. Go to MomsWearYourTees blog to enter!

Aha!

I love those kind of moments when everything just clicks and makes sense. They do wonders for my Type A personality, almost like the first sunshine after a dreary winter. A brilliant beacon of hope that the grayness is leaving soon. This weekend, I had several of those. Without revealing all details before taking on some additional research, I've had "aha!" moments regarding a couple of career questions, children questions, and a fitness question.



The career questions always lead to "Will this make me happy as well as help me provide for my children?" I think my "aha!" moments have settled this tumultuous inner debate I've had for at least a couple of years now, and that brings my Type A personality at ease.



Children questions are always lingering in my head, but most are "how do I deal...?" and "how are you my child?" sort of thing. But with careful pondering and many hours observing them, and one especially, I think I have realized what to do. Basically, I just need to open a different line of communication with my oldest son, who is on the cusp of tween-dom. I seriously considered creating an interactive video game just to talk wih him.

Fitness...that was the easy one. I needed to reach a certain level with my workouts, and I answered by joining one of my city's recreation centers. Within a week, I began climbing that ladder of progress. Funny thing is, even just a couple of years ago, I never thought I'd be spending about an hour a day in a gym. Everything has just made sense lately when it comes to my fitness and race training.

My "aha!" weekend was just what I needed lately. When was your last "aha!" moment?

Simply Saturday

I have nothing to say about at all. I worked today on a Saturday. I do this frequently. Usually I enjoy it because I get caught up from an entire week with minimal disruptions. Today, I missed a birthday party my kids were invited to at the typical birthday spot, Chuck E. Cheese. Now, don't get me wrong, I, like every other parent avoids Chuck E. Cheese like the plague, but what I missed the most was the photographic opportunities.

I just love taking pictures of my boys, especially in rare moments of complete enrapture of a game or activity. Those make the best pictures. Considering I have two children, more opportunities will come my way. I just hate to miss them.