Aiming forward

This autumn has been like no other, for me. I've had worse - don't get me wrong, but I've never had as intense work wise.
I've also had to stand up for what I believe in a close relationship and those two facts together meant no blogging of any kind, in any ole blog...

Today is my last day as a 42 year old woman, tomorrow I'll be 43.
Since my birthday occurs when the year only has two more days to offer, I often both sum up and gaze forward. What was this year as 42 like? What will the year as 43 be like?

Spontaneously I'd say the year as 42 was the best year of my life, by far. And without wanting to provoce any forces, I predict 43 will be even better. The older I get, the more I chersich the moments and the days and what's more: the people I truly love. Away with the people and the situations that bring me down and welcome the ones that don't. This year as a 42 year old would be the year when I did just that!
As so often, I guess it's a good thing I didn't know it would happen when I drew my first 42-year-old-breath a little less than a year ago. It is so often like that in life: had you known what would happen you would probably have tried to avoid it or change it but after it is a fact you know it was right and that you grew. Again. More.

So, ending a few flawed things and getting out of a few disharmonic places, were good measures.
Investing all of my creativity and energy into my marriage, was another one. To actively plan dates, choose topics of conversation that interest us and to actively send each other photos via sms and sweet kisses over the phone daily has changed not only our relationship but my life. To clean up in the mind and focusing on this: marriage/love, parenting, exercising and working - nothing more - no scattered emotions or divided commitment is the trick. Realizing this is the hard part, the rest is pure joy!
And boy, does it work! I long for the husband at the end of the day and I cherish the weekends like they were actual diamonds of time.
As a bonus effect I like myself better and get to watch myself as from outside of myself. I take a look at what I want to be like and then I start being that. It makes us both happy and that happiness is contagious.

So, the me that was 42 managed some crisis both at work and in close relationships and also drove my marriage (or my 100% of it) from good to grand and hence my life from great to fabulous.
Well done me!

For the upcoming year (it's only 12 months, seems so short) as a 43 year old woman I aim for even more passion, I love passion in life, and I aim to get my exercise into more focus than the autumn's injuries and work schedule could allow for. That's it! Get my body into that shape I've decided on a year ago and have come a long way towards and then increasing the passion further by making myself into the absolut best wife I can possibly be.
I can't wait!

Love that man.

The 42 year old got the bad-ass haircut she wanted.
Thank you Jada, for providing divine inspiration!

After the long autumn with crazy work weeks, the one
thing I could do on vaca day 1 was lying on the floor...

The joy of giving my firstborn a legacy x-mas gift!

The joy of spending precious quality time with them!
Yes, I'm a firm believer of quality time - no matter what the hype says.
(the 42,5 year also don't give a crap what anyone else thinks about her sh*t!!) 

Husband and wife got good at playing, appreciating each other.

Those darn Runner's knees won't stop me.

Take a good look, in five hours the 42 year old is history!!

Have a great evening/morning out there <3

//C

The heart is vast or the heart is walked over?

(sorry for weird fonts and sizes, no idea what went wrong here...)

Relationships and feelings never fail to fascinate me.I have never found that blood is thicker than water, in any way, and that's of course due to the life I've lived and the experiences I've had.

I've come to regard the "the heart is vast and we need to dig into the deepest parts of ourselves"-logic over and over again, since my biggest role model often speaks of that.
I also know that the good Dr, Dr Phil, used to state the simple and true "good fences make good neighbours". How do these thesis add up?
When people who ought to nurture you and shield you play the blame game on you and leave you hanging, how vast should the heart be? 
When you're being  treated badly, twisted into crazy confusion where nothing you ever did was right, how vast should the heart be? 
When nothing is being kept real in any way?
I conclude: not vast at all. Or rather: vast towards You. And "doing you" can be hard enough when you're mixed up in un-normal circumstances, unrightfully, and you do search deep down to find the genuine emotion, in which you should be able to find the answer, what you need to do.

I usually say parents have the responsibilities  and children have the rights. I still believe that.
Whatever I cocked up with my step kids is on me.I will face the music there at any time and I do.
When it comes to being a parent I believe in giving without any concern of receiving. 
I don't believe in "we did this, this and that for you, so now you owe us". I really don't.

If parents fail in the TLC-departement, as far as I'm concerned, it's on them. Kids' hearts should not be vast there, cause if they try to be those hearts will be walked all over.
I'm my own parent since many years and my heart is vast in that task - I care for the little girl that has needs that are deep. 
Consistently she puts those fences up every time they're being worked over by some storm and that little girl keeps saying:
-You didn't break me, then the devil came and he didn't break me either. I'm so still standing, bring it!

I'm impressed and proud, she's a strong chick. A little lonely in that, but strong. A little scared sometimes but happy.Dr Phil is right. My role model is also right, for she also says that we needn't be in relationships that hurt us. 
Word and amen and let's all stay in active dialogue with our hearts, for if you listen to what the heart says, there's a lot to be learned.
We should care for each other, in any relationship, we should have a vast strong heart, a deep loving care and patience with flaws.
And if all else fails: we need to build those fences.

To all those little girls out there - cuz there are plenty - that are their own best parents: nothing but love for you and keep it up with the self love! We should give ourselves all that we needed as kids and still need today.

My humble thoughts on this day.


******

Random iPhone and IG shots from a beloved weekend last week, to our old hometown!

Yeah, road trippin' !

Arriving at the destination.

The Boy loved the lobby. The whole hotel, as a matter of fact!

Hubs promised his desert was to die for! Hopefully he'll make a lactose free one for me, at home :-)

My heart and life, right there <3

<3

A place I've longed to visit!

Our old hometown. My son's hometown.

A fun, fun, fun night out with my husband!

That pool's location... Let me tell ya'!

Hotel brekkie!!

Passing on that swim...

My firstborn baby!

Tired after 48 hours of visiting all kinds of relatives...

No point in making excuses or saying I'm sorry for being here so seldomly. I simply do not have the amount of time that's required, so good enough will have to do, these days.

Take excellent care and have a grand weekend, precious ones!

/A

Parenting

Here I go again, with a topic I have no clue how it's going to end up.

This is how I roll: I think of a blog topic, an interesting topic, that I feel strongly for and I write the topic down in the notepad in the iPhone. Usually I'm at the commute train when I do it and it can then sit there for weeks, until I'm ready to write about it.

One of my role models, Jada Pinkett Smith, wrote a FB-update on abandonment and hat post was about a step parent first stepping in and then, unfortunately, stepping out.
I have multiple thoughts on that.
I have not had a step parent, though lord knows I wished my parents would divorce and stop fighting, but I have been/am a step parent and I am married to a man sho is a step parent.

Being a step parent is difficult!
Both for the obvious reasons but also for a heap of other ones.

If you enter a new realtionship, where there are children involved, and you both carry heavy burdons of "past" with you and already drag a lot of guilt with you, it can be darn near impossible to allow yourself to feel and give anything more than a minimum.

Let me break it down for you: your kid/s have/had a hard childhood because of the situation to which they were born. Maybe their mother is mentally ill and maybe the father abused the mother and all horrifics that come with that. Then the parent in charge, who's left with the mess, needs to give it all to the child/children. That's only fair and it's the human and parently thing to do.
Along comes another half family with similar hardships where the parent in charge needs to give the child/children it all.
No effort to be made towards any other child, for then the feeling of guilt would overwhelm.

In comes the step parents but not a whole lot of love.
Guilt, blame and anguish is present, in a mix, and from the kids' perspective: disappointment.


I take my step parent failures seriously and I think more and more about it. I have been dwelling for years on how to talk about the past and try to fix what broke.
What broke for me and for my husband is what I describe above: we both needed to give all we had to our own kids and not much to each others' children. Why? Because our own kids suffered and were in acute situations, for years...
That made the step family experience half and not satisfactory and still it was all (and more) than we could manage at the time.

Then I saw my hair creator and we got to talking about that...
She said with plain simplicity: "You don't have to dwell on the past, you can just move forward and heal. Have fun and make room, you know." Well, I didn't know. Until then. As easy as that seemed, as brilliant it is!
That's how I'll do it and go about it.
Catch the ball now and run with it.

I know I have a whole lot of love to give and I know my stepkids need a whole lot of love, so I'm kind of thinking that might work :-)

As for my own childhood: I broke with my biological parents for quite some years and they weren't in my life when my second born was born. I needed to break in order to mark my boundaries because they simply wouldn't respect them. They would cross them over and over again.
I thought the break might have been for life but it wasn't.
Some time in to the process - maybe three-four years in - there was a moment of forgiveness. My father asked for it and I gave it. My mother still hasn't asked for it but inside of me I forgive her too. It feels good.
But will I forget? Never! I live as an orphan and I'm fine with it.
I have my role models that I've chosen.
My parents did the best they knew how to do.

I guess that's a wrap? It turned out to be another raw blog post about something that I find important.

Now, on to Midsummer photos!
Part 1.

The garden delivers!

And the hunchback disapproves of his wife's eternal photographing manners... ;-)

Time for Midsummer celebration!

The Maypole!!

Midsummer Boy <3

Midsummer girl <3

My son borrowed the camera and shot quite a few shots of his mama!

... he also shot the raw truth of his mama taking a few shots for her IG buddies..!

Dancing around the Maypole :-)

Hubs decided to act as paparazzi but that did not intimidate me, hahaha!!

Kicking back.

The dear kids.

Feeding a rabbit.

Beautiful nature this time of year <3

I'm happy to be doing all the right things this time around with my last born child. We had a good Midsummer. My first born had a good Midsummer on his end, with his sweetheart. Life is treating me good these days!

Now, let's celebrate June 27:th - my first day of VACATION!!!!!

Love, A