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

How do you view relationships in your life?

When someone I used to count as friend all of a sudden let me down in an area I never would have predicted, I really started thinking of friendships and relationships and how we regard them and how we treat them.
Sometimes telling someone "the truth" when they ask you for it may mean they turn away, cause the truth was not the the version they wanted you to feed them. If you're brave enough to stand honest, you simply must calculate that that could be an effect.
I've come to a part of my life where I calcuate it and also cherish that from others: if I ask for the true opinion, I want it regardless. It may hurt but not nearly as much as lying to yourself will hurt you, at the end of the day.

My life has virually taught me "no pain, no gain" and going through hard times, doing wrong and also being a leader has forced me to face myself and looking very deep in to that mirror at all the flaws and fears that I have. I have looked at them (still do), taken them out, turned them over, tasted them, accepted the ones I must and changed a few that were unacceptable and put the entire pack back.
I face myself daily and scrutinize myself and question my doings and even more my "feeling:s" and I think that I may therefore also take for granted that others do so too.
I sometimes forget that others may not have come that far yet, they have a few quarters left before they reach that square.
I have a lot of quarters left too, of course, and the map never ends.

I always ask my heart what is right and true, nowadays, before every decision and I care not what others advice and say, if that's in opposition of what my heart says. For many years my fear would pose as my heart, misguiding me, and back then I could not listen to my heart, because it was my fear talking. These days I see my fear when it shows up and I put my trust in my heart when I ask for guidance and now - at the age of 42 - it works, so it's a solid process in which I'm secure and at peace.

No pain, no gain = a whole lot of pain, a whole lot of gain!
:-)

******

So, The Boy had his b-day party a bit delayed, together with a friend. 

Going there, through fall landscape, was spectacular!

We're there!!

Very up-tempo:ed place...!

Gifts - that's all good!

A lively group.

Cheerful times!

:-) <3

Autumn mornings look like this, only totally dark outside nowadays.

October, for ya'!

Those colours!!!

Loving looking at birds, just as his mama!

Special times of calmer days and glorious colouring.

Lovely times.

Cosiness comes knocking - and we're all fired up for it :-)

******

I'm very proud of the relationship I have built together with my husband, because we're both committed. Not just in the sense of "being married, being in a committed relationship", I mean committed in the sense where both of us not only just look at ourselves in the mirror - we look at each other too. 

We admit to our failures and each other's failures, we talk about them and we decide to stick around, to go forward together with force and trust and goals forward. With enthusiasm even, since the pain-gain can lead you anywhere really! 

We keep letting the old relationship die, so that a new one can be born. I'd say we're brave and active in our relationship and we care for deep down real about each other's life. There's no plan B, since we are not going to be distracted from plan A, which is a relationship that's for life.

I'm ready for the new week. I hope you are too!

/A