The theme for June is routine.

Journaling Reads:
My family lives very far away. And I’ve only traveled back home one time since my five-year-old son was born. Even though my parents try to visit me once or twice a year, I see my sister and nephews even more rarely than that. I always worried that my kids would never get to be close to my family.

All that was before video chat became so readily available. Now, everyday when I come back from picking up my son from school, we all sit at the table and chat with my mom and dad while we eat our lunch. We talk about our day, we make funny faces, we laugh. It’s like they are sitting right next to us.

I cannot tell you the joy those few moments give me. My one-year-old son is already so used to it that as I click to dial them, he already starts smiling and shrieks with joy when my mom’s face appears on the screen. This is the most I’ve talked to them since I moved to the United States. Actually it might be the most I’ve talked to them since l was a little girl. Video chats with my family are a daily routine in our house and I am really really grateful for this technology.

This week I wanted to focus on me. I mean you. I mean I want each of us to focus on ourselves. I want us to practice some gratitude towards ourselves.

Appreciate ourselves.

I want you to think of how hard you try so much of the time. How you give it your best and sometimes you fall short and sometimes you hit the mark, but each time you try. How you love wholeheartedly. How you fill the dishwasher and empty it and do the laundry and cook and clean and put make up on and fit into clothes that hurt a little bit or shoes that hurt a lot just to look a bit better. How you smile sometimes when you want to scream. How your patience is tried day in and day out but you still give the baths, read the stories, hug, kiss and love.

Maybe you don’t have kids but take care of your mom. Or do both. Maybe you have a sick friend. Or a high maintenance lover. Maybe you work too hard at a job where you’re not appreciated enough. Maybe you study a lot and still get mediocre grades. Maybe you try and try and try and don’t always make it.

Maybe you don’t have as many friends as you’d like. Your art is not as amazing as you wish it were. You would like to read more. Eat less. Exercise. You’d like to keep in touch better. You want to write that novel already. Or take that course. Visit that country. Quit the job. Start your dream business.

You have dreams. You have frustrations. Ups and downs. Don’t we all? Even the happiest among us has hard days and the saddest among us has good ones.

That’s life. And while you work everyday to make it better for yourself. Or even while you’re wallowing in your ice cream in front of the TV, just cut yourself some slack today. Pat yourself on the back. Take the day off. Wear the comfy clothes, grab a book you love or a TV show you’ve been looking forward to and allow yourself the pleasure.

Stand in front of the mirror and take a good look at yourself. Give yourself a hug. You deserve it.

You really do.

Just for today, make sure you really appreciate yourself. I have a friend who always told me that if I said enough bad things about myself, others would start seeing me that way and I really believe her. It all starts with you. If you don’t appreciate yourself, how can you expect others to?

I wanted to talk a little about time today. I am a firm believer that time is our greatest asset and how you spend your time is how you spend your life.

This is such a big topic for me that, last year, I prepared and taught a class on this subject at Big Picture Scrapbooking. It was a series of exercises that allowed you to see where your time went and see how well it aligned with the things you want to do with your life. This is not about accomplishments (though those too) but about living your moments with mindfulness. Actively choosing to do the things you love.

I am often flabbergasted at the amount of time I waste in a day. The amount of time I spend checking my mail. Reading mail from advertisers or other crap that I decide to put in the trash as opposed to actual, valuable email. Refreshing the sites I visit or checking Google Reader. Facebook. Twitter. I am not even talking about the time I spend reading these sites (that time is valuable often) but the time I spend refreshing or going to the window to see if there’s anything “new.” The amount of times I walk up and down the stairs to put something in the wash, or cleaning up dirty dishes or vacuuming the crumbs my little one generates like nobody’s business. I can go on and on.

I’ve noticed that if I am having a challenging day, I waste even more time than usual. If I am tired, I waste more time. If I am angry, I waste time.

I know a lot about being busy. I have two kids, a full time job, and several ongoing commitments. So when people tell me how full their life is and how they have absolutely no time to do the things they really love to do, I know they are not telling the truth. Who doesn’t have 20 minutes in their day to take a walk, to read 10 pages of a book, to add an embellishment to a piece of art? (if you think you don’t, make sure to read this article by one of my favorite authors.)

When I created the class, it was eye-opening for me. Just to see where my time went. How I used all those bits and pieces of empty moments. It was also wonderful to make my list of wishes and hopes of how to spend my time. It helped me be more mindful and that’s something I’m constantly striving for.

So here’s my challenge for you. If you’ve been playing along with us for all these weeks, look back through your art, your words, your gratitude and pick one or two things you’re grateful for: things, people, places, etc. If you haven’t been playing along, just make a list of ten things, people or places that you think would make you happy. And then find a way to spend a little bit more time on those things this week. Go to the places that make you happy. Laugh with the people you’re grateful for. Choose an activity that brings you gratitude and vow to do it three times this week.

Just for a week. Just for twenty minutes.

I think seeing that you can make time for the things that make you feel grateful will end up making you feel even more grateful. Time is really our biggest asset and we each get a limited amount of it everyday and at least a few minutes of it should be spent doing something you love.

Something just for you.

The greatest part of this project for me has been the fact that I sit at the end of each day and think of three things I have to be grateful for. Most days it’s not hard but sometimes it is. I also love that Lori and I picked themes. I use them as my focus for the photos/words cards I create that month. Each theme is not equal for me. Nature was really easy cause I can think of much to be grateful for there and this month’s theme, Body, is exceptionally hard for me. Partly because I have so many issues around that topic. Partly because I don’t appreciate much of anything about my body. Either way, the fact that it’s our theme forces me to look harder, look deeper. And the thing is, with practice it gets easier.

As I did my first two pieces for this month, the last two pieces came a lot more easily. It works the same way with gratitude in general. Because I am doing these everyday, I pay more attention to my day. I notice things. I actually feel the gratitude while it’s happening and not just afterwards. I think it’s common to look at a memory and remember the bliss, the joy of that moment. We’re pretty good at blocking out the bad and remembering the good after the fact. But, often times, I tend to get lost in the moment and not appreciate it a lot while it’s happening. This project has allowed me to be more aware. I am really grateful for that.

This awareness also makes me more joyful and realize how amazing my life is. Of course, I have my challenges, my down days, my issues. But, all in all, life is amazing. I have so much to be grateful for and I take time to revel in that regularly now. I focus on the gratitude. The joy. I really try to. The thing with happiness is that thinking you’re happy makes you feel happy. At least I think so. And the awareness this project has raised in my life allows me to live each moment with more joy, with more gratitude, and with so much more happiness.

Honestly I think this is the best gift I could have ever received.

Thank you, Lori, for asking me to do this with you. And for those of you who are “behind” or who wish you could do this, too, it’s really, truly never too late. I swear. Just start today. You will love every moment of it.

This month’s theme, body, is a hard one for me. I have so many issues with my body and I often find it hard to see anything to be grateful about. Which I guess makes it a good theme for me. Today, I wanted to share a blog post I wrote back in 2001 which I think still applies.

I was always the ugliest child among my friends.

The girls in my group were nothing short of drop dead gorgeous and they’d make sure to remind me of the difference in the quality of our looks. Ever since the time I heard a guy mention how I was the only ugly person they hung out with, I couldn’t look myself in the mirror without the word ‘ugly’ sprinting to my mind.

About two years ago, I cut my hair. I’d been growing it since the fifth grade and it was weak and difficult to manage. Since then, I cut my hair maybe twenty times. I dyed it to dark brown, auburn, orangish red, dirty blonde, deep red and now I’m once again trying to become blonde. And I’ve decided to start a peace process between my face and me.

Now I stare at the mirror for a while and try to see what my face tells me. My eyes remind me of my dad. They are a light brown with darker tones on the edges, a sign of my middle eastern heritage. The little lines on the corner of my eyes are getting deeper: a sign of my increasing happiness. I see lines across my forehead, a sign of my continuous worrying. When I smile, thick lines form around my nose and a tiny dimple appears on the left side of my face.

I have nice teeth. I never had to wear braces and they’ve always been straight. My face has somewhat grown into my large ears and my haircut mostly hides how much they stick out. Even my nose says something important. It’s a symbol of more of my roots, Jewish ones. The purple marks under my eyes insist that I don’t get any sleep no matter how many hours I may lay in bed. When I’m sad, my eyebrows curl up in the weirdest of arches. My hair reminds me that I’m learning to let go.

I’m learning to look at myself and see something besides ‘ugly’. I see my family, my background, signs of my happiness and characteristics. And I smile.

I think I’ll keep this face, even if it is ‘ugly’. It’s mine.

What does your face tell you about yourself?

For the last two weeks or so I’ve been feeling unproductive, uninspired, and unmotivated. I usually tend to be the opposite those things. I get a lot done every single day and I like it that way. Needless to say, this lack of motivation and productivity has been getting to me and that, in turn, is making me even more grouchy.

The thing is, this whole time, I’ve still been writing my list of three things I’m grateful for and focusing on three things that are the highlight of my day regardless of how frustrating, tiring, or overwhelming a day might be. This focus on making sure I could think of three bright spots in my day no matter what has now become a ritual for me. It never takes me more than 6 minutes to come up with my list of three things for the day. Even when I feel like a total grouch.

The greatest part of this is also the ability to go back and read them. Whenever I feel down and think there’s nothing good, all I have to do is go to a random day on my blog and read my three things for a week. Then I realize that small and big miracles are happening in my life every single day. It helps me see the light even on the darkest day.

And I think it’s important to see that. The tiny sliver of illumination. The candlelight and makes sure you’re not sitting in pitch black and feeling hopeless. That tiny light gives me something to hold on to. Because the fact is, no matter what I think, wonderful things are happening in my life every single day. Even if my point of view is clouded, those good things are there and they deserve my gratitude.

So for those of you who think you’re too busy for this project or life is too challenging right now, I urge you to give it a try. To find that sliver of good even in the harder of times. Like most things, it takes practice to see the good things. But they’re there.

They’re always there.