Fighting for Sunshine

It's a sunny day...glorious. I've been quite under the weather lately....just feeling down. It's like clouds have come into my life to stay...and even though a little purple flower pops up between green blades of grass, a robin lands on a nearby branch and sings....all I see are the clouds.
Now, for the most part of my life, after awhile of feeling down i come to realize that I have a bad attitude or that I'm needing to make a change in my life in order to help uncover the hidden joy I know is there....lately that hasn't been working. I don't even see the spot I'm suppose to be digging...I can't find my shovel, I feel lost and overwhelmed with the task of searching.
I know, I know...with a cute little baby with big blue eyes, a handsome husband, a smart 6 year old (almost 6), my own personal Koala and having a real life Goldilocks...you'd think I'd be jumping for joy every day - that a painted on smile would be plastered on my face. And I guess, if things were perfect...that would be true.

The truth is, after much soul searching...and realizing that a lot of my issues are stemmed from uncontrollable stress (not the kind you can fix with being more organized or going out for a cup of coffee) I have made a HUGE discovery. I am effected BIG time by weather. Call me strange...or just like half of the population I didn't know existed, but I'm very grey on grey days. I cry when it rains...and when there is sunshine I dance and sing and frolic out in the yard....loving small things like earthworms and wild mushrooms. On cloudy days I hate pie, I hate good movies, I had bubble baths...I just basically feel blah. It hasn't made sense to me that even when I'm telling myself "Self, knock it off. You're whining...you're thinking about the half empty glass, you're concentrating too much on the dirty dishes and not on your clean laundry"...none of that helps. All I know is that I don't have a bed, I don't have privacy, I don't have a mom here, I have a teething baby, and a partly dead Christmas tree.

Yesterday was full of sunshine - and in the 60's!! The sky was big and blue and lovely.My husband made the decision that a family walk was in order...and even though I didn't really want to go - I did. I packed some cookies and we took the kids for a drive up a near by mountain. When we reached the top, we got out of the van - and as soon as I took one deep breath of that mountain air, the pine scent.....felt the sunshine on my face and the blue sky wrap around me - I instantly felt so HAPPY. I couldn't stop smiling. All of the sudden the dirty dishes at home weren't important...Brady in my mind had NO PROBLEMS AT ALL that we couldn't work through and with....Tristan not being fully potty trained didn't bother me in the slightest. The baby was chewing on his finger like crazy, pestered by his new tooth. I didn't care...I just thought "wow, he's getting teeth" instead of "tonight is going to be horrible." Yes siree....I was happy. (strange place for the above photo...but it's Zac and Trin's new pastime...ballet.) As we hiked along the trail, all alone up their in the wilderness, I told Zac "oh my gosh I love it here so much. I feel so good. I'm defintiely a mountain girl." And I really am since I grew up in the Sierra...quite the excellent climber and hiker if I do say so myself. Zac is the one who pointed out to me LAST YEAR that he thought I was effected by the weather. I dismissed this notion...know that I, ALYSSA, could in no way be effected by something so small...something teeny and powerless like...gulp, the weather?

Well, it's true...and my Zac is one smart cookie. Quite the gingersnap of a man if I do say so myself.

So today, I'm starting some type of a sunshine regiment. I had a big glass of orange juice and stirred in some Spirulina powder...I have lit candles and put on music....the forecast is calling for cloudy skies this afternoon and I'm fighting back!

Even though there are troubles in life...sometimes it's nice to know that we are struggling for a reason..well, several. For me it's..

1. I love the holidays but I'm lonely. Thank God for my family that I have.

2. Cloudy skies...thank goodness for music, thank God for my husband and his good ideas, thank God for spring and summer.

3. Hormones...thank God for wine.

4. I'm very human and not perfect. Thank God for His perfect love...that when I'm not enough, and my kids aren't enough, and my husband isn't enough...He is enough and more.