Clouds on the living room floor.

[1-22-21]

I am sitting here staring at little white puff balls spread out over the rug. My puppy Bunny tears apart our throw pillows. She seems to target my favorites and attacks them creating a room that looks like clouds have descended down. Once it was feathers, that was an adventure in patience, trying to stuff the feathers into a bag while they flew all around me. She also tears apart sheepskin and hand towels, socks, hoodies, hats, gloves and shoes.

We try to remember to move them when we are going out but sometimes when I go out no one will be downstairs with the dogs and that is when her fun happens. I just replaced destroyed pillows with two new ones and in a couple weeks we are down to one.

I love throw pillows. I obsess over them and love rearranging them and how they can change the look of an entire room. But now getting new ones feels like throwing money away until I can figure out a solid plan to stop the destruction.

I found myself lost in thought about pillows. How can I creatively solve this problem so I can have nice pillows again? And Dave is trying to figure out how to get the kids to close doors and turn off lights. I have a kid who just can't seem to get his dishes in the dishwasher, ever, and there is the kid who leaves dishes all over her room, cups filled with old milk and food wrappers, even though she isn't supposed to bring anything but water upstairs. Then the issue of all the kids on their phones more than we are comfortable with. The list can just grow and grow.

It is simpler to get lost thinking about pillows. We used to be so busy. Running kids around to sports and friends' houses and after school hangouts. I used to drive my daughter to school everyday and I spent about 3ish hours in the car with the back and forth. Now there is so much time.

Time has opened up and we are living in a bubble, seven people doing school and work and life in one house together. So much time to think about pillows. So many opportunities to not put dishes away or turn off lights. So easy to obsess about all the things that are wrong. I spent yesterday cleaning up a hallway rug that had five dog accidents during the night from a dog we didn't know was sick. The running musical song in my head went something like...it sucks to be me, it sucks to be me...as I went from one pile to the next.

After a conversation with Dave this morning I know that my body can't hold all the things that are 'wrong.' It makes my heart start beating and I feel a rush of adrenaline. I don't choose to start mornings like that. I don't want lists of what everyone is doing wrong floating in my head. I don't want the kids to feel bad and I certainly don't want to be mad at a puppy who tears things up.

This isn't the part where I have some sort of wonderful life changing advise. All I have is the knowing that it is never about the pillows or the dishes or the lights. It is about how we choose to think, the words we pick to put out to others and the kindness we feel and give.

Yesterday I sat my kid down and said, "How can I help you figure out a way to get those dishes from the sink to the dishwasher?" Today I asked Dave to not raise his voice when he gets upset about the kids because I can't hold space for that energy. His body doesn't need that energy either. Baby steps to feeling how I want to feel in this bubble of time.

These are part of my sacred roots. Choosing kindness. Holding boundaries that make us all better. Learning to put a feeling before an action. Being tender when I want to be crabby. Being crabby and asking for help through it. Safety in home. Rooted in place, in love.

I'll get creative with the pillows because they are important to me. We can source the same creativity with the kids. It helps remembering how awesome they all are and how blessed we are that they actually like us and want to be around us.

A sacred home, a sacred life, begins with the roots. Kindness, choice, feeling, tending, listening, loving. Taking those few seconds to ground in to our hearts before using our voice. Creating rhythm and ritual to support who we want to be.

Today after I shower, I'm going to vacuum up the pillow clouds all over the floor and clear off the table and do my little Friday clean up of the house. I'll make some tea and brunch. I'll feel my sacred roots through all the simple, tiny things that add up to this life.