le spectacle

Today was different.

I woke up with encouraging text messages from my sister and Christina A. Great things to wake up to. I got some positive reenforcement in an email from Tina. Great. And I ended up keeping up a friend WAY too late even though it was the morning for me. Thorry not thorry.

After taking the kids to school I walked around for an hour. You see, it's not that I'm getting fat. I'm definitely losing weight over here, it's just that my body is really soft because I've done almost zero physical activity in almost a month...so, I've been walking more than necessary to "exercise." I've also resorted back to one room, body-weight, Pinterest workouts. Don't knock it til you try it.

Then I got dressed up. Like my booties on, tight jeans (that look even better cause, like I said, I've lost weight) and a blazer, scarf, clean hair blah blah to pick up the kids at 11:30am. They have half days on Wednesday. We bought a baguette and the rest of the day was super relaxed. It wasn't bad but it wasn't amazing. We did arts and crafts (Eléonore too, she's funny. I like getting to know her better even though it's still mostly by observation) and then went to a park where I could actually go running. Such an interesting theme for the day: exercise.

Then I got an email from my mom.

Hi honey, bless you! I love you!  
Are you keeping your thoughts and mind in blessing mode and knowing all is well.  Or are you complaining and giving matter or bad days precedence.  It is a practice.  Can notice for reflection and improvement but not attach it to you or your experience.
If things are difficult.... Notice.... then ask intelligence Mind for directions...... Not keep suffering in same old story......."it came to pass"   There is infinite possibilities available for every moment. Be open and listen..... ASK and ye shall receive?

SH 325  " A false sense of life, substance and mind hides the divine possibilities, and conceals scientific demonstration."  Be the change you want to see....I love you

It's not that I had even been having a bad day-like I said-but after reading this email everything changed. Here is what I sent back:

Hi Mom!
It's actually kind of funny…
Today was pretty good. I was just about to start playing with Olympe when I read your email. I wasn't in a bad mood. I wasn't even sad, or complaining in my head that much today. But when I read your email everything seemed to turn around. Olympe and I had a lot of fun playing Princesses go buy puppies and whatnot. There was a sorcerer at some point-I still don't speak French haha-then we ended up talking a little bit and I asked her if she thought that I was doing a good job as an au pair. She told me I was. That made me feel so much better because 98% of the time I think she hates me. I thought that was really cool. Afterwards, Olympe decided she was tired and so she fell asleep on the couch next to me and I read for about 30 minutes before Eléonore and Dimitri got back from wherever they were. It was nice.  Dimitri also took a bath and wasn't CRAZY. He got out at a normal time and we played until dinner. It was so fun. We made shadow puppets (he didn't know what those were) and we danced around a lot. 
After dinner he made me show the rest of the family. So he and I out on a spectacle or a SHOW.
It was fun. I'm working on it :)

It's really true though. Little moments of inspiration have the capacity to turn your whole day around in a BIG way. I'm so grateful.

Now, I'm going to go to sleep, and hopefully have a plan for tomorrow. I need a Paris City Moleskine.

P.S. Does anyone want to start sending me things I forgot? I've got a list that is getting énorme (huge).

I call it "le petit jardin du canards"