Tag Archives: intention

Tiny Tips Tuesday: Make the Most of Your Summer – Part 2

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Dear Friend,

Have you started your Summer of Intentionality lists yet? {Missed last week’s Part One: To Read post? Check it out here for details}…

summer of intentionality part two to doToday I share with you my Summer of Intentionality To Do List aka my list of fun things I want to be sure to experience this summer.

TGBTS/Tami’s 2014 Summer To DO List:

  • Take my daughter on vacation alone – Portland in June, Truckee/Tahoe in July, Minnesota in August. So I can go to Curve Camp in Nashville all by myself!
  • Ride the steam train in Tilden Park
  • Take my daughter on a city bus, a light rail and a train. She’s totally into things that go right now.
  • Read 100 picture books with my girl – already well on our way!
  • Make {dairy-free} ice cream
  • Kayaking at Lake Natoma
  • Read outside – at the park, at the pool, at the beach, in the hammock.
  • Attend at least 10 yoga classes at It’s All Yoga and use my Curvy Monthly classes at home.
  • Host a neighbor get-together – homemade ice pops me thinks.
  • Return to weekly meal planning
  • Daily meditation – already started!
  • River Cats baseball game
  • Family bike ride
  • Complete the library reading program with the little one. I sign up every year and have yet to finish.
  • Splash in a splash pad.
  • Swimming pool most evenings (and swimming lessons for the little one – already signed up)
  • Watercolor with the little one – already started. We both LOVE it.
  • Art days: paint outside on easel, paint vistas outside
  • Drive in movie
  • Fishing with the grandparents.
  • Wash car – at home and at the car wash.
  • Picnic lunches with post lunch rinse offs in the water table – already have done several days and everyone feels better.
  • Breakfasts outside with our lonely cat – such a great way to start the day! We’ve been eating outside for a week and I’ll be sad when it is over.
  • Patio dinners with friends.
  • Farmer’s markets on every day of the week – meaning go to new ones around town.
  • Play in the sprinkler
  • Go to the beach and play in the waves
  • Fly a kite at the beach and at the lake house.
  • Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge
  • Investigate the Crocker Art Museum
  • Visit Mendocino County grandparents
  • Visit Bay Area grandparents
  • Visit Minnesota grandparents
  • Build a sandcastle at the beach
  • Make sidewalk paint/chalk
  • Walk 100 miles
  • Drink fruit infused water – cucumber, lime, watermelon, pineapple. YUM!
  • Take a wagon ride
  • Family hike somewhere cool.

Are you noticing a pattern? Not a typical to-do list! A list of fun things that would get lost in the day to day of life (or in the air conditioned house watching endless hours of Sprout) unless we are intentional with our time.

I do hope you decide to make you own Summer of Intentionality lists. Please leave a comment or send me a message and tell me all about it. If you’d like to take a peek at some of my lists from the past click here.

With lots of love and compassion,

Tami

xo

PS – If you find this helpful or know someone who would, please be sure to pass it on. Sharing is caring!

Other posts you might like:

Teacher Travels: De Yound Edition

Teacher Travels: Academy of Sciences

Meet the Teacher

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Word for 2013

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This time of year, a lot of people are setting intentions and making resolutions, myself included most years.  As it turns out, I’m less good at resolutions than one would like. So rather than doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, I’ve decided to try something different.

This year I’ve decided to go with a single feeling/theme I would like to cultivate in my life and not just another list of do’s and don’ts.

This feeling idea had been floating around in my head all month and was solidified when I overheard some yogi friends talking on Twitter about their year words {listening and compassion}, when Ashlee posted hers, Amy posted hers and Rosie posted this.

The feeling I most want to cultivate this new year is CONNECTION.

Connection – just the word brings up warm and fuzzy feelings for me. I am imaging a year full of new holiday traditions, lots of hugs and hand holding, cooking and eating with friends, snuggles under the covers with books and movies, book club meetings, phone/Skype dates, road trips/vacations, meeting friends for tea, lunch and movies, communing with nature as much as possible and finding time on my mat just being quiet.

What about you? What comes to mind when you hear the word CONNECTION? What word or theme speaks to you this year?

Image source: We Heart It

Don’t Take It Personally and Other New {School} Year Resolutions

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New years just beg for resolutions in my opinion. Since my brain works on the school year calendar, new years start in the fall. By January I’m all resolutioned out.

Last {working} school year, my mantra/resolution/intention was to Not Take It Personally. This pretty much changed everything about my life.

In my quest to not take things personally, I managed to listen more than I talked, I quieted down, really listened and let other people be the expert (pretty major for a know-it-all like me) and I let go of things that weren’t working for me.

Work relationships got easier, parent interactions (something I struggled with in the past) were more clear, professional and well, easier.  Even my personal life felt lighter and more fun.

Since school just started in this house, I’ve been recently thinking about what my intention for this school year will be. I know I’m not in the classroom, so why have one? To be honest, since I’ve started having an intention for the school year my professional life has greatly improved in the areas where I put my focus. Plus  I’m already thinking about next school year and I’m getting a bit anxious.

Where will I be teaching?

What will I be teaching?

Who will I be teaching?

Will I secure a job share?

Where will Ruby spend her time while I’m at work?

See what I mean? So many unanswered questions with so many possible answers. So many, in fact, I’m not quite sure how to wrap my brain around all the possibilities and all these loose ends are already making me tighten and grasp and grab at answers. I don’t know about you, but I’m sure my best decisions are not made while totally stressing about the outcome.

So, what’s a teacher/planner/mama/not-so-secret-control-freak to do?

I’ve decided my intention for this school year is to say yes.

For me,

  • Saying yes means I am open to all the possibilities, even the ones I am not sure exist yet.
  • Saying yes, means not having to know right now what will happen next school year (or even next week).
  • Saying yes means not getting mired in the details and letting the unknown suck the fun out of life right now.
  • Saying yes means finding ease instead of grabbing, grasping and holding.

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So, friends, how do you handle the big unknowns in your life?

Do you make resolutions or set intentions during times of transitions?

Do you have any words of wisdom for a current stay-at-home-mama needing to send her bebe to childcare in the relatively near future?

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Image source 1: We Heart It

Image source 2: We Heart It

The Good, The Bad and the Sick of the BS

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I am:

a) a teacher – unable to motivate, inspire, or educate students

b) a teacher – committed to high expectations for academic achievement and behavior for all students

c) a teacher – exhausted by all the external bs at work

Depending on who you ask this week, I’m either choice a or choice b.

I’ve heard both messages loud and clear.

Both blasted and lauded in the same week.

The real answer of course, is c.

Needless to say I’ve felt really high and really low this week depending on which opinion of me was being thrown around at the time.

And you know what?

I’m tired of it.

Every year I set a goal, make a resolution or to use yoga-talk, set an intention for the year. Something to keep myself focused on throughout the year.

 This year’s intention was to be more flexible, to find some space in areas I had previously held on tightly to – like homework coming back unfinished (thus causing much suffering) – and to listen more.

Next year’s resolution?

To not believe the hype about me: good or bad.

I’ve read that some musicians, artists and actors refuse to read reviews about their work because it interferes with their creativity and performance. Other people’s  opinions about them (it always comes down to people judging you as a person rather than your work) got in the way of the joy in their work.

Let’s be real, some also are honest enough to admit that criticism (which is so rarely constructive especially in print) just plain hurts their feelings.

I feel the same way.

I would like to not get attached to the compliments or to get caught up in the negativity.

It’s not to say that I’m going to shut people out and not listen to how to refine practices, I’m going to try to feel less defined as a professional by other people’s opinions.

I’m not exactly sure how I’ll make this happen.

I think having this intention is good place to start.

So dear readers, how do you keep other people’s compliments and criticisms in perspective? Any tips for dealing with the critics? And fans?

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