You're Doing Better Than You Think You Are

As the year draws to a close, are you distracted by what you didn’t get done?

When I start down that road, I also begin comparing myself to other people…

Instagram.

Facebook.

Friends and colleagues in real life.

Sometimes we come up ahead, and sometimes behind. Often we think, “I’m so thankful I didn’t have to walk through THAT!” and often — if we’re honest — we also think, “Where’s MY good thing? When is MINE coming?”

But here’s the deal: comparison is the thief of joy, as Teddy Roosevelt famously said.

And I will add this:

This is the season to be jolly, not to blame yourself for things you didn’t get done. Life is twisty and some things take time; we don’t always know why events unfold as they do. My wish for all of us right now is this…

Slow down.

Enjoy.

It’s okay to take your time. It’s okay to let things unfold. And remember: you’re doing better than you think you are.

I love this quote from Morgan Harper Nichols:

So as the year ends, let’s enjoy it. Let’s celebrate. Blooming ever-so-slowly is still just fine.

Love, Catherine

P.S.

• It’s almost finished Jacaranda Snow-ing in Sydney! Kerri from Adelaide @asqueezeoflemon sent me this beautiful Jacaranda Snow photo! Thanks, Kerri!

• If you’ve read the Notes to my picture book, Jacaranda Snow, you’ll know that jacaranda seedlings were given to new mums in Australia when they left hospital, and that’s why we have so many beautiful jacaranda trees. This week, a lovely fan of the book emailed me to tell me that jacarandas were also given to young birth mothers at adoption. I love Australia and our jacaranda kids. (If your local library or school library doesn’t have Jacaranda Snow yet, please ask them to carry it! It’s so important for our history.)

Happiness Is Complicated

Can we talk about happiness -- whether you mostly are, or aren't?

Take a look at this gum tree I saw in Melbourne. Blossoms, gum nuts. People walk by them all the time. Did you see the bee, lurking...or just the flowers?

That's exactly like happiness: FLOWERS!! With one unpredictable bee.

I don't know how you make yourself happy. For me, it works like this:

Some of you know I collaborated on a book, Choosing Happiness, way back when I was pregnant with Elijah, way before Gretchen Rubin made happiness a Thing. It was an incredible experience -- published worldwide, translated, still selling, the whole shebang -- and it got me thinking that I'd like to write my own book one day. So, ten years later, I went off and did it. Twice, so far. So. Much. Fun.

Writing makes me happy.

What does it for you? Do you know (yet)?

Getting creative will make you happier... 

Not because you will be famous.

Not because people will follow you, or think better of you.

Not because your work will change lives.

But just because, in the quiet of your own house, in your own space, you will have the pure joy of making something that's yours. I'm a cheerleader by nature and a champion for creativity, like my "friend" Liz Gilbert. Here's why. Because being uniquely, creatively you, writing or singing or making jewellery or starting a business or whatever you do, is worth it. It feels good. It will make you happy.

If not now, when?

Is there something stopping your creativity? Is it age, inexperience, embarrassment, procrastination, fear?

Here's the truth: all those worries are mostly noise, like an unpredictable bee.

x Catherine 

PS. For the most fun, creative Aussie photo, check out my Instagram today! Aussies are so fab -- we'll "have a crack at everything." Even this.

Get Ready to De-Stress

This was my lunch on Friday.

I know, I know...so bad! But I've had a lot on this week, and chocolate is my Boyfriend. Ha!

Everything happens end of November. Christmas prep, finishing off projects before summer holidays, and if you live in Australia, end of school year. 

You know what this means: teacher gifts, concerts, gingerbread houses, finding yet another dress to wear. Plus I was decorating the school hall with a fabulous friend for the Year 6 Graduation Dinner (high school starts in Year 7 in Australia). 

Just generally overcommitting. You??

On top of this craziness, I signed up for a Literary Speed Dating event. That's why I had a chocolate lunch. Someone opened a Max Brenner right across from the conference centre, so what was I supposed to do?

You might be curious about Literary Speed Dating. It was my first time. You rush into a conference room and get in the publisher's queue. You have 3 minutes to pitch. A bell rings and you get a YES (send it to me) or a HMMMM...THANKS FOR COMING! LOVE YOUR DRESS! 

I was a little nervous, but it went well.

Amidst all the hustle, I got a text from one of the Heart Girls, my forever writing friends. She's very funny and her books are hilarious. I was rabbiting on about parties in December and how we should all just relax and breathe...and she sent this:

So true :) 

Happy end-of-November, everyone!

Puppy Love

My dog is perfect. She's like a little human being. I bathe her at least once a week; she doesn't shed and her hair grows and grows until it's cut and styled by Rebecca, our excellent groomer.

We named her Holly, after the holly trees in Victoria British Columbia, a city we love.

She cuddles on my lap in the morning when I have my coffee, and even though I know I shouldn't, sometimes I let her sleep on the end of our bed.

So when my brand new friend -- who just wrote this great book on managing fertility  -- invited me over for a puppy playdate with her 9-month old Maltese Shih Tzu, 'Happy,' I said yes!

My Shih Tzu, after all, is perfect. I thought perhaps Holly could teach Happy how to stop peeing inside her own house and how to use her new dog door.

You can guess this is only going in one direction...

When I arrived at the house, we made tea in the kitchen while Holly and Happy played inside, until my friend's preschooler announced (in one of those cute and loud preschool voices), 'There's DOG WEE on the FLOOR.' My friend said, 'Oh, Happy must have had another accident!'

'No,' the little boy said, 'it was HER DOG.'

Dead silence.

Um, yes, it was. For the first time ever, Holly peed on the floor.

In someone else's house.

Luckily, the floor was timber. So my friend ran around with paper towels wiping up while I put the dogs outside.

Done. Time for tea.

We sat together in new white armchairs in Claire's beautiful house, sipping from china cups, overlooking the dogs playing on the deck and the peaceful view of Garigal National Park through her massive windows. We talked, we laughed, we connected on a deep female level, as you do at morning tea. Until Holly hunched over and pooed on the deck.

Not on the grass. Not out of eyesight. Nope -- she pooed in front of the floor-to-ceiling window on the CLEAN DECK.

While we ran around grabbing dog bags and disinfectant -- and the dogs trotted nervously on the deck spreading dog poo -- my new friend kept saying (in her British accent) it's perfectly okay and it's absolutely fine. I think she meant it.

I have one important Greek word for myself. Hubris. Excessive pride.

It'll get you every time.

There is no take away lesson except this...

You love who you love, even if they poo on someone else's pristine deck.

<If you know someone who might benefit from an empowered perspective on fertility, please consider sharing Claire Hall's new book. You can find it in Australian bookstores and online worldwide...Claire's a fabulous life coach and a really lovely person....and, well, I owe her one. Obviously.>

Cupcake Days

Today was a good day. A cupcake day. But our youngest son will be heading to high school in Jan 2017 (Year 7 in Australia), so my cupcake days are almost over.

Only yesterday he was the little boy who painted this with an art teacher...

And looked like this when he went to school:

Last night I had plenty of hours to think about my fleeting days.

We were up all night with the girl in the family. She had an allergic reaction to tick medication. (Did you know this could be a thing with little dogs? It's like they're having a stroke. Awful...but she's feeling better now, thank goodness.)

Sleep deprivation used to be routine and came from this little boy, but like the cupcake days, those days are over. (Maybe when he gets his license in December, the sleepless nights will start again??)

Canadian singer Joni Mitchell sang it best (way way back in 1970...)

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til it's gone?

Yesterday I complained about walking the dog. Sunset, crisp winter air and me, grumbling. Today I wish she were bursting with energy so we could run... 

All our days are over so soon.

Too soon.

Was it the last time I'll bake cupcakes for school? Maybe it was, and I barely noticed.

I need to pay attention.

To the buds while I'm walking the dog...

To papaya and lime for breakfast while I still have two boys sleeping in at home:

I need to pay attention before it's gone.

I hope you have the best day noticing your sweet moments, too.

Running and Laughing

For all you Canadians, this is a kookaburra, and yes, they do laugh. In fact, they laugh like crazy at 6am when my husband and I join our group-personal-training friends in the park.

Sydney winter is cold (think 6 degrees), sometimes wet, and definitely dark at 6am. We, along with all the other resilient, crazy people in our Step Into Life crew, meet up Monday-Wednesday-Friday at 6am to exercise.

Outside.

I don't know why I do this.

I'm not sure about your fitness journey, but mine has been 30 years of doing something -- not regularly, not perfectly -- but always something. I've done adult ballet classes, running, belly dance, tennis, zumba, more running, gym memberships, gym equipment in the garage, more running and now, for the last 18 months, a group fitness class in the park at 6am. And more running.

But working out is challenging, and the truth is this: I hate physical challenges. 

I know some people LOVE competition. It doesn't motivate me. 

So I've tried something new. I tell myself I'm 'Doing The Right Thing For Me.' I've always known that we're made to move our bodies and we have to keep moving them forever. So I've started to do fitness in a way that makes me happy. Not faster, or longer or in competition with a person or an app or even myself.

Nope. I'm just running and training for me.

Having those kookaburras laugh at us -- and laughing at ourselves -- at 6am with people I'd be happy to have around my dinner table works for me.

It's become our routine. We get up at 5:30am, get in the car, go to training and have a laugh. (Thanks, Steve and Simon!!)

The running side of this equation has been harder. I started (again!) because so many of my fitness friends run with grace and grit. Yes, it's hard for them, too -- imagine half-marathons, marathons and 7K lunchtime runs -- but they love it. And they inspired me.

But running is HARD (remember? I hate exercise that's hard?). Granted, I will do a million other hard things -- like write a book, make dinner 365 days a year, clean my own house, run a business, deal with the big scary problems that life hands us all -- but I hate doing hard exercise.

And yet, through my life, I keep circling back to running: slowly, irregularly, imperfectly. 

Have you seen this? I think it's Glennon Melton from Momastery:

Often I wonder why I don't give up on fitness. But somehow, I don't. I just keep getting back at it, running down my street again. I listen to music; I plan and plot my novels; I pretend I'm somewhere more fun (like at a party, not pounding the pavement).

Are you like me? Are you incredulous that that this fitness thing will NEVER stop?!

The need to move will go on as long as we breathe. Forever.

I reckon I might as well make it automatic. Decision-less. And have a laugh at the same time with people I like, if I can.

Cousins

Last month, I turned 50. Today, my cousin does. I remember her as blonde and beautiful, a singing, dancing dynamo always in motion.

She was pretty and pretty much perfect – in my eyes. She was the little girl I wanted to be. Tiny. Blonde. Adorable. Beloved.

We shared an imaginary world in our Grandparents’ basement, where, on weekends, we performed operas, opened a flower shop, snuck into the unlocked Catholic church next door and examined the items in the vestry.

Later, we talked about boys, had sleepovers, dreamed little girl dreams.

We wore the same pink foam curlers in our hair at night.

Growing up and apart, like branches on a tree, is a sad thing. We flourish, but what we leave behind sometimes feels like a tragedy.

Our childhood selves. The smell of a summer morning. A sleepover where you barely sleep, then get up early to bake cookies in the morning. Secrets. Cousins. Connectedness.

A gorgeous Italian woman I know was also born in 1966. She and her cousins call themselves the ‘66 Babies. That’s how I’ve been thinking of myself, and of my sweet cousin ever since.

66 Babies: yes, we grew apart in two different worlds, but we both did a good job with the growing.

Happy 50, Alana. You're starting on the most exciting half.

(Everybody: if you can, hug your cousin/s today. A virtual squeeze will do.)