Jeannie’s Life Lessons

Happy Friday!  It’s Max’s second guest blogger, his mama!  Some of you know me as Cora and some as Jeannie.  Why Jeannie, you ask?  Well, it originated when the kids were grade school-aged and I did something silly/shocking/annoying and one of them (I believe it to be Phoebe) said, “Cora Jean!” (emphasis on the Jean) in a very disgusted and “I’m so disappointed in you”  tone.  No, Jean is not my middle name, but the Jean morphed into Jeannie and it stuck.  *shrug.  I think it suits me.  I like being Jeannie.

A few weeks ago, Max blogged about what he’s learned from us as parents, and his takeaway from me was “Do things that make you happy!”  I was kind of taken aback by that, and so I’ve been thinking about what I want my kids to learn from me.

The overarching credo that I try to live by is the Golden Rule:  to treat others as I would like to be treated by them.  You can pretty much distill that down to “Be kind!”  I’m not sure why that didn’t pop into Max’s head as something I’ve taught him.  Am I really not as kind as I think I am?  Am I not modeling kind behavior?  Possibly not, as I can be a *bit judgy, but I believe my kids to be pretty kind people.  I think that it has been so ingrained in Max to be kind that he didn’t even think of it as a piece of advice, it’s just the way he is.  Or at least that’s what I like to think!  :)

I also like the advice to “Fake it until you feel it!”  I use this one in so many different circumstances.  One example would be in relationships (No!  Not that kind of faking, you sicko!).  I don’t think Matt would be offended by my using this as an example, as he’s the one who gave me this advice, and I’m sure that he uses it with me, too!  Having been together for 30+ years (except for those years when “we were on a break!”), there are ebbs and flows to our relationship.  Most of the time we’re so crazy in love it’s sickening, but there are times when just about everything about each other drives us crazy!  In those latter times, I’ve learned to let go of the things that are driving me crazy and to act as if I am crazy in love.  More often than not, my positive attitude changes my feelings pretty quickly and I actually am back to being crazy in love. *insert vomit emoji

I guess I do like the advice to “Do things that make you happy!”  Obviously, you can’t only do things that make you happy, but you can try to incorporate those things into your life as much as possible.  For example, I’ve been trying to exercise more.  I don’t really like to exercise at all, but there are a few things that I do like to do. I love to paddle board, but I don’t go that often because it’s a pain to load the boards on the car, etc. But I need to exercise and it’s been so hot this week, so I made the effort to go paddle boarding twice and it made me super happy even though I was doing it for the exercise!  Bam!  Doing things that make you happy creates a life that you love!

I also try to “Be happy with what I have and love what’s around me.”  I used to hate walking our dogs and I was super resentful that I got stuck doing it.  So I made an effort to look for things that were good about the walks.  I listened to audiobooks, podcasts, or music. I noticed interesting and beautiful things in our neighborhood.  Obviously, I was getting some of my needed but dreaded exercise.  Ten years later, I now love walking the dogs twice a day.  I hope that my gratitude for my life has rubbed off on my kids.  I hope that my kids experience and appreciate plenty of nights under pink skies that I taught them to enjoy!  Now go paddle board  and listen to some Zach Bryan this weekend!