Think the best.

It’s Wednesday night. Tomorrow I’m heading to Pittsburgh for a few days and then on to Philly for a surprise birthday party. I’ve had a little bit of a rough week at work. I ran several errands after work today. I just polished off a size large Chik-fil-A dinner. I’m basically beached on the couch. I had no intention of blogging tonight. I have to go to the gym. I have to pack for my trip. I need to charge my iPod, check my work emails, fold a load of laundry and throw away everything in my fridge that will be smelly when I get back.

In my laziness I flipped on a DVR’d episode of Tia & Tamara while I was recovering consciousness from my #3 (spicy chicken, for those of you who don’t know). Generally I don’t find great meaning in anything on the Style network, though I have been known to cry over episodes of Giuliana & Bill. So maybe I do find great meaning through reality TV…but regardless. Somewhere between Tia teaching her baby the sign language gesture for milk and Tamara preparing for a speaking engagement, the ladies spit out one of the biggest truths that I hadn’t yet realized in my life.

“Think the best of each other.”

Whenever there is a disagreement or a quarrel or an annoyance or a moment of inconsideration, think the best of each other. Believe that we are people with huge, good hearts and that we’re not here to maliciously hurt each other’s feelings. Believe that our best intentions are always our first intentions and that what appears to be hurtful is more than likely just a misunderstanding of intent.

Gosh, this happens to me all the time with M and with my family and my friends. Whenever someone really close to me does something to annoy me or hurt my feelings, I automatically think it must be on purpose. I think, “This is a person in my life who loves me, and they must know that I would be aggravated by this, so they must be doing it on purpose.” I immediately go to anger and tears and shut down mode. And if you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I am not someone who is quick to forgive.

But what I don’t do is think about the person who as hurt me. I don’t think about what they might have meant or what their intentions were. I need to believe the best in these people because these are the best people I have in my life. I need to think that no one is out to hurt my intentionally and the language of their heart is always love first…even if that doesn’t always translate to the words that come out of their mouths. I need to be a little bit more flexible, a little more forgiving, a little more easy going. Because I need their love, and I need them in my life as close members of my inner circle.

And I hope that they’ll extend me the same courtesy. I want them to know that my first language is always love, and if they can think the best of me, I’ll work really hard to think before I speak. There are too many horrible things to believe in this world that we must believe the best in those that are closest to us.

So that’s what I’m thinking about tonight. Loving. Caring. Believing. And allowing myself to be blessed by everyone who’s in my life.

To thinking the best,

Lia

Running and praying.

Last night I got myself up on the treadmill to the sad realization that summer television is really awful. I had already watched three episodes of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” which is currently my cable obsession. And unfortunately A&E wasn’t airing “Storage Wars,” which has somehow become my treadmill go-to. I hadn’t uploaded new music or created a new playlist, so I turned to my only option left…audiobooks. Ya’ll know I love audiobooks, but they’re mostly reserved for long car rides alone. Something to keep my attention more closely than the radio or silence. But I’ve been feeling cranky and unusual, so I thought a good dose of my girl Shauna could help.

Now, I understand that most people don’t turn to Christian self-help while on the treadmill. Most of you listen to something slightly more upbeat or mindless while watching the digital timer tick down the minutes on the display, but when you’re at the bottom, nowhere to go but up, right?

So I turned on Shauna’s second book, “Bittersweet,” and by the second essay, I was getting exactly what I needed. I’m going to share some of my favorite moments from this excerpt with you because it is so powerfully true about this season in my life and a welcome reminder about how God gets us through the bitter and the sweet.

“Bittersweet is the practice of believing that we really do need both the bitter and the sweet, and that a life of nothing but sweetness rots both your teeth and your soul. Bitter is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through, what helps us earn the lines on our faces and the callouses on our hands. Sweet is nice enough, but bittersweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity. Bittersweet is courageous, gutsy, earthy.”

“This is what I’ve come to believe about change: it’s good, in the way that childbirth is good, and heartbreak is good, and failure is good. By that I mean that it’s incredibly painful, exponentially more so if you fight it, and also that it has the potential to open you up, to open life up, to deliver you right into the palm of God’s hand, which is where you wanted to be all along, except that you were too busy pushing and pulling your life into exactly what you thought it should be.”

“I believe that faith is less like following a GPS through a precise grid of city blocks, and more like being out at sea: a tricky journey, nonlinear and winding, the wind kicking up and then stalling. But what I really wanted in the middle of it all was some dry land and a computer-woman’s soothing voice leading me through the mess. If I’m honest, I prayed the way you order breakfast from a short-order cook: this is what I want. Period. Aren’t you getting this? I didn’t pray for God’s will to be done in my life, or, at any rate, I didn’t mean it. I prayed to be rescued, not redeemed. I prayed for it to get easier, not that I would be shaped in significant ways. I prayed for the waiting to be over, instead of trying to learn something about patience or anything else for that matter.”

So there, as a sweaty mess breathlessly pounding the rubber, I began to think about grace. So many times I’ve listed my grievances out for God one by one, making sure He knew how displeased I was with the present course. I told Him I was tired of waiting for the next job, the next city, the next season, the next happiness. I asked Him how he could leave me here without my family, without my closest friends, without M. I’ve blamed Him for my situation and asking Him what the heck he was waiting for to deliver me to something better than this. But not once have I asked him to shape me in ways that will change my life. I haven’t asked for grace or redemption or patience or forgiveness. And if I have, I certainly haven’t opened my life in acceptance to any of it.

And that’s not only true in my relationship with God. I’ve done a lot of blaming and hating and judging and begrudging at work and at home and in my best relationships. I’ve let my bitterness for this season seep into every aspect of my life instead of allowing the changes to work within me and around me. In another part of Shauna’s book she writes, “If you dig in and fight the changes, they will smash you to bits. They’ll hold you under, drag you across the rough sand, scare and confuse you. But if you can find it within yourself, in the wildest of seasons, just for a moment, to trust in the goodness of God, who made it all and holds it all together, you’ll find yourself drawn along to a whole new place, and there’s truly nothing sweeter.”

So tonight, even though it’s late, I’m getting back on the treadmill. I’m trying to be mindful and thoughtful and gracious and calm. And letting God’s will be done.

To loving the bitter and the sweet,

Lia

Tradition.

Summer, and particularly summer vacations, has me thinking about tradition. At work, everyone is talking about their traditional summer vacation. Whether it’s a week in the Outer Banks or a trip to Colorado or a mini-staycation, everyone seems to have their ritual that marks a halfway point in the year. We spend the first half of the year looking forward to summer vacation and the last half of the year looking forward to the holidays. My family always vacationed in August, so it didn’t seem fair that I had to wait eight long months for the first real break of the year, but at least it made the second half go more quickly.

But now that I’m out of the nest, family vacations have kind of fizzled out. I can’t recall a single year when my family didn’t spend a week together on Long Beach Island. And not just my immediate family, but also my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It was an unspoken expectation that you figured out a way to arrange for vacation time or a dog sitter or a housekeeper to take care of life at home that first week in August, and everyone focused completely on getting the perfect spot on the beach or waking up early to get the best ears of corn or racing on bikes down to the island lighthouse. (Except I never did that since I don’t know how to ride a bike. Vacations aren’t for exercise anyway.)

But these past few years have been different. Many of us are new to the workforce, so we don’t have as much flexibility on vacation time. Many of us are in relationships, so we’re spending holidays and vacations with other families or starting to create our own traditions. Plus, we had a tragedy in our family about a year ago, so going back to the same old routine feels somewhat impossible.

But aside from all of this, my family has some great traditions that I think will live on forever. I’m going to share a list of my favorites:

1.       Christmas Eve—For the past several years, we’ve spent our Christmas Eve just as a family of four. For the past two years, M has joined us as well, but I’m not sure what he thinks about the whole ordeal. We spend our first church service at a rehabilitation center with folks who can’t leave the hospital for the holiday. We have a short service filled with scripture and then take several laps around the floors caroling. Then we go to our regular church for a candlelight service and rush home after to eat a fishy Italian Christmas dinner. Afterwards, we put on our Christmas pjs and my mom reads her favorite Christmas book to us. She usually only makes it about halfway through the book before she’s crying and someone else needs to take over.

2.       Sunday Dinner—I think this might be an Italian tradition, but growing up we always had pasta for dinner on Sunday. Sometimes it would be a fancy pasta dish with intricate sauces and vegetable combinations, but frequently it was good old spaghetti with homemade marinara sauce and meatballs. It’s still my favorite meal when I go home for the weekends.

3.       Family Gift Exchange—For as long as I can remember, we’ve celebrated Christmas as an extended family a few days before New Years. We all gather at my aunt’s house in Bucks County and the “kids” sit on the floor in designated spots while our parents dole out the gifts. We open the presents all at once and then all get up to do a group thank you at the end. Then our parents sit on the couch and the kids hand out their presents. They open one at a time while the girls watch and the boys go downstairs to play whatever video game one of them received.

4.       Happy Hour—Okay, so happy hour might not seem like a tradition, but you’ve never seen an appetizer display like what goes down with my family. Whenever we’re all together, happy hour is the highlight of the evening. We have drinks and cocktails and if we’re at the beach, usually a frozen drink in a bucket straight from the freezer. There are buffalo wings and taco dip and Philly soft pretzels. There’s baked brie and veggies with dip and chips with salsa. The spread usually covers the entire kitchen table, and most of the time we’re full from hors devours before the meal is even served.

5.       Mother’s Day—My  mom is awesome, and we love to honor her on Mother’s Day, but she’s also a big believer in giving back. She’s a special ed teacher, which should tell you enough about her kind heart, but she’s also a Special Olympics swim coach and a volunteer and a Sunday School teacher at our church. So on Mother’s Day, it’s natural that she would want to do something for others while honoring the women in our family. So we’re lucky that in Pittsburgh The Race For The Cure is always on Mother’s Day. Many women in our family have been stricken with breast cancer, so doing a 5k with their names on our back seems like the perfect way to honor and celebrate the mother’s in our lives. We’ve done it in sunshine and in rain, with a big group or just the two of us (the year our car broke down in the parking garage before the race). I’m really proud of this tradition, and I hope I can continue it with my own family one day.

So those are the traditions I’m thinking about these days. Full of gratitude and love for the special people I share these moments with, and looking forward to building more traditions with my own family one day.

Happy Tuesday!

To family memories,

Lia

Annapolis.

What a wonderful weekend. It’s Sunday night, and I’m relaxing with some freshly sliced cantaloupe, watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians and casually reading a few paragraphs from Elin Hilderbrand’s new book on the commercial breaks. The kitchen is fairly clean and I have the Beach Wood Yankee Candle burning on the coffee table.

I think this is the happiest weekend that I’ve had in awhile. And I don’t think that’s because this weekend was exceptionally marvelous, but rather I think I’ve been a little down in the dumps recently. I’ve been mean and cranky and anxious and critical and really just not much fun. But M and I laid our cards out on the table this week, and I think being honest about our feelings and our situation really helped me to find some perspective. It felt easier to be happy and pleasant and fun this weekend, for which I am very, very grateful.

So what did we do? I cooked us dinner on Friday night after M arrived in DC, and we opened a fantastic bottle of red that M bought me for my birthday. We also used the fancy aerator he bought me, and our dinner on my small wood table felt much more spectacular with pretty decanter on the table. We then watched “The Blind Side” in bed, and I was shocked to find out that M had never seen it before! I didn’t think there was a sports movie that he hadn’t seen. I just love Sandra Bullock in that movie. In my next life, I will have a Southern accent.

Saturday morning we woke up early, ate our favorite bagels and drove about 50 minutes east to Annapolis. We checked into a bayside hotel and set out to explore the town. We saw the best things, from an olive oil and vinegar taproom to the Navy Museum at the Naval Academy to spicy eggrolls at a local bar. Then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for our sailboat ride. I had never been on a real sailboat with a crew manning the sails, and it was so much fun to be out on the water in the late afternoon with a cold beer.

After sailing, we took a water taxi over to The Chart House for a seafood dinner and some very yummy cocktails. Delicious. We were back in the hotel by eleven, and because I’m so lame we just ended up watching TV and finishing our bottle of champagne in the room, but it was lots of fun anyway.

Today we did some outlet shopping on our way out (where M bought three pairs of shoes!) and drove back to my apartment. We relaxed and ate hamburgers and ice cream for dinner before he had to head back to Pittsburgh. I’m so sad that he’s gone, but I’m so glad we had such a positive weekend together, and I can’t wait to see him again on Friday.

This week should be pretty slow again at work, and I don’t have too many other plans. I’m aiming to get back on track with cooking and going to the gym and getting to sleep early.

I hope all of you are finding a way to stay out of this insane heat (106???) and we’ll talk soon!

To happy weekends,

Lia

One year.

So last week I had really good intentions of putting together a “one year anniversary” post for my blog, but somehow June 28^th slipped by and I’m not even sure what I was doing that prevented me from posting. I was a little ill at the end of next week and still have the remnants of a scratchy voice after fully losing it on Sunday and Monday.

But in a lot of ways, it’s hard to believe that The Un-Eternal Optimist has been around for a whole year. When I first set out to create this blog, it was intended to be an outlet for a new way of looking at life. I was looking for more perspective, more thoughtfulness and more diligence about recognizing and enjoying the simple happy moments in every day. And I think the blog has done just that. Not to say that I’m not still a Debby Downer or that I don’t have bad days…in fact, I probably have just as many bad days as I did before, but I’m not confident in acknowledging the good and understanding how to learn from the bad.

So, anyway, back to real life. This past weekend I was in Philadelphia for my cousin’s engagement party. And this was an incredible engagement party. Almost more like a wedding. There was a DJ, and a caterer, and flower arrangements, and servers walking around with fancy little plates of taquitos and spiked lemonade. There was dancing and laughing and a really sweet moment when my cousin asked our other cousin and I to be her maid’s of honor. We are so excited!

This week has been a little strange with a day off mid-week for the 4^th of July. Normally, I would have pulled together a festive outfit with a nautical inspired striped shirt and matching navy boat shoes, but this holiday, I was just looking for a break. Plus, I had no plans, and it’s a little strange to be trolling the aisles of Wegmans in a full American get-up alone. I did, however, indulge in one of the great American pastimes—discount shopping—at Marshall’s, which made me feel slightly more patriotic. After that, I went for a quick run at the gym and came home to watch a movie with a friend who’s far away and tucked into bed early.

So even though today felt a little bit like a Monday at work, I’m so glad it’s Thursday. M is coming in town this weekend for a getaway in Annapolis, and I’m really looking forward to our little adventure. We’re going on a sailing trip and a fancy dinner, and I’ll have plenty to update you about next week. Maybe I’ll even take some pictures.

For tonight I’m planning to (hopefully) peel myself away from a Chopped marathon on Food Network and hit the gym for at least 30 minutes. Wish me luck!

To one year of attempted optimism,

Lia