SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

We had a small unnerving crisis last weekend. I say small, because I know that in the whole big scheme of life, the universe, and everything, our crisis matters not a teensy bit. But in my small pond, it was a big unnerving splash.

Joe's salary is base + bonus on the hours he makes. So his paycheck fluctuates. It's a very fair set-up, but sometimes we think we know what we're going to make in a pay period and... we're wrong.

So that happened. Friday.

Then Joe's iPhone broke. Friday night.

Then we discovered that our mortgage payment had gone up. By $200. In my financial world there is not $200 of wiggle room for the random upping of the mortgage payment. (No, just in case you're concerned, we're not on an ARM; they just recalculated our escrow and we have to bring our escrow balance up in time for tax payment.)

The good news of our weekend was that Joe's iPhone is still covered by warranty (29 days left) so they fixed it for free. Sigh of relief.

All weekend long my brain sounded like this ohmygodohmygodohmygodohDear God I'm sorry, I need to trust you, I know I do, I'm sorry, help me to trust You, it's just that ohmygodohmygod Okay I did it again, I'm sorry I'm really trying.... Ad infinitum.

Monday night, Joe's on his way home, and I'm scrounging around, depressed by the fact that my pantry and freezer are so close to empty and I have no grocery money. I'm feeling sorry for myself, and resentful, and all I can think of is all the people I know who seem to be making it just fine and what do they know that we don't know? and why is this so difficult for us? and aren't we working as hard as we can? and what else can we do? and it just isn't fair. And other purposeless phrases. I find a package of sausage and throw it in the sink to thaw, figuring that pancakes and eggs (one of my favorite meals anytime, anywhere) and sausage will be just the thing.

Joe gets home and we give each other that looks that says ohmygodohmygodohmygod - yeah I know, me too - ohmygodohmygod as he is engulfed by children. Happy children. Happy children who do not understand why they need to make this pack of Pull-ups last as long as possible.

We finally get dinner made and kids seated and plates served, and we're sitting around the table eating pancakes and Joe's explaining to the kids why we have to give them spankings when they are foolish, because we do not want them to grow up to be foolish people who are always unhappy and cannot serve God. Robbie, my little handsome not-yet-three-year-old, forks his last bite of pancake and waves it mid-air to emphasize his words: "I am being wise." He shoves the pancake in his mouth and nods. "Foolish vewwy bad."

And I look at him and my eyes get all watery and I think this is it.

A little while later, I am doing dishes and Joe has taken the kids outside so I have a little space in which to do dishes. I can see them all from the kitchen window. I'm standing at the sink, scrubbing plastic Lion King plates and wiping drops of syrup, and outside I see my handsome husband balancing three chattering children on the hammock with him. He looks up and gives me the "I Love You" sign.

And I look at him and my eyes get all watery and I think this is it.

This is it. This is what matters.

I pause my scrubbing for a minute to look up. Okay, God, I say. I'm sorry. I'm done. You're in charge. I'm not.

No more ohmygodohmygod but O God, how great is Thy goodness, which Thou has laid up for them that fear thee; which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee before the songs of men!

What matters in your life today?

05 April - 5pm - Walking through our little trail and then I cut up to High Woods Avenue or whatever it's called. Everything is budding out, and I am having a love affair with moss. I look for small perfect places. It is the bits and pieces of nature that intrigue me. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello, week in review.

We found the first open daffodils. We smelled them. We tried not to touch them.

Later we found lots more, so we picked a few and put them in a vase for Mommy. I love being Mommy.

Read the rest of this entry »

I'm not a crafty person, like, at all.

Once I tried to decorate cupcakes for our church's harvest party. They were chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing, and I had this yellow and orange decorator's gel, and I thought, "How hard can it be to draw a little leaf shape on the top of the cupcake?"
Pretty doowopping difficult, as it turns out, at least for me. The leaves looked like mutilated spider webs, so I just dumped a lot of decorator's sugar over the top and let it be. Sometimes you just need to know what you're not good at...

But then with kids you don't get to just avoid the things you're not good at. Instead, you get challenged and inspired and sometimes you just grit your teeth and make yourself do whatever it is needs to be done for their general welfare, well-being, and development into a semi-normal person. I'm still not sure that "crafty stuff" is necessary for development into a semi-normal person, but I am no authority on things normal. So. Wanting to give my children some chance at a "normal life" (whatever that is) and feeling Mom-guilt upon perusing blogs of people who, apparently, have crafty as their middle names, and (this is the real kicker, I can ignore the other two) seeing how Mara and Robbie light up whenever I pull out things pertaining to artsy endeavors or general craftiness...
I pulled out the pipe cleaners.
And the yarn.
And the scissors.
And the construction paper.
And the (sigh) glue sticks. I hate glue sticks. Glue sticks are supposed to prevent glue messes, but somehow that's never the result for us. Oh well. Fun is worth it!

And we had fun a nd were semi-crafty, at least as crafty as it gets around here.
I made yarn pictures of their names. Zeke didn't get one because he was napping. And because he would have eaten the yarn. And the pipe cleaners. And the glue sticks.
And helped Robbie draw a rocket ship, because last night Daddy told us about rocket ships and rocket science and astronauts and planets and outer space and, most importantly, the FIRE that comes out of the rocket when it takes off from earth...

And helped Mara make a picture of balloons: YARN balloons! Who knew there was such a thing? I did not until we started making them. Watch out, crafty Mamas, we're starting to get creative over here!

And then we made the fun chains of pipe cleaners and had rousing games of "make the pipe cleaners hisssss and squirm like snakes" and "wave the chains of pipe cleaners around while jumping and singing songs" before hanging them on the windows. Who needs curtains when you have pipe cleaners?

All this craftiness is wearing me out. I need to go bake something and then NOT decorate it.

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I linked this post to Se7en's Fabulous Friday Fun #10! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

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I ♥ Resolutions

Okay, I love New Year's. It's my favorite holiday. (I just realized that this year so I'm broadcasting it in hopes that the people I love will recognize and support me in my favoritism by buying me gifts for New Year's, too. I mean, it's the least they could do, really.)

I love making resolutions. I come up with a long list every year. Some years I decide not to go overboard, and I limit myself to something reasonable: 10 or, okay, 11 if I just can't help it.

And yeah, I don't keep them all. At all. Hardly ever. I goof, I fail, I mess up, I quit, I weaken, I have no willpower.

Except for this year. This is the year.
Right?

Making Progress? Really? (Or Is That Heartburn?)

I've noticed a disturbing trend, lately, despite my habitual resolution making and breaking: I'm actually making progress. I guess the endless repetition is finally getting to me. My resolutions are generally far bigger than can be accomplished in one year, anyway. (For example, #11 from 2005, "Prove global warming is a myth" and #6 from 2007, "If not a myth, figure out how to solve global warming." That just takes some time, I don't care who you are.)

I'm making progress. Don't ask me how, exactly. I still do a lot of the same stupid stuff in the same stupid way (i.e., get mad at Joe for not reading my mind, expect my kids to get along with each other, stay up too late, eat too much, forget to work out, forget to call, forget to write, forget my name, find myself on the Amtrak headed to Toronto in early spring... oh wait, sorry, I just lapsed into a Mommy-escape fantasy there. Back to what I was saying.)

I still do the same stupid stuff, but I don't do it quite as often. I still do the same stupid stuff, but I get over it quicker. And I'm happier. And maybe this has nothing to do with New Year's and making resolutions at all. Maybe this is just me and where I am in life, and I just happen to be reflecting on it all as 2009 goes out and 2010 comes in.

The last 5 years have been a rollercoaster. More ups than downs, and crazy fun, but intense.

A Recap

2004:
January - Joe and I start courting. (And yes, I said courting not dating and I'll go into that some other time but not here, goshdarnit, so just keep reading and don't get bogged down in those little details.)
May - Joe and I get engaged.
September - Joe and I get married. I move to St. Louis, since, being married and all, we kind of want to be together.
2005:
Jan - September - We adjust to married life, we work together in the family business, we have fun, I miss my family a lot, I want to have a baby, I start worrying that I can't get pregnant (no birth control! Hello!), I start writing more.
October - We're pregnant!
December - We buy a house and move in!
2006:
Jan - June - Pregnancy and home ownership.
July - Mara is born on July 11. We have a wonderful home birth. She is beautiful. She is an easy baby.
2007:
Feb - We decide that Mara is so easy, we should have another. We're pregnant!
May - I spend the entire month in MS to be with my Mom, who is not going to get better. It is the strangest experience I have ever had. Our emotions are as strung out as possible. I miss my husband.
June - My mom dies. I go back home. I am numb.
November - Robbie is born. Our son. I start getting unnumb.
December - We spend Christmas in Colorado. I think I was supposed to be born there, and live there, and we start plotting how we will move there.

2008:
April - My Dad gets married and my sister gets married, within a week of each other.
August - We haven't figured out what causes this. We're pregnant! My dad says, "You've got to be kidding me!" I alternate between "YAY" and fits of "ohmygoodness-howcouldyoudothistome-whydidwethinkthiswasagoodidea-wearegoingtobeinsane-weareinsane-ican'tdothis-aaaaaaaaaah."
2009:
April - Zeke is born. I think, "Third birth at home, nooo problem. It'll be easy." Haha, Andrea, haha. But he is beautiful, our little Ezekiel.
May - July - Our house, when did it start shrinking?
August - From out of nowhere  comes a new place to live. We move into "the parsonage." It's big. It has a huge stone fireplace and a sunroom and is on the 10 acres of church property, woods and fields and flowers and deer. I am in heaven. We rent out our house.

End Recap.

And here we are.
2010.
I think this is what I'm defining as progress, this feeling that I finally know who I am and am comfortable in that.

But don't think for a minute I'll stop making resolutions.  I've gotten way too good at it to quit.

Image courtesy of Sara. Nel.

Silly Me

It's kind of funny. It's actually January 2 as I write this post intended to grace the front page on January 1st. I was trying to get in on that whole new-year-resolutions craze. Silly. Silly because I'm at my sister's house.

We spent the morning drinking coffee and trying to recover from lack of sleep while keeping our kids in a semi-clothed, fed, and healthy state. We watched the Rose Bowl Parade. We plowed through leftovers for lunch, talked, and tried to pry our male counterparts away from their iphones and laptops. We weren't successful until after dinner, at which point we had to all pitch in and take care of getting kids ready for bed. Then we all sat around and played Quelf, Bananagrams, and Gin Rummy until about 5 minutes to midnight.

End Day 1 of my newly (un)resolved life.

All day long, as I could steal a few minutes here and there, I was working on a couple of posts to put up on Sister Wisdom today. But all day long, too much other great stuff was happening.

So I don't have any really great inspirational ideas to share, no ten-steps to success or a helpful list of any kind. Instead, here are a few "snapshots" from my day: Read the rest of this entry »

It's a movie day.

Mara and Robbie watched a Baby Einstein while they ate breakfast, and now they're almost through "Finding Nemo." And it's not even 11:00...

Didactic Disney

The Disney movies are almost all didactic; I don't like all the lessons they try to teach, but in the Nemo case I do. Dorie and Marlin are the example, the dichotomy through the movie. Marlin is anxious, nervous, stressed, fearful, paralyzed. Dorie is happy-go-lucky, adventurous, inquisitive, good-natured, joyful.

The Dichotomy

Marlin remembers every hurt, every pain, every fear realized.

Dorie forgets.

Marlin nurses his wounds, counts his scars, and resents.

Dorie accepts what comes her way, forgets the details, and sees life as an adventure.

Of course, the plot is set up so Marlin learns the lesson: Read the rest of this entry »

In my own words, here's what my sister shared with me from her pastor: pray once. Then hush and have faith. God heard you. He's not deaf.

What a concept. So may times we're busy bruising our knees to convince God of our need, and perhaps better would to be ask with faith and then to continue about our business...

'And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands as we commanded you; that ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing." {1 Thess 4:11,12}

What if I truly lived that way? The Bible says to pray without ceasing. Why do we think that means for the same thing, over and over and over again? Why don't we hush sometimes and give God time to work according to his plan and priorities?

Mara asks for water in her princess cup, or food, or help, or play-dough; I answer, "I'm getting it now, just a moment," or "Not now," or "Yes, in a few minutes." When she keeps asking I say, "No more asking. You already have my answer."

I need to apply this instruction to myself. What if, what if? What if we went about our business and took every new thing, moment, idea, hurt, need to God as we worked with our own hands? What if the ceaseless prayer wasn't repetition of what we're letting ourself worry about or wanting most, but was a continual lifting up, accepting, praising, thanking, listening?

What kind of wisdom does He pour out that we miss because we're too busy telling HIm why we need wisdom? How many problems solved if we quit nagging Him and just asked, once, then quietly and confidently went about our business, listening to and thanking Him as we did?

You may pray for an hour and still not pray. You may meet God for a moment and then be in touch with Him all day.  {Fredrik Wisloff}

Accustom yourself gradually to carry Prayer into all your daily occupation -- speak, act, work in peace, as if you were in prayer, as indeed you ought to be.  {François Fénelon}

There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God.  {Brother Lawrence}

Image courtesy of Rassing. Quotes from Tentmaker.org.

It's my 28th birthday today.

I am thankful for my life today,

for the opportunity I have each morning to be alive, to be whole, to be free, and to be with the people I love. Each day is rich and full.

The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. I live with dreams and ideas and a reality full of wonder. I still believe in God, in goodness, in love, in absolutes - not because I always want to, but because it makes sense. I still believe fairies live in my flower garden - not because it makes sense, but because I want to.

I am thankful for new starts,

for fresh starts, reset buttons, and time-outs for grown-ups. I am thankful for the ability to feel, even when that means feeling pain. I am thankful for the freedom to say no, to live simple, to create my own enjoyment in life, to ignore negative people and to focus on all things bright and beautiful.

I am thankful for long walks, long naps, long conversations, and all of them being constantly interrupted by my children, because that means that they are whole, safe, happy, and with me.

I love this crazy hectic rushing pausing living breathing dancing feeling falling seeing hearing loving being doing running resting thing we have, this life, these moments strung together, these fly-by days, these vanishing hours.

I love the promise of eternity,

the hope spreading before me, the future opening up for me, limitless in scope.

I choose to dwell in possibility. I choose joy. I claim every wonder as a personal gift to me from the Maker. I relish the taste of each day I am given, I look toward the sun, I accept the clouds and the rain, I believe in redemption.

Everywhere I look I see the possibility of joy.

This year I am letting fly, loosing the things less-than-best. This year I am ignoring details to focus on one important thing at a time. This year I give myself the gift of order and discipline, which comes with a free trial pack of guilt-free, worry-free time-off-for-rest-and-renewal.

This year I will cancel my subscription to Worry Magazine, decline the offers for 1/2 off on "Comparing Yourself to Others: the Series" and will spend the time I save on the better classics:

• Guilt-Free Living
• Time with Family
• Prayer
• Fulfilling Work

This year my word is joy.

This year I will give more time to books and less time to the Internet. I will memorize poetry and ignore the news. I will sing songs instead of whining. I will go on dates with my husband, teach my daughter her letters, and cuddle my swiftly growing sons.

I will play in the dirt, climb trees, forget my weight, give more gifts, and accept the gifts I am given with a heart of gratitude and a life of grace.

I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--

Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky--

Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise--

{Emily Dickinson}