I Just Have To Go THERE.

     Halloween.  How many blogs have been written in the past week on this topic?  Every year you see 100 different articles pop up on Facebook with every take imaginable on the "Holiday".  (I struggle to call it that).   I'll be honest...I read them.  It interests me and I'm intrigued by the different perspectives and a little amused by the "die hards".

     I remember trick or treating once or twice when I was little.  My parents were Christians and though they let us go a few times, as they grew in their faith they decided it was not something they chose to celebrate.  In addition...we lived in upstate NY and it's quite a challenge to put on a costume over a snow suit.  No joke. 

     Fast forward a while.  I can remember having an absolute BLAST dressing up as characters when I was in my 20's.  Let me tell you...I make a FABULOUS cowardly lion...an adorable Robin Hood...but no one could beat my friend Michelle and I as Wayne and Garth from "Wayne's World".  With my hair how could I not be great?   It was just fun dressing up and there wasn't anything "dark" associated with any of our outings. 

     Fast forward a little more.   Brian and I have 2 little girls and after lengthy discussions we decided a while back to forgo the trick or treating.  I debated this year.  School makes a huge deal over Halloween and lets face it....children LOVE to dress up...it just doesn't get much more fun than that.  Add some candy in there and you have some pretty happy kids to say the least.  My neighbor offered to take the girls with her and go to a very nice neighborhood that I was familiar with.  I battled within myself.  Halloween itself is certainly not a day I wish to celebrate... but I know full well that 95% of people just enjoy the costumes and candy, so what would it hurt to let my girls dress up and have fun collecting candy with other kids dressed up?   Halloween day Haylee borrowed a costume from the neighbor and went to school as Cleopatra...she was beautiful and had so much fun going to school in her flowy dress and beaded headband.   All day I thought about whether or not I should talk to Brian about allowing them to go trick or treating.  Suddenly there was just a check in my spirit that clearly said "no".   The debate was over. 

     I could write a few more paragraphs on why and why not, but I don't need to.  I clearly felt God tell me no and that is all that mattered.  I no longer cared what all the other Christians were doing or not doing.  I no longer questioned if I was keeping my girls from a fun experience with friends.  God told ME not to go.   Next year maybe we will feel differently, who knows.  What I do know is that when God prompts you to do or not do something it's best to listen and it doesn't make a hoot of a difference what instructions he gives or doesn't give anyone else. 

     Halloween night our family enjoyed a bonfire and we cooked hot dogs and roasted marshmallows for s'mores over the fire.  The girls ran around the yard in the dark with their big brother and had an absolute blast.  Both of the girls fell asleep in the arms of their parents wrapped in a blanket under the stars in the cool fall air.   I don't think they missed the candy, but I do believe we made a memory. 

Unwrapped Gifts

     Next week is my birthday and I got a wonderful gift this morning. A wonderful, but unwrapped gift.  Let me rewind just a little it to last night.

     I picked up my little girlies from school like I do on most days.  I needed a few groceries so I took them with me to Walmart where I was dangerously close to being "MAMA'D" to certain death.  We could surely retire and live a life of leisure if I got a dime for every "MAMA!!!" that entered my eardrum.  Anyway...from there it just turned into a whirlwind evening.  Nothing overly dramatic, just the non-stop end of the day events like dinner, homework, baths and bedtime, etc, etc. 

     At around 9:30 the girls were clean and happily entering into dreamland so I returned to the kitchen to finish cleaning up and begin making lunches for the next day.  Brian came in and asked me if I was almost done.  I had to snicker as I said, "not even close."  He sweetly asked if he could help.  273 things instantly popped into my head in regards to the preparations for the next day.  As nice as it was for him to ask to help it is honestly just easier for me to do it because I have the necessary "inside information".  (you moms know exactly what I mean by this)  Here is why.

     Brian is a wonderful dad as well as an attentive dad....but he just doesn't know what I know.  Making lunches is not just throwing a sandwich and some chips in a bag.  Nope.  Haylee loves a pepperoni sandwich....Kerrington does not.  You can ask Kerrington what she would like for lunch and she will tell you, but Haylee enjoys being surprised.  Both girls like a bagel with cream cheese for lunch, but with Kerrington's loose tooth I cut the bagel up into little pieces so she doesn't have to bite into it and hurt her tooth.  Both girls like yogurt, but Kerrington likes strawberry and Haylee likes key lime.  Kerrington likes both kinds, but Haylee prefers the "whipped" kind.  Both girls like carrots, but Haylee won't eat them without a little ranch dressing to dip them in....Kerrington doesn't like ranch dressing.  Kerrington like chocolate milk in her lunch occasionally...but she still wants water in her lunch too.  Haylee just wants water.  If a pouch of something goes into the lunch it needs to be opened and then closed so that they can get it opened in the lunch room without struggling.  Both girls get a snack for the afternoon, but Kerrington's needs to have her name written on it.   Also, they like to have a different snack everyday....not the same snack 2 days in a row.   Most importantly....both girls get a little love note from Mommy every day.  (one day of forgetting the note quickly made me realize that these mean more to them than I ever imagined...I had 2 girls close to tears telling me they couldn't find their note in their lunchbox.)  The note has to go in the little pocket in the front of their lunchbox otherwise the cold water will mess up the paper.  A little sticker goes on the note....and they enjoy having that as a surprise too. 

     Have I created demanding little monsters?  I don't think so.  I've been packing their lunches since they were babies and I have learned along the way the things they like and the things they don't.  If a little attention to detail makes them enjoy their lunch more why wouldn't I do it? 

     You might be thinking I have gone off on some crazy tangent (which I'm fully capable of), but I assure you I have not.  The gift I got this morning was the gift of perspective and appreciation.  When you are a stay at home mom the right perspective and appreciation for the tasks set before you can change your day....heck....it can change your year.

     I'll be the first one to admit that I do not always appreciate being a stay at home mom.  I have a bad habit of looking at all the things I DON'T accomplish in the course of a day and tend to look at myself as a failure.  WHY oh WHY can't I keep up with the laundry???  I just did the dishes...how can the sink be full again????    This morning I realized that all the little things that I am able to accomplish in the day do matter.  Cutting a bagel into little pieces to accommodate a loose tooth seems really small....but it's not a small thing to a 5 year old  that opens her lunch and sees that mommy was looking out for her.  I'm able say "I love you" to my little girls in 30 different ways without saying a word.   

     I don't know exactly what God has for me in the future....but today as I sit here typing I'm sitting up straight with my shoulders back and my head held high.  Today I am enjoying a new perspective on what I do and I have a renewed appreciation for it.   Today I'm exceedingly thankful for how intimately I know my little girls.  I am extremely fortunate to spend the time with them that I do and knowing the little intricacies of their personalities is a gift that I will cherish.   

Happy Birthday to me. 

Calling It Like It Is

     I was listening to the radio the other day and was struck by the wording in one of the commercials.  It was talking about being "credit challenged".  It didn't talk about having "bad credit", but rather "credit challenged".  For years and years I had stellar credit.  I paid my bills on time, paid ahead on my mortgage when I could and reaped the benefits of those decisions on my credit report.  Conversely, when the economy took a turn and I lost my business it took a huge toll on our financial world and my steller credit was no more.  I have to say though, I was not "credit challenged"....straight up, I then had BAD credit.  I wasn't challenged.  We were forced to make heartwrenching choices that for credit purposes were BAD.  There are a lot of people that have BAD credit.  Some are just not responsible enough for credit and let things slide resulting in bad credit.  Some people lose jobs or have health issues that result in mountains of medical bills that unfortunately result in bad credit. 

The problem here is that we aren't calling things what they are because we are afraid to "offend" with a word.  Somehow we are assuming that to call someone's credit score "BAD" we are calling the person bad.  Bad credit doesn't automatically equal bad people. 

I know full well that not everything is black and white.  There isn't always a pretty definition that things neatly fit in, but why are we so paralyzed by fear of offending with truth?  The truth can hurt, sometimes the truth doesn't need to be spoken, but there are times that it does need to be spoken and that's when we need to mix truth with wisdom and courage and discernment.  It's a good mix. 

As Christians we are called to speak the truth.  Specifically we are told to speak the truth in LOVE.  We aren't to use truth to hurt, but to help.  It's our job and there is no room for fear in that.

Sitting here I am thinking about a few examples of truth that I will need to explain to my daughter soon.  To be honest, I'm not looking forward to it.  Speaking and teaching truth to a 7 year old in a world that rejects God's truths is not easy.  I'll be asking for a lot of wisdom and an extra serving of discernment, and of course, a dallop of courage. 

Let's not be afraid to call things what they are when it is truth.....let's do it in love. 

"Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.  Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.

Ephesians 4:14-15

Great Expectations

     For the past few weeks we have been in the midst of a kitchen addition.  Our modest living room has been transformed into a living room, dining room, homework room, kitchen, play room and of course, my favorite...a mud room.  Needless to say, even I am ready for a kitchen again and I'm actually looking forward to cooking in it.  This past week the cabinets arrived and were installed and the empty room is starting to look like a real kitchen.  Being spatially challenged, I hired a designer to help out with the kitchen layout to help ensure that we were using the additional space wisely.  She drew out several options for us to look over and we were very excited about the layout we selected. 

Once the cabinets were in I started to closely examine my new kitchen now that I could truly "feel" how the layout was going to be and I have to say that I was a bit taken aback at how small the kitchen was.  Here is the funny thing.  I KNEW the size of the addition.  I KNEW it wasn't a huge addition because we had limited space to add on (not to mention a limited budget).  I looked at the layout and approved of the layout and yet here I was getting frustrated that I was getting what I asked for. 

I have to admit that I spent the night and the next morning pretty frustrated at what I "could have had".  In retrospect, we could have changed some things around to have a little more room, but in all honesty, it is going to be a beautiful little kitchen that will be significantly better that what we had before and we DO have a lot more space where we need it the most. 

I got thinking about those funny things we call expectations.  In marriage we hear quite a bit about "unmet expectations", and I decided that I really don't like that term at all.   Having an expectation unmet somehow sounds like the burden is on someone else to fullfill some need that I drum up in my head.  I decided that a better term is "un-managed expectations".  We all have expectations of our relationships whether they are in marriage, our friendships or even our work relationships.  It's our responsibility to express those expectations, and it is most definitely our responsibility to manage our expectations and ensure that they are realistic. 

I wonder how many marriages have dissolved because of "un-managed expectations"?  How many marriages have ended because someone got exactly what they signed up for?  Isn't it funny that we ask for something and we get it, and somehow we still find ourselves wanting more?   

I'm looking at my new adorable little kitchen and I have to say that I have deliberately "managed" my expectations and I love it.  Now that I'm done whining over what it isn't I can enjoy all the things it is.  I live in a small house and it's not a gourmet kitchen and I can't expect it to be something that it can't be.  The same goes for people.  What if we just love them where they are for what they are and for who they are?  This is an expectation that truly has the potential to be great. 

Father Knows Best

 We all know probably all to well how a little passing of time and/or a little reflection can completely change our perspective of something.   I've questioned God on several occasions perplexed by His plan, especially when it was so vastly different from my own.  Though there are still some things I wonder about,  most of the time once the dust settles I can see clearly why God told me no, or not now.

For years I ran a little appraisal company.  I was blessed with a successful business for several years.  Most of the time that I had my business I was single and was able to devote most (sometimes all) of my energy to it.  The mortgage industry is often "feast or famine", so you learn to work hard when the work is there.  In 2008 the market slowed down significantly, and so did my work.  Many of my faithful clients had to find other work because they weren't getting any business either.  My little girls were born in 2007 and 2009, so the dwindling work was alright since it would have required a lot of juggling.  

For some unknown reason, running an appraisal business wasn't that hard.  It required a great deal from me, but I knew what needed to be done and I did it.  To be honest, running that business was CAKE compared to taking care of two little girls, attempting to keep a house clean, doing laundry, grocery shopping, making meals, feeding cats, making Dr. appointments, dropping off, picking up, and the other 500 things that creep up in the course of a week. 

This morning I had a whole new appreciation for my failed business.  I could feel myself getting frustrated that it was taking 25 minutes for my girls to take 3 morsels of breakfast.  All I could think of is that getting my girls together and out the door for school was going to be the hardest part of my day (hopefully).  I didn't have to rush out with them to a job and come back home exhausted only to resume the daily requirements of running a house and caring for children. 

God knew that I could not run a business and be the mom I need to be.  God knew that if I had too much on my plate I would struggle to prioritize and the wrong things would suffer.  God knew that if the decision was left to me I would TRY to do it all...so He took the option off the table for me.  God also gave me a hard working husband who encourages me to stay home and is willing to go without things in order for that to be our reality.  

I still struggle to keep up with things in spite of being home, but I am working at it every day and eagerly await the day when it will all come together!  (if there is no such day please don't burst my bubble)

This is in no way intended to shine any form of negativity on working moms.  ALL moms are amazing regardless of whether they work inside or outside of the home.  My point is simply that God knows us so intimately that he knows our limitations better than we do.  He knows when to push us past what we think we can do, and He knows when to have us rest in what is before us. 

Right now I rest in what is before me.  (Which is a mountain of laundry...so it's a good time to sign off.)

I pray this brings a nugget of encouragement to someone who may need it. 

If you're teaching and you know it clap your hands

We have a little house that is set back quite a way from the road.  In front of us is another house and we share a small portion of the driveway.  On most days (don't judge) I get the mail when I'm returning from an errand or something.  On some days I'll grab myself a handful of trail mix and trek down the driveway on foot, but admittedly that is not the norm. 

In the house in front of us there lives an elderly lady that has some dementia and she lives there with her daughter.  Nine times out of ten when she sees my van stop at the mailbox she bolts out of house and waves me down.  I stop and chat with her and she asks me the same questions day after day without fail.  Most days I happily chat with her and she truly is a very sweet lady.  There was a day not too long ago, however, that I just wasn't in the mood for the questions and I was tired and just wanted to get home.  When I got in the van I mumbled something like "oh boy, here we go."  Of course I stopped and chatted with her and then was on my way.  The exchange took all of 30 seconds. 

The next day I stopped to get the mail she started to come out, only this time it was Haylee that was mumbling "oh boy, here we go again."  You should have heard me back-peddling....or at least attempting to.  We stopped and chatted with her and I then had to have a little chat with Haylee to explain to her that my response was not very kind and was not an appropriate response. 

A few days ago when she greeted me on the way OUT of my driveway she asked me if I could pick her up a few coloring books from the dollar store.  She really enjoys coloring.  I told her that I would if I had time, but that I had a very busy day.  It was true...I had a lot of things to get done in a short amount of time and if you know me at all you know I don't handle that stress all that well!!  (understatement alert) 

I immediately felt a gentle nudge from God.  I knew without a doubt that I needed to find 5 minutes to pick her up a few coloring books.  I had Haylee with me, so I said, "Haylee, I think we should stop at the dollar store first.  Will you help me pick out some books for her?"  She was very excited.  A few minutes later she said to me "Mama, it's very nice of you to get some coloring books for her."  She humbled me.  We had a beautiful little chat about how simple acts of kindness can make a person's day very happy.  I was so thankful that I didn't miss this amazing moment to teach Haylee a little bit about kindness. 

I learned a few rather important things through this little scenerio.  The glaring lesson of course is that like it or not I am teaching all the time.  Good moments and bad....they are watching and learning. 

The other think that smacked me in the backside was that I need to be kind even when I'm not in the mood.  I call myself a Christian and I need to do my best to represent what it is I claim to believe.  I have an elderly mother who depends on others for her care.  Would I want people caring for her that were annoyed at having to do so?  Of course not.  I learned my lesson. 

I know that I have written about a similar topic not too long ago.....but if I'm being reminded of it again so soon, perhaps someone else could use a refresher too.  There are so many times that I am teaching and I don't know it.  I do know this for a fact, however.....if I'm teaching it....I'd better live it too. 

Let your YES be YES. (and sometimes let your NO be YES)

This blog may be a bit challenging to write.  I want to be careful to be loving and respectful of someone I love very much.  Please keep this in mind.

I had a very peaceful, uneventful childhood for the most part.  I had parents who loved each other and loved all of their children very much.  I do recall several instances though that at the time were very disappointing for a child.  When I was young I really thought my mother's favorite word was "No."  Then after a while I decided that her favorite words were "It's not necessary."   My sister and I joke about it quite often since she heard the phrase more times that she could count as well.  Again, I must say that I am not trying to speak negatively of my mother, who I know fully in my heart loved me very much.  As an adult now I am able to see much more clearly what she must have been going through.  She had 6 children.  3 teenagers, (pause 9 years), then a 3 year old, a 1 year old and then a newborn.  She had her hands full.  She was tired.  Every parent is different and we all make mistakes or look back on things we would do differently if we could.   Anyway...the bottom line is that it was my perception, be it right or wrong, that I was often told "no."   Also....I detest the phrase "it's not necessary." 

On the other end of the spectrum, I have an amazing friend, Michelle, who has been my very closest friend for over 20 years.  I love her, admire her and respect her more than words can express.  She is a very gifted therapeutic preschool teacher.  Over the years we have had countless conversations about our childhoods, in the past 7 years we have had countless conversations about her classroom and the challenges that she faces, and the challenges I have faced with getting the hang of this whole parenting thing.  Michelle has taught me SO many things over the years and she has definitely helped me to be a better mother.  One thing that she has taught me that I recall often is the way she describes how she interacts with her students.  She said that she does her best to say "yes" as often as she can.  She used examples of how to avoid using the word "no" by offering other suggestions.  As an example, if her student wants to play in the mud, but that isn't allowed, then she will offer other similar fun activities such as "well, how about we play in the sandbox and make a tower?"  Here are some of her words that have been been branded into my brain.  During a conversation one day she said, "when a child asks me if they can do something I ask myself, 'what will it hurt?'."  "If it's something that won't hurt anything, then I try to say yes."

I honestly do try to remember that concept...isn't it great?  It truly is great, but it isn't always easy to put into practice.  Someday I really am going to count how many questions and requests I get in a day.  I believe the tally would be staggering. 

In further honesty, sometimes I just don't have the energy to say yes.  There you have it.  There are times I say no because I just don't feel like it.  We have all been there, and sometimes the answer HAS to be no because though THEY can run 24-7, WE can not.

Last night at around 9:30 (please no lectures about late bedtime) Kerrington came upstairs with her arms chuck full of books for me to read her right as I was about to crawl into my favorite spot on my bed and watch my favorite guilty pleasure on TV. (Bachelorette, or course)  There it was.  Right then and there I had a choice to make.  I could have easily sent her back downstairs for bedtime.  Michelle's words popped into my brain..."what will it hurt?"  I paused my show and she crawled up into my bed and we read the stack of books not once, but twice.  Guess what?  It didn't hurt.  It didn't hurt at all.  Sitting here typing this I have a little smile on my face remembering her little face as she listened to me read.  Reading to Kerrington at that moment WAS absolutely necessary. 

I so wish I got more of those moments right.  Regretfully I have missed many, but thankfully there are millions more of those moments to come and I'm going to do my very best to embrace all of them that I can. 

It not wrong to tell your child no.  Sometimes it is "necessary" to say no...but sometimes it's so very necessary to say "Yes."