Regardless of my feelings, I knew that it would come, and it has! For that we....
...REJOICE
...with wonder
...and great joy!
Merriest of Christmas wishes to you!
I'm Back
1 year ago
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Giddy with Christmas!
Regardless of my feelings, I knew that it would come, and it has! For that we....
Merriest of Christmas wishes to you!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Summer versus Fall
Last week our science lesson was on the seasons and for a science experiment, we decided to head out into the neighborhood and look for signs. Teetering on the line, Summer keeps taking one last deep breath. One day soon however, Autumn is bound to be exhaled.
Our Observations:
Signs that Summer is still here:
a butterfly fluttering between us
hot sweaty heads beneath bike helmets
peaches
skinned knees and elbows
wild blackberries
Signs that Fall is coming:
a few leaves beginning to turn red on the neighbor's sugar maple tree
trumpet geese returning
Apples (and the crabby apples)
the bountiful harvest from our garden
cooler mornings
Our Observations:
Signs that Summer is still here:
a butterfly fluttering between us
hot sweaty heads beneath bike helmets
peaches
skinned knees and elbows
wild blackberries
Signs that Fall is coming:
a few leaves beginning to turn red on the neighbor's sugar maple tree
trumpet geese returning
Apples (and the crabby apples)
the bountiful harvest from our garden
cooler mornings
Snippets of Summer Life
This evening while talking with my son as I put him to bed…
Nathan: Mommy remember that nice thing I did for Gabi
Me: Yes, you are a wonderful big brother
N: Well I’m not going to be able to remember it in another
week or maybe more because my brain is gonna be all filled up with school!
____ ____ ____
I turn around in the kitchen and ask my handsome husband who
just returned home sweaty from the gym to please stop drinking from the water
bottle he pulled from the fridge.
“Wow, why? That’s good,” he questions.
“Of course it is!! Its hummingbird food. You know, sugar and
water in solution…”
____ ____ ____
Riding in the car Gabi asks, “Do I have a sweet tooth?
Me: Yes, you have a very big sweet tooth sweetie.
G: Where is it?
Me: Why do you want to know?
G: I want to eat it!
____ ____ ____
Summer, you will be missed dearly. Fall, welcome! You promise more of this, more of us and life all open and raw and real.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Living and remembering
I have cried the ugly cry, more than once today. I waited to be alone to do it. I want my kids to learn about 9/11 but I don't want to be the one to teach it to them. I can't do it without sobbing. I want them to learn with me the names of the heroes of that day. I want to feel healed and not so raw when I think of it. Mostly though, I want there not to be loved ones of 2,977 people whose hearts are ripped right out of their chests every year on this day and on all the other days too.
At lunch today I let the kids eat dessert first, chocolate covered strawberries. My sweet husband, new I would need some sweets over this weekend and he made them for me, after the kids were in bed, so I wouldn't have to share. I did anyway. I can't eat quite a dozen all by myself! Since it is rare to even have dessert at any meal in this house the little lips were thrilled with the two chocolate covered juicy morsels placed before them, and they didn't even have to eat their broccoli first.
Perhaps comfort food isn't the correct answer for healing, but it is a way to cope. Along with convincing my kids to snuggle me more, which is getting harder in direct proportion with how big they are getting. I'm also coping this year is by writing, it has become my outlet these last few years and yet I haven't yet recorded the events of where I was on that fateful day ten years ago.
I was driving in our explorer, it was just after 7am PST, I had just dropped Adam off at work in Mission Valley and was off to drop the doggies at day care, it was to be a long day for both of us. Wondering why the radio was off in the first place, I turned up the volume while hitting a few presets because all I heard was chatter and I wanted some music. I heard something about the World Trade Center, I went back, I couldn't get a clear picture from what I was hearing. Something about a bombing at the WTC, hopefully, I thought they were talking about the previous bombing in 1993. I pulled over and called my Dad.
He was nearly speechless on the other end, I felt like I had to make him talk, "they're gone, they're... just gone." Was all he could say, I could picture him there watching the TV in our family room, but I could not yet imagine what he meant. I wanted to jump on a plane and be there with him, but that would have to wait. "All those people" was all I barely had the breath to whisper, "and the buildings" was his distant response.
I turned around and went back to work with the crazy dogs, I let my husband hug the strength back into my legs. I had to see it. The internet was bogged. Adam went to Costco with a friend and brought a TV back to the office.
I saw it. I still couldn't believe it. I saw it and saw it as we all did and I still couldn't fathom it. I knew people who worked in and around there and are still alive! ALIVE. But weeks later one told me she still hadn't smiled. The buildings are symbols of freedom, the media kept telling me, that's why they picked them to attack, to harm our economy. I couldn't understand, none of us can, even still.
I couldn't see them as just buildings. They were living and breathing, because of the lives that they sheltered and protected day after day. I saw them the way I saw all the other buildings that housed my friends, family, coworkers, school mates and strangers, the buildings were symbols of life. They were a product of human invention and housed the frailness of this human condition, that can come to an end so tragically.
Healing, I've now realized, doesn't mean the pain is gone or even that the tears stop falling, it means living and finding a redemptive kind of hope from what I see in others. People sharing the stories of heroes in planes and buildings and families. In how they keep going on despite the loss, devastation and grief.
Ten years, for such a defining moment in a lifetime is but a blink. Years before, I would get angry at San Diego and Boise news media for not showing enough of the 9/11 coverage. I almost wanted to relive it, each year for fear that the pain would fade into memory. It will not. I will always, clearly remember the sleepless nights, the weeks of silence and tears. The signs in grand central station, even two months later. The candles and pictures on the firehouse, the people. They will always be in my heart.
An inspiring family from my home town shares their story. I can't watch all the stories, this year I just watched this one. I will cry with them and live and play with my family. I will remember, while creating new memories. Maybe before dinner, we'll have dessert first too, because we are alive and grateful to be so.
At lunch today I let the kids eat dessert first, chocolate covered strawberries. My sweet husband, new I would need some sweets over this weekend and he made them for me, after the kids were in bed, so I wouldn't have to share. I did anyway. I can't eat quite a dozen all by myself! Since it is rare to even have dessert at any meal in this house the little lips were thrilled with the two chocolate covered juicy morsels placed before them, and they didn't even have to eat their broccoli first.
Perhaps comfort food isn't the correct answer for healing, but it is a way to cope. Along with convincing my kids to snuggle me more, which is getting harder in direct proportion with how big they are getting. I'm also coping this year is by writing, it has become my outlet these last few years and yet I haven't yet recorded the events of where I was on that fateful day ten years ago.
I was driving in our explorer, it was just after 7am PST, I had just dropped Adam off at work in Mission Valley and was off to drop the doggies at day care, it was to be a long day for both of us. Wondering why the radio was off in the first place, I turned up the volume while hitting a few presets because all I heard was chatter and I wanted some music. I heard something about the World Trade Center, I went back, I couldn't get a clear picture from what I was hearing. Something about a bombing at the WTC, hopefully, I thought they were talking about the previous bombing in 1993. I pulled over and called my Dad.
He was nearly speechless on the other end, I felt like I had to make him talk, "they're gone, they're... just gone." Was all he could say, I could picture him there watching the TV in our family room, but I could not yet imagine what he meant. I wanted to jump on a plane and be there with him, but that would have to wait. "All those people" was all I barely had the breath to whisper, "and the buildings" was his distant response.
I turned around and went back to work with the crazy dogs, I let my husband hug the strength back into my legs. I had to see it. The internet was bogged. Adam went to Costco with a friend and brought a TV back to the office.
I saw it. I still couldn't believe it. I saw it and saw it as we all did and I still couldn't fathom it. I knew people who worked in and around there and are still alive! ALIVE. But weeks later one told me she still hadn't smiled. The buildings are symbols of freedom, the media kept telling me, that's why they picked them to attack, to harm our economy. I couldn't understand, none of us can, even still.
I couldn't see them as just buildings. They were living and breathing, because of the lives that they sheltered and protected day after day. I saw them the way I saw all the other buildings that housed my friends, family, coworkers, school mates and strangers, the buildings were symbols of life. They were a product of human invention and housed the frailness of this human condition, that can come to an end so tragically.
Healing, I've now realized, doesn't mean the pain is gone or even that the tears stop falling, it means living and finding a redemptive kind of hope from what I see in others. People sharing the stories of heroes in planes and buildings and families. In how they keep going on despite the loss, devastation and grief.
Ten years, for such a defining moment in a lifetime is but a blink. Years before, I would get angry at San Diego and Boise news media for not showing enough of the 9/11 coverage. I almost wanted to relive it, each year for fear that the pain would fade into memory. It will not. I will always, clearly remember the sleepless nights, the weeks of silence and tears. The signs in grand central station, even two months later. The candles and pictures on the firehouse, the people. They will always be in my heart.
An inspiring family from my home town shares their story. I can't watch all the stories, this year I just watched this one. I will cry with them and live and play with my family. I will remember, while creating new memories. Maybe before dinner, we'll have dessert first too, because we are alive and grateful to be so.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Waist line
Hands pruning in luke-warm dishwater, scrubbing a pan from three meals
before, I can feel the joy. The squeals from outside by the pool pull my
gaze from tomato plants taller than my firstborn to the owners of the squeals.
I see them, splashing and kicking and laughing. I really see. Past the sun streaming through glass jars, the dishwater splashed windows, there is the truth, the wonder and the beauty. Joyous!
Letting go. It is what I needed to do to find joy, stop searching. Joy isn't something that can be put on from the outside, it only can well up from the innermost place. I've been calling this the 'summer of fun' because of the fun we've been having. Really, for me, it's the summer of joy.
We've given up bedtime for riding bikes, chores for crafts, stress for time at the city pool. The spontaneous factor has been kicked up - usually this just kills me, I need a plan - but picnics and drives and playing and memories are well worth it.
I say: yes to playing with playdoh, even though I know the crumbly mess, painting, beads and stair sledding. Yes, I'll drop me and help you make a fort, read a book, do a puzzle, fill the swimming pool.
Halfway done, this sunny, delightful time, I feel like a warm sticky bun just pulled out and smothered in goo. I smile more. Life goes slowly and quickly and it's always good and I can see that.
My goals for these months quickly changed from staying ahead for school in the fall to: crafts, fun, love and grace. Grace is such a little, huge word. It is where I am learning to give what isn't deserved. First, really, I am accepting what I don't. Receiving. Giving. Really the same thing? As soon as I get a glimpse of understanding, it flees. I am grateful for the glimpse.
Not to give the illusion of perfection, there have been more of those extra-tired-over-the-top tantrums around here. Apparently, three year olds need not sleep in after seeing the previous 11pm. They become cranky and dramatic, who knew. *wink*
We are real and hurting and we hurt each other and we heal and forgive and are certainly not perfect. These moments, I see them teaching me a greater love, a greater patience, a greater need for compassion and an unfathomable amount of grace.
I feel myself waist deep in summer, but fully immersed. Different from that awkward feeling of waist high in the swimming pool, squealing, until we just plunge the top half down. Giving all the nerves at the edge of the skin the same sensation, it's all they know now, the pool water, I'm not hesitant any more. It feels ok now to be splashed, I am used to it.
To be here, waist high in summer, yet fully covered in its amazing blessings.
I see them, splashing and kicking and laughing. I really see. Past the sun streaming through glass jars, the dishwater splashed windows, there is the truth, the wonder and the beauty. Joyous!
Letting go. It is what I needed to do to find joy, stop searching. Joy isn't something that can be put on from the outside, it only can well up from the innermost place. I've been calling this the 'summer of fun' because of the fun we've been having. Really, for me, it's the summer of joy.
We've given up bedtime for riding bikes, chores for crafts, stress for time at the city pool. The spontaneous factor has been kicked up - usually this just kills me, I need a plan - but picnics and drives and playing and memories are well worth it.
I say: yes to playing with playdoh, even though I know the crumbly mess, painting, beads and stair sledding. Yes, I'll drop me and help you make a fort, read a book, do a puzzle, fill the swimming pool.
Halfway done, this sunny, delightful time, I feel like a warm sticky bun just pulled out and smothered in goo. I smile more. Life goes slowly and quickly and it's always good and I can see that.
My goals for these months quickly changed from staying ahead for school in the fall to: crafts, fun, love and grace. Grace is such a little, huge word. It is where I am learning to give what isn't deserved. First, really, I am accepting what I don't. Receiving. Giving. Really the same thing? As soon as I get a glimpse of understanding, it flees. I am grateful for the glimpse.
Not to give the illusion of perfection, there have been more of those extra-tired-over-the-top tantrums around here. Apparently, three year olds need not sleep in after seeing the previous 11pm. They become cranky and dramatic, who knew. *wink*
We are real and hurting and we hurt each other and we heal and forgive and are certainly not perfect. These moments, I see them teaching me a greater love, a greater patience, a greater need for compassion and an unfathomable amount of grace.
I feel myself waist deep in summer, but fully immersed. Different from that awkward feeling of waist high in the swimming pool, squealing, until we just plunge the top half down. Giving all the nerves at the edge of the skin the same sensation, it's all they know now, the pool water, I'm not hesitant any more. It feels ok now to be splashed, I am used to it.
To be here, waist high in summer, yet fully covered in its amazing blessings.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Happy Easter!
See What a Morning (by Keith and Kristyn Getty
See, what a morning, gloriously bright,
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem;
Folded the grave-clothes, tomb filled with light,
As the angels announce, "Christ is risen!"
See God's salvation plan,
Wrought in love, borne in pain, paid in sacrifice,
Fulfilled in Christ, the Man,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!
See Mary weeping, "Where is He laid?"
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb;
Hears a voice speaking, calling her name;
It's the Master, the Lord raised to life again!
The voice that spans the years,
Speaking life, stirring hope, bringing peace to us,
Will sound till He appears,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!
One with the Father, Ancient of Days,
Through the Spirit who clothes faith with certainty.
Honor and blessing, glory and praise
To the King crowned with pow'r and authority!
And we are raised with Him,
Death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with Him,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!
 | |
| 'Easter Eggs Hiding in the Grass" By, the boy |
 |
| May you find child-like joy today! |
Friday, April 22, 2011
Thanks for the dirty!
Thank God for dirty dishes; They have a tale to tell.
While others may go hungry, We’re eating very well.
With home, health, and happiness, I shouldn’t want to fuss;
By the stack of evidence, God’s been very good to us.
Author Unknown
It's always about perspective for me .
#275. This day and this song
.
276. dove cooing on my rooftop
277. kids listening to mysteries
278. "one more chapter, please"
279. holding on tight
280. dirty dishes
281. cruchy apples
282. lazy saturdays
283. flowers on the window sill
284. their beauty between me and last years tomato skeltons
285. the work of the garden
286. buds bulging on branches
287. blossoms emerging
288. growing boy flipping quesadillas
289. voices singing together
290. goose bumps
291. sunny day at the park
292. socks peeled off discarded
293. the sound of flip-flops from the back yard
294. teeth - loose or not
295. kisses on hot foreheads
296. thermometers
297. hot lips kissing my cheek
298. prayers for healing
299. ibuprofen easing the heat
300. eyes releasing to sleep healing
301. little girls skirts
302.dirty laundry
303. closets and drawers
304. realizing that growing bodies are still humbly small
305. husbands offers of help
306. serving one another
307. pile of artwork at the end of the dining room table
While others may go hungry, We’re eating very well.
With home, health, and happiness, I shouldn’t want to fuss;
By the stack of evidence, God’s been very good to us.
Author Unknown
It's always about perspective for me .
#275. This day and this song
.
276. dove cooing on my rooftop
277. kids listening to mysteries
278. "one more chapter, please"
279. holding on tight
280. dirty dishes
281. cruchy apples
282. lazy saturdays
283. flowers on the window sill
284. their beauty between me and last years tomato skeltons
285. the work of the garden
286. buds bulging on branches
287. blossoms emerging
288. growing boy flipping quesadillas
289. voices singing together
290. goose bumps
291. sunny day at the park
292. socks peeled off discarded
293. the sound of flip-flops from the back yard
294. teeth - loose or not
295. kisses on hot foreheads
296. thermometers
297. hot lips kissing my cheek
298. prayers for healing
299. ibuprofen easing the heat
300. eyes releasing to sleep healing
301. little girls skirts
302.dirty laundry
303. closets and drawers
304. realizing that growing bodies are still humbly small
305. husbands offers of help
306. serving one another
307. pile of artwork at the end of the dining room table
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Spring Cleaning
Revisiting this from last year, this Easter week, healing continuing, more each day. Written March 31, 2010....
Most
of us know the drill. After a windy, cold, wet winter our flower beds
need a bit of a face lift. Crispy dull leaves, thrown around by wintry
winds, caught beneath their budding branches, bushes begin to show signs
of new life. Tiny green leaves eventually bursting forth in the warm
spring sunshine.
So too, our minds and hearts can use a de-cluttering. A time to rid our hearts of the disarray that we hold onto which keeps us unnecessarily in bondage. Allowing ourselves freedom from the burdens that are too horrible to mention but to a select few on this earth. Ours are hearts that have these places, like the bases of my bushes, the burdens and guilt can get stuck there going seemingly unnoticed. Dull, in the dreary dark we cling instead of letting them go, completely letting Jesus pay that price for us - for it all, yes, even what we dare not mention.
As
I put on last year’s well worn gloves (they ripped up a fair share of
sod a year ago) I note the damage and think about buying a new pair.
These are my gloves; my fingers know them, each finger hugged by the
worn leather. They are known. They are mine. A new pair, certainly
unknown, needed none the less.
So too is life with these burdens, I've held them all so long. I know them well, I own them, and I even chose them. Letting myself be forgiven for them? I don't know for sure what life will look like if I lay them all down at the foot of the cross. Is Jesus really big enough for all that? He really did become sin, He who knew no sin, for me. For me, for this! Yes! For this! Yes, my head knows, why will my heart not let it go? Why will my own heart not forgive?
As
I work, filling a box with crisp leaves, the smells bring me back to
autumn for a moment. The dying. The death. Appropriate for this Easter
week. I turn my face to the sunshine while putting a handful of leaves
in the box and a warm smile crosses my face and goes deep into my soul.
I know that I must let these burdens die with Jesus, there on the cross. The price. Oh so costly. Paid by the One who didn't deserve it. First the death, but after the death of autumn and the cold, endless winter, a celebration of life and resurrection!
I begin pulling out grasses and rearranging the rock border, man the grass roots go on forever. I follow the root for as far as I can and it seems never to end. Finally it breaks in my hand and I leave it, knowing in a few more weeks I'll have to pull it again.
I aknowledge that though these roots may not seem to end, God's love indeed has no end. Never. Always there, always pouring it out into my heart. I am the only one that cuts it off to me, He will always give it. I will have to accept it. Is it possible to replace these burdens with love? How on earth can I let myself, my wretched self be loved by God? Even more so, knowing how much God loves me, how can I not love myself? Not a selfish love but a love of someone that God made who has a purpose and who is special. Me. I am special in the eyes of God. I am loved by God. A bud forming right there, a sign, healing is beginning.
The
sun is warming my back as I work and makes my dull mommy hair shine as
it hangs beside my face. Pulling more weeds I stack a rock pile of
random stones.
The
Son, who rose victorious, can shine an even greater light in my heart.
He has conquered this life and rose victorious. He alone can heal these
wounds and in the (now year and) four months since I have given them up to Him,
miracles have happened. Miracles. I couldn't do in years what He has now
begun.
My mind wanders as I make my way down the bed; suddenly I look at the progress I've made in such a short time. This chore last year was endless because it hadn't been done the two years prior. I guess some things get overlooked during pregnancy and with a small baby. (Just a few!) I remember how demanding this was last year both physically and time consuming. Grateful, I am amazed with how well it is going and how much better it begins to look rather quickly.
At this commencing of my journey really forgiving, really loving, really giving it all up, I am encouraged to think that as the years go by, continually laying all my burdens down the healing will continue. Each year, each week, each minute that passes means it will become easier and more wonderful to live life forgiven. Breaking the bondage. Truly knowing that life is worth the living because of the Son. The Son who shines his love on even me.
So too, our minds and hearts can use a de-cluttering. A time to rid our hearts of the disarray that we hold onto which keeps us unnecessarily in bondage. Allowing ourselves freedom from the burdens that are too horrible to mention but to a select few on this earth. Ours are hearts that have these places, like the bases of my bushes, the burdens and guilt can get stuck there going seemingly unnoticed. Dull, in the dreary dark we cling instead of letting them go, completely letting Jesus pay that price for us - for it all, yes, even what we dare not mention.
So too is life with these burdens, I've held them all so long. I know them well, I own them, and I even chose them. Letting myself be forgiven for them? I don't know for sure what life will look like if I lay them all down at the foot of the cross. Is Jesus really big enough for all that? He really did become sin, He who knew no sin, for me. For me, for this! Yes! For this! Yes, my head knows, why will my heart not let it go? Why will my own heart not forgive?
I know that I must let these burdens die with Jesus, there on the cross. The price. Oh so costly. Paid by the One who didn't deserve it. First the death, but after the death of autumn and the cold, endless winter, a celebration of life and resurrection!
I begin pulling out grasses and rearranging the rock border, man the grass roots go on forever. I follow the root for as far as I can and it seems never to end. Finally it breaks in my hand and I leave it, knowing in a few more weeks I'll have to pull it again.
I aknowledge that though these roots may not seem to end, God's love indeed has no end. Never. Always there, always pouring it out into my heart. I am the only one that cuts it off to me, He will always give it. I will have to accept it. Is it possible to replace these burdens with love? How on earth can I let myself, my wretched self be loved by God? Even more so, knowing how much God loves me, how can I not love myself? Not a selfish love but a love of someone that God made who has a purpose and who is special. Me. I am special in the eyes of God. I am loved by God. A bud forming right there, a sign, healing is beginning.
My mind wanders as I make my way down the bed; suddenly I look at the progress I've made in such a short time. This chore last year was endless because it hadn't been done the two years prior. I guess some things get overlooked during pregnancy and with a small baby. (Just a few!) I remember how demanding this was last year both physically and time consuming. Grateful, I am amazed with how well it is going and how much better it begins to look rather quickly.
At this commencing of my journey really forgiving, really loving, really giving it all up, I am encouraged to think that as the years go by, continually laying all my burdens down the healing will continue. Each year, each week, each minute that passes means it will become easier and more wonderful to live life forgiven. Breaking the bondage. Truly knowing that life is worth the living because of the Son. The Son who shines his love on even me.
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