Soar!

After last week's snowstorm, we had two days off school. The regional bowling tournament for the girls was still on for Friday, so we had a busy day enjoying several hours of non-stop spectating. 

On Saturday, we headed back to FSU, my late brother Jeff's Alma Mater, for the second part of a competition that Natalie is in for college. More on that later, hopefully good news in about a month. After her competition was over, we went on another campus tour, and enjoyed a lunch in her college town. We ate the most wonderful and gigantic onion rings we've ever had! 

Natalie is so excited about college and her major! She is looking forward to living in a dorm, meeting lots of new friends, taking on leadership roles, developing herself, and stepping out of her comfort zone. Never would I have imagined she would have embraced this huge change with such positivity and exuberance. This little girl who struggled so much from being afraid to ask a question to crying if someone sat in her seat in preschool! She is soft-spoken, yet strong. Tender-hearted, with that heart on the proverbial sleeve, but wise enough to know what matters and what is worth letting go. She will do just fine in the diverse community of college. She cares about people. She knows her own mind. She won't be swayed by the crowd. She has always been that way. She is hesitant, yet not afraid to push herself if she thinks it will help her become a better person. She still talks about her experience working with the Special Olympics last summer with such happiness. She didn't think she could do it, but her kindness and gentleness was exactly what was needed. She came home beaming that day and I knew she would! 

Her dad and I are having the mixed emotions of holding on tight and letting go at the same time. The tears of joy for her new life and the tears of sadness for our loss at home. But seeing her grow has always been our biggest gift and it's still our biggest goal as parents. So, as much as all of these new things sting, fly little bird, fly. You are going to soar! 

Snow Bombed

Hubs and I took a long trek through our woods today and it was exhilarating! We broke through some trail ice into a bit of water...whew! Ducked under and got snow-clobbered by many snow-laden branches, and the wind blew us through the open meadow. What a rush! 

Were we just a short distance from our cozy home or miles away in the Alaskan wilderness? It was fun to imagine....

Let Her Eat Cake!

I am spending many hours at my new "job", so I have less time for my blog! But it's all good, and I'll be checking in from time to time. 

We celebrated Natalie's birthday for the 3rd and final time on Sunday with the grandparents. We went out for dinner, then back here for light desserts. Natalie is trying to be more health conscious, so Serena and I made her a special birthday "fruit cake". 

She loved it! It was very easy and fun to make, and we'll do it again in the summer when the fruit is more in season and tastes better. 

I also made her 2 light coconut cream pies, and they turned out as good as the fattening ones! 

It was nice to begin our week with a celebration, and we are praying for better days this week. 

Be blessed! 

Not "If" but "When"

It's happening...through all the negative things happening around me and my sweet family this week, I picked up a hobby from my teenage years. I added it to a current hobby, and it has become a real goal. Stay tuned for the completion of this goal. I will be very busy. 

This is what is called using the bad things that happen to you for a good purpose. 

And now the goal is to continue to encourage my daughters to turn the attacks against them for good as well. Even as I don't understand this evil myself. 

Genesis 50:20

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good...

It is most difficult when someone is blind to the damage they have caused and continue to inflict it on you. It is very hard to understand why God wants us to love our enemies and pray for them. Hard to understand and very hard to do. 

Very hard to see how God can make this good, but I will let you know when He does. Not "if", but when. 

Mid-Life Peace?

"You look pretty", my husband sweetly said to me one night as we watched our nightly basketball on tv. I rolled my eyes and said, "I appreciate your husband vision. I actually look quite terrible tonight." He said what he always says, "Not to me." I then surprised him with this one: "I think I'm having a mid-life crisis." He laughed out loud and hollered out, "Nooooo! You're not! I can't afford thaaaaat! Go baaaaack!!" He's hilarious. I'm quite serious.

This is a typical winter conversation for us, as the temperatures dip below zero, and we are bored, bills are piled up, the kids are tired of school, and even the dog is tired of all of us. We're all having a mid-winter crisis.

Even as I tried to pray this morning, I kept trying to find the words and I just kept failing because I'm just so drained, and I feel like I say the same thing all the time.  I think about the world-problems. I think about the community-problems. I think about the school-problems. I think about the upcoming election-hello,problems. It seems I am always praying about problems!! While I usually open my prayers with praises, these mid-winter prayers are pretty sadly filled with requests. Everyone has problems! And quite honestly, my praises feel pretty fake when my heart is full of worries.

 This isn't a "mid-life crisis", whatever that is. I am feeling my age, it's true, and I don't like it one bit. I'm looking my age too, and that stinks as well. I don't look at my graying hair as a crown of splendor at all. I don't think gravity is kind as it applies to my face, and wrinkles are for elephants and Steve's shirts. Graceful is for ballerinas, not for aging. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it. I'm going into this fighting. My crisis is that I am getting older, but nothing is getting easier. In fact, some things are getting more difficult. Why oh why did I think the toddler years were so hard?? What I wouldn't give for a 2 year old's tantrum right now.

After my daughter's tough day yesterday, her best friend's mom came to pick her daughter up yesterday, and we had a nice conversation about life in general. She has just a few wise years on me, and I appreciate her life experience.  She shared that she also spent years staying at home raising her three children and was excited to enter the work force. It shocked her to find out how difficult it was to work with people again, and how much fighting and backbiting occurred among grown adults. It was a rude awakening. Her smart solution with dealing with a difficult situation has been to study personality types. You mean, seek to understand people?  Brilliant. Although I spent hours talking to my daughter about trying to understand why a person would hurt her instead of try to understand her, it doesn't take the sting of a wound away. Especially when you're young. I get it. Hurt is hurt.

 So, maybe that's what this is for me. A rude awakening. I spent years enjoying my children, their friends,  and their lives, and now that they are entering the "adult" world and getting their noses bumped, as I knew they would, I am feeling their pain, the changes,  and all of mine at the same time. Oh, this stinks for sure. I can't jump in and fight their battles, because I've always believed in allowing them to grow from their own difficulties, but I still carry their pain on my shoulders. It is not easy to watch a child struggle and not be able to fix it. I can take it to God, yes, but to not see a solution, or to see it go in a completely different direction than how I prayed, is the most difficult thing to watch. I get angry, wondering why I have made my kids patient and soft only to be crushed by mean people. Then I remember this is the character of Christ, and it sets them up to be persecuted as he was. And I remember the words "life isn't fair", and people aren't fair either, because some people are insecure in themselves and will tear you down to build themselves up. They put up a defensive front on the outside, appearing strong and powerful, even pushy or outgoing. But on the inside, they are scared and unsure of who they are, always comparing and wondering if they are good enough.  Someone who loves God will seek the inside of a person, and that's why we don't put rotting shrimp in someone's locker when we're angry. And it's why we don't wound back with words, even when we feel justified, because as I reminded my younger daughter "Tyson" yesterday, two wrongs don't make a right. But bless her heart for wanting to come to her sister's defense. That part is precious.
 
And the lesson that comes with this latest crisis is the lesson that comes with every crisis in our home. It's not about us. It's hard to take that when it feels like it is, but when someone attacks, or it feels like we've been wronged, or we have been wronged, more times than not, it's not about us at all. With that thought, we can take the steaming heat of emotion out of it, and replace it with understanding and hopefully move on with the lesson and grow a little. Are we going to be happy with the person who was mean to us? No. Do we want to sit with them and make small talk? No. But are we going to hold anger in our hearts for them forever? No, because we have to forgive and move on and not let it keep us from the good relationships in our lives. Especially our relationship with God.

So we continue to pray for the ones who wrong us, even as they continue to wrong us, because it's what we're called to do, and because we hope it will eventually bring  peace. And all of these situations will turn my hair gray, make me tired, and cause me to wrinkle my forehead. Now I know exactly what causes a mid-life crisis! Parenting teenagers!

Sigh...be blessed. I'm going to try. First stop today? I'm getting a filling at the dentist. I just can't wait. Praise God for dentists. Ha Ha....I kill me.

Healed

(this was a post that was originally written prior to the day my computer "bit the dust". Thankfully it was recovered by the genius superman computer guy. Here it is..)

When the girls were little and just starting to walk, they took a lot of small spills. Thank God for the padding in diapers, for their little bottoms took most of the fall. Their spirits took most of the wounding, though, and they would look up at me with a slight pout, waiting to see my reaction. I would smile and say cheerfully, "you're okay!" And they would get back up and happily start their walk all over again.
As they got older, they took bigger falls from their bikes, yielding bigger scrapes on their knees and elbows, and the pouts got slightly bigger. As they lay in a pile of bike and cement, I would first assess the damage, see that it wasn't too bad, and then cheerfully say, "You're okay!" We would then set to work cleaning up the boo-boos with my trusty red washcloth (to hide the evidence of blood), and the latest character band-aids, and finish with mom kisses and a popsicle. Then back on the bike, with a little more caution, and sometimes more determination not to do that again.
Sports always contain injuries of some kind, and for some reason, my kids have weak joints in their shoulders, knees, and ankles, and so we dealt with various painful problems there. We saw them get plowed over by bigger girls in basketball, we saw them get hit in the face with volleyballs. We saw them wipe out fighting for a ball. After these moments we would jokingly say, "How did the other girl look?" or "Did you hurt the floor?" or "Did you wreck the ball?" Sometimes after they'd get up, I would just give a sigh of relief and think, "you're okay!"
Older still, the falls became down the stairs for one of my children, which is now a running joke in the house.  We just know it's her,we don't even have to look, and we'll say, "----- are you okay?" She laughs, and says a laughter-filled, "yup". She will not be doing pageants, we always say. The stairs would kill her.
There have been times when they weren't so okay, like the time Serena was so sick with the flu that she fainted in the bathroom against the door and I couldn't get it open to get to her. The time she had pneumonia and her oxygen level was so low they nearly hospitalized her. The time Natalie had such a high fever she had seizures. Oh, Natalie has had lots of scary times...she has been through a lot of serious stuff from age 2 to 15. Most people don't know that because she walks around acting and looking like everything is "okay". We know better.
 A few bumps and spills can be shrugged off and sometimes you can just start over after you get hurt, other painful injuries leave scars. I think a lot of people walk around in pain and act like they're just fine, but inside they are not. We have a lot of depressed people in this world, I am finding out. It is so sad. But what is sadder to me is the insensitivity toward depression that I am also hearing about. Why do people feel it's  necessary to judge another person for their emotional state? You don't judge someone when they break a bone. It's mean-spirited, and I'm not sure why anyone would want to hurt an already hurting person by telling them they don't have a real illness, or talking behind their backs. I think it's why we have depressed people hiding their conditions and not participating in society. To have to feel shame for a condition that they have little or no control over because someone else is uncomfortable with them. Or because someone keeps telling them to focus on their blessings and they won't be so depressed. Maybe that person has never experienced true chemical  or even situational depression before, or maybe they are just blind, or well-meaning, but there is no cute catch-phrase like "you're okay", when it comes to depression, of that I am certain.
I am certain because I have experienced it myself. Unfortunately, because of the chemical misfires in my brain, depression is often a buddy of a seizure condition and migraines.   I am not ashamed of it. I needed medication to correct the imbalance in my brain that was causing it to happen. Depression is very isolating, very scary, and completely suffocating, and some strange part of me kept thinking "come on, get over it!" And I would hear, "You just need this, or you just need that..." And I just kept thinking, "you have no clue!" This is depression at it's purest. You have no answer, because you're in a pit of black! And it is extremely scary to feel something have a control over you, but it really is no different than having a cancer in your body that you can't control either. People don't walk around being ashamed of cancer, do they? So people, please don't be ashamed if you have a mental illness either. Does anyone ever question a broken leg, or tell someone to get up and walk after a major surgery? But for some reason they feel a need to police someone's emotional business, as if it matters to them somehow. It should matter, but in the way of kindness and love, not judgment and lack of human compassion.
Some boo-boos just can't be covered with a Hello Kitty band-aid, or massive amounts of chocolates and iTunes cards, in my case. Little hurts can be fixed, and what I wouldn't give to put a red washcloth on a knee scrape right now, give it a tender kiss, and put a Spongebob band-aid over it. But big hurts take time to heal, and sometimes they scab over, only to have the scab come peeling back off again, revealing raw skin beneath. Unhealed, tender, exposed to the air again, needing time and attention. Sometimes it results in a scar, reminding us that we were hurt once pretty badly, but slowly we healed, and in time we will be strong again. Maybe we'll be even stronger than before, with the assurance that  our wound will never reopen again. Because we finally conquered that one for good. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves and those we love to leave healed wounds alone too.
 And maybe we don't need everyone to understand and participate in our healing, because here's the good news, at least for me. I finally realized that although I felt completely alone in my illness, deep down I knew I wasn't alone. I wasn't feeling strong, but my faith in God remained strong.  My capacity to lean on God at that time was severely compromised. But  His Spirit in me kept praying for me when I could not, and kept me going each day. I still had hope, though I wasn't sure where the seizures were going to take me, and I was fearful  every day for almost a whole year.  Being a Christian, I know full well where fear comes from. I had thoughts of giving up so many times, but the Fighter in me kept fighting, the Spirit would not let me quit. Ultimately, this was my healing. As soon as I became strong enough to face my diagnosis head on and speak about it out loud, I became less and less fearful, and the healing began.
I still struggle with migraines. I still have a seizure disorder controlled with medications. I still have depression and anxiety from time to time. However, these things do NOT have ME. I use them to my advantage when I can. I help others who struggle with these conditions by encouraging them and informing them when I become informed. Believe it or not, many famous artists and writers suffer from depression, and they attribute it to their flaming success. I write and create more in those low times, and find it helps to keep me positive, and sometimes reveals things to me that I need to learn. But ashamed? Never, and anyone who would try to suggest that I should feel anything of the kind would be kicked out of my circle immediately. And I would suggest the same to anyone who is being treated this way.
One thing I do know is that there are days I don't "feel okay", but I AM okay and it's going to BE okay. That's the message I will leave for you if you don't necessarily know that yet. Our feelings are not to be trusted on those low days! What I know for sure is that I am not alone and even when I "felt" alone, God was there with me, pulling me through, sometimes lifting me up with a tender kiss and a "you're okay", with a promise that He would take care of the rest.  And He will do the same for you if you let Him.

My Life Verse:  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

Hard Love

I've noticed a lot of "ironic" things lately, much like the people described in the quote above. 

My daughters recently brought this to my attention just in casual conversation, and sadly, I can't disagree. They were telling me that of the people that have hurt them the most, it's the people who should know better. It's the ones who "go to church" who are the ones who get in cliques and leave others out, and engage in other rude behaviors that their other non-church friends don't do. 

I used to tell them to surround themselves with like-minded people, but now I tell them to surround themselves with like-hearted people. Because while some may share your beliefs, they may not execute them through the heart, and you will not be compatible. 

It is hard to be the recipient of others' rude and careless actions, especially when they claim to be something they are clearly not. It is hard to not point it out to others because we want to defend ourselves at that age, and are very concerned with what everyone thinks. 

But I still believe, and I still teach my girls that God sees everything people do, and it's not up to us to expose their colors. It just makes us look bad. Defend ourselves, yes, but let God deal with them, and hopefully give us peace in the process. Let God empower us to do the right thing, and be an example of love, however difficult that can be some days. 

And help us forgive those who say and do hurtful things, especially those who claim to believe as we do, for they are harming their witness to others. 

We've had some really deep conversations around here, and some really hard days, requiring a lot of prayer. 

Not just for our pain, but for the obvious pain of those who inflict it on us. Because if you claim to love God, you must show love to others. It's not always easy as an adult, and even harder to teach to teens who continue to be hurt by the same things every day. 

Be blessed. 

Bucket List

A friend once asked me what was on my "Bucket List". I hadn't really thought about starting "a list of things to do before I die". I always thought of those lists as unattainable goals, or over-the-top dreams, and I'm kind of "safe".

Sometimes I just impress myself by keeping all of the laundry done. Hey, if I die tomorrow, everyone has clean underwear! 

It's hard enough sometimes to keep up with my "regular" list, let alone another "list" of intimidating things to do. Not only do I have to do all my regular chores around here, but I also have to find time to "hug a koala bear"? I don't know...there just aren't enough hours in a day, and I gotta believe there are koala bears in heaven. 

I'm on Pinterest a little. Okay, I just discovered I have 85 boards and just over 10,000 pins. So, I might be on there a lot. On one of my pin-happy occasions, I saw some "Bucket List" items, got a little intrigued, and started my own board. 

Because going to Alaska has been a lifelong goal of mine, I hope to knock off 2 of my items there- "dog sledding", and "seeing the Northern Lights". And I really hope it's way before I "kick the bucket".

So, maybe I'll change the name of the board to "To Do". And I think I might delete "jumping out of an airplane", even though Serena said she'd do it too. I think I might die before I hit the ground. 

I think it's great to have these fun lists of dreams and goals, as long as you don't forget to actually live them out today! Why wait? And I'm making sure each of my goals includes the people I love the most in my world, because I can't imagine doing anything worth doing without them by my side. 

Make memories, leave legacies, make a list, but always put people first. 

To see my complete Bucket List, go to 

www.pinterest.com/rpumpernickel

Healing Hearts

An interesting heart found me yesterday, and while I would normally share a photo, this particular "heart" would probably make you cringe. At least that's what my daughters did when I showed it to them excitedly. Their reaction? "Mom! Gross! But really cool!" I agree. 

I recently cut my knee. Let's just say it was a skiing accident. (It was not) after removing the bandage, you guessed it, a small, dark red heart was revealed on the gauze. I chuckled to myself, and said aloud, "Of course it's a heart...", then snapped a picture and sent it to Steve. 

He replied, "Oh wow. Even in pain, you see hearts!" I answered back, "Especially in pain, as it turns out." Because they do seem to show up when I need them the most, and I've needed them a lot lately. 

I thought back to the moment of the tiny cut, and I hadn't even flinched, yet seemed to have lost a pint of blood. Well, not really, but I'm a bleeder and small cuts are like horror movies on my body. 

I had a little fun with it, pushing up my pajama pant leg, and fake-limping out to where the girls were sitting. They were on to me, having seen my "fake pain" routine way too many times, knowing I always pretend something hurts when it actually does not at all. 

But how easy it can be to also fool people into believing we are fine when we are not. When either our bodies, minds, or our hearts are off, but we just won't say it. We smile, joke as usual, not wanting to place that burden on anyone.

And sadder yet is the people who believe you. 

One thing I know about any kind of pain is that it can be a warning of a bigger problem. Sadly, it's the inside pain that our loved ones can't see, because there aren't band-aids to display that for them. 

A heart on a band-aid...a bandage for a heart. 

 I thank God for the healing He has done in my body and my heart, and is completing in me. And may He make me sensitive to the needs of those closest to me, particularly the ones I may not clearly see from the outside. 

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle"- Plato

Strong-Willed Woman

So...back to blogging on my phone screen. Sigh... But I'm a stubborn one, so not much stops me from what I want to do, even though I'm completely annoyed.

Laptop number two, otherwise known as the "blue screen of death", is now in the hands of a guy who hopefully wants to make me a very happy girl again. I got him started by angrily pressing every single button at the same time while steam came out of my ears. I'm sure he has better ideas.  We shall see...not getting my hopes up, because it's been "that" kind of week. 

The day my computer died, I also ran out of data on my phone, which is still my only source of Internet. (Insert huge resigned sigh of discontent here)

Today after killing a medium sized, yet still beady-eyed spider, I was simply returning the fly swatter when my necklace just fell off. This was a big problem because the chain disappeared, and the double heart pendant rolled into the heat vent! I looked around in disbelief, finally saw the chain in a small pile on the floor, and after a slight panic, set to work trying to locate my pendant. It only took a mirror, a flashlight, half of my arm, and more of my sanity, but I finally retrieved it. 

This was after we rushed the kids up to school at 7:45, only to find out Natalie's class at Mid was cancelled, so she and her friends came back here until 11:00. Serena then called from school to say she wasn't feeling well and could she come home? 20 minutes after dropping her off... Oh, and there's bowling practice after school too...and we hate school every day...and on and on the cycle goes..

So why do these "little things" always seem to snowball and cause such an avalanche at the end of the week, sometimes the day, and in my case, the hour? 

Steve has had some really rough days at work too, and I've been trying to keep him positive, but there are days I fight to keep myself positive! 

Come on, people, get it together! Including me! I've become stubborn in this way as well. I'm not going to let these silly, temporary things steal my joy and distract me from my goals. I will write, but with a notebook and pen if I have to, and as much as I hate it, I will blog on my phone when I have data or the use of someone's free internet! 

Where there is a strong-willed woman, there is a way. 

A Little Bit City a Little Bit Country

There are some new "Farmers Only.com" ads on television that I have to press the mute button for, because they just drive me crazy. One of them shows a couple fishing, and the overdressed snotty woman in expensive heels on the boat sees a spider and screams, and the guy in the boat rolls his eyes. Then he sees another woman fishing on shore, and of course, she's perfect for him with her sparkly-pocketed jeans, makeup, long earrings and her hat. The woman who screamed at the spider ends up in the water and the woman fishing ends up in the boat. Another one shows another overdressed woman showing up to ride a horse in heels, falling from the horse and dangling from its side. She's screaming, and instead of the man trying to help her, he sarcastically says, "city girls". It just annoys me so much!  The message? Farmers are rude and dumb, city women are snobs who don't know how to dress to go fishing or ride horses, and in fact are incapable of doing both because they are from the city. Really, Farmers Only? Stereotype much?

 I used to work in an office with farmers and their wives, and they were very nice, down to earth people-all of them. These commercials are ridiculous, and it got me to thinking about how others stereotype people just because of where they live or were raised.

I may joke about being a "city girl", but the truth is, I grew up just one block from a grain elevator in a small farm town. I may not know much about riding horses, but I've been on them, and I've never fallen off, nor screamed on one like a ninny. I can tell you, I was not made for horses, and that is another story, but I love them all the same. I love fishing, and although spiders creep me out, I've been in fishing boats where large ones have come crawling out of small holes and surprised me, among other little critters. I can handle it all, and when Steve is here, I will ask him to heroically defend me from such creatures, but I don't NEED him to. Thank you Farmers Only, but "city" women are not helpless and stupid, and I have never worn long earrings or bling jeans while fishing, have you?? It's just not practical.

Oh, she's sassy today...I know what you're thinking. I get this way sometimes in the cold bore of winter when there isn't much to do. It's doing a lot of raining instead of snowing, rendering my cross-country skis immobile for the time being, and since winter is almost over, they may get no use at all.
Back to my roots. My parents chose to raise us in town, and it turned out to be a great thing for all of us. We had great neighbors, The Robinson's , The Sentz's, and The Young's, to name a few, providing all of us with friends our ages. We had a park a couple of blocks away, we all walked to school, and we had some woods with a pond to play in a few blocks in the other direction. We had an abandoned church on a lot next door, which we turned into our ball field, and we all played there almost daily in the summer. That's when we weren't playing "cops and robbers" all through the neighborhood. This was, of course, before fences...

I learned to climb trees, pop wheelies on my bike, play hockey in the street, and pretty much do anything those neighborhood boys were doing, which depending on the day may or may not be a good idea. I also came up with a lot of messy ideas of my own, sending me to the ER a couple of times for stitches. So not your typical "city" as you think "city" would be, but I wasn't exposed to farmland either, except for the days we spent picking corn or the time I ran from a steer at my friend Amy's house and again in the barn at the fair with Anna. Okay, so that would be funny...and it was. But the steer was loose and it was big and I was not, and they said, RUN, so I ran.

In eighth grade, I started walking home from school with a girl in my class who lived a few blocks away from me. We became fast friends, having many of the same things in common. Sandy and I  had lots of fun together, cross country skiing through town after a snowfall, exploring the woods, camping, and making repairs to a window we had to break after we locked ourselves out at the cottage! She encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone many times, and even years later offered to come and kill a spider that had gone AWOL in my bed. No worries. I simply removed all of the bedding and sprinted into the laundry room, stuffing all of it into the washer. Problem solved. I slept on the couch.

I may have grown up with asphalt and concrete, and I may still screech at snakes and spiders, and I respect cows and horses to this day. But that doesn't make me "city" or "country" or whatever.  I think I'm pretty adaptable, and I just enjoy living life wherever I am and that just makes me appreciative of my surroundings. I've spent the last 10 years living in the middle of 40 wooded acres, and I've loved it, except for power outages and the occasional snake.  I think I could be happy living almost anywhere as long as I have my loved ones, my dog, and fun things to explore.

Be blessed wherever you are!