Hey! How was everyone's weekend? Ours flew by way too fast, as all too many weekends seem to do. If there had been a theme to our weekend it would have centered around one word: home.
We have been in our house for almost 5 months now and have slowly been settling in. Because we moved twice in a year, once across several states, we had gotten rid of a lot of furniture and whatnot. It seemed ridiculous to bring certain things with us that we knew were going to sit in storage and/or might not fit well in the new place, so we left a lot in Ohio. Plus the gentleman who bought our house also purchased quite a few things from us. Other items made their way to Goodwill. (I took advantage of the move to finally exorcise myself of some of my husband's furnishings which I had been living with for 9 years despite the fact that they were not in the least my taste.) So we have kind of been starting from scratch in the new place. Luckily a neighbor clued us in to a family owned business that deals in furniture that was "damaged in transit" and is therefore sold at steep discounts. The secret here is that much of the furniture is not in fact "damaged" in any way. And they can even order brand new items from some of the top furniture brands at a much lower cost than we could get it at that retailer's store. We have become very good customers. Yesterday after my daughter's gymnastics class we headed out to see what great finds there may be waiting for us this weekend. The intent was to purchase a rug for the living room, but several hours and dollars later we returned home having bought three stools, a cute chair, a wall-hanging-thing.. but no rug. Still a very successful day. As I looked around at the new items in the house I thought "Our home is starting to come together." Not that it takes stuff to make a house into a home. I think the opposite is often true. Sometimes it seems as those who have the least amount of stuff are the closest. So it wasn't that. But it was the choosing of the stuff together; creating a vision as a family and watching that vision start to take shape. That is what has begun to turn this into not just our new house, but our new Home.
Today my daughter and I set out on a different sort of quest for home: a new church home. Back in Ohio we were members of a local Presbyterian church and were very actively involved. I was a member of the Christian Education Board, taught Sunday School and participated on the VBS Committee several years in a row. It was truly a wonderful part of our lives there and something that I have been missing ever since we left. So this morning we ladies of the house attended service at a nearby Presbyterian church that has been there since 1700-and-something. We were welcomed very warmly by everyone, found seats right up towards the front and experienced a service that put me in mind both of the church I attended as a child and Little House on the Prarie, because unlike so many modern-day churches there was nothing contemporary or high-tech about it. The sanctuary itself was surprisingly small considering that the church had a large sprawling campus. The pews were tiny and the floor literally moved up and down with the coming and going of people in the aisles. Décor was at a minimum, with just one modest banner and two candles adorning the pulpit. The choir was hidden in a balcony behind the pews and one glimpse showed that they were wearing very traditional robes and singing from well-loved hymnals, as did the congregation for each hymn. This was not the full-on rock band stage show sermon,complete with video clips and coordinated lighting, that we had experienced at the last church we attended in NC. Nor was it the pleasant mix of the old and new we had enjoyed at our Ohio church. This was kicking it old school. I rather enjoyed it. I felt somehow more connected to the place, the Word, the people around me than I had at the flashier church. Instead of marveling at the synchronized music and lights I was truly listening to the words that were spoken and the songs that were sung. And isn't that really what going to church is all about? Connecting to God and one another in a way that we don't often do outside of a chapel? My daughter admits to having been a bit bored before the Children's Moment and Children's church commenced, and that's ok. Because even so she marched right up there by herself when the time came for Children's Moment, jumped right in answering the minister's questions of the group and boldly stepped in to help another child carry a banner out of the sanctuary when the little girl's partner literally dropped his end of the stick. She may not have felt as entertained and excited as she did at other types of service, but she was connected for sure. Now I am not sure that this is going to be our church home just yet. An uber-traditional service and questionably-played pipe organ will be a bit of a hard sell to the menfolk of our family. But we will definitely be going back for a second look. We have to anyway. Ainsley came out of Children's Church with a note for me that read: "Your child has volunteered to be the Bible carrier at next week's service!" So I think that means she liked it. :-)
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Joy to the World
Well, hello there. It's me. I am back. I was walking along today doing my usual Wednesday Target run when I suddenly remembered, "Oh yeah, I have a blog. I should really visit it, maybe make a post sometime." So here I am.
It has been a busy couple of months since I last posted what with Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. It is amazing how much we run our lives around holidays, isn't it? We barely get through one and immediately feel obligated to tackle the next one. Just today at Target I felt compelled to purchase two little heart-shaped tins with a cute saying on them from the Dollar Spot so I can make candy for my kids' teachers for Valentine's Day. Gotta get ready, it will be here before you know it! I know all people aren't like this. Some people acknowledge the holidays with a simple nod and wave from afar rather than this more full on body-slam approach. But in this age of Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, etc the pressure to perform for the holidays is HIGH! (unless you don't have children, in which case I guess you get to sit back, relax and enjoy the show.) When did it get this way? When I was a child lo those many years ago the holidays were fun and exciting but not all encompassing of your life outside of the actual day of the holiday. Take Christmas for example. Christmas was a highly celebrated holiday in my family and I looked forward to it each year with all of the eagerness and zeal of Ralpie wishing and hoping for his Red Rider BB gun. But I don't recall my parents spending hours crafting marshmallow snowmen with me or trying to recreate the Nativity out of chow mein and frosting. If there were parties at school, which I only vaguely remember, that meant that someone's mom brought in regular old sugar cookies and maybe some juice. If you were really lucky they passed out candy canes, one per kid. Not 25 seam-busting treat bags. It was a simple affair. Nothing Pinterest-worthy. But fast-forward to today and it is like we are jumping through hoops to please and entertain our children at all costs. Why? Is it that we Gen X'ers (and Y's) felt deprived in some way as children and are overcompensating for it now? Is it that we have become so privileged with all that we have we need to create new challenges to our 'existence'? Or perhaps the fact that technology allows us to share our exploits with anyone at any time has created a sort of "grass is greener" envy that we feel compelled to compete with? I'm not sure how it started, but at some point I think it needs to, well, not stop, but slow down to a more reasonable and manageable level. Seriously. I mean, how many arts and crafts do we need to do with our food before we remember to just thank God and eat it?
It will change one day, I am sure. But until then I guess I will allow myself to be moderately sucked in. I have a great idea for a leprechaun trap made entirely out of Lucky Charms. ;)
It has been a busy couple of months since I last posted what with Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. It is amazing how much we run our lives around holidays, isn't it? We barely get through one and immediately feel obligated to tackle the next one. Just today at Target I felt compelled to purchase two little heart-shaped tins with a cute saying on them from the Dollar Spot so I can make candy for my kids' teachers for Valentine's Day. Gotta get ready, it will be here before you know it! I know all people aren't like this. Some people acknowledge the holidays with a simple nod and wave from afar rather than this more full on body-slam approach. But in this age of Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, etc the pressure to perform for the holidays is HIGH! (unless you don't have children, in which case I guess you get to sit back, relax and enjoy the show.) When did it get this way? When I was a child lo those many years ago the holidays were fun and exciting but not all encompassing of your life outside of the actual day of the holiday. Take Christmas for example. Christmas was a highly celebrated holiday in my family and I looked forward to it each year with all of the eagerness and zeal of Ralpie wishing and hoping for his Red Rider BB gun. But I don't recall my parents spending hours crafting marshmallow snowmen with me or trying to recreate the Nativity out of chow mein and frosting. If there were parties at school, which I only vaguely remember, that meant that someone's mom brought in regular old sugar cookies and maybe some juice. If you were really lucky they passed out candy canes, one per kid. Not 25 seam-busting treat bags. It was a simple affair. Nothing Pinterest-worthy. But fast-forward to today and it is like we are jumping through hoops to please and entertain our children at all costs. Why? Is it that we Gen X'ers (and Y's) felt deprived in some way as children and are overcompensating for it now? Is it that we have become so privileged with all that we have we need to create new challenges to our 'existence'? Or perhaps the fact that technology allows us to share our exploits with anyone at any time has created a sort of "grass is greener" envy that we feel compelled to compete with? I'm not sure how it started, but at some point I think it needs to, well, not stop, but slow down to a more reasonable and manageable level. Seriously. I mean, how many arts and crafts do we need to do with our food before we remember to just thank God and eat it?
It will change one day, I am sure. But until then I guess I will allow myself to be moderately sucked in. I have a great idea for a leprechaun trap made entirely out of Lucky Charms. ;)
The Coffee Cup Convergence
Moving sucks. There is no other way to say it. In the past 12 months we have moved twice. First from Columbus, Ohio to a suburb north of Charlotte, NC, then from there to a small town 45 minutes away, on the south side of the city. We have been in the new house, the (hopefully) "forever house" for 5 weeks now and I am still recovering. People keep pleasantly asking me, "Well, are you all settled in now? All unpacked and everything?"
No, no I am not. Not even close. Sorry to disappoint you, but I have had a lot to do what with my husband traveling all of the time and the kids going back to school and starting soccer and everything and so no I haven't unpacked and decorated my house and gotten all settled in yet so..GET OFF OF MY BACK!! Sorry, I seem to have gotten a wee bit carried away there. But in all honesty I don't think we will feel completely settled for at least a year. The list of things to unpack, buy, paint, do, etc. is just too long. I am getting tired just thinking about it.
.
But there is one perk of moving that I really do enjoy: finding things. Things you forgot you owned (Oh, I remember this picture!), things you never remember having (Where did we get that vase?), things you wanted to forget (Oh, yuk, I thought we threw that out years ago!); things you borrowed and never returned (Sorry, Norwin Library.) and even things you never realized about yourself. (Hey I can live on fast food and no sleep for 3 days before I turn into a complete nightmare. Such a shame we did that for 5...)
One of my favorite discoveries came too early in the unpacking process for me to fully appreciate it. In my attempt to be organized as much as possible and cut through the chaos I decided to unpack and set up the kitchen ASAP. So our first Saturday in the house that is what I did. Unpacked kitchen boxes. All 57 of them. 57! Crazy, right ?? Anyway, I unpacked those 57 boxes. All day long. And some of the night. My feet were swollen and sore from standing on the hardwood floors for 16 hours and the skin on my hands was dried out from all of the cardboard. But by God the plates were in the cabinet! Hooray!!!
It was a few days later as I was making my morning coffee* when I noticed this:
Do you see it? How about if I zoom in a little closer?
Do you see it now?
It's my life.
At a glance in this one cupboard you can tell:
Where we have worked.
Where we have visited.
That we have a daughter
That my husband is a really good, Daddy (and must really like coffee. :-)
That someone likes bird hunting (see aforementioned Husband above)
That we celebrate Christmas
That we have had things to celebrate
Amazing how much information you can get from something as simple as coffee cups. Imagine what we would discover if I took a long look at our shot glass collection! That would be a slightly different, though very interesting story I am sure.
So what does your coffee cup collection say about you?
Take a picture of your cupboard and let's see the story of you.
.
But there is one perk of moving that I really do enjoy: finding things. Things you forgot you owned (Oh, I remember this picture!), things you never remember having (Where did we get that vase?), things you wanted to forget (Oh, yuk, I thought we threw that out years ago!); things you borrowed and never returned (Sorry, Norwin Library.) and even things you never realized about yourself. (Hey I can live on fast food and no sleep for 3 days before I turn into a complete nightmare. Such a shame we did that for 5...)
One of my favorite discoveries came too early in the unpacking process for me to fully appreciate it. In my attempt to be organized as much as possible and cut through the chaos I decided to unpack and set up the kitchen ASAP. So our first Saturday in the house that is what I did. Unpacked kitchen boxes. All 57 of them. 57! Crazy, right ?? Anyway, I unpacked those 57 boxes. All day long. And some of the night. My feet were swollen and sore from standing on the hardwood floors for 16 hours and the skin on my hands was dried out from all of the cardboard. But by God the plates were in the cabinet! Hooray!!!
It was a few days later as I was making my morning coffee* when I noticed this:
Do you see it? How about if I zoom in a little closer?
Do you see it now?
It's my life.
Well, mine and my husband's.
Our coffee cups have converged into a Cliff 's Notes version of the story of our lives.
At a glance in this one cupboard you can tell:
Where we have worked.
Where we have visited.
That we have a daughter
That my husband is a really good, Daddy (and must really like coffee. :-)
That someone likes bird hunting (see aforementioned Husband above)
That we celebrate Christmas
That we have had things to celebrate
Amazing how much information you can get from something as simple as coffee cups. Imagine what we would discover if I took a long look at our shot glass collection! That would be a slightly different, though very interesting story I am sure.
So what does your coffee cup collection say about you?
Take a picture of your cupboard and let's see the story of you.
* I use the term 'coffee ' with a bit of literary license here. It is a far cry to call the sugared-up, calorie-laden, whipped-cream-and-caramel-topped beverage I consume 'coffee'. But if Starbucks can do it, so can I . :)
Monday, October 7, 2013
Don't Sweat It
Hello, devoted readers (a.k.a. Mom), friends and complete strangers who stumbled across my blog. How is everyone today? Feeling good? Eating right, getting plenty of sleep, lots of exercise? The women here apparently are. Well the women here minus one, that is - me.
I don't know what it is about this town that I moved to but the women here are ridiculously fit. Every day as I drop my son off at preschool I am astounded by the number of women sporting their Lycra and spandex, heading off for a few volleys in their club-approved tennis skorts or out for a run in their Under Armour compression gear.
And they look like they actually put these cute clothes to use, too, unlike some women who throw on a pair of yoga pants for the comfort factor even though the most activity their bodies have seen or will see that day is the brief stretch they took as they reluctantly crawled out of bed. In my defense, I mean their, defense, they...ok, we have good intentions. We struggle into our stretched out stretch pants with the full intent of getting in some sort of exercise that day. We really do. But between the drop offs and pick ups and grocery getting and laundry doing and mess hall duty, etc we somehow never seem to squeeze it in. Or at least that is what we tell ourselves....and our husbands. (but not the too-fit Stepford wife at the preschool. I will happily let her think I jogged 5 miles before the kiddos got up and that I am heading straight to the gym as soon as I get out of the carpool line, even though I am really heading to Starbucks.)
When did being fit become so en vogue anyway? It seems to me that back in the 80s people were pretty serious about their Jazzercise and Jane Fonda workout tapes, but then in the coffee-house fueled 90s being fit seemed to be incidental more than intentional. With the changing of the Millennium people started taking physical fitness more seriously, I guess. Maybe when Y2K didn't bring about mass anarchy and chaos as had been predicted people decided they had something to live for after all. Or maybe it was the advancement of technology that sparked the renewed interest in getting fit. Before the eruption of social media sites like Facebook one only had to worry about looking good every 10 years or so at their high school reunions. Now we have people tagging us in pictures at every possibly moment and broadcasting it for the world to see. That is a lot of motivation to keep fit. (And yet I have gained 10 pounds in the last year. Hmm....).
In any case, whatever the reason, whatever the popular workout or gear of the moment, it is true that exercise is good for you. I get that that. And I really am going to put my yoga pants to work soon. I finally found my own personal motivation. Nothing else fits.
I don't know what it is about this town that I moved to but the women here are ridiculously fit. Every day as I drop my son off at preschool I am astounded by the number of women sporting their Lycra and spandex, heading off for a few volleys in their club-approved tennis skorts or out for a run in their Under Armour compression gear.
And they look like they actually put these cute clothes to use, too, unlike some women who throw on a pair of yoga pants for the comfort factor even though the most activity their bodies have seen or will see that day is the brief stretch they took as they reluctantly crawled out of bed. In my defense, I mean their, defense, they...ok, we have good intentions. We struggle into our stretched out stretch pants with the full intent of getting in some sort of exercise that day. We really do. But between the drop offs and pick ups and grocery getting and laundry doing and mess hall duty, etc we somehow never seem to squeeze it in. Or at least that is what we tell ourselves....and our husbands. (but not the too-fit Stepford wife at the preschool. I will happily let her think I jogged 5 miles before the kiddos got up and that I am heading straight to the gym as soon as I get out of the carpool line, even though I am really heading to Starbucks.)
When did being fit become so en vogue anyway? It seems to me that back in the 80s people were pretty serious about their Jazzercise and Jane Fonda workout tapes, but then in the coffee-house fueled 90s being fit seemed to be incidental more than intentional. With the changing of the Millennium people started taking physical fitness more seriously, I guess. Maybe when Y2K didn't bring about mass anarchy and chaos as had been predicted people decided they had something to live for after all. Or maybe it was the advancement of technology that sparked the renewed interest in getting fit. Before the eruption of social media sites like Facebook one only had to worry about looking good every 10 years or so at their high school reunions. Now we have people tagging us in pictures at every possibly moment and broadcasting it for the world to see. That is a lot of motivation to keep fit. (And yet I have gained 10 pounds in the last year. Hmm....).
In any case, whatever the reason, whatever the popular workout or gear of the moment, it is true that exercise is good for you. I get that that. And I really am going to put my yoga pants to work soon. I finally found my own personal motivation. Nothing else fits.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Looking back while walking forward
I was reading a post on one of my old and long-since-forgotten blogs the other day which told the story of how my husband and I came to meet, marry and welcome into our arms and lives our beautiful baby girl - who is now seven and a big sister to her five year old brother - and it started me thinking about my life and how much it has changed over the past 10 years. Ten years and two months ago I was lonely, broken-hearted and plain old sad. After struggling through a series of short-lived and ill-considered romances with all of the wrong men, I was convinced I would never have the kind of love and life I had always envisioned for myself. I was truly devastated. Not that a relationship is the end-all-be-all. It isn't. And not that having a man in your life defines you as a woman. It doesn't. But for me having that love and creating my own happy, little family was the #1 utmost priority in my life, and when it didn't happen in my twenties. I thought I was doomed to be alone forever. After all I was thirty! The big 3-0. The age by which most of my friends had already experienced the blissful bounty of marriage - some of them twice. They had found that everlasting love, their soul mate, their lobster, yet there I was sullen, alone and ready to count myself out. I had missed the boat, that ship had sailed, insert-your-own-metaphor- here, but it was over for me. I was too old and too worn out and just plain done. I was THIRTY and SINGLE! It may as well have been a death sentence.
Of course I laugh at it now. The forty-year-old me finds the younger version incredibly silly and pathetic, although she is usually good for a laugh. But then the forty-year-old me has had the benefit of having all of the things the younger version was seeking: love, commitment, marriage, children. And I have had the benefit of seeing those things for what they are, and not through some Disney-inspired looking glass. I have experienced all of the highs and lows that come with marriage, pregnancy, child-rearing, all of it . And of course I now have the "I am forty and I don't have to give a shit what people think anymore" card that came in my "Forty and Fabulous" kit on my birthday. (If you are forty + you know exactly what I mean. If you are not, just wait, you will find out.)
My point is that in a matter of years which, God-willing, will equate to merely an eighth or so of my life everything changed. I did meet a man shortly before my 31st birthday who did fill that void in my life and to whom I have been happily married for 8 years. My life is nothing now as it was then. All of the worries and heartaches I felt at 30 have become moot. Of course new worries have taken their place. Things I never even thought about when I was a spring chicken. Things like my parents getting older, keeping my children safe, raising them to be thoughtful, intelligent, caring, etc. I don't think you ever outgrow fears, they just change as you move along your spectrum of life. But at least we can face those new fears with more strength and confidence, knowing that when we reach that next phase of our life, this mountain of fear that is in front of us now will be behind us, and when we look back from a distance will be but a small stone and we will laugh at ourselves for letting it intimidate us as much as it did. I know that when I hit the big 5-0 the fifty-year-old me will be asking herself "Why did I let those things bother me so much when I was forty?" That knowledge may not stop me from stressing when we are running late for the bus or yelling at my kids as they wipe their peanut butter hands on their jeans or any of that everyday crap we all deal. But when the house is quiet and I am alone with my thoughts it will comfort me and allow me to enjoy the gift of this family that I so very much wanted, and for which I am so truly grateful, and forget all of the rest. At least until tomorrow.
Of course I laugh at it now. The forty-year-old me finds the younger version incredibly silly and pathetic, although she is usually good for a laugh. But then the forty-year-old me has had the benefit of having all of the things the younger version was seeking: love, commitment, marriage, children. And I have had the benefit of seeing those things for what they are, and not through some Disney-inspired looking glass. I have experienced all of the highs and lows that come with marriage, pregnancy, child-rearing, all of it . And of course I now have the "I am forty and I don't have to give a shit what people think anymore" card that came in my "Forty and Fabulous" kit on my birthday. (If you are forty + you know exactly what I mean. If you are not, just wait, you will find out.)
My point is that in a matter of years which, God-willing, will equate to merely an eighth or so of my life everything changed. I did meet a man shortly before my 31st birthday who did fill that void in my life and to whom I have been happily married for 8 years. My life is nothing now as it was then. All of the worries and heartaches I felt at 30 have become moot. Of course new worries have taken their place. Things I never even thought about when I was a spring chicken. Things like my parents getting older, keeping my children safe, raising them to be thoughtful, intelligent, caring, etc. I don't think you ever outgrow fears, they just change as you move along your spectrum of life. But at least we can face those new fears with more strength and confidence, knowing that when we reach that next phase of our life, this mountain of fear that is in front of us now will be behind us, and when we look back from a distance will be but a small stone and we will laugh at ourselves for letting it intimidate us as much as it did. I know that when I hit the big 5-0 the fifty-year-old me will be asking herself "Why did I let those things bother me so much when I was forty?" That knowledge may not stop me from stressing when we are running late for the bus or yelling at my kids as they wipe their peanut butter hands on their jeans or any of that everyday crap we all deal. But when the house is quiet and I am alone with my thoughts it will comfort me and allow me to enjoy the gift of this family that I so very much wanted, and for which I am so truly grateful, and forget all of the rest. At least until tomorrow.
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