Dancing in the Rain

I wrote this Sunday morning from my front porch, where I sat with my feet propped up on the railing while I watched rain softly fall and listened to distant thunder. It was a gray, dreary morning, which was perfect, because the grayness and the dreariness of the day perfectly matched the mood that I was in.

It’s been so incredibly hot and humid this summer that I haven’t spent as much time on my porch as I typically do. However cooler temperatures tagged along with the morning’s rain shower, so I took my coffee and book out there not long after the sun came up. Reading on the porch before my household wakes up and comes to chaotic life is right at the top of my “Favorite Things to Do” list. As I gazed out over the crunchy brown grass and droopy almost lifeless pots of flowers and inhaled the scent of rain on sunbaked concrete, I couldn’t concentrate on my book. After I read the same paragraph three times, I finally put it aside and decided to just go with the flow of my thoughts and let them take me down whatever rocky river they chose to flow. 

First of all, I thought about how hot and dry it’s been…so hot that even the weeds have shriveled up into things that not even the plethora of rabbits that inhabit my yard can munch on. My yard looks worse than it has ever looked in the 19 summers we have lived here. Of course, we typically have extremely hot summers with very little rain through the months of July and August. But normally, we keep the sprinklers going to maintain some green, and we joke about how the heat kills everything but the weeds. Well, this fine summer, since we have had virtually no rain at all since April, we are on water restriction and unable to sprinkle the yard, and the heat has even killed the weeds. This is what my lawn looks like right now:

Secondly, back to my thought of  “going with the flow,” I  remembered a pact I made with myself back at the beginning of June when we took our mini-vacation to Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. The day before we left Sandusky, I was awake well before dawn on a beautiful Sunday morning. Still in my pajamas, I took my Kindle, my laptop and a Styrofoam cup of hotel coffee to the beach, parked myself in one of these lovely rocking chairs

and watched the sun rise over Lake Erie. On that morning, watching a new day slowly brush over the night in a swirly palate of pink and purple and orange that reflected onto the glittering lake, 

I made a pact with myself that I am going to make more time to write when the mood strikes me. So often, something pops into my mind that really needs to get out, but I push it aside and carry on with whatever task I feel is more important at the time.

But, I realized something that morning. For me, writing is important…just as important to my well-being as eating and doing laundry and taking care of my family and their needs, and when I don’t do it, I feel scattered and out of sorts.

So back to early Sunday morning.

When I realized the rain may be hanging around for a while, I carried a couple of my baskets of flowers from the porch to the yard so they could get rained on, and they seemed to turn a more vivid green almost instantly. I imagined them breathing a sigh of relief and saying “Ahhhhh….that feels soooo good!” (No, I didn’t hear it…I know I’m crazy, but not that crazy. Yet.) It was as if that cool drink of rainwater revived them a little bit. Or, as if the rain washed away a thin layer of dust that had faded some of their brightness.I thought to myself, "Hey, my flowers are dancing in the rain!"

And then, as it so often does, my mind wandered, and I wished it was that easy for me to bring back some of the brightness my life used to have--I wished it was as easy as standing in the rain and letting the water wash away the dust that has layered itself upon my soul as my life seems to slowly crumble around me, like an old city building that was once loved and well-tended but is now losing small pieces of the brick and mortar that once held it together and made it beautiful and admired.

Sigh. Me and my dumb analogies. I can’t help it; they just invade my head sometimes, unbidden and definitely unwelcome.

I am coming upon the two-year anniversary of beginning to write this blog, and I am thinking of giving it up. Back then, I felt my life had so many things wrong, and I naively thought that by writing here and forcing myself to focus on the good things, to dance in the rain, all of the bad things would magically wash away in that rain like the dust on my sun-scorched plants. You know, count your blessings, we are what we think, blah blah blah…yet here I am, almost two years later, and while yes, I have done a mostly good job of focusing on small things to enjoy and appreciating them, and I have come to love writing about both my struggles and joys, it really has changed nothing. And I am feeling discouraged. In many ways, my life is even worse now than it was back then, in ways I would never have imagined at the time I started this blog.

So, while last month I made a pact with myself to write more often, unfortunately, the things I usually feel driven to write these days do not fit with my original blog mission of dancing in the rain while waiting for the storms to pass. Honestly, it makes me feel like a hypocrite.

Maybe instead of giving up writing here, I should change the name of my blog.

How about this one? "Stomping in Mud Puddles." That has a fun ring to it, no?

So now that the last two times I’ve written it’s been about depressing things, I guess before I totally give up on being Miss Susie Sunshine with a plus sign for  positive tattooed on my forehead, I should still do what I set out  to do and focus on some good things..

On that note, here is a Joyful Simplicities list for the past week.

*Homemade ice cream.

In honor of July being National Ice Cream month, I have gotten out my ice cream machine that sat gathering dust in my pantry, and I’ve made homemade ice cream twice. Salty Caramel and Cheesecake. Can I just say “YUM?” Even if I can’t, I just did, so :-P

*The first fresh tomatoes of the summer

I’ve been eating them on everything from pasta to tacos to blt’s. And even one or two or ten just by themselves still warm from the sun, sliced and sprinkled with sea salt and pepper. Can I again say “YUM?”

*Peaches

Since we had such a warm spring, most produce has been ready a few weeks ahead of schedule, and I’ve bought my favorite Eckert’s peaches several times. We’ve eaten them over ice cream, I’ve sliced them into salads, and of course, I’ve made peach pie.

*Rachel’s friends view of our family that made me smile

Over the weekend, we were faced with an epic problem with Rachel, which should have come as no surprise to me, but yet it did, and it sent me into a tailspin that I still haven’t recovered from. As a result of this, we confiscated Rachel’s cell phone and then spent an evening debating the merits of sending her to the Missouri Military Academy while we read text messages between Rachel and her friend Lindsay. Yeah, I’m terrible and nosy like that, but in my defense, the issue involved Lindsay. I don’t think I’ve ever been so furious at one of my children, or more disappointed/disillusioned. I was reading through the messages, steam coming out of my ears not only because of the things they had written to each other, but also because of the horrible things that had flowed from my daughter’s fingertips onto her phone keyboard. (Let’s just say the child will be extremely lucky if she gets texting privileges back before she graduates from high school). Anyway, I came upon a conversation between the two of them, and Lindsay said “Rachel, you are an idiot. You have such a great life! Your biggest worry and thing to get angry about is why your mom will not buy you a new pair of shoes! Grow the hell up! Realize there are kids out there with MORE IMPORTANT PROBLEMS THAN YOU!!! You are retarded. Your parents love you and would take a bullet for you. Your house is so fun!! Your mom is awesome!!! Why don’t you know how lucky you are to have all that???? WHY do you think I want to be at your house all the time????”

While I don’t care for her calling Rachel and idiot and retarded, and I am so furious at her along with Rachel and ready to ban her from my house forever, her message made me tear up. And made my desire to want to go choke her a teensie bit less intense. It also made me feel like I must be a pretty damn fine actress to be able to portray that image when all I really want to do is change my name, clean out my meager bank account and run away somewhere no one will ever find me.

Well, so much for ending this on a POSITIVE note, huh?

Right now, I am thinking again about my lifeless, brown lawn. I know that the harsh weather conditions will soon be a thing of the past, and as the temperatures cool and we have a few more rain showers, it will be nurtured back to life. I only hope that the harsh conditions that are battering me will also soon be a thing of the past and that kinder, gentler conditions will nurture my soul and bring brightness back to my life.

How many whacks does it take to break open a pinata?

Yesterday afternoon, I was feeling lazy and watched a movie on Lifetime. It was a dumb movie, and by the time it was over, I wished I would have found a better way to waste two hours of time, but once I started, I couldn’t turn it off.

This has nothing to do with the plot of the movie, but one scene showed a little girl at her birthday party, and one of the activities was breaking open a piñata. Sometimes, the blindfolded birthday girl missed the piñata altogether while other swings met their mark with a quick thud that made the zebra swing and twirl at the end of the rope it dangled from. One final hard blow caused it to break open and fall, spilling all of the candy and trinkets onto the grass. The scene reminded me of Rachel’s 7^th birthday party when she insisted on having a piñata at her luau themed shindig. The darn thing would not break…girl after girl dressed in grass skirts and bikini tops swung a baseball bat at it, yet it did not break until my brother in law took the matter (and the bat) into his own hands. Once the piñata broke, each of the places where the bat had previously hit the piñata was clearly visible as dents and cracks even though they weren’t noticeable until that final violent blow sent it shattered to the patio. And once the piñata suffered that final violent blow and fell to the ground, it broke apart at all of the tiny little places that hadn’t even been visible before yet obviously had weakened it.

While I pretty much hated the movie, when I saw that blindfolded little girl haphazardly swinging at that piñata, I couldn’t help but think about how my heart is starting to feel just like that piñata…taking many little blows that on their own don’t do any visible damage to the outside world. And I can’t help but wonder how many more whacks it will take to bust it wide open. I pictured those who inflict those little blows to my heart like that blindfolded little girl—I doubt they know how much those little whacks and blows are putting tiny little cracks and dings on my heart because they cannot see them. I doubt they know that one day, it might be too violent and hard of a whack that hits just the right (or wrong) weak spot for my heart to recover from and everything might come spilling out into a messy heap around me. And just like a broken piñata, or Humpty Dumpty, it won’t be able to be put back together again.

I read something not long about the resilience of the human spirit—how we can recover and heal from things that we think will break us. I’m not sure I agree with that. Just because the scars aren’t visible, doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Just because to the outside world, we look fine, doesn’t mean there is not a part of us that truly is broken.

And broken things cannot be unbroken.

You can’t un-break a piñata. You could probably stuff everything back inside and glue or tape it back together, and it may even look fine from a distance. But get too close, and the tears and breaks and tape will be obvious. And, once it is glued or taped back together, it won’t take much of a whack to break it wide open again.

You also can’t un-break a broken spirit or a broken heart. The tiny cracks…the larger fissures…the still larger holes will always be there. So will the tape used to repair those cracks and fissures and holes. Maybe they won’t be visible to the casual observer but they will be there nonetheless. And once the “repairs” are complete, it will still be a broken heart or spirit that is now more fragile and susceptible to being broken again.

Years ago, I read something in a book by Richard Paul Evans that had such an effect on me that I wrote it in my quote collection. I think of it often. The hardest shells often protect the softest hearts.

Sometimes, I wish I could grow a harder shell. Unfortunately, a hard shell doesn’t just keep out the bad stuff. It keeps out the good stuff as well.

This is a really depressing thing I have written. It’s hard to not write depressing things after my family once again let me down…showed me that my kids and I are really not all that important to them. The details don’t matter. It’s just the same shit, different day. Same whacks to the same soft heart. Some days, I'm not sure there is a shell hard enough to protect it. 

I will switch gears now and end this on a positive note.

A month or so ago, we bought Justin a new phone from Best Buy as a graduation present. There was a special promotion going on at the time, and he received a $50 Best Buy gift card. I told Justin after he used it that he had to keep it and give it to me. I have kept it propped up in my kitchen window sill ever since.

Is that not awesome?

Since I spend a great deal of time in my kitchen, I see it multiple times a day; it is a good reminder to me to keep my thoughts where they should be.

So, I got the whiney, pathetic, depressing thoughts out of my head, and will put the focus back on the good things about Justin’s party on Saturday. If I ignored the dark cloud that hung over the day, it was a great party.

I’ll just make a list of them!

*All of the friends that he wanted to come, did. They stayed all day, ate tons of food, played Frisbee, ate more food. It was nice.

*Justin’s best friends’ Sam/Sarah came with their parents, Karen and Mario. Those two are so wonderful--they have grown to love Justin and treat him as part of their family. Karen had tears in her eyes at one point when she said how lonely they are all going to be when Sam goes off to college and Justin joins the Navy. I can tell that she is genuinely going to miss him, and wow, that did my heart good.  She also told me that when Justin went to their house to tell them he had enlisted in the Navy that Mario immediately shook his hand and said how proud he was of him. Karen said, “I wish you could have seen the look on Mario’s face. It was that of a proud dad.” I cried.

I’ve cried a lot the past couple of days, but those were definitely some happy tears.

*My cousin and her family came. I don’t see them often, and I wish I did. I love her dearly and her husband and girls, too. They stayed late and we laughed and drank some wine and watched our French student teach her little girl some hip hop dance moves.

I cried when they left.

There’s a pattern here…

*At nearly 11 Saturday night I was exhausted, yet my house was still full of kids. I was so tired I wanted to cry. Instead of crying, I went out to my porch, cracked a window in the living room and listened to the happy laughter and chatter of the teenagers in my house making a mess with their second round of cake and ice cream in the kitchen that I had just cleaned up not an hour before. And I cried again because I know that these days are numbered. I cried because even though it was a day of feeling down about the way my family treats me, it was also a day that Justin thoroughly enjoyed, and I told myself that was the most important thing of all.

*Sunday morning at 5 am, Tony, Justin, Erwan and Lauren left to drive to New Orleans. I went out to help pack the trunk, and they all piled in the Chevy Malibu that Tony leased for the week, and I again found myself becoming teary eyed for no reason at all. The kids were packed in the car with their pillows, blankets and iPods when Justin suddenly got out of the car, gave me a hug, and said “thank you so much for the graduation party. It was awesome!” After that, Lauren and even Erwan got out of the car and gave me a hug. And guess what I did??

Yep. I cried AGAIN.

I feel like a 13 year old going through puberty.

I don’t know how to end this. I don’t want to end it on the depressing note that I began it with, that’s for sure. I guess it’s okay to be happy and sad at the same time, right?

If you give a girl a paintbrush....

She’ll use it to paint her living room a beautiful shade of dove gray and the ceilings and baseboards a pristine white.

Then, she’ll realize that the freshly painted, pristine white baseboards and ceiling make the white spindles on the stair railing look dingy and dirty, so she’ll decide to paint those, too.

 But, she is lazy and she won’t want to paint around the wooden railing, so she’ll just paint the whole darn thing white.

 When the stair railing becomes a crisp white that matches the baseboards, she’ll notice that the front door now looks dingy and not very fresh, so she’ll paint that next. Only, she will be sick of white paint by this point, so she will want to paint it red.

 After many coats of red paint, she will love the new door, but she will think, “Hey, this door would look even better with a colorful wreath hanging on it,” even though she has never before had a wreath hanging on the inside of her front door.

 So, off she will go to Hobby Lobby to purchase a wreath and flowers.

 When she has covered the wreath with a spray of colorful fake flowers,

she will realize that the table that sits inside the front door is looking very shabby and not quite up to the standards of the rest of the room,

 so she will paint it black.

Once it is spray painted black, it will need some new knobs on the drawers, so she will go back to Hobby Lobby to buy some pretty red glass knobs.

When the living room and hallway are brand spanking clean, it will hit her one day that while the walls in the kitchen don’t really need to be painted, the white trim and doors in that room look awful and scuffed and dirty. (And she will not want to show a picture of THAT!).

 So she will scrub them clean and paint those next.

Next, she will decide to paint the walls in her son’s bedroom since it is the only children’s room that hasn’t been painted recently.

If the walls are going to be freshly painted, then she will know that of course, the baseboards and doors must be freshly painted as well.

 When the room is finally finished and the walls are a soothing shade of blue that evokes memories of warm Gulf of Mexico waters and the furniture has been returned to the room, she will want a new bedspread for the bed, even though the old one matches just fine.

 So she will buy a new bedspread.

 She is frugal however, so she will buy a $40 bed-in-a-bag set from Walmart that includes a comforter, set of sheets, and a pillow sham.

Once the new bedspread is placed on the bed, she will suddenly realize the white blinds covering the windows look terrible against all the new white trim, so she will go to Home Depot to buy 2 new blinds.

 When the room is finished with all new and old things back in place, she will pour herself a cold glass of wine, stand outside the room and admire all of her hard work. She will think to herself, “Whew, everything is finished now!”

And then...she will sigh a big sigh, wipe the sweat from her brow, glance into her bedroom and realize that she really is very tired of the yellow paint and green flowered wallpaper border in her bedroom that have graced it’s walls for the last 14 years.

 THEN...she will go pour another glass of wine, grab a stack of Better Homes and Gardens magazines, settle into her favorite rocking chair on the front porch, and scour their pages for bedroom paint color ideas.

And then she will realize that if she is going to paint her bedroom, of course, the doors and trim and ceiling will also need to be painted. And so will the bathroom walls, doors and trim….and then the bathroom will need a new curtain...

Emptying the Nest

Saturday, a plastic electrical outlet cover made me cry.

 Let me explain since that sounds totally loony tunes.

 This past weekend, I decided to tackle a renovation of Justin’s bedroom, and I was not expecting to feel as emotional as I did. The room hadn’t been touched for about 11 years, so it was long overdue. We have a student from France coming to spend 3 weeks with us later this month, and one of the requirements is that he must have his own room. We don’t have spare bedroom, so Justin offered to give his up since he is the one who begged me to have a French student spend 3 weeks with us. It seemed like the perfect time to spruce up the room because quite honestly, it was an embarrassing mess. (NO, I will not be showing photographs!)

For some dumb reason, probably because the world is full of procrastinators and I am the Queen of ALL of them, I waited until now to take on this project, even though I have known for months I was going to do it. And I paid mightily for my bad habit of putting things off. The last few days of June were the hottest June days on record here in the St. Louis metro area, and Justin’s room is the hottest room in the house. Since I had put it off for so long, it had to be done now, hot or not. But let me tell ya…steaming 12 year old wallpaper from the walls on a 106 degree day is most definitely NOT my idea of fun, and I hope I never have to do any such thing ever again.

While sweating in that hot room that was a hot mess is what I was expecting when I got started Saturday morning, what I wasn’t expecting was the flood of emotions I would experience as the day wore on.

The emotional waves rolled in when Tony took Justin’s bed out of the room. Behind the bed was an electrical outlet cover that is still speckled with the pink, yellow and light green paints that had once covered the bottom third of the walls in that room. Tears welled up as I remembered how I lovingly decorated the room when I was pregnant with Lauren.

After having two boys, I was making her room as girly as I possibly could, and I painted the top of the room a sunshiny yellow, the bottom a sponged mixture of bubblegum pink, minty green, and the same yellow the upper walls were painted with. When I was expecting Lauren, I made my first-ever quilt…white eyelet threaded with pink and yellow and mint green ribbons. It was trimmed with a white eyelet ruffle and backed with a soft flannel pastel print fabric. More white eyelet and pink ribbon topped the windows

I digress…those were my initial thoughts when I saw that silly outlet cover. In a just a few short minutes, I vividly remembered how much fun I had decorating the nursery for my first baby girl 17 years ago this summer.

As the day wore on, perhaps the extreme heat in that room affected my brain, but the tearful waltz down memory lane continued.

I thought about how 3 of my 4 children had used that room as their nursery. We moved into this house just a few weeks before Justin was born, and I was so very excited to prepare a room. I had done nothing at all to get ready for our new son’s arrival…not only were we waiting for our new house to be built, but I had just been released from 8 weeks of bed rest the day before we closed on it. My doctor knew we were moving and gave me explicit instructions that I was to do nothing but sit on the porch and boss people around. I had no problem doing that, but I also couldn’t wait to prepare the room that our new baby would soon be occupying. I did not have the time to really decorate the room, but I bought new bedding in primary colors, filled his dresser with new baby clothes as well as those passed down from Brandon. I hung a very special framed cross stitch print on the wall…special because I had passed the time during my scary weeks of bed rest stitching it. I have saved it all these years:

 

 The day after the room was ready, Justin arrived.

That room was his little haven until he was 13 months old. By then, I was expecting Lauren, and I was ready to turn it into a room fit for a little princess. As I scraped yesterday, I got to one corner of the room that still had the little brass hooks in the ceiling that once hung a mesh sling full of her stuffed animals and dolls. I uncovered patches of that old yellow paint…and uncovered more memories…

 Rachel was the next and last baby to make that room her home. As I happily prepared for another little girl, I made a new quilt and bought a new dresser and bookshelf and painted a new “big girl” room for 2 year old Lauren to move into. When Rachel was 3, she and Lauren wanted to share a room. The boys, who had been sharing a room, wanted to have their own rooms, so I turned the nursery into a little boy room. I took down the water-colored pastel border and painted over the pink/yellow/mint sponge painted wall. I painted the walls a boyish tan with a red stripe in each corner, and I put up yet another border that was full of baseball gloves, basketballs and hockey sticks. I found a rug that looked like a baseball, bought a St. Louis Cardinals bedspread, and I once again had so much fun decorating that tiny room.

It remained untouched until Saturday. Now, I am readying it for a 17 year old boy from France. While it is still Justin’s room, and he wants to pick the new wall color (navy blue!), I told him it has to be a color that I like since in a few months, he will be leaving for the Navy. I envision turning it into a proper guest room. We have never had one, and over the years, any guest we had either slept in one of our beds or on a couch. It’s kind of ironic that now that I can have a guest room, we never actually have overnight guests.

In a few months, half of my children will be leaving the nest, so perhaps it is only natural for me to reminisce the way I did. After all, each one of my children except Brandon has spent their entire lives in this house. I have given them something I never had…a childhood home they can remember always. We moved so much when I was a kid, and I had many childhood homes. One thing I always told Tony I wanted for my kids was stability in one home and school while they were growing up, and while it is nice for them, I guess it makes it more likely that I am going to have a hard time when they leave here. We were having a conversation with the girls this weekend, and I told Lauren about how I remembered decorating the room for her and how much fun I had. That led to her asking “what are you and dad going to do when we all leave?” Tony jokingly said, “Buy a condo!” and Lauren and Rachel both looked horrified. Lauren said, “You can’t! I want to have this house to come home to!”

Tears…

I’ve done what I set out to do, and soon the process will begin—the process of my children leaving the nest that I have done my very best to make cozy and loving for them.

I discovered two things this weekend…one…any overnight guest I do have in my first real guest room will sleep in a room that has held many happy memories…and the laughter, tears and paraphernalia of 4 wonderful children. Two, I realized that if a cheap plastic outlet cover makes me cry, I’m not going to be a very good empty nester.

Soaking up June

My goodness, it’s been a long time since I’ve written here. Not because I haven’t wanted to, because I have. Not because I’ve had nothing to write about, because I have. Not because I haven’t had time, because, yes indeed, I have. So why haven’t I? I don’t know.

I have started to write several times, but each time I do, my thoughts and words veer off to a path that I don’t really want to go down in such a “public” way. Not that many people read this, so it’s not all that public, but still. I’ve started to write about many things that do not fit the purpose of my blog, which is to force myself to look on the bright side of life even when life is feeling very dark.

So…I have really wanted to write. I have really NEEDED to write. I have so many unfinished posts I have written over the past month or more. I have become quite good at starting things I don’t finish, and I’m really not sure why I keep beginning to write and then putting it aside, yet I do, and I now have a black hole of unfinished writings.

But, here I am, writing now. It’s going to be a post longer on pictures than on words. Anyone who is reading this can shout hallelujah right now. I’d really love to write more, but I’m procrastinating on work writing I really should be doing right now. I am hoping that getting a few things out of my head via my fingers will help some much-needed creative juices to start flowing through my brain.

Back to soaking up June…

June has always been my favorite month. Maybe it started when I was little because my birthday is in June, and when you are a kid, your birthday is all that is wonderful and happy and you look forward to it all year long. Now that I am pushing 50, I don’t look forward to my birthday all year long, but I do still look forward to June. In the midst of winter when the world is dreary and gray and cold, I mentally drool over the prospect of sunshine, the sounds of birds singing and lawn mowers and the ice cream truck and the smell of freshly cut grass. I think I love June so much because it is typically a glorious month of spring waiting for summer to arrive. It’s normally sunny and warm without the oppressive humidity that envelops and sometimes ruins July and August. In June, I watch the flowers that started out as tiny seedlings from the nursery 6 pack blossom into cascading waterfalls of color that spill over pots and railings. In June, I can begin my days drinking coffee and reading in a rocking chair on my front porch, and I can do so without sweating profusely. In June, my lawn is still green. In June, I buy strawberries from local produce stands, keep them in a big bowl on my kitchen counter and eat them sliced on everything from peanut butter toast to salads that are drizzled with poppy seed dressing. In June, the summer is new and fresh and winter seems a long way off. Each June, I do everything I possibly can to squeeze every last drop of warmth and summer and sunshine into my daily life.

While I have so many different things I could and want to write about right now, I’m going to fill this post with pictures of all of the many ways I am enjoying June of 2012.

**What better way to enjoy June than at the beach? IS there a better way? I think not. While it’s not my beloved Gulf of Mexico, Lake Erie is pretty darn nice too. We took a two-day trip their earlier this month, and stayed at a beautiful grand old hotel that was built in the early part of the 20^th century. Being there felt like a step back in time.

If one is going to spend a few June days at the beach, what better perch to view that beach from:

While my family spent their time at Cedar Point, I spent MY time with my butt parked on one of these beautiful chairs. I watched the sunrise

Isn’t that amazing? Watching the rising sun paint a new day is one of my favorite things to do, even at home from my kitchen window. It’s even more amazing when you can watch the sun rise over the beach.

I also sat in one of those chairs two evenings in a row with a book and a glass of wine.

Speaking of enjoying the beach in June, check out this beach:

We took a one day trip to Lake Michigan on our way home, and wow, I had NO idea how beautiful Lake Michigan is. I almost felt like I was at the Gulf of Mexico. Well, until I stepped into water that almost instantly numbed my toes that is. But isn’t it breathtaking?

**One of the best ways I soak up and celebrate June is with two of my children’s birthdays. Justin turned 18 on June 15, and Rachel turned 14 on June 26. I don’t have pictures from Rachel’s birthday, but here is my favorite from Justin’s:

When Justin was a little boy, his favorite thing in the world was Scooby Doo. One of my fondest memories from his childhood was how he used to crawl into bed with me early each morning after Tony got in the shower. He would lay his little blonde head on the pillow next to mine and snuggle with me under the covers to watch Scooby Doo when I was still half asleep. So I thought it would be fun to get him a SD cake for his birthday. He loved it, and his friends thought it was hilarious. His best friend Sam said, “Awww…you don’t want your wittle boy to grow up.” Justin smacked him.

**If the beach and my children’s birthdays are the two best ways to celebrate June, then tooling around in a convertible has to be third on the list.

The girls and Rudy and I went to visit my dad for Father’s Day, and we decided to drive the whole way there with the top down. It was a 90 plus degree day, and I was a sweaty, windblown mess by the time we arrived, but it was so worth it.

 **This past weekend, I visited my mother in law. She loves to garden, and has always had beautiful flowers and plants. Unfortunately, her health doesn’t allow her to do much of it herself these days, but she does have a few people who work for her and help her keep up with the planting and watering and such, and while her gardens aren’t what they used to be, they are still pretty, and the house is surrounded by large shade trees. Each morning, I enjoyed sitting on her patio reading and having coffee. My inlaws live on the outskirts of town on 2 acres of land, so it is nice and quiet and peaceful there.

**I don’t plant as many flowers as I used to simply because I don’t have the time that is required to keep them alive during the heat of July and August. I do still plant pots of flowers on my deck and front porch, and this morning, I took this photo of some of them:

I planted them just a few weeks ago, but already, they are spilling over the pots. I love how they are thriving and growing.

So that is the month of June in a nutshell.

Joyful Simplicities... 

While I haven’t kept up with my Joyful Simplicities posts the way I envisioned I would, I have been keeping track and taking photos of simple little things that make me smile. It’s a long list since I’m so far behind, but here goes:

**I took a week-long trip to Miami in May with my boss, and while we worked our butts off, we did manage to find some time at the end of the week to visit the beach, eat some Cuban food, and drink mojitos as the sun set.

**The highlight of our trip was spending time with some old friends who used to live here in St. Charles and now live in West Palm Beach. They treated us to lunch at one of the most magnificent places I have ever been, The Breakers hotel. I felt like I was hob-nobbing with the rich and famous.

 **My red front door. Back in the winter, I decided on a whim to paint the inside of my front door bright red, and I’m so glad I did. I love it, and it makes me smile.

**New kitchen utensils. I adore these things…I love to cook, they are awesome, and I enjoy them so much more knowing that I won them in the silent auction at Angel Ball…I paid $30 for all of them, and they are worth $12-18 each. I smile every time I unload them from the dishwasher.

 **A quiet early Saturday morning with the sun streaming through the windows of my family room.

**Branches of honeysuckle I found growing wild in my yard one morning.

**A pitcher of iced tea, made in my Aunt Mary’s crystal pitcher. One afternoon, I decided I might as well use it and enjoy it rather than save it for special occasions and let it gather dust in my china cabinet.

**My kids have miraculously been getting along famously lately. Oh, they do have their bratty moments, but we had so much fun on our mini vacation, and it warmed my heart to see them all having fun together. They rode rides at Cedar Point, played Frisbee in the lake, had a blast playing a round of miniature golf and just generally enjoyed being with each other.

Last week when Brandon and Justin enlisted in the Navy, Rachel was sooo excited and wanted to make posters to hang on the garage door that they would see when they arrived home. She had her good friend Emily over, and they did a great job making posters.

**This is silly, but I loved these lamps that lined the boardwalk outside our hotel in Ohio.

**I also am in love with this blue house we spotted in St. Joseph, Michigan, right across the street from Silver Beach on Lake Michigan. I totally want a blue house now…with black shutters and a yellow front door. It would stick out like a sore thumb in my neighborhood, but I almost don’t care. I can’t imagine ever coming home in a bad mood if I pulled up in a driveway that led to blue house with a yellow front door.

 **Flowers:

I have been buying myself flowers once every week or so. My favorite grocery store sells colorful bouquets for only $5, so how can I resist? The rocks in the bottom of this vase were gathered on a walk I took on the shores of Lake Michigan at Indiana Sand Dunes State Park. This picture was taken there as well:

It was so beautiful there, but I quickly learned that hiking up a sand dune is no easy task. You also can't do it wearing sandals. You can't do it barefoot either. Trust me. I know these things.

Finally, the biggest joyful simplicity of all!

I love this girl! My sweet niece Jean flew in and spent last weekend with us. More on that in another post, but for now, here is a picture of Jean and my kids. We all cried when she left Sunday evening.

I have run out of photos and words. Thank goodness, huh? For now anyway. I actually have a post about something really profound churning around in my brain…we shall see if it actually makes it to my blog.

LAME. O. And B.O.R.I.N.G.

It’s official. I am old. I am lame. I think that sitting in a hotel room in MIAMI, by MYSELF is nice.

Yes, that is correct. I am in Miami. Away from my family. It is 8:30 at night. And for the second night in a row, I have been in my room, in my red-flowered flannel pj pants and a sweatshirt, by myself, at 7:30 PM. And savoring every minute of it.

(Shouldn’t I be in a South Beach bar buying fruity drinks at a thatch-roofed hut during my breaks of salsa dancing in a swirly skirt and bikini top while an episode of “Girls Gone Wild” is being filmed?)

If being in my hotel room at 7:30 wearing pjs doesn’t make me lame, I don’t know what else will. To quote some kid I don’t remember the name of from the movie “The Sandlot,” I am officially an L7 WEEEEEE-NIE.

My self-esteem may never recover.

I’ve been in Miami since 9:30 yesterday morning, and the highlight of my trip so far is that I have discovered that The Big Bang Theory is a damn funny show. Maybe I think it’s funny because the guys are really lame and nerdy, and I can relate. I had lots of time last night to figure out that I can relate since I watched 2 hours straight of that 30 minute sitcom.

Yes, I am in Miami, and I watched 2 hours of tv before falling asleep around 9:30. And I am extra lame because tonight, I turned on the tv hoping to find another Big Bang Theory marathon, and there isn’t one.

Other reasons I am lame: (as if the above reasons aren’t more than enough)

*My only outing from the hotel was yesterday evening…to make a ½ mile drive to CVS to buy trail mix.

*We have a cute little white Chevy HHR that is obviously wasted on me and my boss. Folks way hipper and less boring than us should be driving it. When we picked it up at the airport yesterday, we both said, “what a cute little car to tool around Miami in!” Who knew “tooling around Miami” would mean driving ½ mile away to CVS to buy trail mix

The other highlight of my trip so far was the oh-so sweet relief I felt in my back and arm and shoulder after I took 2 Aleve last night. The Aleve was needed after the hour long walk from the airport terminal to Enterprise to pick up that cute little car while dragging two 50 pound suitcases and lugging my carry-on bag over my shoulder. I think that powers that be at the Miami airport are sadists. They have to be to have decided that placing the car rental area 2 miles from the baggage claim area was a good idea.

What the hell has happened to me??

Though it’s not like I really have any choice and it’s not my fault that I am stuck in a hotel room, by myself, in Miami. With a cute little HHR sitting all lonely in the parking lot of the Homewood Suites—Blue Lagoon. The car is in Cathi’s name, she is the only one who is allowed to drive it, she likes to retire and relax early, and the closest attraction to our hotel is Miami International Airport.

It is however, totally my fault that I am really not all that upset about being stuck in the Homewood Suites—Blue Lagoon hotel. I’ve had a lot of quiet time to relax and unwind and read and watch The Big Bang Theory. It would be nice if our hotel was on the beach instead of across the highway from the airport so I could at the very least go for a walk and listen to the soothing sound of waves lapping the shore. Instead, I am making do with reading a book in my comfy hotel suite.

By this time next week, I’m sure I will be longing for all of this quiet time, but for now, I will dream about frosty drinks and bikini tops and swirly skirts and warm sand under my feet. But for now, I am going to go eat some trail mix and watch the news while gazing out over the intercoastal waterway.

If my friends could see me now, they'd be so jealous.

Faith and Fear

Faith and fear cannot occupy the same space.

I have been writing this post for so long that it could be a small book by now rather than a blog post. I have sat in front of my computer many times and written nothing more than a few words and re-written other words because I really struggled to pull this all together. Working on this reinforced my belief that while I love to write, I could never do it for a living on any kind of deadline because I definitely write at my own snail-slow pace most of the time. Besides that, I’m sure it’s obvious to anyone who reads this blog that I also would have the most difficult time complying with a word limit. J

I read that quote above early in the summer on a Facebook friend’s page. His name is John O’Leary. John is a remarkable man, one of the most inspirational people I have ever met. I met him through my boss--he is married to her niece. What is so remarkable about this man is that when he was a child, only 9 years old, he was playing with matches and gasoline, started a fire in his garage on a snowy Saturday morning when both of his parents were out, and was burned over nearly 100 percent of his body. The only thing that saved his life was the deep snow in his front yard that his older brother and sister rolled his body in, dousing the flames that covered him. The only part of his body that was not burned was one side of his face and neck. He nearly died and spent months in the hospital undergoing painful treatments and therapies. A saving grace for him was that an announcer for the St. Louis Cardinals, Red Schoendienst, happened to attend the same Catholic church in St. Louis that John’s family attended. He shared with the Cardinal team the tragic story of a little boy in his parish who had suffered severe burns to most of his body.  A very special and “famous” Cardinal announcer on KMOX, the radio station that once aired Cardinal games, heard about John O’Leary and began visiting him in the hospital. As John slowly began to recover, this radio announcer started bringing him baseballs autographed by Cardinal players, telling him he would only bring another once he’d written a thank you note to the previous signer.

That announcer who took a burned and scarred little boy into his heart and under his wing was Jack Buck. Anyone who is a Cardinal fan knows who Jack Buck is. Jack Buck is something of a legend in St. Louis. He was a legend to little John O’Leary, too. John O’Leary credits Jack Buck with saving his life and giving him a reason to go on. He was determined to keep writing those thank you notes even though he had no fingers left after being burned. Years went by, John slowly recovered, and Jack Buck kept in touch with him and became a good friend. When John graduated from college, Jack gave him the crystal baseball he received when he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. John married, had a son, and named him Jack. He now is the father of 3 boys and a newborn little girl.

John is an internationally known motivational speaker—a job which suits him perfectly. I’ve been so privileged to meet him on a number of occasions. He sometimes attends the Share golf tournament, and I have heard him speak at two different conferences. If John O’Leary can’t motivate a person and inspire them to look on the sunny side of life, I doubt anyone can. My coworkers and I were lucky enough to be on a flight home from DC with him, and we spent several hours with him in the airport and then chatted with him on the flight, and I can’t say enough what a truly lovely man he is.

One thing that will be forever etched in my memory is something he said the first time I heard him speak. At the end of a keynote address in which he talked about his burns and the struggles he still has all these years later, he said that he was so grateful for the life and opportunities he has had, and that if he was given the chance to do his life over, he wouldn’t change a thing. I remember how shocked I was when he said that…that he wouldn’t change such a horrific event….that even in the midst of such terror and pain that he has lived with, he has managed to be grateful, not only for the wonderful things that have come about in his life because of what happened to him, but that he is also grateful for what happened to him. It was hard for me to wrap my mind around that at the time, and five years later, I still think of it, and of him, in awe.

So back to that quote…”Faith and fear cannot occupy the same space.”

 I have been thinking about this and trying to write my thoughts about it for months now. To be honest, reading those 8 little words has been rather life changing for me. I have thought about the many times in my life when I have been fearful of something. Looking back on them, I can see that way too often, I let my fears take over and prevent me from doing something I may have really wanted to do yet was too afraid to. In those cases, faith and fear really could not occupy the same space and fear won. I have also thought back to times when I did take a leap of faith, yet the fears were still there, and I never really quite let go of them enough to truly shine, enjoy, or appreciate something. It was less obvious, but faith and fear still could not occupy the same space. While there have been numerous times I have tried my hardest to overcome a  fear, I look back and wonder if the fears that I had directed how I handled situations that may have had a completely different outcome if I had banished the fear and relied solely on faith that everything would work out. I’m having a difficult time putting these thoughts into words still, but I have wondered if my fears made me act in such a way that made it more likely that those fears would indeed become reality…if I created a self-fulfilling prophecy so to speak.

One situation that comes to mind is many years ago when Tony and I were newly married and living in Omaha, I was the assistant manager for a women’s clothing store. I loved the job, and I loved my boss. A couple of years after we began working together, she was given a promotion within the company and moved away to open a new store. I was offered a promotion and given the job managing the store I worked in. At first, I turned it down because I didn’t think I was ready. However, I let my boss and our district manager talk me into accepting it. They both assured me that I was more than ready, that I would do a fabulous job. They both told me that if I wasn’t ready, they would never have offered it to me, and that I was the unanimous choice among those who decided these things, right up to the owner of the company. Wow, I was speechless. He owned around 75 stores, so it came as a shock to me that he even knew who I was. I didn’t have much faith in myself those days. Hell, I still don’t most of the time, but I was even worse back then!

So, I accepted the job. But that nagging fear didn’t go away. A few days before my boss’s scheduled departure, we were working together on some details about managing the store, and I had a bit of a meltdown. Actually, a “bit of a meltdown” is probably a huge understatement. I ended up a sobbing mess of tears, and she told me that if I didn’t get my head together, I would never be a successful manager, that if I didn’t believe in myself, no one else would either. That no one would take me seriously as a manager if I didn’t at least pretend as if I was the best damn manager out there. I tried. I really and truly did. I worked my butt off. The store looked amazing all the time, and I started to think I would really like to go into visual merchandising as I really seemed to have a talent for it. I remember the owner’s first visit after I had become manager…he raved about how fabulous the store looked, and how creative and beautiful the front window displays were. And for the most part, the store continued performing well over the next few months. But that fear that I wasn’t good enough just wouldn’t go away. The store had grown and thrived under the previous manager. Before she took over, it had been one of the lowest performing stores out of the nearly 80 stores across the country, ready to be closed, and by the time she left, it was one of the top performing stores. I had some mighty big shoes to fill, and I did not believe in my heart that I was up to the task. And in the end, I wasn’t, and I ended up leaving that job nearly 2 years after taking it, a stressed out wreck of a person on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

I always have looked at that job as one of my biggest failures. The blow my self esteem took back then was huge. But, after reading that quote, my eyes were opened…I couldn’t help but wonder  if my own fears contributed to the  way I did my job and pretty much ensured that I was going to fail? What if instead of assuming that I could never fill my boss’s shoes, I had had enough faith in myself to put on my own shoes and not worry about filling hers? Of course, I will never know the answer to this, and it doesn’t even matter any longer, but thinking about that situation led me to think about other situations, and I definitely have discovered a pattern.

I have thought of friendships I have had over the years, that I never really had much faith in them being lasting friendships…almost like I knew they wouldn’t be, so why bother putting myself out there too much? Did I act in a way that ensured they wouldn’t be? Did I not let myself really become close to people because of my fears? Again, I’m not going to go into details here, but I now realize that more than likely, I have. Reading that quote was a real eye opener to me, and I definitely can see things I have done and ways I have reacted that again, make it more likely that my fears will come to be.

I have thought of issues within my marriage and how I have acted certain ways based on my fears. I’m not going to go into details on this subject either because I don’t want to depress myself, but about 18 months ago, something happened that knocked the wind from my sails, and things have only gone downhill from there. I can’t help but wonder if the fears I have had these past months have made me act in ways that I may not have acted otherwise, which has only made it more likely that my biggest fear will come true.

It’s been a vicious circle of wondering.

This subject began to fascinate me to the point that I Googled “having faith in the face of fear.” I came upon an article that for the most part, reinforced my thoughts and reinforced John O’Leary’s quote. The author of that article wrote:  fear is all about our thoughts—where we focus them. If we think about the possibility of danger or of negative outcomes or of unwanted futures we make ourselves afraid. If we focus on our faith, or on the fact that we are okay—safe and sound—in this moment, we do not make ourselves afraid. Instead, we give ourselves courage to take a step forward on the bridge called life. He also wrote that that fear stops you from living your life fully and creating the life you desire. Fear prevents you from achieving your highest potential and immobilizes you on the path to your dreams.

How true that is. I have tried to not look backwards and beat myself up for the many times that I let fear rather than faith rule my life…not think about the times when I have focused  my thoughts on my fears, but wow, it is hard to not do that. I have tried not to think about all of the times when fear stopped me from having the courage to live life the way I wanted to. I have only written about a few examples here, when I could write about many, many more. Like I said, I could probably write a book. At the same time, while I can’t help but looking back on those situations, I don’t WANT to think about them and depress the hell out of myself.

I put this blog post aside months ago, and just came across it on Saturday when I was cleaning out and going through documents on my computer, and I was glad that I had never posted it. Like I mentioned already, I struggled with it every time I tried to write something. But finding it then was just what I needed. Once again, I am facing something that I have worried myself sick over, and I know that I have been acting in ways completely out of character for me, which has made me feel even worse. Again, that vicious circle has taken over, spinning me out of control at times. As I read these words I have anguished over the past many months, it brought to mind another quote:  Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its troubles, it only robs today of its joy.

So, Saturday morning, as I downed too many cups of coffee, I gave myself a mental kick in the butt, and told myself rather emphatically that I am not going to change whatever may be happening by worrying about it, so why spend so much effort and brain power on it? I’m not quite to the having faith it will all work out part, but I am trying. Even if I never get there, at least I can say for now, I’m not fearing doomsday. If I have to tell myself a thousand times a day, “right now, this moment, I am okay, things are okay, life is okay,” that is what I will do.

I have also been thinking a great deal about someone I learned about recently who for a year has been battling a rare cancer that is inoperable. She is someone I briefly met in college, and I doubt she would even remember me at all. I found her blog, and the first night, I spent hours reading about the past year of her life and all of her challenges and struggles. One thing she wrote sticks with me now. One day, she shared that she doesn’t fear what is ahead for her because she has faith that no matter what happens, God is with her, and that faith is enough to sustain her and keep her going through whatever she must endure and banish her fears. I really wish I had that faith so strong. It is one thing I have always been envious of in people who do  have it as it something I have wrestled with for many years.

To wrap this up….one last thing the author I mentioned above wrote is that when we have faith, we simply don’t focus on the thoughts that make us afraid. It sounds simple, eh? Simple in word, but not in practice. Oh, if only things were as simple as they seem when we read them! However, while I can’t say I have complete faith that things are going to work out…that my life is going to stay on an even course, at least I can feel as if by banishing the fear, I am leaving room for faith to fill the empty space at some point, and I will pray that it does.