Little things make me happy

I am feeling so happy and blessed tonight and as I think back on the day, it was the little things that made me happy. Things like:

• Being able to buy a gift certificate for my parents on halfoffnashville.com


• Getting some creative time at a stamp class with some friends after work


• Holding a sweet baby girl as she slept in my arms while her mom crafted


• Rejoicing with my sister about hearing her baby's heartbeat at their doctor's visit today


• Getting not one, but two phone calls from Daniel just to let me know how his day had gone


• Receiving a letter in the mail that Daniel wrote to me as a class assignment

God is so good! God is so good! God is so good, He's so good to me!

Snow days aren't as fun as they used to be

Well, I woke up this morning and turned on the TV to see if Metro Davidson County Schools were actually going to get a snow day this time. I triple-checked on three stations and saw that they were going to be out and that the roads were slick, etc., etc. Then I tried to go back to sleep for a little while, only to be awakened by the phone ringing and had to get up to go answer it (the Metro automated phone call to say that school was cancelled--thanks!). Since I was awake, I turned the TV back on and started figuring out what my plan of action should be. Here were my options:

1. Stay home with Daniel for a unexpected free day off (for him anyway)
2. Go to work and be a responsible manager that I should be

There were then sub-choices:

1. Bring Daniel to work with me
2. Call my sister to see what her plans were
3. Call a friend to see if Daniel could come over for the day

Well, I decided to be a responsible manager and at least call my co-workers to see if they would be able to get to the office. Then I called my sister and found out that she was going to go on to work, too. Finally, I called Sherry (and woke her up, sorry!) to ask if she would mind having an extra kid for the day.

The roads ended up not being too bad once we finally left and Daniel was more than happy to get a day to hang out with his friends! I think I'm the only one who got the raw end of the stick. Like I said before, snow days aren't as fun as they used to be. (OK, I'm finished whining now--thanks for listening).

"It is what it is"

That seems to be the latest catch-phrase, or maybe I'm behind and it's not so new. Regardless, I have heard people say it a lot in the past week or so. What does it mean, exactly? Is it the next level past, "It's all good"? At least "it is what is is" is a little more true and realistic. I've just noticed that people use "it is what it is" as a pat answer and as an attempt to make themselves feel better about the situation they're in. So, I need to lose 20 pounds, but I don't want to exercise and I want to eat sweets. "It is what it is", I guess. NO!

I mean, yes, my weight issue "is what it is" right now, but that's not what I want it to be forever, and I'm not content to just "let it be." I have shared my struggle with friends around me and asked my accountability group to pray with me about it. I have journaled my food intake this week and have made a change in my normal Weight Watchers program (trying to jump start things with Core instead of Flex). I have found a little bit of new motivation and am hoping that I will see some downward movement on the scale on Tuesday.

I have a very "realistic" and probably too pragmatic personality, but I am not willing to settle for "it is what it is" when it can be so much more and better!

Loving and letting go

Here's an example of love: getting up at 5:15 AM on a Saturday morning to drive your son to meet a group to go on a ski trip to Indiana. Actually, another example is letting go enough to let your son go in the first place. I don't think of myself of "overprotective" or "smothering" (if you do, please don't tell me). I have sent Daniel to CentriKid camp for five days at a time for the past four summers, starting when he was almost nine years old. Each time, he came back in one piece and couldn't wait to go back. He was never "homesick," in fact, he was usually "campsick" once he got home, missing his friends and the overall good experiences he'd had. So, why did I suddenly feel anxiety the day AFTER I sent in the permission slip and money for him to go on this ski trip? All I can figure is, besides the fact that I sometimes have an overactive imagination, that I am just going through some "growing pains" as a mom. Part of parenting is learning to let go. Thankfully, you do it gradually, from the first Sunday you put him in the nursery at church, until the first day of college and beyond. Daniel will be turning thirteen in July, so I think that just as he is experiencing mixed feelings about growing up and leaving his childhood behind, his mom is dealing with the anxieties of letting go. The common denominator for each of us needs to be trusting God. He knows the whole picture and is with us as we go through each day. He is with our children when we can't be. He gives us the strength and courage to parent them and to "hold them loosely" in our hand. I'm continually thankful for my Immanuel, "God with us" and when I feel the anxiety building, I will try to let go and believe that He is holding us with His righteous right hand (Isa. 41:10).

Here's a story . . .

Last year when Daniel and I went to visit our cousin, Amy, in Washington, DC, Daniel got introduced to The Brady Bunch on DVD. He liked it so much, I got him the entire boxed set for his birthday and we've had fun watching those together over the past few months. Since I saw every episode at least a hundred times in reruns growing up, I have my favorites that I now can view with Daniel (and he's got his favorites now, too). So, what's your favorite Brady Bunch episode? Are you like me and love it when the kids formed a group and sang a song? I like "When it's time to change" (with Peter's voice cracking) and when they were the Silver Platters because Jan didn't think about the engraving cost being per letter for their parents' anniversary gift. I'd love to hear from you, so don't be shy . . . we all know you love that time when they went to Hawaii!

Happy Valentine's Day

I’m a February Baby, and my second favorite day this month is Valentine’s Day. I love the red and pink and hearts. I’m pretty much a sucker for love. I know that our culture has capitalized on it and that it’s easy to get all caught up in whether you will have a date or get flowers from a special someone, but I choose to just have fun with it.

My earliest memories of this holiday are of my dad, the first man in my life, making sure that his three girls had Valentine’s treats at the table. Sometimes he’d stop at Holstein’s Confectionery on the way home and get us some candy in little white boxes. My other favorite memory is from thirteen years ago when I was newly pregnant. I was laying in bed that morning and felt a funny feeling in my tummy. After feeling the little flutters three or four times, I finally remembered that the doctor had said I would feel the baby move for the first time around the middle of February. It was a sweet Valentine’s gift to feel those flutters and have tangible proof that there really was a little life growing inside of me.

I’ve definitely had my share of disappointing Valentine’s Days, but I’ve decided that it’s more fun to show love to others around me on that day, even if they’re not my “sweetheart”. I love to give/send cards or little gifts to my family and friends. St. Valentine himself was all about making others happy and encouraging love, which is why we commemorate the day he was thought to have been martyred (if my history is off, forgive me, I didn’t read the whole Wikepedia article when I was getting a refresher). As Daniel recently wrote in an essay for his Latin class, “We are not made for ourselves alone.”

Happy Valentine’s Day to all who read this. Go out and show a little love and kindness to someone in your path, even if it’s not your sweetheart!

I'm a proud mom!

I just have to brag a little on my son! After two weeks of practicing hard and hoping to make the team, we found out tonight that Daniel is going to be on the JV baseball team for his school! This is big stuff to him (and those who love him). It's actually a team made up of players from three middle schools, but it's Daniel's first school sport experience. He's very excited and so are his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles (real and fake--you know who you are). I told him that I am proud of how he went out and gave it his best at all the practices. Of course, I would still be proud of him if he hadn't made the team, and regardless, I'm so thankful to have a son who has a wide-range of interests/talents, is well-balanced, you might say. Stay tuned, because you know I'll be posting more about this as the season gets started. Go Burros! (photo taken in June 2007)

Third time's (hopefully) a charm!

On the night before my 41st birthday, two of my best friends took me to get my ears pierced at the mall. Yep, there we are, three 40-something babes walking into Icing and asking for the worker who Cindy spoke with who said we could get ears pierced without alcohol (rubbing alcohol on the ears, not tequila shots before the piercing). You see, I wasn’t squeamish or afraid of getting my ears pierced. I had actually begged my parents to have it done when I was nine years old and once my mom convinced my dad that I could do it, I had them pierced for the first time. I carefully cleaned those little gold studs with alcohol for six weeks and on the exact day that I could change the earrings, I put in the little pearl studs with sterling silver posts (maybe they were surgical steel). Soon after that, my ears got infected around the piercing sites. I don’t think they ever got better, even though we tried to take care of them. So, I had to take the earrings out and let the holes close up.

Years later, after trying to convince my parents that I had not been irresponsible and let my ears get infected (that was the consensus of what had happened the first time), on my 18th birthday, or somewhere soon after (because I never did convince them and had to wait until I could sign the waiver myself), I went and had my ears pierced again, in the same old holes. Well, to make a long story short, the darn earlobes got infected again and after we went to a dermatologist and he determined (without doing any testing, but just on his experience and the facts around my ears being infected) that I was allergic to nickel, which is in most earring posts. So, I went many years without wearing earrings, or wearing clip-ons (which are like wearing a vice on one’s earlobe and which also sometimes made my ears itch). In the meantime, I also learned another interesting fact about my body: I get an itchy rash if my skin comes into contact with rubbing alcohol.

So, after talking about it with my friends, we wondered if maybe it was the rubbing alcohol after all, so maybe I should try to get my ears pierced one more time, not using alcohol and not using earrings with nickel in the posts. I’m one week into this and so far, so good. I faithfully clean my newly pierced ears with saline solution and don’t plan to gamble with trying random earrings after I can change these starters. Here’s to hoping that someday in the near future, I’ll actually be able to wear earrings and not get a rash on my earlobes.

I'm a blogger!?!

I didn't wake up this morning with "create a blog" on my to-do list. Actually, on this quiet Saturday morning when my only company was myself, God and other people’s blogs, I started to think, “Hey, maybe I would like a blog of my own.” That quickly led to me coming up with several reasons why I shouldn't have a blog, including my old familiar fear of being vulnerable and having other people read my thoughts and find out that I'm not perfect after all (ha!). But I remembered how I had pretty much faced that fear of vulnerability in my mid-20s and through the years have learned that being vulnerable is how people get to know you. Then, while I was in the shower, I had so many thoughts running through my head that as soon as I could, I had to go write/type them out. That's when I decided that blogging might not be so bad. (It also helped that I had caffeine after dinner and am uncharacteristically awake after midnight.) So, since there’s not enough time in a day or week or month to actually spend time with all the people I know or want to know better, and for them to know me, here's my blog. So here I am, get to know me!