Preparing to Give Thanks

Today I finally have time to prepare a few things for our Thanksgiving. We (I) generally keep it simple. The usual suspects land on my Thanksgiving table, turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and some green veggie. I do not like my vegetables smothered in mushroom soup, I feel that is cruel and unusual punishment and no way to treat a vegetable. I always bake a sweet potato or two just for me. My family has no interest in it, but it reminds me of when I was young and these days I do what I can to remain youthful.

Anymore I skip the rolls it just fills us up and then we all moan and make horrible sounds…it’s just not pretty! I do however make pie…always pumpkin pie, but this year I am introducing a new pie to the lineup, I am going to try my hand at Pecan pie. I saw a recipe on Pinterest and thought it might be fun to try something new, so I mentioned it to my Husband and he said “Pecan Pie is one of my favorites!” OKAY!? Hold up a second, we have been married 21 years, why is this the first time I am hearing that pecan pie is his favorite? Obviously now I have to make it! I am a little nervous now that I have the “favorite” bar dangling in front of me. I can only hope I reach it or exceed it, I mean after all the man has been waiting for 21 years for his wife to get to know him.

I know that when it is all said and done it will be a wonderful meal. We will have all three of our girls here with us which make me very grateful. There will our yummy traditional meal, lots of talking and laughing and time together which we have not had in a very long time. It will take a little work, but we will be prepared to be thankful and full of the Thanksgiving bounty. I pray that all your preparations go smoothly, that your family is with you in person or in spirit and that you can enjoy every minute. Finally I hope that you learn something new about the ones that you love.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

In Plain Sight

This morning I was rushing through my house, I was trying to get ready to head to the airport to pick up my oldest daughter who will be spending a week with us over Thanksgiving. Rush, rush, rush! It was time to go and I could not find my keys…AGH, doesn’t that drive you CRAzY? Where are they?  I checked my purse, I checked my coat pockets and then I checked places I did not think they would be just in case they were there…but they were nowhere to be found. Annoyed, I rushed out the door with our spare car key and hit the road. I certainly did not want to be late picking my girl up from the airport.

About a half hour into my drive I looked over to where I normally set my purse and my heart started to race…NO PURSE. YIKES! In my rushing and scrambling I had skipped a vital part of leaving the house, grabbing my purse. I had no choice but to continue on without it, I was already knee deep into my drive, there was no turning back now.

Once I arrived at the airport I picked up my girl and headed back towards home. After a good amount of talking I realized that we were way past where I should have turned onto the next highway. I had no choice but to take the long way home. There is a point in an already not so great situation that you just have to say a prayer and hope for the best, and that’s what we did. It took a little longer than we liked but we made it home.

Once in the door I ran to my purse and started rummaging into the pockets that I had dug through several times before I left the house and there in the tiny inside pocket that I had dug my hand into over and over again before I left…were my keys, in plain sight. How does that happen? I am just happy to be home with my daughter and my purse both in plain sight!

Passing Time

Time is passing faster and faster. Everyday feels like I just woke up and then turn around to head back to bed. I find myself wondering if the time is flying because of the holidays coming or the fact that my family will all be home for Thanksgiving and my endless list making and preparation shoves time forward. Either way, I went to sleep Monday night, today I woke up to Friday morning. I will not annoy you with wondering where time might have gone; it has just gone, period.

The endless planning and preparing for our short spurt of time with family during the holidays can be daunting and exhilarating all at once. We want each and every thing to hold the memories that we cherish and swell our hearts with love. I find it myself second guessing and rearranging and finally going back to my original plan. I also plot and scheme to make special moments that can be time stamps for us to look back on, when I already know that those special times are never planned they just happen.

Time just flies there is no real reason other than we are flying, our brains are flying and our excitement pushes us faster and faster. In the end, the calm as we relax after we have eaten and talked and laughed is our reward. Peaceful quiet that will last until the dishes are cleaned, then we will climb into bed on Thanksgiving night and wake up to find that it is already Christmas Eve.

Time will fly and it will be gone, but the warm memories will hold us through the cold of winter and the memories will be like flannel pajamas keeping us cozy and comfy for another year. For now we just travel through time as fast as we can, gathering our memories, making lists and longing for a slower pace.

The Confession

Maybe you will remember that yesterday I shared how I recognized my need to do too much and that I was seeing the same issues bubbling up in my daughter? They say the first step to change is realizing you have a problem and I am face to face with this problem this morning. It is currently 4:41 AM and I am plunking away on my computer because my brain woke me as it began trolling through all the things I want to do today. Since I am determined to keep up with my writing (lucky you) my brain kept reminding me that time was short today so if I wanted to, write, workout, have breakfast, make my daughter a smoothie before school, work on a couple of recipes, clean my bathroom and shower all before I run errands at 10:00 AM my brain wanted me up and making lists.

To be fair some of this impulse to GO GO GO is fueled by the fact that my youngest daughter is in her school play this weekend and my lovely middle daughter is coming home for a short visit to see the show along with some rotating family members and friends that will be rotating in and out of the picture as they come to see Avery’s play. Next Tuesday my oldest daughter will fly in and spend a week with us and my middle daughter will also return so that we can all have Thanksgiving together. This means I need to clean, buy food, buy more food, clean more (not that things are dirty, I am just a freak) and go see the play three times. I will also run to a couple stores…okay, probably at least three, paint some furniture that I want to update (this is one of the items that does not have to be done, but I really want to do…yes I am nuts!) so everything looks just so (AGH) and maybe spend some time with my husband who is heading out of town for work tomorrow morning. Did I mention that I might have a problem?

So as I sit here looking at myself in this mental mirror it reminds me again that what I see in my children that worries me the most, are all things that blend into what look a lot like me. I see it but like all good addicts I have it figured out and I will fix it later when it is more convenient, like after the holidays for example. HEY, don’t judge me; you have your own mirror to look into!

It is time to get moving and start checking off things on my list. I have confessed, and now I must move on. Obviously I cannot complain since I am fully aware of my problem and capable of recognizing it in others and totaling unwilling to do anything about it right now…WOW, that really sounds like an addict doesn’t it? This problem is definitely something I will take a look at after the holidays…if I have time.

The Mirror

This morning I had to look in the mirror and it wasn’t pretty. This morning’s mirror was my daughter, frantic, running late and snapping like a cranky turtle. I was not pleased with her demeanor, but I recognized it and that was harder to take than her attitude. Sadly, she has learned from a professional hostage taker, how to handle her stress. I saw all my moves as I watched her. The sharp tone, the pointing at what others have done (or are doing) that contributes to the frantic state and the flying around the house hoping to shave some time off of the lateness.

Now what do I do. She was trained by a master, she is skilled and talented at this craft and somehow I have to untrain her. This mirror is not reflecting what I want my daughter to be. I was primed and ready to admonish her for always running late and grill her about why she did not plan ahead better and then I stopped myself…I know why. In fairness, some of her tardiness traits are her own. Many are also more teenage traits than anything else, but I could see a lot of myself in my baby girl and I did not like the reflection.

Having this mirror reflecting back at me was a harsh way to wake up, but I was also glad for a glimpse, so that I could use this shot of reality to step back and reevaluate myself. I am the one who has to make the first move here. I have to step up, take a deep slow breath and realize that my need to do everything, over plan and gather as much from life’s buffet as I can, may not be the best way to enjoy life and it is not the way I want my daughter to step into hers.

Sometimes the worst part of reflections is the glare and this morning’s glare was a doozie. There glinting back at me were my own flaws, gently disguised in this pretty young girls face and there was no way to grab them back. I realize now as I sit reflecting on my own flaws that I will have to have this conversation one day soon with my sweet young reflection. I will have to share with her that I need to make some changes and gently and lovingly let her know that sometimes what you see in the mirror is not a true reflection of who you want to be. While the view this morning was not pretty, the reflection definitely taught me a lot. 

Taking the Stairs

Life is like taking the stairs. You walk up, you get winded, you think you are almost to the top and then realize you have another floor to go. Better yet, you go up and down because you keep forgetting something below. Up and down, up and down, like a roller coaster using your legs.

I have been up and down life’s stairs often. I always like going up, I like feeling myself progress and move forward. I feel good about myself I perch on the landing enjoying moving up and being in a positive place. I sometimes get a little cocky like I will be perched here happy and complacent for the rest of my life, but then someone I love tumbles down a few steps or I slip a few and down I go and I scratch my head disappointed that I allowed myself to think things would always stay the same.

Life’s staircase can draw you into a false sense of well being. It is always so disappointing to realize that you cannot be at the top forever. I remember years ago when a good friend left a company we were working for. I was offered her job and I was afraid to try to fill her shoes. She was amazing at her job and I was intimidated. That is when my friend said something that I always remember. “There will always be someone to take your spot, you can never fool yourself into believing that you are the best or the only in anything because when you believe that about yourself you are already not good enough, because you will never try to grow and be better than you are right now”. WOW! So I climbed those stairs and learned that job and the next job and the next, working my way up in the company.

It is so easy to want (wish or pray) for every chaotic thing in your life to end, but those uncomfortable stairs are what help us grow stronger and smarter. So you go up and down a few times until you figure out what the next step is or you linger on the landing a little longer hoping that you can keep climbing and sometimes you step back down, regroup and climb up again. Then one day you climb up and move past a few landings and you grow and become better than you are right now on life’s staircase.

Hunger

Hun·ger

 noun \ˈhəŋ-gər\

: a very great need for food : a severe lack of food

: an uncomfortable feeling in your stomach that is caused by the need for food

: a strong desire : a strong desire for something or to do something

-Merriam-Webster.com

Hunger has been on my mind lately. I am currently taking a medication for this lingering illness, which causes a loss of appetite and sleeplessness. I am experiencing both. Fun stuff? No, but it has me thinking so that’s a good thing, considering I have lacked ambition for the last three weeks. A n y way…

I find it interesting that I suddenly can eat very little and not be starving for more food. I am also curious what happens in my brain that normally pushes me to want to eat more than I really need to. I no longer have that hungry feeling. On the other hand I am waking up at 3:30/4:00 AM bright eyed and frustrated with a strong desire (or “hunger” if you will) to continue sleeping even though my body does not want to. I find it interesting that the word hunger can mean lack of something and a lust for something. I am lacking food, but I am lusting for rest, all in the name of a hunger.

Perhaps you hunger for something. Maybe you have a great need or desire that is causing you to have an uncomfortable feeling. We never know when these feelings of hunger will hit or why. They are just there and we do our best to make our way through them at the time. Whatever it is you hunger for whether it is rest or food or love, there is only one person that can feed the hunger or desire and that is you.

While I am taking this medication I will continue to battle these inconvenient side effects, but I will not let them get me down, this is temporary. So many other hungers cannot be so easily dismissed and I am fortunate. For you, this may not be the case. I encourage you to feed your need and desire, care for yourself and love yourself today. The holidays are barreling towards us and this is when we all tend to put others first and lose touch with our own hungers. Remember to feed yourself; you cannot be what others need if you are not caring for you. 

All We Need

Yesterday I heard the story of a woman who is my age and fighting a degenerative disease that over the last five years has whittled away at her so much that all she can physically do is blink. As I read the heartfelt words written by her daughter I could feel the family’s pain and frustration. This woman’s daughter shared that when she brings her small children to visit her mother, her mother weeps with what this daughter can only hope is joy. Her eyes are all she has left to communicate and be in relationship with her family.

I have been consumed with thoughts of this woman and her family ever since…

It is so easy each day to take for granted what we have and only focus on what we want, relationships, things, jobs, homes, cars so many things that sometimes are just not all we want them to be. This story hit me in my “not enough” gut.

Nothing, not one THING, replaces our relationships. The people we are or are becoming are in part due to each relationship that touches our lives. The joys, hurts and random seemingly inconsequential interactions of our lives form who we become. How lucky we are that today we can tell someone we love them or hold a hand or kiss or hug, even share a kind word or smile and be in relationship with others…it truly is all we need.

The Power of Positive

Seeing the world on the bright side is not always easy. Things happen and we tend to feel like the bug on the bottom of a shoe, lots of pressure and everything displaced. I have always thought of myself as a pretty positive person. I take my hits like everybody else, but I don’t let the hits define me. I won’t lie though every so often negative thoughts and attitudes creep in and I have to fight them off.

Last week was like that. I was not feeling well and pretty much was the bug on the bottom of the shoe and all I wanted was to scrape myself off the bottom and pull myself back together. I was moping around, grouchy and miserable and I was using my family for target practice. It felt like there was no way out of this miserable place. I decided to use some of the advice that I share with my kids and fix what I could to make the situation better.

I started by reaching out to friends and finding out how they were doing, and although I was lacking in energy I tried to get out of the house in little spurts…even if it was just to take my dogs for a short walk. Sometimes you just have to kick yourself in the pants. The negative thoughts have dissipated and I have detached myself from the bottom of that awful shoe. I will be back to my old self in no time, I just need to stay positive and focus on the bright side.

Making a Memory

What started at the beginning of the school year as a happy accident has turned into a daily practice between my daughter and me. My daughter drives herself to school and one morning not long after she had left for school I heard several sirens going off and became alarmed that something had happened to my daughter. I decided that day that a text after she arrived each day would put my mind at ease and my daughter agreed.

The first few mornings she would text “I’m here” and I would text back “Ok”. One morning my daughter texted “At the educational facility”, so trying to be funny and quirky back, I wrote “Try to persevere through the day”. That night when she arrived home, she went on and on about how inspiring that was and how her friends thought it was so cool. I told her that there was nothing inspiring about “persevere”, it is just a fancy word for, “try to make it”. None the less she liked it, so I thought to myself, what if I really did try to inspire her… so an idea was born.

Each day when she lets me know she is has arrived at school I respond back with various quotes such as, “Remember you have to believe it to achieve it!” or a quote from Yoda of Star Wars fame “Always pass on what you learn”. Other pearls of wisdom include “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you sow” by Robert Louis Stevenson. There is also this quote that apparently shocked my daughter “Some people walk into our lives and leave footprints on our hearts. Others walk into our lives and we want to leave footprints on their face”. Basically each day is a new quote, some inspiring and some just silly, but my daughter likes it and it keeps us connected, which is a plus.

I am just happy that what started as something so simple and meaningless turned into something that is meaningful for my daughter and me. That is how life works though isn’t it? We will work so hard trying to make a memory and it basically goes undetected, but one random moment when you least expect it you make a memory that will last a lifetime. I will leave you with today’s quote, because somehow I think it works…

“Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives”  -Tony Robbins

Rest and Recovery

I am battling with my body once again. I returned to my doctor on Monday afternoon because my ears were not feeling better, I was tired and my chest was becoming congested. I had taken all of my prescription and I was still not mending. My doctor was shocked that I was battling an even more intense ear infection then before. What the heck?!  The only denominator that I could come up with that was lacking in my recovery routine was rest.

I have never been good about just stopping and healing, unless I was so sick I had no other choice. I tend to keep going full steam ahead taking my medicine, slowing a little, but not enough to have the laundry pile up or my life to show signs of me not being on my game. I just like to keep up with my life and not show any kinks in my armor. It is a Mom thing.

As most Mom’s know the motto goes “Family first, Mom last”. This motto is much like “The captain goes down with the ship”. Moms are super heroes who put themselves last focusing on the lists of things that must be accomplished in order for the family to carry on. This notion of “keeping calm and carrying on” is nothing new, but it is time for me to set it aside. I have to force myself to rest and I feel I should wave the banner high for other mom’s to do the same.

Being sick is tough enough without having it hang on like a Monkey Grinders monkey. Is it really that big a deal if we eat grill cheese for dinner or the laundry takes three days instead of one? Maybe by slowing the pace, taking time to read or (like in my case) playing thousands of games of euchre on your Ipad, you can allow your body to work on healing rather than just keeping you going. Honestly, being sick is when I realize how much I contribute when I am healthy.

If there is any hope for a full recovery, I am going to have to keep my eye on the prize. I want to be healthy and rest is the only answer at this point. I like my doctor, but I really do not want to see him every other week. I actually told my doctor’s nurse that she and I should exchange numbers so that we can chat, since we have become so close throughout my many visits. Resting is an important part of recovery and today I am giving myself some more time to do just that. How about you?

The Slide

I started sliding yesterday and I cannot seem to pull myself back up. Yesterday I was feeling like I was letting someone down. I was feeling cornered into helping them in ways that I am not comfortable and when I could not follow through, I felt badly. I do not like to let people down, but it happens. I was pushed to a limit I had set for myself and my limit was not respected, yet I still tried to comply. When I expressed my frustration to my family they stood there with their mouths open saying things like, “Why are you doing that?”  “You have done enough, now stop” and much more, but I still felt the guilt pulling at me, telling me I had not tried hard enough and telling me I was not good enough.

This morning I had my feelings hurt because I was told my writing would be used for something and I discovered it was not. I don’t expect everyone to use my writing when they say they will, but somehow since I was on the slide heading down to the pit of low self worth, this little thing hurt. I wish I had known and not found out the hard way (opening to the page and seeing someone else’s writing there.) but that is just how it goes sometimes. Honestly, the writer was wonderful and I enjoyed what they wrote, but it only made me doubt myself more and down I slid again.

Once you get going on the self doubting, guilty, hurt, slide you are destined to continue sliding. Further and further you fall until looking up all you see is the negative and there is no positive to be found. The longer you linger here the more you begin to believe everything your mind is telling you. All the mean things you tell yourself trump the truth and you sit awkwardly at the bottom of the slide wondering how you will ever climb back up and get back to whom and what you once were.

 I know now that I gave away too much trying to keep someone else happy while I let myself down. I know my limits and I extended them when I should not have. I also know that things do not always happen as we expect them to and the best course is to just pick up and move on. My mind is jockeying back and forth between the truth and the lies and I have to keep grasping at the truth to pull myself back up. I guess when you think about it I am pretty lucky that my family was there reminding me to respect myself and my own limits. They also reminded me that it is okay to say no, even when it makes things harder for someone else. Today, I begin the climb back, one step at a time and you know what? I am not going to climb up the slide…I am going to walk around to the ladder and make the journey back up a little easier.

Change

My writing was once an early morning pastime that easily integrated into my day. I would do my morning workout or spend time getting my family out the door and then the next hour or so were mine to write and read or whatever else I needed to accomplish just for me. Suddenly my working out is later, my husband is working from home and I am busy with commitments that I have made and I find myself frantically swimming upstream just to write.

As my day begins I am full of intent to write and then watch (as if in slow motion) as my day siphons away and the whole time I am moving my writing schedule in my head, making it later and later into the day until my writing is swallowed up and disappears. This is very frustrating! My intent is always to write, but life comes knocking and the best laid plans become just a “thing I gotta do” and instead of the release of thoughts that you have come to expect when you come to my blog, you either get nothing or you get subpar folly.

I will not give up hope that someday I can write early and jump into my day from there, but right now, we are all going to just have to live with what we have and make the best of a difficult but not horrible situation. It is my opinion that the more we focus on “shoulda, coulda, woulda” the less we move forward. Change sometimes seems too much to bear, but there is something about adapting and changing with a situation that brings us a little more forward in our lives and many times we realize we are better for that change.

I would like to believe that when my life comes to the end that I will have changed and transformed myself into the person I was meant to be. If that means I have to adjust my schedule and do things out of my norm than that is what I will do. The best part is that I get to drag you along with me. What if in the end you are changed too? I encourage you to take some time to look at the next change you are faced with as an opportunity to be a better version of who you are now. I will, if you will!