Archive for June, 2010
June 30, 2010 @ 6:53 am | Filed under: Family,Soul Food
The past seven days have been amazing.
- I’ve come to know my grandfather much, much better.
- I made cookies and drew pictures with Andi during a sleepover.
- I kept a tall pitcher of ice-cold peach tea in the fridge.
- I strolled the aisles of Target! Ahhh….bliss!
- I ate watermelon in the evenings.
- And enjoyed restaurants that I don’t have “at home.”
It was a GREAT week.
But I am home now and almost giddy with happiness!
Home. It is the {second} best four-letter word in the world.
Next to love, that is.
Home Sweet Home
June 29, 2010 @ 9:28 am | Filed under: Family,Pure Sunshine,Uniquely Me
Eight years ago today I became a Nana, and it’s all due to this amazing, talented, beautiful boy that I am privileged enough to call my grandson.
When I married an older man I embraced his life as well. The term “step-mom” has always felt a bit awkward to me considering that Amy has the most amazing mom and has no need for another, step or otherwise.
Instead I’ve tried to be the best friend and confidante that I can be and the relationship we’ve cultivated over the past decade is one of deep trust and sound friendship. I treasure my place in this family.
The day Carter was born eight years ago was one of the most special days ever. To watch the man I love watch his daughter become a mother for the first time was simply magical.
I may have had friends to laugh and question how I felt about becoming a grandparent at the crazy age of 34, but the day Carter uttered “Nana” for the first time I’m pretty sure my heart did a complete cartwheel. Something it’s continued to do through the years as he’s grown.
There will be other grandchildren…but forever and always Carter B will be the first to have dubbed me Nana – a title I bear with pride and joy!
I cherish the times we’ve spent just being together, like this one. And when Carter B shares a bit of his thoughts with me…well, I melt completely. He has my heart. I appreciate how our family just works.
So this morning this proud Nana is sending out a great big “Happy Birthday!” to our grandson! We love you, Buddy!
June 28, 2010 @ 6:13 am | Filed under: Soul Food,The Solid Rock,Uniquely Me
I try to write down my day’s agenda early in the morning, before anything can possibly happen to alter… The Plan. I do love a good plan, and when it comes together all smooth and delightful, well – that is one good feeling!
It throws me off to have it wrecked before midmorning. So the past week has been a challenge in flexibility and in “going with the flow.”
All of which is good for the soul.
Or it at least sounds as though it should be good for the soul anyway.
Instead of doing a load of whites on Monday, towels on Tuesdays, spending 3-4 hours writing each morning, I’ve been learning the art of simply sitting. Sometimes I sit and wait for my grandfather to eat. Sometimes I wait for him to finish a story. Sometimes I wait for him to wake up. Sometimes I wait for him to walk with slow, halting steps across the room.
And sometimes I wait for nothing more than another moment to learn a little more about this man who loves me so much.
Although this might not be the week to ask him just how much he loves me. I’m the one asking him multiple times a day if he’s drinking enough water, or if he’s hungry. I’m the one handing out medicine and cautioning him to use his walker and that I think it’s time to take a breathing treatment.
But I’m also the one on the receiving end of some really great stories and the one who’s caught a twinkle in his eye a time or two. I’m the one who’s seen frustration, anger, and sadness – manifested by unshed tears- all swiped away hurriedly by shaking, wrinkled hands, and this completely melts me.
These days don’t call for The Plan or any plan. These days ask simply for acceptance. For each moment to be acknowledged and embraced because it exists and it is important.
Not all days work out according to The Plan, and perhaps that’s what makes each morning’s new mercies even better.
daily agendas, living simply, plans
June 24, 2010 @ 7:35 am | Filed under: Soul Food,Uniquely Me
We’re on the brink of another sacred weekend, those all-too-precious 48 hours of togetherness, and it’s always a lovely feeling. On Friday nights, an aura enters our home – and although I’ve never quite been able to put a name to it, I think it’s just an extra dose of love.
We hoard our weekends like little treasures, and while sometimes I think we should be making efforts to visit interesting places or socialize more with friends, the truth is that home is our favorite place to spend time. And when we’re both there…it’s pure perfection.
I have all these dreams of making home the best place possible on this earth. Like citrusy-smelling candles and open windows in the springtime and soft music, dim lights, and living room picnics on long winter evenings.
Home is where you hang your heart. Where it goes to seek refuge from the beating it may take from the outside world during the week. Where it finds solace from the winds of adversity.
And where it recharges so that – when it emerges from the walls of home again – it is able to operate at full capacity, giving and caring for all the duties and responsibilites that make up a productive life.
So home is not confined to a house, to a building with four walls and a roof. Instead home is where the heart is. With the people we love and the ones who love us back.
I’m not “at home” this week, nor will I be this weekend.
And yet my heart is preparing for another sacred weekend anyway. Because it doesn’t matter where we are, or who we’re with, my heart is most at home when the work week comes to an end and MJ’s week on the road comes to a close.
We won’t be in the place we’ve lovingly turned into a home that we adore this weekend, and instead he’ll join me here at my parents’. Where he’ll help me prepare meals, spend long amounts of time in conversation with my grandfather, and more than likely feel less than comfortable sleeping in a bed that is not his own. And yet…
…our hearts will be at home.
June 23, 2010 @ 6:04 am | Filed under: Family,Pure Sunshine
Our nieces and nephew...PRECIOUS!
Uncle Mike & I bought these shirts for the nieces and nephew from Zoey’s Attic…the coolest site! Check it out, y’all!
June 22, 2010 @ 8:30 am | Filed under: Family,It's a Girl Thing
My bags are packed and in a couple of hours I’ll be on I-30 headed to my parents’. I’ll be there for the next week looking after my grandfather while my mom and dad take a much needed – much deserved - vacation.
I spent Sunday afternoon going over all the details with my mom: his meds, his schedule, the days and times the nurses and aides are in, his food preferences…
I’m a little nervous, but mostly looking forward to whatever the next few days may hold. I know these times with my grandfather are limited. I plan to soak up each second and make each moment count.
But I have to admit that I’m looking forward to a few other things this next week as well…
TARGET, people!
I’m not a big shopper. In fact, I heard my mom telling someone not too long ago that I didn’t inherit the “shopping gene.” I guess you could call me a social shopper, because I absolutely love our annual cousins’ Girls Only weekend. But you can’t really call that shopping as much as it is just lots of looking, eating, and – my favorite – talking!
I much prefer dropping in to the store for only what I need when I need it, and if it can be purchased online, all the better! Which is a good thing since…
We’re half-way through the first phase of our Big Adventure and, now that I’ve been in Small Town America for a full year, I must say that I am head over heels in love with this way of life. I relish the laid-back atmosphere, I adore the friendliness I’ve found in the community, I appreciate the simple things.
When we removed ourselves from the clutter and chaos, we found a bit more tranquility. But along with that new slower pace of life came the leaving behind of Target, Barnes & Noble, and day spas. If it can’t be found at Wal-Mart or Brookshire’s it’s not likely to make it into our home.
Shopper or not, ladies, you know what I’m talking about! There is something very cathartic about cruising the perimeter of Target because everyone knows that the best deals at Target are found on the end caps!
So while I am sure to be terribly occupied over the next seven days preparing meals and visiting with my grandfather, I am making plans to squeeze in time for a long-overdue pedicure, a leisurely cruise through the bookstore, and a slow and deliberate observation of all the delicious goodness Target has added to their shelves over the past twelve months.
Anticipating it all!
grandparents, pedicures, Target
June 21, 2010 @ 7:18 am | Filed under: Family,Pure Sunshine
“You can’t teach genetics. But you can overcome genetics. I know, because that’s what I did.” ~ Kevin Rogers, 2010
Whoever first coined the old adage: “Family. You can’t live with them, you can’t live without them” must surely have known what it means to be smack-dab in the middle of a group of folks that are capable of making you feel virtually every emotion known to man, times 10.
It means that maybe while we shouldn’t live always within the exact same four walls as them, we should most definitely surround ourselves as often as possible with these people who have our back through thick and thin. We laugh, cry, remember, laugh some more, accuse, apologize, laugh even more, tease, tease, tease, and – LAUGH.
My brother is full of dead-panned one-liners that make me laugh out loud. His sentences are almost always deeply philosophical. So much so that if you didn’t know him you’d be leaning back in your chair trying desperately to make sense of this long string of words that just slipped from his lips.
And Jordan wonders why I so often slip and call him “Kevin…” It’s because his words, his antics, his mannerisms transport me back a few years and it’s conversation and time around my brother all over again. I see glimpses of my childhood in my son and it fills me with wonder at this miracle of family.
It is the sporadic and unexpected spurts of laughter when the conversation turns to Johnny James. We share the awe we feel in the presence of a man so brilliant that he can walk to the podium, speak for 45 minutes on the dot without the use of a watch, can quote the entire Bible, and – in the midst of it all – leave us with an impromptu English lesson as only a truly great grammarian can.
“Grammaria?” My brother pipes up in the middle of my dad’s JJ description. “Is that near Ethiopia? Do you need your passport to go there?”
Laughter.
It’s that deep, gut-wrenching hiccup that grabs you around your middle and makes the faces around you light up, tears to puddle in your own eyes, and holds your heart in its tight, joyous, amazing grasp while you savor it all, drinking it in with a great. big. sense of wonder.
It’s the bubble of uncontrolled mirth that grabs you again after you’re in bed at night. It’s the glee your heart feels as your mind replays the day and the words of your two-year-old niece – like her daddy in so many, many ways – that have you and your husband wiping your eyes in the dark from the sheer deliciousness of shared laughter.
My mom gifted each of the men with Polo Black for Father’s Day. Now – in moderate applications – I’m a fan of Polo Black. But when all three of men open their brand new bottles and apply a squirt or two, joking all the while that we now have a “family fragrance,” it can become a bit, well…fragrant.
So when two-year-old Andi walks into the room, sidles up to her grandfather, and honestly declares, “You stink!” it’s a moment that sticks with you. It’s one of those delightful little pockets of time that we tuck away for days when we’ll all need a moment of levity. A moment to pause, remember, and know.
Know that through it all we are family.
Family.
They are the ones who share our past, our middle, and – if we’re very fortunate – our futures. They’re in it for the long haul – no questions asked. There is no other place on the planet that offers that kind of security. No wonder family is God’s great gift to His children. It is a wonderful thing.
It is, after all, where you learn about gentetics, grammarians, and other stinky stuff!
Family, Father's Day, laughter
June 16, 2010 @ 9:26 am | Filed under: Uniquely Me
“I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance,
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Livin’ might mean takin’ chances, but they’re worth takin’,
Lovin’ might be a mistake but it’s worth makin’” ~ Lee Ann Womack
When you love someone you want to wrap them up, protect them, keep them safe from all the junk life has a way of throwing at them.
Deep, fierce love is like that.
That’s the kind of love I have for this girl.
She’s the child who – overnight – turned me into an aunt, a role accompanied by a whole new capacity to love and care than what I’d ever anticpated possible from me.
Madie is growing up.
No longer the “little” girl, she is now a lanky little willow of a ten-year-old who is giving us glimpses into the remarkable young lady she will one day be.
But growing up has its share of hurdles, challenges, and – let’s face it – hurts.
It’s the way we face those roadblocks that determines our future path. Sometimes people run headfirst, unsuspecting, into one of these challenges and then spend months, if not years, in hiding.
Because to love - to care, to give of yourself – almost always means that at some point you will hurt.
And then sometimes, when we see someone we love with this kind of fierceness face this kind of hurt, we want nothing more than to cocoon them from future harm. We want to wisk them away to a place of safety, a place where we can watch them, feel them, know they are okay.
But who can dance when stifled?
And isn’t life really all about dancing your way through it? Through the laughter, the fun, the glorious. And then finding ways to dance away from fears, bad dreams, and burst bubbles.
Heroes come in many shapes, sizes, and ages.
This past week we had a glimpse of a little ten-year-old heroine.
She was a friend in a scary situation. She exhibited love, care, and forgiveness.
She’s a dancer.
I pray she always finds the dance.
June 12, 2010 @ 9:40 pm | Filed under: Pure Sunshine,Soul Food,The Solid Rock,Uniquely Me
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” ~Dr. Seuss
It was Tuesday night and my deadline was today at noon.
I’d already typed in a zillion-and-one different thoughts over the course of the day, only to go back later and delete them all. I stared a blank computer screen and tried to focus.
No, this wasn’t for a story idea. Or an article for a magazine. Or even a blog post for Faith Lifts.
What held me in the throes of agony was a speech.
In just four short days I would stand before the 2010 graduating class of NCCA and tell them -
Tell them what?
It wasn’t that I didn’t have ideas. Oh no! It was more like I had too many.
How do you stand before a group of excited kids and try to impart a bit of the knowledge and wisdom you’ve gleaned along the way? Can that kind of advice/revelation/sharing really be done in a fifteen minute speech?
I finally decided that I wasn’t going to find the answer that day. So I went to bed.
And, as I do every night before I drift off, I deliberately shut out all the other things in my head and on my heart. I turned them all over to Him and began to relax as the stresses of the day slipped off my shoulders.
My last thought as I went to sleep was that I wished I could share this with the graduates.
The next day I knew what to say.
Life is either simply complex or complexly simple. I like to think it’s the latter.
And so this afternoon I stood behind the podium, looked into the eyes of the graduates, and said this:
“ I would ask of you today that you always listen for One certain voice. As you move forward into your college years, your careers, or your ministries, you’ll hear a lot of different voices.
Voices that will vie for your time, your energy, and your loyalty. At the end of the day – as your head touches your pillow and your eyes close in exhaustion – there is only ONE voice that truly matters.
If you can keep the voice of God as your focus in the big middle of everything else you have going on, your life will be a very simple, very happy, very productive one.”
It’s a lesson well learned.
It really is that simple.
commencement speech, graduation, life lessons
June 1, 2010 @ 7:39 am | Filed under: Family
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