Archive for the 'Uniquely Me' Category
August 30, 2010 @ 7:02 am | Filed under: School Stuff,Uniquely Me
Four year ago this week I dared to follow a new dream.
I can do a lot of things on my own, but I probably wouldn’t have been so successful at this college thing without MJ’s constant support and encouragement.
He believed in me when the math grade was in the toilet.
He has shared the sofa space next to me with a stack of books for what seems like forever now.
And he was the one who endured my four endless semesters of Spanish (even though I threw the accent in for FREE!)
So baby, this is my thank you…for everything you’ve been…for everything you’ve done…
Thank you for a summer that recharged me and helped me to gear up in every way possible for this last semester of classes and then student teaching. This phase of our lives – like the others – has been a true adventure and so much of that is due to you.
There are many weeks that we sacrifice a lot, especially time, because of the crazy schedules that work and school dictate. I love the fact that even on the days when you’re on the road you’re still the one I talk to the most. And if it weren’t for that crazy road schedule then I wouldn’t have the memories of those unexpected times when you’ve shown up outside of one of my classes – just to surprise me. I appreciate the fact that you celebrate the end of each semester as fully as I do, and it’s in these ways that I know this has most definitely been a shared journey.
Today we celebrate the start of the last semester of classes. Sixteen more weeks. Four months.
The last one!
This one’s for you. Because as much fun as this part of the journey has been, I’m anticipating what lies ahead in our Big Adventure!
I love you.
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August 12, 2010 @ 6:27 am | Filed under: Family,Soul Food,Uniquely Me
“Our most treasured family heirlooms are our sweet family memories. “
My heart is overflowing with gratitude.
I type away at this blog sitting in the exact same spot…each and every time. I guess you could say I am a creature of habit, and you’d be right. Tucked into one corner of our sofa, I sit with my laptop propped open and a cup of hot tea by my side. And then…
the thoughts begin to flow.
My heart is overflowing with gratitude.
By the soft glow of the light in the living room I can make out the shelves in front of me. A few short weeks ago they held many books, lots of framed family photos, and greenery. In short, each shelf was carefully and ornately decorated. And then something most wonderful happened to those shelves…
They became the home of over fifty pair of salt and pepper shakers.
My grandmother collected them – salt and pepper shakers. In all, she must have had two hundred or more sets. One of my most prized – and certainly most cherished – possessions is now a part of this collection. They’ve replaced many of the books, the pictures have been rearranged, and the greenery has just gone away. We’ve rearranged the beautiful to make room for the meaningful.
Now every time I glimpse these salt and pepper shakers out of the corner of my eye it’s a myriad of emotions that well up inside of me. But none of them are sad; and there is no sense of loss. Instead, there is the very real knowledge that love lives within this family of mine. These shakers represent a whole lifetime of summers when six grandkids would take our turn dusting the shakers and – one by one – hearing my grandmother tell the stories of where they’d come from and who had given them to her.
So this place of gratefulness where I find myself right now is a gift within itself. And it’s exactly that – a place – not just a state of mind or an emotion. Almost like it is its own little latitude where I have settled lately and claimed residence and walked its paths and met its people. It is a good place. A real place with a few dark corners and maybe even a couple of fixer-upper rooms. But, overall there is just so much beauty here…and the longer I stay, the more I see to know and to love.
This place of gratitude, of knowing where we’ve been and where we’re going and – in between all that – recognizing that where we are is equally as important. This is just one of those moments when the world slows to all but a crawl and I have a few moments to look around and drink it all in, savoring it.
My heart is overflowing with gratitude.
Our family…our memories…our heirlooms…our treasures…our everything.
August 9, 2010 @ 6:49 am | Filed under: The Solid Rock,Uniquely Me
There were two occasions yesterday – two people, really – who made me think of grace and what it has meant to my life. The first was my blogging friend Amy who was pondering grace herself. The second was through the message during the evening service last night.
I was up late. My mind was wrapped in reflection. My heart was swathed in grace.
I was twenty-four years old – broken in spirit, weary in flesh, and heavy in heart- the night I discovered grace for the first time.
Grace wasn’t a foreign word to me. I had grown up on church pews. I had listened for years to Sunday school lessons that expounded on the magnificent grace of God. I had heard what could quite possibly be called the greatest sermons ever on the attributes of grace. Of how, though undeserved , grace flowed to God’s children, bathing their lives in unmerited favor.
I believed this. I trusted this.
But I’d never felt it.
In actuality I didn’t really even know there was anything to feel. As far as I knew, my walk with God was as good as it was going to get. Wasn’t I doing everything I knew, everything I’d been taught to do?
If, at the end of each day, I still felt empty and alone, then it must be a flaw within me, right? I looked around and saw other friends, family, and fellow church members with smiling faces and happy lives and I knew I must somehow not measure up.
Not that anyone ever knew I felt that way.
You see, I desperately wanted to be that happy, sold-out to God, smiling, “life is good and so am I” type of wife and mother that I felt others expected of me. I had grown up in a household where serving God was first and foremost. You attended Sunday services, mid-week Bible study, and any other special services that came along. In short, we were there any time the doors were open.
I’d been a memeber of the same church congregation all of my life, and my church family was an extension of me. I used them as a mirror, a way to guage my walk with God, a method of seeing how I was doing in this faith walk of mine.
There were certain things expected of people like me. I’d been taught to love God with all my heart, trust Him for everything, withhold nothing. So I prayed, I read my Bible, I even taught a room full of eight and nine-year-old children every Sunday morning.
On the outside I had it all going on. I looked the part. I played the part. I was in a marriage that appeared healthy, the stay-at-home mother of two adorable toddler boys, extremely close to my family, and I had many friends.
I talked with these friends and family. Laughed with them. Played with them.
I did everything except share myself with them.
My real self. The part that hid inside of me like some frightened child who was more comfortable in the safety of a darkened closet than out in the light where the sun can shine on her face. I hid my fears. I hid my insecurities. I hid my problems.
I hid the truth.
The truth was that I lived most days waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for the next bit of bad news that would send our family’s existence spiraling even further. I learned to stretch a dollar, stretch my sanity, and stretch the truth – each one a futile attempt to hang by my fingernails to the version of reality I thought I was supposed to be living.
I was a child of God who’d never strayed, shouldn’t life be easier? I’d been tithing since I was a twelve-year-old babysitting for the neighborhood children, so why was a mere trip to the grocery store for the bare necessities such a challenge? I’d been taught that God was the great healer and yet sickness lived in my home, slowly, bit-by-little-bit, robbing me of the dream I’d once thought was mine to claim.
I was twenty-four years old, but I felt like an old woman. Me, the girl who’d been nominated the Most Likely to Succeed by her senior class, now watched as her dreams began to disintegrate like a dandelion that is clutched too tightly. My passionate spirit and zest for life began to slowly fade to black-and-white as my techni-colored dreams now seemed secondary to the basic efforts of mere survival.
I continued to paste the smile on each morning, though, because to do less than that would be to show the world my imperfections. It would be admitting that I, who on the outside seemed to have it all going on, was in reality a scared and hurting woman who was watching every security in her life slip away one-by-one.
And then one day I couldn’t do it anymore.
I woke up that Monday morning and couldn’t find the smile to plaster into place. I cared for my kids with mechanical motions. I moved through my day with wooden emotions. As dry and hollow as I was, I knew my survival depended solely on me. I had to find a way to crawl to a place of healing and restoration.
I knew I could no longer do it on my own. My mumbled and routine morning prayers just weren’t doing it for me anymore. The scriptures I read each day were now just words. It was like when a sick person takes in food, but the body no longer knows what to do with it. The nutrition is wasted, rejected by the very body that needs it for survival.
I made myself go to that Monday night prayer meeting. I pulled into the church parking lot with a nervous flutter in my stomach, got out of my car with legs that threatened to drop me, and walked into the side sanctuary entrance of the old church.
I didn’t talk to anyone on my way in. I didn’t look around to see who was there. For the first time in my life I didn’t try to keep up any pretenses. I no longer cared if those around me got a glimpse of my imperfect life and my imperfect reactions to that life. I was hurting, I was alone, and I knew that if there was anything in this life for me I had to find it that night.
I knelt between two pews instead of at the altar. Hot tears began to sting my eyes and face as I got honest with God. The pain, the betrayal, and the lonliness that I’d held bottled up inside of me for so long exploded into the air around me as I surrendered life as I knew it.
All the broken pieces of me that I’d so carefully hidden finally broke free for good, drying up and crumbling into fine bits as I lay face down on the floor in between the pews. I have no idea how long I was there, or who came and went around me. But when I could cry no more, when no more words would come, when the screams of my spirit were now just whispers, I felt it.
Grace.
With a quiet reverence it moved through me – body, soul, and spirit. All my preconceived notions of grace and what it was or wasn’t were immediatly displaced. Never had I known such peace or tranquility. The fact that it descended into that pit of darkness, found me, and then relentlessly rescued me was – and is – the greatest single moment of my life.
I’ve never been the same since that Monday night.
I have lived life differently from that moment on. I’d like to say that my troubles disappeared, I no longer hurt, and all sickness ran away, with tails tucked between their legs. But that’s not grace, is it?
Grace is feeling the peace of God in the midst of those troubles. In the depths of that hurt. In spite of all sickness. It’s the realization that no matter the baggage, no matter the time you’ve walked with God – whether it’s two days or two decades – life has a way of dealing you cards you’re not prepared to play. It’s then that grace intervenes…if we’ll let it.
Grace dwells in imperfections. In brokenness. In the pieces of our souls that we discount the most, grace can do the most good.
August 2, 2010 @ 6:05 am | Filed under: Pure Sunshine,Soul Food,Uniquely Me
Setting out for the long drive, I settled familiarly into the passenger seat with all of my traveling accoutrements: a couple of books, a lap quilt, my iPhone, and a pile of magazines. A few miles in, though, along Highway 16, and it’s clear I’m not interested in any of these distractions.
A few turns and we top a hill and there lies…the most majestic view ever.
GLIMPSES has – over time – become the spot where I leave insights into things I consider beautiful and meaningful. Places, people, cirumstances – that speak to me. When I sit down to write – to paint the portrait in the window of life of that day, I discover there are colors I didn’t know existed.
I have begun to see life more beautifully and find myself appreciating so much more.
This, I realize, is one of those moments…
We drive further. The trees get lusher and thicker as stores and gas stations grow more sparse. The traffic is light and our fellow road companions seem about as mellow as we do on this day. It’s definitely enough to make me believe Robert Frost was on to something when he penned “The Road Not Taken…”
I choose to write about the good, to catalog the beautiful…and by doing so, the bad has all but disappeared, even in my mind.
My soul has settled into a grateful place. A very, very good place to be.
And grateful places need good rest. But before good rest comes our acknowledgement of good things.
We glimpse it then. The sign. And we made the turn, almost without talking about it first, and certainly without giving it much thought. The lane was just too irrisistible, too inviting.
We heeded the beck and call, following the distant, dusty trail that pointed us about as far past civilization and noise and busyness as we could possibly get…past the traffic, the stores, the lures of anything else we’d planned for this trip.
And we pulled off of the planned – the purposed – and took a moment to breathe in serenity. Places of serenity are the spots where you find fresh inspiration, and these wells need to be mined for all they’re worth. They appear every so often along our path and, if we can see them for what they are and drink them in, then Serenity Road is a road well-traveled.
I am refreshed and excited.
To tackle it all. Because I’ve done it so far and the satisfaction of pulling it off ignites me to keep doing it. I’m actually looking forward to some crazy organization days ahead…finishing Summer II classes…delving into the big middle of the current novel I’m trying to write…preparing for the exciting yet challenging changes in MJ’s job and travel schedule…getting my resume and letter of introduction ready to send…carving out some new beautiful traditions for our family this fall…cooking…and spending as much time as possible with the kids and the grands in the coming weeks.
All this busyness and craziness will be good for us. Because you know what? This is just life, and this is how life rolls. It’s kind of like the road before us…this road I’ve dubbed Serenity. It has ups and downs and twists and turns. It grabs my stomach when I least expect it and gives me more reasons to smile than to frown.
Things will slow down, and oh don’t you know we will graciously welcome the lull when it comes. But, for now, it’s okay. Because we are together and we are happy and there are a hundred moments a day when we can stop what we are doing in exchange for something quick and simple.
Like a hug. Or a family dinner. Or a story or two.
Or pulling off the side of Serenity Road and breathing in the beauty of…simplicity.
And you know how I crave simplicity.
living simply, memories, summertime memories
July 29, 2010 @ 6:23 am | Filed under: Soul Food,Uniquely Me
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living simply, summertime memories
July 22, 2010 @ 6:08 am | Filed under: The Solid Rock,The Writing Life,Uniquely Me
There is nothing that sucks the joy out of creativity – that inate ability to build and mold and design amazing things from the God given instinct that dwells deep in one’s bones – than overthinking. Over-analyzing.
Writing by instinct and getting it right can only happen when my heart and head align with His will. When my own will is supple and pliable, the molding process is relatively painless and the creations seem to flow.
It’s like riding a bike. You don’t read directions on it. You don’t read a book about it. And when you hop on that bike, you don’t recite left, right, pedal, balance, steer. You just do it. And the more you don’t think about it, the better it all seems to go.
And soon, you’re soaring fast, and with flair. Like pastel handlebar streamers whipping in the wind and colored beads in the spokes humming their rhythmic beat with each seamless rotation of the bike wheels.
I try to trust my instincts because they’re good and hearty instincts. I don’t want to worry about ruining the talent or stifling the creativity because I know that would be the worst possible use of my abilities, as limited as they feel some days. But that’s not the woman I want to be. Nor the writer.
So I’m writing like a woman who just simply doesn’t know any better right now. Putting it all out there. Little bits in this synopsis. Chunks of my heart in that manuscript. Layers of who I am in all of it.
Will these words ever see the light of day?
I don’t know the answer to that.
There was a time when that doubt alone was enough to stifle the creativity. To cause me to second-guess, summoning about six kinds of self-doubt that all but clogged the veins of inspiration.
But now I simply write.
I have gained this real, amazing confidence in just putting it out there and doing my very best to create without too much thinking. Without too much censoring, too much second-guessing.
I am a woman who is governed by passion. By love. By the simplistic things in life.
But more importantly than all of these I must be governed by His will and that beautiful principle of….becoming what I’m meant to be.
It’s all about those God given instincts. Not necessarily about getting every word right every time.
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In other news, I’m off today for an exciting few days with the cousins!
It’s our annual girls-only summer trip, and I can hardly wait! Last year, we left my place, drove for two hours, finally stopping for lunch in an amazing little cafe that turned out to be only forty-five minutes from my house! Don’t ask…WE DON’T KNOW !
But it’s those moments with these women (and their precious daughters) that make these trips something that I look forward to for months in advance!
So I’m off to appreciate a few more of those {apron} ties that bind in the best possible kind of way!
Chapter 4 of MELROSE MIRACLE will be up tomorrow though – tune in!
July 21, 2010 @ 6:21 am | Filed under: It's a Girl Thing,Pure Sunshine,The Writing Life,Uniquely Me
I love beautiful, simple things.
Like old aprons with a rich history, books with a timeless story, people with a look of love in their eyes, and days dotted with laughter and meaning.
There is something about real simplicity that speaks volumes to my soul. It renews me somehow, reminds me of all that is truly important and all that is not.
Simplicity is an apron tie that binds my heart strings…
I appreciate the brilliance of the Kindle, but on some days there is nothing that gives me greater satisfaction than holding a book in my hands…breathing in that deeply musty scent and fingering the pages even while the words take my mind to a place far, far away.
I adore my iPhone and all of the apps and texting and messaging it allows me…talking to many friends at once without really talking at all…But on some days there is nothing that does my heart more good than to sit down over a cup of coffee with a friend who knows my heart and talk for real…and laugh and laugh and laugh…and even cry a tear or two if the moment calls for it.
Simple, beautiful things. They are the apron ties that create simple, beautiful moments…
And I’ve learned how life often hands them out.
Good and beautiful moments followed by trying and sad. Complex hurdles and challenges balanced perfectly with simple happy days. Intricate layers of learning and knowing, feeling and being, moving forward and being content to simply reside in the moment.
I don’t think I’d have it any other way. I love the simple, the good, the happy. But without the trying, the complex, the sad, the good just wouldn’t seem as good and there would be no desire to inch forward…to the better that is just waiting to be realized.
(1) my grandmother’s apron…worn thin and stained from a lifetime of making pecan pies for the family! (2) my newest find in Natchitoches, Louisiana – love the retro look! (3) the apron I’m TRULY jonseing for…it’s calling my name!
I find myself challenged lately to really think about the broader scheme of life and circumstances, and how to have a greater understanding of purpose.
Wanting to live purposefully and knowing that, at any given moment when things seem just as they should be – whether it’s enjoying a luxurious morning with a delicious book or a relaxing afternoon with a dear friend over a cup of coffee – my awareness alone for the simple and beautiful things in life is the beginning of my purposeful journey.
I’m trying to capture these thoughts and more for a new story I’m working on this summer. Without further ado – may I introduce you to my summer writing project…a way I’ve found to mix all that I love (people, books, God) with all that I find inspiring (food, aprons, writing).
Here’s a peek…I hope you enjoy!
The Apron Ties that Bind Series:
“Amanda, Jessica, Elizabeth and Lauren are more than mere sisters. They own and operate a business together—their family’s old world-style Italian cafe. Four sisters—four distinct personalities—and four ways of managing the cafe their parents willed to them.
Amanda, the eldest and the most conservative, runs a tight ship and keeps a strict eye on finances.
Jessica, the free spirited bohemian of the bunch, finds life inside the restaurant too confining for her taste.
Elizabeth, quiet and loyal, is the peacemaker, putting her own ambitions on hold for the sake of her feuding siblings.
Lauren, the baby of the family, is exuberant and carefree, oblivious to her sisters’ quandaries as she spends her days in college classes and her evenings chatting up the neighborhood boys who venture into the cafe.
As life and love stir the hearts of the Benetti sisters, they struggle to find their own place in the world…without losing each other in the process.”
If you don’t mind, keep this story – and me – in your prayers!
Embrace YOUR apron ties today! Let the binding {and more of life’s simple, beautiful moments} commence…
July 19, 2010 @ 6:23 am | Filed under: The Solid Rock,Uniquely Me
Seasons change. Life changes.
Babies are born. Kids grow up. Elders pass away.
Changes in the seasons are evidenced by the air we breathe and the scenery that surrounds us.
Life is changing, that much is for sure, and I’m working hard to accept each new change with the grace and dignity He would have me to. Change is like turning a page on a fresh book…and each new chapter is beckoning me, calling my name.
I’m a daughter, and I’ve felt a subtle shift these past days as I’ve ached to shield my mom from the pain of loss and grief. She is the mother, and yet I have mothered, wanting nothing more than to protect her…knowing all the while that there is simply no such thing in these circumstances.
I’m a mother, and yet this chapter, too, is changing. I used to hear my name called regularly to kiss a skinned knee or soothe away those things that frighten in the still of the night. Now I’m called and it’s their voices –so familiar and yet now so deep and manly–asking me how I’m doing. We’re balancing family nights with talks about life.
The thing that doesn’t change is the fact that God stays the same. No matter what is going on, He is there.
He stands guard over the seasons.
He will protect and shield my mother in ways that I simply cannot.
He will continue to guide my children, watch over them, be with them, even when they’re far away me.
Whatever changes I face, I trust that God is already there, waiting as I walk through each step. He guides me, loves me.
And with each change I’m learning to trust Him more.
July 15, 2010 @ 6:09 am | Filed under: Family,Uniquely Me
Things have felt a bit surreal these past few days.
I’m barely typing the first words of this post and already crying long-awaited restrained tears…exhaustion and love and grief and all that is to come…and family.
I have reached an emotional crescendo like the summit of a mountain, and I am sitting here, trying to let it all soak in, and feel completely inept at putting it into words.
Mom opened Mama’s cedar chest a few days ago and found – literally – a treasure chest of richness.
Scrapbooks!!
Book after book after book, filled with photos, with news clippings, with ribbons, and awards. I take a lot of teasing for my scrapbooking tendencies…but evidently I come by it naturally.
If it could be scrapbooked – Mama captured it and put it one of her books.
We sat on the floor of the closet in the back bedroom – my Mom and I – and flipped through the books. There were books devoted to Mom, books focused on Uncle Ralph, a scrapbook on World War II, and even an Elvis book. (You’d have to have known Mama to truly appreciate this one.)
For now my house is calm. And quiet, except for the whir of the air conditioner and the dryer tossing a load of towels. After a tumultuous few days I am beginning to feel healed by the immersion of what matters most to me these past several days.
Family.
And, oh, how my heart puddles at the sight of my loved ones lovin’ on each other. We don’t get opportunities like these much because we live so far away from one another and the get-togethers are few and far between. But these past days, here they are, scooping up this time – as inconvenient and as painful as it has been – and they are embracing the important.
Each other.
We are Mama and Dad’s family. Their living, breathing scrapbook.
We love one another with passion and purpose, and these days and these moments will go down in the scrapbooks of our minds and hearts.
How many times I’ve wanted lately to reach out and grab the reigns to our ever-changing, busy lives and just yank hard. Pull back with everything I have and slow things down until I feel I have control.
But that’s impossible and – if you think about it – bridled, trained life is just boring compared to the wild exhileration of just plain ‘ol living.
The only predictable thing about life is its unpredictability. It’s unbridled and wild and beautiful. …and that’s our life right now.
Family, grandchildren, memories
July 14, 2010 @ 6:36 am | Filed under: Pure Sunshine,Soul Food,Uniquely Me
There is something refreshing about things that are real.
Real chocolate. Real deals. Real people.
When we walked into this old-fashioned hardware store on Saturday and spotted glass-bottled Cokes for sale for $1.00, it was a REAL deal waiting to happen.
Not to mention that it was an “honesty policy” and you merely pulled your ice cold beverage from the cooler and left your dollar in a simple attached tube that read:
”LEAVE $1.00 HERE”
There is something so refreshing about moments like this one.
Moments where you find tiny treasures hidden amongst the dusty ordinariness of normalcy. Moments where those treasures remind you that it’s the dust you truly treasure, ’cause that’s where the work is, that’s where the memories are, that’s where love resides. Quiet and paitent…waiting to be lived.
Moments like this are refreshing.
There is something equally refreshing about sharing them with someone who is the real deal. Someone who says what they mean, and mean what they say. Someone like my MJ.
Today is his birthday, and the birthday boy will be on the Red-Eye home from Chicago sometime later tonight.
I’ll ask him Thursday morning what he wants to do for his big day (even though it means we’ll be celebrating a day late) and he’ll shrug and say, “I’m doing it already.”
And then we’ll pretty much just hole up in this happy solitude playin’ life by ear. We’ll sip coffee at ten and shower by eleven, or maybe noon. We’ll have a loose plan for dinner, meaning all the while to shoot for a real, honest-to-goodness night out, but in the end we’ll probably have another impromptu living room picnic.
We love life, love our home, love each other.
We love the beauty of our languid mornings and cozy evenings, but sometimes it’s during the in-between that we notice most what makes us happy. It’s during the demanding weeks when he’s on the road and I’m immersed up to my neck in school or writing that I’m more inclined to notice just how extraordinary the mundane moments can be.
I’m reminded how happy my favorite coffee mug makes me.
Or how much I love hot baths.
Embracing the real things rises to the occasion best when life is nitty gritty. Or when it’s tough and busy and not-always-fun.
But today is good. It is very, very good.
It is real.
And I do love real things.
Happy Birthday, Mike!
