Once again...

 ...It has been a long time since a post. Today started like much of any other day. Well, with the exception that the kids are all home because it is winter break. I was tired. I didn't want to get out of bed. A list of things growing in my head of what needed to be accomplished. See how well I got that list done? Yep, me either. Today has been a day of chasing squirls. Accounting is calling, but here I sit typing a blog, that may get read a time or two. 

The current mood... 

Is it the 5 hour energy that I drank at 11am or the Monster that I am drinking currently? All I can say is that today isn't the first time I have done either of those things and still wanted to be one with my pillow and blankets. Yes, I also will know why I struggle to sleep tonight. 

Here is what I think is different though. Once I decided sleep was no longer a option, I opened my messages to find the following quote; "I never lose, I either win or learn," an the following question. "Looking back over the last year, what are the wins you are proud of and of equal importance the lessons learned?"

As I read that question, it was easy to jump to a quick superficial win (the loss of 43lbs in the last 4 months).  In the course of a lifetime, or eternity though, that is an incredibly superficial win. It maters to me, and pretty much only me. 

What really matters, in the last year, what have I learned, what have I shared, how have I grown, what is the impact I had on those around me? It isn't any one big moment. Not a big epiphany. It is a million tiny moments. Letting someone know that they matter. Watching one of the kids hit a milestone I wondered if they would reach. It is learning to live more in the moment and stress less about things I don't really control anyway. It is choosing peace. It is accepting limitations. It is saying the words "I appreciate you." It is adjusting my focus and letting go. It is giving a hug and being an encouragement.

I say it a lot, at the end of the day are you proud of who you are? If not, what will you do differently tomorrow? 

At the end of the day will I have completed everything on my To Do List? Probably not. I hope that I can say that I did the things that mattered the most. I can say this, at the end of the day I will be grateful for an amazing life and the people who are in it.

Object lessons - Roadside Treasures

 On our way home from the store today Stace spotted a wallet on the side of the highway. "Is it okay if we take a bit of a detour, I think I just saw a wallet in the road." We have found some pretty cool roadside treasures so of course the answer was yes. As we turned around he was apologizing certain that it was a chunk of tire or some other random piece of trash. Would he even remember where it was... all the self doubt. Sure enough as we pulled on to the shoulder there it was a very full, very soggy wallet. 

With the bank cards and ID that was in the wallet we reached out to the bank to see if we could locate the owner. Hope (Literally that was the managers name.) called me back, She had indeed contacted the owner, who was driving, so she wasn't available to contact me, could I call her?  

A few minutes later I was on the phone with the owner of the wallet. She was incredibly grateful and arrangements were made to get her wallet back to her. She stated that when the bank called she had just been praying about her wallet. She had worked an accident the other day and when she got back into the truck her wallet was nowhere to be found. All the EMS personnel who were at the scene had not seen her wallet.

As I reflect on todays roadside treasure hunt two things stand out. One, what are you doing when Hope is calling? Are you to busy or distracted to answer? Second, the owner was praying when the bank called, actively having a conversation with God about what she needed, but God had already met the need. 

Anyway, now on with our regularly scheduled day.

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Cantankerous Old Woman

     Outdoors the cool crisp air smells of rain as a cloud has settled down into the valley. The leaves are all shades of amber, gold, green, and red. I feel winter calling and I wonder just how much longer we have until the snow flies. Today is the perfect day for soup and sandwiches and the smell of corned beef wafts through the house as my husband prepares dinner. Yes, it is just afternoon and he has started working on it. That is how it works with a large family. Preparation starts early. I ask if I can help but that is generally met with a polite "No, thank you. But, here try this." Instead I try to busy myself with some other chore. It again is met with a polite denial. "Please stop, I will get that." 

    Today he knows that everything hurts. That isn't new. It is the same story as yesterday and the day before. Thursday I got to help though, ( I swept the floor) as we shape the house to fit our family. Friday I needed to take a kiddo to a doctors appointment. There is such beauty at this hideaway in the middle of national forest. It means that drive to the doctor was long though. So today the pain is extra. 2 days up may mean several days down and I have yet to find the balance between mobility and immobility. 

 

     Oh, the thought of sitting down to write and get it all out at once in one day. It never happens though. Saturday as I sat to write, a stream of children trickled in the room. It was really the first quiet moment I could recall in quite some time. I was sitting down at the computer because I wanted to, not because work was calling. The stream of children is what happens when they know I am not working. Saturdays, if I am not working, are not for me. Neither is Sunday for that matter, or realistically any other day of the week. I opted to step away from the typing rather than be frustrated that I was trying to get this post out there... I don't know where there is... out into the universe I suppose, but the kids were wanting my attention. I relocated to the Livingroom. This action must have scared them, they all scattered back into their bedrooms. 

       

    The end of another fall day has come. The air is now brisk and cold. Stace is working on one of a few projects that have pushed their way to the front of the line. I look around and there are so many projects started, each of them important but trailing back further and further on the list of what must get done. I look around and there is much to be done. Changing seasons or seasons of change have left me with more to do than I can physically or mentally can do. 

       Truth be told this changing of seasons has been a bit of a struggle for me. My Momma always said if you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all. So... So I haven't been saying much of anything these days. It isn't that fall is here. The crisp cool air seems refreshing. It is that quite literally life keeps changing, just when I am used to it, just when I am comfortable, just when... 

     

    When I worked at Glen Valley Care Center as a CNA there was this woman whom I loved. She was the most cantankerous old woman. Every time anyone walked in her room she would just start swearing at them, me included. At the time I wondered just how it had come to be that she was the way she was. I didn't really blame her. I saw how most of the residents had felt abandoned and scared. I can even imagine what it is like in a nursing home during the current situation. Anyway, I loved her. I loved that I knew she was just putting a voice to what others were not. I am quite certain just one too many times this woman bit her tongue. For the sake of family, or professionalism, or just because her Momma said if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Finally she had had enough.  

    I was recalling her memory the other day with the kids. The oldest chimed in that I will never be put  in a nursing home. I just told him it wouldn't bother me one way or the other. He just needed to brace himself for the cantankerous, swearing old lady I am likely to become. The memory of this woman resonates with my soul. 

Be Kind or Be Quiet...

In the last 30 days there have been to what seems like just as many appointments. I am tired. It is currently 8:30 in the morning. I left the house at 7 and I will be back to the house by 10. I forgot to take my meds before I left the house this morning. I hate early morning appointments; but if they are scheduled later, the entire day goes to waste. Today's appointment just requires that I am chauffeur. Not taking meds before I left the house, is likely to bite me in the @$$ later. Aetna knows better than my doctor, so what should be my meds is not. Ehlers-danlos Syndrome/Hyper-mobility Syndrome Not Otherwise Specified (as Dr. Gamble puts it, "If I say it is Ehlers-danlos syndrome nobody knows what it is, Hyper-mobility is self explanatory, it makes no difference what I call it as long as I treat it the same")... call it what you want,has left me depleted. I'm tired and everything ALWAYS hurts. My joints, all of them are causing cascading failures. I saw this post to the left last night on Facebook, and in made me mad. I bit my tongue and practiced the art of keep scrolling... Instead I am just addressing it in a blog post today. Oh the irony.

Yes, yes actually my genetics really do suck. Yes, there are literally things missing from my life because of my genetics. I know the person who posted it meant well. I know they were trying to be encouraging and motivating. I just have a hard time finding blanket judgmental statements as motivating. No, Monday doesn't suck, it was a beautiful quiet day. The weather was gorgeous. My husband was and still is amazing! On Monday though the nerve pain in my left leg, because of my genetic condition, was so much I cried myself to a very restless sleep. On Monday even though the weather was BEAUTIFUL I didn't walk down to the garden to pick vegetables, because my hip was dislocated, again. This photo to the left is where I sat and waited today because yes, my genetics suck. Only I sat here and waited not for me but for my son. Because, well you know, genetics. (Don't worry, he is fine, just going to what will be one of a million appointments because of his genetics.) At 12 years old my daughter could tell you she will adopt children, because she won't want to pass her genetics down to her kids. At 12 years old she knew pain that most adults never will.  At 10 years old sitting with the Geneticist we were told, "At 12 we just automatically refer the girls with this condition to the pain management specialist."


My point in all of this guys BE KIND OR BE QUIET. It really is that simple. You don't know what everyone is dealing with. Remember, social media is the highlight reel. It is the echo chamber of opinions and facts that seemingly are interchangeable. Before you post something on social media pause and think, is this going to help someone or hurt someone. In a virtual world where the only way we "get social interaction" is to scroll through Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, BE KIND.

Unpacked

I have just spent a few minutes going back and reading through previous blog posts. A lot has changed since I started this blog over a decade ago.This one thing rings true through the years, I have not been near as consistent with this as I want to be. So this, this is the disclaimer. Blogging is going to be a scheduled task. Y'all might want to pray about it. This content might get a bit dry or redundant otherwise.

The thing is realistically I know what is going on in this moment. I need to CREATE. The problem, I have half a dozen started projects. Yesterday I thought I would create a poll. What should I be doing now? The truth, FINISHING at least one project I have started. Yesterday that meant I got off of facebook, I didn't post a poll. I went and unpacked 3 boxes. I unpacked 3 boxes that have been in storage. Items I haven't used in 2 years and as of right now have no idea where to put. 

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Forever back in the day I have a blog post of before during and after photos of the shelf catastrophe I was attempting to tame. This is the story of almost every room in the house in the moment. Well not to that degree. It just turns out I suck at moving. In 2018 while preparing to move to Virginia I unpacked boxes that had been in the attic since I moved in 2007. Those boxes had been packed from the move from Colorado to Texas. Surely if I had not even seen the inside of those boxes in over 10 years I didn't need to open them now, they could have gone in the trash right? Instead I sorted through them and retrieved my long lost treasures. Now that those treasures have been packed for another 2 years I wonder if they were really treasures...

June was another month of moving, although my address didn't change. My in-laws new house in town was finished, so before the kids all went to visit their other parents we moved Pop and Grandma into their new house. Essentially this means we were moving 2 houses at once. The kids were, FOR THE MOST PART, better at moving into their new rooms and getting things out of storage. But here I sit in my office/den/ bedroom (clearly I have no clue what to call this space) and other than the computer and printer, everything is still in boxes. The closet was easy, so the clothes are put away. I guess at least there is that. The kitchen is a bit better. A bit better in that my husband can cook in it. (That is a strange thought, I used to do all the cooking, now maybe a meal or 2 every 6 months.) This "move" meant that the kitchen and dinning room now share the same space and what was the dining room is now living room. We haven't really even started in there other than to get furniture out of storage. But it is all just pushed clear of a walk way. I feel like everything is still waiting to be unpacked. 

EVERYTHING IS STILL WAITING TO BE UNPACKED... someone help me here. Where is creativity in unpacking? Why, why unpack it why not get rid of it all? It has sat in storage for so long clearly we don't need it. Ahhh the object lesson here... 

Personal growth, "moving" forward is just what all of this is. What are we carrying around in boxes for years that we need to unpack? What is in storage that needs be brought up and dealt with? Are there treasures we need to unbury, is their junk that we just need to toss out? If I wander into any room in the house right now I am over whelmed at what needs to be done. If I just open up this one box though. And that is it! Personal growth is crating. Probably not in the traditional sense and probably not in the most fun of ways. Just maybe it is the most productive way...

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Daytime Pajamas...

I think I should just come back to this particular blog post and start a new post every time I feel like posting, but have no idea of the following:

1. where the post is going
2. if I will find the time to finish it
3. a slew of other excuses that keep me from blogging on the regular. 

Maybe there is a patter to all the false starts. Maybe all of those false starts in one post would just be funny to go back and read. This is what was saved in the draft I just sat down to-

Why yes, yes I did just change from my night time pjs to my daytime pjs. If I am being honest the line between the two has blended. Anyone who has known me since high school would tell you that I really have been training for this moment in history since then, when I frequently arrived at school in flannel pajama pants.

As I sit to type again I battle between the thoughts. there is so much that I could say (er.. um... type) at the moment. Torn between:

1.  being vulnerable and saying to much
2. being angry and not caring what people think
3. bailing on all of that "real" life yuck, being light hearted and silly
4.  saying screw it all because I'm dyslexic and spell check says hearted is spelled wrong and I don't know how to fix it. (Here we won't talk about the list of other words that I have changed because I couldn't figure out how to spell them.)

See this is the struggle, all of that should be balanced right? 

I Owe You No Explanation

It is strange to look back on life. Strange to try to view circumstances and situations from someone else's perspective. How warped a picture can be when they tell you what their perspective is. Note if you can read this blog post, that statement isn't about you, because yes I will shamelessly block that kind of crazy from life in a heart beat. 

One of the things that I learned long ago and I am somewhat certain  I have blogged about before is that I don't have to justify myself to anyone. I owe no one an explanation. (Check out Romans 4 & 5) Now here is the other line of thought there, there are some people that while I owe them nothing doesn't meant that I shouldn't give them something... for example:

1. my spouse
2. my children
3. law enforcement (but even they say you have the right to remain silent).

Here I go back to setting boundaries is good, see how short I just made that list. Granted if my boss asks me why I said or did something and I'm like "I don' t have to explain myself to you!" I'm probably gonna get fired. 

So all of that to perfect this:

I co-parent 6 children with 4 other parents. For my children, 2 kids have 4 parents, and 4 kids have 3 parents. Their are 5 of us co-parenting 6 kids. That isn't an easy task. It means that 4 of us are actively trying to work with out exes to do what is best for our children. I am certain for all of us this can be a challenge and we have our own negativity to struggle with, we don't need yours. Instead that means we choose to let go of our own hurt, face our fears, and choose love. 

Over the last year I have sat with some accusations from people who I thought should have known better, should have known me better. Lies create pain and heartache... and I am not going to apologize for things I didn't do and I am not going to try to justify my choices to them or to you. 

Without going into the accusations, (because remember I block that kinda crazy) my choice, (that you can all weigh in on if you want, but know your opinion doesn't mater) was to let 4 of my children have the relationship they choose with their father.  To be clear here the custody that I share with my ex-husband was never a negotiation. He has always said that the children were better off with me, and I have always said I would do all that was within my power to help him maintain a healthy relationship with our children. I can remember a time when our oldest daughter, who at the time was 6 asked her father who she should live with if we got a divorce. Her father said, "Your mom of course, she will keep you alive. I would forget to feed you." In that moment he was removing the heartache of choosing sides. Fast forward another 4 years and we were divorced.  There is a past there, poor choices, trauma, mental illness... the list goes on. That means letting go of our own hurt, facing fear, and choosing love. This summer that meant 2 of the kiddos stayed home with me and my husband and 2 of them went to go visit their father. I am incredible proud of him for showing grace and understanding and letting them choose that for themselves. He didn't have to. 

The journey of co-parenting is a challenging one. For most of us, we don't want to share our children with our ex-spouses. I didn't pour my entire being into another little person so that I could share them. I am not the only parent who has something to give though. I am not the only parent that my children crave connection with. In what can be a painful tug of war, what damage is done when we restrict or hinder relationship. My goal as a mom, to all of my children, not just the 4 I gave birth to, is to raise well rounded, loving, whole people. So once again, I choose letting go of my hurt, facing my fear, and choosing love.

There are a lot of why did you, how could you, scenarios. I could never, I would never... The truth is we all face those choices every day.  Do you chose to answer out of fear or love?