So, so cool.

Did you ever have a moment where you were feeling awesome. Just super freakin cool. Whatever it was...your hair looks great, you got new shoes, your face just looks good to you today? And then something happens. Somehow you have an encounter of some kind or type of reality. Whether it be a mirror or a mother, something brought you back to reality. Wham. You should have looked at the back of your slamin' hairdo. You stepped in some gum. A giant zit developed over lunch.
I finally wore a new hat I got from Banana Republic today. Very cute hat. But as all women know, hats are tricky. You like it in the store but you know that the likelihood of you really wearing it proud are kinda slim. That's just hats for ya. So I was thinking...this is great..this cute little knit hat will cover my scary heap of morning hair while I bravely drop my daughter off at school. No one will be the wiser. Then I got home and saw the mirror. Bummer dude. I thought the hat was an even circle that you could just throw on but now I see that you need to put it on evenly. It is askew. And not in the cool way of pop singers or rappers...where its on purpose. Nope, its in the sloppy way of mothers who run around screaming about shoes early in the morning.
I going back to the no mirror approach. I prefer the "I look super cool" feeling.

We are getting nuts, people!

Well I started out my morning hearing some crazy talk. Seriously, people. I was watching the illustrious "Today Show" while trying to get my munchkins out the door. They were discussing little boys dressing as little girls. I thought maybe, just maybe I would hear a balanced interview about how it could be good or bad? No, of course not. They proceeded to say that it's all about acceptance. You should just learn to accept your young child and their want/desire to dress like a little boy or girl..whatever it is they aren't, basically. One women even wrote a children's book about her cross dressing son and how we should all just accept this.
Do you know the kind of things my son would do if I let him or just accepted him doing it? He would play computer games all day long. He would pee in his pants and not bother to go the the bathroom. He would eat all his Halloween candy the day he got it and then throw up. He would not clean this throw up, either. He would just walk away. He would probably never learn to share. The list truly goes on and on. I love this boy to distraction and I accept him. I accept that he is 3 1/2 and doesn't know a whole lot about a whole lot. That where my job comes in and the job of my husband. We are his teachers about life. Yes..he teaches us everyday too. But our job is direct him in the best path for his life. Just because he may want to dress up like a girl with his sister once and a while does not mean that I should "accept" him in this activity if he wants to do it for school. And I would not allow him to dress up like a girl for Halloween either. (Which was one of the stories the Today show covered.) Yes, that him in the pic dressed up like some kind of princess with his sister. We let him do it a couple of times because it was super funny and then told him that we were done with that. Simple. I am so over people telling me and everyone else how PC we should be. We are so PC we are straight messing our kids up. So...even though I am learning how to do this everyday...this parenting thing...at least I am trying to be just that...the parent.

pinch me, and I'm not Irish

Over the last year I have keep having these reoccurring moments. They remind me of an eighties song, that goes something like this, "This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife", only I insert husband. I guess I keep having these pinch me moments. Where I don't believe this is really my life. I think because I I just expected something so different.
I expected that becuse I loved God so much that I would live for him to the fullest that I knew how, which in my mind was missions work. When I did that and it didn't fit I moved on to full time ministry. I did love that but there were things that also didn't fit. Not that God was pushing me into a box that I didn't fit...but that I was pushing myself into boxes that I didn't fit. But I continued on in my journey of discovery and service. I did some "big things" in my mind and even heart for God but they didn't work out also for a million reasons. And now at the end of myself....When I couldn't make heads or tails of the plan I see all kinds of blessings.
When I would picture my life when I was younger, it was always in some kind of full time ministry, with zero money. Things have turned out a little differently. Sometimes its almost uncomfortable it so different. But then I remind myself that God loves me. Really. I am constantly trying to understand it but he does. And he is trying to show me everyday. I am finding out that God has a much better handle on me and what I really need than I do. Go figure, right. Better than I can imagine. More that I can see. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11)

Badges

When I was little I used to be a girl scout. It was pretty fun. We learned how to roll our own sleeping bags, went on a dusty hayrides, and participated in the 80's craze of stamping together. Now I can see the sleeping bag thing was a thinly veiled attempt by our scout leader i.e. parents to not have to roll our sleeping bags anymore. I think they thought if they gave us a badge we could learn just about anything. I think for most of us they were right.
When I was reminiscing about my brief career as a girl scout the other day it made me think about the badges I could theoretically be earning in my life today.
Last week I earned the "Handle the pee" badge. It was a big one that I have been working on for really about 3 years. I completed the last part of my training last week to earn the badge. It started with the speed drills with my daughter. When you hear the frantic, "I got to go potty!", you are then tested on you speed you can get the child to the bathroom. Early in my training I failed. I remember one particular incident the involved Crocs being filled with pee to the brim...which was followed by a speed drill to leave the park. I passed the last part of that speed drill. So I kept at it, kept training, and then last week I did it. My son told me as we were leaving Costco with a gigantic cart filled with stuff, (that looks like it could keep us alive for a year but in reality I will be back to my beloved Costco next week), that he needed to go. I said, "Can you make it until we get home?" and he said "yes". Never trust a three year old, they lie. So we are flying down the freeway and he says, "I gotta go now!". I look around and all I see is a Big Gulp cup....ok, time to improvise. I earned that badge my assisting my son to pee in a Big Gulp while going 70 miles/an hour down the road. We both passed really. My husband said, "that was dangerous!". Earning badges is dangerous stuff.
I have also earned the "Dealing with poop" badge, maybe we will get to that another time. As well was "Dealing with blood" badge. You should see my vest, I am getting well decorated.
I am now preparing to deal with a new phase of my scout training, the first "Let them Go" badge. Kindergarten starts next month. I will let you know how it goes.

chlorine eyes

I was looking at my daughter tonight at the dinner table. Her eyes were red and she was collapsing onto the table. The fun of summer had done her in. It got me thinking. When was the last time you saw a bunch of bonafide adults, i.e. bill paying, responsibility bearing adults just laid out from too much fun? Kids know how to do it. We used to be kids so....connect the dots. We have got to go back through the cobwebs of our memories (some of us have more than others) and remember how we used to live it up. We didn't need anything but a pool and a few friends to have the time of our lives. So much fun we could barely drag ourselves into bed.
I remember my first summer when the kid in me was totally obliterated. It was August and I realized that I didn't have any kind of tan whatsoever. Nothing. Chalky is not the color of fun. I had just been doing adult stuff like...working. A lot. It was sad.
Mom's have get a second wind at experiencing kids summer when they have munchkins looking at them early in the morning before their coffee has even coaxed them to life and they hear those blessed words, "I'm bored...what are we doing today?". So we slather everyone down in SPF 50 and head to the pool. Boredom be gone. Then we remember. We don't sit on loungers all day just trying to get a tan...we earn it. We are tying to keep kids from killing themselves in all manner of fashions usually on opposite sides of the pool from each other. Its amazing how you can get that total body tan by just not sitting down...ever. And in the middle of being an unpaid lifeguard we start to have fun. We squirt someone the face with a water gun or maybe even do a cannonball..maybe not. There would have to be no one in the pool for me to do that! The ensuing wave is almost as bad as standing on a "Guess my weight" game. How could they ever call that a game, by the way.
So, somehow we need to figure out as adults how to have so much fun that we fairly collapse at the end of our fun through bleary, red chlorine eyes and ask, "What are we gonna do tomorrow?" And even if you do have a mountain of work to do get some fun in there somewhere.

The yearn

I've always had it. It explodes sometimes. Other times it is just bubbling up from somewhere in side of me. I always recognize it in others. I see when its not there too. Some people have it. Some people don't. It is a blessing and a curse. It is a yearning for something. I always feel in some way like I am on the verge of being epic in some way. But what? Maybe that's why I go big or go home. In reality...I go big and then I go home. I lose interest in my next big thing even though it was all I could think 2 days or 2 months ago.
It could have started with childhood. I hated being left out of anything. I remember when my parents would rent a VHS player and movie. Yes, that's what I said. In the eighties you had to rent the player and the tape. And they used to have those little smiley face stickers, "Be kind, Rewind". Back to the point, they would rent their movies and my brother and I would go to bed. I would sneak through the hall and try to watch without being detected. I didn't want to miss out. Perhaps part of my yearning is the feeling that if I stay with whatever it is I am doing I will miss out on what's next. So, to hell with whatever I am dong now. It's yesterday's news. What is around the corner?
So the yearn isn't answered. It just grows because it hasn't been satiated. The yearn wants to do everything. At times I let the yearn screw up really good things in my life because I just want whats next.
I have to learn to release and yet tame the yearn. Release what comes with it. The creativity. The passion. The euphoria of the new. But tame the wanderlust that forgets the blessings of the past and doesn't allow for growth in the here and now.
Right now I feel like a shark. Stop moving and die. I think I may have something to learn from something like say, Coral? It just keeps growing and becoming more amazing. It is not frantically moving from side to side, always faster still. It just is.