Westwoods

He cries when a daughter gives a Fathers Day card and when a son sends a birthday card in the mail. They may have talked only last week on the phone but the cards triggered an emotion too complicated to explain. It might have been the way it was put into words; the couple years of strained relationship and the current recovery of that same relationship. He cries at the oddest times according to other people's observation; it happens when he is asking the blessing on the noon meal. It might be because the kids have all come home and are gathered round the dining room, the grown kids, the grand kids, and the wife. He chokes up during prayer, thinking about and  thanking God for all He has brought them through. A daughter recounts a story of how her son is growing up. She has noticed the shift of son taking care of mom, instead of the other way around. This makes my dad cry. He may be remembering the care he gave to his mom while she lived. He could be moved by the idea of the gra...

Isn't it nice when we experience something new? It can be energizing and exciting.  But you know what I'm finding as I get older and creaky and a little bit tired? I like the plain, simple, and ordinary a whole lot better. I like the lasting effect of ordinary. When life becomes too glossy and glamorous, I feel it shouldn't be trusted, that it will let me down at any time. I find, a little bit of WOW factor goes a long way and I'm better if those moments are spaced nicely apart. I grow weary of perfect, but never tire of seeing a sweet baby with a grubby face. I like to see the flaws in the petals of a flower, a bug eaten corner makes the flower more real. A bug eaten flower petal proves its hard earned existence. Some people live for the extra ordinary. They make every moment WOW! They want to make  your every moment WOW. These people exhaust me.I fail to see what the big deal is. The more they try to impress; the less impressed I become.  Please leave m...

I don't even know if that is a fair term but it's the one that comes to mind when I think about the subject on which I am about to embark. Yesterday was the kid's school field and track day; beginning with the awards ceremony. About half way through the awards I realized something was really bugging me. I was only seeing part of the student body get up and get an award. That is fine. Being mature and all grown up, I realized not everyone can get an award and that life isn't fair in these circumstances. But that wasn't really the problem. I wanted to see ALL the kids up there with their classes. After all, they went to school the same allotted days the rest had and they were just as much a part of the successful school year as the kids who got their awards. Out on the field and track space, I noticed that quite often, the kids who didn't excel in scholastic things were often the kids that ran the fastest, jumped the highest, and endured the half mile run the ...

This week was full of fun and learning.  Toria was the only child out of school on Monday, so we got out the machine and she sewed her very first project ever. I was so impressed with her choices of colors and ideas of design. She sat herself down and took to it like a duck takes to water.     Maybe what was the most fun, was that it was fun. When I first learned to sew, I remember tears of frustration and being laughed at by my mother for making some pretty goofy mistakes, like sewing a sleeve into a neckline... There were no tears here and look at her smile of accomplishment!    Isn't that the cutest?  This is for you, Mom... Lily of the Valley  I just about missed these treasures. They were tucked in the weeds between the shed and rock wall.  And Shaunti had Tuesday off school while the other two went.  She learned to bake cupcakes from a mix... Not actually from scratch, but you still have to follow directions and...

What I learned over the weekend was that I don't have to say/write everything I think about, {Boy, aren't you glad!} and that I get off kilter far too easily when I am challenged relationship wise. Is there a connection? No. I don't think so, it's just what I keep learning. What is being challenged relationship wise? I will tell you. It's when you listen to your kids have pointless arguments that end up not ending up. It's when hubby and I can't seem to understand one another on a subject and the more I try to explain myself the harder I am to understand. That bends me out of shape and throws me off kilter. That challenges me. See how easy that is? The Cure: I keep telling the kids that it doesn't matter how they are treated or if they think they have a reason to react viciously to each other. They each are responsible for their own actions no matter how they are treated and that it is important to DO THE RIGHT THING no matter what. Wear the shoe, ...

Sounds good at least. I want to live that way and I do try. I am free of condemnation in Christ. I know this, but try telling my memory and feelings and other peoples memories of me. Especially other peoples memories of me. My reputation still proceeds me. On my wedding day, over 18 years ago, a lady wished me well to the best of her ability, at least I know she meant well. She said something like this: "I want you to know how happy I am to see you marry such a good man."(meaning, he was a good man because of his good Mennonite upbringing). She continued," I had my doubts how you would end up; now I feel pretty good about the way you're headed." (I was headed to a more conservative Mennonite community.) That stung. I felt that I probably deserved that kind of judgement considering the years I had spent in being rebellious and a little bit wild. Although I had made a new commitment to living for Christ at the age of eighteen, it took years of slow change and...

I really don't have a secret balance for such a thing. Who does? I think balanced living is different for each person...  Yesterday, I went to the big city alone, just me and my thoughts in my car; and of course, music and coffee for the road. And it felt awkward and wrong somehow, like I was forgetting something all day long such as helping with seat belts or car doors. And talking to myself, I won't tell you what was discussed. At one point, I took a picture of the top of my head, so I could see if my roots were really  that bad. And then I wondered tragically if anyone does  that kind of stuff.  Thankfully, that moment of shallowness was fleeting and the rest of the day was taken in shopping and meditating on  The Duty Lying Nearest You  . In reading My Utmost For His Highest , I have moments of wanting to fling that idealistic book across the room with a mighty 'harrumph', but then, he inserts about five days of thoughts that are realistic and thoug...

Saturday was about as perfect as life can get. In the morning, my three obedient, kind, willing children helped me clean all the windows of our little house while Bruce was half a block away at the hospital fair taking blood sugar tests at one of the exhibits.  We walked down to visit as soon as the windows were done then, walked back for lunch. Bruce was home soon after, had lunch, then took his family out on the boat for the afternoon.  Warning! this is a long picture post...  The sky was like this... This is what the rock wall looked like when I lay back in the boat and relaxed while the guys fished. I thought about perspective while lying there looking up at those layers of rock...   And the water was this color and full of spring debris.  We drifted in this deep pool for a very long time because of the fishermen in our boat. One beautiful trout was caught and released. He was too little.   More perspective from the same place...  Agai...

I shared this book with you a couple years ago... It merits re-sharing because I believe it says a lot for mothers... their dedication and love... their mad moments and everyday living... Happy celebrating!

 I've heard the theory:   A friendship is only as good as the honesty you can verbalize with one another. I disagree. There is also something to be said for the grace given to a friendship by withholding the honest words you thought you needed to say.  When a friend has gone through devastating experiences, it isn't always wise to try to revisit the past and say everything you wanted to say about all those rifted years.  Grace and kindness needs to take top priority for the rift to heal all the past hurts. And time. Time is highly underrated. Time passing quietly allows healing. You can't fix everything with words. Neither can you explain everything and make sense of it. Only God can do that and it takes His direction and His timing.  Maybe what I'm trying to say is, it matters what you don't say. The kindness and grace and forgiveness of Jesus work better maybe, if we don't  say some of those things we thought we needed too say. ...

It takes a great amount of vulnerability for me to write about this subject. Mostly, because it is something I deal with on a daily basis and I don't want to. I don't even want to talk about it. At all. It makes me feel weak, self-absorbed, and immature to admit that this is an ongoing problem for me and it is not going away. Especially, it is not going away when I ignore it and run out of my special herbal remedy or whatever method it is that is working.

I'm a sucker for eating words. I find myself doing a lot of things I once said I would never do, things like planting a garden with peas for harvesting after spending hours of weeding and picking the nasty little pods. I planted my little garden full the other day. Just because its there and I can. After I planted the garden last week, I did a couple other things I said I would never do... One was this... HOMEMADE LAUNDRY SOAP... If you are looking for raves and reasons of why you should do this, you came to the wrong place. I started doing this because I like the calm of all white in a jar and I like to know what's in my stuff. It's simple, inexpensive, and I get to mix things up a bit with using different essential oils each time, depending on what I have on hand. It takes me about fifteen minutes to grate the bar, dump the ingredients in and stir...  Viola! It's so pretty and actually does a good job of cleaning, every bit as good as Tide. Now, I'm gonna...