Grace

Just a short blog today with a few thoughts. The photo was taken in New Mexico back in May when Steve and I were there on vacation....certainly not from anything in our yard in recent weeks. Thought it was pretty...it has no real meaning.

I have had the word "grace" on my mind and the thoughts have gone with it off and on over the last few days. I think whenever you have gone through anything that takes a lot out of YOU then you are often left empty, spent and somehow sad.

Grace is defined as basically receiving "favor" from God without having necessarily having deserved it. I have never been one that looked for grace or thought I deserved it...well maybe there were times I thought I did. But grace is a tricky thing. There are those who know much more than I do about the subject that could say it much better....but my thoughts here today are that there must a God that distributes this grace out. If not then there would be a lot of us out there that would be stuck in the ditches for a long time.

I think I have watched a lot of grace in action lately. I have felt a real desire to have more grace in my life with others. I have never been known to be a patient person and I have such a low tolerance for people that "get on my nerves"....so I have made a decision to make every effort to show some "grace" to them and allow them their differences and oddities....just as they allow me my own. That would be REAL grace.

The Devil Made Me Do It

Friday night started out to be a normal weekend evening. Steve and I picked up some groceries and rented a movie, something that had the "Devil" in the title. We always laugh when we pick something that says it is a thriller because neither of us like movies that get too scary or gross, but we enjoy a good "sit on the edge of your seat" kind every now and then. We had picked this one out online before we left home and thought it would be a good one. We kept making small jokes back and forth about how the devil was going to take over our weekend......well, let me tell you, if the devil can cause stuff to happen then we have the evidence!

We got home and had snacks ready, DVD in the player and suddenly it would not play. So, we started trying different things and realized not only would it not play but now it would not eject either!!!! It took both of us getting on the floor in front of all of the equipment with ALL of the remote controls that we possess to finally get things rolling. We got the DVD out, put in a different one and found that our player was working fine. We probably wasted nearly an hour with all of this. So, I called the Redbox people and they marked this one for destruction. After I looked on the back of it, I realized why it had given us so much trouble....it looked like someone had taken a pair of scissors and ran them across it back and forth!! They even gave us a couple of free rentals...not that it is a big deal since the rental is a dollar! But, there we were at 9 pm on a Friday night without a movie, so we just watched an older movie we had recorded on the DVR. Not too bad.

This morning, the "devil" attacked again. As you know we have been replacing appliances...long overdue. Steve hooked up the washer and dryer (just before he put on his last pair of clean undies, I believe!) and I loaded the washer for the first load. We had to buy the new High Efficiency detergent this week for this machine, which is a little more expensive. Steve had set it on top of the washer to be handy for me to use. I put everything in the washer and then came into the den to work on wedding invitation envelopes (my heavens....I'm just on the H's!!!! see there's another connection...like, as in Hell!!).

Well, as Steve worked on installing the new dishwasher I thought it was about time that the first load should be finished, so I went back to move them to the dryer. I thought it was odd that the gallon jug of detergent was now on the floor...maybe Steve had moved it....but no, wait....YIKES....the jug is empty!!!! Apparently during the spin cycle, the gallon of detergent took a spin off of the machine (that Steve says he may not have balanced completely) and landed just right to knock a hole in the jug and empty the entire gallon contents onto the floor all behind the new washer and dryer. What a mess! See the devil was at work again!!! Oh, and in the middle of that cleanup, I went back into the kitchen where he had been working to get a screwdriver for him and Koko (our old dog) had realized Steve had taken the trash can out of the cabinet and thought perhaps it was meant for her to rummage through. She had it all over the kitchen floor!!! Egg shells, trash from all week and everything you can imagine. Then I had to go back to "goo city" where we have the washer/dryer. You just can't imagine what a mess it was to clean up...detergent is so sticky and yucky too. The only good thing is that it smells so good. I don't know what made Steve the most upset...the mess or the fact that we lost a whole gallon of that expensive detergent!

So, this afternoon we went back to the rental box and got another copy of the "DEVIL" movie again and watched it tonight, bought some more detergent too. Maybe that will end our curse and tomorow things will go right. We have one direction to go from here!!

Oh yeah, this is the fun part....I just forgot for a minute.

Good heavens! I think we are on the incredible journey into kitchen remodeling. This photo shows us last week as we were loading up the stuff from the old freezer/refrigerator to make it easier to move. The new one was due in around noon that day...ah yes, the new stainless appliances that will make our kitchen sell like a hotcake when that time comes!!!

Well, cleaning out that frig was quite a job.....and then Steve, Greg and the girls all helped to get it moved downstairs. We decided to keep it downstairs for now since it works perfectly fine, just for extra storage. It was quite a job moving it though. We almost didn't make it out the door. For anyone who has ever tried to do this, it makes you understand why people pay the movers to do this job!!!

And THEN we loaded the groceries back into it once it was plugged back up down there.

Later that day the Sears guys arrived with our new appliances and so we packed up the refrigerated goods once again and brought them upstairs. The new refrigerator just barely fit...as a matter of fact, Steve had to cut the counter a bit! That's alright because it is the next thing to go. What the hell?

As a matter of fact, just don't sit too long in our kitchen these days...you might just find yourself painted or redone in some new fashion....or carted off to the dump!

The countdown to the wedding is under 2 months now....and the question on my mind is WILL THIS KITCHEN EVER BE READY??????????????????????????

Hope

Today I had another one of life's lessons that I wanted to share on this blog. Some may find it thought-provoking while others may find it totally boring. It is about the subject of hope.

Many of you that know me are aware of my "summer project" that has kept me busy for several weeks and pretty much ended today. It was really a project I believed in, was driven toward and could not give up on even when I was met with the looks of doubt and despair by so many of my peers.

The definition of hope includes a line that says "believing that a better or positive outcome is possible even when there is some evidence to the contrary." I have a poster in my office that says "Don't ever take away a persons hope....that may be all they have." My summer project involved someone just like that. He really needed hope. That was all. Just some hope. Sure, he needed some material things as well....and I was fortunate to have some great folks helping me along with that.

But mostly he needed people along the way to give him hope. I have often been moved to tears as I have watched people along our journey. Yes, I have had to get loud on the phone a few times to make things happen for my project....but happen they did! I have watched as the small gestures have warmed and calmed him along his journey...a sweet lady named Rose that generously poured her heart into her job and made him feel so comfortable....a guy named Ray on the phone who assured him that he was taking care of things on his end....a lady named Judy who offered hope through her agency....another lady that met me on a Saturday with a load of supplies....a lady at another agency whose desk puts mine to shame because she is so covered up with work yet she found time to help out...and today again that gentle reassuring hand of hope that reached out to reassure and to say it will be alright and come see her if it is not...."here is my name."

I remember when I was busy doing so much volunteer work that people often said that you get back so much more than you give. That was always true. I think that it is true in the case of offering hope to people as well.

Today I was able to offer hope to someone after weeks of working toward a goal. We met the goal and now it is up to him to see what he does with it. But he has hope now where he didn't before. The possibilities are in his hands where there were none.

And by doing this, it seems that I have also taken a deep breath and brought fresh air into my own life and new hope and a new way of viewing my world. It isn't about the material things that we all get so wrapped up in. I won't miss the money that has been spent on my summer project. But I have invested in someone's hope...someone's dream....and by doing so I have paused to think about my own. I am so lucky.

Did you hear the scream Wednesday night???

Wednesday evening ended as most do, with things to do around the house and of course, our ongoing kitchen project. We were getting ready for the roofers to come (we thought)the next morning. Steve had planned to take off work so that we could unhook and remove the appliances because the new ones were due for delivery on Friday. Our kitchen was totally upside down, as you can imagine. The only good thing is that we can't really cook, but that actually gets old too.

I have been worn with battle fatigue recently, a mixture of various things that I really can't point to any one thing....adjusting some medicine, trying to lose weight (that neverending battle), the kitchen remodel, the wedding planning with the date only 2 months away now, anxiety over my job and some issues there....I've just been in the dumps and haven't been able to get out.

On top of all of that is the issue that my oldest daughter, Rachel is living about a million miles away in New Hampshire (I think that is on the planet Mars), working in a great job, in a great relationship with a great guy. I truly could not be happier except I wish she were in driving distance for weekend visits. It takes about 30 hours to get there and Steve and I are not long distance drivers. We got to see each other briefly in June when she was home for a wedding, but that is an entirely whole different story about how our visit was cut short and we didn't really have even an hour to just "talk"....I felt cheated. Since then we've kept up with our emails and texting pretty much on a daily basis, but I just miss her and recently, I didn't realize how much, she has been getting homesick as well.

Greg was supposed to come in during the night pretty late Wednesday night to be here to help with appliance removal on Thursday. I also thought he had a dental appt., but I was off a week on that too. Anyway, he told me it would be very late and to not wait up.

After midnight on Wednesday night, he woke me up and said he had something to show me and that Steve needed to come too. We were basically in a "coma' and so we groggily came into the living room where Mary Beth appeared from around the corner. I was so surprised and asked what she was doing here and she said "Well, your birthday is next week and we wanted to surprise you together. Come on, your present is in the kitchen." I said something like I hope it's not roofing shingles....I started walking toward the kitchen and RACHEL stepped around the corner!!!! I really did let our a blood curtling scream!!! Oh my goodness!!! Not in a million years did I expect to see her in my house this weekend!!!! They had gotten together and planned this after Rachel had found great ticket prices and she and Chris had planned to come together. When she got back online to book them, they had doubled in price! She got so upset, he told her to just use his miles on his credit card and "go home"...I think this man is a keeper for sure if he knows when a girl needs to go home to see her family!

We stayed up another hour talking about how the plan all worked out and how they kept it a secret all week. Since then we have just gone with the flow of kitchen appliance deliveries and some work I needed to do for a "summer project" that Rachel helped me with. We, of course, worked on some of the wedding plans. Mary Beth will be in after work today and we will have a chance to really go through some details for the last time before Rachel has to go back tomorrow.

What a gift this has been. I feel so blessed to have such wonderful loving children that return the love I have for them. They knew that I needed this as much as Rachel. Wow.

52 is looking like it could be a very good year!

Wednesday...Hump Day...30 minutes to myself

Thirty minutes to myself before my first client comes in this morning. I've already been to staffing, ran back by the house to fix a cup of yummy french vanilla capuccino and off to the office. I'm all settled in here with everything lined up and ready to go. I love Wednesdays as most of us do. Its no longer Monday and we can start to see the weekend ahead, start making plans for what we will do with a little bit of free time ahead of us. My mother used to fuss at me for wishing my life away, and guess what? I've almost done it!! Next week I will hit 52, which is a big ole chunk of life, isn't it? A lot of Wednesdays have come and gone....hmmm, now I'm sure one of my kids could figure out how many of those but it is too large of a number for my brain right now.

Take a sip of coffee, smell that yummy vanilla and soak in the quiet of the morning. It won't last long. Before you know it the worries of the day will begin to creep in...the kitchen remodeling, the appliances to be delivered on Friday, wedding planning, the client I'm trying desperately to help get moved to college in Conway without much help from UCA/FAFSA/Financial Aid/the world in general, roofing/siding contractors....oops, see there it started. I'm just going to close the door on that stuff for a little longer.

We don't get a lot of these "moments"....at least I don't seem to. I guess some people make their moments happen. I've never had the gift for just STOPPING and enjoying the quiet. I teach my clients how to do it and I seem to be quite gifted at teaching them how to do that....but it must be like the plumber who is a very good plumber but his own pipes at home are leaky. I love the school environment. And for some crazy reason, I love teenagers. People often think that is the craziest thing of all....but they are so open and honest. They usually haven't started trying to cover up like adults have and if they have decided to come see me, then they really want to be here. Makes my job pretty easy then.

It is Wednesday....hump day. Things could be better, but they could definitely be worse. I will finish these last sips before the work begins and I think I will just be glad that I have work to do. I will be glad that I have someone I love to go home to after the work is finished. I will just put off worrying about the crap for later....save it for Thursday. That can be worry day.

Sentimental Summer...

As I started to think about writing a post about today, I realized that I am again feeling sentimental and feeling a need to write about my children. I think the wedding plans and a mixture of emotions that go with that have brought on a lot of memories recently that I haven't had in a long time. When Jon came to talk to us about proposing to Mary Beth almost a year ago, I felt washed with emotion because I knew that day was coming. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out! They had been dating since she was in the tenth grade and she was now in her senior year of college by then. Mary Beth had always set her sights pretty clear in life with her career and plans laid out pretty straight forward. Even though the words had never been spoken, she had worn a "promise" ring for over a year and we all knew it was just a matter of time.
Jon planned a lovely surprise proposal party for her 21st birthday at his home, with everyone there. I think she really was clueless, which for those of you that know Mary Beth would not be surprised about. She really is easy to surprise, innocent as a child which is something we all love about her.
We decided early on in planning the wedding to set priorities, do as much as we could ourselves to cut costs and pay as much as we could as we go so the costs don't hit us at the end. So far so good!
There have been a few glitches, but overall the plans have gone fairly well. She is very organized and with the help of email and cell phones, we have kept in touch almost daily. There have been moments when decisions had to be made that were difficult, like the bridesmaids dresses and then decisions that had to be made that were obvious and that she knew immediately, like her gown. Big sis Rachel has been there to help consult with about those big decisions too, which helps a lot too.

I think it really hit me when I went with my friend to see the movie "Mamma Mia" and Meryl Streep was singing the song about "Slipping through my fingers" which is exactly how it feels. I know she is not going away forever, but things will never be like they are now ever again. I feel like our time together as mother and daughter is quickly running out and I think back about when she was little and how I wish that I had taken more time with her. She is just such a funny little kid, very unpredictable, always keeping us laughing with her little collections of things and funny hats. I hope that I was kind of mother that I wanted to be. It was hard sometimes because of working and for a lot of years, even after Steve and I got married he was working second shift so it was still like being a single parent. Money was tight and often we couldn't do the things that some of the parents did, so you feel guilty about that. I think as women we just feel guilty about everything all the time. We do a lot of things right, but for everything else we feel guilty.

Motherhood is a tricky thing. We invest so much of ourselves into the lives of these little people. They grow up and, if we are lucky, they still like us. I'm awfully lucky to have three kids that think I'm a little wacky, but they love me anyway. They will likely never know or begin to understand the amount of love that has gone into every day since their arrrival on this planet. Probably they won't until they have children of their own....and one of them is just a few weeks away from getting married....that's when they will understand this feeling. Then they will go "oh yeah, I remember mom going through this that summer...." I wonder when this lump in my throat will settle down?

Kitchens and Cards

While talking to Rachel on Friday, I was reminded of a wonderful childhood memory. Rachel was talking about playing rummy with Chris' sister and some of her friends and how much fun she had. I haven't played rummy in years, but there was a time that I couldn't get enough of it. My Aunt Gladys used to come down from Steele, Missouri for long visits and with her came her Pepsis, her cigarettes and her love for playing gin rummy. This photo I found recently shows me likely trying to get the art of shuffling cards like she did. My dad was such a sweetie that he finally bought me one of those automatic shufflers where you put half the cards on two separate shelves and turn a handle and the cards were magically shuffled!

My aunt had the patience of Job, I suppose, looking back on things. She would play cards for HOURS with me and any random cousins that happened to also be visiting. She smoked so much she would light a cigarette sometimes while she had one already lit in the ashtray. She was my mother's older sister. A big ole gal with a deep raspy voice and big laugh. She was pretty bossy and I think would annoy my mom as big sisters typically do by trying to rearrange her kitchen cabinets and tell her how to raise her children and do her laundry. She would always "tear the paper top" off of the coffee-mate creamer and that would drive my dad crazy. He was a big fan of hers though and they teased each other to her final days. Such fun memories in a kitchen that was full of good smells and great food. My mom was always cooking and baking something. I wonder what my children will remember about our kitchen. It's funny that I'm thinking about this right now when we are making this complete overhaul after 16 years of it looking the same way. I guess it's not so much about how it looks as it is about the people in it and who stops to play cards with a child or bake cookies to make the whole house smell good....that can come from any kitchen that looks like anything!

And by the way...did you catch that great early morning hair on that child???

What WERE we thinking???

Just when our lives could not have gotten any

more hectic this summer, we decided it was time to give the kitchen an overhaul. It was long overdue, of course. But the timing could have been better in retrospect! When we bought the house 16 years ago, the kitchen had 2 layers of linoleum on the floor and underneath we found pine. Steve stripped off everything and we refinished the pine. The washer and dryer was right inside the back door, as they often were in these older houses. We moved them to the bedroom area and built a breakfast nook there instead.

I was into collecting watermelon things at the time so I went for a green and white (yes people, at the time it looked wonderful) striped wallpaper with a watermelon and sunflower border. Everything that was sitting still and horizontal had something with watermelons on it. I even painted a watermelon pattern on the 2 small ceiling fans, which someone once said looked like frogs in a blender when they were turned on!

Well, watermelons and stripes are gone now. We are going for a more soothing, neutral look and buying all new appliances. The dishwasher is on it's final days and I think the double oven was built by Ben Franklin himself. It's probably a fire hazard.

If any of you have ever done this to your kitchen you know how crazy it can be.

We are keeping our base cabinets and have ordered new doors that are supposed to be ready this weekend. The appliances are to be delivered next Friday.

We are also going to put a new granite countertop since the white and green won't go with the new kitchen. We found out we will save $400 by tearing it out ourselves and decided we were pretty good at doing that!

I have to explain that in this photo of Steve painting...those were the original walls that were in the house when we bought it. Behind those are plaster walls and so we painted them. Those are not the walls we looked at for the last 16 years !!! The photo above gives you an idea of the sort of caramel color of the new walls. Our little resident interior designer was there making these decisions. She really has a good eye for color and texture. I can't wait to see the end product!

I'll try to keep you all updated as we move along. Just as I said, since we needed something else to do this summer......

16 and counting

Rio Grande Canyon Gorge, near Taos New Mexico and we are hanging on for dear life! You never know where we might have found ourselves over the last 16 years of marriage, but yesterday we hit a milestone anniversary. It is often hard to believe so much time has passed and I'm sure for many of those that doubted we would make it in the beginning, (like both of our mothers) they cannot believe we have not only survived but thrived!

We spent this anniversary pretty low key with a dinner out and exchanged a couple of simple gifts and great cards, since we are in the midst of remodeling the kitchen and replacing all of the appliances in there. I laugh when I think about how I said I never would accept a dishwasher for a gift, but now I'm pretty pumped about getting a new one!!! Steve has always been so good at finding just the right card too...sometimes I can't get through reading them and have to wait for later because they fill me up with so much emotion. These days, with the wedding plans and all going on, I seem to be a ball of mush anyway.

Sixteen years ago, dear Steve went from bachelor hood to becoming a husband and a stepfather to three children ages 3,4 and 8. We had just bought a new house, so we were trying to get moved in, his family had come into town for the wedding and everything was crazy. His best friend from high school lived in Arizona with his wife and children, so we had made plans to go out there for our honeymoon, with plans to also spend a few days in Las Vegas. While we were there, we found out Diana Ross was playing in a small theater and tickets were $50 each, which seemed outrageous at the time. Steve decided since she was one of my all time favorites that we should go. It was amazing to sit in what seemed like an almost private concert listening to her that night. My sister in law and brother kept the children, which they loved every minute of. It was nice to get back home and get busy with the business of making this new combination into a family. It has almost always worked with us, though. Steve helped to make that easy. He has never been pushy or demanding of the children. He loved them and supported my love for them.

I hate to think of regrets when it is my anniversary, but if I had any it would be that there is just not enough time left in our lives to be together and do all of the things that we could do together if we had met when we were 20.

But we are lucky to have had this even for one day. I love you Steve!