Ruminations On A Monday

My plan today was to blog first thing. Didn't happen, but maybe that was a little too ambitious for a Monday? For my Monday anyway. 

Before I could blog I needed to tackle the paperwork mountain that somehow popped up here last week. You probably know how that goes...one thing leads to another and another and before you know it it's 8 PM and you're trying to remember what it was you wanted to say twelve hours ago?

Nothing important. 

That's my blog lane and I'm stayin' in it.  

My momma was here all last week and when she's here I put everything on hold and just hang with her. We played at least a hundred games of Hand and Foot and worked no less than four jigsaw puzzles, minus a few pieces, thank you very much little brown dog! What is it with snagging a puzzle piece before it even hits the floor? Why??? I promise you we feed him. 

Besides cards and puzzles we enjoyed the beauty of the lake from the back deck, once hubs washed down the pollen. Ugh. He also grilled the most delicious ribs one night and they were every bit as yummy as they look.

                   

My mom and I discussed many of the world's ills and how we got here, and now how do we get out of 'here'? We talked about how our faith keeps us going when planet Earth tilts like one of those amusement park rides that make your head spin and your stomach lurch. 

We reminded each other not only does God have the whole world in His hands, but He is completely sovereign over it. 

I love my momma. 

Every day I expect to wake up and find the general population has come to its senses on any number of issues, which I won't elaborate on right now, mainly because I cannot abide mean people. Talking common sense, stating the obvious, and swimming against the current culture craziness are all things that bring the meanies out of the woodwork, and I cannot deal with all of that and file taxes too. 

On a Monday no less.  

Did you file your taxes? 

How about this face? 

Daughter2 drove over on Monday morning because her hubs was traveling and also because she wanted to see her Mema, and her Mema wanted to see sweet baby J. 

And her granddaughter lol, but especially sweet baby J. 

Chasing rainbows. He is everybody's day brightener. 

We have a few home and yard projects in the works (always!) and today the people showed up to make our garage doors less creaky and also to adjust the sensor so the door will go up and down on a sunny day when you press the button. 

Somehow the whole thing was off kilter so if the sun was shining the sunbeam would hit the sensor and the door thought (do doors think?) there was something in its path so you'd have to stand there and hold the button down until it was all the way down. Or up. Which kinda defeats the purpose of having an automatic garage door. 

First world problems I know, but annoying nonetheless, and now it's fixed and the doors make far less noise because somehow it was all related to being off track, and this is why we needed a professional. 

Next up will be sanding the yard which I know you won't want to miss-ha! 

We're home this week in case anyone wants to know. Seems worth mentioning because that's been a bit of a rarity here lately. Not gonna lie, when I looked at my calendar for the week I let out a big exhale and felt my shoulders relax. 

And now I'm thinking maybe this would be a good week to get the boat in the water and declare it officially lake season. What say you hubs???

No lyin'! It's the Hodgepodge

Welcome to this week's edition of the Wednesday Hodgepodge. If you've answered today's questions add your link at the end of my post, then leave a comment for the blogger before you. Here we go-

1. What do you find is the most boring part of your life at the moment? 

Well our tax organizer arrived in the mail last week so there's that. 

2. February 22nd is George Washington's birthday. You'll find his face on the US $1 bill. What's the last thing you bought for roughly $1.00? (.94 €/ .83 £)

I had to really wrack my brain to come up with an answer for this one. It's hard to spend just $1, plus I rarely have cash. We dropped a dollar in a musicians tip cup recently so maybe that? 

3. Is it ever okay to tell a 'little white lie'? Explain. 

This feels like a trick question because lying is lying. BUT! there are times when a 'white lie' feels like a kindness, when someone is asking more for reassurance than facts. Most of us don't want to cause someone unnecessary hurt. The thing about lying though, is that one small lie often leads to another, then another, and before you know it you've lost sight of the truth, or you're having to tell more and possibly bigger lies to keep up. 

For the record my kids grew up with 'Santa' filling stockings and the tooth fairy leaving money under their pillows so I'm definitely not guiltless when it comes to telling 'white lies'. 

4. What's the last thing you 'chopped'? Cherry pie, chocolate covered cherries, a bowl of cherries, cherry vanilla ice cream, maraschino cherries, a cherry lifesaver...your favorite cherry flavored something? 

The last thing I chopped would be onion, peppers, and mushrooms for a baked spaghetti recipe I made to take to my daughter's house. She had minor eye surgery and hubs and I spent a couple of days there to help with sweet baby J. I love Joanna Gaines recipe linked here (Baked Spaghetti). 

Also, as I re-read the recipe just now I realized I accidentally omitted the cream cheese this time, and it was still delish. And I never use Velveeta, I just throw in some extra cheddar and that works well too. 

Of the cherry treats listed a bowl of cherries would be my first choice, with cherry pie a close second. 

5. Describe yourself with three words using your first, middle, and last initials. 

This wasn't as easy as I thought it would be when I wrote the questions. I'm going with-

Jesus follower~adaptable~determined. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

We took the little guy to his swimming class on Tuesday morning and hubs got in the pool with him since his momma was still recovering from her procedure. This was his fourth week in the class and he enjoys it more each time. 

Week one he cried the entire class, week two off and on for most of the class, week three not at all, and today he floated on his back like he didn't have a care in the world lol. 

Happy Wednesday everyone! 

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Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 493

Here are the questions to this week's Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog then hop back here tomorrow to add your link to the party. See you there!

1. What do you find is the most boring part of your life at the moment? 

2. February 22nd is George Washington's birthday. You'll find his face on the US $1 bill. What's the last thing you bought for roughly $1.00? (.94 €/ .83 £)

3. Is it ever okay to tell a 'little white lie'? Explain. 

4. What's the last thing you 'chopped'? Cherry pie, chocolate covered cherries, a bowl of cherries, cherry vanilla ice cream, maraschino cherries, a cherry lifesaver...your favorite cherry flavored something? 

5. Describe yourself with three words using your first, middle, and last initials. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Quiet Spaces and Everyday Graces

This blog has felt a bit quiet in terms of content lately, which is why I signed up for the five-day #hopewriterlife challenge. Ironically, the first word prompt is 'quiet'. 

Hmmm. 

It's never really quiet here. Our calendars are full and usually our guest rooms too, so I'm always looking for blank space somewhere. After a whirlwind August, a whirlwind summer actually, we were forced into a period of rest and stillness by hubs aching back and our dog's emergency belly surgery. 

I don't believe God sent hubs back out of whack or caused the dog to eat that mysterious bit of foam he attempted unsuccessfully to digest, but I do think He uses these types of things to slow us down, to remind us rest is good for the body and soul, and that we need times of quiet to process all the noise of this world. 

Sometimes it feels like there's no escaping the noise, but there's certainly no escaping it when you never remove yourself from it. I have a lot of thoughts, hubs might say too many-ha! and writing has always been a way for me to focus all those thoughts into something that makes sense. 

There are days where not a lot happens here. Most days I'd venture to say, and I imagine most of you would say the same. Life is much more a series of small moments rather than big events, less earth shattering happenings, more laundry and to-do lists. While writing about the everyday ordinary may seem frivolous given the times in which we live, ordinary is nearly always where I land. 

When I write I like to imagine my grandchildren reading my words decades down the road. What do I want them to know about me? What do my words say about the person their grandmother was in the middle of an all CAPS-exclamation point world?

I want them to know my hand was always reaching for the volume, turning it down as I floated into the bright blue beauty of a September day. That I saw mountains meeting clouds and felt small as I remembered where my help comes from. 

That I never stopped looking for quiet spaces in a too noisy world. That contentment lives there, in the most ordinary of days.   

Believe

Continuing with the Write 31 Days Challenge using prompts published over on the Five Minute Friday website. This month's theme is 31 Days To Telling Your Story.  Tough not to dive a little deep with this word today so here we go-

Today's prompt-believe

One reason I blog less these days is because the online world is so incredibly noisy. Deafening most days, and I don't want to add to the din. Social media started as something fun, a connector in so many wonderful and unexpected ways, but it's rare we see it as such in 2018.

My blog has never been a place of controversy and that's deliberate on my part. I want to invite people in with a smile and a cup of tea because that's who I am and I want my writing to reflect that. I know what I believe but I'm not about to hit you over the head with it because why?

I think knowing what we believe is important, knowing why we believe it equally so. In a world filled with too many opinions, controversy for the sake of controversy, fake news, exaggerated news, bandwagons that people pile on, name calling people who have piled on the other bandwagon, how do we know what to believe? Who is right and who is wrong and does it matter? Where does truth live? Is peace in the middle of the mess even possible?

I could write here about how belief in God makes sense to me. How I can look at the incredible order of the universe, the amazingly complex design of a single cell, or the way we humans know instinctively there is good and evil in this world and belief in God makes sense.

But for me it's more than that. What I hold dear, what I believe, has it's roots dug way down deep into my soul. Faith instilled in me as a small child, but claimed as my own through the years and the miles. With every change and challenge, every difficult situation and every ordinary day, in all the beauty and the goodness too, I've seen what I learned as a little girl about who God is and how He loves played out in the circumstances of my own life.




And I believe.

Five Minutes of True

Linking with Five Minute Friday over at Lisa Jo Baker's today.  Lisa posts a one word prompt on her blog, and then we write for five solid minutes, no editing, no filtering, no over thinking. The only other 'rule' is that you add your link to the hundred plus others writing too, and then leave a comment for the bloggers beside you on the list. Why not give it a try?

Today's word-true

I try to glance at the word prompt on Thursday evening before I go to bed, so I can mull it over some before I write. I don't know if that's considered breaking the rules, but I try to never write without thinking first. Most word prompts can go in as many different directions as there are writers, so I let it find a place to land before I put my fingers to the keyboard.

Jesus loves me this I know
For the Bible tells me so

True.

The words to that simple childhood song were sung to me, and by me, and with me over and over and over again when I was a little girl. They permeated my mind and my heart and are embedded so deeply into my soul that they are never out of reach.  

My mother tells the story of sitting in church one Sunday morning, all of us spread out in a row across the pew, when my baby sister, a toddler at the time, spontaneously began singing Jesus Loves Me out.loud. in the middle of the service.  I asked my mom what the congregation did, and she said they all just listened.

I thought about that story today when I read the prompt. About the sureness of those words and the simple innocence of children. About how we adults so often want to twist or bend or manipulate truth, but if something is really true, it stands up to our human-ness and looks the same at the end as it did at the start.

Jesus loves me this I know
For the Bible tells me so.

True.

When the world feels heavy
when my heart feels anxious
when I doubt myself
when people let me down

when I'm worried afraid angry lost

I reach back into my childhood and grab hold of what's true.

Jesus loves me this I know
For the Bible tells me so.

Perception

When my daughter2 was in the 6th grade she got into some sort of very minor mischief at school, and as a consequence had to eat her lunch one day at a 'special table' up on the stage. Mischief sounds far more ominous than what actually occurred, and in fact I cannot recall now what even happened. I feel certain it involved talking when she shouldn't have been talking, but I think there may have been some hurt feelings along the way too.  

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is this-I found out. To this day my now grown up daughter doesn't know how I found out, but I think we can all acknowledge mothers have their ways.

She had never been in any trouble at school, and while the action was very minor my concern was the bigger picture. One bad decision often leads to another bad decision and that's a lesson some of us never seem to learn. I needed my daughter to understand that we make choices and there are always consequences, for good or ill, to the choices we make. I also wanted her to understand that when the people we interact with on a daily basis are making bad decisions, doing/saying nothing is every bit as much a choice as agreement. I don't want my children doing nothing when they can do something.

When my daughter came home from school that day she carried on as if nothing had happened, so I casually asked, 'Did anything interesting happen at school today?' She gave me some bit of unimportant trivia as middle schoolers and errant politicians are apt to do, but then I looked her in the eye and asked again, "Did anything happen at school today that you'd like to tell me about?"

She thought I knew, suspected but couldn't be sure, and I could see the wheels turning....'How could she possibly know?' 'Did the school call?" 'Why would the school call over something so trivial?' 'Does she really know or is it just my guilty conscience?'

As the wheels spun I added, "Think really hard before you answer."

We've all been there, standing in my daughter's shoes in front of a parent, a boss, a taxpaying citizen of the United States, and run through our list of possible responses. Why is our first instinct almost always for denial instead of the simple or sometimes complicated truth?

My daughter weighed her options, put her head down, and spit out the facts.

More than ten years have passed since that day, and while I don't remember the details of what led to our face to face, I do remember this-she didn't deny it. It was only in facing the cold hard facts that we were able to have an honest conversation. We looked at what led up to her making a bad decision, and how to avoid that the next time she's in a similar situation. There was genuine remorse on her part, and genuine forgiveness on mine.

Forgiveness comes so much easier when we deal in truths. When we don't have to wade through what is real and what isn't, what we can believe and what is being said to make a situation look less awful than it actually is.

Partly what led to the day's misfortune was the particular small group of girls my daughter had decided to hang with that day. They weren't her close friends, they were a handful of girls known to all the moms (and staff) in her grade as girls who tested the limits at every turn.  My daughter was invited to sit with them that day, and while she told me she didn't actually do whatever it was they were punished for, she was guilty by association.

My daughter did try to tell me that what she got in trouble for wasn't nearly as bad as what X got in trouble for. Ha-does any parent ever buy that defense? My reply to that line is always the same...just because someone else did something you see as far worse does not mean what you did wasn't also wrong. We don't hold ourselves up to the lowest common denominator.

Note to 11 year old girls and people entrusted with our country's security, finances, and most of all, our trust-who you surround yourself with matters.  

We talked that day about what my girls will tell you is one of my favorite, and most used words in parenting, and in leadership-perception. 

It matters.

It matters when you're an eleven year old girl opting to throw your lot in with girls you know are on a teacher's radar, and it matters when you're the President of the United States and things are spiraling in a thousand downward directions around you.

I don't care if you're running a multi-million dollar corporation, the United States of America, or the local PTA...when you're the one in charge perception matters. You are it. The one. Where the buck stops whether you like it or not, asked for it or not, deserve it or not.

The one word I want most associated with my children and my husband and most of all, the leader of my country, is integrity. That word is defined as 'adherence to moral and ethical principles, soundness of moral character, honesty'. If a leader lacks integrity, what good is he/she?

Standing in my kitchen that day, in spite of my annoyance, something pricked at my heart. I realized that while I wasn't proud of what led us to the little tete-a-tete, I loved and respected my daughter's willingness to tell the truth. She owned up to her part in whatever happened, claimed responsibility for a bad decision, and for allowing the people around her to carry on without saying, 'hey that's not right'.

Our President and much of his staff could learn a thing or two from an eleven year old girl brave enough to stand eye ball to eye ball with a disappointed mother.