Share

Back for more of the 31 Day Write Challenge using the Five Minute Friday prompts (found here). Since today is an actual Friday our prompt was a surprise. Also on Fridays we stick to the 'exactly five minutes of writing' rule, so here we go-

Today's prompt-share

I know the theme of this month's Five Minute Free Write is 31 Days to Telling Your Story, but when I read the word the first thing that came to mind was my sister. We're a year apart and she's the one who taught me to share. Forced me to share?

We shared a bedroom, clothes, friends, secrets, my mother's attention, and the third seat in the family station wagon. We giggled, we fought, we compromised. We gave and we took. We teased and consoled. We tormented and loved. We were different in a thousand ways, yet the same in a thousand more. We argued, we forgave, and we grew. Sharing is caring or so the saying goes, and I agree it is that. It's also hard, sacrificial, and quite often easier said than done.

Sometimes when I write here I become so aware of what I'm thankful for. Today it's my family. For parents who led by example. Who loved us and taught us to share.

For my siblings. My people. My real life ensemble cast.

The ones with the magic and memory of our shared childhood story written on their hearts the way it's written on mine.

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.

What's Your Story?

Well. It has been a long time since I've been here. Long time in the blog world, but I guess only two weeks in real time. For those of you who don't know, the blog world is like dog years where a single day equals something like a hundred. All that to say it feels like this little corner needs a good dusting, and since I'm feeling a lot out of sync with my words I'm going to jump back in with a 31-day writing party.

Go big or go home, right?

Every October there's something on the Internet called the Write 31 Days Challenge, where writers pick a topic and write one post on that topic every day of the month. (you'll find details here). In conjunction with that Kate Motaung (host of Five Minute Friday) will be posting 31 days of five minute free write prompts to help motivate and inspire us to stay the course. Her theme? 31 Days to Telling Your Story...because we all have one.

I'll just say right off the bat, mine will be more like a 20-day writing party because I know me and I know my calendar. Case in point it's October 2nd so I'm already a day behind. Or right on track if I aim for 20 so 20 it is. Some of my posts will be true five-minute entries, some will be more. I'm giving anyone who wants to try it permission to do the same.

Today's one word prompt-story

What's my story? I'm not so sure these days. This middle age thing is trickier to navigate than I had anticipated. Question-am I still middle aged?

I'm going to say yes. The first half of our lives are pretty well defined, or at least mine was. College-work-marriage-work-babies-work-volunteer-teenagers-volunteer-launch young adults out into the world-now what?

Yes, now what?

Technically we fall into the 'retired' category except we're young. Ish. Young to be retired anyway. Too young. Life is flying by and I just want to hit the pause button for a minute while we catch our breath and take stock of where we are and where we've been and where in the world we're going.

Have you ever read a book and somewhere in the middle lost sight of how the main character arrived in the place they are now? When you do it helps to go back and re-read earlier chapters in order to make sense of the present.

Stories are composed of five different elements-setting, character, plot, conflict, and theme. A good author weaves these elements together in ways the reader might not have anticipated. He keeps the story moving forward until the very last page. While I too often want to be the sole author of my own story I can read back through earlier chapters and find myself there.  Not as the author, but as the main character in a story not yet finished.

God is writing my story in ways I cannot predict but know I can trust. He has plunked me down in settings too numerous to mention, peopled the plot with characters and conflict and an overarching theme of His amazing grace.

With every turn of the page He is growing the main character into the person He created her to be.

Time Passages

Today is my birthday and my plan is to sip coffee on the porch in my pjs until I feel like doing something else. Daughter2 is coming out for dinner and she might just find me on the porch sipping coffee in my pjs when she arrives.

I kid. I've never been that person who stays in their pjs all day. I might stay in my bathing suit all day, but definitely not my pjs.

When I'm through sipping coffee I have big plans to take my book and my raft and float beside the dock. Hubs will tie a line to the raft so I don't float away because I honestly plan to be that chill. We have road tripped over 1100 miles in the past ten days and I'm ready for a day of doing nothing.

The first stop on our road trip was Annapolis. We lived there once upon a time or was it only yesterday? Our house sat in a cozy little cul-de-sac where kids gathered in the middle of the street to ride big wheels and bicycles and slap hockey pucks with too big sticks.

Where they drew houses made of chalk and played flashlight tag as cicada sang their goodnight song. Where mothers walked to the bus stop and could be counted on to pick up a sick child from school if you were out of reach. A sweet safe place to be a kid.

It doesn't seem that long ago, yet there we were Saturday before last watching one of those littles walk down the aisle to her waiting groom.

Time slips by and you hardly notice until you notice.

Fifteen years ago we moved to England. We pulled out of that cul-de-sac in a hired car, tissue in hand, while our neighbors stood in the driveway and waved goodbye til we were out of sight. It was raining and there were tears, I do remember that. Some of them were mine.

What were we doing?

We didn't know exactly but we buckled in to our airplane seats and the next chapter of our lives and soared on into the future.  And these girls...

One already a Mrs. and a mama and one soon to be a Mrs.

Time presses on.

Hubs and I spent a few days with my mom on this most recent road trip. Something warm and familiar wraps itself around me as we pull into the drive. I marvel at the way I can walk through the front door and feel like I still live there. I pray I always remember the way home feels.

Technically I haven't called this place 'home' in some forty years. I know this for certain because I have a high school reunion happening next week. A reunion I won't be able to attend, but I do think about the number and the years and the friends all the same.

Forty years ago I graduated from high school? Can that be right? Didn't my soon-to-be Mrs. just graduate from high school? I guess not.

Time is funny.

Also bittersweet, slower than molasses, and faster than the speed of light. Mostly though, it's precious. Oh so very precious.

On my birthday I'll be grateful for the gift of another day. For girls who bloom where they're planted but keep their momma close in heart. For friends always near no matter how far the miles or years between. For family and home and memory.

For what's behind and what's ahead and all that glorious in between.

Birthdays Are For Blogging

Y'all. We have logged some miles this summer and I am not kidding. At some point I might try to calculate the actual number of miles, but we're currently busy logging more miles so math will have to wait.

We're once again mid-road trip, which wouldn't be a big deal except today is Daughter2's birthday and when I spoke to her on the phone this afternoon and told her I hadn't written a birthday blog post she said, 'I know... I checked first thing when I woke up.'  

Zing. Like an arrow right to the heart.

Her sister was here visiting the week prior and everyone agrees normal activity will be suspended when our favorite man cub is in town. Sometimes I think he recognizes how much his mama and his aunt mean to one another so he loves her extra extra.

Daughter1 and company eventually left town to attend a wedding one state over, and Daughter2 and her fiancé spent the weekend with us at a different wedding in a different state. Then they flew back home and hubs and I got back in the car today en route to still another state.

Hence no birthday blog.

There should always be a birthday blog for this girl.

Secretly she was hoping somewhere along the way I'd have written something just for her because I'm her mother and mothers do their best to make birthday wishes come true. She told me last year when I thought about not mentioning her birthday here that reading my blog on her birthday was her most favorite thing, and those words ring in my ear more often than you might think.

How often are we mothers of grown up children told our words are very precious to them? I think that's one of the things I love best about my girl. She feels things deeply. She wears her heart on her sleeve and so often puts into words what I wish I could put into words.

Still she's had a nice day, most of it was spent celebrating with approximately 21 of her closest friends-ha! In other words, she taught kindergarten.

There were little voices singing out the happy birthday song. There were cupcakes eaten and wishes made. Blessings were counted, a calendar page turned.

Many miles away was a mother. A mother who thought all day about all the light and laughter this child has added to her life, keeps on adding to her life. About all the ways they are the same and all the ways she wishes she was a just little bit more like the child she birthed.

About how once upon a time a wailing newborn was placed in her arms and how that determined little blue-eyed beauty wrapped herself around the mama's heart and never let go.

About ties that bind no matter where we roam.

The miracle of life and family and love that grows in ways too wonderful for words.

Hodgepodge Au Revoir

Welcome to the Wednesday Hodgepodge. If you've answered this week's questions add your link at the end of my post, then leave a comment for the blogger linking before you. That's the way we've always rolled here on Wednesday mornings.

  

1. What has been the highlight of your summer so far?

Our summer has been positively jam packed so it's hard to choose just one highlight. If I have to pick I'll go with celebrating my grandson turning one. 

He's just the sweetest y'all. 

2. What do you wish you'd done more of this summer? Less of?

More of? Tuesday nights with hubs. If you don't know what I'm talking about read this post. 

Less of? Carbs-ha! 

3. Something you're looking forward to on your September calendar?

Lots of fun things on our September calendar, including my birthday (and you know how I feel about my birthday), but I'll say the wedding of a friend's daughter. Our girls grew up together in a little Maryland cul-de-sac and I'm excited to celebrate this special day with them. 

4. Best/favorite book you've read this summer?

Again with the 'just one' kind of question? A few I really enjoyed were The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova, None Like Him: 10 Ways God Is Different From Us by Jen Wilkin and The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power and Intrigue in an English Stately Home by Natalie Livingston

5. Share something positive, encouraging, or uplifting here.



6. Insert your own random thought here.

I've decided to retire the weekly Wednesday Hodgepodge. I've gone back and forth about it, but in the end feel the time has come. When I first started blogging weekly hops were a regular part of everyone's content, but now not so much. 

I will likely still do some Hodgepodge style posts from time to time, because let's be honest my whole blog is a bit of a hodgepodge, and I may add a link option to those type posts when I do. I'm kind of still figuring it all out, but I do know I'm ready to let go of the pressure to create, post, and manage weekly questions.  

I  have so enjoyed hosting this weekly link up and hope you'll continue to visit here and see what's new. Thank you for sharing your Wednesday mornings with me here on From This Side Of The Pond.

For anyone who may be interested Kate Motaung has posted 31-days of free write prompts for the month of October over on the Five Minute Friday blog. I'm planning to participate and hope to see some of you there.  

Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 360

It's Baaaack. For today anyway. Here are the questions to the Wednesday Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog then hop back here tomorrow to share answers and celebrate the end of an era.

Okay, maybe not an era but I have been writing Hodgepodge questions for close to nine years now,  and have decided to call it a wrap. I'll have more to say about that tomorrow, but for now keep calm and Hodgepodge on.

1. What has been the highlight of your summer so far? (It's still summer people!)

2. What do you wish you'd done more of this summer? Less of?

3. Something you're looking forward to on your September calendar?

4. Best/favorite book you've read this summer?

5. Share something positive, encouraging, or uplifting here.

6. Insert your own random thought here.