The little things

I guess you could say in the last month, which was one of the toughest ones in my life, I've had an famous Oprah "ah ha" moment. Actually I'm not sure if it really truly counts as one because it's a simple realization of how life should be. I guess it is true that we get wiser with age and I must be simply getting old. I'll see if I can put it into words but I've found recently that if people aren't ready to accept it they can't hear it.

We've all heard it... "Life is short" but do we really know what that means? Several precious people in my life have passed away recently, ranging anywhere in age from 20's to 60's. Seeing this first hand forces you to realize how short life really is. It is so so SO important that we live our lives to it's fullest. I heard someone just today saying "she lived a full vibrant 12 years of life." Wow, what a way to look at it!

We need to slow down, maybe even stop. Think about life. Think about your life. How are you living? Whose lives do you touch each day and not even think twice about it. If everyone could just take that moment to make the best of it. A positive connection to those around us, what a different world this would be. Are you continuing to trudge through your life with no meaning? No real purpose? Maybe, just maybe your looking in the wrong direction.

I personally have vowed to slow down. Moms and Dads, wake up, our children are at a critical age. What are they learning from us? What are they getting from the time with the most influential people in their lives, us? What are you giving them, blessing them with? This can seem overwhelming but start small. My girls are young, and everything around them amazes them. I find as we "explore" I learn some very important things too.

Plant a garden~ Does your child know where their food comes from? Or is it from a box in the freezer section of the nearby grocery store? Did you ever really stop to think "wow, this came from a tiny seed"? Or have you thought about how God created the earth and everything in it? That should keep you busy for awhile :-)

Open your eyes~ Did you ever notice the little things? Recently a sweet robin picked a not so good nesting spot. But it has been wonderful to hold the girls up and watch the wonder drip from their eyes. Here is a little peek...

A great place for a nest? Not for us. Cleaning the gutters will have to wait :-)

Beautiful blues ~ What an awesome color!!

Newborns

Stop caring what our president is doing or not doing, or where he is from. Does it really matter in the great scheme of things? Friends our time here is so short. Are you going to think in those last moments here on this earth "boy I wish I could've been more involved in politics."?

Stop the circles and circles of gossip. I'm sick of it! Where does it get you? Who does it benefit? When a concern comes up, and oh it will no matter how "positive" you are, go to that person and in brotherly love talk to them. Don't allow Satan the satisfaction of gossip.

So I encourage you to look at the bright side of life. Live it for real. No regrets. And touch someone else,  stop being so selfish and realize you are a gift from God and he has a plan. And your not going to find it gossiping, hurting others, being self centered and hurrying around minding your own business. Wake up and smell the roses, literally. 

I've been so absent and I'm sorry. I truly don't know that anyone reads this on a regular basis so I don't feel so bad about it. But it's been almost a month geez!

There is so much happening right now I don't even know where to begin. I haven't been feeling very creative or experimenting in the kitchen. So nothing fun there. Life has been chaotic and sad lately. I'm finding myself saying "Life just sucks right now." and it does. Now don't get your panties in a bunch, I'm great, my family is great, we don't suck, but there seems to be this dark cloud around me and the devil is doing his thing to the best of his ability. Keeping this brief...there has been 3 great losses in the last 2 weeks. All lives in one way or another have been cut short. Life just isn't fair. I've cried a lot more these last 2 weeks than I care to remember. My heart hurts for those who are missing someone. I hate to see the shock, the pain with losing someone that you love and I'm struggling to understand why. Some things in life I just don't get.

If your sad in anyway please PLEASE know that there are people who love you. People who care about you, people who would miss you like crazy if you weren't an ever present being in their lives. You are worth more than you might ever know. I've been there, believe you me! It's not pretty. Maybe I'll share more, another time, another place. But know that there is nothing in this world that cannot be solved, or fixed. And that guy upstairs who created you, loves you. His creation is always perfect, just how he wanted you to be. You are loved!

To all the others. Every conversation you have. Every wave of your hand at a neighbor passing by. Every smile just might be someones last. The last face they remember. The last conversation. The last laugh. Make it real. Make it true. Put your heart into it and mean it! Reach out and talk to someone. It may just save a life or make one happier.

As for me, I'll be ok. I wake in the mornings and take a deep breath and thank God I'm alive. Life is so precious. Take in the sunshine and breeze and enjoy it. Don't worry about tomorrow or next week. Stop and look at today and love the time you have with your loved ones. I will, so should you. And hug your kids. Hug your parents. Hug anyone who will have you. Everyone loves hugs.

On a positive note, a great thing did happen in the last 2 weeks. Amanda is a married woman! I'm so happy to see her so happy! Congratulations Amanda and Ryan!

Super Mom, I think not!

Well folks I happen to love REAL blogs. The ones that make you think, wow, they aren't perfect either. I could spend hours exploring other women's blogs with beautiful food, cute children and wonderful parenting tips. But I've found a lot of these are not real. They tend to leave you feeling like a failure. "Why doesn't my dinner look like that?" "How comes my kids don't behave like that?" "Why didn't I think of that?" Why do us as women and mothers even strive for this? It's not possible. I love looking through vintage cookbooks and magazines and giggling. Wow, talk about unreal. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe life was like that for the Moms back then. But boy if that is the case where did we go wrong!?! Maybe somedays for a split second I may feel like I have it together. But then I blink and all chaos breaks out. Even though us Mom's may look like we have it all together don't let us fool you! So here I am displaying my failures.

Laundry. Enough said you may think. But you haven't seen anything until you've seen the "pile" that has accumulated in my laundry. I could come up with a million reasons that this is a problem for me and my family, and yes they would all be true, but the truth is I don't like doing laundry. If I get it tackled it makes it to the dryer and rarely gets folded. I also dislike folding. And if a particular load makes it to folding the chances of it making it to the dressers is slim to none. The few times I've been caught up I could count on one hand. And the times it's stayed that way for more than a few days is pretty much never. And the iron....well lets just say I don't think you could fine my finger prints on it. Yes, I could be doing some right now and it would be a much better use of my time but I don't really care to work on it. And truthfully I've come to realize that there are more important things in life. My children, our happiness. How can I resist "mommy, can we go outside?" to do wash? No way. My time with my girls is so precious. Yes friends, honesty. So for now my pile will stay and I will plug away at it when we run out of socks. :-)

And the source of the bad smell is...apples and raisins! Fuzzy ones at that! Yes, struggle number two for the week...dishes! Why is it that the minute the kitchen is spotless it's time to make dinner? Why does a homemade dinner make so many dishes? Why doesn't my hubby like touching dirty dishes? They are half his anyway! Ugh, guess it's my "job" (note the annoyance in the tone of my writing?) Yes I came home from NT this morning to stink. Blah. So off I set to find the source. And at the bottom of my sink was an apple slice and a few plump raisins. A black, fuzzy apple slice and five grape looking raisins that now had hair. Who knew how long they were there and who knew they could stink up a kitchen! Yes dishes aren't my favorite either. I have a b..e..a..utiful kitchen and sweet new dishwasher but I still can't seem to catch up. Rarely do I have to hunt for the source of stink but somedays...well somedays it's necessary. Gross. I have to hold my breath while I "dispose" of it.  Failure number two. Well it make a bit of sense to me. You atlas have to have a load of dishes before washing them by hand or using the dishwasher. But somehow they multiply overnight. :-(

So perfect mom, better yet mediocre mom is a far cry from myself or most of us out there. Yet we slap on a smile and make sure the kids look cute, cook up something yummy and head out the door and for a second feel like supermom...until I get home atleast. Here's to failure! Where is my wine?

Only the possible

Alot has been going on in my world that my blog has suffered :-( Sorry guys! I've been selling tickets like a mad woman on a serious mission for the chicken BBQ on Saturday. I feel so passionate about "Hands for Hope" and seriously can't wait to get to Africa and help organize it and watch it work. Of course I have know idea what to expect but hopefully with the help of my new Rwandan friends we can purchase everything they need to get started and stabilized. Can't wait! So if your feeling hungry for some of that famous chicken, come on out. Check out the details at www.handsforhopeinrwanda.blogspot.com

I've also been pre-occupied with my thoughts. Boy does time fly when you have alot to think about and it's usually a big waste of time and worry. Between organizing our BBQ (over 500 meals, yikes!) and thinking about trip I'm realizing that there is alot in between. Giana's surgery is scheduled for Monday bright and early in the morning. I feel really really anxious about it. It's my daughter's eye here, pretty serious. But I read something the other day that clicked...

"As a Mother we can only do the possible

 and let the impossible to God".

 This is where I hand my child over to him. Done. Such a hard thing for a person, a mother that likes to be in control but I have to or I'm going to go nuts.

We also have a wedding in KY at the end of the month. To be honest I'm so not looking forward to a 10 hour drive with the little ones but the sister-in-law is worth it. Alyssa is the flower girl and is so excited! Trying on the dress the other day she exclaimed "my princess dress". It looked great and I'm happy she's so excited. Now just to have her walk down the aisle without sucking her fingers and being shy. lol
Well there is a quick up date on my life. Now to get Alyssa to bed. She and her daddy are downstairs playing angry birds. LOL So cute to watch. Like father like daughter. Love them! Good night!

Follow our Hands For Hope project here:

http://handsforhopeinrwanda.blogspot.com/ 

My ah ha God moment

So I have been in alot of thought over the last week and toying with the scary idea of leaving my family behind and going to visit Val. Those of you who know me know that I've been fighting this urge for the last year! I think it was maybe Friday that I began to think about truly going and having a "purpose" for going. Along with visiting my sister and her family of course, I wanted to have something to do or something to take, some way of helping. I thought of raising money to accomplish that but did not ( and still do not) quite know what that idea may look like. So I had been thinking about this all weekend and chatting with Phil about it. Then last night my dad, Dennis calls me and was like I have a free spot in my bbq schedule and was thinking of doing a fundraiser for Val what do you think? Wow, now that seemed to be God telling us what needs to be done! :-) It made me smile and I knew that this was something we need to do but I was still wrestling with what my "role" was. So after many tears and alot of "I can't possibly leave my girls" and a complete meltdown last night, I realized that I'm always going to want to go, and I'm never going to want to leave my family. I decided to take a walk and then sleep on it. This morning between alot of noisy girls and breakfast I decided to open my bible and see what God may have for me. I randomly opened to a page and stared at it. Then I noticed that written in very small print, in pencil, at the very bottom was a reference. I have know idea why it was there but it said Ephesians chap 4. Ok, so I thought maybe I should turn there. I did and Ephesians 4:1 says "As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received." I kind of laughed and thought surely I wasn't reading it right or it really meant something else because it sounded pretty clear that God was telling me to follow my calling. With that I even said out loud "God, seriously (we chat like this all the time, just me and God) if you want me to do something your going to have to show me. And be clear what you want me to do!" So I decided to check out the Message version on my ipad and see how it read. Ephesians 4:1, "In light of all this, here's what I want you do to. (I'm sure my mouth was now hanging open, didn't I just ask him that?) While I'm locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I wanted you to get out there and walk-better yet, run! on the road God called you to travel. I don't want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don't want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere." This left me dumbfounded. I know I can be so stubborn but I guess God can still get through. So I've decided to listen, stop being "Jonah" and to go.

After making that decision, everything seemed to fall into place. I begun to think about my children. My family are in fact the single most reason this decision was so difficult. My family and friends have been more than willing to help with the girls and I am truly blessed by that. But I still dreaded having them jostled around each day and their little schedules rearranged daily. An evening conversation between Phil and I hinted on "maybe we need a nanny!?!" LOL, little chuckles and that was all that was said. But in the next 12 hours my mind begun to race. A nanny is perfect, and even better yet my sister-in-law has nanny experience and now her own business in which she may be able to be flexible enough to actually come and help me out. A long conversation later that day finalized it. She is so sweet and so much a blessing for coming here and helping my family with this transition. Thanks Julia!

I'll be leaving in June to go and follow that calling. Along with re-connecting with my sister I'm planning on seeing through a dream of hers. The church she attends, the church that Appolinaire pastors, has mostly widowed women there that have no trade, or way to make a living for themselves. Her vision began by just wanting to teach them something. With lots of prayer and Val and I putting our brains together we've decided to help the women start sewing. Hopefully we will be able to get them started by suppling some of the sewing machines, location and materials to do this. We are hoping that this will not be another "program" but something that the women can take pride and ownership in. By guiding them in the right direction and teaching them basic skills and how to run a business we hope to enrich their lives in hope.

There are still many details to finalize. So pray with us as things come together in the next few months. We are planning a BBQ fundraiser soon. More info to follow!

Blessings!

I love (sense the sarcasm?) when I stress and stress about something. Then I finally turn to the one who loves me most and he shows me the way. Usually to get through to me I have to have a ah-ha moment or more like a duh moment. This morning was exactly that! What a wake up to call that is good and possible. If you ask it will be given. And I've found that he knows exactly when to "give" it.