Christmas Week 2013

(All pictures in this post are from LAST Christmas)

 

In case you were wondering at my quiet, I would remind you of something I said a couple of years ago, "I blog on the upswing."  If you are new to the blog, this drop in visual productivity, it has happened a lot over the years...I feel the downward pull of emotion or circumstance and I can't.find.words.




A girl and her "Grinch Punch" and her living back stop

Those closest to me will recognize it in my arguing style...I lose nouns and descriptors and start calling everything "crap" and "thingie" and "stuff" and find that, while I may have a valid argument in my head there is no way that it will be passing my lips anytime soon. So, I go quiet and stay that way until I find I have control of my faculties again.  It's just how I process.





The girls and Uncle K putting up the lights that I STILL have up on my back fence.

But, today, dear reader, I found my upswing.




Uncle BakerMan chattin them up

This has been a hard week for me, well...honestly...a hard month.  It's Christmas for crying out loud.  Usually I'm one of those OBNOXIOUS "Let's sing Christmas carols on Halloween" people.  I usually start in about September sizing up my kid's friends to see which would be caroling fodder and try and teach them new songs they might not know so that when Christmas comes around I can drag them around the neighborhood.  BUT...not this year.




Those are his ACTUAL horns...been there all his life...only
became so prominent as he lost his hair.  Just ask Uncle J...he'll tell ya.

It's odd how a fact that underlies your life affects you.  I've know since the divorce last year that my-ex and I would be trading off holidays...he was nice enough to give me the first Christmas, and I've KNOWN that meant that I wouldn't have my kids this Christmas.  KNEW it.  Prepared my head for it or so I thought.

There is a whole series of these
I'm saving them for her wedding video.

See, I've been "crankier" than normal since putting my feet back in my house after my Florida trip.  It started out as just little things...running out of coconut milk and butter.  Other people have other staples that they never run out of...in my house it's coconut milk (for curry) and butter (for life)...I am NEVER out.  Over time it progressed to either me being too weepy or too silent with everybody. 





Hilarity all around.

When last week started, I could feel the completely counter-productive desire to tell the kids to just "GO ALREADY!"  It's been a surprising emotion for me, "get out of here, it hurts me to know you'll be gone, so just GO."  I've felt that way a lot in the last year.  Thankfully, by the time Mom GOT married, I think I was better at recognizing it for grief and NOT saying stupid things that I didn't mean...I think. 

Anyway, when it hit this week, I definitely recognized it...I lowered my goals for the week...I pulled my kids close and actually WENT caroling on a whim with zero preparation (which was great by the way) and finished up school and tore apart caches of clothing that needed to be torn apart and went to a movie and did everything I could to ENJOY my last week with my girls for the year.





I was SO sick in this picture...but it's become on of my favorites
Go figure.

And then they left.

Singing with my family around is not something to miss...

And then I sat on the floor in the middle of the mess and cried...for awhile.  And then I reached out to people in one post...spent awhile chatting, texting, and talking...to say that my phone 'LIT UP' would not be an exaggeration.  And then I realized that this was something I was going to have to walk through ... So I did what any self-respecting total geek would do...I set up my laptop in my bathroom,  watched a couple of episodes of "Farscape" from my tub and decided that sleeping was a pretty good option, all things considered.  I find Science Fiction soothing...it is part of my charm.




Ah wrapping...a skill I hope their daddy realizes HE needs to teach them.

I wish I could say that my "funk" was over at that point.  I'm not sure it's over now.  But over the last couple of days of quiet within my own house, I realized something pretty great... I realized that I walked through another valley and made it...again.

Nine of us last year.  So much fun.

In "The Screwtape Letters", chapter 8, C.S. Lewis talks about the "Law of Undulation".  If you've not heard of this book, in a nutshell, it is letters from an elderly "Uncle" demon (Screwtape) to his younger nephew detailing ways to bring people AWAY from God.  It's a very interesting juxtaposition in Christian writing, taking it from the devil's point of view, everything that seems like a triumph is actually a defeat for Christ.  In the quote below, the "patient" is this nephew's charge.  The nephew has noticed that the patient is downhearted and supposes it is his success that has make him so.  Dear old Uncle Screwtape offers insight into our lives in his answer.

If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life - his interest in his work., his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down.  As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty.  The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it. 

Let's just say there is a LOT of estrogen in my house, and leave it at that...

I made it through another undulation...another turn of the wheel.  YAY ME! Every one of these "undulations" has taken me farther into comfortable-in-my-own-skin and given me proof that I'm capable.  It's hard to admit, but without these dips I wouldn't have made the progress that I've made.  When things coast along, I get proud...supercilious (one of Bean's words this month ...  go on, go look it up...I'll wait. ;) ).  I guess I need that humility of despair now and then, maybe we all do.

Monkey Face dazzling her Grandma

I've gotten a couple of emails from the girls and it sounds like they are having a GREAT time.  I wouldn't take that away from them for the world.  The hardest part of this week is that guilty feeling that I have in the low moments where I would rather it be ME having fun with my girls.  How selfish is that?  And narcissistic? And entitled?  I pray THAT part goes away.  I think that it's probably a natural reaction...but so SO destructive.  Just keepin it real.

Monkey Face's mantra last year, "I'm going for the Yahtzee"...and she got about 8 of them. 
Amazing!

Today is Christmas Eve...by tonight, Nali and I will be tucked in among our dear friends, probably eating cookies and playing Rummi Cube.  Tonight, I will be surrounded with family I've adopted as my own and I will make memories and they will be beautiful, too. 

Scott and Stacey 2012
Love my big brother.

And next week, when my girls get back, for the first time in THEIR lives, we won't be starting school on the 2nd.  Nope, we're going to figure out some new fun New Year's traditions beyond taking down the tree, so the NEXT time I have my Christmas week to myself, I have something great ahead of me.

I have so many pictures of the sky changing colors over those roofs.
Just my favorite spot to watch the sky change.

Well, unless we get bored...then we'll just break out the microscope...

My loves, 2012

 

 

See ya around...

Embrace your limitations...

The Inspiration for this post...



Embrace the limitations.  Embrace the limitations.

Ha!  That's not something you hear every day.  Most inspirational speeches start with some "you are bigger than you think" premise.

I was that girl.  Still am, in certain circumstances.  I'm still the one that will tell you, "This thing you are dealing with, whatever it is, is forming you and you CAN overcome it."  Those of you, who know me well, have heard me say some form of this at some point in our relationship.  The ever-outward optimist...that's me.  Freaking Pollyanna.

Those of you who know me REALLY well, know other things.  You know that I doubt much more than the casual observer would ever suspect.  You know that I doubt my own intellect, my own body, my own intentions...ultimately my own worth...over and over and over again.  You know that I fall on my knees weekly with tears of hopelessness for every single limitation real or perceived that I do not know how to overcome.  You know what my 3 am holds.

Do you know, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say..."Embrace those limitations?" 

Now to be fair, it's not like other people AREN'T saying the same thing if you look for it.  Nick Vujicic is a prime example...here is a guy with no arms and no legs but who was gifted with a charisma that pulls everyone to him.  So much so that you begin to not notice that he is merely a torso and a pretty face.  Honestly, though, I've never thought of Mr. Vujicic as saying "Embrace your limitations"...more, "those limitations don't MATTER, you are more than your limitations."  And he certainly is.

So why does this phrase strike me so much?  Well, I've had another week of being discontent in my circumstances.  Another week of feeling that certain aspects of my life will NEVER be overcome. 

Another week of realizing what a complete failure I am in this certain area of my life...AGAIN...and STILL...after all the times I've tried to overcome this...STILL...this limitation.

The fact is, there are places in my life, limitations in my life that I am NOT overcoming.  I AM NOT ABLE to overcome for whatever reason.  They are my secrets.  They are my 3 am.  They are my silence.

It's never occurred to me, to embrace them as they are, love them for the person that they make me, think about staying INSIDE this box and not apologizing for it.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe I did think about it a little.  But not in those words.

You know, on this journey of my life, I've discovered that until I'm ready to hear something, I don't...Not even if you tell me.  My focus is where my intellect lies...and if a given topic is not within the realm of my current focus there is not a thing that I can do to force myself to learn and retain the information in a useful way.  But, just like when a friend buys a car that you've never heard of and now all of a sudden you see them all over on the road...An idea that strikes me when I'm ready produces a flood of images, some new and some hidden away in memory banks that didn't even remember that they were there, that shapes me.

Embrace my limitations unapologetically, huh?  I'm going to have to think on that...

See ya around...

Nah...Creativity Stinks...

Clearly I need medical help.

Setting a goal to write in my blog that I meant to keep?  And announcing it?  Like a challenge?  So people can text me and say that they READ it.  Sheesh!  I don't even LIKE being creative...takes too much time...it's too messy...doesn't fit in my schedule boxes.  Buncha artsy fartsy nonsense, am I right????  (Say yes, it IS my blog, after all.)

Yeah, I'm not buying it either. 

See I do things like go to a rehearsal for the worship team at my church this weekend...(I'm not singing...nope...just WATCHING...just to be clear)...they make me happy with all that silly-talking-to-my-soul junk.  And then that stuff just STICKS in there...making me happy.  And I fall asleep hearing their voices...remembering the frenetic-squirrel-on-red-bull energy of the drummer at 7:30 on Sunday morning...and I smile.  I wake with one of their more poignant songs on my head,

Or

I watch from afar as my brother, Mr. BakerMan, builds his chocolate dynasty, one mouth watering chocolate delight at a time.  Struggling with lunch ideas and new tastes and ways to shape the chocolate, while his love, my brother-in-law, uses his painter's eye and hands to make the bones of the shop, the display cases, the wall, a beautiful backdrop for BakerMan's chocolate...and I pray as they work on this birth of a dream that takes so much time and yet is going to be a wonderful reflection of their creativity together...

Or

I talk to my friend, the Composer, late, late at night, the only real time we can find for each other.  And I hear the absolute passion he has for his various crafts and I laugh with him as he tells me his latest project with excitement.  He always seems to consider how much work it all is, and still find the energy to get it going.  There is always a current project and then a bucket list FULL of more projects that are going to keep him busy and creative until the end of time...

and I think, "CRAP, I really have to write something today".

Being surrounded by creativity and actually embracing it is a new thing for me.  These people who have been in my life forever all of a sudden impact me differently...and I realize, it's part of who I am ...It's almost like it leaks out.  Ooozing stuff I want to say...thoughts, unformed, that I have to wrestle with to put on the page, but they are GOING on the page.  And I realize, possibly, I don't HAVE anything to say except...maybe

"Wow, look at the sky, y'all...what a glorious day today is going to be".

So I look at pictures and wonder, once again, at the beauty of my kids...and joy of my family...and thoughts form...stories...ideas...songs.  I hear all their songs...see all their pictures...go over all their words once again...and am inspired within my own realm for just a minute.

 Maybe, I have another post or two before I give it all up.  We shall see.

See ya around...

Inspiration and other stuff I complain about...

Blogging is hard.

And since I last blogged really regularly Picasa's online albums have switched over to Google+ which wants me to share my pictures with Google+ which I don't like AND don't use and now Picasa doesn't have the handy dandy share button that lets me copy what I'm embedding and although I USUALLY figure it out from Blogger I'm not positive of the procedure and it makes me cranky to try. (Did you read that all without taking a breath?  That is how I wrote it...so if you didn't...go back and read it again.  No breath.)

And I've been busy.

And the gate to my fence broke and now I can't get the trash cans out or the mower in.

And I've been planning stuff...all kinds of stuff.

And my friend bought a cooler planner than me on the very same day that I bought my planner  and now I want hers and not the one (well ONES) I bought.  AND she's moving far far away...soon.

And I got a new laptop and a new operating system and we aren't exactly on speaking terms right now.

And...Blogging is hard.

A month or so ago, a friend of mine suggested that I read "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron.  Great book.  You should read it, too.  I'm not done with mine yet...but I'm far enough in to say, "glad I'm reading it."

Anyway, "The Artist's Way" is one of those challenging books that requires you to think about the stuff you are doing...have done...and then consider that maybe there is more inspiration in your life than you are using.  As you do the things the author suggests, you start discovering more inspiration. 

Sounds great, right?  Sure enough.

And it was.  For a few weeks...it really was.

I was blogging a lot.  Singing a lot.  Reading.  Cooking.  Planning.  Cleaning. 

And then, as always ALWAYS happens...the spontaneous inspiration died. 

Part of it is my issues with people.  Yep, me, the friendly one, I have issues with you all.  It makes no sense to WRITE this out-loud on a public blog, but as much as I like to stand up and write and talk and sing with and in front of people...I have a huge issue when people notice.  And it's worse if they like what I'm doing.  And inspiration KILLING if they know me well enough to look me right in the eye.

It's performance anxiety of the worst kind.  I'm not afraid to DO stuff.  I'm afraid that you'll NOTICE and have any opinion.  Super weird quirk, if you ask me.

Anyway...so less than 3 weeks into the book...people that love me started noticing that I was doing some of this stuff...and complimented me.  So I quit.  Because, y'know, that's the logical thing to do when you find a little bit of success in something...quit immediately...solves ALL the problems of the world.  PPPFFFFFTTTT.  Sometimes I get so tired of myself.

All of those words to say...I'm challenging myself and I'm inviting you along for the ride.  I'm learning to write.  I'm a beginner in this art and any talent that I may currently possess is completely God-given.  Other than teaching my children, I've never studied this craft...I've never written long enough to get past the inspiration killers.  To write when I didn't feel like it, about things I may not be passionate about is part of the challenge.  To write ANYWAY, regardless. 

I think that figuring out how to write regardless of inspiration might be a key for me to do other things beyond my circumstances.  I'll tell you, I think this might be a rung on this ladder out of depression for me.  But, I really like to hide when I feel like too many people are looking, because watching TV is far less judgy.  And I'm talking about ME here people, I get judgy on myself if you are looking.  And I'm MEAN.

So, I'm TRYING to write anyway.

(There's a statement that is going to come back and bite me.)

So expect me to.  And when the post goes badly or weird...know that I'm just learning.  I'm learning to write.  I'm learning to let people into my strange little head and I'm learning to focus on the writing and not necessarily on what other people think about it.  So think to yourself, "She's gotta learn,' and PLEASE keep reading...keep commenting...keep looking me in the eye.  Eventually, I'll be able to look back. 

Right now, I think I'm gonna figure out the stupid picture thing...please hold...I even have an analogy...are you ready?

Okay...so I like the sky...and I was taking pictures of the clouds and when I pulled the pictures into Picasa I pushed the little "I'm feeling lucky" button.  The resulting picture made me super happy.  The sky was vibrant blue the clouds puffy white.  Now, I'd liked the original picture...it looked JUST like what God gave me...but with a VERY little help, the picture got better.  That's what I want to happen with my writing...I like it very much when I'm inspired, it's beautiful, but I want to learn more, practice more, to tweak it into something better.

Sigh...we will be working on analogies...Here, why not look at these clouds...

Pretty, huh?

 

Vibrant-er, huh?

 

 

Well, like it or not, I'm doin it anyway!  ;)

See ya around...

Moody Chick Music

(Please use CAUTION when clicking the song links in this post...some of them are NOT polite, kind or necessarily socially redeeming.)

God is amazing in where He leads us. The paths and convolutions of our brains are a maddening artwork of insanity that some how, usually, come around right.  I am continually stunned by the process of becoming who I am.

See, when you spend as much time as I have sitting cross legged on my bed, you come to a place where you can see the places you shook your fist defiantly in the face of God, where you pretended to do the right things and still pretty much ignored Him and the places where He, calmly, rearranged the circumstances so that you could see it all in a new light, with new eyes.

I am an enthusiastic and prolific singer.  A good one.

This has ever been true of me.  More than being a good singer, I am a constant singer.  Over my lifetime, I've sung with hundreds of people, thousands of songs, multiple million lyrics, hundreds of harmonies. 

Also, I am a writer.  An enthusiastic, prolific writer.  A good one.

This has also ALWAYS been true.  I currently have 11 journals in my closet, the oldest dating back to December 18, 1983, my first real kiss.  These don't include journals that are packed or lost or that I have thrown away during the course of my life and they don't include one that I know I still have somewhere that chronicles my appendectomy surgery when I was 9...so early 1980.

I'm saying this out loud not to invite praise or to astound you with my arrogance.  I'm saying this because many times over the years I've lost sight of it.  I mean, there have been plenty of critics to my various forms of art, plenty of careful words offered me when I had a crazier idea.  Over the years, I let those voices into my head.  I heard, "You can sing, but you are not THAT good at it, you are not musical enough for music to matter."  I heard, "Sure you put words on a page but who would ever want to read it? It's not something that is valid to do for a living"  Not necessarily because those were the actual words said, but they were the impression I had of what was said and became the words I said to myself over...and over...and over again.

Follow me...I'll come back around to this...

My musical tastes throughout my life have been eclectic, but over the last ten to fifteen years had become pretty static.  I listened to Christian pop stuff most of the time...some Southern Gospel...some hymns...now and then some edgier Christian Rock.  But pretty much all Christian all the time.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

In the last few months, I haven't really FELT like Christian music.  I enjoy it, but I've been in the mood for loud, pounding, windows down, moody chick screaming at the top of your lungs music, think Martina McBride - Independence Day, or Alannis Morrisette - Right Through You...Or there's the mellow, melancholy, hopeless stuff like Sarah McLaughlin - Hold On.

I'm not sure why it is necessary to give vent to anger and despair.  Why it's necessary to give voice to the baser part of me so that I can come back to center.  I just know that moody chicks cussing at a world in which they have zero hope often comes far closer to how I feel at times than any of the hope filled, wonderful Christian songs I've sung...and by that sheer, RAW emotion, these types of songs bring me back around to grateful faster than anything else.

I've been on a Pink kick for the last few weeks.  Seriously, I might need an intervention.  Now I don't know much of her story or much of her beliefs, but that girl can write a lyric that hits my soul, baby.  Songs like True Love  and So What? with lyrics that really have reflected my thoughts from time to time set to a tune and rhythm that allows me to scream out and then let go have been cathartic through these chaotic times.  The song Perfect is my new theme song...check out the second verse and maybe you can see why...

 

You're so mean when you talk

About yourself, you are wrong

Change the voices in your head

Make them like you instead

 

So complicated, look how big you'll make it

Filled with so much hatred, such a tired game

It's enough, I've done all I can think of

Chased down all my demons, see you do the same

 

Pretty, pretty please, don't you ever, ever feel

Like you're less than, less than perfect

Pretty, pretty please, if you ever, ever feel

Like you're nothing, you are perfect to me

 

I really don't want my kids to grow up with the doubt filled voices in their heads about the things that God gave them and meant for a gift for them.  When they are older and far more responsible and the world says, "Put that away, dearie, the time for your art is over, let's grow up now."  I want them to fight it. 

 

Fight the downward slide toward maturity.  Fight the voices that declare that while creativity is nice, it is NOT necessary. The voices that tout specific skills in intelligence, organization and hard work as the only valid way to spend certain years of your life.  Those voices are wrong.  Those voices seem to always discount natural, joyful flights of fancy unless they directly pertain to the vocation at hand.

The thing is, without those gifts, without my knowledge that I am a singer regardless of my job...that I am a writer despite how I make my money, I am incomplete...less...far more prone to anger and self-loathing...and far less able to be confident in all the millions of other things that God wants ME to be.

 

I'm coming to a place through these moody chicks and a thousand other interactions that I don't really CARE if anyone likes what I'm doing.  I've cared for far too long that my stuff wasn't good enough.  You know what?  It's not.  If you view art through the eyes of an audience, it is NEVER good enough.  NEVER.  There will always be critics, haters, practical people who think these things are pointless.

 

But if you view your art through the eyes of God, the one that gifted each of us in our own spectacular ways, there is no "not good enough"...there is only you.  You as HE built you to be.  And He wants us to live unashamed of the gifts, and using them, everyday, in every way that He leads, no matter what those other voices say.

 

Because we are PERFECT to Him.

 

See ya around...

The Journey

Ain't that the truth?  The first step is a doozy.  The one where you decide, maybe not exactly where you are going, but who you will choose to be as you get there.  I've been quiet here because I've had a lot trouble knowing who I am anymore and it's been difficult to cobble together words that make sense to people who are not looking straight into my eyes...straight into my heart.

After much deliberation, we have decided to homeschool again this year.

So much of this journey is inside me.  Am I the right person to continue forward on this path?  Do I even want to move forward?  I thought I was one of the strong ones, the funny ones.  The girl who had moved all over the country, left and lost friends and loved ones over her life and still managed to chin up and find the adventure.  Where on earth did my "Pollyanna" go?

Apparently, I have a pretty dark side.  I didn't know.  Over the months since the divorce, I've done a lot of living and a lot of what I consider NON-living.  Others who have been through this know what I mean.  NON-living - that considerable amount of time spent NOT doing the normal things that you know how to do, know that you SHOULD do, while you sit and think, ponder and distract yourself, waiting to find out if, in fact, you want to go out and live THIS life again. 

I have an impressive ability to do absolutely nothing.  Truly, it's a gift.

Along the way I have been amazed by the wisdom surrounding me.  People have been exactly where I needed them to be, exactly when I needed them to be.  Strangely, the when hasn't always been when I WANTED them, but always when I needed them.  And the baffling part is that there has not been one person who has been shocked by the absolutely visceral things I've said.

I wish I could say that I have arrived...I have enough people out there who know the truth that I'll just stick with the facts.  Things are looking up.  They actually have been for awhile, but I wasn't ready to write yet.  All of a sudden, in the last few weeks really, I'm ready to write again.  It's kind of nice and not completely unlike coming out of a darkened cave during the day...as you go from dark to dim to shade and on out into the sunshine.  I so wish that I could trust the path, but I'm really not there yet.  I still very much doubt my competence on this journey; my already honed capabilities and my readiness to learn often falter.  For the first time in my life, I often completely doubt my potential...and what I REALLY want to be when I grow up.

But, here I go anyway...No net...

It brings to mind a few lyrics from a song from Hello Dolly,

"Don't tell me not to fly, I've simply got to...If someone takes a spill, it's me and not you...
Who told you you're allowed to rain on my parade?  

I'll march my band out...I'll beat my drum...and if I'm fanned out...your turn at bat, sir...
at least I didn't fake it...Hat, sir...I guess I didn't make it...

But whether I'm the rose of sheer perfection...or freckle on the nose of life's complexion...
the cinder or the shiny apple of his eye...
I've gotta fly once, I've gotta try once, only can die once, right sir? 
Ooo life is juicy, juicy and you see, I've gotta have my bite, sir..."

I've felt this before in my life, this iron-jawed decision making where there is no absolutely sure answer...but, as always, it's with a large amount of internal cowering.  If I am who I say I am, I have to step out in faith...Faith that the Lord will meet me, as He always has, every single place I need Him, every single time. I just need to take that first step.

See ya around...

Brand New Day

November 1, 2012...

What a crazy month October was.  And AWFUL in so many ways...

Here's a run down.

October 5th - Divorce final.

October 12th - Begin moving into a hotel...it's got a kitchenette and a bedroom...but it's a hotel.

October 15th - Grandma flies to Arizona for the time being, to vacation and enjoy her friends, while we figure out where we are going to live.

October 16th - Close on the sold house.  The one that we've lived in for almost 10 years

October 17th - Girls go with their Daddy to Colorado to visit Camera King and Auntie SP and all the Colorado girlies.  They will be gone until October 30th...and I will be alone.

October 18th - Move the baby grand piano, that was my Daddy's and is now my Mommy's out of our perfect room, to a friend's house for the time being.

October 18th - Walk away and leave the keys to this house in this house for the next family.

October 19th - 30th - Be alone...sleep...rage a little...be with friends who make me laugh and talk to me and wrap their arms around me and love me even when I'm crazy-unloveable (you know who you are)...plan a little...walk the dog a little...journal and read, my bible and The Scarlett Letter, ALOUD just to kill the silence.

Quite a month to live through.  Quite a month to walk with me through to all of you who have been there.

For all the awful, there have been so many bright spots.  So many moments of joy.  So many people lifting me up with encouragement and hope...in prayer and in action...sending me songs and email and texts.

Guess what.

It's a brand new day...brand new month...time for a brand new life...let's get this party started!

See ya around...