"We're all just fragile threads, but what a tapestry we make." – Jerry Ellis

Archive for the ‘Personal Essay’ Category

The Hidden Mansion

Comfort zone. The path of least resistance. The easy way.

One of the things I like about new beginnings, like starting a new year, is that I start things with a lot of enthusiasm. I think most of us do. There’s the idea stage, the effervescent joy that comes with a plan. Then reality comes in the forms of little things like speed bumps in our plans. It curbs that original enthusiasm, most of the time replacing it with something new…determination.

It takes a bit to get to the determination stage for me, but I think I’m there.

If you’ve read my blog before, you may remember a post I did a while back questioning whether or not contentedness was a form of apathy. I still don’t think it is—I think it’s healthy to be content. But here lately it’s been cold outside (which equals not running very much and a crabby Dragonfly), the daylight hours are short, and my energy level is just low. I go through my days pretty much the same—get up, go to work, eat meals, crave bedtime, throw in a little housework and laundry (maybe a game or two of Candy Crush) and finally hit the sack. The cycle repeats the next day. I have a growing list of things I want to do, but instead of looking at them with the eagerness I usually feel, I dread them. This is not being content.

While I do blame a lot of it on the winter blahs, I can’t continue in this status quo pattern of doing the minimum to get through the day. I compare it to home ownership. You can do the least amount of work to live in your home—pick up just the most damaging messes, fix what’s broken, basically just put out any theoretical fires, —but after about ten years the value of your home hasn’t really gone anywhere. If anything, it’s gone down from not being updated. On the other hand, if you invest a little time and effort into your home beyond the minimum by sprucing up what time and life dish out to its walls, in the end your home grows in value. This is true for the soul as well.

Finding that place of determination usually means hitting some tough spots. What starts out as simply a fresh coat of paint can lead to patching some holes. It helps to not overthink those so as not to get overwhelmed, which I think it what I’ve been doing.

So I’m updating my personal mantra. Even if just for today.

Do hard things. Challenge yourself. One more mile…

These are what I tell myself when I don’t feel like doing something or I’m faced with an unpleasant task. It doesn’t necessarily make what I’m doing more fun, but it reminds me that I’m working on being stronger and facing whatever it is I need to tackle. A bit silly? Yes, but it helps a little. After all, beneath these layers of peeling paint within lies a mansion, right?

Category:

Change, home, Personal Essay

My Epiphany on Old Christmas

twelve drummers drumming

If we were living out The Twelve Days of Christmas song, today I would receive the twelve drummers drumming. Since I’m not very far into the new year of organizing my house, I’m not sure where all the people and critters from the song would be stowed away, but it would be a houseful!

Today is Epiphany—traditionally celebrated as the day the Three Wise Men came to see Baby Jesus after the following the star—hence the twelve days of Christmas. Modern Biblical scholars can’t agree on when exactly it was the three made their visit—some say he wasn’t a newborn at all when they saw him, and the twelve days came from something somebody made up. Today’s secular society doesn’t really believe in dragging out the holiday season beyond the post-Christmas sales. Once evening rolls around on December 25th, the radio stations who have been playing only Christmas songs since November 1 abruptly go back to regular programming without much fanfare. I think that’s why I like Christmas Eve better than actual Christmas Day. Because on Christmas Day all the anticipation is behind us and it’s all over. It always makes me a little sad when things are over.

When I was growing up, my Grandpa Long’s birthday, on January 6th (Old Christmas), marked the end of the holidays for us. Maybe it was a little too much family togetherness, but I liked how we “eased” out of the holidays. We kept the Christmas tree up until then, and there wasn’t such a rush to return to the “normalcy” as soon as the clock struck midnight marking the start of a new year. While I love eating and drinking too much and staying up too late over the two weeks of Christmas, as an adult I appreciate the return to schedules and routines. I like buckling down in the New Year and thinking fresh. But still, the idea of a whole twelve days of celebrating Christmas sounds like fun—even if there’s not enough room for those lords a leaping or ladies dancing!

Category:

Christmas, family, Grandparents, growing up, home, Personal Essay

What’s Going On These Days…

One of the things that I do that drives my kids crazy is to start a sentence and not finish it when I’m talking. Sometimes it’s because I assume they know the end of the sentence, but other times it’s just because I’ve gotten distracted. I realize that my blog has kind of gone in the same direction as some of those unspoken sentences.

Here lately, I’ve been very distracted from blogging and writing in general. As a Financial Peace University graduate, it’s good, because the reason is that I’ve been working a side job as a form design contractor. It’s a great gig—I can work in my PJs on the couch on my laptop. However, as a paid gig, it takes precedence over other things—like writing. I wish I could put things on hold like laundry or housework instead, but for some reason it’s frowned upon to go out with no clean clothes.

So as to not leave some of the more recent blog topics dangling like a participle in one of my unfinished sentences, I thought this would be a good time to follow up to some “goings on” around here recently.

The Wall

The new view from the living room into the kitchen.

The new view from the living room into the kitchen.

The wall we removed the week of Thanksgiving was successfully taken out without incident. Over that weekend, Darrell removed the wall and finished it with the wooden trim he painted, leaving a strip in between the two floors of the kitchen and living room unfinished (for now—I’m not the only one who runs around like a loon).

The strip that needs to be covered. There's a teeny little hole that peeks into the basement.

The strip that needs to be covered. There’s a teeny little hole that peeks into the basement.

He touched up the paint on the living room side, and I decided that it really was time for a new color in the kitchen. My friend brought over a gallon of paint she had leftover from a project at her house, so we tried it out in a couple of spots in the kitchen. The color is “smoked taupe” and it looks pretty good. Now we just need to paint!

Here's "smoky taupe", the color we'll probably go with.

Here’s “smoky taupe”, the color we’ll probably go with.

 

Robotics

 

Our Engineering Notebook

Our Engineering Notebook

Last Saturday the Nuclear Unicorn Girl Assemblers (NUGAs) attended the FIRST Robotics qualifier competition. After an (almost) all-nighter the night before, complete with printer issues and a few robot hiccups, they managed to do quite well. (By the way, the girls did win the 3D printer, we just haven’t received it yet!) The game, called the Cascade Effect, required our robot to try to score points on the game field by knocking out the kickstand of a container that had wiffle balls in it, and then trying to loft them into these tall beakers. The teams were assigned other teams as alliance partners for six separate matches. The girls had to make sure that the robot was programmed keeping in mind that another robot would be in the same general area, trying to do the same general thing. One robot starts on a ramp and the other one on the floor (hence, two possible programs to use). There is also an “interview” type of judging session (our girls rocked!) and an Engineering Notebook they have to turn in documenting their work and how it progressed.

A scene from the qualifier.

A scene from the qualifier.

In the robot matches, the girls came in tenth out of thirty-three teams, which was amazing. They did not make the cut to advance to the next competition, but we are attending another qualifier next month to try again. This month we will spend updating the robot, its programming and the presentation to wow them at the next competition. The girls all learned a lot from Saturday’s competition—and I know I gained valuable insight as well. I can’t begin to tell you how amazing the kids that do the FIRST Tech Challenge are. The atmosphere at the competition is one like no other. Yes, they are competing against each other, but teams are continually helping each other with troubleshooting and supplying items that a team may have forgotten. Officially it’s called “gracious professionalism” and it’s stressed throughout the competition. It is so encouraging to see it being practiced by these very mature, very smart young adults.

Adelaide/NaNoWriMo

Maybe next year???

Maybe next year???

Poor Adelaide. She never saw it coming, which is kinda crazy because seeing things coming is a big part of her story. Adelaide is a little bit psychic, but not of anything of importance. Just weird, small stuff that doesn’t really amount to anything, so she really keeps this “gift” a secret. Until this nudge causes her to uncover the plot of a murder. Now, usually-reserved Adelaide has to go out on a limb to protect people she loves. Will she risk leaving behind her “normal” life to set the story straight?

That’s the premise of my silly little story I started for NaNoWriMo at the beginning of the month. I’m not anywhere near the 50,000 words that is the goal by month’s end, mostly because I didn’t see my side job coming. It’s not a huge deal, so it does fall into the realm of possibility to be the type of thing that my character would get a heads up on.

I haven’t completely shelved her at all. I just have gotten swamped with home improvement projects, robots, work and Christmas. Hopefully someday Adelaide will get all the attention she deserves so she can be brought to life on the paper. In the meantime, I just keep writing her story in my head.

When I’m not thinking I’m George Jetson on the treadmill screaming, “Jane, stop this crazy thing!”

Category:

coaching, Dave Ramsey, family, Financial Peace University, FIRST robotics, HGTV, home, NaNoWriMo, Personal Essay, Thanksgiving, weekend, writing

Oh Christmas Tree, How Lovely (and FEW) Are Thy Branches

Today’s post is another story by my dad from when he was a teen. I wish you could see his face and hear him chuckle as he tells it in person. When I was growing up, I always begged my parents to put up the Christmas tree in early December (Christmas stuff in November was unheard of)! Today, when the Christmas season starts the day after Halloween, it seems unusual to wait to decorate for Christmas the week before, doesn’t it? He used to tell us this story about the year Grandpa tried to get a cheap tree from the grocer.

 The Magic Christmas Tree

A story from his youth, as recalled by Dad Christmas 2007

It was a Saturday morning in December when I was awakened by the noise of an argument. It was between Mom and Dad. Dad got a free Christmas tree from Kroger’s, a local grocery store. Dad bought several fruit baskets for his business customers and as a reward, Dad got a Christmas tree of his choice. Apparently Dad’s choice wasn’t very good because Mom was quite perturbed. Then I heard Mom’s voice call out”Paullll!” I thought I was in deep trouble and I wasn’t even out of bed yet. So I answered, “I will be down in just a minute as soon as I’m dressed.”

They both met me in the kitchen. Dad emphatically stated that by hook or crook, he wanted the Christmas tree put up by the end of the day. Mom nodded in silent agreement.

Meanwhile, my two younger brothers whom I shall call Ra and Ru got up. They heard the commotion too but played dumb. So we three had a hardy breakfast and proceeded to get to work. The tree was to be put outside the house facing the rear picture window of the sunken living room. The patio had a see-through corrugated roof. Ra and Ru and I struggled with “Dad’s prize tree” to get it into place on the patio, when disaster struck. The tree snapped in two. Ra and Ru looked at me in horror and said in unison, “Now what are we going to do?” Dad answered in a heartbeat because he was checking up on our progress. “You’re going to get a hammer and nails and nail it back together and if that doesn’t work, you’re going to wire it together. And another thing—that tree better be put up and decorated by this evening or there’s going to be hell to pay!” With that said, Dad got into his car and drove off. He had a doctor’s appointment.

Mom, meanwhile heard Dad’s harsh pronouncement and laughed. She said, “I never did like that tree,” and went back in the house. So Ra and Ru and I struggled to get the tree to the garage and proceeded to try and nail and wire it back together. Brother Ra, who was the practical one, shook his head and said, “It ain’t going to work.”

We stood the tree up and it broke in two again. Brother Ru, seeing the hopelessness of our situation, proceeded to go into the house and tell Mom of our plight. Mom came out and looked at the “bedraggled tree” and again laughed. My brothers and I didn’t think it was funny. Mom ordered us into the house. She went to her purse and handed me a twenty dollar bill. “Now,” she said, “there is a fruit market down the road and I’ve heard they have some very nice trees. Get one!”

We were in luck, Dad took the nice family car and left the 1954 Ford Station Wagon, with a rack on top. I always looked forward to driving (I just got my license that summer). We proceeded on our quest for a tree. Ra and Ru and I were a team. I drove, Ru picked out the tree and Ra made sure we didn’t pay too much for it. After some minor haggling, we got what was the “perfect tree”, even by today’s standards. I forgot what we paid for it, but it was within the limits of the twenty-dollar bill Mom gave us.

Mom was standing outside, waiting for our return and was to see “our prize” tree. “Hurry,” she said, “get it down so I can see it.” We unfurled the tree from the roof of the station wagon. Mom’s proud comment was “I have three sons that know how to pick out a Christmas tree.” We all proceeded to do our thing, set up and decorate our “perfect” tree.

Meanwhile, Dad returned from his doctor’s appointment. “Where are the boys?” he asked of Mom. Mom replied, “They are decorating the Christmas tree and you leave them alone.” Mom asked Dad, “By the way, how did your doctor’s appointment go?” Dad replied that doctor said his weight was the same, but his blood pressure was high.

Mom stalled Dad off until nightfall. We had a pleasant evening meal. Dad was anxious to see what we got out of chaos. The big moment finally came, Mom turned on the switch and “Voila!” a lighted Christmas tree. Dad was even amazed and said, “I sure know how to pick ‘em, don’t I?” Mom rolled her eyes and said under her breath, “There are some battles you can’t win.” Dad never did find out that his “prized tree” was replaced; in fact we made a wreath out of part of it for the front door.

A day or two later we had a calm, quiet Merry Christmas.

Category:

Christmas, family, family history, Grandparents, Holidays, home, Mom and Dad, Personal Essay

Amy’s Favorite Things

This past week Oprah Winfrey announced seventy-two items that she absolutely loves on her 2014 Favorite Things list. As only Oprah can get away with (and still be seen as the woman who can relate so well to her fans) many of the items are beyond the reach of the average person’s budget. Like dog beds that are in the price range of $445-$710 (hypoallergenic, of course—in case it’s your dog with the allergy problem instead of you). She does have some less expensive items on her list, like her book What I Know For Sure; it’s only $25.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a hater. I’d put my own book, if I had one, on my Favorite Things list, too! I actually admire Oprah Winfrey and find her to be a classy gal who has had to endure, among other things, the media’s morbid fascination with her weight. Still, I couldn’t help but see her favorite things and think that I had at least ten favorite things that everyday, practical people could actually buy for themselves or a loved one without having to finance them through a two-years-same-as-cash deal. Besides, I always wanted to write my own version of Rodgers and Hammersteins’ My Favorite Things from the Sound of Music. I even invite you to sing my list if it puts you in a cheerful mood.

In no particular order:

 Costco Chocolate Chip Cookies. For the record, I can’t remember a cookie I didn’t like, but chocolate chip has to be my favorite. Emily and Erin do a great job whipping up homemade cookies from scratch, as does my mother-in-law, but if it’s going to be store bought I love the chocolate chip cookies from Costco. For one, they’re big, so I can get away with saying I only ate one cookie. They are soft and have those big, chunky chocolate chips in them. They never last very long at our house.

Holiday Printed Paper Towels. Simple? Yes. But some reason I love to pick up a roll of Bounty at Halloween or Christmas with the cute little holiday designs on them. Sometimes I have to settle for just getting the printed napkins, but either way they both make wiping countertop messes more fun somehow. It’s the little things…

 60-Second Instant Nail Color. I don’t have a lot of patience when it comes to painting my nails. This product lets me paint my nails and get on with life sooner without the risk of smudged polish. Of course, a gel manicure from the salon is even easier, but when I’m going to do them myself, quick-dry is the way to go. Plus, it’s a bargain compared to Oprah’s nail colors on her list—a set of nine polishes for $144. Although hers are vegan. (Why does nail polish need to be vegan? Who eats nail polish?)

Speaking of non-vegan…

Wurstmarkt. Wait, you say…a sausage supper made the list? Let me tell you, this is no ordinary church dinner. Held the first Saturday in November at Immanuel Church for over 70 years now, this meal is one you can write home about. As I’ve mentioned before, my home church is located in Ferguson, Missouri, where a lot of unrest has taken place. There was talk of cancelling the event this year due to the protests, but they ended up holding it anyway. Attendance was down from years past, but the important thing was that they carried on. The sausage, the mashed potatoes, the pie…yes, Wurstmarkt definitely makes the list.

My Nike Running hat. I bought this hat several years ago and it makes running in the cold possible for me. It’s just a plain, black hat made from lightweight, moisture wicking material—definitely not sexy, but it keeps my ears warm and holds the heat in by my noggin. Last December we ran the Hot Chocolate 5K run in a “feels like” temperature in the single digits. Between the little hand warmer packets I stuck in my gloves and my hat, I stayed warm the whole time. Can’t run without my hat in these Missouri winters.

My Keurig K-Cup Brewer. For years I saw these at Bed, Bath and Beyond and thought they were ridiculously wasteful. Then I got one for Christmas two years ago. As the only coffee drinker in the house, it’s perfect for me, because generally I only drink a cup in the morning and sometimes one in the afternoon. I love that there are tons of flavors to pick from. My favorite seasonal one is the Pumpkin Spice. When I top the coffee with some whipped cream, a squirt of caramel sundae sauce and cinnamon sugar I can close my eyes and actually pretend I’m at a Starbucks. Blissful!

Nike Structure 16 running shoes. I discovered these little gems about two years ago after coming off a foot injury that sidelined me almost two years. I am an over-pronator with a high arch, but thanks to these shoes, I was able to run and train for four half-marathons without re-injuring myself. This is coming from the person who tried cortisone shots, as well as prescription and non-prescription orthotics. They’ve since retired the Nike Structure 16, and have moved on to the newer generation, the Nike Structure 17; I give both these models the credit for allowing me to continue running. These are probably one of my more expensive “favs”, but in the long run are definitely cheaper than doctor office visits and being in pain.

My crockpot. Insert your brand/size crockpot here, but I think crockpots are God’s gift to busy families. There’s nothing like the feeling of putting your roast and veggies together in the morning and being greeted with its delicious aroma when you get home from work. All you have to do is take out the cooked food and it’s chow time. It’s like a little magic genie makes dinner for me when I’m not home. Also good for cooking up chili and soups, the crockpot is the absentee chef’s best friend. What’s not to love?

My tablet. I have a middle-of-the-road Samsung Galaxy. It is awesome. Before that, I had one of the first generations of the Nook offered by Barnes & Noble, which is an unfair comparison. I liked reading on that device, although the screen was not lit and you could only read BN book formats on it, but on my newer tablet I have apps for both Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble, so I can read either format on it. Plus it’s color. And I can play Candy Crush on it and actually see the little candies on the screen, which is much harder to do on my phone (an LG Optimus that I also enjoy).

Air Wick/Glade room freshening candles. Oprah’s list had a four-pack of holiday candles for $240. Let me offer you a more affordable option. Go to the air freshener aisle at Target or Wal-Mart and pick up either Air Wick or Glade candles. Offered in seasonal scents, they burn cleanly, last for hours and are quite the bargain at a couple bucks apiece. If you’re like me and love the scent of lemon no matter what time of year it is, you can get them on clearance after the season is over and have scented candles on the cheap. Get a little crazy and mix it up—burn pumpkin candles in April and cranberry ones in August.

So that’s it, ten of my favorite things. My list may never be printed in my own magazine or talked about on the radio, but I won’t go broke enjoying these finer things in life. There were several other favorites I had to cut, like gel pens and office supplies to narrow it down to only ten items, but I humbly realized that I’m not Oprah, so I don’t get to have 72. I also don’t have Oprah’s clout to save you 10% when you use the “DRAGONFLY” discount code. If money remains an obstacle, remember there’s always the free favorite things in which we can all agree, beginning with raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.

 

Category:

Favorite Things, humor, Oprah's Favorite Things, Personal Essay, rants

Ghost Stories

It was a dark and stormy night…

I have a confession to make. I love ghost stories. My favorites are ones where there is a ghost that’s hanging around either re-enacting a person’s existence before he or she died or where a loved one appears to a family member. Usually it’s either to say hello or because they have a message for the living. Now do I believe that ghosts are real? I’m not sure. There’s a part of me that really wants to believe in ghosts—but I am a Missourian, and we are the Show Me State. So until I see one with my own eyes, I will remain optimistically skeptic. Side note: I really don’t ever want to see one myself; I just like hearing about other people’s encounters. I’m a big chicken.

A few weeks ago my friend, Kristin and I went to a talk at the Library by The Paranormal Task Force. Jeremy, the speaker, was a great mix of humor and storyteller. And while he was enthusiastic about his subject, he also was also realistic about all the things out there that are not ghosts. In fact, what I liked most about this group was that they didn’t think every single thing they saw, felt or heard was paranormal on their investigations. He shared some great photos with us, and explained away things that could be mistaken for ghouls on some of the ones that at first glance seemed paranormal. What was left was some images that were hard to find an explanation for that gave me goosebumps. You can see some of these pictures on the group’s website at www.paranormaltaskforce.com.

Now I know that some people think a belief in ghosts somehow contradicts being a Christian, but I don’t agree. I think that if you’re seeking out interaction with departed souls, you are opening up doors to something that is less than holy. An Ouija Board comes to mind. But to me, acknowledging an existence of ghosts only collaborates the idea that humans have souls and there’s something more to life than just our physical bodies. How many times have you heard about people who, on their death beds, see or call out to people who have been dead for years? I don’t find this frightening at all, and I hope when it’s my time that someone who loved me in life might be there to bring me “into the light”.

The stories that intrigue me most are ones that I’ve heard from people I know personally, because they don’t have anything to gain by sharing them. In general, the stories are not dramatic; in contrast, they are fairly simple. A woman I grew up going to church with told me about the house she lived in with her family. Strange things would happen that they always wrote off—like lights being on in the house when they would return home when they knew that they’d turned them off before they left. After her kids grew up and moved out of the house, they got to talking about an older woman in one of the rocking chairs. They’d all seen her as kids, but no one had said anything because each thought it had just been their imagination. It wasn’t until years later they discovered they had all experienced seeing the same woman.

Over the years, I’ve read a lot of books and watched a lot of television shows featuring “true” hauntings and ghosts. I’m pretty skeptic of most, but there are a few that really make me wonder. Who doesn’t love getting creeped out by a spooky tale on Halloween? (Feel free to share with me!) Although I may have outgrown Trick or Treating, I hope I never outgrow a good, scary ghost story—as long as I can sleep with a nightlight!

 

Happy Halloween!

Category:

Ghost Stories, Halloween, Personal Essay

Is It Empty…or Just Blank?

Blank checks. Blank stares. Blank slates. Blank computer screens.

Depending on your perspective, blank can represent the fresh possibility of unchartered territory or the frustration of having no direction or understanding.

Our family’s calendar this weekend, although not completely blank, does have some open time slots. A Saturday morning free from scheduled obligations provides for me a reprieve from the usual hustle and bustle of our household. As much as I love the things we do, sometimes I just want to stay home and catch up on laundry. Not many people’s picture of bliss, I know, but there’s something very therapeutic about having the luxury of getting those everyday tasks caught up all at once.

Yet, while these blank spaces on the calendar represent precious freedom to me, I realize that to others they represent something else entirely. I remember when I worked at a retirement home that the residents didn’t always look forward to the weekends for that very reason. During the week, we had classes and events full of social interaction most of the day, every day, but the on the weekends there would only be a few scheduled activities. For some of these folks living alone in their apartments, two days without something on the schedule brought up an unpleasant feeling of loneliness or worse—meaninglessness. These chunks of open time, are they blank or just empty? Apart from perspective, they are neutral.

Two of my favorite things are a brand-new, pretty notebook and a smooth gel pen. When they’re new, they’re blank—but they’re not empty. I just haven’t put anything in them yet. Because in writing, the empty kind of blank can be terrifying. The dreaded writer’s block for me always makes me question if every ounce of my creative juices has begun drying out. Confession: I have pretty, blank notebooks with cute gel pens fastened to them that are…well, empty. There’s a weird part of me that thinks that if something’s written in a gorgeous little notebook, it has to have some sort of worthiness to it. I know, I know, I should think of those notebooks as a stomping ground for my ideas, not museum paper. But if I only jot down one or two ideas, that spanking new blank notebook becomes a half-finished one—at least in my head. And completing or revamping a half-finished anything is a whole other blog post!

The difference in perspective between blank or empty can sometimes be boiled down to one word—fear. If I fear that marring a notebook with trivial or unfinished thoughts will forever curse its pages, I’ve already lost the battle. My attitude makes a huge difference as to what can be viewed as a challenge versus a burden. (Not that controlling your attitude is easy, but it is possible and a great place to start.)

How about you? Do you have a blank in your life that you’ve been seeing as an empty? Could the artist’s canvass before you be disguised as that stagnant, barren place holding you back? It’s definitely something to think about—whether it be time, notebooks or even that white wall in the dining room.

 

Category:

balance, home, Personal Essay, rants, writing

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Life Car Re-Set

My life rarely keeps to a calendar for following any of the seasons. On January 1, it still feels a lot like December 31st. And the day I turned forty played out much like many of those when I was thirty-nine (except for the surprise party Darrell had for me). Of course, there are those beginnings, like the school year or a new routine, that creep into a sort of normalcy on the calendar. But an individual’s personal season of growth—that indistinct period when you can look back in hindsight and say without a doubt that it was during that time when a slow, gradual change took hold of you—seems to come in no set timeframe. Often when I view those instances they seem like a time when God picked my car off the Life game board and re-set it into a new path.

The reason I believe it’s a new direction from God is because I realize (normally well after the fact) that the occasions when I’ve grown the most personally are times when I was not burdened with self-doubt. It’s when I decide to roll the dice to see what happens and just trust that things are going to be okay. It is always okay, you know. Sometimes it’s a “new normal” or there are rough patches, but somehow I always muddle through. Please note that I’m not advocating not thinking through the consequences of your choices and pulling out all your savings to buy lottery tickets! What I am advocating is that sometimes to move forward you have to take a step out of your comfort zone. And sometimes you have to rely on your gut feelings.

How I once got a job is a great example. I quit my previous job before I’d actually gotten a new one—a huge deal for me. After all, I’m a stability freak and what if no one hired me right away? But I knew it was what I had to do, because if I’d stayed where I was, I was going to be stuck there like the story about putting a frog in hot water. If someone puts a frog into a pot of very hot water, the frog will jump out of the pot.  But, if one puts the frog into a pot of cool water, and then heats it up very, very slowly, the frog will not jump out – it will allow itself to be boiled. Because the temperature is increasing so slowly, there is no ‘trigger’ to signal the danger in the frog, so the frog takes no action to avoid it. I was gradually allowing my dissatisfaction to become an acceptable way of living. So I took a step out in faith, and finally turned in my resignation letter that I’d been carrying around in my purse for almost two months. Believe it or not, I received a phone call with a job offer as I was pulling out of the parking lot on my last day of work at my old job.

In my experience, it’s usually a convergence of events that trigger a period of growth, so I have a hard time pinpointing which domino fell first. And somehow I just know that a change is right around the corner. Life goes on in a similar way day after day, and all of a sudden it feels different somehow—I start expectantly waiting for something to happen. The other reason why I know it comes from God is because I’m not anxious about what’s in store, I’m excited and I draw closer to Him with a mindset of peace. The future looks a little brighter and it feels like I’m turning in the right direction. The Life car re-set.

And I do have a lot of exciting things going on in my life right now—finding a new church, taking a financial class with my husband, making more concrete writing plans, supporting Tyler in his college decisions, finishing training for the two fall half-marathons—all these things are in the forefront of my daily life at the moment. I’m choosing to savor this time; it’s not a time of unrestful upheaval, but one of contemplated contentedness. Yet, when it starts getting a little too warm for me, I’m ready to jump. Time to get out of the hot water and into my little Life car.

Category:

Change, faith, Personal Essay, Time

Writing: An Expensive Hobby? Thought That Was Just Running…

I have a knack for finding seemingly cheap hobbies and making them expensive.  Let’s take running for example…a pair of shoes and some water and you’re off to conquer the road, right?  At least that’s what I thought when I first got started.  I mean, I already had work-out clothes.  So just add running shoes…oh, and a Garmin would be nice.  Cotton is rotten when it comes to socks, so I’ll need some good moisture wicking ones.  Oh, and Gu or Chomps are needed to sustain me during my long runs.  And let’s not go into how much race fees are—I actually have “Race Fees” as one of my budget categories in the family budget.

I like to think that I’m not the only one whose hobbies expand like that.  Darrell is always so sweet about indulging my hobbies.  For years I was an enthusiastic scrapbooker—not even a remotely cheap hobby.  Over the years, I’ve purchased enough paper, rubber stamps and embellishments to chronicle albums for ten families.  I still have all my supplies in the basement, along with several years of pictures that need to be put in albums.  What I don’t have is the time (or enthusiasm) to do it right now.  And so it sits, there in the corner of the basement, awaiting a time when I make it a priority again.  I’d like to think that I will someday—I just hope that I’ll be able to remember who the people are in the photographs!

Writing, another hobby that’s cheap on the surface, has also cost more over the years than one would think it could.  I’ve taken several online writing courses, bought many books about writing and now I’m gearing up to register and attend my first writing conference.  The RT Book Lovers Convention (www.rtconvention.com) is scheduled for next spring in Dallas, Texas, and my cousin, Kim and I have been planning out how we’ll be attending.  There’s a lot to take into consideration when attending—namely if I’ll attend as a blogger, reader or aspiring author (they all cost the same—a lot).  They did not have an “all of the above”, so I’ll have to decide exactly what I am.  I like to think of myself as all three, but here lately, the aspiring author in me seems to be buried deep within.  Very deep.

I started this blog as a writing outlet, and it’s been just that.  What I like most about blogging is the interaction with people—it’s almost an “instant gratification” type of thing for me.  Thanks to Facebook, I can see who “likes” my posts and read comments about them right after I write them.  There’s a certain accountability factor as well—I need to post regularly to remind people that the Lighthearted Dragonfly is still flying.   On the other hand, when I’m working on other writing, it just sits there on the computer, where no one views it but me.  I start ideas and re-work and sometimes delete them.  I stall on them. To be honest, I’m not productive with the types of writing that an “aspiring author” would have under their belt to take to a convention.  I can’t bring ten half-finished stories that I haven’t figured out how to resolve.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when I started calculating the cost of attending the convention and decided to write a post about it that the image of the scrapbooks in the basement popped into my subconscious.  As someone who writes for fun, it’s one of my biggest concerns—that I’ll never finish the one story that might have someday made it to the publisher.  Instead of boxes of pictures and papers there will be loads of files with names like “Adelaide—the Misfit Psychic”.  I can’t let that happen.  Adelaide is way to cool for that.

When someone is invested financially in something, they’re more likely to hold it to a higher standard.  Take the typical teenager and their car.  Hand over a car to them, and chances are it won’t be valued as much as the car they had to save and work for themselves.  The same is true of hobbies.   I look at it this way.  Investing in a hobby—your time and your money—returns to you in a lot of ways that aren’t always tangible. My little running hobby helps me maintain my weight, developed friendships and boosts my mood.  Scrapbooking, although incomplete, documents so many family memories—again, priceless.  And then there’s writing.  I may never make a dime from the hours I’ve poured myself into pages.  But money making from it has never been my sole motivator (it’d be a great by-product!)  So I’ll go to this convention and indulge myself a little.  I’ll be surrounded by other people who love books and words and storytelling.  And hopefully come out a little more knowledgeable.  And who knows?  This little “aspiring author”, poking her head out of her shell might just join the race against the hare.

Category:

Personal Essay, RT Booklovers Convention, writing

Endings and New Beginnings

As a young Sunday Schooler, we used to sing a little song:

I am the church, you are the church,

We are the church together.

All who follow Jesus, all around the world.

Yes, we’re the church together.

The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple,

The church is not a resting place, the church is the people.

 

Over the past few years, big changes have come down the pike for the church I’ve gone to my entire life—a church blessed with long-standing tradition. I was christened at Immanuel as a baby, confirmed there in eighth grade and took my marriage vows in that beautiful sanctuary. My three children were christened there and two of them have gone through confirmation there. I love the people at my church. A lot of them are relatives, and those who aren’t blood kin certainly feel like they are to me. They have seen me grow up, they know my parents; they’ve celebrated with us in joyous times and mourned with us when we’ve suffered loss. We pray for each other and serve together.

Immanuel started over 126 years ago as a German community church. In fact, services were in German until the War, when pointing out your German heritage was not a good thing to be doing. We still have an annual Wurstmarkt (sausage supper) the first weekend in November. My great-grandparents were a part of the founding members, and my entire family—grandparents, great aunts and great uncles, aunts and uncles and cousins of all “once-removed” status attended church there when I was growing up. At the time, our family was an anomaly because we commuted over 45 minutes to go to church, as we lived in St. Charles and the church is in Ferguson, Missouri. But since my childhood, many of the families that attend church there have also spread out across St. Louis and St. Charles counties and commute to attend services and activities. To have a “commuter church” to this degree is a rather unique situation.

I feel compelled to tell you this brief history because to many people who have either grown up attending various churches or never went to church at all, loyalty to one particular church can be hard to understand. Most people who moved that far away from their church would have found a new one closer to home-especially forty years ago. My parents tried several nearby churches, but none of them had the people that made Immanuel what it meant to them. But what a long commute to church meant for our family then was less involvement with the activities in church outside Sunday morning service. As a youth, I didn’t participate in the Youth Group activities, except for Confirmation, because we just didn’t live very close. So when my own kids were getting to an age to be more involved in Youth programming at church, I didn’t really notice when they weren’t interested in participating.

All these years later, we were still commuting to Immanuel. Until recently. The slow, steady emotionally pulling away from our church began a few years back when the man who was our pastor for over thirty years suddenly retired. We all missed him, especially his wonderful sermons, but I always felt like it was a storm we as a church family could weather. I don’t feel a blog is the appropriate place to go into detail all that’s happened since then, or air any dirty laundry. But the end result is that while Immanuel is still that beautiful church building with a history rich in tradition full of people I love, I feel like all of the unrest has become a huge distraction to the faith development of its members.  My kids are missing out on being a part of an active, thriving youth program.  Despite how that may sound, I am not angry about any of it; just terribly, terribly sad.

Because I miss trying to avoid the delicious donuts while visiting with my friends and family on Sunday mornings in the church basement. I miss our beautiful hymnals that have been so well-loved some have the backs taped together to keep the covers on them. I miss saying “debts and debtors” in our Lord ’s Prayer and reciting the Apostle’s Creed. I miss hearing the choir’s descant and my uncle’s beautiful voice singing “To God Be the Glory”. I miss when we pray for our hospitalized church members together in worship. I miss the kids playing basketball in the gym after church. Those things, like my love for my church family, will never change—they are now a part of my physical and emotional make up—a fiber in my being that will never be unbound. I could go there next week and breathe in that entire experience and feel God’s love for me deep within my heart.

Experiencing other worship services has made me feel disloyal to those people who nurtured my faith all these years, and loyalty is something I cherish. I feel guilty because it’s easy when I attend services elsewhere to focus on the message. I feel uplifted because there’s no emotional baggage with these other worship services because there’s not the history. I see how attending a church within my own community is giving back to my neighbors and it brings me joy. I see ways to become involved at church in more than Sunday morning worship and it scares me. I see my daughter asking to go to Youth meetings with her friend at a nearby church and I feel like I’m doing the right thing. All of these things—they’re about me. And I’m trying to see how to make them all about God.

Still, I’m not ready to say that this is a definite ending or beginning just yet. My heart will always be with my “home” church. My prayer as a woman of faith is to have discernment in knowing which way to move forward.  Standing at this crossroad in my life, I am reminded of yet another song—a hymn from my youth:

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!

Thou art the potter, I am the clay!

Mold me and make me after Thy will,

While I am waiting, yielded and still.

Category:

Church, faith, family, family history, friends, Personal Essay, rants