Hold Out: Finding the Good

The subtle voice whispers almost constantly in my ear.  To be honest, I want to listen, I want it to make sense.  I want it to justify and speak the words I want to hear.

The air is cold and damp, it stings my fingers.  The voice tempts me, "You can have whatever you want today.  You can get it yourself."

The offer is tempting.  I could use an easy road right now.  Uphill gets old.

Restlessness weighs heavy today as I walk the curved path.  The best part of the walk is ahead.  The path changes from too bright sunlight to rich dappled green and teases off into the woods.   I have walked it for weeks now and I know good and well where that path goes.

Seeing it though, seeing it is like a trick of the soul.  This part never gets old.  My breath catches like a kid whose eyes finally behold what the heart has been anticipating.  The path tricks me every day and every day I imagine that it goes somewhere new.

"What is the cost?"  The words float in my mind.

"You can have anything you want.  You can have it today.  Just sell Tomorrow."

And there it is.  The only part of what the tempter says that is truth.  I can have whatever I want Today, if I just sell Tomorrow.  

Surprise sparks in my mind when I experience a blessed moment of clarity, seeing the lie for what it is instead of swallowing it down.

I take off my sunglasses to see in the shade of the woods.  Everything looks different, the green is more intense, the light dances through the cottonwoods leaves, and the creatures can't hide from me anymore.  I drink up the peace in this place.  And I hear a different voice whispering of hope and future and holding on to what you know is good.

Today is finite.  It ends.  Yes it is beautiful and what Today offers should be seized and lived in and celebrated because it ends.  But it still ends.

Tomorrow is eternal.  Some people say it never comes but they're wrong.  Tomorrow is born fresh over and over.  We just get confused because it changes its name each time.  Make no mistake though, Tomorrow never really ends.  It is eternal.

Selling Tomorrow for chattel Today would only make me a bondwoman, a kind of slave.  

I can have a spotless home today if I sell part of my bond with my children, one precious hour at a time.

I can have a bigger home today if I sell a dream and stop planting the seeds and stop doing the work  that will make that dream grow real.

I can have esteem today if I sell a hundred little moments that I simply won't have time for in a different tomorrow.

I can spend money on whatever draws my eye if I sell the time it takes to care about you and yours.

Now hear me, our Todays and Tomorrows are different, you and I.  My dreams and loves do not judge yours.  We are both safe in this backyard.

This jumble of nonsense and vague ideas is just about holding on to what you know is true, holding on to what is significant and of real value.

Holding on and holding out for real gold instead of running to town with a hand full of shiny worthless rocks like some fool.

The path hasn't changed and it is real Today.  I can seize this moment and love it for what it is, here and now and real and use beautiful Today to do the work for Tomorrow.  I do not have to trade true value for the easy road.  Besides, Today may have an end but it teases and delights with its own surprises.

The merganser duck with the late brood of chicks has only one left.  I don't know where the rest are but after two cold snaps, dogs, turtles and whatever else lives in water, the chick is a little miracle.  It makes me unreasonably happy.  The kid in my heart catches her breath as she sees the fuzzy shape, half yellow, half brown, waddling awkwardly around the duck as an older woman feeds the flock.  The woman points her cane directly at the orange bill of the big obnoxious goose who, all of us park walkers know, is solely responsible for the new warning sign about aggressive geese.  The goose seems to nod his head as if saying to the flock, "Respect the cane."  

Yes, for all my babbling, Today is beautiful too and deserves to be fully occupied, while its still around anyway.

Ugly Beautiful: Finding the Good

The big, black snake gliding through the water at Soldier Creek creeps me out.  Can't help myself though, I move closer, fascinated.  The snake cuts through the water with hardly any movement at all.  I am close enough to see the dull black scales across the thick back.  An older man steps of the path to see.  He moves sort of sideways, not blocking my view but sort of protective in a way.  It's nice, not patronizing and I doubt he knows he's doing it.

The snake is hypnotic, fascinating, ugly and beautiful all at the same time.

Sometimes our days in this house can be rather antagonistic.  Sometimes we five choose to fight when we could choose to play.  

Sometimes twenty minutes of homework is like an emotional war fought with weapons of words.

We five can fuss so much that we are driven to shut each other out, at least for a time.  Eight got plain sick of her brothers messin' her stuff up so she made a sign.  

Keep Out: Girl Might be Mad or Sleeping.  

Amen sister, amen.  Consider yourself warned.

Reality is not always beautiful.  Life is not all sweetness and light, no matter how hard we try.

Truth is ugly and beautiful all at the same time.

  So are people, even the ones we love. 

The ugly can point the way to the beautiful, if you have eyes to see.

At the end of the long day, you find what you are looking for.  

Looking for good is the only way to really live.

posts about thriving...
Schooled by a Wyld Angel
Bloom Where You're Planted
Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

Glass Half Full: Finding the Good

Thanks to The Nester for inspiring and inviting us to link up and share our passions!  This is the first post in a series about gratitude and seeing the extraordinary in the everyday.

This start is humble, but off we go nevertheless...



A warm breeze pushes my skin this morning while I walk.  The dog and I are going for a little over two miles, just enough to work off whatever chocolate might beckon later today.  It's a regular thing, walking at the park after the kids are dropped at school, but it hasn't gotten old.  It's just a nice place with a couple of playgrounds and acres shaded by old pecan trees.  Squirrels crowd just out of reach of a six foot leash and the old folks feed them by hand.  Boston the dog rescues toddlers from aggressive geese.

A few weeks ago, I stopped taking my earphones.  

I just walk and listen and say, "Good mornin" to the people who pass on the sidewalk.

It makes me strangely happy.

The route I like best runs along Soldier Creek.  A third of a mile down, the sidewalk enters a tunnel of trees.  This is the best part.  Off to the side, a man with a sleek, spoiled doberman stands fallen tree limbs up in the shape of a massive teepee.  Vines wrap around it and hold it together.  His dog watches as he works.  The first teepee appeared over the course of a week or two and he has started on his second.  I hope fervently that no one takes them down or tells him to stop.  I hope they just let it be.

Some of the regulars are missing today.  Winston-who-gives-sniffems and his man aren't there.  The snarly terrier must be grounded for her bad behavior.  Callie the Yorkie is at home or late but the shy Aussie with one blue eye greets Boston sweetly.

Blue Jays call, the breeze rattles cottonwood leaves and one baby squirrel makes what I can only describe as "tiny noise" at the edge of the creek.  He is so stinkin' cute its just unbelievable.

The peace is shattered.

Whooping, over and over from up the hill.  WHOOPING, I say!  Like a crazed teenager jumping off a bridge or an entire football team celebrating after a touchdown.  WHOOPING!

A blue tractor flies through an empty parking lot, its big scooper thing raised and a man sitting in the seat, whooping like someone who just won the lottery.

Unnecessary judgments push into my mind.

Is that man drunk?

He sounds happy.

Someone should call the city.

Someone should let him be.

What's wrong with him?  He could...

be grateful for his very life today?

Glass half empty, glass half full.  Choose this day the glass from which you will drink.

As for me and my house, we will choose the glass half full, even if it comes riding in the scoopy thing on the front of a blue tractor.

...singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ...Ephesians 5:19-20

finding good today,
m

How I Won by Waving the White Flag

Before the small people came, my canned goods were stacked according to ingredient. Corn stacked on corn, green beans on green beans.  It just seemed right.

When the small people were smaller and did not have nearly so many opinions of their own, their shirts matched their pants and bedtime was 8 PM.  Breakfast was at 7:30 AM because that's what worked for me.

There are three of them.  As differences in height become evident, differences in their natural tendencies become evident as well.  One boy, Nine, would like to stay up late and watch baseball with his Daddy.  The girl, Eight, sleeps more than the other two and prefers water to most other drinks.  These tendencies mesh with my own habits.

I surrendered my system of stacking canned goods sometime in the toddler years.  I gained mental energy previously used on my kitchen cabinet inventory for more important things.

Then there is Robert, Eleven.  If he stays up much past 9:30 PM, he goes into a semi-vegetative state wherever he is.  He just wilts right over in his seat and the light in his eyes slowly dims.  I can handle a sleepy child at 9:30 PM.  I cannot handle an eleven-year-old, 85 pound ball of noise and energy making gun noises, whistling and getting the dog all riled up prior to daybreak.  Did you hear me?  Prior to daybreak!

I surrendered the idea of matching clothes about two years ago to the bliss of having them dress themselves.  I gained freedom from having to make a few trivial decisions and the great gift of knowing my children and their "styles" better instead of growing mini-me's.

He's been this way, lived this early rising lifestyle since the beginning.  At nine months, he would talk loudly to himself in his crib while I tried to raise eyelids made of lead.

I  have tried to explain my way.  "If you just close your eyes and be still, you might fall back asleep.  You are tired because you don't sleep long enough.  You wake everyone else up."

The discussion plays again today.  Eight, herself a less than adaptable personality, has a face of solid intensity as she plays a game on the iPad.

"But Robert, a kid your age needs about ten hours of sleep a night.  If you go to bed late and get up early, no wonder you are tired in the middle of the day."

I surrender a room to their Lego's and their idea of clean and organized.  I gain a tidy living room, and amazing insight into their imaginations.

Then wisdom declares herself and Robert and I are released from our long-standing struggle.

Without looking up or betraying any hint of awareness outside of her game, she simply declares,

"That's just how Robert rolls."

It's over.  I am released from trying to fit him into my ideal mode of operation.  He no longer needs to feel regret at waking early.  It is accepted, this gift of early morning, high gear "get to it" and in return he may accept me and my foggy haze.

 I can see the freedom of this gift as we move through life together.

That's just how Robert rolls.  That's just how Mom rolls.  Isn't it great?  That's just how you roll.  It's a gift.

The early folks, get up and get it done, I kick in with my gifts at a different time doing different things.  They mow in the morning, I do laundry all day.  I pack 50 little things all afternoon into two big boxes, they get up early and move the boxes.  We are different parts of one body.  We have different strengths.

Our family surrenders our individual ideas of perfect to a collaboration of what home might fully be. We gain a life that is more than the sum of its parts.  Instead of spotlighting weaknesses, we gain everyone's strengths.

I surrender my idea of the way things should be and I gain grace for myself as well.

That's just how He rolls.



grace and peace,
m

More like this?
Love Does, our story
Nora's Cents
The Truth, and I saw it right there in Sunday School

Double, double, toil and trouble; when I feel like a bad Mom

Joining Kathi Lipp today hoping to encourage some other Moms-in-the-Trenches by airing my own dirty laundry.  You are not alone!



Double, double, toil and trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake,
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,--
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth, boil and bubble.
--from Macbeth

Hell-broth.  
Yeah, that's me sometimes.
I also do quite a bit of bubbling, toiling and troubling.
I don't know what a fenny snake is but sometimes I have an adder's fork for a tongue.

With three kids, I find myself talking most of the time.  Instructing, answering questions, reminding, answering questions, acting as referee, calling them to dinner, and answering questions.  Sometimes I even find myself...I also fuss every day.

I am starting to get on my own nerves.

There is a kid in my life, yeah, he's one of mine and sometimes you would think he doesn't have feelings.  Talking to that boy is like talking to a brick wall.  So, to get through, sometimes you need to use a hammer. I don't mean literally, I mean strong words, not foul language, just big, deep words.

Twice this week I cut that boy to the quick.

Both times I was wrong to do it.  Both times I used my big words to make a point that was irrelevant, unnecessary and careless.  If a friend spoke to me like that we'd have to have a long talk on the porch.

I cut my boy with my words and I saw it on his face.

Hell-broth, that's what my words were made from this week.  I fell again.

I apologized and pray that he forgets over time.  Literally, I pray that he forgets my ugliness, but who's to say if he can?

I tell my kids to listen more than they speak.  You know, the whole "God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason" thing.  

Practice what you preach, girl.  Practice what you preach.

If I listened to that boy, maybe I would know how to get through that brick wall, how to put velvet on the hammer.

Too many words are like a hell-broth, all full of junk, but certainly a charm of powerful trouble.

Powerful trouble.

So maybe I keep my dog tongues and frog toes to myself a little more.  

Maybe I make my powerful charms out of love and verses and acts of kindness instead of too many words.

If you see a big, black kettle laying by the street, I don't want it back.
m


How do you balance correcting behaviors with staying positive?  Consider sharing your advice here or on Facebook before you share so we can all chat...
Traveler on Facebook here


More posts like this:
Confessions of a Reformed Helicopter Parent
Yesterday: oh my words!

Letting Them Bloom

This must be the 13th post in the Bloom Where You're Planted series instigated, yes I said instigated, by The Nester.  I say "instigated" because this blogging every day stuff is hard.  I want to skip it.  But if I weren't writing to you my friend, if I weren't looking for good stuff in my life, I would probably be staring blankly at the TV.  I figure for me, right now, this is better!

This "blooming where you're planted" stuff isn't just for me.  It isn't just for grownups who pout because this fridge is smaller than the other one or introverted moms who would prefer to hide in their own little heads and not make the friends they desperately need.

The kiddos need to bloom, too.

They need to be allowed to bloom, to make their own new life in this new place.

They need help to find their way.

Robert started school at a traditional, public school for the first time in his life on September 17.  This is the right thing for right now.  My high energy, extroverted boy was wilting at home with his introverted momma who used up all her words by noon each day.  Big decisions are always complicated but I have to admit that at this time, it is the right thing for this child.

This week he brought home his second invitation to a birthday party.  I know nothing about this kid, these people, this place.  Nothing.  This is not my usual mode of operation, to drop my kid off with people I don't know to do who knows what.

On several occasions this week I contemplated losing the invitation and hoping he would forget.  "Do you really want to go?"  I asked.

I knew this was my problem, my own personality holding this boy back.

I knew it wasn't fair.  Or right.

Grab the purse and throw in a book, prepared to sit there the entire two and a half hours if circumstances or safety issues warrant my presence.  Take the boy.

It was a small place about eight minutes from my house where people can race some kind of toy car on a slot track or something.  The party was the only gig going on.  The birthday boy's parents greeted me at the door with a big sister, plenty of people to keep an eye on eight boys indoors.

I thanked the boy's mom for inviting my son, the new kid.

Robert's eyes pleaded for me to go.  So I did.

When my husband brought him home, he informed me that the folks there said Robert was the life of the party.  He beamed as he told us about his new friends.

I didn't see this coming, but it's right.

Letting him bloom, getting out of the way, this is right.

learning to let him bloom,
m

If you only read three others from this series:
Love Does, our story
Good to Know...another story about Robert settling in...
When you move back home...

If I Were Someplace Else

This about the 8th or 9th post in the Bloom Where You're Planted series.  Thirty-one days of learning to put down roots and grow and really live right here.  The Nester started all this so you might want to click on over there and check her out.  To read the rest of the posts in the Bloom Where You're Planted series, go here Bloom.

Wishing to be somewhere else is a dangerous game.  I suspect it would pretty much kill your chances of living fully where you are.

I am not doing that today.

I am going to practice being grateful today.

Today, right here, is a list of things that would NOT have happened if I were someplace else:

My kids playing for hours at the park with their cousins.

Seeing the sunset over the pond while Eight counts frog calls in the dark for Frogwatch USA.

Signing school papers for Almost Ten and listening to him discuss the personality traits of various teachers.  (Apparently Mr. C and I have much in common.  In other words, don't annoy him either due to his tendency toward crabbiness.)

A raccoon standing in a flower pot on my front porch eating bird seed.  (Yeah, I know that isn't a raccoon, apparently my flowerpot is a wildlife magnet cause that's where he was.)

A raccoon/skunk trap in my yard.

Eight getting mad at his daddy for ruining his science experiment by watering one of the four plants meant for his science experiment.  He allegedly watered the one that was supposed to get "no water" when he washed the porch after removing the raccoon trap.

Making Angie's three layer chocolate cake.  Wow.

The kids making plans to spend Christmas Eve at their grandparents, without us!

Things that would not have happened if we were somewhere else. Good things.  

I am sure there would have been other good things, but not these things.  These things are precious, and I am watching for more!

m

More Than an Existence

"The purpose of life isn't to arrive at death safely..."
Christine Caine

Days fly by and it would be easy to give in to exhaustion, to wish for the end of our To Do list.  But is that really what we want?  The end of the list?

Maybe the list should be revised.

Our goal, you and me, is not to survive the day but to thrive in the day.

Our goal is definitely NOT to make it to the end but to make the end, the middle and all the rest as full of life as we are able.  We are to make life.

We are here to live and in life, to glorify.

We are gifted for this.

It is through the life we live that others can see life and want it, too.

Wherever we are today, you and me, live well right there.

I feel a cool, clean breeze in this calm moment where I can complete an entire thought while my children play in the Oklahoma sun.  

Where are you really, right now?

Good to Know

Even though we had been there at least every year for their whole lives, this summer was different.  When we were there in July, the three children were, well, they were strange.  They were quiet and as four days passed, they got quieter.  It was embarrassing really.  I felt like a bad mother.  

Then we moved.  Now that place we used to visit is just down the road.  This time when we went to visit their grandparents, they were strange.  It was embarrassing really.  I felt like a proud mother.  It was wonderful to see those three children bubbling with energy and emotion and raw enthusiasm for life and making memories.  

At one point I thought my daughter was going to stand  in her chair at the table trying to tell a story to the family.  Her family. 

We were celebrating Almost Ten's birthday.  He smiled when he saw the balloons tied to a line from the house to the bell.  His smile bloomed full when he saw the sign on the front porch.  The sign they tied there just for him.

He knew the cake was going to be there so that was no surprise but the pinata on the table blew his mind.  When we all stood around watching him open his gifts, gifts chosen just for him, that boy turned redder than an atomic fireball candy.  The best part was that he knew those gifts were chosen for him.  He knew that his grandparents and his aunt had picked them out just for him.  He knew we had conspired to make this special, for him.

His laughter rang around the house as he chased his brother and sister.

He said he'd never had a birthday party before.  I frowned, we always have a birthday party.  Then I realized what he meant, "But it was always just the five of us, wasn't it?"

It was strange really, how the children had changed.  Their perspective had changed.  They are no longer visitors in this place.  Now they belong.  The people here know these children now in ways they had only glimpsed before and it feels good to be known.

It feels good to be known.

It's good to know.

love,

m

This continues the 31 day series on blooming where you are planted.   For more encouragement on choosing to live completely right here, right now, follow along by subscribing or liking the page on Facebook.  The other posts are here:

Bloom Where You're Planted
Blooms Start With Buds
Roots
It Takes Work to Make Blooms

Grateful for Today

This month I am writing for 31 days on how to "Bloom Where You're Planted" and its late and its Friday and I almost forgot entirely.  (Thanks to Kellie R. for remind me tonight that I blog!)  

Part of building a life right where you are is finding wonderful little things right, well, where you are.  And there.  And over here.  So, I don't want to keep you but let me show you just a few of my little things.

Behind every one of them is a big, beautiful prayer of thanks.

Feel free to share your own wonderful things...
m


The other posts so far...
Bloom Where You're Planted
Blooms Start With Buds
Roots
It Takes Work to Make Blooms

It Takes Work to Make Blooms

This is the fourth post in the 31 day series, "Bloom Where You're Planted" and let me say, this takes work!

It's hard to post every day.  It's hard for me to even remember to post every day. 

I am the woman set a daily alarm to remind me to pick up my 4th grader.  Seriously, I am scared to death that I am going to be late to get my boy.  Sure, I would remember eventually...what was I saying?

We are trying to think big, learn the layout of this town and find what our kids call our "long-time" house.

There are boxes to unpack, totally new routines and unexpected expenses.

My temper is often short and there is much hard work.

If you want beautiful blooms and good roots, you have to do the work.  You have to do the work when the earth is still rocky and barren and maybe you can't see anything good.

At least not yet.

Seedlings start small and they are fragile and tough at the same time.  You have to protect seedlings from frost but even tiny plants can grow through concrete.  I choose to keep sowing.

The rules of the harvest say you reap what you sow, you reap later than you sow, and you reap more than you sow.

I will keep sowing.

Bloom Where You're Planted

"Bloom where you're planted."  

Mary Engelbreit

Maybe I have the heart of a nomad.

I moved 13 times that I can remember--before I was 23 years old.  Maybe I am just not afraid to move.

Maybe I know that this world is temporary and so it's hard to feel at home anywhere.

Less than a month ago, my husband and I moved our family 1,280 miles to be near my family.  That wonderful man changed jobs, gave up some retirement, and spent quite a bit of money to bring me back home.

I lived in North Carolina for almost 13 years and now I'm back home in Oklahoma.

I wasted alot of time in North Carolina hoping for a possibility and wasting some of that present.

God forgive me.

Forgive me for squandering a million little gifts.  Beautiful days at the beach or in the cool of the mountains, mild winters and wisteria vines that covered acres of trees like a big, purple net.  Pine trees everywhere and tangy barbecue sauce that soaked into pulled pork leaving only red pepper and a tangy bite that goes perfectly with cole slaw.  Kudzu.  People, this Oklahoma girl had never seen anything like that before, vines like great, green ghosts covering entire miles.

Forgive me, too, for complaining when I finally got what I wanted.  Complaint is a dangerous thing.

Though I have been transplanted and though we are still in the throes of adaptation, I am making a choice.

I will bloom where I am planted.  This time I will bloom.

I will not compare the two lives I have lived.  I will miss old friends and continue to love them and I will leave this house and make more friends.  I will not get  my feelings hurt because I will choose to love here.

I will look for beautiful blooms that I haven't seen in 13 years.

I will make a life right here.

There are many beautiful things blooming already.  

One kid is at home at the local elementary school.  He is blooming.  This neighborhood just feels good.  The time I have had with family is precious, so is knowing it is not limited by miles anymore.  Old friends have come out of nowhere to help us.   I soak these things right up, and I bloom.

Who would have thought blooms came in the form of Braum's brownie fudge sundae and sweet barbecue beef brisket?  The constant breeze that is sometimes a hot wind and how everyone has a fenced yard because everyone seems to have a dog.  All the wonderful geographical names that come from the Native American language and make me smile because as yet I am the only one in my family that can pronounce them correctly.

My children will really know my family.  That may be the sweetest bloom of all.

The weight of what my husband did for me still surrounds me all heavy at times.  It is as powerful as the summer sun and I bloom.

It feels good to have roots in the dirt.  It feels good to bloom.

m

This post is the first in a month-long series where I get to go visit over at The Nesting Place.  This is quite an endeavor, a post every day for 31 days, but it is good to do hard things, right?  These posts, Bloom Where You're Planted, will be in the Inspiration & Faith category.  I am sure you will find lots of goodies there, enjoy!

small time

Taking a five-minute party break with Lisa Jo Baker this Friday.  Want to know more?  Check it out at: Five-Miinute-Friday.  It's Lisa Jo's party and she gets to pick.  Today she inspires us to write about one thing: small.  It amazes me how folks can interpret one word so many ways.  Click around at Lisa Jo's page and read what other people wrote. As for me, here, have a small piece of my heart.

Small time girl, grown up to be a small time woman.  I'm good with that.  Don't want attention, really, just can't quit talking here on this page.  Enjoying the idea that there are other women out there like little ol' me.

Small town girl, going from one small town to another.  Love livin' where you don't need a cell phone to find somebody.  There are only three places to go.  If your friend isn't home, she's at the grocery or Sonic.  Check your watch and take a guess...Sonic has a happy hour at 2PM.

Small hearts, can they grow big?  Sometimes it doesn't feel like it.  I fuss small words in a big voice and I wonder how my heart got so hard.  Dr. Seuss says the heart of the grinch grew two sizes one day and we all know the wisdom of Dr. Seuss.  Maybe there is at least small hope for me.

Small days, trapping me here in this home.  Trapping me here until I remember what I believe, that this is no small thing that I do, mothering these kids and loving this man and building this home with the hands of my soul.  Big, beautiful, small days.

Small gifts.  Little boxes with big things inside.  Small gifts might just be the best gifts of all.

loving the small,
m

More?
Blessedly Ordinary
More from Five-Minute-Friday: Fall
For your friends, "I Wanna Be Like You"