Satisfaction

Recently I have found myself wondering what it is that I really want.  I have a wonderful family that I love dearly.  I have a good job with hours that work perfectly for my family.  I have enough money to pay the bills and a little left to stick in savings.  We have a nice home with plenty of comforts.  We are blessed with good health in general.  I attend a great church where I have the opportunity to sing and where I lead the youth group.  Yet I kept feeling like something was missing.  I went through a phase where I really wanted to go back to school and continue my education (crazy I know - I actually LIKE school) but money and time were an issue.  Next I was possessed by an intense desire to take piano lessons again, but I’m already paying for violin lessons for my daughter, so now was not the time for that either.  I then decided that what I needed was more responsibility and challenge from my job, but that would very likely change my work schedule which would in turn interrupt my family’s schedule.  I embarked upon the meal planning routine a few weeks ago, which turned out to be a good idea & seems to be working well for us so far, but even that was born out of this series of desires to change/improve myself in some way.

What was wrong with me?  What was I missing that was leaving me so dissatisfied? 

I’m not sure if I have the whole answer, but I’ve been putting some thought into the issue and this is what I’ve come up with.  It’s not rocket science, or even life changing, but I think I’m on the right track with this.

I’ve been forgetting to be consciously grateful for all my blessings lately.  I’ve let myself get caught up in the worldly thinking that more is better, and though I’ve been spending time in prayer – it has been lacking in the praise and thanksgiving department.  I let myself get caught up in praying for the urgent needs of my friends, family members and the kids in my youth group.  Now, I know that intercessory prayer is important and I know that God listens when I bring others to him in prayer, but I was missing the part of prayer that satisfies my soul and gives me hope and purpose.  I have a good and faithful God who loves and provides for me.  I don’t need anything more in this life than the things He has seen fit to give me, yet I don’t want to become so comfortable that I stagnate in my relationship with my Creator.  My desire is to find the balance between satisfied and seeking… but I think that is a topic for a future blog.  Right now I just need to start by working on the conciously grateful thing.

Thank you, God, for using my own ramblings to gently remind me of the depth of your love for me.  I acknowledge that your blessings are very real and bountiful in my life and I deny any place in my life to the worldly dissatisfaction that seeks to consume me.  Help me to remember how important it is to praise you and to regularly count my blessings as I spend time in prayer with you.  Help me remember to look for the goodness and beauty in the world around me, because you are a Holy God - great and mighty, not only in power, but also in love.

Amen.

Routines

Why is it that I struggle so much with setting (and FOLLOWING) routines for myself?  I’ve read and thoroughly believe every word that Flylady Marla Cilley preaches about making routines that work (www.flylady.net).  And I know for a fact that they do work – I am very strict with the evening routines for my kids, especially the elementary age daughter.  She functions best when she eats at six, showers at seven, reads a chapter of our current book with me at eight, and then prayers go up, music turns on and the lights go out by 8:15.  We wash clothes on the weekend when she has time to put them up right away & we use a 5 hole sweater shelf that hangs from the closet rod to organize her school uniforms for the coming week. 

I know that I would function better if I had everything planned out and ready to go like that, but there is something inside me that just completely REBELS at the thought of me having to keep to a schedule like that - especially having a set bedtime!  It’s almost like trying to make a typical 4 yr old eat brussel sprouts – the fit pitching, whiney little brat just takes over this otherwise sensible adult.  I sleep better when I go to bed by 10.  I get up better when I go to bed by 10.  I’m not accomplishing anything productive if I am up past 10.  In fact, I’m usually playing on Facebook or dozing off in front of the TV by this point in the evening, so WHY do I not just send myself on to bed where I can actually get some rest? 

A whole nother schedule related issue (terrible grammar, I know and I apologize to all my grammaraholic friends, but that is just how my brain says it): Why do I refuse to make a cleaning schedule and then stick with it?  Instead, it all gets put off until the weekend and then takes several hours instead of just 20 or 30 minutes per day.  Also, I usually try to make menu plans before I grocery shop on Saturday morning, but it is such a painful chore that I put it off until the last minute & then harass the kids with it.  “What do you want for dinner this week?”  “Pizza”, “Hamburgers”, “Chicken Nuggets” – “Don’t y’all remember that we are trying to eat healthier? And besides, we just ate that this last week…”  It’s not a very good start to the already un-fun weekly grocery gettin trip.

But enough complaining - let me tell you about my latest plan for self improvement.  My mother suggested this over the weekend and it struck a cord with me, so I am going to give it a go.  A multi-week rotating menu plan!  This is not a revolutionary new idea, I know, but for some reason it makes sense to me now.  She suggested a three week rotation, but my family has more favorite meals than that, so I started writing down ideas and came up with a six week version of our “Supper Solution”.  All the Mondays are meatless.  All the Tuesdays and Thursdays feature a salad plus a meat.  All the Wednesdays are relatively quick to fix because we are so busy that night.  It’s not Nobel Peace Prize worthy, but maybe it can bring a little peace to my Saturday morning grocery list making routine.

So why do I spill my guts about this for all of y’all to sit back and secretly laugh at me and my bratty, disorganized inner self and my feeble attempt at beating that brat into submission?  Well, I guess I’m hoping for some accountability here with my latest attempt at getting organized.  Not that I actually want any of you to call me up and harass me about my progress.  (And if you remember my phone phobia thing, you know darn well that I’m not going to call anyone and report in.)  It’s just that if I’ve put it out there, maybe I’ll do better at following through.  That’s what I’m hoping for anyway.

Sleep well tonight on my behalf – I’m going to stay up too late again tonight and then wake up tired.  I don’t think my inner brat puts up with too many changes (even good ones) all at the same time. 

Nyquil Nightmares

I am very prone to having strange dreams.  Very real feeling strange dreams.  Very vividly detailed real feeling strange dreams.  I used to just share them with the girls at the office to give them a laugh, but now that I have a blog I somehow feel obligated, and interestingly, excited to share this one with the world.

First, let me begin by explaining about the Nyquil.  Every time I take some, I end up having one of those vividly detailed real feeling strange dreams and then I pop right up in bed wide awake and there is no going back to sleep for me.  I do not understand why Nyquil doesn’t last all night for me.  No matter what time I take it, or how badly I need it, it only lasts for about 5 hours – 6 if I am really lucky.  Why exactly does this medicine intended to help you sleep while curing the whole plethora of sick symptoms not last all night?  Anyway – my body must be extremely sensitive to the meds found in Nyquil because last night at 10:30 I went and poured a dose & brought it back to bed for my sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever so he could rest husband.  And then I went to right to sleep, had the strangely vivid dream I am about to share with you, and popped right up out of bed editing this blog post in my mind after exactly six hours of sleep.  Let me tell you, I NEVER pop out of bed after only six hours of sleep.  I could sleep for 10 hours most of the time and even fully rested and wide awake, I still don’t POP out of bed – I EASE out.  So why did I get the Nyquil side effects without actually taking the Nyquil?  I don’t think I can even begin to explain this one, so let’s just move on to the dream…

So here goes.  I warned you it was strange, so read on at your own risk… 

In real life, I work in the relatively small office area of a pretty large manufacturing and repair facility.  In my dream, the mechanics were all squished up in the small office area and there were thousands of cubicles all over the plant floor.  Every cubicle I passed seemed to have a facebook friend in it.  And every person that I thought I knew sounded like someone completely different when they spoke to me.  There were accents from all around the globe coming out of the mouths of all these familiar people.  Then the really strange and real feeling part was that when I spoke back to them, I took on their accent!  Now, occasionally I’ve been asked where I’m from because people couldn’t place the accent – the southern drawl only comes out really bad once I get tired – the only giveaway most of the time is that I say y’all.  Y’all is as natural to me as gravy on a biscuit.  Oh, and nice.  My son always says that I am the most country sounding person ever when I say “Be nice” to him and the daughter because it comes out more like “Be neyes y’all”.  

Anyway, back to the dream.  I was trying to finish up at work and my oddly Indian-accented boss gave me one more assignment to finish before I could leave.  I kept saying “I have to get my daughter from daycare – I’m going to be late!”  (Understand please, she is long since out of daycare.)  So I finally finish up and head out to my car.  Only there were these people standing all around it.   Some leaning down to look under it & several surrounding it to look in the windows.  I ask what’s going on and they say they just love my car and want to see the inside.  So I open it up & it is a crusty, nasty, piled high mess.  My car is NOT like this in reality - I’m not saying it’s perfect by any means, but dirt in the floormats and the occasional stray cd, a piece of junk mail, or possibly a forgotten stuffed animal is about as bad as it gets.  I was mortified in my dream & the people just started pawing through the trash and food bags trying to see the seat fabric.  It was rather disgusting.  No.  It was REALLY disturbingly disgusting. 

And then I woke up. 

And felt some strange compulsion to share this dream with you. 

If you have any insight, please feel free to share.  I’m not sure what this dream has to say about me, but I sure wish I had actually taken that Nyquil last night because then I would at least have an excuse.

Have a great day!

…and sweet dreams tonight!

Meatless Monday

Today was our first attempt at Meatless Monday (no innuendo intended - this is not that kind of blog ya know) and how do you think it went over?  If you guessed a favorable outcome, you are a winner!  The lentil soup and oatmeal bread were a total success!  With the help of a little Tabasco, even the son had to admit he liked it.  The daughter was my kitchen helper for the afternoon, so she was excited about it long before it was ready to sample.  She was so busy talking about how good the yeast smelled and kept tasting the bread dough and snacking on the raw veggies that I didn’t know if she would even have room for supper.

You might ask what inspired me to try this little foray into the world of vegetarian cooking & I would have to be honest and say it’s because I’m, ummm, well-padded (fat is such an ugly word).  Lately I find that I’m having trouble staying motivated to exercise, so I figured I’d better try to find some simple ways for us to eat more healthful meals so I don’t pack back on ALL the pounds I had managed to lose last year.  I brought up this Meatless Monday idea and the need for us to eat more salads with the hubby over the weekend and couldn’t believe it when he agreed to give them both a try.  I guess his ok for one vegetarian menu per week is not a total surprise since one of his all time favorite meals is eggplant parmesan, but I really thought I would get more resistance to the idea.  Thankfully he went along with it and we ended up with a successful first attempt.  Hopefully I'll find lots more yummy meatless recipes and we will be able to keep this idea up for awhile.  If you have any suggestions for our next Meatless Monday menu (or any other ideas for eating healty), please feel free to comment - our waistbands will thank you.  

Happy & Healthy Eating!

Sweet Little Nothings

Don’t you just love all the sweet little things that your kids make and give to you?  I am not talking about the school & church projects that are well planned and semi-supervised by teachers.  Don’t get me wrong, those are great and I have a boxful of them that I will cherish for all my life.  But what I’m talking about right now are the sweet little nothings – the scraps and bits and pieces that anyone other than a mother would think were just trash.  The tiny sketches with misspelled words and buttons and beads and ribbons taped or glued on.  The sheets of notebook paper professing unending love and then carefully rolled up like a scroll and stickered so thoroughly that you have trouble opening it.  The crooked construction paper hearts and the pipe cleaner flowers.  The favorite rock or playground treasure, sacrificed to make the perfect impromptu gift just for me.

I know from experience with my high school son that the days of receiving these gifts are numbered, so I find that I have trouble parting with any of these precious little gifts from my elementary school daughter.  Well, to be honest, I just don’t throw any of it away.  Ever.  This is making quite a mess out of my top dresser drawer, but I don’t care.  I can open that drawer at any point in time and I feel a smile that starts in my heart. 

It may not be a messy drawer full of sweet little nothings for you, but I hope that you too have something that warms you from the inside and makes you feel loved.  Something that can make you forget all about the spilled milk and whiney mornings.  I’ll bet it’s a little bit like how God feels when we take the time to thank Him for His love and sacrificially give back to Him with our time and talents.  Our efforts are far from perfect, but when they are given from a grateful heart, I’m pretty sure they make God smile.     

Keeping in touch

I’ve been thinking a lot about friends lately.  I guess it’s been on my mind because one of my work friends is moving far, far away – Wednesday was her last day with us.  In all likelihood, I will never see her again because she doesn’t have any real ties to the area.  I hate this, but I have to admit that I’m not very good at keeping in touch.  Oh, I follow lots of old co-workers and friends on Facebook, but it’s not very often that I make a comment on their status updates or send them a message.  I am even more terrible at actually picking up the phone and really catching up with them.  I don’t know why I dread talking on the phone so much – if someone calls me, it’s not like I don’t have a great time talking to them.  It’s kinda like performance anxiety or something. 

Is what I have to say important enough to bother them with a call?  

What if they are busy & answer the phone anyway, but then wish they hadn’t because they have so much to do?  

What if I run out of things to say? 

What if they don’t answer – do I leave a message?  

If I have to leave a message, what do I want to say?  

What if their spouse or kid answers, do I have to make small talk with them before I can talk to my friend?

Why exactly was I even thinking about making this call? 

It’s really a very stressful thing for me.  The only person I don’t stress over calling is my mom.  Other than her, you should count yourself among the lucky few if you have ever received a call from me.  It’s almost like I’m making a donation to the phone & cell companies each month because I just don’t talk very much. 

And since it’s hard to make plans to see people if you don’t ever pick up the phone to call them, you can be sure that I hardly ever actually see anyone outside of my family & my coworkers.  It’s not that I don’t love you guys because I really do.  I care what’s going on in your life and I love to know what’s going on with your family.  You just happened to become friends with the world’s worst person at keeping in touch.  So if you are out there and we were friends at school or work or church at some point in the past, please know that I still care.  I’ll try to do better at commenting on your Facebook posts, but I’m afraid that even after talking about it, I still haven’t overcome my phone phobia (that might take professional help).  And if all we ever get to do anymore is say “Hi!” as we pass each other in Walmart, know that with that “Hi!” comes all the love and best wishes of an old friend who misses you.  

Crackhead

Let me begin this by saying that I have never in all of my life done any form of illegal drug.  I do not support the use of illegal drugs.  I don’t even like having to take prescription drugs.  I am against the legalization of marijuana.  I was a proud member of Students Against Drunk Driving back in high school.

Just Say NO! 

Drugs are for thugs.

Wasted?  So is your life.

Get High on Life, not on drugs.

Drugs: You use, you lose.

Hugs Not Drugs

Do dope, lose hope

This is your brain [hand holds up an egg]  This is your brain on drugs [egg cracks into frying pan & sizzles]  -  Anybody else remember that one?  It is my all time favorite anti drug ad.  And speaking of favorite commercials, does anyone remember the 1980’s ad with the dehydrated food cubes & the voiceover that said “SEE-rip on that?” while dropping a little brown cube of syrup onto a steaming stack of pancakes? What were they actually trying to sell with that one?  It has bothered me for years that I can’t remember what they were selling…

Anyway, back to the topic.  The above was actually a pretty good example of why, according to my high school son, I am a crackhead.  Lately I find that I am taking more of a stream of conscious approach to life.  If it pops in my head & seems kinda humorous, I’ve just been letting it out instead of pondering if it will truly be received as funny by others until the moment has passed and there is no point it sharing it anymore.  I also tend to make lots of funny faces.  And burp.  I’m thinking that last one is more of an acid reflux kind of thing, but since the last thing I want is another prescription to take every day (see first paragraph – don’t even like prescriptions, remember?), I’m just ignoring it for as long as possible. 

But now I’m off track again.  Another example of why he says I’m a crackhead happened last night while riding in the car.  In the last week, there have been two black bear sightings very near our house.  So, while driving home (by myself) from work yesterday I started thinking “Da Bears” from the ancient Chris Farley sports bit on SNL.  Then I drove past a field of cows and appropriately thought “Da Bulls”.  I said it out loud, just to see if I could get the right accent from the bit and thoroughly cracked myself up, laughing out loud for the last mile on the way home.  Fast-forward to the evening.  While driving home from church with the kids last night, we drove past the other bear sighting spot and I decided to share the afternoon’s antics with my children.  My elementary school daughter was promptly frightened to be thinking of bears in the dark.  But my ever loving and faithful son was quick to proclaim that I must be on crack. 

He was laughing and methinks it was more “at” me than “with” me.  I really don’t mind though – would you like to know why?  Because he is in high school & he is still talking to me.  This is the age when kids tend to clam up and not talk to their parents, but we are still conversing and laughing together.  Now, I am not kidding myself.  I know that there are lots of things that he chooses not to share, and that is ok with me – I’m sure most of them are things that I wouldn’t want to hear anyway.  But the lines of communication are still open.  I think I've still got a chance at getting through if there is ever anything serious we need to discuss.  And if I manage to make him laugh while getting that point across, I’ll know he listened because he took the time to call me a crackhead.

A Confession

Do you ever find yourself pulled in so many directions that you find it hard to concentrate and do any one of those things well?  Yep, I thought you would identify with that - you’re probably thinking to yourself “What a DUMB question!”  Well, I have no intention of addressing that problem as a whole here, after all, I am writing a blog, not a self help book.  Anyway, if I told you I had found the solution I’d be lying like a dog.  And since my little beagle happens to have a terrible affinity for a particular field where ticks thrive, I really don’t want anything to do with being a dog.

Instead, I’m going to focus on one particular area where I just can’t seem to seem to make heads or tails of myself and really make a COMMITMENT.  In order to do that, I must make a confession…  This is hard to admit & it’s going to surprise even the closest of friends who read this.  Well, not really.  Anyone who has ever been to my house has seen the warning signs of this particular problem.

Here goes…

It stinks to have to admit this…

I have Crafting ADHD.

There, I said it.  My attention span for working on most any craft never lasts for more than one day out of a month.  Don’t get me wrong, I really love to craft.  I really enjoy most of the forms of crafting that I have ever tried.  Except maybe knitting – that doesn’t do so much for me.  My hands tense up and start to hurt.  Then my stitches get really tight and my projects get all wonky and out of shape.  But I digress.  I will usually get hyper excited about a new type of crafting and can’t wait to try it.  I plan out exactly what I want to do and then go to Joanne’s, Michaels or Hobby Lobby on one weekend to stock up on all the supplies I’ll need to give the new obsession a go.  Then the next weekend I get to try it.  I’m not sure, but I think I get more of a thrill out of the waiting, planning and buying than I do from the actual crafting.  I have all these visions in my head of how wonderful it’s going to turn out, but then somehow (big surprise here, prepare yourself) it ends up looking like a first attempt!  All my creativity and passion have let me down in the finished product.  Oh, I’ll eventually come back and try it again – might as well, 'cause now I have all the supplies – and I know that every attempt will make me better at it, but it’s just such a let down when it doesn’t look like what I had envisioned.

Just to give you an idea of how bad I have this dread disease, here is a small sample of the items you will find in my craft room.  I wouldn’t dare try to name everything I’ve gathered over the years - you would start by feeling overwhelming pity for my condition and then undoubtedly get bored and wander off to a new blog.

-Yarn – bought it for knitting, but as I said before that is not my thing so I got all kinds of crochet hooks and books & am slowly progressing with that

-Ribbons – to make bows for hair, wreaths & presents

-Embroidery Floss (a huge selection of colors), aida cloth, needles & a couple of cross stitch projects started back in the 90’s

-Sewing Machine & Serger

-Fabric & LOTS of it

-Scrapbook & Card Making supplies

-Stamps, Ink Pads, Embossing Powders

-Paint, Paint Brushes, Canvases, etc

-Polymer Clay in every color & every possible tool needed to work with it

-Beads in every possible rainbow color, jewelry wire, clasps, etc.

-Scissors of every description and size

-Pliers, those specific to jewelry & several more pairs with different tips

-Buttons, doodads & tidbits galore - basically, if it could ever possibly be used to decorate something, I can’t bear to part with it.

-And, the holy grail of crafting, my new Cricut machine

Well, I’m not sure that I have actually learned anything about myself or my condition by posting this confession, but I think I feel a little better about it all.  It’s like airing out your dirty laundry.  It’s not really any cleaner, but maybe it doesn’t stink quite so bad.

Purpose & Intent

I have always been a firm believer that no endeavor should be undertaken without a clear purpose or intention.  You should always have the end product in mind when starting something new.  Take for instance a recipe.  There are not very many of us in this world (with perhaps the exception of my sister) that would attempt to make a recipe if there was no title to tell us what we were making.  At the very least, I would need a picture showing me what to expect as the best scenario final outcome.  Another example that comes to mind is a puzzle.  If there is no picture to work from or at the very least a vivid description to give me a clue what to expect, I would never be inclined to pick up the first piece.  Without a clearly defined purpose or intention, I tend to hang out in the same old ruts - just treading water and longing for a boat to come sweeping by and make some waves.

But this blog…I’m still not sure why I started it.  I have been inspired by reading the blogs of others & I have enjoyed journaling off and on in the past, but do I really have enough to say that will be worth anyone’s time to read it?  Do my mental wanderings have enough substance to publish out there on the world wide web where once shared, you can never take it back?  Should I publish my feeble attempts at crafting & photography?  Would anyone care to read about my strange dreams and funny everyday stories?  Do I want to share my personal journey with God & what He is teaching me?  Just how personal do I want to get when strangers will read my musings and judge me by my latest blog entry?

I don’t have any of those answers yet and I am breaking my own rule by starting this thing without a clear purpose and intent.  Hopefully, it will become a chance to clear my head and learn more about myself.  If not, this too shall pass – after all, good intentions are only good when they are followed with action.  In this case, I sure hope the intention make itself clear to me soon because the first step has already been taken.

Welcome to my journey!

What is normal anyway?

I grew up in a very "normal" family.  Well, looking back we actually had quite a few quirks, but it was a very Andy Griffith/Leave it to Beaver upbringing.  Original Mom married to original Dad, three kids, a dog, a cat, brick house out in the country.  We knew all the neighbors and went to church with most of them.  We moved once, but that was just around the corner to a bigger house and it happened before I can even remember.  All three of us went to the local schools from elementary on through high school, so by the time I (the baby) got to a grade all the teachers either loved me if they had taught my sister, or dreaded me if they had taught my brother.  If they happened to have taught both brother & sister, I think they must have been a little leary about how different I might be in comparison.  I got good grades and was a bit of a teachers pet, so I usually won them over without too much effort.

But then I grew on up and found myself in love with (and then pretty quickly married to) a man raised in an entirely different upbringing.  I had never really questioned my ideas about "normal" until we started comparing our childhoods.  To him, normal was moving several times a year and changing schools at the drop of a hat.  Having parents who fought regularly and lived seperatly from time to time was a concept as foreign to me as having a Sunday dinner with nothing to serve for dessert - I just couldn't fathom it.  I had never even been to an emergency room until I had to take him to get a metal shaving drilled out of his eye.  "Normal" was suddenly taking on a new meaning for me. 

It has been a crazy ride from way back then until today, but I have come to realize over time that normal is just a matter of what you can get used to.  Life is not perfect and it changes quickly, so today's "normal" is really just an illusion, hence the blog name "Illusions Of Normal".  Welcome to my life - lets see just how much I have to say that is truly worth sharing.