Stumbling Towards Perfect

I am far too old to be crushing on someone born in 1986 (although Demi Moore has done much for the Cougar Movement), but let's just say if I were to be crushing on someone thirteen years younger than me, it would have to be Edward Cullin of Twilight fabulosity. I read the book in two days thanks in part to the Young Adult writing style and also in part to the fact I spent two glorious days sans children. The book left me full of those wonderful feel-good dreams of young love: "It will ALWAYS be like this!" aahhh.... So I convinced Matthew to go to the movie: Why wouldn't he want to spend his birthday taking me to a love story? It had action in it. I spent the next day running from packed store to packed store (darn those early Christmas shoppers) to get a copy of the second book of the series only to be let down time and time again. Who knew everyone else in the world has already read it? Who knew the 4th book was being released? I will get the book... in the meanti...

Last night I was attempting to shop in the grocery store. One of those trips you hadn't planned on making. I picked the girls up, Matthew was with me, he wanted to get to Open Gym at 6:00pm, and rushing home I remember we're out of toilet paper and tampons. Sorry, but that's a stop we're making. Run in, run out. Sounds simple enough, right? Then the temper tantrum struck. We've all been there: a desperate to control the situation overreaction to having to do something you don't want to do. (Except mine is 13.) I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the store reminiscent of when she was two. The exagerations (pained look, pleas of "Please don't hurt me" strategically voiced as we passed fellow customers) continued until we were in the car and once home she was sent to her room for a much needed nap. That's when the threat came in (and they all threaten). "I'm going to go live at my dad's!" My calm response: "That...

Did you know that kids will ask an average of 9 times before a parent gives in. NINE TIMES!! Two things stand out to me: (1) that a child can be so strong-willed as to ask 9 times.... and, (2) that I give in somewhere around 4 or 5 (my kids have it easy). "Parents have this illusion that if they give their child the reason why they can't do what they want, the child will stop wanting it." Oh, boy. Didn't I learn that a tad too late. Raising the Jellybean (my oldest, now 13) I felt strongly that I wanted to give her a voice. (Probably because subconsciously I felt I didn't have one growing up.) I wanted to give her the words to use to defend herself and to explain herself. I wanted her to see that when you made a decision you should be able to back it up with why you chose what you did. I wanted her to have her beliefs and yet be able to explain why she believed what she did. I explained every decision I made in order to help teach her to be verbally responsible fo...

"An old Cherokee was teaching his young grandson one of life's important lessons. He told the young boy the following parable: 'There is a fight going on inside each of us. It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, rage, envy, regret, greed, arrogance, lies, false pride and ego. The second wolf is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, kindness, empathy, truth, compassion and faith.' The grandson thought for a moment, then asked, 'Which wolf will win the fight?' 'The one you feed,' his grandfather replied." It's easy to feed the evil wolf. The world encourages to nourish the traits he thrives on. We're bombarded with gossip magazines and "news" stories exposing the dirty laundry of someone famous. When feeling slighted "friends" may encourage us to 'get even.' The Jones' seem to always be doing better than us, flaunting their sucesses in the form of new cars a...

"The only thing you have to do to let weeds thrive in your life is nothing. And doing nothing is a choice." ~ Alicia Britt Chole I have a friend who purchased a new home about two years ago. She bragged (and I mean bragged) about the beautifully manicured lawn and immaculate gardens. I must admit a twinge of jealousy the first time I made it over. The grass was the most beautiful green velvet I'd ever seen. The sidewalk to the front porch flanked with tiny white flowers (for some reason it made me think of Alice in Wonderland). The shrubbery was nicely clipped and sculpted. Tulips proudly stood in an arrays of bold colors. Everything just looked perfect! I stopped by again near the end of this summer. The shrubs had limbs poking out all over, weeds grew up amongst the tulips, grass was growing in the sidewalk cracks: "What did you do to the lawn?" I blurted out. "Nothing," she answered. Nothing. She chose to do nothing. Here she was given this beauti...

We were blessed with a (mostly) kid-free weekend and absolutely no spending cash. This meant one thing of course: CLEANING. And clean we did. The yard: The birch (my favorite) sacrificed its life for the sake of a concrete landing pad for the soon to be hooked-up hot tub. The ugly metal clotheslines (and 6' of concrete blocks they stood on) were removed and filled. Dirt was placed around the house and graded in an effort to eliminate water in the basement. The burn pile stacked higher than the house itself. The main level: I found all my counter space. Yep. ALL of it. The fridge shed more than half of the papers attached to it via magnetic force. The rooms were dusted, swept, vacuumed, organized. The basement (and most dramatic transformation): The pool table moved to its new location. Carpet was installed, a couch, chairs, entertainment center & television were introduced, and a cozy family room was magically formed. One of the bedrooms was organized and cleaned to form a much...

With all the finger pointing going on these days, it's no wonder everyone has sore shoulders. It's almost like they all pulled something trying to quickly blame someone else. Ok. I get it. I'm too "black and white." I think things are either here or there. My lines are all drawn permanently with Sharpies... none of this "in the sand" stuff for me. But when something is YOUR responsibility shouldn't you man up and take that responsibility on?

I was listening to a discussion about feelings this morning. The point was made that so many people cannot adequately answer the question "How are you?" The speaker went on to say it was his opinion that we simply don't know ourselves well enough to answer the question; that we aren't in tune enough to know the many different feelings we're capable of, much less how to explain it. I agree - but I also think we're in a society that doesn't exactly value "listening." We rush, rush, rush around - breezing past people in hallways or on the sidewalk; we multi-task to the point of insanity - cooking dinner, tv on in the background while the children ask us questions about homework and our husbands explain how they're going to help their brother cut down a tree this weekend (wait, is that really what he said?).... anyway... that's another discussion for another day. When someone asks me "How are you?" I can honestly say I don't con...

Our dog, (I'll call her Satan), has the unique talent of escaping her kennel. Every day we put her in the cage, every afternoon she greets us at the door eagerly waving her tail. (No wonder she goes in so willingly; she's only in until she's certain we've driven away.) It's not for lack of trying on our part - we've put her in, swung the kennel around so the door is facing the wall, and PRESTO CHANGEO! The dog is out and the kennel is found in the middle of the room, door still locked shut. We've tied the door. "Tied" as in laced a thick tow rope like a garter all around the sides of the door to make sure it can't open enough for her to squeeze through. Alas, it fails. It wouldn't be so bad if she just went to hang out on the couch and drink from the toilet. But she's still in that "let's see how much damage we can cause with just my teeth" stage. The rugs (yes, both of them) have their edges gnawed, the couch has a chunk ...

I so didn't want to get up this morning - it was dark and rainy and well, just miserable. The kind of day you could disappear into the thick folds of a comforter and not care when (or if) you woke up. But then, sure enough - without taking into consideration my mopey mood, God whips out a paintbrush and paints such a brilliant blue sky and bright sun -- it seems like every leaf is dancing away to a song I can't hear - swaying green, shimmy-ing gold and waving yellow. Sometimes I wonder how it's possible not to see beauty. Sometimes I wonder how it's possible to miss the good things. Oh, but that's life, isn't it? Challenge after challenge until we're fed up to our eyeballs.... and then the unsuspecting gift of a beautiful sky, or a smile from a stranger, or a hug from a friend... and then - even though it doesn't explain everything - we just somehow know that there's so much more out there than what we can even begin to imagine.