A Day

It's been almost a year since I started working part-time.  It's only 15 to 20 hours a week, and I really enjoy my job, but I do realize that it has given me a much greater appreciation for my days off and for time to myself.

I was doing some reading and looking back through some old journals this morning and realizing how much time I had at one time... boy did I spend a lot of time writing...  don't do much of that these days. 

I almost took a trip up to Green Mountain, but since it looked like the mountain was totally covered in fog (clouds?) and that it might rain at any minute, I decided not to.   But it's kind-of a bummer because that's my go-to place when I have a lot on my mind.

But I did make myself go out for a run and that felt really good... and I realized something.  I've been trying to get back into running lately and I've developed a new attitude towards it.  About this time 4 years ago, I had decided to train for a 10K.  So I trained for it, very meticulously, ran it, completed it, and was happy about it.  Of course, that's also when my hip started bothering me... and it's been a fight to run consistently since then.  I would find myself setting another goal for a run, strapping on my GPS watch, getting my running music ready, and heading out the door with a certain pace in mind...  and spend the whole run either mad at myself because I wasn't running as fast as I used to, or frustrated because my hip was hurting (probably because I was pushing myself too much.) 

Well, this last couple of weeks as I've headed out to run, I've purposely left the GPS watch behind so I have NO idea how fast I'm running or how long I've been out.  (I kinda know how far I've gone because I run pretty much the same routes all the time. ha)  My music has switched from the heart-pounding pace-setting running playlist on my ipod to, at least for today, some much more soulful, classical music by Michael W. Smith that I just love.  And I just went out.... and ran.  Slowly, peacefully... just enjoying how it felt.  And when it was time to head for home, I even ran up and down another street because I just wasn't ready to be done yet.  :) 

So, honestly, I may pay for it all later and have to pull out the ice pack and Advil for my hip, but it's all good for now. 

And it helped me clear my head some and feel better.  (Maybe that was the endorphins!)  :)

And I was reminded of something that I saw on FaceBook a few days ago and meant to say something about:

This struck a nerve with me.  It made me realize that when I lose touch with the creative side of myself, I lose touch with my soul.  And really, I don't think of myself as a very creative person, but there's some kind of creativity in all of us, I believe.  I love music perhaps the most... like today when I was running.  No words are necessary...  just a melody can reach my heart in a way that honestly, I don't have words to express. (Michael W. Smith - "The Tribute") But then there are other songs where the words do help...  one that I listened to this morning reminded me that sometimes when I struggle to find words in prayer, a song can express all that my heart needs to say.  (Michael W. Smith "Lord Have Mercy")   I really miss singing with our 'group' at church that has slowly disbanded over the last year. That has created a big void in my life that I'd like to find a way to fill...

I do sing in the shower sometimes...  I have danced (badly!) to the radio...  (actually, full disclosure, my latest dancing adventure was to an exercise video called Bollywood Belly Dancing and yes, it's as hysterical as it sounds... especially if you picture me doing it. hahaha....)  I LOVE stories - all kinds of stories - I think it's probably the only way to get to know others and really understand them.  And I have written some poems... very rarely... and they probably weren't very good, but they were always heartfelt.  My latest thought, after taking Anna and her friends to paint at Spirited Art, is that I'd like to give that a try...  I've never even been able to draw a decent stick figure, but they promise you can overcome even that.  We'll see...  

But when he said, "practicing an art, no matter how well or how badly, is a way to make your soul grow," something inside of me just went...YES.   And I need that...  especially in times that are a bit soul-withering.  I need it even more.

I suppose that writing this blog is one of my creative outlets...  maybe it's what is replacing the journaling to some degree.  Whatever the case, it's good for my soul.  :)

Oh, and since pictures are another kind of creative expression, and since I didn't get to go up to Green Mountain today, I looked back through a few pictures and thought I'd share this one - truly one of my most favorite places:

 

From here I guess my day will move back into the 'things that need to get done' mode....laundry, dinner, vacuuming, bills, etc.  But some days require you to pause for a little while and catch your breath... this was one of those days.

 

Sweet Sixteen, part 2

I think when I last left the Sweet Sixteen story, I was waiting on a call from the garage about the tires being put on Anna's car.  Just as I was about to give up hope, Jack called to let me know the car was ready.  (whew!)  So my dad and I set out to pick it up - thankfully it was ready to go, didn't cost too much, and I made it to pick up Anna from school on time!  The day was starting to look up.  :)

So I picked up Anna and her friend Lena from school in the pouring rain.  They ran and jumped in the car and didn't have time to notice that anything was different.  ha.  But I told her about the tires and when we got to the DMV, she saw them and the new "Life is Good" spare tire cover and decals on the back of the car and really liked all of it.   Later that night, after Jack got home from work, he was able to put the side step rails on and I finished a couple more decals on the back and finally, it was all done. 

So, I guess we had planned to have this great car makeover "reveal" and it was all going to be this great surprise, but it ended up being kind-of a gradual thing that happened through the day.  Oh well, the good news is that by the end of the day, it all got done and she was happy.  :)   Actually, I have to tell this one thing cause I think it's funny.  I had this anchor decal to put on her back window and it was the last decal I put on.  I was having trouble deciding exactly where to put it to line up with everything and I rushed myself a bit cause it was getting late.  And it ended up being a bit crooked.  I was hoping I might get away with it - that she wouldn't notice.  Yeah, right.   (Really, I knew she would notice - ha.)  Anyways, she came out to the garage after everything was done.  She walked around the car and looked at everything.  She stopped at the back, looking at the new decals.  And then I could tell... she was looking at the anchor.  She told us how much she liked everthing, then hesitated... and I just said, "I know, the anchor is crooked."  She laughed and said, "Yeah, no big deal."  :)

It hasn't happened yet, but we'll be fixing the anchor soon...  ha.

Here's some before and after pictures... they're not too great because they are in the garage, but it was pouring outside!!

 

Before Side-rails

 

After Side-rails

 

Before Tire Cover

 

 Before Back Window

 

After Back Tire Cover and Window

 

So that's the car makeover....  some day it will be warm and sunny enough outside to wash and clean it up and really take some decent pictures... and maybe even get the anchor taken care of... 

 

I think I also mentioned that the DMV was the best part of the day.  I'm here to tell you that the best time of the day to go to the Huntsville DMV is right after school.  No lie.  I've heard horror stories of camping out EARLY in the morning only to end up waiting 2 hours in line, etc.  We walked in at 3:30, we were the 2nd people in line.  We spent 5 minutes filling out paperwork.  Went straight back up to the desk.  At this point, things were really easy because Anna had taken Driver's Ed, so all she had to do was turn in a certificate, take a picture, and get her liscense.  yay! I think we were out by 4:00.  :)  So, the most stressful part of all of this ended up being trying to make sure she got a driver's liscense photo that she could be proud of for the next few years!! haha.  And here was the result:  (It turned out good!!)

 

 

She didn't get to drive to gym that night because the weather was so bad, so that was kind-of a bummer, but all in all, the day turned out pretty good. 

 

We had a fun birthday party over the weekend with some of her friends from school - I'll put pictures of that up in my next post. 

 

So finally, Happy Sweet Sixteen to my beautiful, sweet Anna!  



Story, Interrupted...

I realize that it's been a couple of days since I started Anna's "Sweet Sixteen" story and I still haven't finished it yet.  Some of that has to do with lack of time...  but right now it seems, for some reason, that Blogspot is having trouble with uploading pictures from your computer's hardrive.  This is really frustrating and I've tried a couple of workarounds that aren't working.  :(  And since most of my follow-up story is one that I intended to tell with pictures, it's a little hard to do right now! 

So I will say, for now, that the day continued to have more twists and turns, but by the NEXT day, everything finally got worked out.  And when the picture-uploading thing gets straightened out, I will finish my story.  :)

I will say this -- Would you believe that the easiest and probably best part of the day came when we went to the DMV to get Anna's license?  You don't hear too many people being able to say that -- ever...  haha. 

More later...

Sweet Sixteen!

So this morning my mind starting wandering backwards... this time 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago... amazing how your life and times change so much in blocks of time like that.  Then to 16 years ago as we headed to the hospital.  I had been 'about to have' Anna for a couple of weeks and she just didn't quite want to seem to make her appearance into this crazy world.  So I was scheduled to be induced.  My two pretty vivid memories of that morning came first, after the doctor broke my water, that I STILL didn't go into labor...  so we passed the time walking the halls and playing cards.  :)   Then second, them coming in to tell me that they would start me on the lowest dose of pitocin and see how that would go.... well, it worked almost immediately and suddenly I went from playing cards to full blown active labor!  yikes...  anyways, it didn't take much longer after that for Anna Louise to grace our world with her presence.  :)   I'll spare the details on that.... haha.

So today has been a bit of a 'comedy of errors,' though I have to say so far it's been more frustrating than funny.  I hope that writing about these sorts of things will mean that one day, when I look back, THEN it will be funny. 

The idea for today was that Anna's birthday present was going to be a 'car makeover.'  Of course, we didn't want her to know about it, so Jack to her to school as usual, and then turned around and came home so that he could install running boards on her car.  Then we were going to take it down to Wal-mart to have them put on some new, bigger, (cooler-looking) tires.  Meanwhile, as Jack was working on the running board installation, I was detailing the car and putting some cosmetic touches on new stickers, a new tire cover, etc. 

Sigh.

First of all, let me mention the weather.  It's been raining now for 2 days straight and it's COLD.  So there's not even a chance of a car wash or anything like that.  So scratch that.  So I put the car in the garage and started drying it off so I could put the stickers on the back windshield... then I started cleaning inside.  Jack got home and started working on the running boards... only to find that they had sent the wrong set of hardware (nuts and bolts).  grrr......    So, that completely derailed the running board project.  (pun intended - ha)    So, we moved on from that and took the car to Wal-mart to put on the tires.  Well, did you know that Wal-mart won't mount tires that are a different size from the ones you already have on the car?  Un, no, we didn't know that either.  But now we do.  And now you do, too.  :)    So no tires got put on at Wal-mart.  So we drove back home and started making phone calls and found a place in New Hope that would put the tires on.  "Yeah, we can do that in about an hour.  No problem."  That was at 9:30 this morning.  It's 1:30 now --- and yes, I'm seriously running out of time to be able to get the car back from them and still make it to the school with the car to pick up Anna.  Why is this important, you ask?  Well, because Anna is going to get her liscense this afternoon and wants to drive HER car to gymnastics tonight.  Oh dear. 

Anyways, this is where I find myself in the saga...  and I may just go ahead and post this now and let you know how it turns out later...   

Happy New Year!

 

This is how New Year's Eve started last night:

 

 

This is how I found things when I woke up this morning:

 

 

And no, I couldn't talk Jack out of cleaning up after them... I'm meaner than he is, and less of a clean freak. (ha)  I was willing to let it sit there until they woke up.  ;-)  Guess they're just lucky to have such a good dad.  :)

 

 

And so another year comes to a close and another one stretches out before me.  I don't feel like this past couple of weeks has been too terribly hectic, but I still find myself screeching into this new year without any big plans.  Honestly, right now, as I sit in my mess of an office, if I could just get this room cleaned out, I would be happy for a long time with just that.  :)

 

What has been on my mind the last few days are thoughts and images from the movie Les Miserables.  I've seen it twice now in the span of a week and would probably go see it again right now if you asked me.  I thought I might get a little bored the second time through, but I didn't at all.  It's just so full of depth and emotion and pain and truths and redemption...  as Lisa said the other night, "It's amazing what you can learn in a couple of hours at the movies..."   I just find it intriguing to see how different characters react to both desperate circumstances as well as unbelievable grace and forgiveness.  For some it changes them for the good; for others it brings them to despair.  Looking at Jean Valjean, the grace extended to him brings him to his knees in brokenness over his sin and repentance and changes him into a humble, honest, and giving man.  But as grace is extended, more than once, to Javert, his pride in what he has always thought to be true and his faith in the rule of God's law allow him no room for his own failings and no room for the forgiveness being offered.

 

I would like to think that I see myself most in Jean Valjean - and perhaps that is my desire for the year ahead, to learn from what I saw in his character.  But this last year, I think, has been a bit of an exercise in living in the mind of Javert.  Doubts, questions, and challenges to what I have believed most of my life have come at me from every side, it seems.  I have been rethinking a lot of things and this line from one of Javert's songs comes to mind:

 

"And must I now begin to doubt, who never doubted all these years?  My heart is stone and still it trembles.  The world I have known is lost in shadows."

 

Thankfully, I do not feel the despair at this point that Javert gives in to.  But it has been a hard road that has spun me around, frightened me at times, angered me, made me cynical in some ways, made me cry, and I know I've worried and hurt and annoyed family and friends along the way. 

 

There is good news though.  :)   The soul-searching and willingness to ask the hard questions have led me to a place of learning to find peace within the tension of not having all the answers.  This is NOT easy for someone like me who likes to fix everything and everyone and always have a solution waiting in the wings.  BUT, I am finding myself less in need of control.  Less in need of living other people's lives for them.  Less in need of knowing what the 'plan' is. 

 

This verse is taking on new meaning in light of all of this:

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."   (Matthew 6:33-34)

 

What I am more in need of now is discovering ways to seek first God's kingdom and righteousness in my own life - not waiting on anyone else (or any other church or organization, for that matter) to do it for me.  Asking the question, "Where has God put me right now that I can work together with Him to, as my favorite preacher of the moment likes to say, bring a little bit of heaven down to earth?"

 

When I look back at the character of Jean Valjean, that's what he did.  He brought compassion and help wherever he could in the midst of terrible and desperate times and conditions.  He couldn't fix it all, but he did what he could.

 

And isn't it even better to know that we are loved by a God and redeemed by a savior who can 'fix' all that is broken in our lives?   Hmmm... another solid lesson of this year comes to mind.  By 'fix,' I don't mean that all is miraculously changed and perfect...  one thing that has become increasingly clear to me is that there are just some consequences of mistakes and sin that carry on through life even when forgiveness and redemption have been fully applied to them.  That is just the nature of sin and consequence.  That is why God warns us so strongly against it and why it hurts Him so when we don't listen.  

 

SO, I'm hoping to listen better, love better, and live better in this new year...  hmmm, guess that's my resolution.  :)  

 

Happy New Year to all! 

 

 

P.S.   Go see this movie!!  It's amazing!!  :)