The Magic of Summer

Summertime a time filled with  lazy, colorful days. A season abound with beauty, wild flowers, rainbows, lightning lit skies. A time of chasing dragon flies, butterflies, and lightning bugs. The time of year for picking berries, flowers, and searching for seashells in the sandy surf. Lemonade stands erected by children, pools filled with laughter and splashing, yards littered with outside toys. Marshmallows on sticks over open fires, ice cream cones dripping faster than they can be eaten, dandelions, and the quiet buzz of bees. Summertime!

Summertime brings peaceful rest to the generally hectic life of the rest of the year. The days are longer, the sunsets prettier, and somehow we find this time of year a time to refresh. We notice the fluffiness of the clouds and suddenly we see the shapes in them. We hear the crickets, the croaking of frogs, and yet we miss the sound of the mosquitoes until they land on us. Life is no less hectic, no less stressful we just think it is because summer does that for us.

Summertime is magical!

Tadpoles to frogs, caterpillars to butterflies and the again caterpillars. 

Rainbows fill the summertime skies after the rains more vibrantly colorful than those of other seasons. We remember the fable of our youth about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and we pass that on to the generations following us.

Summertime wardrobes are simple, pajamas and bathing suits. Flip flops and bare feet. And ponytails!Sun bleached hair and sunburned skin. The season scent is Hawaiian Tropic or Coppertone, with some aloe and baby oil scents as well, and we can't forget the vinegar for those sunburns we always end up with.

Summer begins and it seems like it will last an eternity, then all of a sudden one night we discover it is dark before 9. When did that happen we wonder? The days start to get shorter, back to school sales sneak up and before we know it summer is coming to an end, much more abruptly than it began.

 The country celebrates its birthday.....each summer.

And as suddenly as summer arrived, it is gone. Lazy, carefree summer days quickly become the busy days of autumn , bringing with it the new school year. Quickly reminding us how our lives are fast forwarding towards shorter days, longer nights, and we discover yet again, the seasons stretch from one to the next.

Letter"s to Heaven

When I came home from the hospital that early morning of June 11, 2006, I was no longer who I had been just a couple short hours earlier. I walked into the hospital with my husband, I was a wife, a mom, the other half of a couple. When I walked out I left with my oldest daughter Martha on one side of me and my cousin Linda on the other. I was a widow, a mom, and the remaining half of a couple that was missing the other half.

The first hours were spent with phone calls, people coming and going, and though I remember every single detail, it was spent going through the motions of living in a robot type way. The first night came slowly and quickly at the same time, and though there were people in and out all day, the night was spent with just fve young children and me.....their first night with no daddy, my first night as a widow. You could still feel the presence of Kenny, you could still smell his scent all over the house, you could pick up his clothes and the lingering smell of his cologne that even washing them didn't  remove was there. Part of me felt like I was dazed and groggy from a nightmare that though I had woken up from  the feelings and effects hadn't quite gone away. But my heart knew what my brain was trying to deny.This nightmare was now my life. I now had five children ages 3-13 that were my responsibility all by my self. I had to somehow allow them to grieve, yet convince them this was okay. We had to move forward through the days, with hope, love, and optimism.

The first days turned to weeks, then to months and during that time I wrote letters to Kenny every day, sometimes many, many times a day. I accumulated 24 notebooks of letters I wrote to him. They began as ways to tell him about my day, the kids days, the obstacles we faced or endured. Gradually they became letters about us, our life together, some of our dreams, some fulfilled but many shattered that fateful early June morning. I recall thinking I am supposed to be strong, Kenny expects me to be strong, be optimistic, readjust the plan, keep going forward. I must do this for him. He taught me how to live with the glass always half full never half empty. These notebooks will belong to my children one day, when I am gone and hopefully they will give them some idea of who their dad was as a whole man, not just as their dad. I tried to put some of his youth in these letters too, things he had told me of his childhood that he would have told them had he been here to do so. I tried to share some of their daddy's history and life with them. I found work, I tried to keep the family together, constantly believing with all I was that we would be closer, stronger, better people because we had not only gone through this, we had not only survived this, but we somehow would be  a family despite it all,

I remember rushing home and grabbing my pen and current notebook of paper and writing everything to him. I knew in my brain it was not as if I could mail these letters to heaven, but my heart kept hope that he knew. It was that hope that kept me putting one foot in front of the other daily. It was that hope that made me wake up everyday and strive to do more than just go through the motions of being alive. It was the knowledge that Kenny expected me to raise the children to be happy people, who looked forward to the future. Their futures were still waiting and though the greatest part of who I was and who I am died with him that day, though my future was altered by his death, though my dreams for my future were snubbed out in one breath, somehow he also expected me to remember that I too had a future to create and build, to plan, to want.

I remember the moment it hit me that there would be no more memories made with him and somehow I was to make new memories with these young people, because of him.

I no longer write these letters. Days, weeks, months, and years have gone by and I still cry. I smile, I laugh, I yell, I do things, go places, make plans, but I still cry. I remain partly that broken woman that walked out of Bayonet Point Hospital that morning. I have remarried, yet I am still a widow.

If I were to write a letter to heaven today, it would be a letter of apology. I know now in my heart that despite my best intentions, I failed him. I was not able to do what he would have wanted, I was not able to create what we dreamed and planned. I tried but with me being only half of us, I failed.Life continues to throw its rocks at me, hitting me almost every time. Though I still get up every time it knocks me down, I no longer do so with much pep. I have discovered as the years went by half full is half empty.

The Road Already Traveled

I am in the season of my life where hopes and dreams of my younger years have come and gone, and are giving way to smaller hopes and less dreams. So many goals unfulfilled, so many dreams shattered, so many hopes squashed by life's circumstances. I stand amazed at the way age maturity changes the total outlooks of us as the years of our youth fade into mere memories.The discovery that we have gone steps beyond, now being halfway through our life and the knowledge that we are somehow all of a sudden in the last third of that life, that we long ago thought was somehow going to be everything we ever dreamed and hoped it would be.
More and more I find myself having to face that my earlier dreams were founded by not only youthful innocence but even more so by the ignorance of youth.

As time has gone by I have learned much to my dismay that the road traveled in our life does not become less bumpy and smoother as we continue our steps forward, but the road tends to lead us in circles, merely a culd-de-sac that we follow around and around and around yet again.

That discovery may well become the most disappointing factor of life that I must not only accept, but somehow I am to do so graciously and thankfully.

As a young woman or perhaps it is  more fitting to compare myself to an older child, I began my journey through motherhood, filled with the misconceptions that I could and would create a family where all would be perfect in my child's world. I grew up in the era of clean family television shows that depicted perfect homes, perfect families, perfect children and like so many in my generation I bought the media propaganda hook, line, and sinker!

In my life I have lived in my share of the too small houses, tripping over the array of children's toys dreaming youthfully of the day that I would live in a home where we had room for everything and all would then be perfect.I daydreamed of the spotless house, for years. Everyone would have their own room and all their belongings would be in it. The day finally came where everyone had their rooms and for a brief moment in my life history I had a living room that did not look like a storage area for children's toys. And then at some point in time , I can't even recall when it happened their stuff start moving into every available empty space. Suddenly all the things they outgrew moved from their rooms to someplace where I would again trip over an array of unwanted toys and an assortment of their belongings no longer wanted but not willing to be completely parted with. Sadly I also discovered I too had an assortment of those items of my own. Knick knacks that moved into boxes, broken items glued together so many times they were basically made of glue now. Life seemed to continually have me moving from enough room to not enough room.

 I have driven my share of clunkers anticipating the luxurious days to come of having the American dream of the perfect car. I have even had my share of perfect at the moment cars.And yet somehow that "oh what a feeling" seemed to elude me. Today I am finally living in that big house and yet I still find myself tripping over an array of children's things. There is finally room for everything and yet nothing seems to have changed. I have had compact cars, family sedans, mini vans, and trucks.I dreamed of having cars we would all fit comfortably in not realizing they don't make those when you have large families, because by the time we add in the sports gear, and the other must have items to the space of the car we are all still cramped into the car. I am now driving a truck that seats 7 with over 200,000 miles on it and dreaming of a day when I can again afford to buy a small car.

I am learning that as we travel along our life's road it keeps taking us to all the same places that we have already been. Much like the way we get in our car and drive along the same roads to go to the same stores, we seem to sit in the passenger seat of our life and take the same roads over and over again.

In the not so distant future I foresee a smaller home and again I will face the living room storage space syndrome. I also anticipate the collections I have gathered through my years being downsized to accomodate what will become yet another start over in the road of my life. Some may say that is the pessimistic side of my nature. My late husband would sometimes say that to me, and my rebuttal was always the same, I am not being a pessimist, simply a realist.

The course of life, the challenges faced seem to also travel around and around the same block of road.

Family DInner

Decisions, Decisions! Mashed Potatoes in one hand and sippy cup in the other. What to choose!!

 Playing with food= FUN

 On the other hand though cup chewing is pretty good too~

Michael is just two days shy of eight months old. Not sure how that happened so fast, but it has. Now he enjoys sitting at the "big" table with everyone else at dinner time. Perhaps more for the attention he gets than actually for the dinner part.

 For some reason mommy thought she could convince him the cup is for drinking from, but he seemed to prefer the idea of it being something to chew on!

 Hey nana......look, look here at me!

I couldn't resist a side view of those chubby cheeks!

Watching him at the table tonight not only prompted me to get up from my dinner and grab the camera, but it also took me briefly back in time 21 years ago when I too put food on a high chair tray for his daddy. Michael will never know his grandpa, but tonight brought back a memory of him as well. The day I plopped applesauce on Michael's daddy's highchair tray, his own daddy stood there with a serene smile on his face just watching his son and me. I sat there looking at him as he said that was one of the things he loved about me. I responded with a what? He said most people would not want to be bothered with the mess this was going to cause. For me I just wanted our son to experience the texture, and feel of the food. Not only did I put spoonfuls of it on his high chair tray, I used my fingers to draw pictures and designs in it to get the baby's attention to it being all over his tray. It is strange how something so fleeting can come back to you to be relived briefly.

Grandchildren can keep fresh memories of days long gone while new memories are being made as well.

Sunrises and Sunsets

The birth of a child is a personal sunrise.

The loss of a sibling is definitely a sunset in life.

The reaching of a goal you have spent years dreaming about and working towards achieving is one of life's sunrises.

Family is what fills the time between sunrises and sunsets.


Our lives are filled with sunrises and sunsets and the last few months have brought that back home to me over and over again. Not just the sunrise of each morning, or the sunset each evening, but the personal life events that can be referred to as our sunrise or sunset.

In the last six months, we added a new member to our family with the birth of my second grandson Michael. That birth of a child absolutely counts as a sunrise in life. But less than a month from his birthday we lost my youngest brother, the death of a loved one counts as  a sunset in our lives.

It never ceases to astonish me how a family can be filled with joy one day, and the next day sadness sweeps in and the total family make-up has changed.

This has been a joyful and yet disheartening few months as we smile at the astounding changes in a young baby over such a short time, and at the same time we cry at the thought of the ones he will never meet and who will never meet him.

Sunrises and sunsets are daily fixtures in the world, they are two of the most beautiful and simplistic wonders of the world and still two of the things we simply just think are supposed to be, so we often miss the wonder. Birth and death are much that way too, we take for granted that they will be, are supposed to be......and they are. But birth and death like the sunrise and sunset of each day, though much the same are still very different. Each birth represents something different to each individual whose life it touches, and death does the same.

The birth of Michael brought changes to my personal world. I get to watch my third oldest child be the parent now, and though our thoughts and views on children are at times alike, they are also very, very different most of the time. But this is his turn to have a sunrise, and my turn to just enjoy the scenery.

The death of my baby brother, though he was a grown man, was a sunset in my personal life. A reminder that the sun will set on more people in my daily life, and in an odd way I am supposed to also find a way to enjoy the scenery of the sunsets. I am still muddling through that part, and have been for several years as I have had more and more sunsets in my life the last few years. I will at some point discover the beauty of them, and at times I think I actually have glimpsed it.

Seasoning Our Lives

We begin every new year with new hopes, new dreams, new goals. Some of us have resolutions we make for the new year, new to do lists, new bucket lists. As the year goes by we find ourselves disappointed, frustrated, and feeling like failures because those resolutions didn't work out the way we planned so we give them up in February anyway!

About 18 years ago I made one last New Years Resolution and it was to NOT make any more of them. That is the one New Year Resolution I have found myself keeping year after year since. About three years ago I took on the concept of creating my own bucket list for the year and even that I didn't seem to be able to complete as I thought it should be, so last spring I began to develop several smaller bucket lists for my life, a new bucket list each season of  the year. My springtime bucket list consisted of things I enjoy, things I wanted to do in the spring. Things as simple as a new garden, a trip to the zoo. Things that were fun and things I knew were within reach and doable. I began to realize that the seasonings in my life are added by me, and if I was going to be disapponted because reality is there is no way I am going to be able to go on an African Safari and see the giraffes, maybe I needed to readjust the goal. I could still see the giraffes I so love by putting a trip to the zoo to see the giraffes on my spring season bucket list. Not only would I then see them, but I would feel gratification and validation of something that I enjoyed. It felt great to accomplish the things on my bucket list, so I carried the concept into the summer, adding things as simple as fresh flowers in vases regularly. I was amazed at how simple that was to do, all that was required was cutting them out of the flower garden that was also on my bucket list to have.

Life is full of good things and though there are many not so great moments mixed in there, the seasonings we choose to add to our life can make all the difference. Just like the cook adds seasoning to his cooking, we have the choice to add seasoning to our lives. Some times we make the decsion to add a little too much of a particular seasoning, sometimes we don't quite add enough, but each day gives us a new chance to adjust our personal recipe.

The old saying "when life gives you lemons make lemonade" is a great saying. The problem most of us have with that is either we tend to add either too much sugar in our lemonade or too little. I discovered we tend to go a bit overboard with the other seasonings we add to make our life more appealing as well. Perhaps we add the wrong seasoning at the wrong time.

This year my winter bucket list began with more ways to give me more simplicity in my life, more self reliance, and more ways to save money for other things on my bucket list. Now I still will not be able to go on that African Safari, but that has long since been edited and revised, and deleted from my personal bucket list.

January represents to our society a new start, so I began my new start here on the homefront and decided I would be able to afford more of the good seasonings in my life if I adjusted some of the basic recipes. I won't save enough for that African Safari, but who knows maybe one day if I can see the giraffes at Busch Gardens rather than the Lowry Park Zoo, either way though I can still feel the joy of watchng them and really isn't that the most mportant part?

More Downsizing from 2011

As we continue to seek ways to downsize our lives, we are also finding that by doing so we are downsizing some of life's stress as well. I have always thought that much of our so called technology, invented to make our lives so much simpler, actually added to our stress levels. I am even more convinced of this as time goes on.

Somehow it seems we go to great lengths and spend incredible amounts of money for the luxury of convienence. I remember rotary dial telephones and party lines, and now they have cell phones that cost as much as my first car. Not only can we be on the phone in the car, in the store, while we wait for our doctor appointmnet, but we can check our facebook, myspace, email, or play games on the very same phone. WOW! I still carry a book with me for those waiting rooms, I keep one in the car at all times, as well as paper and a pen in case I want to write a letter instead of send a text. I have my cell phone with me too, after all they have some good purpose as well. If we have broken down we can get hold of someone, if we are going to be late getting home, we can prevent those waiting for us to arrive, undo worry. It used to be we had to call from a payphone, but these days we would truly be hard pressed to find one, and if we did chances are it doesn't work.Then on the slim chance it did, would we even have any change, since plastic debit cards rule our spending?

What families spend in gasoline alone for the convience of drive thru restaurants with daily deals, is amazing.In our house we have stopped doing fast food, so we have been striving for other ways to use our fuel money more efficently. Often that means we wait until one son gets off work, before we make the trip home from sports fields, as they are all located right next to his job. We keep footballs, basketballs,etc. in our car for these times so we have ways to occupy oursleves. That save us 10 miles round trip, makes our day a bit longer for some, but also at the cost of gas saves me over $2.00 every time we just wait it out rather than go home and head back out in an hour or two. The simple math adds up and by the time we have done this ten times we have saved roughly $20.00.

As I said in my earlier blog about downsizing, we gave up the microwave. No expensive prepackaged meals in our house. We do use the crock pot often and I am not above freezing the left over bowl of this or that, and packing it in my husbands lunch box. Ah yea another thing we cut out, buying lunch. That alone saves $5.00 or more a day, and he gets a homemade desert almost every day.We quit buying Oreos, Chips Ahoys, etc. even when they are buy one get one.

Now if you remember there are ten kids and two grandkids,one son in law, and three significant others, as well as one set of parents, in our family here. That brings to our mind ways to downsize gift giving to an affordable concept. My children and I have done the hand made kind of gift for years, but this is a failry new concept for my husband. He is catching on quickly though, especially considering I am the one doing the making of gifts! However it fits our lifestyle and our bidget much better than the mall does. This year I learned to quilt and there are several on our gift give list that will be receiving handmade quilts. Others will receive other hand made items, that we create. Some of our "date days" this year have been to the local and some not quite so local beaches to collect shells, to use in our gift making for Chirstmas this year. Some receive homemade jams, applesauce, baked goodies, but none will be receiving store purchased convienence based gifts this year. A few years ago I made all the Christmas cards I sent and this year I plan to go back to that again.
Scrapbboks are wonderful gifts, and a great way to give the kids some of their childhood pictures and make a little extra room in our own closets. You can make them without spending much at all just by decorating the pages with old cards sent to you and saved, or little drawings, the ideas are endless. Yet it allows a person to spend time doing something fun and constructive,creative,relaxing, and make a priceless gift no mall or WalMart sells. I am not a big shopping fan anyway,with the exception of thrift stores.

Thrift stores are another way we have downsized from the high tech world. We find name brand clothing, shoes, purses,as well as any household item anyone could want or use, at a fraction of the cost. We check the items carefully, and have really had great luck buying things for our home, kids, and selves this way.Why would I pay almost $30.00 for a pair opf Levi jeans when I can get them for under $5.00, for the same $30.00 I can have siz pairs instead of one. Works for me.

Last year was the first year my husband ever strung popcorn and cranberries to make a garland for the Christmas tree, after Christmas we hung it in the trees in our yard and the birds feasted. This year we will do that again, but this year instead of some homemade gifts, our goal is to have all our gifts be that.We have every intention of making every single gift we give. We strive to return to the days where Christmas was not a commericialized, money making event, but one of remembering why we celebrate it at all, and of sharing love, memories, talents,and hope with those we care about. There will be no game systems,no cell phones, no high tech toys under our tree this year. There may be puzzles, books. a lego set, and a toy car or two, but that will be it as far as store purchasing. Last year (our first year) of trying to super downsize Christmas by making some not all gifts, we did Christmas for right around $300.00 including a huge Christmas dinner we cooked. This year I hope to cut that by 50% by making gifts. What about the cost of making them you say? Well fabric can be bought off clearance for $1.00 a yard,thrift stores also get sheets, blankets, and fabric scraps they sell for pennies.

Past and Present

The last seven weeks have brought many changes in my life, beginning with the death of my youngest brother on the 30th of November. Though I have already experienced the passing of my parents, grandparents, husband, a cousin, and the husbands of friends as well as friends themselves, I was still taken quite off guard by the loss of a sibling. Not that there is really any thing one can do to prepare themselves for any of these losses, and regardless of the fact that we know in our heads these things will happen, the fact that they take us so totally off guard continually amazes me. This puts me in a season of life that I reflect on and wonder how did I get here?? These things are the things my grandparents and parents generation went through, how is this happening so frequently in my generation?

Suddenly the realization came to me that I am now in the age group of that generation! Oh my! When did that happen?? How did I not notice it happening? I don't feel that old, though if completely honest I must admit that there are times that I do feel that old!

Today I was ironing linen tablecloths, most of which were from the generations before me, some belonging to my grandmother who if still here would be 98, others that had been my mothers and she would be 72 if she was still with us. As I stood there with my electric steam iron and my stack of tablecloths it occured to me I am the only person I know that actually uses tablecloths. I looked at the handwork of the embroidery of most of them, some doen by my grandmother, some done by my mother, and some done partly by my mother prior to her death, and then finished for me after her death,by my aunt ( her sister). The hours, the care, the creativity in choosing thread colors to create not only a tablecloth to make my table look pretty and at the same time protect it, I saw a work of art in each tablecloth, an expression of personalities, a pride in their work, and an heirloom of generations now gone. Yet everytime I put one of those tablecloths on my table a piece of each of them is right here with me.

As I stood n my dining room ironing my daughter in law to be was making lunch in the kitchen, and I shared with her the concept of linen tablecloths. I have some that are "old" store bought linen tablecloths used on the tables of my youth. Even all these years later the linen of these is so much thicker, so much stronger than the things created today. The colors are as vibrant now as they were 40 and 45 years previous. I was telling this young girl how much easier ironing is today over the ironing I watched the generations before me do. I told her they had a day of the week, or month that was dedicated to the chore of ironing, as it truly was a tedious chore that took quite a long time. There were no fancy steam irons, they used what we now call dry irons, and they had a glass bottle with a top that was similar in concept to a salt shaker. They filled this with water and they sprinkled the water on the clothes. Very often they would roll up the clothes, unrolling each as it became that items turn to be ironed. In the cold winter ironing would not only warm the house but also created humidity in the dry air of the winter. Back then everything was ironed, pillowcases, shirts, pants, kitchen towels, napkins, ( and yes I admit I still use linen napkins everyday myself, and yes even some of those were previously used in my childhood as well), tablecloths,dresser scarves ( okay I admit it I use them also) and hankies. Back when I was growing up not only did men carry hankerchiefs in their pants pockets, but ladies and girls carried hankies in their purse. Of course they were called pocketbooks not purses at that stage of my generation.  I told her how I can't recall ever having paper towels or paper napkins as a young girl.

Ironing today brought back to my mind numerous stories I have shared with my children about my youth, and also the numerous stories I haven't, as they don't seem that interested. I got to remembering the stories my own mother shared with me of her childhood, and the stories my grnadparents shared of their own childhoods. As I reflected on the years of memories stored in my own personal memory bank treasure chest, it became even more clear how each generations memories are and will continue to be so different from the next ones.

My children will recall that their mom had dresser scarves, that she used linen napkins, and that each of her tablecloths have some sort of history , but they will also be part of the disposable world of paper towels, kleenex tissues, and no dish towels, seriously do people still dry dishes??

As I continued my ironing I was reminded of how the stories my grandparents shared of their past, the stories my mom told of her being a little girl, these were all stories of the past, their past. Yet in reality the history of their lives is also part of my past. I was molded by these stories, molded by the people living the lives that created these memories. I recall being a girl and being totally attentive to the stories of the "older" generations. the old ladies and the old men who recollected their stories by telling stories to me that began with back when I was........ Many of these were elderly people in our family, but not all. Some were simply elederly people whose paths crossed with my own, neighbors, friends grandparents, someone in a check out line at the grocery store or at a park watching their great grandchildren play as I watched my own children. I loved those stories, I learned a wealth of useful knowledge from those stories. The only lesson that seemed to escape me until today was that I would one day be telling the stories of an old woman and days long gone by. Today, while ironing the wrinkles out of pieces of my past, my moms past, my grandmothers past, it became clear and wrinkle free that I am now the old lady telling stories of my youth, hopeful perhaps that some will be heard and remembered, to be shared in the future with new generations that will be linked through history to my past as they create their own.

The Forgotten Birthday Gift

This week I have spent my mornings digging out and pulling up huge clumps of weeds that have spread all over our back yard and side yards. It has been a hot, dirty, sticky task, digging them out by the roots and it seems as if they are spreading around faster than I can remove them. My fingers are cut, my nails are ragged and filthy.The eaisest way would be to mow over them, but then they just keep spreading and taking over. Since we have four pigs and three goats, they have been totally enjoying the fruits of my labor as I toss armful after armful of these green clumps of weeds into their respective pens. This gives them the opportunity to munch on all the crunchy, green clumps they want and yet not give them the freedom to also munch on what is left of my wanted flowers and the few fruit trees they haven't already devoured!





As I watched the tiny little flower buds opening up on a patch of these weeds, in the early morning sunlight this morning, I suddenly recalled how it is that so many of them are spread out all over this particular acre and a half!





The first summer we moved up here, there were a lot of pretty wildflowers aka weeds on the sides of the roads and in the empty fielded lots around our newly found home. Wildflowers and particularly fields of them have always been among my very favorite things. I remember picking armloads of wildflowers as a child and proudly presenting them to my mother and grandmother every summer, and they always treated these bouquets like they were expensive roses! They always promptly displayed them in jars and vases filled with water. To this day I love to display flowers in mason jars filled with water rather than the crystal vases that I also own.





Our first spring and summer here, five of my children were still quite young, with the older four being11, 1o, 8, and 7 that summer. We had moved here from subdivison life where there were sidewalks for them to ride their bikes on , and here there were no sidewalks and the blocks were much bigger than your typical city suburbs block. There is a huge difference between a city block and a country block. The kids loved the new found freedom of riding their bikes on a road that barely had any traffic, and now and then if they stayed together I would allow them to ride once around the block.





The Saturday of my birthday, they spent the entire day nagging for one more trip around the block, and their dad kept granting them permision. They had two friends playing here that day, and all six of them spent the better part of that hot July day going around the block, coming back and running out to the back of the yard, then asking to go around the block yet again. It seemed to me their trips were not only becoming ridiculously frequent, but each one seemd to take longer and longer for them to go and get back from. I brought this up to their dad and his response was their kids, they just want to have fun, leave it alone.





As the day dragged on and late afternoon arrived, I was called outside by the group of young children and they dragged me off to the very back yard. I was stunned by what I saw. My kids had grown up hearing me talk about wild daisy's, buttercups, dandelions, tiger lilies, and wild violets growing in fields. They knew the stories of summers spent picking these and bringing them home by the armloads. They even had witnessed good old mom stopping along side a road and picking wildflowers to bring home. Knowing how very much I love wildflowers and the meaning they have to me, they enlisted their friends help as well as their fathers for my birthday gift from them that year. And all those trips around the block they were pulling up and shoveling up clumps of the wildflowers along the sides of the road and in the empty fields of their bike ride travels. They would then toss them over the back fence, hence why when they would return from their ride they would run around back. They shoveled dirt into empty plastic flower pots I had saved and planted each cherished weed. By the time they were done I had nearly 60 1-3 gallon pots filled with dirt, sand and flowering weeds, aka wildflowers. There were tiny purple ones, yellow, white, pink, some that made you sneeze, and some that just plain smelled stinky! But they were beyond excited and proud to present me with my very own wildflower garden, that I could plant in our yard and they would return year after year for me.





We watered them and eventually they pretty much all died in the confines of a container, so we dumped them into an area in the back yard and left them to do their thing and return as they chose. They did come back the next spring and summer. The second summer here their dad passed away and we pretty much forgot about the wildflower patch in the back yard as we took over the mowing and yard work ourselves. We must have mowed it down before they ever really sprouted up that year, and we must have pretty much kept doing that until this summer.





Now with our mower broken we are behind in the back yard mowing, we pay a neighbor to keep the front in good shape, and thus we have been over run with clump after clump of these flowering weeds. I have spent four days removing these from our yard and feeding them to the animals when suddenly this morning I realized and remembered how it is that we have so many of these all over the yard. I still have a couple good size clumps of them left, that I was going to dig out and feed the pigs, but as my birthday rolls around again in a couple of days, and these weeds were the most thoughtful and heart felt gift I have ever received, I am going to allow the rest to remain here and I am going to cherish every weedy bloom in remembrance of a birthday long since forgotten.

How Do the Kids See It

I don't know how it is everywhere, but I know in my house with my kids, and in my sisters house, the telephone is a microphone to LOUD noise. It can be perfectly quiet, the kids occupied with their own thing, but once you pick up that phone, quiet time is over, forgotten.





It amazes me the number of things kids want that you only hear about when you ae engaged in a telephone conversation. You may be talking to your sister, your friend, your husband, your boss, a doctor, salesman, it could be the President, but those kids DON'T care who, they just know you are on the phone and that means Open Season to loud in the house! Seriously how many times have we all gone ahead and said yes to something they asked for without realizing what we just agreed to, because they got to us while we were on the phone? I am quilty of that. The biggest problem that I have found from that is the things I apparently have said yes to are things I didn't even realize I said yes to ! I have discovered there are times when the yes word was actually being said to who ever was on the other side of my phone conversation but one of the kids had asked me something at the moment I was concentrating on said conversation and that kid being a kid decided the yes word was in response to them, and it usually wasn't, but they knew that!





I have turned into an acrobat while on the phone, as I have walked from room to room trying to get away from the noise so I can carry on the conversation in realitive quietness only to have the noise follow me. I have hidden in closets, squeezed into places humans can't fit into under any other circumstance except to try and carry on an important business call.





Kids will also use those times to say things to you that you can't believe you just heard come out of their mouth! How many times does a child say something that makes you just stop dead in your tracks, while you are on the phone with someone? Usually this happens when it is a business type call. Somehow they assume every phone converstation you have is with s friend or family member, it never crosses their minds that you might be doing the phone interview part of a job! Or maybe you are handling a bill. And usually they know you are not going to respond and bring forth a full blown war of wills, because you are "stuck" on the phone at the moment. They count on the fact the 99% of the time you are much calmer when dealing with it after the phone conversation, because the politeness you demonstrate to the other caller, has that calming affect on you. And depending on the call you may well forget the entire situation, which does happen.





In a recent phone conversation with my sister she was experiencing this type of problem with one of her sons, and granted he is only 6 years old, but I have learned with the number of children I have and the varying ages that they have been and are, age has no limit in the phone war. My teens are often more offensive and louder than they were as toddlers and still take complete advantage of my disadvantage from being invovled in the phone call.





In my sisters case this day, she was trying to keep the 6 year old and his 3 year old brother quietly occupied while the baby napped and she had a few minutes to talk to me. Mr. 6 year old was not wanting to cooperate with her request of picking up, and the more she tried to reason with him, the more determined to be disagreeable he became. He did the typical kid thing and got louder with his dissatisfaction, and the more words she used to try and get him to see her point, the more frustrated he became. Now being the oldest of three boys, his little brothers being 3 and not quite six months, you can picture his frustratiin at having to take a quiet rest time, and you can almost understand what he is thinking, mom wants quiet, so the baby can nap, she wants us to rest which translates into nap, if the baby is woken up that nap goes out the window! Hmmmm..... At the point I am getting to though he amongst his tearful pleas, and his reminding her she in unfair, he announces that she treats him like he is another.........ah ha you thought baby, right! Well that is not what he said, he very defiantlely wanted to know why she treats him like his another adult! There was a moment of silence on both her end of the phone and mine. I totally didn't expect that statement, and somehow I get the impression she didn't either.





That brings me to the title of this blog, how do the kids see it? Always different than the way we do we can be sure of that.

Visions for Children

When my first child was born, or maybe even before that while we were expecting her, I had visions in my mind of the life she would have. All those things I dreamed of and hoped for her. How I would help ensure them coming to be. There were big plans of her having all those things I never had, not sure anymore what exactly those were, as the things I thought I never had seemed to change with my birthdays, and the list of them seemed to shrink as well.

With each of my seven though there were lists in my mind and dreams I had for each and every one. We always dream that whatever our life was we somehow give them the footing for a better life than we had. Now that by no means is a declaration that we didn't have a good life ourself. I wanted them to be better academically, have more confidence, have musical talents,and more of all the numerous talents I saw in my friends and didn't have.They would be more fun, more attractive, more of everything I felt I wasn't, and I somehow declared myself as the one who would guarantee this happened. They would never have to do without, I would raise them so they didn't. They would not struggle as much as me, things would be so much easier for them. This was as set in my brain as anything.

The trouble with that though was these were my hopes for them. These were things I couldn't control. I maybe could force music lessons, but if they didn't enjoy them, they wouldn't show that talent. And some of them, well they just truly aren't musically talented, and all the lessons in the world or all the hopes from mom won't chnage that.

Now I have three grown, all raised by the same mother, all with the same kinds of rules, all with similar advantages, and all completley different than my idea when they were born. I have four more still not "grown" and even they aren't what my brain thought they would be as I looked at them as infants and decided what they would be.

Somewhere in our parental desires for our kids to have the best, be the best, and want the best, we lose sight of the fact they are their own person. We do not get a life redo through our children. They need to have their own goals, decide their own talents, and struggle and do without to achieve those very same dreams they have.

I have learned and not always easily either, that my job in all this is to give them the tools to discover their own dreams. My job is to love them even when their dreams and their ways are things that I never dreamed I see my kids do or hear them say. My job is to remember not to worry so much about molding them in to the person of my great hopes for their life, but to teach them how to be their own person and live their life to the fullest.

I hope to teach my children that as they look at their brand new child one day and they begin to weave all the dreams and desires of a new parent in their brain, that they stop, take a minute, look at that sweet innocent face, and set their goals for them the parents to teach them that we can't have everything, be everything,but that through hard work, struggles, and dreams for ourselves, we can be the best of what we choose.

Job Experience

Fifteen years ago today at this time, I was packed and getting ready to go to the hospital to have my labor induced to have my daughter. She wasn't due for yet another three weeks, but because my body has this thing about having babies at least three weeks before they are due, this time the doctor wanted to be more in control. She is child number five of seven, and the one born before her had decided not only to come early like the rest, he even decided to skip the hospital bit and be born at home. I had these weird labors where you start off normal and then skip a lot of the middle stuff and go right to the last stage and have the baby. Anyway, there we were preparing to go and let the medical world be in charge this time.

I grew up in what we call the Brady Bunch era, where the family tv sitcoms had these perfect children, and the worse things they ever did wrong were leave bicycles in the driveway, they never slammed doors, yelled at parents, or made a mess. Their bad grades consited of a B shame on them, their rooms were always clean, they ate everything on their plate. The perfect children, in the perfectly manicured home, with the perfect parents, and of course Alice the perfect housekeeper who kept the world perfectly balanced.

Shortly after my daughters birth I took a child development class, taught by a psychologist and though it was 20 years or more past the Brady Bunch sitcom, the children portrayed in the books and movies shown at class were exact examples of that type of child. I wondered then with two teens,two toddlers, and a two month old, in my life where I could order a set of children like them! In the course of this class, which was filled with parents, we were asked to add up the ages of our children at that time, and the result was that was how many years of parenting experience we had under our own belt.

This morning, I did that exercise again for myself, and my grand total years of experience based on that instructors particular theory is 133 years to date. Wow, 133 years!! You would think with 133 years experience I would surely have this job perfected and should actually be able to perform the job of parent with such skill and knowledge, and expertise that I too would by now have children that reflect the Brady Bunch era. WRONG!!

Even with all this experience I still have children who argue with me, still have to be reminded to clean their rooms,still won't eat everything put in front of them, despite the fact that I have told them what my mother told me about the starving people in the world. When they are presented with a food they don't want to eat they they offer to send it to the starving people I told them about.

In my 133 years of experience I have not figured out how to get them all to do what is asked of them the first time, or even the second time. Never mind getting them all to, I would be glad if just one did! I would settle for now and then. You would think with 133 years under my belt I would know by now that when a child no matter what age tells you they will do all the work involved in having a pet, that I would have learned that means for a maximum of one week, and then 99% of that pet care is mine, and if I even mention not keeping it they suddenly have a love for it beyond anything a mere parent could possibly understand. Of course that love is nowhere to be found if it needs a bath, or has an accident of the floor. Oh gross I'll puke is the normal response I hear.How do you know it was mine, did you actually see it do that? Forget the fact it is the only one in the house at the time, unless you have time for forensics to prove it, you might as well clean it and get it over with.

In my 133 years of parenting, there has never been a vacation, or even a day off. Sick days consist of you being so ill you can't move and when you do begin to feel better, you can't believe that you haven't been relocated to another house during your illness as you can no longer recognize the one you are in, because your sick day translated to your children as free for all! And the phrase are you really my child comes to mind frequently.

However, in that 133 years experience I have been privilged to learn a lot. I have learned that your house doesn't have to be perfect at all times, it's okay to take a day too goof off. Your laundry will never be all done so why half kill, yourself trying to accompolish the unaccomplishable. There will always be dirty dishes in your kitchen, and the bathrooms, well all you can do is do your best, and if all else fails go to the nearest gas station and use theirs. If you owned and lived in the grocery store there would still be nothing to eat, and having the pets actually does teach them things you don't see until they are grown.

While accumulating this experience I have been blessed to be part of many first steps, many first days, many hugs, millions of beautiful pictures colored just for me. Drawings of stick people with heads as big as Asia,yellow hair, and huge eyes, because a child drew a picture of mommy. I have been given thousands of bouquets of flowers,okay some of them were weeds, but they were hand picked by a child. And smiles and giggles by the dozens.

All in all I think the 133 years experience has taught me that even my kids are a product of the Brady Bunch era, and maybe just maybe if we readjust our version of what we think a perfect kid is, and really look at the good qualities each and every one has, they are all perfectly themself and that is even better.

Downsizing Our Life From The High Tech World

Imagine living in a house that has no television, no microwave, no WII game system, and basically no quick, convienent meals in a minute. A house where dinner time is about 4:30 in the afternoon, instead of 9 or 10 at night, fresh outof the microwave and onto your lap so you can watch the newest CSI whereever!

Imagine a place where clothes shopping doesn't mean the mall, watching a movie means a DVD, board games get played and books are read rather instead of part of the home decor sitting on a shelf, and library cards are actually used. Imagine a world where solitare is played the old fashioned way with a deck of cards instead of a click of the mouse.

Remember the days when a box of 64 Crayola crayons opened your eyes to an entirely different world, and now they have an even bigger box that has 96! The days where coloring books were a treat and we drew pictures to color, rather than print them out of the cool web site we found.

Imagine not going to McDonalds every week, even though Happy Meals are a mere $1.99, not ordering pizza every week, and not having a never ending supply of soda in the house daily.

Imagine a world that had stay home mothers, dinners eaten at a table that were cooked, not ordered in or premade hot and ready to put on the table fresh out of the box or bag, a world where kids had to clean their rooms and not get an allowance for it. A world where children played outside, instead of video games all day long. A world where commericals didn't infuence every toy, piece of clothing or what brand of cleaners we bought.

I remember that world fondly. And in our effort to live more simply in a high tech world, we are incorporating a lot of back to basics into our lives.

Our house has television, but no cable and oddly enough we don't even have an antennae and that craazy box to get local channels from. No satellite with Dish Network or Direct TV. We do have DVD players and movies and once in the while we rent the $1.00 movies from the Blockbuster Box at Publix, but more often we borrow them with our library cards instead.

Our house has book shelves and we actually take the books off the shelf and read them, and again we use those library cards to have access to other books we don't have.We don't have the newest game system, and though we do play some games on the computer we play Scrabble, Monopoly, Life and a huge array of other board games at the dining room table. We have jigsaw puzzles, paper, crayons, and a variety of craft items.

We have no idea what we can Shout out of our laundry anymore, or what laundry soap the tv tells us has the best scent, or what shampoo can make our hair look like the models. Over 18 months ago we got rid of cable in our home and that eliminated all the product hype, all the newest toys, movies, fashions, from our daily view. Imagine this we have five children in this house and they have all survived the lack of television.

In our world we have a 15 year old girl who has decorated the walls of her room with her own colorful drawings, not posters of the hottest celebrity, or the most recent movie star heart throb. We have a 17 year old who does jigsaw puzzles and glues them with puzzle glue to hang on the walls of his room. We have a seven year old who wants a story read each night and goes to sleep without Spongbob or whatever the newest cartoon craze is blaring obnoxiously in the back ground.

I have some children that not only read for pleasure, but have actually put books on reserve at the public library. I have children that volunteer their time for free to a variety of places. My kids no longer remember what an allowance is, it has been so long since they have gotten one, and yet for the most part they keep those rooms clean for free, because it is their room, and thereby not my job to clean them.

We don't have a microwave, it quit working nearly a year and a half ago, and oddly enough it just hasn't been a priority to replace it, even though we could for less than $50.00 these days. Seems to me we have gone this long without it, so we obviously don't need it. Of course that means popcorn cooked on the stove in our stove top popcorn maker, and my 13 year old makes the best popcorn. It also means no meals in a minute, but guess what we have that solved to, by actually cooking and eating dinner at 4:30 at the dining room table. Our meals are not interuppted by televison or telephones.

We do have a box of 64 Crayola Crayons, and I am thinking for Christmas maybe we should get one of the 96 count, if for no other reason to figure out how we have that many colors! And we have some coloring books and a variety of other craft items for pleasure. We do have a couple of the older game systems, but oddly enough we still have kids who play outside. They have bicycles, but no go carts, no 4 wheelers, and again they have survived, and I probably have a few less gray hairs from not having those particular worries.

They are all active in sports, thereby helping get them to the dinner table at 4:30, as we eat before we got to the 6 o'clock practices rather than after them. We do not have soda in the house very often at all, and though we bake something nearly every day, we have not got the endless supply of chips, Oreos, Doritos, snack cakes etc., that the store is full of. Imagine that no Hot Pockets, no pizza rolls, no Pop Tarts! And somehow on regular home cooked meals, fruits and veggies as snacks, peanut butter crackers made at home with saltines rather than the ready to open orange cracker ones, everyone is healthy. Soda is a rarity in our house, and yet they don't seem to mind having koolaid, or gatorade mix, or water instead. They have adapted well to our desire to downsize to a more simple life, less high tech and less convienence oriented.

Are they perfect absolutely not! Is this kind of life for everyone, probably not. But for us, it helps cut the bills some, giving us a little more help in me being a stay home mother. And it teaches valuable lessons in finding what your true needs are, and how to put priority in order. I know when we got rid of the cable, my kids thought the world would end. It didn't and they adjusted very well. When ordering pizza and going through drive thrus became a rarity, maybe 3 or 4 times a year, they actually began to appreciate it as an extra, looking at it as something special not something that was a part of daily life.

I am looking for even more ways to downsize our lives, and steer us more into the simple world and out of the high tech, give me, selfish world that surrounds us all. I'll keep you posted on what we try in our efforts to live simple in this chaotic high tech world.

A New Year

When I was a kid the start of the school year was the beginning of the new year to me. It didn't matter that the year officially begins on Jan. 1, to me the year consisted of the months we were in school, it ended in June with the start of summer, and it began the Wednesday after Labor Day with the first day of school. Even all these years later, though the year still officially begins on Jan.1, I still look at the start of school as the beginning of the year. I am not sure what part of the year I thought summer was, probably just a nothingness and in many ways summer is still pretty much that. I still tend to look at the beginning of school as the beginning of a new year.

We are quickly approaching the new year here. In Florida where we live, school begins in August, and I am learning in many parts of the country that is now the norm. We are down to seven week days and four weekend days and it will be the first day of school.

This new year will bring many lasts with it for our house. This football season is the last season two of my boys will be eligible by age to play for the league they have played on for four seasons. We are nearly a month into practices already, and our Jamboree games are this Saturday. These will be the official start of this years season, and also the last Jamboree my boys will attend as football players. The official beginning and the official end all at one time. Football is tiring for old mom here, yet we begin this season with the bittersweet knowledge that this is the end of an era in their lives and mine.

This school year also marks my one sons Senior year. And at its end another one will have only one year left before he too will be done with high school. A stage of my parenting will be completed, and that little baby I held will turn 18. My hopes and dreams at his birth will take second place to his own. Yes I am kidding myself, they probably did that in his eyes at about age 12.

My grandson and my nephew, and my niece are all beginning the school careers as they begin kindergarten this year. Another niece begins her college career as she prepares to leave home and attend a university that is a few hour trip from home.

My 16 year old will complete his Eagle Project with the Boy Scouts of Amercia and that will close yet another chapter in the story of our lives. And the youngest if he chooses would now be eligible to begin Cub Scouts.

That is a lot of changes in one year! As we embark on the start of this new year, we do so with the dreams, hopes, and faith that we do every year, yet this time it feels different. This time of year this year is an ending to so many things, and marks the beginning of so very many more.

Over the many years of first days of school, there have always been new changes, and yet this year they seem to be different somehow with it being the ending of so many of the stages of growing up happening in our house. As with every year we will face the challenges, climb the mountains, and come to terms with the new phases we will be embarking on.

I look forward to the adventures the new year will bring, and I will no doubt feel many twinges of sadness as well, as I prepare myself for the ending of one childhood and the beginning of that same childs adulthood. I will continue to have dreams for that child and the others as well. I will continue to pray for all of them, and as I watch these last football games, and this last year of high school I will hold close to my heart the memories we are going to take with us from this year. I will engrave those memories into my heart, and I will promise myself now that amongst the tears I will surley cry as we work our way to the end of the year, I will also smile for this year and all the ones that brought us to it.

I Live In The Food Processor

Living in a house with five children aged 7-17, and two adults is much like living in a food processor. Our combined personality traits, all in one house is similar to putting all the vegetables into the food processor at one time, turning it on high speed, and letting it whir away. The result often being that mess you have when it is time to take the food processor apart and clean it. Shreds of this and that stuck on the blades, reminding you every time why it is you really don't like digging it out of the cabinet and using it at all!





Seven people, seven personalities, all in one place, with some strange idea that we will live together in this wonderfully harmonious enviroment! Well okay, it was a thought, even if it wasn't a realistic thought.

Want to know all about different tastes in music, sports, foods, movies, you name it and we can quickly give you seven different opinions, and seven different reasons for each opinon. Though one may briefly tolerate someone elses likes, it should never be mistaken as being in agreement. Somehow it seems like I am the one tossed into the food processor of our united lives the most often. I wonder at times is it because I am the mom? It seems that without fail we will get into my car and the button to change the radio station of my choice is immediately the first thing touched and music that isn't my choice is then blaring at me. Okay, so you say well teenagers tend to like different music and tend to think they are in charge of our musical entertainment for car rides. I disagree with this, and feel people riding in my car with me should listen to whatever music I happen to choose playing. However as we have blended families and personalities, it is not just the teens who make it the choice to do this, but my husband as well will change the dial to suit his tastes. Most of the time I just endure, but if we have the kids with us, it then proceeds to be a battle of wills. Step father versus kids, both sides insisting on getting in the last word, both sides equally determined to win, and where does that leave me? Stuck in the middle, caught between the man I married and the kids that I inherited sole custody of when their father died. Not a good place to be. I'd rather have a side than be caught in the middle, ah yes there goes the chopping blade yet once again. Score at end is a tie for zero, but mom is now fried.

Another are of aggravation.......Dishes! Dishes are a neverending cause of stress and strife in our household. We seem to have a never ending supply that need to be washed or loaded into the dishwasher. If I didn't live in this house with all these people I love, I would never have believed that dishes can be the battleground for a major war. However they are! It doesn't seem to matter that when I leave the house there are no dishes to be dealt with, nor does it make any difference if I am gone for a long time or a short time, the dishes seem to jump out of the cabinets all by themself at times, but I will none the less come home to a massive supply of dishes needing to be washed or loaded into said dishwasher. Uh oh, in come children and step dad...put your gloves on battle begins. Now my offspring have a stubborn streak, and if you ask them to do something in a way that they get the impression they have a choice ( notice I say impression, because really they have no choice), they will usually, not always, but usually somehow see it your way and do what it is you want. Mission accompolished..mom-1 kids-0. But, like I said they are stubborn and if you come out into the ring telling and heaven forbid making it appear demanding they do, well there again..WAR has begun. And again I am tossed into the food processor, caught between enemy lines, and anything I say is going to be against one side or the other, so I am again in a no win scenario.

Then we have the chair episode. I bought a wicker chair at a yard sale and my first words that day are probably the only words I have ever spoken that seem to have been commited to the memory of others. I told everyone that day to stay out of my chair, as I did not want it torn up from horsing around like so many of my belongings tend to be. Well recently that chair has been a huge issue! In comes the seven year old, leaning on the chair daily to look out the window and see if his friend is outside. Second enters the grown-up with the demand he get off his mamas chair, thus the lines are drawn, and the battle begins, and mom is again tossed into the food processor. This particualr chair has become such a topic of disagreement that I myself am ready to destroy it, just so I don't have to hear near daily battles over it. And again when I open my mouth, I am in a no win situation over my own stupid chair, that I have learned to regret ever having bought!

These are just a couple of the daily issues we have in our blended household, and they are just tiny parts of the reasons why I often wonder, just why exactly we thought this was such a brilliant idea.

My days are spent trying to keep peace, fairness, objectiveness, hope, love, and every other kind of good emotion strong and stable in my life. Yet many days I find myself sticking to the eggshells I find myself walking on, pushing back deep inside me the things I believe in to suit others and keep peace, and what happens in the process, is I get chopped up living in the food processor to the point sometimes I am not even sure who I am anymore.

Now we all know teenagers have this tremendous power in which they can push a parents buttons and create so much chaos that you'd give almost anything to jump into a food processor just to get away from the noise and drama. Being the " parent" doesn't work, I know I have tried. However if you are lucky enough to be the step parent in the situation it works wonderfully. I have seen this first hand, my husband has an incredible talent in being able to become the invisible person. If the teens in particular are giving me a difficult time, he has the uncanny ability to just walk right by, completely deaf to the noise around him, totally blind to their existence or mine and can just tune out the fact that he cohabitates with any of us at all. My kids are very tuned into this, and as most kids will do, they see this as an advantage on their part. I have learned how to do the same thing in regards to issues with his kids as well, and if there is one thing he and I should agree on, ignorance is truly bliss as they say. If we just stay out of the other factors of each others lives, all kids are happy.

So as we endure our daily struggles to live in harmony, and blend the seven personalities in the same house, we also must blend the remaining personalities that are part of the unit, though they don't live in the same house. However we continue to hope for a balance to miraculously make itself visible to all, and our intent is to try and stick it out long enough to finally one day become somewhat blended happily all the way around.

Food for Thought

The other night as I spent the night unable to sleep I used the quiet time while all others in the house were asleep to do some research on the computer. I was on the Focus on the Family site where they have numerous articles about the modern blended families that are so present in our modern society. I must say I was shocked by some of what I read, humored by some, and left scratching my head and saying wow that's my life on yet other things.

I was shocked by the realization that my marriage falls in the category that has a 73% chance statistically of failing. As I read further into it I began the scrathcing of my head and saying wow, as many of the little things mentioned are daily tidbits in my own life. Now talk about not sleeping! Whew.

In one segment they talked about the term blending and what that actually means. They used the example of putting all the foods into the blender and mixing them up at once, translating to me as the part where you get married to one person and all the others in their lives and those in your life being tossed into the blender and anticpating that all will mesh together into one fine smooth lump, and everyone will be happy. Yes sadly that is the hope of most of us when we remarry. We somehow think any mistakes made in the past have prepared us to have a great remarriage and all will have the fairy tale happily ever after ending we grew up believing in.

Then they used the example of putting things one at a time into a crock pot and allowing the foods over time to blend nicely together, given the time to simmer and cook and blend. That tranlated to me as yikes we are going to spend our lives simmering, and stewing in the hopes that all comes out happily together at the end of the process. Yet as I think more on it, the crock pot is a much better comparison than the blender, where we get thrown in together, chopped up and there we are. At least with the crock pot we have the advantage of being put in individually as our own enity, allowed to slowly cook with others and come out one happy stew.

The simmering part is one of the phrases that caught me as really resembling my own blending here. We seem to constantly have someone simmering, and either they eventually reach a full boil and bubble over, or they just continue to slow cook with the boil being hidden beneath the surface. A great deal of the simmering process in our unit is that very often there is no real communication. In an attempt top keep peace, we tend to make things appear to be much more humorous than they really are. In trying to keep everyone smiling and blended peacefully, we begin a discussions and as soon as one or another has decided they don't want to deal with it conversation is over, and leading to more of the simmering just below the surface. If this is at all usual in the married again world I can better understand why that figure for failing is at 73%.

Now our house consists of a lot of male persons, a lot more than most houses and we all know that the males gruffly say their two cents worth and the conversation is over, or they don't contribute to the talk process at all. If we force them to talk about things it creates another problem with attitude, and they go back into the denial process that anything could really be not quite right after all. We have a wild combination of both here at our blender, and a variety of age levels in which it is evident, young teen, to young men, to grown men. The silly stuff they have a lot to say about, but the real issues result in head nodding and at a later point saying I didn't hear that. I also notice they have this blank sad puppy dog stare if you talk seriously to them and the result of that is the quilt you feel,( very much a female trait) at the idea of rocking the boat, so you stop talking, and allow those feelings to simmer in that family crock pot, stewing away any hurt thoughts, angry thoughts, selfish thoughts, allowing them to simmer and simmer but never totally bubble up to boil.

The other thing that is very evident in our house are the extra walls, the ones we bang into all the time, but can not see. They are the invisible walls which keep our unit divided as that relish dish I mentioned before. We have the us section, the me section, the my kids section, the your kids section, the your extended family section, the my extended family section, and the the sections that include one or the other with any one or the other sections. We are like a giant experiment dish, and the focus is keep all from blending at all costs to prevent from boiling. We probably should come with a warning label! Mix, shake, or put in same place at same time may be hazardous to your family harmony. And trust me on this we have definetly seen the proof of the truth in this. Even in these times of trial mixture, the seperateness of the unit is highly visible, as mine goes one way, his goes another, he hangs with his and trickles over to the mine to try and keep peace, and I finally remove myself from the not being spoken to, and the anxiety one can get from being surrounded by contempt for oneself, and I have been known to take a nice long walk where I actually have been gone for a really long time before anybody even noticed. Maybe I am simmering, yea probably. But the walls are there, they can't be seen but they absolutely can be felt.

Two families, two completley different families, simmering in the crock pot of life, because two grown people decided to merge all these people together into one great dish, whether they wanted to be merged or not, no wonder that number is at 73%. Those two people are so completely outnumbered by the signifcants in their own individual lives and the realizations that no matter how long they try and simmer these different fruits of life the probabilty of their actually blending into one happy mixture is probably less than the 27% chance they have of making it. WOW!!

So the process continues, and two people hope for the best, each one allowing the feelings to simmer and not boil over, stir it up a little, put the lid back on it and hope that one day they will beat those odds and actually somehow stay together and that all the significants will discover it isn't so bad to allow the blending process to happen.

What does this have to do with me? Well we have the yours and the mine daily in our lives. We have the us, and the stress of trying to be a family, but we are constantly three families trying to be one, and including all in one thing has turned out so hurtful and disastrous in the past that we no longer even really try. That creates the simmering in our own personal relationship, consiting of two, where one or the other of us feels the need to walk on eggshells at all times, or to conviently not mention aspects of our days. 73 % of these remarriages will fail, 27% will be strong enough to survive. I wonder what the percentage is of those who just give up. At times I feel like I am too stubborn to fall in to that 73% and at other times I feel like if I just go ahead and allow myself to fall in that 73% I may find myself hurt less, smiling more, more free to feel useful, happy, and fulfilled as a person.

So as our life continues to simmer in our family crock pot perhaps we will become more tender, more combined as a whole and who knows maybe even beat the odds.

Blessings Abound

This weekend we had one of those memorable and joyous family happenings here at our house. Several weeks ago my teenage daughter announced she wanted to be baptised. This was a joyful announcement for me as I don't baptize my children when they are infants. I do have them blessed when they are babies, but I feel being baptised is a choice they must make for it to really count. Anyway, yesterday was the day she chose.

After she compiled her personal list of people she wanted to be included we handed out invitations and all except one were able to attend. For us that meant a grand total of 42 people in our home for the grand event, as she chose to be totally immersed in our pool. When the Pastors performing the ceremony opened it up to anyone else who wanted to make their choice or anyone who wanted to be rebaptised, her younger brother decided it was a good day for him to do this as well. Now he had been talking about it for weeks as well, but this was her day, so I hadn't asked her to share it with him, but rather told him of course he could do this and we would choose a day for him. One of my own blessings came at the moment the offer for anyone to join her was made, as she looked at her little brother and said," Come on Peter, do this with me". Now the remarkable part of this to me is , as a teenager she is under most circumstances completely self absorbed! And yet given an opportunity to do something with or for someone else, she grasped the chance to go for it!

So my youngest daughter and my youngest son in the presence of their immediate family and our wonderful circle of closest friends and church family members were baptised together on July 18. It was a joyful day not only for them, but for me as their mother, as I watched them go under the water and come back up born again! They officially claimed their faith in that brief moment of time, and will be blessed beyond their comprehension as the days of their lives unfold.

For me it was a double blessing to watch as two more of my children took that leap of faith, and I now have four of my seven that have chosen to be Baptised. I look forward to watching them continue to grow in their faith, to help others grow in theirs, and to embrace them into mine in an entirely new way.

Our Lives Are Like A Relish Dish

Sometimes I sit and look at where my life is at, where it has been and where it appears to be going and I realize that I often am on the outside looking in the window and that my view is actually what I often refer to as my view from the porch. That is what I call it when I seem to be looking in at my life and though I am there it sometimes seems that I am on the outside looking in.

I first noticed this two and a half years ago when my husband and I were dating. I discovered then that there was an invisible divison between his life and mine and though somewhere in the middle we joined, that divison was none the less there, keeping our life divided into three parts, ours, his, and mine. Somehow through all that we worked on that common ground we found and we continued dating and eventually marrying. And somewhere in the midst of our life, there are still so many parts of it where I find myself still getting my view from the porch.

At times it is like we live three lives that is somehow entwined into one. We have the our life, the my life, and the his life. Since I am the one who still has younger kids living at home he is included more into my part of the three lives than I am into his, which became again transparently clear today. It is seen in the simplest things, and yet those are the very things that remind me of my place on the porch.

In our blended life today we celebrated the Baptism of two of my children, his "step" children, and we also were celebrating the birthday of my teenage daughters boyfriend as well. As my husband was cutting the cake to be handed out I wanted to take a picture, and I once again got a picture with sunglasses and no smile, after he had already done his usual hide from the camera stunt. This is not an uncommon event when I want to capture a moment in time via the camera and though three years ago it was just as common, it didn't seem to irrittate me as much. Perhaps that was before I realized, he does actually take off his sunglasses and does actually give a genuine smile for the camera, just not for me, but to the part of our life that is his.

When he is with his own blood related family he will actually look at the camera, give a heartfelt genuine smile,and guess what he actually shows off the fact that he has eyes underneath sunglasses. I find these pictures without knowledge because we have facebooks and he gets tagged by his "real" children on it so that he too has the pictures. Silly thing to bug someone you are most likely thinking and I actually tend to agree to a point. However, these visits are never shared verbally or any other way until they are happy family photo shots online. As I sit on the porch looking in at the part of life that is behind that invisible divider I often wonder why that is. That in itself is mystifying to me, but then when we have an event to take a good photo shot at, that my children or I are involved in we get the goofy photos instead of the nice ones.

As we move forward through the days of our lives, it becomes clearer and clearer to me that there will forever be the relsih dish effect in our lives. There will always be three sections and no matter how much I want to include him in all aspects of my life, there are always going to be parts he doesn't really want to be involved in where my children or my side of the family label is concerned, and there also will be parts of his life that I will never be fully included in as well.

This is all part of blending two completely different families together.