February Celebrations

With the arrival of Miss February 2013, we have been busy attending many parties and events that our dear sweet month has planned for us to do. February is such a short little month that it seems everyday is jam packed with one wonderful thing to do after the other. This past week, we attended our church's annual Mardi Gras Celebration which was also a fundraiser for the annual mission trip to Bolivia. The very next day was Ash Wednesday of course marking the beginning of Lent (more on Lent to come.)

Valentine's Day followed the next day and also was our dog Lucy's 17th birthday!

 

We celebrated our dear wonder dog in grand style with a doggie birthday cake for our fur babies and chocolate cupcakes for us.

It's a good thing sweets are not what I gave up for Lent or I may have felt a little uncelebratory in not being able to eat a cupcake :-)!

Lucy couldn't wait for to eat her birthday cake so the girls rushed out of the bath in order to sing happy birthday!

The girls enjoyed heart shaped doughnuts on their way to school on Valentine's Day morning.

And we all received lots of cards, gifts and flowers to celebrate the day of love.

Emma-Caroline put her sewing skills to good use and made an elephant squeekie toy for Macy as a Valentine's Day gift.

Macy preferred to play with her new toy instead of having her photo made!

We ended our week with a fun family outing to see Phineas and Ferb Live.

It was a great show and later we headed to our favorite restaurant, Tupelo Honey for a nice tasty dinner.

We did a little indoor window shopping at some of our favorite down town stores as we waited for a table for dinner.

The girls purchased two new "puppy dogs" to add to their collection and wanted to pose with them for a photo op.

We finally made it to Tupelo Honey for a wonderful meal together. While we were eating, it began to snow a beautiful heavy snow. It only lasted for a small bit, but it made it feel even cozier as we dined on some of favorites. Today we are enjoying an extended weekend in observance of President's Day. Although February is a short month, we have many more celebratory days ahead including Grandparents Day, a trip to the symphony and a sleepover birthday party. Miss February sure knows how to warm hearts and bring smiles even during the cold winter months!

The Greatest of These is Love!

         The month of February seemed to tip-toe in silently during the wee small hours of the evening. One day I was checking my calendar, watching January clinging to every last second of 2013, and the next thing I knew, February had already moved her sweet little self in and had hung heart covered curtains in the windows. How is it that time, that finite number of minutes, hours, days,  . . . can sometimes move so slow and other times pass us by in the blink of an eye?
          As February made her appearance, so too did a lesson on love arrive at my doorstep. Last week, I sat at my desk tapping away at the keys on my computer as I diligently composed the words that would make up the lesson plans for the the children's services on Sunday. The subject matter seemed fitting, 1 Corinthians 13, "Love is patient, love is kind . . .". After all, February is the month of love so discussing what love actually means is appropriate. I guess those who determined the order of the lectionary readings also found that placing 1 Corinthians 13 somewhere in February was appropriate also. The children were enthused in our discussion of love pointing out quickly all of the people that they naturally loved like mommy's and daddy's and their dogs and cats. They were more reticent to admit that they loved their brothers and sisters and somewhat surprised that they needed to love their siblings and friends even when they did something that was not to their liking.
         In almost every lesson that I teach, I find myself learning a lesson or two from the small yet very sage little friends sitting in front of me. This past Sunday's lesson on love was no exception as one child raised her hand and said, "I think love is hard. I mean when my little brother pulls my hair and messes up my room, I just really want to punch him real hard on the arm. But I don't do it." When I asked her why she didn't, this little student of mine simply said, "Well, because I would get in trouble and then I'd have to talk, like forever, with my mom and dad about how I am supposed to love my brother and all."  I always find that children  have such a wonderful way of getting down to the nitty gritty point of most things. And this little girl hit the nail on the head! The message of love is exactly the act of not punching your brother when he makes you angry. Love endures all.  It does not harbor ill will. And love is hard. It takes strength not to let the forceful emotion of anger or resentment or self gain to get in the way of love.
         In thinking over the response of my little student to what she perceived love to be, I wondered to myself if I show that much patience and strength to people that I am "supposed" to love. Do I always hold my tongue and not say something right back in defense of myself to a perceived wrong? Is the fact that there is not a parent there telling me that I should be patient and kind in spite of feeling wronged giving me false permission to not be patient and to defend myself in order to feel instant gratification in being righted of my wrongs? The more I pondered this idea, the more I painfully realized that I actually was less loving at times towards others than a child who showed restraint to getting even with her little brother's wrong doings. This little girl actually got it. Love indeed does endure all things. Love really is patient and kind.
         As  adults, we all experience different degrees of love for family, friends, and coworkers. What is somewhat ironic is the fact that as our degree of understanding of love has grown with our maturity as adults, our ability to practice the act of love is sometimes less than what we practiced as children. Thankfully, as Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 13: 13, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." The act of love as humans will always be difficult and uncomfortable at times; however, we know that through our faith and hope in God that we are strengthened in his love and in turn we are able to love others as he asks us to do. We can all take heart that Love indeed is the greatest gift we receive and that we can also bestow on one another.

Life Lessons Through the Game of Basketball

Sometimes in life, the going is not, well, always easy. I guess there is truth to that verse in that Billy Ocean song "when the going gets tough the tough gets going", or something like that. Anyway . . . for my oldest sweet girl, this lesson has been a hard little pill to swallow. Emma-Caroline has always been a quick study. Failure is not an acquaintance she has ever met, until recently when she entered the game of basketball.

 Now I am not saying my girl got out there on the basketball court and totally bombed. She did, however, find that she was challenged, and that's always a good thing in my book. Emma-Caroline is very analytical as well as systematic. She can visualize anything in her mind, assemble it and execute it almost perfectly every time. In reading and fine motor activities, Emma-Caroline never has had a problem. She excels in all academic subjects, art and could take a computer apart and put it back together again with great ease. In sports, however, Emma-Caroline quickly gets the game, but her gross motor abilities don't always want to cooperate.

 I will again say, she is not a clumsy lump as she plays any sport, but muscle memory takes much more time and patience on her part than she is sometimes willing to give.This has been true with all of the sports she has played from soccer to tennis to basketball. Each of her coaches has said that she knows the game and strategy very well, but she needs practice with getting her body to do what her mind knows it should do.This is where the life lessons come in to play. Midway into basketball this season, Emma-Caroline was ready to throw in the towel.

 We have had battles of wills in getting her out for practice and game days, reminding her of other sports that she loves, like tennis, where she now is excelling because she has practiced it over and over again.

 As the season with the Lady Hair Bows has progressed, Emma-Caroline has improved. Her wonderful coaches, Coach Bowman and Coach Sykes have taught her a lot of valuable skills in playing on a team as well has having perseverance and team spirit. They have encouraged her and cheered her on and we are very blessed that Emma-Caroline has had this opportunity to play basketball with all of her friends.

 Today is the last set of basketball games that Emma-Caroline will play as a Lady Hair Bow. Through her participation, she has learned that in life, things don't always come easy, but that with determination, patience and practice, you can achieve your goal and actually have fun in the process.

Mother Nature's Gift

One of the things that I love about my home is the outside gardens that we are able to enjoy year round. I have talked about my hydrangea gardens that bloom in the spring and bless us with an amazing bounty of blooms from March through sometimes as late as November. We also have many other beautiful flowering trees and shrubs that bloom at varying times during the year.

You would think that winter would be lacking in beautiful things to look at as most flowering trees and shrubs are in hibernation; however, I have found that a winter garden brings it's own unique beauty.

I have talked of our coral bark maple whose bark is the most brilliant color of red in the winter months and our yellow twig dogwood whose limbs are a particularly beautiful shade of yellow.

 We also have shrubs whose leaves also turn a beautiful shade of red during the winter months and beautiful holly trees and shrubs with a bounty of red berries to share.

I have come to love this time of year and the blessing of having a winter garden. This past weekend, we had a short lived ice storm come through.

It was enough to close schools on Friday and also to leave our beautiful trees and shrubs covered in lovely layer of gleaming ice.

The ice gifted by Mother Nature in our storm highlighted all of my favorite shrubs and trees giving them the appearance that they were dressed to go to a magical Winter Ball.

   How lovely they all looked in their fine glass bobbles and glimmering gems all given by their very own Mother Nature!

Let Your Light Shine!

I have been pondering the idea that the gifts and talents that God gives to us shine right through from the very moment we are born. The cry of a new born child evokes sweet tears of awe as parents rejoice at the birth of God's perfect gift. Through nurturing, encouragement and love those gifts and talents we receive grow and God's light is allowed to shine with an amazing brilliance. So what happens from the time we are born into this world until we become adults and beyond that can cause those perfect gifts to sometimes get locked up and worse still to sometimes never be allowed to shine? Is it the fact that we are born into an imperfect world striving for perfection that an individual's light can get hidden under a bushel in fear that his or her light might not measure up, might not be good enough, or important enough, or dare I say perfect enough to shine to the whole world?

 To the parents who have just welcomed a new bundle of joy into the world, the idea of hiding their child's light under a bushel is indeed ludicrous. How could one even begin to imagine stifling the God-given gifts and talents just waiting to emerge from the perfect newborn infant? As that newborn grows from infancy to adulthood, however, he or she begins to learn through experience just what gifts and talents that he or she possesses that are "acceptable" and "worthy" to be expressed in this imperfect world. Through these experiences, a child can either learn how to embrace, enjoy, nurture, and use his gifts and talents for God's light to shine through or he can learn to doubt, to suppress, to hide and sometimes to forget about his gifts in an effort to become the "perfect" in the imperfect.

 The irony behind striving to be perfect in an imperfect world is that perfection will never be achieved. So to that end an individual driven by perfection will always come up short. On the flip side, an individual who allows perfection to hinder his effort to use his gifts and talents also comes up short. What also may seem ironic is this; God bestows upon us, who are the imperfect, the perfect gifts and talents. When we stop being a slave to perfection and put our trust in God, allowing him to work through our gifts and talents, He uses our imperfections to do his work and his perfect light shines through. This is what we were created in his image to do. He gives each of us passion for things in which He our maker is passionate about. Through each of us embracing our gifts and acknowledging them as tools for God's glory we fulfill God's perfect plan for our lives and we receive the gift of pure joy.

So what are your gifts and talents? Have you been afraid to use your passions for certain things because you were afraid they would not be "perfect?" What happened when you did let go and allowed God to work through your imperfections? It's time to let your light shine. Embrace your imperfections, trust in God, and He will work through you to shine his light to the world.

As Pure as Snow!

I was sitting in Panera sipping my Hazelnut coffee and glad that I was finally drying out after being out in torrential down pours, when I received the call, "Knox County is calling for early dismissal due to projected inclement weather." Thankfully I had already made my grocery store run stocking up on the essentials, bread, milk, eggs . . . as well as the non essentials, brownies, cookies, hot chocolate and marshmallows. The time was 12:15 so I decided to go ahead and go get the girls even before the designated 1:30 dismissal. We made it home and hurriedly unloaded the groceries before settling into pajamas and waiting for the predicted inclement weather.   

At 2:30, the first fluffy wet snow flake fell from the sky to the fan fare of squeals of delight from the girls. By 3:15 the girls were dressed in their new pink and purple snow gear I had found only two days earlier on the clearance aisle at Target

 I had joked with the check-out clerk that my purchase of snow gear would ensure that we would NOT get snow.  I was thankful that Mother Nature proved me wrong with her gift of white.

 The girls exuberance for the white fluffy winter wonderland just outside our door was as pure as the snow they were playing in. There is something about a first snowfall that always brings a smile and a feeling of being a kid again.

We spent several hours out in the snow enjoying sledding, making snow angels, building a snow man and playing with our neighbors.

The sun is shining brightly today and most likely all of the snow will have melted away by tomorrow. I am very thankful that 2013 has given us the gift of snow. If it snows again this year or not, we will have one wonderful snow that will go into our memory books.

The Practice of Family Traditions

When I think of family traditions I think of large gatherings at holidays and the sharing of meals with the same prepared dishes year after year. I think of grandmother's fine china and the passed down baptismal gown that each new family member wears at his or her Christening, and I think of cultural heritage given from one generation to the next. Although one person's family traditions can be very different from another person's , the one common denominator is that through the participation and inheritance of tradition, a person's identity is shaped and memories are formed. Those memories and attached feelings are what spur on the passing down of tradition from one generation to the next and is what makes up the rich fabric of our society.

The word tradition in essence could conjure up something formal but in reality, any kind of together time spent with family that is meaningful and practiced on a regular basis can be the make-up of tradition. It can be family meals together, bed time rituals such as story reading and nightly prayers, trips to the store to purchase new school supplies and more. The wonderful thing about tradition is that it doesn't really matter when it begins or what it entails. A tradition could be hundreds of years old, or it could be newly begun. It could center on making a special pasta dish for Christmas Eve dinner based on an old family recipe, or it could center on a  weekly family movie and dinner night. Again, the important thing is that whatever the tradition,it is meaningful time spent with family or friends that begs to be repeated again and again.

This past Christmas, Howie received a karaoke machine from the girls. Howie is one tough customer to purchase gifts for, not because he is picky, but because he really never wants anything at all. In recent years, I have taken to purchasing him gifts in which he can participate in some fun activity with the girls.

In my gift buying for Howie, I have also inadvertently begun new traditions for our family. The karaoke machine has been a big hit and we have all enjoyed singing to our hearts content on a regular basis. We even have plans to include it as an enhancement in other family traditions such as for birthday celebrations and other fun get togethers.

Family traditions are always a wonderful ways in which to build relationship and memories with loved ones whether they are traditions that have been passed down for generations or ones that have just been begun.

What are some of your favorite family traditions? How have you added to your family's traditions over the years? The other wonderful thing about tradition is sharing them with others.

Detaching Meaning

              One of the problems I have with letting go of things that I have accumulated is that I attach meaning to objects of which I have acquired. I think this is probably the case for most people, although some people have a harder time detaching meaning than others. I use to actually feel like my stuffed animals, dolls, and other toys had real feelings when I was a child. If I had seen Toy Story at the age of eight, I don't think anyone could have ever convinced me that toys are not real and are simply things. What is it with putting a face on something that makes that object come alive? Call me a whack-a-doodle or whatever but I still have to tell myself when I am going through the girls' toys that the stuffed animals and dolls are not real and that their feelings are not being hurt just because I am giving them away. Yes, I know, I'm a nut case :-).

             With other stuff such as clothes and knick-knacks and gadgets around my house, the getting rid of difficulty falls into one of two categories: 1. I could care less about it so good riddance and 2. I care too much about it, but it needs to go so I have to just force myself to let go. The second category happens with things like baby clothes that I get sentimental over or souvenirs in which I attach entire past trip memories to, or the girls' school work in which I want to hold on to every last mis-formed letter that they produce on paper. When I attach some sort of meaning to an object, it almost becomes a part of my identity. Attaching meaning to things is not necessarily a bad thing. Objects can be meaningful and help to tell the story of the human race from ancient history to modern man. It is when too many objects are given meaning that a problem arises as those objects start to encroach upon and weigh down a person's life.

             Detaching meaning from objects can be a very time consuming and painful task. I feel that over the years, I have gotten better at letting go of things in my house and giving them away to our local Community Chest or the Junior League for Bag-A-Bargain. Sometimes I have an occasional regret of an object that I gave away, but most of the time, I could not even begin to tell you what I actually did give away. That is when I know for certain that purging my home of those things was the exact right thing to do. The other problem I encounter is managing the admittance of new objects into my house and making sure I do not repeat a pattern of excess.

Two Christmases ago, my right hand was in a cast and I couldn't decorate our house with all of the stuff that we usually decorate with. I used fresh greens, and holly from my yard that year and brought out only the "essentials," tree ornaments, tree skirt, and stockings from our hoards of Christmas decor. I even bought  fresh Christmas wreaths for the door and windows and that was it. When it came time to undecorate my house it was done in less than half the morning, whereas in the past it had taken me days to take it all down. Since then, I have added back to the Christmas decor that I take out but I have also given a lot of it away. It's still not the huge amount I use to bring out, but some of it has come back in full force. That's the fine line I walk when it comes to things. What is enough to make it just right not only at Christmas time, but also throughout the entire year.

               Deciding what things are meaningful and useful in your home can be a daily struggle. Sometimes I want to purge it ALL! And sometimes I just want to hold on to it all as if my life depended on it. I realize that my life does NOT depend on the things that I posses and in reality those things may sometimes hinder my authentic life living. So the process continues. And in the recognition that the monitoring of the stuff that comes in and out of my house is indeed a process, I grow somewhat day-by-day, year-by-year in knowing what truly is meaningful to me and to my family.

        As an example of objects that can be meaningful, the photos I have posted today come from a family collection of 1950's World Book Encyclopedias as well as a family collection of old cameras. I asked my mom if I could have these things this year. These objects are meaningful to me because they  represent a piece of our family's history. In finding a spot to showcase my "new" old family treasures, I took down objects that were not meaningful, but rather only served to be a space filler. Those non meaningful objects have since been donated instead of relocated to another part of the house. Although the encyclopedias and cameras are objects with attached meaning, the meaning is important to our family. These objects serve to enhance the story of our family and are things I hope will always be passed down from one generation to the next. Will they consume me with thought and worry? No. That's just it. Well-appointed objects serve a family in meaningful ways and enhance daily life whether they serve to work for you or to chronicle your family's history, or to entertain you, etc. In detaching meaning from the objects in one's home, it is not to say that all things should be devoid of any significance. It is to say, however, that careful consideration should be given to the things that do truly enhance your life in order to create a more peaceful and working environment in which your family can thrive. So what are things that are meaningful to you and your family? How do you manage the things that come and go in your home? Do you have any tips on making detaching meaning from an object easier? I'd love to know!

Enough

       When I was a little girl I use to play for hours in the back yard in worlds that were only limited by the stretch of my imagination. I was a princess, a queen, a mommy, a teacher, a doctor, a dog, a horse, a chef, a flower shop owner. . . I made houses out of the sheets my grandmother hung on the clothes line and I baked my cakes and pies on the metal slide in the neighbor's back yard. I made "perfume" out of acorns and necklaces out of old buttons my grandmother kept in a beautiful tin. I cut paper dolls out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog and soared to the moon and back on the backyard swing. I made crowns out of flowers and my bed was a lush green patch of clover under the warm sun or starry skies. The toys I did have sometimes made an appearance as my students in my imaginary classroom or as my royal subjects in my imaginary kingdom. I played from sun-up until after sun-down all through the summer and after my homework was done until dinner time during the school year. Life was good, really good and it was more than enough. I don't remember ever longing for more or chasing after something else because what I had was abundance, not of things, but of pure imagination turned into endless hours of one fun moment after another.

        As an adult with children of my own I am often astounded at the number of toys and things my girls have. This stuff sometimes consumes my world as I go from room to room picking up toys, shoes, clothes, pencils, markers, hair bows, clothes, parts of games, etc. It can sometimes drive me to the brink of wild-eyed, teeth-gnashing craziness. It's not their fault that they have so much. It's mine. But why? Why as a person who as as child had just the right amount of things did I ever feel like I needed to give my girls so much? Only a few of the things that they have are actually truly special to them.I still have many of the toys that were my special playthings as a child. Howie does too. They are well-loved, but well cared for too. I have given away some of the girls' toys and clothes only to find that overnight they have reproduced and the closets and drawers and storage boxes are bursting at the seams. If my girls were to house all of the toys they now have in their adult homes, they would need four homes to fit it all in. In this New Year I have decided that enough is enough and I am going to wrangle in all of this excess not only of the girls stuff but of my own stuff too.

        One of the goals I have for our family is to create an environment of peace in which we feel we can move and breathe and stretch our wings and let our imaginations soar. In the blog world, I have seen others embracing a word to live by for the year. In pondering this idea of a word to live by, many amazing words came to mind such as home, peace, harmony, joy. The word that came to me, not of my on accord, but that I feel is truly Spirit given is the word "enough."  The word "enough" can take on a two-fold meaning including "just right" as well as "no more." In exploring the word "enough" and applying it to my goal of creating a peaceful environment in my home I hope to discover ways in which I can free not only my own thoughts but also the thoughts of my family from the chains of things that bind and hinder us from living the lives we were meant to lead. This is not to say that I am clearing my house of everything that we own. On the contrary, I feel that some things in a home can enrich a person's life through usefulness as well as meaning.  It is to say, however, that I will be doing some intentional thoughtful editing of the stuff that is in our home giving consideration to how it enhances and enriches our lives in a meaningful way.  As I go through this process of editing, I am also going to include the input of Howie and the girls. I know that at some point during the process I may hit a road block of one wanting to hold on to something while another wants to see it go. I hope these moments will be teaching moments for all of us.
       2013 has just begun. I look forward to seeing day-by-day how our lives will be reduced in the amount of stuff  we have while at the same time becoming filled with a feeling of peace and joy through finding what truly is "enough."

      *** I am linking up to The Lettered Cottage for a "Word of the Year" Linky Party. The Letterd Cottage is a wonderful blog with wonderful inspiration for the home and living life too. Click on the button below and check out all of the wonderful "words of the year."