My Perrogative

"It's my blog and I'll blog how I want to, blog when I want to, say what I want to, you would blog too if it happened to you!" Go ahead now, get that song out of your head today!

That's my way of saying, yes, I'm still participating in NaBloPoMo for July, just not hitting every single day and definitely using all their prompts. That's the beauty of a blog though, I don't have to. I can do it my way.

Today I'm going to backtrack and use yesterday's prompt.

Monday, July 15, 2013
Do you find it easy to go offline during vacation?

First, I don't take many vacations. Second, our definitions of off line may differ. Third, I hope in the future for it to be possible. 

Let's go through it step by step.

First, there are 7 of us. 7 and a puppy. We collectively have a lot of responsibilities and commitments. It is no easy task to coordinate all of us to do a vacation and, said respectfully, not cheap to do so.

There are plenty of time stretches where I just count us blessed because we are able to eat one meal a day together or spend a little time together at some point in a day. This year has been less than that. The Mr. has a travel client this year and has been almost living on the other side of the country for months on end now. The crush of summer sports has been mind boggling. 

The flip side of all this is all the time we did and do spend together binds us through the crazy stretches.

Crazy stretches though, do not make for vacations. 

Instead they make for short weekends that feel shorter by pushing everything into a few days.

Second, going offline. I'm thinking the prompt writer meant a trip where you leave your place and stay off the Internet, ignore your email, skip listening to your voicemail, put the texts on silent and shun your social sites. 

I'm going to say that since we became a foster family, a vacation where we went offline hasn't happened. 

Sometimes I have felt the need to do a daily check of my connections due to cases and their dramas. Sometimes it's because of not taking the whole pack with us and I feel the need to check in on little people or pets. 

Sometimes I don't disconnect because of the people I have in my circles. I care about them. I like being in conversation with them. I don't necessarily feel like shutting them down for a week or two days of vacation is part of what I need on a vacation. 

Some of the online connecting I do both here on the blog and on social sites, helps me to stay connected to family. I can't take the world on vacation with me. I can't take all the people in my circles or my extended family and so on. Blog posts and status updates and photographs help them see and share in what we are up to. Plus, I'm also a person, that pretty much if I don't do it right away, it gets lost in the piles and lists of I'll take care of that later.

Third, here's hoping for a slightly less connected future. 

This is my own junk, not part of regulated foster care land, but all the years that we have fostered, I have really felt the need to be able to be reached 24/7 by our workers. It's not part of the rules or anything like that. It's just a kind of team player/courtesy thing I feel better doing. 

As long as I've been a foster parent, I've had a cell phone on. 24/7/365. I've stayed connected to my email and messages to be able to handle things as they came.

I suspect that the adoption of Mr. Monkey in the very near future will mean the end of our foster life. 

There are a number of reasons for that and maybe I'll blog on it later, maybe I won't.

I will say, the idea of not holding a licence and in a way, having my life back is appealing. I'd like to clean my house to my own standard and schedule. I'd like to leave my junk where I want to leave it, not where I'm told or regulated. I'd like to do things without giving a note to my worker. I could go on and on here, but you get the idea.

Letting my license go, would mean the possibility of going to bed at night and not having my phone on and in my bed. I could take a day or a vacation and not bring the world along with me electronically. 

I would at least have the option or feel like I had an option I didn't feel like I had before and that is something I'm looking forward to!

Our Corner

And so it goes, the blog is mine and I take it over and blog at will and whim as I please.

Participating in the NaBloPoMo is a good thing. For me a very good thing. It provides a consistent nag at the back of my mind to get on over here and "put down the words, I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind"...go ahead, hear a little Elton in the background.

The prompt for today is something along the lines of who is the first person you met on the Internet.

I can't really say that I've ever met a person from the Internet.

It works the other way for me.

People I know in my real life, I get to know better through the Internet.

Either way it isn't very interesting.

Less interesting is our life around here. But as I said before, my blog, my topics.

The interesting part of life in our home now is the change in stages.  I'm getting a taste of the future and it seems good.

I have one in high school and one in middle school.

It's a whole new era.

Their friends call. They take their bikes and cell phones and off they go. They do things like chores when I ask, or at least most of the time. They are sort of kind to each other.

Good things, my friends, good things

Who Is The Better Liar?

So July may not have been the best month to decide to get back into the habit of daily blogging.

I missed on the 4th of July. We had a party, as always, and I had my hands plenty full with some of my small kids and general party shenanigans. I didn't like the prompt for the day anyway, so I'm digressing.

The prompt for today now, is something someone said in conversation:  "Christians are better liars than everyone else."

Ho! Ho!

Now there's a statement, don't you think?

Here's the thing, the more I thought about it, the more I thought, oh yeah, there is something there.

There is some truth to that statement.

I'm going to say that we couch it under the guise of grace and good manners, but Christians are liars.

I'm not talking about the embezzling kind of lying or the big scandal kind, I'm talking the little stuff. The lies of fantastic coffee cakes and your children are so well behaved when they're at my house. The lies of how much you loved the last book club book or how thrilled you are to be included in the latest potluck marriage mixer night.

These are the lies we tell with more sincerity and conviction than our non-Christian counterparts.

How and why?

Well, I suspect it goes like this.

The how happens when we trick ourselves into believing the why. The more we believe the why, the easier it is to sincerely lie. Why we tell the lies is simple really.

We simply have the idea that as Christians we need to be nice.

And we do need to be nice, but not the fake nice. We have confused love your neighbor and your enemy as yourself with be nice at all costs. We believe we need to be nicer than everyone else because we misguidedly think we're showing grace. We have a bit of a superiority complex too.

Our non-Christian counterparts are far less concerned about offending someone or hurting their feelings by simply telling the truth. When asked if they like the book, more often they will say no, give a reason and not worry if they have offended you or your religion or somehow harmed your tiny little feelings. They simply believe that there are no other motives, they have nothing to prove, they offer up their opinion believing that you genuinely asked for it.

There is no play to see who is more Christian by out nice-ing the others.

I don't know if I'm making this idea clear to you, but let's have a go at it in the comments, shall we?

Where is your favourite place to connect with friends?

That's our question for the day.

Where?

I'm going to stick with wishy-washy answers like, it depends.

It depends, really. I'm not being difficult. It really does depend on lots of things.

Sometimes the perfect setting is a party with lots of people around, close friends and not so close.

Sometimes the perfect place is anywhere you can be one on one and be anonymous.

The perfect place could be very public or very private. I find it doesn't matter that much. What matters more is how comfortable the two people are in it because that determines the level of deep or intimate conversations.

Sometimes the perfect place is a bar with a little liquid help for relaxing barriers.

The perfect place is sometimes my home, although getting even a moment of uninterrupted quasi-private time is next to impossible, depending on the time of night, it can happen.

More than perfect places, I find the key to connecting with friends is timing.

Connecting takes time. Usually lots of time. Hours and hours together at a time and this is something that happens for weeks or months or years. Sometimes the groundwork can be laid by email, text, phone conversations, etc. and the face time comes later.

I also find that darkness helps with connections. Dimly lit bars or restaurants are great for conversations and connections. Late nights on the sofa are fantastic. Car rides or walks are pretty amazing too.

So there you have my nonspecific answer to the very specific question of where is your favorite place to connect.

Connections

Once again I'm going to use NaBloPoMo as a jump start to get out of being a lazy blogger and get back in the habit of daily writing. So here is a post based on today's prompt: Write about the last time you connected with a friend.

To me, this is a little bit of a strange idea.

Write about the last time you connected with a friend.

I kind of want to be a little smug and say simply, if they are my friend, we stay connected on purpose all the time.

I suppose if I have to say that connected means saw them in person, I would have a little more to talk about, but even still, people I am friends with, I make a point of connecting with in person. How often that happens just depends on the million factors of life happening to  both of us. Sometimes it is easy to see another person in person all the time, sometimes it isn't.

When your friend is on the other side of the country or off being a mission on the other side of the world, face time is limited. That doesn't mean we aren't staying connected though.

In our Internet saturated planet, it is insanely easy to stay connected with people. We all know that it doesn't take that many minutes to drop a text or email saying, "hey, I thought of you, how are you?" and that's it. That's all the harder it is to stay connected.

The depth of your relationship and how deep or intimate you want, need or desire it to be will be what determines the amount of investment you place in your emails or texts or phone calls. How long you talk, how well you listen, how personally or how openly you respond are all parts of it.

It's also about knowing the other person. I have some friends that connect best in person. I have some that our deepest, most personal exchanges happen electronically. Neither one is better than the other and both leave us connected.

We say this age of technology is leaving us disconnected and isolated from our friends. I suppose it could if you are spending all your e-time playing games, watching media of some type or whatever, but if you are using a fair amount of your e-time to stay in communication with your friends, then I disagree. 

Smile

Do you look similar or very different from how you looked ten years ago?

This is one of the NaBloPoMo questions for October.  I'm using it out of order.  Deal with it.

It's also a little bit of a cheater question for me.

I look quite a bit different than I did 10 years ago.  Or at least to me I do.  But, I look different than I did 20 years ago and 30 years ago.  Some of it, probably most of it, is just aging.  In my mind though, there is another reason why I have looked different as I've aged.

Twice I've broken my jaw.  Once the upper from the nose down and once the lower snapped off right where the joint is.  I've had my face "revamped" a number of times.

It goes kind of like this.

Born-baby face; break jaw-repair-new face; break jaw again-repair-new face again; repair some lingering issues from first break-new face again; repair more issues from first break-current face.

I'm not complaining.  It could be bad and actually it really isn't.  It sounds dramatic and such, but it's not.  It could have been something that made me bitter and such, I decided not to let it.  

I won't say it didn't shape me in a way.  It did.  I'm not sure how it couldn't.  I'm sure it plays into my odd mix of vanity and lack of care about how I look.  There are a lot of stretches where I don't look in a mirror or when I do, I only look at certain parts of myself.  I look at my eyes, but not my whole face.  It's odd, but it's my life.

I don't think any of my faces have been bad.  They are all mine, all me, after all.  

So I guess it makes you wonder, just exactly how much of your identity is skin deep.

Fall Memories

A collection, much like leaves in piles...

I have only vague memories of trick or treat.  Those late elementary school years we lived in a subdivision that was just being developed.  There were lots of dead end roads with a few houses each.  There were more lots marked off ready to be built than actual neighbors, unless you counted the cows.  Trick or treat was about getting to all the houses possible within the subdivision.  It was usually completely do-able.  I remember a lot of weird costumes and winter coats.  I remember the sort of ritual of pumpkins getting smashed in the road.

Later years, fall was busy.  I was marching band and cheerleading.  Our school colors, orange and black, as fall and Halloween as it gets.  It is unbelievably awkward to be the cheerleader marching in the half time show in your cheer uniform and not your band uniform.  It was always too cold.  I remember the year I marched holding my instrument and not playing because my jaw was broken, again.

Fall was the season of back to school relationships.  It was the tricky time of seeing if your friends from last year were still your friends this year, especially if you were like me and didn't see anyone over the summer.  I was still the "new kid" even after 4 years.

Football and marching band finished up every Friday night with a dance in the gym.  All that time in the band room, all those dramas.  Besties sharing clothes, curling irons plugged in everywhere, the room smelling like hair spray.  We had our own music in there.  Then we'd come around the school to the dance.

School dances.  80's style.  Pegged pants.  Polo.  Madonna, Guns-N-Roses, U2...there were so many.  Neon, denim, sweaters off the shoulder.  Hats, gloves and piles of jewelry.  Slow dancing in the dark.

One of those after the game dances was fateful.  Life changing.

I danced with The Mr.

My life changed course, from what?  I don't know.  I didn't have much of a life plan when I was 15, but I do know that meeting The Mr. so young changed how I was influenced and by who.  I don't mean that in a negative way, not for anyone.  It's just sometimes startling, now in my 40's, to be able to look back and see how much he shaped who I became and the life I'm living.

Again, not bad.

I married The Mr. in the fall.

A few more days, and it will be 20 years since my wedding date and our names were carved, calligraphy style, in pumpkins.

Fall is always a starting over for me.  It's always a remembering and reflecting kind of time.  It's when I take stock of where I'm at and where I meant to be and where I want to go next.  Then I make some plans, not a lot, because after all, it's me.  I don't usually even use the plans I make.

Some of my recent fall seasons have been giving kids up or getting new ones.  We are almost to the one year mark for Mr. Monkey.  Someday this child will have peace.

I'm off to soak in some 80's play lists and some fall memories.

   

I Can See It On Your Face

Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Are you good at hiding your feelings or is your face an open book?

I am completely arrogant and will say that  I am very good at hiding my feelings from showing in the expressions on my face.

I'm sure that sounds deceptive.  I guess in a way, it is.

In my role as a foster parent, it is often protective.

Sometimes it's about setting an example for my children.

Keeping my feelings from my face often allows others to trust me more, tell me more.  Sometimes it's simply about manners.

Even when a person annoys the crap out of you, it isn't necessarily the best thing to have so little self control as to let that all hang out.

It's about power and control too.  I can't necessarily control how I instantly feel about something, but I can control how I react and respond to something. If you tick me off and I instantly show you that, you have the power to push further and possibly manipulate my actions.  If you hurt me and I show it, then you have all the power to do it over and over again.

Not always, but often, the power to be victimized is our own.  We don't have to feel like dirt about ourselves over what Susie said or what Dick did.  We can decide to feel however we want to about it.  We can control how we respond to it.  We don't have to live like life is a giant out of control emotional roller coaster of friends and family and people yanking us up and down.  We just don't.

I'm not saying that there aren't situations or moments in life when a person isn't an open book, when I'm not, because there are.  For all of us.

But, I don't have to be ruled and destroyed by feelings.  I don't have to spend my energy that way if I don't want to.

24/7/365

Thursday, September 27, 2012
What is the first thing you see in the morning?

I'd love to tell you I wake up all glory and wonder and nice and all that stuff, but I don't.

I'm not a morning gal at all.  Ever.

Around 5 is when I start hearing kids, so the very first thing I look at is my phone to see what time it is.  My phone is also my alarm clock, so it's in bed with me.

After I see what ugly hour it is, I try my best to go back to sleep.  I need every little z I can get!

It doesn't last long though.  On a typical day over here, alarm clocks start going off at 5:30.  Mine goes off at 6.

True confession time, I am one of those people you read about.

After I turn the alarm off, I lay in bed for about 5 minutes doing a quick check though my emails, messages and social media sites before getting up.

Then I head into coffee and the newspaper in between getting 6 of the 7 of us out the door and to our places on time by 8:30.  It's a little fire drill-ish in our place in the morning.

I know all about how bad it is to be so connected to your phone and the greater world and such.  I do.  And yet the people in the circles of my life have issues that happen at all hours.

Hearts breaking know no time frame.

I would much rather roll over to a text at 3:AM than ever hear I needed you and you weren't there.

Now, that said, I also don't extend those 24/7/365 hours to everyone.  Just a very select few get those rights to my life, but once you get them, well, I don't take them back often., let's just say that.

Friends & Lovers

Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Do you agree with Nietszche's quote: "Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.

The short answer is no.

I think in a way what Nietszche is trying to get at is the obvious, people are complex and not perfect and  that when you are friends or love a person, you see and are aware of the whole, yet don't focus on the faults, the imperfections or the weaknesses.

It's wise and true.

To see only a certain slice of a person is to not see them.

To see them and focus on the broken, bad, negative, faulty, etc. is unkind and unwise.  Yes, I know the whole thing about keeping someone accountable or iron sharpening iron and so on.  There is a very, very fine line between helping and harming.

Always, always check yourself when you are helping in the above ways.  Then check yourself again.

Then and only then, say it all if you must.

Later when you think on it and replay it over in your mind and you have a hesitation or an unsettled feeling or even the crystal clear "I probably shouldn't have..." go back and apologize.

But give a real apology.  Not a fake one fishing for attention for yourself.  Not one that makes the entire thing now about you.  Not one out of obligation.

Do it out of genuine humility and with full knowledge that you yourself are far less than perfect also and if another person wanted to sharpen you or hold you accountable there would be more than plenty available for subject matter.

A friend sees the good, brings it out and doubles it.

A lover cherishes it.

Be wise enough and open minded enough to know that love is undefined.  To me the command is love one another.  There seem to be infinite ways to love.  Millions of shades of what is called love.

We are stingy with love.

We are afraid to full on love people.

It's a shame.  So much of life is missed out on, lost if you will, because we don't just let ourselves love.  We don't say the words.  We don't take the actions.  We don't risk ourselves.  We don't open our souls because we know the hurt.

Our wisdom to protect ourselves is just the other side of the sword that cuts deep.

September Sights

September is a visual month in a way.  A season of seeing things change.  It can be a time of seeing something planted bear fruit.

So, one week in, here is what I see.

Our very full and busy summer left all 5 students ready to return to school with good attitudes and high hopes and real goals.  Home work and study are being done matter of factly, without complaint and attitude.  Work is being done with attention to detail and awareness of deadlines.  I am breathing a small sigh of relief.

I know.  Week one.  It will change.  But I have hope too.  What if I spend my energy praising their efforts and rewarding their work?

Here and there over the summer we put some major efforts into changing some things around here.  I am seeing the payoff.  Organization and all that comes with it, are not a natural for me.  I struggle to make it happen.  Most of this around here I didn't think of.  I just came along for the ride, but I am very happy I did.

We de-junked and de-cluttered a bunch.  We created quiet rooms and a study area.  There is a computer area for at least 2 to be able to work at once.  The toys are all in one place.  We made a TV room for lounging.  Half the bedrooms got a make over.  A third got some nice touches like a new desk, chair and lamp.  By new, I mean picked out of someone's trash and re-styled by Chicklet, complete with chalkboard surface for easy homework figuring and side cork board for artwork and important notes.

The weekly heads up schedule is on the chalk board wall in the kitchen.  I gave in and have started a central notebook to keep all the information for all the kids about their classrooms, friends, sports, activities and so on.  I hope it helps me.  We will see.  I have a mini white board monthly calendar to help us meal plan.  With football season, school and everything else, we are often eating dinner in shifts.  Dinner lasted from 5 to 10 last night.  Not unusual and not complaining at all.  The trick is to keep it organized so that I don't stress when I'm needing to serve dinner for the 5th or 6th time in a night.

We assigned laundry days and set bed times.  I started keeping a running shopping list on the fridge.

What I see from all of this is less stress and more "free" time.  It is not easy getting it going.  Getting organized and sorted and all that stuff is time consuming and tedious, especially when you've been wildly free in the other direction as I am.

In September I watch the land change.  I love to see fall flowers and colored trees.  It's my favorite season.  The food is delicious.  This is when lettuce smells like grass when you pull off a leaf.  This is when tomatoes taste like sunshine.  Squash.  Mmm.  What else is there to say? Burning leaves, back yard pit fires, getting out all your favorite sweatshirts, all seem perfect.

In September, when everyone goes back to their school routines, I go back to my words.  My eyes get screen weary.  My carpal tunnel arm aches.  My brain wanders in the quiet hours and the stories take over the time.

That's what I see in September.

Open Your Eyes

Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Bob Marley asked: "Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you're living?"  How would you answer him?

No.

I think the only sane answer to this question is no. 

 It has to be no.

This is the strange quasi-truth place of satisfactions and contentments.  

We talk a lot about being content with our lives and what we really mean is, are we able to live without jealousy and envy ruling us.  Perhaps keeping a rein in on ambitions.  We mean that we are able to cope with all the unexpected and unpleasant parts of life in a mostly positive and healthy fashion.

Content can not be apathetic.  It can not be the absence of the desire to learn or grow or improve or try.  Content can not be hopeless.

If we were satisfied as a people there would be no inventions.  No one would try to run a faster marathon or bake a better cake or write a more profound sentence.  Ahem.

Do I like the life I am living?  Do I enjoy the life I live?  Do I think I am making choices that are more positive than negative? 

These seem like better questions, but not better song lyrics.  

So do I?

Yes.  I do.  I like my life.  I enjoy my life.  Hard, easy, ugly, beautiful, sad, happy and all the other shades of being alive, yes.  

And yes, I do still see lots of places in my life for growing and learning.  I still see lots of things I want to do or finish or try before my time runs out.  I feel that even if I'm not striving after them in what you would see as some extraordinary way or with great passion, I am still heading in those directions.  

Is all of that stuff, external for you to see?  

No.  

Should it matter if you can see it or not?

I think no, but I also think it would be hard to hide.

Everyone knows people who have just stopped.  Their life is just circumstance that happens to them and they recite the same reasons and excuses and justifications over and over.  It is someone else's fault.  Fate got them.  Their Karma is bad.  God is teaching them a lesson.  You've heard it, you've known them.

You also know those people that just seem to have that certain something.  Their life goes along in a way that is interesting and moving.  They live in a whirlwind of activity and life, even in the midst of quiet solitude.  Something in them has a spark and a flicker.  Something in them keeps trying no matter what comes their way.  They never seem to just mumble things like, well, I guess, it is what it is.  They might say that phrase, but in a way that you know they aren't quite finished yet.

I want to be living life with a twinkle in my eye.  I want to have a smile that comes easy and a laugh that is genuine and comes quick.  

Yeah, I know not everyone sees me like that, but that's part of life and living too.  Unique perspectives.  The important part of that is being able to see more than your own unique perspective, but that's another thought for another day.

Look Me In The Eye...Or Don't

Tuesday, September 4, 2012
When you are speaking with someone, do you prefer to look them in the eye or talk over the phone?

The answer to this is a good solid "it depends".

I don't do a lot of eye contact in general.  It's hard for me.  It doesn't come naturally and I honestly have to consciously be thinking about doing it to make it happen.  A character flaw, I know.

I think over the phone I am "braver" or more apt to say things more freely.  I don't have the paranoia that you are staring at me while I speak and I can't be persuaded to change what I'm saying based on my seeing your reactions.

In person, I am much more restrained.  I like to think of it as being wise after many lessons learned from saying things I wish I had never said, but perhaps it is more like one of my friends said, and I simply avoid conflict.  Maybe it's just the lesson of why keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

Honestly, I don't know how true that is, because I piss off plenty of people and fight with some of my closest and most loved people, so...

I do, however, keep a lot of things to myself because I don't see the benefit of saying them.

It's sort of like if your husband or bestie has a habit that bugs you, there is a choice.  Confront it, attack it, try to force them to change it, or have some grace and over look it.  I am prone to over looking and letting it go instead of letting it grab a-hold of me.  It feels like wasted energy to be stuck in that kind of stuff.

Even if a person asks me point blank about some thing, I may not give my most brutal honest truth or opinion about it.  Especially if I believe that saying it wouldn't change it.  

I am fiercely opinionated.  About a lot of things.  I am not going to shove it down your throat though.  I may not even ever share it with you.  

That doesn't make me bad or weak or a problem causer or delusional or whatever.  I simply don't like putting energy into conflict.  

Sometimes I keep my opinions to myself because I feel they won't be heard anyway.  There are those people in life, even in my life, that cannot hear in a conversation.  They speak and argue their points and facts and reasons until they win the conversation.  It continues until you give in, give up, bow down, say you win, you're right, I was wrong and the most important, I"m sorry.

I don't like to apologize for what I think.  Completely arrogant perhaps.  Completely foolish probably.  Definitely human.  

So eye contact, for me, minimal...less and less as I get older.  Conversations in person or by phone, I guess I'm a snob.  I want interesting people, growing changing people.  I don't like to listen to the same basic thing in your life with new settings week after week, year after year.  We aren't meant to stagnate but to flourish.

I See....

Monday, September 3, 2012
Write about one object you see at this exact moment.

I see paper towels.  A half roll or so.  Standing upright on our kitchen table.  Still bearing last nights crumbs.  The scrap bits of a most delicious family night.

Most of you following this life tale of ours know some of our details.  We have a bit of an unusual, crazy life around here.  I joke often, that it is loud and sticky, but that's not a joke.  It is loud.  And sticky. But that is a shiny squirrel details.

We take people in.  Our door is open.  A lot. Sometimes it's foster kids.  Sometimes missionaries.  High school kids.  College kids.  Sometimes they stay for a few hours, sometimes days, sometimes forever.  Some just give us their hearts and some move in.  

I like all of it.

It's an odd thing though, and I talked about it with my mom not long ago.  You see, to me, we are nothing extraordinary, not even anything special.  In fact, I usually feel like we are the train wreck you can't take your eyes off of.  

Our home is not a lot of things.  It's not quiet or peaceful.  It's not organized.  A lot of times it's not neat.  Most often it just borders on clean (although that has improved significantly with Chicklet, a most amazing cleaner-upper and we are more than grateful). 

In talking with my mom I told her about all the different people that had been coming into our home lately.  Some old friends, now grown up college kids or even graduated.  Wow.  Some new friends we are just getting to know.  I told her how there are stretches where I never know who will come on in one of our open doors, who will knock or who will call.  Just because they want to be here.  I come home from an errand more often than not to find someone here. 

I wondered to her, why do they come?  I can't offer much.  In fact, a lot of times, I feel like I am barely even able to give the person a moment of undivided attention.  Sometimes they get washed over in the chaos that is a "big" family.  I say that lightly, we are not a big family with only 7 here full time.  

Well, mom's say what mom's say, and it was nice, but not true.  I'm not some kind of saint or wear some halo or even qualify as a "good person".  I"m not.  Ask around.  You'll hear it.  I tick off plenty of people and have a long list of faults that make me a very difficult person.

But.  I can't help still wondering about my revolving door home.  It's a good thing.  I love that our home is like this.  

I hope it has to do with us being genuine.  Even though we are fully faulted and pretty much walking train wrecks around here, I hope we are authentic.  I hope that we take most people as they are, and not the cliche version of that, but the real deal.  

There are always a few people that set off my radar and our protective coatings go on, but for the most part, I hope we are able to welcome and love unconditional.  I hope we are graceful and humble in accepting people exactly as they are.  I know we say regularly to people, "no judgement" and mean it.  

So how does all this tie to a roll of paper towels?

Well, you see, Chicklet lives here and because she does, her friends come over.  We get to meet them and they get to meet us.  She has pretty amazing friends because she knows how to be a good friend and her heart is as beautiful as she is, if not more, even though she will say no.

Chicklet is long time friends with Chef J.  

And now, we have a new tradition.  A highly delicious tradition.  

Sunday dinner with Chef J.  

And last nights dinner was hands down, one of the best ones yet.  We ate better than well, all loud and crowded 8 around our kitchen table, mismatched chairs and spilled drinks.  Kids being kids and adults savoring.  It was crazy and perfect all in one.  

Chicklet did the dishes around midnight and this morning up early with my littlest ones, I sit here, writing again, at my table, holding on to a few last dessert crumbs and the ever present roll of paper towels--cause we use the classy napkins around here--remembering the flavors and sounds, smiles and looks, the conversations of life and food and seeing this strange wonderful life I get to live.

What one thing do you see at this exact moment?

Here We Go Again

Tomorrow is September.  School starts.  The unofficial season changes.  I pick up things I've left on the back burner.  I start to day dream about the next round of NaNoWriMo.

One of the best ways for me to "prep" for the NaNo is to do a few months of NaNoBloMo, so get ready.  Find those reading glasses you left in the bottom of the pool bag.  Take 5 minutes of tea time to see for yourself what I eye-spy this month with NaNoBloMo.

See you tomorrow to start looking at life.

I'm A Bad Santa

Well, I broke my streak last night, I fell asleep instead of finishing up my post.

It happens.  I fall asleep a lot.  At the end of the night.  TV on.  A little Pinterest skimming or YouTube browsing.  Blog hopping.  I drift off.

Sometimes I drift mid conversation.  Chicklet especially loves that.

Today's blog prompt over at NaBloPoMo is "have you ever given a gift that wasn't well received?"

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is yes, all the time!

I am guilty of giving "bad" gifts all the time.

It's not that I hate the person or have bad taste.  It's not that I'm a big jerk, although I get accused of that often.

Sometimes it's because I wait too long to go what I need to do.  I guess that's the nice way to say I'm lazy.

Sometimes it's because I live a little too much inside my head.  The gift seems like a great idea to me, and I'll have a big pile of reasons why but it doesn't translate.  It can be that it is something significant to me or something that I believe will be significant to the receiver, but in reality it isn't.  It's just a miss.  Sometimes I think it's part of a shared memory or inside joke or an inside moment, but in reality it is something just being a big deal inside my own mind.

None of that probably makes sense outside of my head, but it's the longer answer to, yeah, I give lousy gifts all the time, even though I have good intentions and my heart in the right place.

What's the worst gift you ever gave?

Daily Dose

The prompt today over at NaBloPoMo is a question about what you learned from blogging daily.

I've been in the habit of blogging daily for a while so I'm not sure that I learned anything in particular this month from doing it daily.

I do realize that I typically have a lot I want to say.  I have a whole lot of opinions and observations about my own life experiences, but that's why this is blog is labeled in the subtitle as my life in my corner of the world.

I also realize that quite often what I want to say, shouldn't really be said, at least not out loud in the big public venue of the Internet.

Sometimes it's fun to play a meme or blog hop.  Sometimes prompts are great for jogging a thought or getting a post printed.  Sometimes they make you roll your eyes. Sometimes you write for your audience and sometimes you write for yourself.

Comments can be fun and encouraging or just down right nasty.

I am reminded how often I write a great blog in my head while I'm driving or showering and then when I finally get the minutes to sit down and pound them out, the idea is gone, or maybe the idea is still there but the turn of phrase, the great poignant moment I was creating is missing.

So what about you? What did you learn about yourself by writing daily? Is it a challenge you would ever take? Was it something you just ho-hummed and half-assed your way through this month just so you could say, whoo hoo, I did it, or did you really dig into yourself and find something?

It's Almost Here

I'm excited.
 Not prepared, but excited just the same.
NaNoWriMo is just a few short days away. I'm really excited to do it again. It was a challenge and a good experience.
 And now that's it's been a year, my family might even say so too! I've been getting ready by doing a number of different things.
One of those was doing the NaBloPoMo for the last few months. I'm going to try to continue it in November while doing the NaNo.
I tried to do some of the more practical things for getting my family ready. I have the laundry up to date. I have a menu plan for the month of November. We built into the budget for the nights I forget about food and we have to eat take out. I have my book idea and my characters sketched out.
I had wanted to have an outline and plenty of details prepared, but I don't. I had wanted to fill my freezer with meals to make the food part of the month easier.

Life In the In Between

Right now I'm living in the In Between.

I'm in the place between who I know my God to be and what I know the world to be. 

We all know the song, and I am feeling like I am that tree bent over in the hurricane.

I know the promises He made.  I know the love and mercy and grace.  I know the healing and comfort to be found.

I am walking with far too many friends bending in the weight of the pain and fear of this world. 

It's a hard place to stand, my friends, no one would deny it. 

But please don't just stand, the victory comes when we keep going, one step after another, forward into something we can't see.

It's a hard place to stand next to you, as a wordy girl, suddenly and completely without any right words to say.

Each of you standing in your own personal hurricane knows who you are and what you mean to me.  Know in the days ahead, I am loving you and praying for you and your world, even if you can't see how that could be.

Clean Enough

Clean enough is the place between clean that brings you joy and dirty that makes to sullen. 

I'm content in the clean enough.  I really am, and in a way that seems like a very bad thing.  I like things picked up.  I like the floors swept and carpets vacuumed.  I like the laundry mostly done and put away(who can ever get it all done?)  I like my kitchen sink empty, although it rarely is except for a couple hours a day.

I can live with a pretty healthy amount of clutter around.  Paper on flat surfaces.  Things not quite put away.  That one last game piece.  A pencil not quite in the pencil can.  The newspaper left on the table.  The chair left pulled out.

Here's the rub though, when something happens or is going to happen and I really get cleaning down deep for real, I love the result.  I even love the effort. 

What?

So today I got on with the job of cleaning my fridge.  It's a job I don't love, who does?  Those smelly leftovers that everyone said they were going to eat last week and so on.  I do clean out the "junk" pretty often so it's not horrible and totally gross, but it does every once in a while reach that point, you know the one, where you think I just have to do it.  I have to buck up and do the dirty job. 

It doesn't take long for me to have the shelves out and suds everywhere and the inside getting scrubbed down. 

I end up loving even the cleaning.  There is something so utterly satisfying in taking something dirty and washing it clean.  I'll spend the rest of today and probably even part of tomorrow opening up the door just to look inside at my clean shelves and drawers. 

When I was done, I asked my friend, how come I slide into that in between of clean enough?  Why can't I stay on the "high" that comes after a deep clean and keep it that clean all the time?  Why do I let myself slide into the "easy" clean enough-you know the one that grabs and tosses that single yucky thing and gives the shelf a quick Clorox wipe wipe-down instead of yank the shelves out and scrub it down? 

Where are you on the clean it up scale?  Are you a "super cleaner" always going in for the deep clean?  Are you a slider like me, do the deep clean and slip slowly into clean enough? Or are you a "dirty girl" and you just don't care if your fridge is coated in that "black stuff" or your bathroom is kind of "fuzzy"? 

Spill the "dirt" in the comments, will ya?