I Wish I Had A Better Story…

Three weeks ago tonight I broke my ankle. Let me explain. Earlier that very day I had decided it was time for me to start working out again. By working out I mean exerting the least amount of energy possible, yet still respectably burning some kcals. I chose walking. I actually enjoy walking in my neighborhood when the weather is nice, the mosquitos are not in season, I still have a shred of energy after work, I have no other plans…in other words, when I have zero excuses not to. Anyway. The weather was perfect. I had the necessary shred of energy. I successfully walked 2 miles, visited with some neighbors along the way, & safely made it back to my driveway (cue the dramatic orchestral music).

Backstory: I have never been athletic. When asked “what did you play in high school?”, I answer, “the clarinet, Karen.” And I was first chair, thank you very much. I am 5 feet, 9 inches tall. I have really long arms & a 36″ inseam. I struggle to get all that through space & time. I have been “affectionately” referred to as a newborn giraffe on various occasions. It’s fine. I’m fine.

So what happened three weeks ago was I came back from my walk, picked up the newspaper, fumbled the newspaper (oh, how I wish I had just let it go), & in trying to catch the newspaper, I fell of the edge of the driveway. I knew when I hit the ground that my ankle was broken. There was some repentance necessary a bit later, as my vocabulary may or may not have reflected my love for Jesus & His Word. I tried to call my husband (who was on a horse in the pasture behind our house). He was unavailable to help me. BECAUSE HE DID NOT HAVE HIS PHONE. This is a tale for another day.

Long story short: I drove myself to urgent care the next morning where it was confirmed to be a fracture of the malleolus. I was given a boot to wear for the foreseeable future, which I am sick of already. My husband says I need a better story…a “campfire version”, as he calls it…whereby I LIE & come up with something more respectable than falling off the dang driveway. But Jesus knows.

I have a re-check this week. Praying my PCP says, “Off with that boot!” But guess what?…even if he doesn’t, I AM THE BOSS OF ME. If you see me at Aldi with matching shoes this weekend, mind ya business. Until next time….be careful in your driveways out there…

An Old Rocking Chair

What a gift has been given, what a chance for a prayer…

when a baby needs time in an old rocking chair.

Don’t rush it, don’t skip it, & please don’t despair…

this time you spend swaying in an old rocking chair.

There is life that needs nurture, sweet whispers so fair…

& no better place than that old rocking chair.

A snuggle, a nuzzle, opportunity so rare…

you hold the future in that old rocking chair.

So hold on for dear life, create moments to spare…

time is well spent in an old rocking chair.  

Author: Cindie McReynolds, Connoisseur Of Babies

On Mountains & Friendship

Greetings from a valley, far, far away in the venerable Rocky Mountains. Every year about this time, we go on vacation…to the beach…which is nowhere near said mountains. My mind, heart, soul, spirit, & body yearn for & flourish at the beach…bonus is the amazing tan I acquire! So why the heck am I not there? Special friends in Colorado, that’s why…who we have not seen in years…& one of those friends is an incredible 96 year old woman. Her name is Mae, & when I grow up I wanna be like Mae. But seeing Mae is a wonderful package deal…we get to see her family, as well. These people may never know their true impact on me, but the moments we have spent together have been life-giving. Their hospitality, faith, laughter, & stories light me up.

Mike & I, (he is my hubs, if ya don’t know), are now spending a few days alone, entrenched in this mountain paradise. We have eaten delicious food (some of which I cooked myself), slept in, rested, hiked, had massages, played Scrabble (he won this time), & dreamed of the future. It has been every bit as glorious as the beach, only about 60 degrees cooler. Some of our discussions have been about our friends…some in Heaven, some who were present for a season, some whose paths took a different turn…& some whose relationship with us broke to pieces.

I have a long list of friends…in fact, so many that I feel I cannot properly “friend” them as they deserve. These women come from varied backgrounds, economic positions, educational levels, religious doctrines, & age. Oh, how I love them. I am a better woman because of them. A few years ago I lost the closest friendship I had ever had up to that time….not to death, although the journey of mourning since that loss has closely resembled such…but rather to a situation too complex & tender to discuss here. As a result, I rolled up the welcome-mat in my heart, much to my own detriment…until my youngest daughter announced one day, “mom, you need some friends”.

I am a flaming extrovert. I make friends in the grocery store. I prefer having a full house to time alone. I thrive on time spent with my people. Losing that friend from my innermost circle not only shattered my heart…it jaded my spirit. It cost me trust & confidence. It hurt like absolute hell. I still shed hot tears when I ruminate on the destruction of 30 years of doing all of life together. I dream of this person. And I actually run into her from time to time. Oh, the awkward pain & confusion & regret & sadness. I cannot fix this, although I have truly tried.

My daughter’s directive to basically get-a-life was the kick in the britches I needed. I started by making a list of the friendships I still had…women who truly love me & want to spend time with me….& their names were many. I was faced with the decision to open my heart back up to these other amazing, beautiful, strong females. As I let my guard ease back down, I was blown away…by what I had missed…by how starved my spirit was for the gift of their presence in my life. The poverty of my heart has since been replaced with the riches of “kesher”…the Hebrew word for connection.

Friendship…kesher…brought me to these mountains this week…caused me to give up oysters & a tan. Zero regrets. Take the chance. Vulnerability is hard, but oh-so-worth the effort. Somebody needs you in their life…& I guarantee that you need them. Till next time…

Over The Whelm

I hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Early Childhood Education, so the following will be your English lesson for the day. Or for the year, whatever the case may be. I LOVE words. They make for great stories, which is why I have a blog about stories. But I digress. I did a short word study on 2 words, which led to 2 more words, which ended in a very deep, but also very interesting, rabbit hole.

The 2 words I looked at first were, along with their definitions, the following:

Whelm: (can be both a noun & a verb, if you care about parts of speech…as you should); engulf, submerge, or bury; also, an act of heaping up abundantly, a surge

Overwhelm: (primarily a verb); to bury beneath a large mass, inundate, to defeat someone or something totally with great force or mass

If you are a woman living in 2024, then you surely resonate with some of those definitions. Maybe men do, as well, but not being a man, nor seeing evidence of such suffering in the male demographic, I really don’t think they do. Anyway, how, ladies, have we moved from your basic mundane engulfment of bygone days to feeling totally defeated….especially in an era of unprecedented technological advances designed to simplify our life & minimize our work?! We have our own (well not me…I’m an old rebel) digital babysitter/supervisor/alarm clock called “Alexa”, commercial sized washers & dryers (yes, me….I love mine) to speed our laundry production, “Roombas” (not me…sent mine back as she was a slacker & could not follow directions), & the like. We have our portable life-support-systems that fit in our purses/pockets/palms that we lovingly refer to as “cell phones”, that SHOULD help a girl out in this age of pressure. From where I sit, these things are all for naught. They may acutally be the villains of our stories.

For what it is worth, I AM OVER THE WHELM. I wanna cash in the superlative & spend that wad on real life. Coffee. Playing with my grandkids. Sitting on my dear friend’s porch (you know who you are). Creating something. Baking bread. Walking. Reading. Enjoying adventures with my man. It isn’t that these things are missing in my current stage of life…I acutally do all of them with at least sporadic frequency. Well…except for the walking part. But I DO have intentions to walk, especially if I had the TIME to do so.

So what is defeating us? What is the “surge” in your life that is threatening your mental health? Never before have we been so wired, so connected. We can know something from a village in Uganda in a split second…unless you have AT&T, in which case it may take a bit longer. We do not even have to wait for the 10 p.m. news or the latest issue of Vogue to know what is going on in our world. The information is instantaneous & it has mass…enough to turn ya boat over, girl. Social media is a 24/7 powerhouse that yells at us to buy more, declutter, do all the things, simplify, cook from scratch, bounce back after that baby (whatever the *bleep* that means), raise feral kids, raise Montessori kids, grow your faith, deconstruct your faith, work outside the home, be a stay-at-home-mom…what a modern mess. “You-do-you” is a cultural LIE. The messages of social media (pick any platform) are like the iceberg that took down the Titanic…we think we are safe, but what lies beneath is deadly.

What to do? Parent yourself. Full stop. You have screen limits for your kids, am I right? Do the same for yourself. You regulate how many extra curriculars your children can do in any given season. (for the love of all that is holy tell me you do!) You have regular naptimes & bedtimes for said children, provide nourishment, regular wellness visits, all the things. For crying right out loud…ladies, do the same for yourself!

You must learn from me. I am 59 years old & have been around long enough that I can tell you way too many things from experience. The margin you crave, the energy & well-being you desperately need, will not come from “me-time”. What the actual heck…that is a new concept in the history of womanhood. The occasional “mom’s night out”, or pedi/mani, or trip to the beach are all good & blissfully wonderful, but they are uber-temporary. Also, I hear you, momma of 132 littles…where will you get the time to make the time?

I am going to run headlong into the wind of culture right here & right now: stop scrolling, pare down that family calendar…in case somebody else has not told you, YOUR CHILD IS NOT GOING TO BE A PROFFESIONAL SPORTS PERSON. Sorry, not sorry. Go to bed even 30 minutes earlier & see what happens. Eat more protein. Go for a walk with your spawn. Binge watching anything is no better than binge eating/drinking/spending: it ain’t healthy…& it eats up hours of your life that you can never get back. Pick up a book with actual paper pages. Take a long bath (or shower, if you are opposed to soaking in your own body of water). If you suffer from anxiety at night, jot that crap down in a journal.

Please notice I did not advise that you join a support group, hire a housekeeper, start a spreadsheet, or take a course, to be able to parent yourself. None of those things are wrong or bad. I am saying, love on yourself the way you love on those you brought into this world & just SEE if the stress backs up…even a little. May take some time, because behavior patterns (read that: habits), are ridiculously hard to change. I know I am not alone in this. Women need women. I am cheering you on. As I told a woman I met in the grocery store last night (after a most precious conversation), “I don’t even know you, yet I love you”. I love you, dear ones. Till next time…

I Should Be Sleeping….

Good Morning, one & all. Well, the clock says it’s morning…1:55 a.m. to be exact…but it is darkest night outside my window. Never have I ever been a morning person, especially when the morning in question looks suspiciously like the middle of night. I would call myself an aging night-owl these days, rarely able to stay up past 10:00 p.m.. Yesterday was Sunday, the Lord’s Day, & I woke up tired. I would have given nearly anything to have been able to stay in bed, but I AM glad I went to church. Did I rest when I got home, you ask? Nay, nay. I am no slacker. There were hours available for getting all the things done. So I did.

I was out before 10…& as yesterday slipped into today, I WOKE UP. More wide awake than I ever am when it is actually time to wake up. What the heck? This use to happen much more frequently (thank you menopause), but has improved drastically since I started drinking coffee right before bed. God’s honest truth & I have witnesses. So what went wrong this time? There is some weird phenomenon that happens when I am deep asleep…my brain starts releasing info-bombs like headlines hitting the news stand. If you don’t know about headlines & news stands you are too young to read my stuff. Godspeed.

The glaring headline-du-jour was a jarring message that I had made a mistake earlier in the afternoon. I had caught up on some side-hustle-work, & one of my tasks was filing a sales tax return. And my nocturnal brain was correct: I HAD made an error. Was said error egregious enough to halt all REM activity & insist I immediately course-correct? No. I could have righted the wrong during the actual day. But my brain thought otherwise & compelled me to arise. My brain is a hateful wench.

I filed an amended return. And here I sit. Awake & drinking water & talking to you. And wondering just how long this day is going to be. A scripture just now comes to mind:

Philippians 4:6-7….6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (New Living Translation)

That is good stuff right there. I have to wonder, though…could it be that I suffer from some measure of worry? I would not consider myself a worrier. After reading several translations of this scripture, I see the word “anxious” used in place of “worry”. Ahhhh…NOW we’re getting somewhere. I do feel many women, myself included, experience a low-grade-level of anxiety…caused by…oh, let’s see…raising the kids, running the businesses, keeping the home, paying the bills, cooking the food, loving the man…hormones….all the things that make up our lives. It appears that God does not wish us to live with such angst. So if I read this passage correctly, I am responsible for doing some stuff, & then God is responsible for doing some stuff:

Me: Don’t worry or be anxious about ANYTHING

Me: Pray about EVERYTHING

Me: Tell God what I need AND thank Him for all He has done

God: I have a special gift for you…it is called “shalom”…or to break it down into your vernacular…peace, harmony, tranquility, wholeness, completeness, health, & prosperity. Enjoy.

Man, you gotta love the Hebrew language. I am down for this shalom business. Tonight WILL be different. I am gonna do my part (as I drink my coffee) & trust that God will do His. Shalom, my friends…until next time…

So Here We Are…

Here we are. The day after a tragedy…local & national. Devastated. Bereft. Inconsolable. Collectively, we mourn the massacre at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, on 3/27/23. Lines are drawn. Platforms are declared. Sides are chosen. To what end? Three babies…9 year olds…BABIES…are dead. Three adults-in-charge-of-babies are dead. Perp is dead. So. Much. Death.

Facts: the perpetrator was evil….broken somewhere deep within…you know, the whole-hurt-people-hurt-people-thing. The victims…just going about their day…mowed down by hate, & evil, & brokeness. Lives cut short by Satan himself.

What can we do? How do we fix this? Is the answer political?….like can our tottering, blubbering, feeble-embarassment-of-a-President do something? No. Can our Congress-of-division repair the thing? Apparently not. Can more laws governing objects (i.e., guns) fix decades of family-disintegration-&-collapse? Nope.

Who is to blame? Where doth the finger point? This ugliness…this death…is as old as man. It started in a particular garden, called Eden, & we pay the price even today. The headline-du-jour is a sin issue, plain & simple. Tragic. For the commiter-of-crime, AND for the innocent victims-of-chance. To ignore history is to repeat it. Same song, different weapon.

So what is the remedy? Revival. In the words of Webster: revival is to live again, regain health, to recover. The cure is spiritual. I care not for your eye rolls. I care not for your dispute. The only way to fight this present, insidious, foul villain is to hit our knees. To utter a prayer in response to evil…to cry out to our Creator, our Savior, our God…to slash open the underbelly of darkness…to disarm malevolent forces…to hamstring the ruler of this present time. There is no other way.

Do you know how to pray? Do you know how to engage the attention of the Creator of the entirety of everything? It is not only possible, it is simple. Say. Something. Speak. Cry out. Ask. And don’t stop.

Please indulge me as I insert a well-placed scripture in this space:

2 Corinthians 10:3-3: 3 For although we do live in the world, we do not wage war in a worldly way; 4 because the weapons we use to wage war are not worldly. On the contrary, they have God’s power for demolishing strongholds. We demolish arguments5 and every arrogance that raises itself up against the knowledge of God; we take every thought captive and make it obey the Messiah.

Pray for our leaders. Not a rhetoric-filled, bleeding-heart, misplaced-compassion-kind-of-prayer. Pray for wisdom. From on high. Pray for peace. Pray for comfort. Did I mention wisdom? Pray hard, my darlings.

“

Happily Ever After, Year 36…

It is a well-known fact that all great fairy tales begin in the land of “once-upon-a-time”, & relative to that fact, this one is no different.  Except it IS different.  In many ways.  Actually, in every way.  THIS fairy tale just happens to be true.  Our story begins 36 years ago…oops…actually 37.5 years ago…in a land not-so-far-far-away.

            Let me set the stage in the theater of your mind:  it is the year of our Lord, 1985, & the setting is a carnival…not a medieval one, but one celebrating rural agriculture: the illustrious cotton crop of Southeastern Missouri.   The atmosphere is replete with redneck frivolity, funnel cakes, & the voices of carnival barkers. It is here where our main characters…the man & the college girl…cross paths.  He sees her face in the crowd, minding her own & enjoying some cotton candy.  He approaches her boldly, throwing out a romantic line that would cause most girls to swoon…to no avail.  Her heart was spoken for.  The end.

            And yet…it was NOT the end.  Fast forward to the year of our Lord, 1986.  It was a hot, sultry summer’s eve, when the man & the college girl would meet again.  This time the atmosphere was filled with the alluring aroma of pizza, & the voices of the blood-bought-saints fresh out of Sunday evening services.  This time there was no romance, only an insult…a false accusation.  The college girl was fairly horrified, & also completely annoyed…& yet…in that moment the man came fully into focus.  He was a cowboy.  And not just any cowboy…but one in possession of mischief in his eyes & a smirk on his lips…oh, & he sure looked good in those Wranglers.  She was intrigued.

            In the field of astronomy it is a documented fact that on that very night, the stars lined up in the most peculiar way, time stood still…if only ever so briefly…& the portal to a new world opened up.  What occurred next can only be called miraculous…surely not seen in this century, at the very least…but a time-space compression of unheard of proportions, that propelled our hero & his maiden to an altar.  This was no ordinary altar, but more of a  threshold…the doorway to a bona-fide fairy tale.  It was the year of our Lord, 1987, the 21st day of February.  The cowboy & the college girl made a covenant that day…before their God & to each other…a pact for all eternity.  And God saw that it was good.

            When I say “the rest is history” & “they lived happily ever after”, I ain’t kiddin’.  But the story is so much bigger than that.  There were epic adventures to be had, dragons to slay, impossible dreams realized, the dazzling genesis of new generations…with enough laughter & love & historic quests to make a believer out of the hardest-hearted skeptic.  I know these things for fact.  You see, I was there…I AM that girl who loves that cowboy…more now than ever before.  This is the stuff legends are made of.  And the story is not over yet…

Happy Anniversary, Cowboy

2/21/23

What Would It Take?

I had a conversation with my sister this evening…via text…& we were talking about work. I asked her what her dream job would be & was #blownaway. What phenomenal ideas she has!…& yet no obvious means to make them come true. She is profusely creative…it would be a crying shame for her to never realize her dreams. What would it take for her to make it happen? I have to wonder what this world would be like if we all had the chance to do what really lights us up.

I want to be a writer. What would it take? Time. A clear head. Space to think…to imagine. Did I mention time? My current season of life does not afford me the hours I long for to spin words into literary pictures. I actually fear that I will be like Grandma Moses, & be 80 years old before I publish something. Her story is quite inspiring to me, but gosh, I don’t wanna wait 22 more years before I get to do the thing.

Could 5 minutes a day suffice for now? Would it be worth it to capture a few random thoughts a day & toss them into this space just for the fun & practice of it? Reckon what would happen if I did just that? Let’s find out…

Ice Day, Nice Day

Hello there. Long time, no post. I am both appalled & embarrassed to realize that it has been 2 years since my last post. TWO YEARS. When I set my 2023 goals for the year, I gave myself an ultimatum: post something once a month or abandon ship. I nearly missed my own deadline for January…but thanks to last night’s winter storm, here I am. I think about writing all.the.time. So why am I not writing? I can blame really only one thing: my real-life job.

The hubs & I started a business over 22 years ago. It is an amazing business & God has truly blessed us & many others through this enterprise. I am entirely grateful for this entrepreneurial journey we have been on, lo, these many years. But the incessant pressure, grind, & stress have taken their toll. There is precious little left of me mentally when I get home each day…& my evenings are spent doing all the normal things one must do to keep a household going. An outsider may consider me burnt out. Toasted. I would concur.

But…not long ago I read a quote by John Maxwell that says this: “You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.” I have been mulling this over quite seriously. I find myself pausing at work…pausing at home…wondering where my secret is. Is it possible for me to whip out some literary masterpiece even in the midst of the soul-sucking drain I feel nearly every single day? Is there space hiding within the mind-numbing routine of my workdays where my brain could change lanes, even for a few moments? I believe it may be worth the excavation…taking some time to dig into my daily planner, the inescapable realities of life, & my own heart.

A disclaimer here is paramount: please do not confuse the frustration of feeling thwarted in pursuing my deep-seated dream with being dissatisfied with my life at large. To the contrary…I am immensely blessed. I would go so far as to say I am living in near-fairy-tale conditions. With all truthfulness, I love my life. But the longing to chase chase this dream is strong. So chase, I will. Wish me luck. Until next time…

Long Time, No Tell…

Well. I am not even sure where to begin. I looked back at my illustrious blogging carreer thus far, & I have not made a post since May 6, 2021…7 1/2 weeks since I graced the internet with my thoughts. There has just been a lot of, well, LIFE, going on…which has shut down any bandwidth I require to create cogent sentences worthy of sharing. I shall try to bridge that last post with today’s, so grab whatever beverage floats your boat (mine is copious amounts of coffee) & settle in.

At the time of my last post, I was eagerly looking forward to a vacation with my 2 daughters, daughter-in-law, & my 7 grandbabies. To quote Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” And to quote Inigo Montoya, “Let me ‘splain, no…there is too much…let me sum up.”

Let the summary begin. We had a fantastic trip. My girls (my daughter-in-law is also my girl), are my inner circle…my favorite people…& I loved every minute with them. My grandchildren are one of God’s richest blessings to me, & I drank in every minute we spent together. We made great memories. The babies are 6, 5, 3, 2, 2, 2, & 7 months. Two of the 2’s are identical twins. There was never-ending entertainment, laughter, & diapers. The kiddos LOVED the water. They loved the sand. These were the best of times. The end.

Oh, but that is not the end. There was also the never-ending barfing. You see, 6 of the 11 of us were hit with a stomach bug. This bug was tricky. We would be eating a meal, everyone seemingly ok, & suddenly someone would barf on the table. Or, (my personal favorite), we would be en route somewhere & someone would barf in their car seat. Honorable mention goes to the bed-barfing & beach-barfing episodes. Hence, the worst of times. I am pretty sure we did the most laundry any of us has done in all our combined years of parenting. It was special.

The week ended with an ER visit for my youngest daughter who was hit especially hard. I was the last to fall. All thanks go out to my husband & 2 sons-in-law, who drove 10 hours overnight…to then turn around & drive us back home. It was a great bonding experience for us all. I am already planning next year’s trip. For real.

While I was in Florida, we lost our 21 yr. old cat, Callie. On June 14, we lost our 13 yr. old dog, Waldo. When my heart can take it I will eulogize them both. They are so very worthy to be remembered.

Two weeks ago my husband & I flew 2 hrs. to go to church & lunch with our son & his family. That was so cool. Can’t wait to go again soon. The drive is 4 hrs. Flying gives us the opportunity to make some short day trips in between our longer weekend trips. Someday I will share my personal transformation in the realm of air travel. It is good stuff & I never want to forget.

I have spent the rest of this month pretty well consumed with the daily grind of running our 21 yr. old business, while working to shut down a side hustle. I have fought discouragement with both businesses for 2 weeks now. Definitely a story for another day. I have 2 root canals to look forward to this week. Life is so, so good. No…it really is…work & root canals notwithstanding. We went to the baptism of our twin, 2 yr. old granddaughters this morning, & even though they screamed & wrestled their poor parents on stage…whilst their 3 yr. old sister swung from the altar…my heart was brimming over…with joy, gratitude, & yes…even laughter. We will all look back on this day & realize what a great story was unfolding before us. Everyday is material for memories. Till next time…