Tag Archives: hope

Empty nesting

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Most of the time I am pretty content in my life, I can spend my time any way I want to usually…with in reason. I’m a grownup ya know! Since our four children grew up, that’s the way it’s been and it is the gift the Lord gives you for a “job well done!”…or some kind of yadda yadda!

The only catch is (for which I did not see coming!)…the dreaded grand kid… they don’t tell you what this one little kid can do to you. It’s a scam I tell ya! You assume you are all finished.. the fretting, the worry, the knowing that at any given second there could be a huge explosion or landslide or any equally torrential act of God that could take your precious children to heaven sooner than you want.. or at least cause a trip to the emergency room! No one warns you about the next level.. the grandchild…the even more gut wrenching fears that are so absurd they don’t even make movies about it. How do we survive it?

I have been so blessed to have my beautiful granddaughter right next to me.. for seven wonderful years…..the hugs and kisses and jam hands have been a way of life .. everyday. The glue.. the sparkles..the stickers all over every thing you own; a never ending amount of sippy cups and drink boxes and goldfish cracker smashed in all the nooks and crannies of the couch as well as too much candy and the inevitable puke session to follow. And that’s only the good stuff! My sweet girl was always sitting too close to me, always screaming “MAMAW” when I came home and running so fast to me she nearly knocked me down. I would Buy her so much stuff that one child could never play with it all, spoiling her so bad her mother had her hands full. I’m sorry( not sorry)

But now she is gone…. Far away in a far off land. She moved .. they moved…for some reason she wanted to go with her Mom.. I mean she had me, her Mamaw and even better her Papa! But she wanted to move away .. I mean you spoil a kid rotten and they turn on you.. what nerve. She is perfectly happy too! What gives.. hot beautiful weather, the beach a swimming pool, Target and Chick-fil-A only down the street! So what.. I mean if you like that kind of stuff? I do wish a Chick-fil-A would pop up here in the ‘Burg!

Of course I’m happy for her and her Mom( don’t get me started on her Mom) there’s not enough words to express my missing her.. I’m not crying, you’re crying! I’ll move on. They are on an adventure of a lifetime, they are happy and safe; they are good. Even more than that I know that my Lord is with them, taking care of them better than I can. I had to come to the place of understanding and reminded myself that God loves them even more than I do. He has brought them this far, He has kept us all from the tricks of the devil. He has assured me that my babies and also my grandchildren will be of His highest priority.

So this empty nest I am in is even more empty, more than it’s ever been. (By the way, I ain’t hating it!)(did I say that out loud?) It’s ok, thankfully we have “face time” for which my granddaughter who I know adores me sits and plays a game ignoring me as she face times me.. um you called me missy! Oh well, I see her beautiful smile and her gorgeous hair that I love to touch and kiss her head. I know she loves me as much as I love her, she’s a tough little girl and I know the next time I see her in person she will probably be bored with me pretty quickly. These days 7 is more like 12 yrs old and I’ll be okay because I know I had those first 7 years( I had to share her with everyone else but I made sure I was at the top of her pyramid…. Most days!

I thank the Lord for my nest, my preacher bird, for my baby birds and for my sweet little chickadee. She is in good hands, with her sweet Mom, taking steps in faith for a wonderful life. They got this and even more Gods got them. I still miss the hound out of them!

Dirty…Dirty…Dirty

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exhibit A: why do we have a ping-pong ball and no table, dog leash #1

Nothing cures a lazy Monday like an episode of Hoarders. Don’t say you have never seen it or even lingered a while enduring the shock and awe of it all. Like a train wreck exploding and stacked up like cord wood, the impossible reality of these poor peoples homes, causes me to ask the question….How did it get this bad and why in H- E- double Hockey sticks are they allowing anyone to film it?

What Dirty little secrets do we all have….laying in wait, that we keep hidden from EVERYONE!!!

How many drawers do you have to open up until you see chaos? Which closet is stacked so high and tight that the very thought of opening can cause a cringe? Guilty, Guilty, Guilty! The good news to me is I know most of us have these issues, hopefully not in the grand scale of these hoarder people but in a small way we all have junk.

Nearly a month ago I went through my ever busting-out closet and thought I had really done well. This was the time,……. even purses and shoes; even that black pair of slip on clog-like ones that I pull out every year for which I hate. I let them all go…joyfully! After several (meaning more than three–lots more!)  black garbage bags (to hide the evidence) taken to the Goodwill drop off station, I swear if it doesn’t appear to still be too full. I have a date with that room and this time I will keep no alliances…I will never fit into those clothes again and if I do its time to be out of the ’90’s!

I actually used to pride myself for keeping a short stash of junk. My sister-in-law would praise me for not having storage rooms full of stuff still boxed up from previous moves. I hate that! I can not stand to have all that stuff not being used or just there. My husband knew when I had a cleaning binge hit me…things came up missing and I am still searching for a set of NASCAR Tickets that he lost. Notice I put all blame on him! I just know I didn’t lose them…..to be honest I think my gut tells me I may have disposed of them on a clean sweep moment. Not that I will ever cop to that for sure..since we have no real evidence.

Exhibit B: another leash, out of date (I am told) adding machine thingy, random crayons….junk!

Before anyone accuses me of being a clean freak….far far far from that. I am momentarily a clean freak. But these television shows give me cause to become one. Given the right timing I can see this happening………”but for the grace of GOD go I!”

I don’t think I am a hoarder so much, I am more of a lazy follow through-er……(they all say that!!!) But I will continue to try. As long as my need to streamline is greater than my slow response mode I will survive.

I think it all breaks down to HOPE. Hope for better,  Hope for one’s life led free from the frustration from it all. I can never get so bummed I just stop….give up.

So I wonder? Anyone else out there with dirty drawers..(dresser drawers NOT britches!..I am southern but, T.M.I) Anyone who has more than one junk drawer? Anyone that keeps too much craft stuff because on the next rainy day you are going to do all those cute crafts you see on Pinterest? Too many house magazines piled up? So much stuff it makes dusting the worst job ever?

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Apparently we need to keep the scores of our card games!! hmmm and WoW! real film?

Let me know I am not alone…help a sister out here! I have issues I know, but I vow to continue one day at a time to get it right.

My heart goes out to the ones who can’t help themselves and shame on me for my dirty, dirty little secrets………. hidden!

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I wish I had……

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I wish I had hugged my granny and papa more. I wish I had known the last days on our farm were the last days. I wish I had known the days would get so much shorter as I got older. I wish the words my sister would say to me about all those Cokes catching up to me wouldn’t hover in my head as well as my hips.

I wish I would have continued playing tennis after college. I wish I had been a better student. I wish I had the nerve to really be what I was meant to be. I wish I had paid more attention to my feet. I wish I had given much more thought to the clothes I wore during my 20’s.

I wish I had not cared so much about what people thought of me. I wish I were a better woman. I wish I could spare my kids the pain of failures and hard headedness. I wish the gravitational pull wouldn’t concentrate on what seems like only my body all the time. I wish I had a million dollars. (Keeping it real here, everyone wishes for that, I might as well say it out loud!)

I wish spring was the constant season until a month of fall and skip straight through to spring again. I wish I had a zillion Daisies all over my yard to keep me smiling. I wish the politicians would shut up and get something done for once.

I wish Downton Abbey would play everyday on PBS and not end and make us wait so long for new season, as well as Mad Men! Speaking of television shows, I wish Sandra would come back on Property Virgins and Dallas would come back sooner and all my guilty pleasure shows would stay only slightly crazy and not go full on nuts. I wish somethings would never change.

I wish my tooth socket would hurry up and heal for Petes’s sake! I wish I had a maid. I wish I had a maid. (So good I had to wish it twice.) I wish our children would find the best girlfriends/boyfriend for them and live in love the rest of their lives. (A momma can dream big ya know.)

I wish the weight would just drop right off like the ad claims it would. I wish I could travel to NYC and live for about a month in a brownstone in a beautiful part of town like on You’ve Got Mail. I wish my blog would be read by lots of people and eventually be on FRESH PRESSED!

I wish I could watch cool birds in my back yard. I miss the huge Woodpecker that visited us for a season back at our old house as well as the little Blue Bird that is like the one on Snow White. I nearly cried it was so sweet.

I wish I could eat lobster again, and since I am on that subject shrimp and crab legs. I wish they were in abundance and not so expensive and I could eat them all the time along with great salads and vegetables – grilled.

I wish I could see again a few of my old friends from my younger days and it would be the same. I wish I was all shiny and new again. I wish everyone could get the whole GOD thing and I wish I got it better. I wish I could see a butterfly everyday. I wish I had a million dollars. (Bears repeating!)

I wish my hair would not go gray ever and be light blond highlights naturally like it was when I lived outside which brings me to I wish I wasn’t such an indoor person. I wish red-hot jaw breakers weren’t oh so Cinnamon-y — too hot! I wish I could sing really good. I wish I had my own computer that no one else ever uses.

I wish I could go back in time and have some do-overs. I wish I had a cat that never sheds and just cuddled. I wish I had the good sense I have now way back when. I wish I could talk to my daddy and I wish with that one that I will see him in heaven.

I wish I could go to the carnival that came every summer to Cowan TN, it was the best one ever and I wish I could belly laugh again while riding the Himalayan with my sister Jan. I wish I had been in the cool kids group in high school and not so awkward. (I was on the cusp of that crowd, just barely even noticed but just almost there.) I wish my son’s TV didn’t play constantly even when he isn’t home. Ugh! (Gotta’ go up the steps and search for the controller which is impossible.) Which brings me to – I wish I had found a one story home this time!

I wish LOVE was seen as a verb all the time and we spoke it daily. I wish it wasn’t so hard to wake up every day. I wish my sister that was two years older had not died when she was a baby. I bet we are a lot alike! I wish friends weren’t so hard to come by.

I wish I had watched my weight do more than quadruple. (Should a paid more attention to that one!!!) I wish I could wear Levi’s and plain white shirts all the time. I wish stuff didn’t bug me so much with my inner me screaming out all the time in my head just like the episodes of Seinfeld when Elaine is trapped on the subway and the power goes off and the train stops and she is trapped and begins to talk to herself in her head. (I do that all the time, nerve-racking! 0

I wish so many wishes that it will have to be continued.

I wish I had more patience to continue now

‘Til next time – I hope!

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Failure?

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What does it mean to be a failure?

The only answer I can think of is not trying again, giving up. Every day we breathe we have another opportunity to do it over, try again, give it another chance. No person or situation is ever without the option of a do-over. Unless we choose not too. It is called “free will.” God knew we would probably need a few more chances to get it right.

This freedom to choose is usually a hot topic and can be a slippery slope. Sometimes our choices are beyond our control, we have to make lemonade because we made choices that cause an overt reaction to our situation. That’s when we limit our options. But it still was our choices that got us there.

Hmmm, heavy subject I understand but to take a line from my favorite movie, “no man is a failure who has friends!” George Bailey, It’s a Wonderful Life. (By the way, if it was Jimmy Stewart that told me I had twenty-four hours to live I would be okay, I love Jimmy Stewart.)

It is up to us to choose our friends — those who build us up, not bring us down. And for us to be a friend that sticks closer than a brother. I have been blessed with a few of those friends and some of them are even my family. I am keenly aware of who I can lean on for the support I need at any given time but there are days I too feel all alone.

That’s when I know I need to turn my heart toward the Lord, have a little talk with Jesus ya know, and seems like my outlook gets better. I am never a failure because I have friends and the best friend of all, the one who loves me the most. This silly mutt sitting in my lap — buddy!

He never thinks I am a failure and he makes sure I am never alone.