Thanksgiving 2010

I am SO excited that today is Thanksgiving!

At 7:30 I ran out to my local Kwik Trip and snagged a swollen LaCrosse Tribune before they were gone. Now it's patiently waiting on my counter for me to ooze over while my kids watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The parade alone brings on warm memories of sitting "criss-cross applesauce" beside my brother in front of the "tube" on Thanksgiving mornings. No doubt we watched the parade to the music of my mom starting our Thanksgiving meal.

I don't mean "music" in your typical fashion of a peaceful mother bustling around the kitchen in smooth efficiency. My mom sounded like a derailed train. We kids all think she used to take pans and bang them together noisily just so she could complain about how disorganized our cabinet was. Oh Mom. I love you. You've given us so many things to remember :)

This morning I got to watch my poor sister-in-law fight with her un-de-necked turkey. We're not sure if the neck was frozen in or if it missed the factory neck breaking, but after running water over it extensively, it was still pretty solid. So she snapped it off and tossed the chunk of vertebrae on the counter top. Not sure I'll ever laser that image out of my head. Go Julia!

I'm excited for the smells of Thanksgiving to permeate my house. I'm excited to stuff my belly and satisfy my pallet with the flavors of strawberry pretzel salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, my sister's grilled turkey breast, and so many other warm, wonderful treasures of flavor.

I'm excited to engross my stuffed self in football for the afternoon while the kids sleep and we await the evening feast at my sister's.

To top that all off, I got to start my day curled up on my couch with my Bible. Rodney had left the computer on the previous night, and our screen saver was playing through the slide show of my friends, family, and kids. It was the perfect way to start my day-- being reminded of the incredible blessings that surround me WHILE spending time with the One who gifted them to me.

My brain cannot process the good that God has blessed me with. I have food in my fridge, healthy, noisy kids running around my house, a husband who consistently comes home to me after work, change in the jar on my dresser, a car that starts in the cold and has fuel in the tank. On and on my list could go. I'm grateful even for the fact that my list is unending.

I would encourage you to begin thinking through things you can be thankful for-- and not just today. It will enrich your heart and fix your attitude every time. Start with obvious things like family. Move on to things like silverware and toilet paper. We have more than any other generation and more than most people in the world. God has been so good.

If this was your last day. . .

Tonight, I drove to Eau Claire to attend a service called Substance. It typically ushers in the most meaningful connection God and I have for the entire month. It's mostly music, led by the amazing 513FREE, with a short 10-15 minute "message" thrown in. I could keep plugging Substance, but it's not the point of this post, and so I digress.

There's a guy in our band named Johnny, and he writes music. He's never written a song I didn't like. Tonight, he soloed a new song, and I got to sit in the audience and listen to it. The guy is only 20 years old, but God has heaped talent on him. The song he sang tonight was about living your life like it's the last day. What if it was the last chance you had? To do anything?

I can tell you I'd be a whole lot nicer to my husband and kids.

I thought about what it would be like if I could have the experience of Ebeneezer Scrooge. What if "The Ghost of Christmas Past" came and took me back to look at my Former Self? And what if it took me to any given day to observe my previous self with my children.

The image that came into my head is the very common picture of me standing at the stove cooking or at the sink doing dishes or at the counter chopping veggies for something. My hands are wet or dirty, my four-year-old daughter is leaning on my leg, repeating for the fourth time her desire for chocolate milk (even though I've told her I'm busy and that she'll need to wait). She reaches up maybe to grab a piece of cucumber I've just sliced, and as I nearly chop her tiny finger, I hear my two-year-old son open the fridge. He proceeds to dump a freshly-made pitcher of apple juice into the fridge and onto my kitchen floor, immediately soaking my cooking magazine that he was earlier tearing pages out of, even though I needed the recipe for dinner that very night.

My Former Self shoves the cutting board away, SLAMS the knife on the board, and lays into both kids. Shouting ensues, followed by children's tears, my own anger (not just at the kids but now myself for acting so childish), and a trip to the bathroom to grab a towel for the mess. I come back to find the two-year-old playing in the juice and to see wet, four-year-old-sized tracks leading to my living room. There's more yelling, some shooing, maybe an undeserved spanking, cleaning, and a little tear-streaked girl still whining for chocolate milk.

In all my Former Self's anger and haste, I completely missed both of my kids' needs. Not only that, but by ignoring their desires, I have hurt them. Every time I act this way, I'm pouring yet another thin layer on the foundation of how they will treat each other, their friends, their eventual spouse, and their own children.

It breaks my heart to look at this scene and see my selfish, knee-jerk reaction to the sequence of events. I want to reach into the vision and shake my Former Self and tell her to open her eyes.

Every day at some point, I put what I'm doing (which is usually as unimportant as cutting cucumbers) ahead of giving my kids the attention they request. Sadly, it's not just my kids that I do this to, but my husband as well. And how can I expect them to treat people any differently-- including myself? I don't allow my daughter to speak disrespectfully to me, so why would I use such harsh words and tones with her?

I do think that at times, these things are warranted. If my child is running into the street or cramming a key into an electrical outlet, I'm not going to calmly walk over and carefully explain the dangers of his or her situation. I will shout whatever words are necessary to immediately stop the behavior. It just happens to be too flippant in my day.

It occurred to me today that it's simple laziness. I don't want to set aside what I'm doing, and I don't want to take the time it requires to actually teach or explain things to my children in a way they can understand. It's easier and quicker to shout, the point still gets across, and they usually adjust their behavior properly.

And even if this method works now, it cannot work when they are teenagers or adults. When will I change how I talk to my kids? When they're 6? 10? 17? It needs to change now. I don't know how or what it will look like.

I feel like the only way to see victory with a step this drastic is to spend a whole lot more time on my knees. But since I can't just leave my kids to go kneel beside my bed all day, I will need to trust that He can change me while I'm living and not just while I'm praying.

I want to be able to sign my name at the bottom of the "page" of the day with pride. Like I lived the day the best I could. My children feel loved, my husband feels respected, and most of all that God is pleased. I do, after all, wear His name around all day, calling myself a "Christian" or "little Christ." It's His name I need to be able to sign at the bottom of the day's page.

The Purpose of the Path

Tonight, I started reading Donald Miller's book "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years." I've always envied the simplicity and humor in his style. He writes like a sort of 'soul whisperer.' It's on everyone's level and honest. Not a harsh sort of honesty. It's presented in a way so as to surface things we tend to keep subliminal. His writing evokes a desire to look at things with a genuine grit to them. He has a way of adding "realness" to life, but without the hoity-toity, artsy depth that so many writers try to spin. It's refreshing and lovely.

Since Rodney went on a last-minute business trip tonight, I prepared for bed alone. And I thought about how much more I could do if I was on my own. I imagined the level of writing I could achieve without my family to attend to. Not just my literary dealings, but think of the music I could write. And I could read a Donald Miller book every week. I could study my passions and really utilize my giftings.

That was when I had an epiphany. It's the kind that leaves you embarrassed in front of your own self because it's so obvious and dumb. I realized that everything I even have to offer or write about-- my Story-- is about my family. It's what I know. It is the passion I have chosen to pursue. And sadly, it's only a season. I will not always have to pick Cheerios out of the seats of my mini-van or jelly beans out of noses. Nor will my children bolt for the door and turn to Velcro when I come home. I will not always hear the tender, wispy "Love you Momma" before turning off their lights before bed.

And when this season does come to an end, I will have my time. Perhaps I'll have less passion by then too. But if I don't have it, I won't miss it. I don't think.

The cheesy cliche of "Life is an adventure" is true. And I hate cliches. The paradox is that while every day is different, I sometimes weary of the repetition. But what I do now is gaining me a wealth of knowledge, maturity, hopefully wisdom, and writing material. God has given me what I have now, and I am content. More than that, I am blessed. Thank You.

Can't

Yesterday was day one of my absence from Facebook.

In the beginning of the day, I felt an enormous pull toward the site. I was caught off guard by how strong the urge was. And with each conscious decision I made to uphold this deal I've made with myself, I felt a little more alone. Not in a lonely, forlorn sense of the word. But I couldn't see what all my friends or even "friends" were doing and thinking. It was more like isolation.

In addition to that, I couldn't share my world with those outside my house. For instance, I cooked pot roast yesterday, and it smelled so good that I wanted to eat my own arm. I utilized the method of oven bags, and I wanted input from other users and hear their experience with the bags.

Today I fried up cabbage and thought of my sister-in-law Erica the whole time because I know how much she loves it.

I also sat around in my jammies until 1:30 this afternoon, which hasn't happened in ages.

And I WANT TO SHARE!!! On the other hand, I realize how trivial these things are.

There's just something about the inability to do something I know I COULD do that makes it all the more enticing.

Last summer, for instance, I was scheduled to play with my band 513FREE at an outdoor event. Everything was set up and ready to go when it started to rain. We hustled around wrapping up cords, disassembling the drum kit, and so on. My keyboard was tossed into the back of someone else's nearby vehicle where we decided it could stay until I would meet back up with the band the following week.

I have not ever wanted to play my piano as badly as I did that week. It wasn't there, I couldn't do it, and it left a void. A longing.

It's the same way when Rodney goes out of town. When he's home, I don't care that he's at work all day and even out with the guys some nights. But when he's gone and I can't have him around, I want him here all the time.

There's just something about the word "can't." In teenagers, it stirs up rebellion. It caused Adam and Eve's fall. It motivates men to overcome things. The word seems to trigger the response of a sort of panicked grasping for control.

Anyway, today has been better. I'm learning to rest in the "quiet" of my mind without all the thoughts of my Facebook friends cluttering it up. I'm trying to direct my thoughts more toward the task of working on my book and being efficient with my time. And while I can't yet see finite results of this huge time-taker's elimination, I am beginning to feel a sense of my ability to move past it.

Facebook Hiatus

It's been a long time coming. Nearly a year ago, our small group went through a study that asked each us to voluntarily give up something that "consumes" us for one week. At the time, I was scrap-booking like a mad woman with every second of my free time. And so I gave it up for a week. Secretly, I was glad I was so delved into my hobby, because it meant I wouldn't have to give up Facebook like so many of my friends did.

It's been on my mind since then. I think about it every time I almost burn a meal, my kid nearly falls down the stairs, or when my daughter wants to dance with me, and I "just need to finish this quickly." All of those have resulted from my head being stuck in my Facebook account-- which OBVIOUSLY can't wait a few minutes. Ever.

It's ridiculous how much of my attention goes to that single website.

I was sitting on the floor, playing with my little boy a few days ago when my husband was home for lunch. It happened again the next day, and I thought to myself, "Rodney must think I'm a great mom and just do this all day every day." And that was when I realized that the only reason I was sitting on the floor with my boy was because my husband had taken my spot in the computer chair, and I needed to pass the time.

That should NOT be the reason I play, dance, color, build with my kids.

There are a few other contributing factors to my break from Facebook, but those are some big ones.

I have often thought that I couldn't take time off from it. As if I would in some way cease to function without it at my disposal. There are always excuses-- as dumb as they may be. But the excuses stop now.

I'm nervous that I'll miss some sort of crucial information (like Thanksgiving updates, major changes in peoples' lives, etc), but that's a risk I'll need to take. I think it'll be freeing, I think it will be boring, I think it will be scary. But I think, ultimately, it will be a great thing for my parenting, writing, musicianship, and anything else I can pursue with my new-found time.

Or maybe I'm overly optimistic about it. Oh well. We'll find out.

I will continue to blog. My site auto-feeds through to my Facebook "notes" if anyone's interested. Everyone on Facebook has access to my e-mail address, and all my friends have my phone number. I will not be "off the grid" :)

I will see you all on Tuesday, November 30.

Husband vs God

In eight years of marriage, this is a first. When we were first married, we both worked third shift. One of us would occasionally take the last hour off work, head to the house, and prepare a surprise breakfast for the other to be welcomes home to. But always having lived with other people and now having kids. . . tonight's agenda seemed like a stretch. But by jove, if everyone else in the world can have the occasional quiet, romantic night in, why can't we?

I started by finding someone outside of the house to keep our kids. Overnight. On a school night. Check.

I swung into Wal-Mart and picked up some of our favorite snacks and beverages-- including the fancy-feeling sparking grape juice. I smile just thinking about sipping our plastic wine glasses with their bubbly purple contents-- pinky up :)

If you don't already know, we own our house with my husband's brother and his wife. They also have two kids. So to try having a quiet night, we would need to "gate" off our side of the house, and lock ourselves in our basement.

Anyway, once Rodney was done with lunch and back to work and the kids were down for their naps, I scurried around finding candles, a good picnic blanket, bowls to float my candles, a cup to fill my bowls (since my sink is too tiny). I gathered the snacks and wine glasses. I hauled down the TV and XBox with all the appropriate cables . . On and on I went. Running up the stairs and down the stairs.

Finally, everything was as ready as it could be. I cut out arrows to clearly direct my ADD husband as I waited for the kids to wake up so I could whisk them off to the babysitter's house. When they were finally awake, I discovered that Rodney had my only set of car keys on him.

*sigh*

No biggie. The babysitter was able to drive out and pick the kids up, and Rocky Rococo's (Rodney's favorite pizza joint) delivers. Crisis averted. EXCEPT that he happened to be working at our company's warehouse at the time, which is right next door. He didn't see the kids get carted off, but he did catch me with the pizza delivery boy (so scandalous!).

I knew I had been spotted, so I rushed back down to our room, lit the remaining candles, set up the meal, put on soft music, threw on my best black dress, poured our "wine," and prepared for his arrival. I grew so anxious waiting, that I decided to pass the time journaling my excitement.

As I wrote, I could hear the distinct "fizz" of candles burning themselves out. But I was so excited that I didn't even care :) I just journaled away, writing about the movies we'd watch, the conversation we'd have, the thrill of trying to be sneaky about everything. I felt like I was a fifth grader again, writing about how dreamy Patrick Kenny was (and yes, I've been journaling since I was 10. There's some pretty lame stuff in there).

I finally heard the front door open and footsteps cross my paper arrows. Not just one set though. No, he had brought two employees over to the house. I heard one of them say something about "romantic night," to which Rodney replied, "No. No romance. The little ones are here." I just smiled at his ignorance, thinking about how pleasantly surprised he would be to come downstairs and find just a wife waiting for him.

The employees did leave, and he did come downstairs. He walked past me, sat on the bed, and, in reference to the warehouse, he asked, "Do you know what's going on over there?"

I could feel this was bad. "No."

He went on to explain to me about an extremely time-sensitive, several-thousand dollar item that he still needed to finish before he could be home from work.

I was stunned. All the giddy excitement rushed from my chest as I grasped for words that wouldn't be hurtful or destroy all I had worked to achieve. But instead of words came hot tears.

I told him I understood and that he could go. I could tell how miserable he felt about the whole thing. He was torn. He compared himself to a bad, CEO husband on a TV show who abandons his wife for petty work. And while I understood his inner struggle, and I sincerely didn't feel like he was being a "bad husband," I felt tremendous disappointment.

He left, and I sat alone in the candlelight sobbing. To the point where I didn't even understand why I was still crying. But the tears kept coming, and I let them. It's no good to hold things in at a time like that. There's no room in our relationship for me to harbor or to grow bitterness.

It was then that I was reminded of something I had read earlier in the week and had been trying to put into effect since. And that is that God isn't human (how's that for an epiphany?).

People, in general, desire to be fulfilled by other people-- especially in the case of our spouses. Whether we admit it or not, we have certain expectations. I expect to feel loved, appreciated, protected, valued, and so on. Men typically have the expectation to feel respected, cherished, honored, etc. When those things aren't met, we feel any variety of emotions: disappointment, sadness, anger.

What I read was encouraging me to think more along the lines of how unconditional God is. He always loves me. He appreciates that I keep the budget, because I'm taking care of what He's given me. He appreciates my making dinner every night, because I'm caring for the people He's put in my life.

When my husband is late, God isn't. When my husband unknowingly makes me feel abandoned or unloved, God doesn't. When my husband overlooks something I've gone out of my way to do, God sees it.

When I remembered all of this, I began to smile through my tears :) I decided to go back upstairs to snag my laptop while I wait, and share this with all of you. I hope in some way, it helps you in your daily walk with other faulted humans. They will fail. All of them. But God can't.