Is that really ME??

You know how, every once in a while, you see a picture of yourself at a family reunion or school function and you don't recognize you? You stare and stare and finally swear up and down that the idiot in the picture couldn't possibly be you because you would never do something like THAT. Then some person, who usually remains nameless forever after, points out how it's not only possible that it's you but also how they know without doubt that it's you. Then you want to hide for awhile until people start looking at another idiot in another picture.

And how about when you get some idea in your head about what you sound like when you sing or talk and then hear yourself on a recording and say "That's not me. I don't sound like that..." Meanwhile, the whole world looks at you (like you're an idiot) and says, "Yes you do."

I had an experience this morning just like that but a little worse, if you can imagine. I woke up and grabbed my Droid phone (because it's my alarm and I wanted it to stop whistling the Andy Griffith Show theme song in my ear). I checked the weather, because my kids can't look out the window or open the door, and then checked my email, so I'd know who's getting good grades and who needs some help. As usual, there were several Facebook emails but only on that gave me that icky, "that's not what I sound like" feeling. Let me explain.

My sense of humor has been called sarcastic, among other things and I'm the type of person that people either love or hate but that nobody ever forgets. I've been told I'm "real" and frequently tell people more than they probably want to hear when they ask me how I'm doing. All of my cards are on the table. For some reason, I think I assume that because that's how I am, that's how everybody is. I'll poke fun at others, in good humor and follow up by poking fun at myself. Back to my email.

My Facebook friend and I seem to have the same type of sense of humor. We laugh at the same types of stuff and have made similarly obnoxious comments to one another. I recently made a comment on something he posted and he sent a comment back that stung. But it didn't sting because of the words that he said or because he was upset and lashing out or anything else dumb like that. (I'm a big proponent of "If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen" and I've said worse things to him and he's "taken the heat") No, it stung because I realized that maybe I went a little too far; not for him, but for me. I looked at myself, figuratively speaking, and thought "Is that really ME? That's not what I sound like...". The little voice in my head actually looked at my like I was an idiot.

So I started thinking a little more carefully about my friend. We are at different "seasons" in our lives. Things that I'm working on, he hasn't gotten to yet and things that he struggles with, I've already figured out (to a certain extent). I'm married, he's not. I've got kids, he doesn't. I'm sure his life is in a period of transition that's taking so long that it feels like stagnation to him and I can look at it and feel empathy because I've been where he is. The more I thought, the more I realized that the person I SOUNDED like when I made that comment, isn't the person I want to be.

It's just like the photos or the video recordings; we can wish and hope that the idiot who did that in the picture or said that on the recording isn't us but, in the end, no amount of wishing will change what we DID. We only have power to change what we DO from here on out.

Will my friend and I change our senses of humor? Not likely. Will we still roast each other a little bit? Probably. Will I be a little more thoughtful of where he is and what might actually get a little too close to the "OOoooo...BURN/OUCH...That hurt" line? Definitely.

My friend, I'm sorry.

I've got it!

At least I found something I feel like posting, anyway.  I wrote this about 3 years ago.  At the time, Dan was nearing the end of his 7 month deployment to Iraq and I was doing a little "soul searching".  This is the result.

What am I made of?  What am I capable of?  How much can I handle before I fall apart?

  These are questions I have been forced to ask myself over the past 6 months.  More to the point, they are questions I have been forced to answer.  Some of the answers have surprised me.  Others have left me speechless and still others have left me shaking my head and hoping THAT never happens again.

I have spent the past 11 years preparing, and being prepared, for the past 6 months.  I started out with a 10 day separation, so that I could get used to him coming home.  Then, because I thought I knew how to be “on my own”, there were several short times apart: a weekend here, a few weeks there – all to teach me to live and continue to function by myself; on my own. 

Then I had children.  Whereas in the beginning, I learned how to be alone with me, now I was to learn how to keep myself going at the same time I was giving; my body to pregnancy, (and some of my mind to its’ fog), my heart to the tiny souls entrusted to me, my time, day and night, to the care and nurture of others. I thought that I had to give everything I had to these small task masters – that there was no time left for me.  When he was gone during these times, I learned that I had to take time, indeed MAKE time, to take care of myself.  The children wouldn’t, my husband couldn’t – I would have to do it for myself.  The separations and limited communications made these lessons the most difficult to learn.

Time passed and opportunities came.  While he was in school, I learned how to let go a little bit and how to trust him.  I learned how to hold him up at the same time I cleaned up and helped children keep up.  I learned how to have joy in HIS accomplishments and successes and that sometimes, the best way to hold him up was to let him go.  He does amazing things when he’s free to do them.

We moved again and I learned how to drive long distances with children in the car.  I learned how to move and how NOT to move and which of us is better at being in charge of that process.  I learned patience with him and the things he asked and required of me, more to the point, with the way he asked me.  Then I realized that this was one of the times I needed to let him go.  I had to let him leave me: first, for a week at a time,   then for a month at a time, then for a few weeks at a time – stretched out over a whole year.  So, he went – and he did amazing things.  I learned then that there are times when he leans on me and relies on me; that those are usually the times when he has to be gone and can’t take care of everything.  I “hold down the fort” and “keep it together” – in my home, with my children and in my heart – until he can return and take up his part again. 

After that, I found that  there will be times when I will have to revisit places I don’t want to return to because it’s time to learn again: more patience, more love for him and my children, more self reliance.  Now I know that there will be times that I am lovingly transported and carefully placed so that I can bloom where I’m planted.  And that there will be other times when I am unceremoniously yanked from the ground only to be brought inside by a chubby, grubby little hand and placed in a cup of water on the window sill.  With effort, I will bloom where I’m planted – but only with GREAT effort.

I pause for a moment in this place, looking back over the past 11 years and see the Hand that has moved me from place to place; the careful preparation that was undertaken to make sure that I would be able face myself and answer those questions I asked.

What am I made of?  Curious stuff.  Strength and weakness, happiness and misery, obedience and mutiny, hope and despair, light and dark, love and hate, peace and confusion, serenity and upheaval – and I need them all to learn.  I can’t learn, know or understand any of those things without the antithesis of them.

What am I capable of?  Amazing things – sometimes wonderful, sometimes stupid.  Things I never thought I could do.  Situations I thought I would never face.  Calm in the face of a tempest, love greater than I ever imagined, more gratitude than I could ever express or repay.  Appreciation, understanding, wisdom, charity, faith, compassion, empathy, humility...I have talents I never knew of.  Talents I never considered talents until someone’s life was touched. ( I’m capable of surprise at this.)  Am I perfect?  No.  But I can do so much more than I ever gave myself credit for.

How much can I handle before I fall apart?  Unknown.  Since I have faced situations I was sure I never could, I have learned more faith.  I have come to truly believe that I will never fall apart unless I try to learn without a Teacher; a friend to guide me.  Sometimes that teacher will be a sister, other times a child, still other times, my husband.  But always guided by Someone…and with their help, I will never fall apart.

It's Been Awhile...

I have spent 45 minutes of  the past hour reading over my past posts and avoiding my laundry.  I have spent the most recent 15 minutes thinking "I should probably update this thing."  Then I had this epiphany: I don't want to post anything if it's not going to be hilarious or amazingly witty enough to generate a ton of comments.  I don't think anyone who reads this wants a play-by-play update about my day to day life.  It's rather boring...except for when it gets very interesting because I forgot to take my medication and started swearing.  (And THAT stuff, I won't put up here...)
I doubt that the "faithful few" want to know about the challenges I'm facing as the Young Women's President....yes..it's me again.  New place, same calling...still wondering. (Especially since one of my counselors has been the YW pres for the past 25 years or so...everywhere she's gone!!)  I'm not intimidated at all...why do you ask?
I'm sure you don't want to know about the roller coaster highs of my bipolar - which can actually be fun unless they happen at PMS time.  Then they're just nasty and mean.
I won't bore you with stories about sliding down the razor blade of life on my bipolar park ride.  That can be painful.
I've written about my children.  I've written about my dog.  I'm not authorized to write about my husband.  (I can never seem to get the facts straight.  Well....I think they're a lot straighter than he realizes.  )
I'd never write about my siblings...ask them yourself.  And I quit my job.
No wonder it's been awhile...
Never mind that - I'll work this week to come up with something that will generate long posts about how funny I am or how you can relate or how you dread that point in your life....maybe even better ones like "ROFLMBO".
(I'm starting to think I sound like Charlie Sheen...)

Pros and Cons

As with everything in life, there are pros and cons to moving and there are pros and cons to camping.  Many people go through their whole lives never doing either.  Some fortunate people, like military families, get to move every three to five years.  There are even some people who spend more time camping than they do living in  a house or working at a job. (At least that's what they want you to think from all the pictures they post on their blogs or Facebook pages.)  Today, my friends, I am the envy of all.  I am moving and camping at the same time.

Moving from Monterey, California to Spotsylvania, Virginia may not seem like a big deal to some but this family doesn't do anything small (or normal, for that matter) and we couldn't stand the idea of the military moving us.  We couldn't have professional packers come and pack our stuff, neither could they load it on a truck for us.  No, no.  We had to do this ourselves.  (Ideally, we make money doing it this way.)  So we have spent weeks packing things into boxes and one MAD week cramming it all into a truck.

And we can't just drive straight there from here; we've got to do this with style so the kids will remember it for the rest of their lives. (WHAT exactly the kids remember will come to light in later years when the scarring properties of what their parents have inflicted has somewhat worn away the bitterness.) We've got to camp across the country.  To this end, we have a minivan that will be dragging (notice I did not say hauling) a trailer chock full of camping gear over hill and dale and a small 2 door sedan in which 4 people CAN sit but only 2 people (the driver +1) WILL sit for this trip.

Now as I said in the beginning, there are pros and cons to this and I've compiled a list of each.  In the future, should you decide to attempt this same madness, consult this blog and choose wisely (Remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books?????).  Your sanity may depend on it. (thankfully, I don't have any left to lose)

AND NOW........be forewarned - these pros and cons are biased.  The writer takes full credit for the point of view...
The pros of moving and camping across the country at the same time

• You get to drive across this great nation - And since my husband is so gallant and chivalrous, he doesn't want me driving the van with the trailer.  Do you know what that means?  That means that this wonderful, intelligent man who listens to talk radio all day and spends most of his time on the internet reading the news or doing research about one thing or another will be driving the van with three children and a dog.  NPR is not going to cut it all the way to Virginia.  I bet it won't even clear California!!
• You get to visit family - if your family is like mine, they're all over the place.  What better time to make them cook you dinner?
• You get to see all kinds of neat stuff that you may never see again - Like Mt. Rushmore or the place where Laura Ingalls Wilder grew up.  You'll finally know for yourself whether Old Faithful is REALLY as faithful as they say (whoever "they" are).
• You'll be creating memories that will last a lifetime - memories of family fun at amazing places, excitement in your childrens' eyes at historical places, spiritual awakenings within our family circle.

The cons of moving and camping across the country at the same time

• You get to drive across this great nation - and see every podunk town and weirdy at every gas station along the way.  You get to use gas station and truck stop bathrooms where your kids think everything they sell is worth what they're asking because they'll keep it "forever" (which really means they'll keep it till it gets lost, they'll cry about it for a day and then never think of it again)
• You get to visit family - the folks you never get to see cause they're in the middle and you only ever live on the coasts....and who knew that they had the ONLY surviving copy of mom's Tuna Florentine Casserole.  (Especially since you went to such great pains to make sure it was destroyed so she could never make it for dinner again!!)
• You get to see all kinds of "neat" stuff that you nay never see again - for which fact, you will thank the Lord for the rest of your life.  (We're not talking giant rubber band balls either. ) 
• You'll be creating memories that will last a lifetime - you'll never forget who gets bad gas from which fast food place OR how long it takes for them to erupt.  You'll never forget that the dog barfs going over the "whoopdee-doos" in the desert or that it only takes about 30 minutes for half a gallon of soda to require mom to stop.  (And for those who are "in the know" - cow pies.  that's all I have to say)

You'll have to decide for yourself whether it's worth it for you.  Since I started this venture with no sanity and the kid's was questionable at best, you'll have to use my husband as the gauge.  If he's still sane at the end of it all, it wasn't worth it.  If he's come through a few sandwiches short of a picnic and a few kabobs short of a barbeque, I'll call it a worthwhile venture.  HA HA HA!!!

Things children insist on learning through sad experience

Kids are amazing little creatures.  Their minds are like little sponges that soak up information at a rate that we sad, sagging adults can't even fathom.  Our minds are burned out or worn out or just plain OUT. But KIDS...man!

I think there are things that kids learn because they are repeated to them a million and a half times, like times tables or don't play with the wall socket. And they remember these simple, sometimes inane things, for the rest of their lives!

I think there are other things that get repeated a million and a half times, like don't hit your brother or clean your room or leave me alone when I'm on the phone, that they never seem to remember and have to be reminded of frequently; usually much more frequently than parents like to admit.  (You see, it reflects badly on US if we say to one another that just the other day one son punched the other in the chest and you told him to knock it off so he did but then today you had to tell the SAME son to stop doing the SAME thing because, as said son says, he "forgot you said that.")

But there is another classification of things that kids learn that, try though we may, we cannot shelter them from.  They are going to learn these things whether we like it or not and the only things we can do, when the lessons are learned, are take them to the ER or clean up the mess.

Here, for your reading pleasure as well as your education, are some of the lessons my children have learned from sad experience:

1.  That stupid rhyme about monkeys jumping on beds is true.  You really will fall off and crack your head.  Then you'll have to get 5 stitches.  (The rhyme never talks about THAT part.)

2.  Sliding down the stairs in a laundry bucket is NOT the same as sledding down a really steep hill.  The hill doesn't have a wall at the bottom that you hit your head on really hard  [**admittedly, they learned this from watching ME trying to convince them that it WAS the same**]

3.  If mom says that shiny, triangle thing with holes in it  (aka the iron) is really hot, it really is REALLY HOT and you shouldn't grab it with both hands.

4.  Playing tug-of-war is something you should do OUTSIDE because there are no closet doors or hinges that you can bang your head on.  Cause after you bang your head you have to go to the hospital and get staples or stitches, depending on the hospital.

5.  Playing baseball with friends is really cool when you're seven except when everybody wants a turn to bat at the same time.  Then, when you get too close to the guy with the bat while it's his turn, you get hit right between the eyes and have to go back to the ER for more stitches.  (And your mom want's to call you Frank 'cause it's short for Frankenstein)

6.  If your mom says she'll help you use that wax thing she dips her hands in, blow drying the wax from the top will not help it melt any faster.  It just makes it splatter all over the mirror in her bathroom and then she says you can't use it anymore.

7.  You should never walk too close to your mom is she's in one of those moods where she wants to try to kick your butt from the side.  She's going to get her foot stuck in your backpack straps and drag you both to the ground.  Then your first grade teacher will have to put Band-Aids on both of you. (Then your kid says "Mom!!  Why do you have to be so stupid!!!???")

8.  If your mom tells you not to ride your bike down that really steep hill with all the potholes in it, don't ride down that hill.  'Cause if you do, you might hit a really deep hole and fly over your handlebars.  Then you scrape your chest all up and your bike lands on top of you and bikes are heavy.

9.  Sliding down the stairs in slickery sleeping bags is AWESOME!...unless....there's a leather sectional three feet from the bottom of the stairs.  The slickery sleeping bag makes you go really fast and your feet crunch into the sectional.  Then you have to turn that piece upside down, glue it, clamp it and pray that the glue dries and you get the dumb thing put back together BEFORE Dad comes home.  (Although you do find all kinds of treasures....)

10.  If someone offers you candy for sucking soda up a straw with your nose...don't do it.

All dressed up...Where shall we go?

Have I ever mentioned the many reasons I love Fall? 
No?  Allow me to elucidate -
1. It's back to school time. 
I love my children, don't get me wrong.  I have dedicated the past 12 years of my life to their well-being but there's something wonderful about the first day that they all go to school and you have six glorious hours of quiet.
2.  The leaves start to fall down from the trees and, if the weather isn't too wet, they get crunchy.  I love crunchy leaves.  Especially when they've been down from the tree for a while and the weather's been dry and they've had a chance to really curl up.  Those have the most satisfying CRUNCH!
3.  HALLOWEEN!  This is for the kid in me.  I love to dress up in costumes and "pretend".  The candy's not a bad thing either.  I can eat several mini Twix's in one day and nobody will think anything of it.
4.  It's "96 season".  This is for the military wife in me.  Autumn marks the beginning of lots of 4 day weekends.   Labor Day, Columbus Day, Marine Corps Birthday, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years...sometimes they even get time off for the Super Bowl (but I think that's only on Okinawa)
5.  The Marine Corps Ball.  This is for the grown up in me.  I still get to dress up but it's the fancy kind of dressing up and my hubby has to dress up too.  :O)  THAT'S the part I like the best.

The best of times,the worst of times...

...Halloween from two perspectives
Depending on who you are, Halloween can be either the best or the worst.

**For the mom trying to sew three costumes in one week, it's probably closer to the worst (although the three children
 placing that much faith in her should count for something...)
*For the children who get to wear the costumes - Party! Bonus! Definitely the best of times.
**For the parents who get to take their kids to the church Halloween activity the day BEFORE Halloween (at which costumes are a social must and they "trunk-or-treat" from car to car) - Worst of times.
* For the kids - two Halloweens in one year! YES! Best of times....
**Regarding the previously mentioned church activity - Dinner is provided---that's good. Good times...but not really best.
*Again, regarding the church activity - dinner is chili. gross. worst.
**Then there's the candy. I understand now why my mom always said we could go once around our block. 13 houses times 7 kids is plenty of candy. As a parent, this is abundantly clear.
*Here is some kid math: dress up + go to the neighbors house = get candy!
We should do this every day!!

**Definitely NOT doing this every day.  Once a year is enough!
*Mom's just afraid of having this much candy in the house all the time....killjoy.