Thinking about presence...

We're nice and warm and it's the day after Christmas. Our holidays with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews were steeped in tradition. A tradition I have been blessed with many times over.

I've been thinking about something I heard my mother telling my brother. She was feeling really sad that she did not have the time to put thought and time into her gift buying this year. That resonated with me and I, like my mother, felt the same way.

While I am joyous, thankful, and blessed with the presence of family and the memories of Christmas past, if I'm not careful, I can get caught a little longer than I should in the sadness that accompanies the season of celebrating Christ and the sadness of saying good-by to family for another year.

Thank you everyone! I love you all.

Today, I had to stay home with the flu.

My kitchen is such a mess I'm embarrassed. I make myself get up off the couch to do dishes. Listening to Christmas music to inspire me, I can't help but know how blessed I am. Yet, I am also sad thinking about my own grandparents and ALL those who loved me, happy to have such beautiful memories to fall back on.

I remember the first Christmas I did not go home and it still saddens me to think of it, but I was trying to grow up. Make my own way and find my way and value in life.

I'm missing my Hailey Jo. She is such a beautiful person and will find what she is looking for. Both girls are going through life's challenges and opportunities and I am so excited for them to find success and peace. It is contained within.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Lessons of life...

The other night one of my daughter's was working on her budget. I tossed her an old one I had conjured up from the piles. She was studying it and then said, "You used to pay my Sallie Mae payment? humm"

At that moment this became clear to me...
Unknowingly, I took accountability out of my children's hands in the area of finances - thinking I was helping. I did not see that I was hindering. I felt I acted out of love, and yet here they are. I see my parents struggle too. It is not mean to say that like sex, finances were not talked about in the culture many of us oldies, growing up in farming communities grew up in.

I believe finance was something you only got to learn in college. Is it still true today? Yikes! Talk about a live long skill...

When Dave Ramsey talks about people changing their family tree... for me, he wants us to recognize why our spending habits are what they are and then fix ourselves. He wants us to recognize that habits of finance are learned behaviors and talking and living on a budget is the opt out for being ignorant with money. It is also the toughest to create in managing change.

Right now in our fallen economy, it is time for change. Teaching young adult children only works if they let you and modeling tough love is, and will always be, hard work. I'm not sure I'm grading myself with high marks.

sigh....Dave Ramsey has it right. I'm better than I deserve.

God is good and I find strength in believing.

Life's musings...

I think for my oldest daughter at this time of crossroads in our lives, all I have left to offer is a safe harbor and my devote love for my grandson, daughters, and family. My doors will never shut out my adult children from coming home when they need to. I've always felt this kind of love from my own parents even-though I never knew it until now.

My Easter blessing was joyful and yet short lived. Life was so much harder for our children than me, and it looks like it will be a long road to recovery.

I thank God for the blessings of my life. I have much to be thankful for.

Love,
me

What I did not understand....

My loving mother.... I think she must have suffered greatly at the broken heartedness of my own childish rebellion growing up and then as a young 20 something, exiled because I choose it. I am suffering from my own motherly pain of failing my daughter who is struggling to choose a better choice... one only a mother might imagine for their child. They forgot to tell me we couldn't really choose life for that baby we held in our arms some twenty+ years earlier.

It's 2010 and my plight is different from my mother's because it involves a critical element in choosing... our beautiful grandson who will turn three in July. An innocent victim in it all.

It's a most difficult time personally and professionally for many families in the current climate of our Nation. God bless us all.

Today was a good day...

At the end of the day, the little things accomplished resulted in huge gains one would not expect.

In my looking back at my own "year in review" I am taking the entire month to reflect and focus on two words - Relevant and Intentional. I'm going to try embracing the meaning of these words in my daily life - as I walk another journey this year.