Just Feel the Rain

True confession. Cleaning the house has always boggled my mind. How in the world do you really get the WHOLE house clean??? When you think about it there are a LOT of rooms even in our small house not to mention all the areas to be cleaned in each of those rooms.

In the last few years, I have gotten way better about decluttering which has been a HUGE help. I’ve never been one to have lots of what knots, but I do have LOTS of stuff. I also found the flylady website. She taught me that you can do anything in baby steps. I do have to admit, though, that I kept falling off the wagon. I think she was still a bit too ambitious for me…lol

As we are getting ready to start painting, I realized that I do best with smaller manageable tasks where I can see completion. This led me to my AMAZING (at least to me…lol) way to clean my house in about 30 minutes a day.

One room at a time.

The goal is to completely clean a room in one week with a schedule like this:

Monday: Pick-up, Put away, Throw out, Declutter

Tuesday: Dust

Wednesday: Clean windows

Thursday: Clean baseboards, trim

Friday: Vacuum

In about 8 weeks, your house is totally cleaned from top to bottom. Then you can start all over again. I know it may not be a terribly ambitious schedule, but at least it is getting done…lol

That is how Behr describes my paint choices!

Finally, after one…maybe two years, I have lost track it has been so long….I have finally chosen the paint colors for the interior of our home!

Drum roll please….

antique red, sahara shade, stealth jet (WHO named that last one??? It is really a very deep rich brown color.)

I tried to find an image to show everyone but only found how HARD it is to paint the color red on you walls…lol Apparently, there are special instructions JUST for red colors. Oh my goodness, if I just didn’t love it so, I would walk away right now…lol

I guess this is one thing I can be crossing off of my New Year’s resolutions list…lol

Picture of paint colors coming soon….but just to give you an idea of the colors….just look at the flower in my header!  It was meant to be.

My husband turned 50 last year, so I thought I would check out the AARP site since we are beginning to think about his retirement. I clicked on a link to tell about local AARP news only to see this…..

Foreigner Concert Tickets on Sale Now
The AARP-sponsored Feels Like the First Time tour with Foreigner is coming to the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach on July 31. AARP members will be eligible for numerous benefits to the tour, including priority seating at the concert venues.

Foreigner is now a senior citizen band? When did that happen???? LOL!!!!

So, I’m telling this story to Devin, and he says, “WHO?”

I’m like, “What???”

He says, “I don’t even know who that is?”

I guess it happened when I had kids and they became the age I use to be…or should I say the age that I am in my mind…lol I just knew I would sound like a senior citizen and stopped myself before I told him what a really cool and far out band they used to be. OK, now seriously, when did senior citizens have vocabularies with words like “cool” and “far out”? Those ARE cool words! I can just see this is going to be a vicious circle…lol

OK, I think I am doing worse this year than last year with my resolutions. Of course, I’m not really sure I technically made any this year, but I know what I am doing would not be it…lol I guess that is not entirely true. I’m doing good stuff…just not fun stuff. You know how that is…kind of like taking medicine. It’s all good for you…just know what you had in mind.

OK, just so I don’t feel like I total loser through the first quarter of 2008, I will jot down what I have been doing so far….

• adding more healthy food into my diet (this requires a LOT of research because I’m not altogether sure what healthy food is)
• getting back into an exercise routine (true confession…this just started this month)
• reading LOTS of information on healthy food, osteoporosis (this is a long story for another day…or another year), etc.

What I really wanted to be doing this years was….

• taking more pictures
• getting more pictures actually printed
• oh, yeah, and choosing a paint color for the house (apparently people make this look way too easy)

So on top of trying to run two businesses, I am falling seriously behind in most everything else. I have no idea how working moms do this. I really don’t. Either I am the most disorganized person in the whole world or everyone else is living a lie. Doing really good stuff takes an enormous amount of time to research and actually do. Don’t let anyone tell you differently…lol

I work about 8 hours every day and….

I’ve been trying to choose a paint color for TWO years. Geesh, I took less time choosing husbands (this could explain a lot…lol). I am trying desperately to organize my life as far as heath stuff goes. It takes a lot of gumption and stictoitiveness to formulate and stick with a health plan. The health stuff is PRIORITY.  I guess that is where the things that I WANT to do have fallen by the wayside. As much as I want to incorporate taking more pictures and actually printing them, I am just not organized enough to follow through. OK, maybe it is me…lol I need a plan. I need someone to simplify my life for me and show me how to do everything I want to do…simply.

(for anyone reading who may not know the whole story….I was adopted when I was very young. My parents are biologically my grandparents. My sister is biologically my birth mother. She recently died and left me out of her obituary.)

I do have to admit, though, that I have been doing quite a bit of venting…lol I have years of things to say that I didn’t because I protected her or just knew I would be spitting in the wind. I think the thing that makes me angry the most is that she was always so selfish. She kept coming back and going around behind mom and dad’s back saying that I was hers and belonged with her. Never mind the legal adoption we did when I was a baby. Never mind that I was happy and LOVED my mom and dad so much and wanted to be with them. Never mind that they took care of me when I was sick and always loved me. I don’t ever recall her talking to mom and dad….just went around stirring up a hornet’s nest and causing everyone to not accept me. That has been her legacy to me. She just wasn’t content for me to be happy. The thing is she didn’t really want me. She didn’t want the two kids she had much less another one. It was just to get attention, create drama and make everyone feel like she was a victim. Even on her death bed…her last words she wanted in her obituary….she took my family from me.

I took this image the day I dropped off the pearls and worked on it instead of going to the funeral. It is a picture of me standing by her newly dug grave with boards laying criss-crossed over it. Sometimes I just LOVE what I do. I NEED to take pictures. It is how I process. David wondered why I wanted to be a shadow in the picture. I couldn’t explain it, but I just knew I needed to. A picture can say things for which I have NO words. When I saw this picture, I knew it would give me my voice.

The things she did were not out of love but selfishness and always hurt the one left out of the family standing in the shadow. I just wanted my mom and dad and to belong to the only family I had. She just couldn’t let that happen. She was selfish to the end.

I love photography but also have a few other interests….one of which is cooking.  I’ll be honest.  I used to hate cooking. I was the one they used to ask to brink soda at a get together.  I’m not kidding.

Well, a couple of years ago…out of nowhere that changed.  All of a sudden I LOVED cooking.  I think it began with a love for cooking Thanksgiving dinner and just snowballed from there.

I found this recipe on allrecipes.com and loved it and wanted to share with you!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup fresh blueberries

Crumb Topping Mix

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
2. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3. To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

I left out the cinnamon since I am not a huge fan of it.

Imagine looking out of your window and seeing this. There are so many beautiful places in the world that would make amazing views out of our windows.

The views in our life can be more than just pretty places. They can be special places. I would love to have an image from my brother’s property where we used to fish and crab for years. It is a wonderful memory that we have of him. Or what about the place I grew up. It definitely wouldn’t make it into a fancy magazine, but it is VERY special and full of memories to me. Let us always remember to take pictures of our special places. Maybe even find a window frame and frame the picture behind it as a beautiful work of art for our home and give yourself a room with a view.

David and I took a few days off this past weekend and got out of the house for some fishing, crabbing, and picture taking. The weather was gorgeous, and we had so much fun!

Have you ever thought about what we pray about . . . what is important to us on a moment by moment basis? Sometimes, our prayers probably seem quite silly. I wonder, though, how much is what we pray the main thing or is it more about our heart?

Lately, it is how things are said or the thought that seems to count in my communication with others. The Bible says we are made in God’s image, so I wonder if he is like that, too.

In this light, it makes me think about my heart when I pray. Do I come to my heavenly father with a heart of gratitude? Am I so very thankful for all that He is and that He loves me and cares for me so much? Am I submissive? Am I careful to pray that God’s will be done and not mine? And do I accept it when the answer is no . . . or not now? Am I repentant for all the things I do that hurt him so, remembering the things that I do that hurt myself also hurt him?

Think about it . . . how do we want our children coming to us?

God make me mindful of how I pray. Teach me how to pray so that you bend your hear to listen to my heart. Help me to be thankful in my heart and come to you with a heart of gratitude for all that you are and all that you have done. Help me to be submissive in my spirit and accept that your will is better than mine. Help me to be gentle in spirit, unselfish in my desires and loving in my heart.

Every once in a while my mom will spring an old wives’ tale on me from out of nowhere. Seriously, you don’t even see them coming. It’s like being blindsided…lol One minute you’re having a logical conversation, and the next minute you have no idea what just happened.

My sister is staying with my mom while she is undergoing radiation and has ended up with shingles. My sister and I were talking about how this is somehow related to the chicken pox virus. My mom can never remember if I have had it or not, but I thought I would throw caution to the wind and ask one more time about childhood illnesses. This time I got an answer that I was NOT expecting.

She told me that she thought I did have them…or it could have been Jimmy or one of the others. Okay, I was expecting that part…lol But it was the next part that doubled me over. She went on to say, in a tone as if she was passing along the family jewels, that if you take the child out and let chickens run across them, it will make the chicken pox go away. Now, I am pretty dang sure that wasn’t me. While I do have a fear of chickens, I KNOW that I would have remembered that.

So my usual response is, “Are you SERIOUS??????” (usually said while I am laughing hysterically) She is so funny. She pauses as if she has never stopped to think it through before and usually says something to the effect of, “Well, I guess that doesn’t make much sense, does it?”..and chuckles. She is so cute! I just love her so much!

Now, before you think we are just plain crazy people, let me give you a little family background. My mom is 87 years old and was born and raised on a farm in some very tough times. Education was a luxury that many could not afford. As a matter of fact both my mom and dad had to quit school after only finishing 5th and 6th grade to help on the farm. They were married during the great depression when they were 15 and 16 years old and celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary just a few months before my dad died. My mom and dad worked hard to make sure their children had food to eat and had the luxury of finishing high school. They took us to church every week and raised us all in a Christian home teaching us right from wrong….except for maybe a few old wives’ tales…lol

Honestly, this is just one of the reasons that I feel I have such a rich heritage. We have color. Our family stories may not be your normal everyday family stories, but they are ours and always make us laugh.

Just for fun….and so you don’t think it’s just my family who is crazy…here are a few others I found on the internet:

• Chewing gum, if swallowed, remains inside your body for seven years.
• If you feel a burning in your ears, it means that somebody is talking about you. A variation on this is that if you hear a ringing in your ears, someone is thinking about you.
• If a bird comes into your house, someone in the family is going to die.
• If you see a red bird, you will see someone that you are not expecting to see.
• Cats can steal the air from a baby’s mouth.
• Feed a cold, starve a fever. False. Both high fevers and colds can cause fluid loss. Drinking plenty of liquids such as water, fruit juice, and vegetable juice can help prevent dehydration. And with both fevers and colds, it’s fine to eat regular meals – missing nutrients may only make a person sicker.
• If you go outside with wet hair, you’ll catch a cold. False. Cold weather, wet hair, and chills don’t cause colds. Viruses do. People tend to catch colds more often in the winter because these viruses are spread more easily indoors, where there may be more contact with dry air and people with colds. Dry air – indoors or out – can lower a person’s resistance to infection.
• If a woman’s carrying low, it’s a boy; if a woman’s carrying high, it’s a girl. False. If a woman’s carrying high, this may be her first pregnancy or her body’s in good shape. Stomach muscles have a tendency to become more elastic with each pregnancy, so a belly that’s seen more than one pregnancy may hang a little low.

Wikipedia states that old wives’ tales come from an effort to change behavior.

You know what? Now that I think about it….we have a few old wives’ tales that we made up ourselves….

• Eating pepperoni will help you to swim better.
• If you pee in the pool….a red ring will appear.

Our children are now thinking of the crazy things they will tell their children….lol

Tradition lives on….lol

I’ve given this a lot of thought recently as I have embarked on this journey and had some wonderful friends help me shed some light on what was driving me to do this.

I feel like in some ways that my voice has been silenced over the years. I’m not sure why or how, but I know that it has. I want to find my voice again. I’m on a journey….the journey of life….and the journey of self-discovery. I want to be me…just me…well, maybe a better version of me one day…but that is part of the journey. Just being bold enough to say this is me…this is who I am…is a big part of the journey. I must admit I feel a bit naked by allowing others to see me….really what goes on inside of me..but that, too, is part of the journey.

I also want a written record that I was here. Without pictures or words, memories start to fade. Who will remember me? Who will know who I really was?

One more important reason…..I will forget what I thought was so important at one time if I don’t have a written record. It’s amazing how far off course I can go…lol

There are things I want to be sure my children remember.

And last but not least, I want my children to always have my heart and soul on paper. I want them to know it’s OK to be real…it’s OK to be who you are…it’s OK to learn from your mistakes…it’s OK to not be perfect but want to be your best.

I was talking with some friends today, and I remembered how special something was to me that my brother gave me….not just because of the words he had written (which did mean the world to me) but because it was in his very own handwriting. It was like receiving a part of him physically….like a touch…a hug. This is even that much more special to me because he died fourteen years ago. I loved him so much and cherish the three physical things that I have left to remember him by….

a picture (that my mom took of us when I was about five or six)

a card (that he got for me the Mother’s Day before he died)

a written letter (of words of wisdom during a very tough time in my life)

While I think the words would mean just as much to me even if he had typed them, I love that I feel like I still physically have a little piece of him with me because it was handwritten.

I know so many diaries are typed and published, but I think when the person means something to you that handwritten adds something very special.

Now, personally, I have a problem with this…because I think my handwriting sucks. And this is absolutely silly. My brother didn’t have the best handwriting in the world, but I LOVE it because it was his…it was a part of him.

Now, my second problem with this is that I hate to write…lol I’m too much of a perfectionist and think too fast for handwriting. So, in our age of technology, I am thinking that I saw somewhere where you could turn your handwriting into a font. I’m not sure if this would be the same or not, though. I think it would be better than typing…just not sure if it would be as good as handwritten.

I wonder when they say “the lost art of letter writing” do they mean handwritten? After all, we still write…probably now more than ever with e-mail and the internet, so I would assume they mean handwritten letters. Isn’t that interesting that it is referred to as an art?

Just for posterity….lol