Love: Week 6 Challenge

• I love coffee laced with chocolate.
• I love icee mochas - which are coffee laced with chocolate and blended with ice into perfection.
• I love chocolate.  Like an extra large cut of moist rich chocolate cake topped with fudgy, creamy milk chocolate frosting kind of chocolate.  Otherwise?  Meh.

Chocolate covered strawberry cake on the table Valentine's morning

• I love my husband.

My eyes are teary.  It had been a rough day.

• I love my children.  And my mom.
• I love my friends.  I am so blessed to have old and new friends.  There was a time when I stood in the back yard of our old house in tears because I felt so isolated and alone.  My husband put me to work digging something up in the yard because "Nothing beats sadness better than hard work," he said.  That year God brought me two friends from two mission trips that have been by my side through thick and thin since then.  And my two longest, dearest friends who remain so and can pick up right where we left off in spite of distance.  I tell my kids, you don't need lots of friends, you just need a few good friends.  I am lucky to have a few very good friends.

Me, my BRE, and Crazy Timi

Best Friends

• I love the front of our house.  I drive up and think what a lucky girl I am that God allowed us to have this house.  I like the inside, but I don't love it yet.  There is still a lot of work to be done on the inside and it paralyzes me in the magnitude and the choices and the opportunities and the what ifs, and I just do nothing.  That, and there's never enough time.  John is great at making lists every weekend and working on those projects to completion.  Like the linen closet in the basement.  I pulled some sheets from the bottom of a box last weekend when my brother came to visit and the box and the closet exploded on me.  Yes, a box we had packed two years ago and moved to this house and shoved in the bottom of a basement closet exploded.  A size XL packing box from Storage USA.  I couldn't even push my entire body weight against the door to shove it closed to hide the explosion.  That kind of a blowout.  My sweet guy tore the closet apart and built new shelves for me yesterday afternoon.  All I have to do is place the sheets and blankets on the new shelves as soon as I get a few minutes.  I love that man.  Once, I made a list of things that would help me begin to love the inside of this house.   It included updating the pantry and the laundry room.  Both are done.  I'm still a little wishy washy about the inside of the house, though.  Weird, I know.  But I do love it.  Just not all the way.  We lived in our old house 17 years and built it from the ground up aesthetically.  I think I'm sentimental about it.  A lot sentimental about it.  I do love this neighborhood, though.  I love that the kids have friends across the street, and they are either all here or all over there all the time.  Even the adults go visiting, often with their 6-packs.  When Jerry's garage door is up, we all know the bar is open.  It's a cul-de-sac and the littles down the street are coming out more and soon they will be one big pack of kids.  Sara is rarely without a playmate between her own siblings, the next door neighbors' granddaughters and CeCe across the street.  Luckiest girl on the planet.  I can't keep snacks stocked.  In the summer, it's ice cream bars.  These kids can eat.  I love it (even though I complain about the grocery bill).

Snow on Valentine's Day

• I don't love the back of our house nor the yard.  I really miss our old pool.  But I do love the land behind us.  Someday I fear it won't be there like it is today - it will be sold off into a subdivision with too many houses and not enough yard.  I would love to buy the tract right behind us when that time comes.  Or the whole thing.  We'll see.  In the meantime, I like the yard and I love watching the kids play there and there is plenty of space, so I really should love it.  It's OK.  :p

I love the view out my bedroom door,
that I have a bedroom door out to the back
and that to the left in this picture is a glowing fireplace.  In my bedroom.
And snow is falling.  Love.

• I love studying the Bible.  I love Bible studies that help me understand the intricacies and the stories and give application to life in this season.  We are in the middle of a good one right now called Rooted written by Tim Wesemann, who is a friend of ours.  We're in the final stretches, and it has been interesting how this Bible study has been there for me in the middle of some difficult moments of processing life these last few weeks.  God is good like that.  Very good.
• I love this cat that just climbed into my lap.  He may be my favorite of all time.  The dog I love but I kind of just "like" him because I hate it when he runs off.  Or gets skunked.  HE *loves* the neighbors' bird feedings.  He can be found there licking the ground at least twice a day.  They live four houses behind us.  Some day he won't come home.  I know for sure he will get skunked again, and that I hate.  I need to add peroxide to my grocery list.
• I love the pictures my brother brought down last weekend.  I love that he came and that bonds were re-established and there is good and there is bad and there is family.  No matter what.

Me and my brother.  His hair is crazy.
These are his bunnies.  They were all albino after the first litter.

• I love seasons.  I especially love snow.  And new flower blossoms.  And canon balls.  And dramatic foliage.  I kind of just love it all in its time.
• I love spanish.  I love that my husband is taking me to Spain for our anniversary because I once told him I'm not the girl who gets to go to Spain.  He told me I am.  Our community ed spanish class we are taking this semester is kicking my butt.  I love it.
• I love mornings when the house is quiet and the coffee is hot - or cold - and the day is ahead with opportunity and I haven't lost my patience or yelled at anyone yet.  Not even once.  I'm a great mom in the morning before everyone else wakes up.
  

Guess it's time to get everyone up.

Unfocused: Week 4

Wednesday.  We sit at the table with the pages of his planner filling the space between us.  "Did you talk to your teacher about your missing writing assignment?"  He answers, and the beginning of doubt pricks my heart and mind.  We continue to talk.  A sound becomes present in a corner of my hearing.  Crunch. Smack.  Slurp.  Munch.  My head snaps towards this cacophony while the once undetected burning ember of impatience ignites within me.  Before a thought crosses my mind, I react. "Chew with your mouth closed!" The unsuspecting recipient of my wrath looks up.  Suddenly my attention turns to this one, and my words are not chosen wisely.  My heart pounds, my temper flares, my focus scatters.

I breathe in awareness.  I breathe out apology.  Refocus.  Scouts.  "I'm going to make a list of calls you need to make tonight for merit badges.  How are you coming with snow sports?  Have you printed off the worksheet why haven't you printed it off let's find it do you remember who your merit badge counselor is let's write down a script of what you should say what do you mean you don't have his number," I fire in rapid succession.  His white flag is raised.

Focus.  Unfocused.

Writing this brings tears to my eyes.  There are a series of channels replaying in my mind.  Each a similar show.

Tuesday.  Started dark and quiet.  Alarm ringing.  Regret.  Snooze.  Alarm again.  I stumble down the stairs for coffee and hope for a moment of quiet reflection before chaos.  Chaos is not expected, however, as I leave for work before the kids are up.  Morning chaos is the dad's worry today.

Snowy roads.  Backed up traffic.  Work.  I leave for the orthodontist.  Late.  I pick up the oldest daughter.  We go to lunch.  Phone rings.  School warns detention for another.  This one coughs.  Now more phone calls, a doctor's appointment, asthma, medicine, after school, grab snacks, back to work with everyone in tow.  Late.  Tonight our family presents a talk on communication to top notch nursing students.  My badge is missing, the elevator opens and a brand new baby comes on, we exit because my bigs have big germs and this little needs to fight.  My hands shake, my heart pounds, not ready, I smile, we begin.  Everyone home.  Everyone shower.  Everyone bed.  I sit.

Focus.  Unfocused.

Webster defines the word unfocused as "not relating to or directed toward one specific thing (such as a particular goal or task)."

I argue internally.  You're unfocused.  I am focused.  On the calendar.  On the next presentation.  The next game.  The next assignment.  The next book.  The next class.  The next need.  The next unexpected.  Raising children.  To reach their potential.  To love their Father.  To have opportunity and respect that opportunity.  A job.  That stretches me but pulls me from those children at times, and other times brings us together.  On being a Proverbs 31 wife and rising to the task of being the wife God calls me to be.  Being a daughter.  Knowing what it means to be the daughter of a woman who raised me well and is independent and growing in age.

I am.  Focus.  Unfocused.