Happy Tuesday

I miss iced coffee. I miss NE. I miss my cousins. I miss my aunty and uncle. I miss summer. All that to say, summer don't delay your arrival! (and I just needed an excuse to post...fixing issues on the blog)

M is for Making the Most...

I'm going to try to write every Monday. I thought I could do Monday moments, but it just sounded to just not like me. I thought I could do Monday Musings, but that was already used. Then there was Monday Memories, but that sounded too sentimental and put me in a box.

Thus "M is for..." was born. I can choose any M word I please and write whatever jolly well comes to mind. Oh and I dare you to give me a "M Word" to write about. Without further ado, my words from my mind that I will not bring forth. Yes, I do believe I'm a bit in a strange writing mood this morning. Bare with me.

Life should be made the most of every moment. Even the times when you think something better should have come along, but your stuck with hot dogs on your plate instead of steak.

You make the most of life when you and your other friend stir up pancakes for just the two of you. Because both of you are obviously so popular that no one has the courage to hang out with you. Ahem. You make supper for two and bacon fries in the skillet until the smell has permeated everything about you. Its hard to decided if smelling like you washed your hair with bacon grease is the smell that will drive people away or if its the latest and greatest attention grabber that could make Emily Post drool. We will just say the later.

Make the most of your Saturday Morning. Even when your alarm manages to go off 3 hours before you need to get up. Its a tragedy to mourn or its a happy thing to realize you can roll over back into the beautiful world of dreams.

Make the most of breakfast conversation. Because when the silence has lasted for a straight 10 minutes, why not just lay your thoughts on the table with the confidence of a queen. Life is not about boring breakfast conversation.

Make the most of your Sunday. Let the words from the songs, sermon and scripture roll around in your head all day long. Its wonderful. 


My advice. Make the most of life. Even when its embarrassing, awkwardly funny , and sometimes down right dis heartening.

Bare

The trees are bare. Leaves have fallen off long ago and what its left is stark branches waving in the wind. The ground is bare of color and covered in shrived brown grass. Trees and earth are waiting for the hope of spring. For lush greenness and gentle warm rains. Waiting for beauty.

But the beauty is already here. There is something simple and lovely about trees with nothing on them. Grass that blows in the wind and looks smashing against the sky.

The brown of winter is beautiful. Bare is beautiful.

We are beautiful when we are bare. I hide behind the mask. My life is fine I am fine. Do you not know that everything is just fine?

And I'm not being bare. Sometimes there is ugliness in hiding and in letting others think something that is not true. 
You cannot wear your heart on your sleeve, but sometimes its okay to be not okay. When I bare my thoughts I'm letting someone else carry the burden. And somehow in awfully strange way being bare is being beautiful.

Dependence

When is it I'm going to stop I wonder. The endless cycle of trying and trying. I see things in my life that should be wash down the drain permanently.

I try very hard to stop. Very Hard. I get frustrated. Very Frustrated. Give in to what I know is wrong and give up something that is far more precious

Rinse. Repeat.

Rinse. Repeat.

The struggle that haunts you. It's like a creepy stalker whispering in your ear that your never going to be perfect. Never going to get it right. Never ever will you to be all you strive to be. You can't be that person. Do that thing. Live that life.

We need to realize that. We can't do it. Perfection will never obtained. Ever.

The cycle stops. I give up. And its wonderful.

Grace. Beautiful grace. Saying I can't do it anymore is the most freeing words that can ever be uttered.

I need His strength. I need His Mercy. I need His Grace. Utter dependence on God is where I need to be. 

Dependence. Beautiful Dependence. Independence enslaves me. Dependence frees me. Ironic? God made it that way. Ask Him why it is. I want to choose dependence. My heart wants to choose Independence. My heart and I battle until I'm so weak that that I run to dependence like a thirsty runner on a hot day.

And I rest in His strength and the world is beautiful again. 

"He giveth more Grace"

And God Made...

So God made a Farmer. No music, no fancy moves, no skimpy clothing, no hot models, just simple stunning photographs of farm life. It caught attention and is being talked about all over the web.

God made the farmer (and the baker, mechanic, lawyer, pastor, construction worker, etc etc etc) and when the farmer found his bride then there were farm boys and farm girls.

Farmer's daughter. That would be me, because before I lived in the city and spent most of my days inside toiling away over the stove I lived on the farm.

God made the farmer's daughter. Maybe He did that because if we hadn't lived on the farm we probably would have turned into prissy little girls.

Well I don't know about the other farm girls, but that probably would have been true of me.


The farm girl whose job is too bottle feed calves who have no mother and this involves letting the calf suck violently on your finger. Calves can produce quite the amount of saliva and you will know this after your clothes get drenched in it.

The farm girl who helps sort hogs until she is covered in hog poop and everything about her reeks of hog manure. And the farm girl will find this rather smelly disgusting task great fun.

 "wow you are so cute after you finish sorting hogs" said no one ever.

The farm girl spends all morning chopping up various parts of the deceased cow and then goes in and has cooked cow for dinner. Thus she lacks the social grace sometimes of not talking about the particulars of butchering at the table.

The farm girl will know how to make big meals for big strong men (brothers and father and the occasional hired hand).

The farm girl will pray reverently for the right weather and know the devastation of one storm.

The farm girl will know the wonderfulness of having her father safely home. She will go to the funerals of other farmers who ran into the deadly side of farming. In the back of her mind will be the fact that when she sees her farmer dad come in for a cool drink it could be the last glimpse of him on this earth.

The farm girl will walk alone in the field and love where she lives. She will love the rush of the wind on her face when she drives the tractor down the road. The farm girl will pick up dirt covered clothes and love making them clean.

The farm girl, no mater where life takes her will always be a farm girl in her heart because she had a daddy that God made into a farmer.

Afraid

I’m afraid to walk up to them. Afraid of not knowing what to say. Afraid of awkward gaps in conversation. Afraid they will think I’m intruding in their world. Afraid I’ll look ridiculous. Afraid of saying the wrong thing.

I’m afraid of going up to a person and saying those first few words. It’s the unknown. I don’t know them and they don’t know me. I’m shy and introverted. I would rather stand in the corner and simply let others talk miles around me.

I don’t like being the one to go up and initiate something. Scared of the uncertainty and afraid of myself. 

Conversation is scary and fearsome, but I’ve done it. I’ve walked up to someone and talked and smiled and listened. The door opens up into a new world. Sometimes we find common ground and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes there is the awkward pause, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve stopped being afraid and have conquered the mountain. Maybe they wished I would go away, but I at least want to give them a friendly word or two.

I have friends that I made because I stopped being afraid and started talking. Friends that have blessed me beyond measure, because I stopped being afraid of the unknown. 

What She Did

When you are a child you have great plans on how to be a good mother. They are of course differ then how your mother is currently raising you. Sugar coated frosted flakes will be served for breakfast every single morning. Ice cream will accompany the end of each meal and veggies will be for the dog. School will be optional as well as work of course and play time will be utilized all day long.

When you get to be a teenager you feel that you are learning a lot on how to be a good mother. For in unlike your own mother who has perpetually been adult all of her life you will understand the trials of teenage doldrums. When you are mother you will always behave perfectly when your teenage daughter is changing personality 9 times a day and ignores any words of wisdom completely. Ahem.

One day you grow up and are an adult and you look in the mirror and realize something. You are your mother's daughter. Speech, actions, emotions, looks all portray the underlining evidence you came from the womb of your mother. Suddenly as you try very violently and unsuccessfully to deal with yourself and your never ending problems you realize just how full your mother's hands were and still are.

And you understand just how hard being a mother must be.

My mother laid in bed for long weeks so I could be laid in the cradle and not the coffin. Mother the woman who is the champion of being a grandmother and mother all at once. Mom the one who listens to me for hours on end. Mom who senses the despair within in me and wants desperately for it to go away.

Mention the word mom and it can bring so many mixed emotions. Some where deep inside there is maybe a resolve to do things a tad bit differently with your own children. Just as your own mother probably also vowed to do with you.

Nobody has had a perfect childhood, because all of us came from sinners. Stop though and think. There is probably a lot of things your mother did right.

Strawberry short cake for supper and ice cream after Lima bean soup. Long walks on the road and reading out loud chapters and chapters of books. Listening and listening and just more listening. I think my mom tries to do more listening then talking and its wonderful.

Remember all the things your mother did right, there probably is quite a few.

And Happy Birthday to the woman who has done a lot of things right. She is a pretty swell mum I must say and I'm a very blessed girl