Mother's Day?

My friends...

I will not be winning any mothering awards this year.

Let's be honest...I was never even in the running.

My children have been annoyed by me, upset with me, and, on more than a few occasions,

have probably hated me.

I have yelled at them. I have cursed behind their backs at them.

(I whisper it to myself so they can't hear, but it's not very nice...half credit?)

I have pretended not to hear them when they call me to get them something.

I have forgotten to make them lunches.

I have opted out of chaperoning field trips, and complained that they are 

ungrateful to my friends.

Nope. No awards for me this year.

But...

I have ached for them when they are hurting.

Sat in rain and spitting snow under fleece and plastic

(not a good look for me) to watch them play sports,

rubbed their backs late at night, and spent more hours waiting in a car for them that I think I spent in college.

I have hugged them when they cried, told them I loved them over and over,

and prayed for them every day.

Not even that is going to get me that award.

That...that is the easy stuff.

What, then, is the hard stuff?

The hard stuff 

is the hundreds of millions of times I have agonized over decisions I was making for them.

Is it right or is it wrong?

Is it selfish or selfless? Character building or character damaging?

Will they thank me someday or thank their therapist?

Every day I have these decisions.

Help them through their frustrating math problem or let them work through it on their own?

Rescue them or let them learn the lesson that comes from consequences?

Love them and reassure them or love them and let them go?

When to hover and when to hold back.

When to be the crutch and when to kick it out from underneath them and let them stumble but eventually walk on their own two feet?

And then...as if that isn't insanity-making enough,

add in worrying about what all the other mothers think about what you are doing.

Or worse, the one's who tell you what you are doing wrong or right.

 That my friends, is the real stuff of parenting.

The stuff that keeps you up at night.

The stuff we've got to ease up a bit on ourselves about.

One of my favorite sayings of late comes from those funny cartoons that are all over Facebook and Pinterest

(yes, my children have also been on my case about my social media addiction FYI)

It says something like,

"I will love you and nurture you, and give you just enough dysfunction to make you funny"

What does it say that both my children have a rather wicked sense of humor?

On this Mother's Day, I will be sitting at a weekend-long soccer tournament

(that I just found out about at 11pm last night...missed an email somewhere.)

I will get no glory.

I will get no thank you's from the coaches for sacrificing the one day a year that is supposed to be all about me.

There will be no tiaras and no band. 

No, I will be sitting on the sidelines of yet another game, watching my son play.

I may have a teensy moment of annoyance because I would rather be planting flowers and reading on the deck.

But then I will get a giant dose of perspective.

This is all a privilege.

All of it, and it is fleeting.

Just sit back and enjoy the game sister.

Let's go easy on ourselves girls...the kids will be okay.

Heck, they will probably be better for it.

Happy Mother's Day

Tornado Warning

Every year I know May is going to 

be a tornado.

I love everything about this month except that part.

I love that school is almost over,

 that feeling of summer anticipation in the air,

going to the little white greenhouse tents to pick out potting flowers, graduation parties and the like.

What I don't love is that it always feels so frenzied.

And for some reason, this year, in the Midwest,

it has been going on since the end of March.

Maybe because of our early spring we all got ahead of ourselves

and instituted the frantic pace unconsciously.

It is about this time that I am longing for sleepy, lazy, summer mornings and relaxed evenings on the deck.

When getting dinner on the table sometime between 6pm and midnight is a perfectly acceptable goal,

and everyone falls into bed at the end of the daywhen they get around to it.

poolside reading, vacation, whatever.

I love those days...

 I wish May came with a watch and warning system

like real tornadoes do.

"It is May 1st. Possibilities of  over-booking, social overload, inability to say no and over-extension for the general population. Stay tuned for warnings and seek shelter in a bathroom or interior room or closet  where no one can find you, should severe activity overload occur...take wine"

With this constant buzz of activity,

I seem to invite an unfriendly visitor...anxiety.

Not sure why. 

Maybe it is that I am always certain I am forgetting something

because there is a LOT to forget this month.

Maybe it is that I know that I am going to have to figure out what to do with my children all summer.

(don't get me wrong...I love having summers with them!)

And I know it will fly by too fast, 

but in the middle of it I won't be able to wait for it to end

and for these kids to have some routine again!

I practice yoga (often), and I meditate (not often enough)

and it helps. It helps a lot.

However, even implementing these wonderful de-stressors

into my routine can cause me a little angst.

I feel guilty for taking the time I could be doing something else.

Even when I try to quiet my mind, tasks pop into my brain 

in rapid succession. 

It seems the only time I seem to "remember" everything I am supposed to be doing, is when I am attempting to empty my mind of all thought.

A frustrating paradox.

And so, a decent blogger would have great words of life-changing wisdom to expel, and after reading this, 

you would undoubtedly feel gratifyingly peaceful and serene.

The rest of this month, and every May hereafter, you would 

float through with detached ease.

Unfortunately for you, you have read the wrong blog.

I'm still looking for the magic.

Until I find it, I will keep on keeping on

with the rest of you.

By the end of the month we all have the same dazed and confused look on our faces,

only to be wiped clean by the look of sheer annoyance

that will appear as soon as these darling  children are out of school for half a day and start whining

that there is nothing to do.

Enjoy!

On a Wing and a Dime

Many of you know of our dear friend Barb,

who died from pancreatic cancer in September 2010.

She was larger than life, in life.

She commanded a room at a party.  Talked and had more energy

than a bus full of five-year-olds on a field trip.
Seriously, she could have put them to shame.

Still,  19 months after her death, I still find it hard to believe she is gone.

She fought her cancer valiantly.

She never gave up her will to live.

So, it is no surprise to me that she would remain as vibrant in her after life as she did in her human life.

Barb believed in signs.

Especially in coins.

After her first husband died, she often found coins in her path and took it as Kevin's signs that he was still with her.
Just from another place.

She told all of us these stories so many times.

With Barb, if you heard it once, you heard it ten times.

And that is exactly what was so endearing about her.

My first "sign" from Barb came the day after she passed away.

The song from her wedding came on the radio in the afternoon.

The song I always identified as "Barb's song"..."I Hope You Dance"

played just as I was alone in the store I used to run.

The scary thing...I expected it.

But her best sign of all came the night of her funeral.

The night the sunset glowed a deep shade of purple..

Barb's color...the color of pancreatic cancer.
A color she wore every day since she discovered her cancer.
I cannot look at purple still to this day without thinking of her.
That is how much she embraced it.

I put my suitcase on my bed to pack it.

I was flying out to Phoenix the next day to meet up with Ty and the kids and visit

his mother, who was in the hospital fighting her own pancreatic cancer battle.

As I opened the suitcase on my bed, I saw, smack-dab in the middle of it,

a  heads-up dime.

A dime. A shiny, thin, pretty 10-cent dime.

I knew instantly it was Barb.

What other coin would she leave?

Of all coins, the dime was most like her.

And it was worth 10 cents. Her birthday was on the 10th of September.

Since that time I have found no less than 20 dimes.

All at times or on days when I could really use a little love and support.

All in unexpected places...like in the far back of and under sink cupboard I was cleaning out

so workmen could re-model the bathroom.
Or under the microwave when I pulled it out to clean the counter.

I am far from the only who who finds dimes from Barb.

She is notorious.

A few weeks ago I opened the dryer to take out towels. 

On the tiny ledge, next to the lint trap, was a perfect, heads-up dime.

No sooner had I found it, my phone rang.

It was her husband calling to ask me a question.

Coincidence? I know that it wasn't.

Soon after I found my first dime, her mother told me the entire family
had been finding dimes.
So many of our mutual friends find dimes...only dimes,
and we all know who is leaving her calling card.
Even people she didn't know, or didn't know well,
have told me a dime story.

The other morning Ty woke up with a purple golf ball clutched in his hand.
I have never seen it before, and he didn't remember it being in our room, let alone anywhere near the bed.
But nonetheless, he was clutching a purple golf ball.
I told him Barb was speaking to him in his language...golf.
We aren't sure what the message is, but he got one!

I keep all of Barb's dimes in a special jar.

Proof (as if I needed it) that our lives never really end.

They just take on different forms.

Some days I feel closer to Barb now than when she was alive.

I know she is doing magnificent work in heaven.

And just as she did on this earthly plane,

she is making her presence known.

Each dime I find is a precious gift, a hug from beyond,

and comfort in a sometimes confusing world.
 A world where good people get cancer and  die before we think they should.

I have learned to be open and to notice the signs.

I believe because of it, I am sent more and more.

 I gasped when I opened the dryer door.

Then I got a little teary.

But I always say thank you.

Thank you Barb, for reminding me about the preciousness of life.

Both the sorrow and the sweetness of death,

and the fact (and in my world, this is fact)

that we never really end.

Our souls and spirits live forever.


But most of all...that

love never dies.

P.S. What's your "dime story"? I'd love to hear it. Even if it isn't a dime. Any "sign" will do :)

Good Friending

I have friends of all kinds.

Friends who are always there for me,even when I disappoint them.

Friends I can not talk to for years, but call at the drop of a hat.

Friends who feed my soul and spirit, 

and friends who are just plain fun.

The common denominator?

Unending support and positive energy.

I am lucky that way.

Don't get me wrong...I have had my share of friends

who chewed me up and spit me out.

Fortunately it has been a long, long time since I have 

played that friend game.

To me,

friendship means, simply, lifting each other up.

Realizing that the petty jealousies, the things that

supposedly "offend" you about the other

(please don't get me started on the whole "I'm offended" thing)

are really, and only, about you.

Not them.

It takes so little to be kind.

It eats you up to be envious and cruel.

Yes, cruel.

To me, cruel is a harsh sounding word for things people do every day

to so-called friends.

Back-handed compliments and passive aggressive comments.

Cruel is "unfriending" someone and not telling them why, but making sure everyone else knows.

Telling them what "bothers" you about them and what they are doing.

Or being nice to their face and turning around and ripping them to shreds behind their back.

OMG...are we in Junior High again? 
Cruel is injecting your past issues and hurts into the relationship and expecting them to fix them for you
and being angry at them when they don't.
Taking your self-loathing and disappointments and blaming them for them somehow.


In full disclosure...I know I have done some of this in the past.
I am not sitting on any high horse here.
Maybe I didn't know any better, or maybe I did but I didn't know
how to DO any better.


I have found that my world is a much happier place when I think and act abundantly for all.
When I assume no motives and believe everyone is doing the best they can given what they have been given.
Naive? Maybe.
But I will take naive over pessimism and suspicion any day.


We all have expectations and old wounds that we project onto our
current relationships. 
We all take things personally that were never personal
in the first place.
And that is what gets us into trouble.
Causes all of our heartache.
Causes all of our pain an poor self-esteem.


Sure, I may get hurt and trampled on from time to time.
Sure friends may be mean and nasty.
Hurt my feelings and snuff out my spirit some.


But I know that is really their own pain and it has little to do with me.
It gives me some compassion for their struggle,
and reminds me to balance the scales
by choosing grace and gratitude.


It's a short life we have...
We can choose our experience here...good or bad.
We can't always control what happens, but we can choose
how we live through it.


I am choosing the good stuff...
Here's to good friending.

It's a Dangerous Neighborhood

My mind, that is.

Is a dangerous place.

It can get a little scary when I go in there alone.

Many of you know I work in the direct sales industry.

I am an absolute believer in the industry...the business model,

the opportunity for anyone to be successful if they want,

the grassroots way it exchanges products and services is 

the most organic way to doing business I can think of.

I am in...hook, line and sinker.

But...

doing direct sales, or any entrepreneurial venture, for that matter,

has a way of exposing that part of ourselves

that lurks in dark alleys of the neighborhoods of our minds and waits to

 pounce on our self esteem when we least expect it.

I have always been a master of getting in my own way.

If there were a class in it, I could teach it.

I would have emeritus status on the faculty.

I have the potential, I have brains and I have a personality

(at least I think I do...if not, it is time for someone to come clean)

Most of the ingredients I need to mix up a perfect little batch of achievement.

Many an opportunity has come my way in the past twenty years.

People thought I had exactly what it took to make it a go.

Sometimes I even started strong.

But it never failed, that at some point, I would start to make the journey.

Back into the old  neighborhood.

Walking in there alone, with all those demons and doubts.

And I almost never came out the same.

 I knew the monsters were there...waiting...patiently, waiting to pounce.

Even if they didn't jump out to get me, the simple knowing that they could

was enough to make me run.

And sure enough...another potential success story

was history.

When I started my most recent venture, I knew things had to be different.

I knew that this particular opportunity was a once in a lifetime one,

and I was sitting on something that COULD be really special.

Something that could change my family's future forever.

I had all the drive...I had to make this work.

The only excuse I would have for failure was ME if this thing didn't fly.

So...what to do?

I had to make the trip back home to the old neighborhood.

Its  hard to  keep constant company on my walk through the back roads.

Ty learned a long time ago that a trip through my head could be a Titanic-type adventure.

He steers clear, poor guy!

Would I let those lurking fears derail me again?

I have become fascinated the power of the mind and our mindset.

I have gobbled up books about the subject...both spiritual and practical books.

I knew that changing my mindset in order to succeed meant I would have to get out of my comfort zone, and essentially out of my own way.

Holy crap...I was shaking in my brown leather riding boots.

( I DO love clothes, you know...could there be any other way of putting that?)

However...I also truly believe that to succeed, I need to be authentic.

I need to be ME.

So...the $24,000 question...how to get out of my comfort zone AND still be myself?

I had always assumed the two were mutually exclusive.

 If I got OUT of my comfort zone, I couldn't be me...

But to be me is where I am comfortable, so I would have to be someone else

in order to leave it.

And that is uncomfortable.

Told you...

A person could lose their mind in my head :)

And then I had a realization.

An epiphany almost.

Getting OUT of my comfort zone...my neighborhood,

isn't about becoming someone else.

It isn't about being inauthentic and putting on a disguise in order to fool the demons.

It is about ALLOWING myself to be the best part of me.

Allowing the real me to come through, in spite of all those lurking doubts.

Walking by the dark alleys.

Sometimes even looking in, but continuing on my path.

Knowing that they can lurk,

but they only can jump out at me if I let them.

When I ALLOW , I am one with the flow of the universe.

(very New Age sounding, I know, but I do believe it)

Our purpose in this life is to be ourselves...and only ourselves.

The best part of ourselves.

And how does that relate to my business?

Or to whatever is holding you back from YOUR best life?

It doesn't really matter WHAT we do.

Or if we do anything at all.

What matters is how we walk through our own neighborhoods.

Yep...my sweet little direct sales business

has forced me to learn one of the most profound lessons of my adult life.

Getting out of your comfort zone is frightening.

Sometimes paralyzing.

But it doesn't mean abandoning who you are,

it means letting yourself become really comfortable with the 

best part of yourself.

It means believing that that part of yourself

is a luxury gated-community with 24-hour security and an infinity pool

of knowledge.

That's where I have decided to live from now on.

Out of the old neighborhood, and onto a better one.

Light in the Darkness

Just this once,

let's assume our friends and acquaintances do not have motives.

Let's assume that our loved ones are doing the best they can.

And let's assume that we have no real idea of what is going on in their lives.

In their homes and in their heads.

Before we jump to conclusions about why they said what they said,

or did what they did,

let's stop.

Stop assuming, stop blaming.

Stop getting "offended"

(don't get me started on how much I hate that word)

By God, stop calling each other and telling each other off.

It's madness...and it doesn't help anyone.

Let's maybe start having a little compassion for the struggles

others might be going through that we know nothing about.

A little empathy for their insecurities and their fears that may be

causing them to act the way they are.

A little love for the parts of themselves they seem to hate.

As I have said so many times...usually those things

that irk us about someone else...

the things that make us a little bit crazy,

or really tick us off.

Those are the things we need to take a long, hard look in the the mirror at ourselves about.

Because they aren't about our friends.

They are about us.

Where WE are insecure.

What WE fear.

And WE know we are just doing the best WE can to get through each day too.

WE would love a little compassion and understanding about our weaknesses and our self-loathing.

So...

given the chance today,

will you spread some light for someone in the same pain you are in

or will you leave them in the dark room of their soul.

My favorite prayer from St. Francis of Assisi has these lines...

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned...

How I wish I lived this every day and in every situation, but I don't.

Ask my children! 

I am trying. I am only human.

We're doing the best we can.

I just try to make my best today, better than yesterday.

God Bless...

Notes to My 20 Year Old Self

Recently I saw a You Tube video about a girl

talking to he 16 year old self about tanning and skin cancer.

For some reason it keeps creeping into my mind.

Not the skin cancer thing,

rather, what I would say if I could talk to myself at a younger age.

I decided that 20 was a much good age to start...I might get a thing or two.

At 16 I was only worried about my friends, my hair

and what I would wear to school the next day.

And passing my driver's exam.

At 20, I could have used this advice.

I probably would not have listened.

Maybe life experience is given to us in small doses for a reason.

We're really not supposed to get it all at once.

And we all have to go through some crap to get to where we are supposed to go.

BUT...

if that 20 year old (who thinks she knows it all all ready)  were to listen, this is what I would tell her...

1. There is a spirit and soul inside of you that is all ready perfect. Stop beating yourself up for not being who or what other people think you should be. You will save a lot of time...and therapy.

2. Do what you LOVE...the rest will follow. No matter what anyone else says. Even if it is in small doses until it can support you, just do it. No compromising. No apologizing. You will thank yourself someday.

3. Facing your fears, no matter how big or little they are, is the single hardest thing you will ever do, and the one thing that will make you more successful than you ever could have dreamed...in love, in life and in your career. 

4. Your biography IS your biology. Every emotion you stuff, every resentment you hold onto, every time you let someone walk over you and you neglect to stand up for yourself. Every time you lack integrity and all of  the  shame that you hide WILL come out somewhere. Usually in the form of illness someday. 

RELEASING IS HEALING IN ADVANCE.

5. Prince Charming isn't coming. He isn't riding up on a white horse to sweep you off to the castle spa.

Learn to support yourself, respect yourself and honor yourself before you let someone be your partner.

Find someone who has done the same. Marriage won't be easy, but they will be a lot harder if you are afraid all the time. 

6. Every mistake you have made, every painful thing that has happened to you, every scar, every tear, every bad boyfriend and toxic friend is not bad luck or bad timing.  You are not your failures. 

Your failures have been powerful lessons. They are gifts if you let them be. They will make you who you  were meant to be.

7. Gratitude is the ONLY way to live. Be grateful for your family, even if it is messed up. Be grateful for your friends even when they let you down. Be as grateful for messes and your are for miracles. Be grateful for your blessings and your banes...everything has a purpose. That purpose is God's lesson for you. 

8. The sooner you learn to like who you are, the sooner you will be happy.  You're stuck with you.  Might as well enjoy the ride together.

9. People will disappoint you, fail you, not live up to your expectations and wishes. They will hurt you,

make you mad, make you crazy.  They are doing the best they can with where they are.  

AND

usually, what pisses you off so much about them, isn't really about them anyway...

it's about you.

Think on that...

10. And last, but certainly far from least...please, please, please know that you all ready have it inside of you. Everything you need is all ready there. God is there. Stop beating yourself up, start quieting your mind, and let the answers bubble to the surface. They will if you trust. 

That perfect soul of yours is waiting for you to let it out. 

All you have to do is open the door.

Oh, what I would have given to get these things at 20, or 30, or even 40.

Even now, I think I am starting to learn a thing or two about life, and surely I will forget most of these things from time to time.

We ARE only human.

I wish we didn't make it so complicated when it is really so easy.

But then again, our human existence is all about learning.

If we aren't learning, we aren't growing.

If we aren't growing, we are dead.

So to that 20 year old I say...

You probably won't listen, and most likely you will have to learn all these things for yourself.

It might take a few years or it might take a lifetime.

Either way, that is exactly how it is supposed to be.