Family and Home – Long walks and dark chocolate

Beacon of love

December 21, 2015 4 Comments

Chocolate peppermint cookies

Scarlett hastily scraped up the last bit of cookie dough as she thought, “Yes, that’s enough for one more cookie”. Plopping the last gooey bit on the cookie sheet, she licked her fingers, and then silently wondered if the minuscule amount of raw egg she had ingested contained Salmonella. “Oh well, it’s too late to worry about it now”, she mused. She opened the oven door, slid the pan in and set the timer.

Now, she only had to wait approximately 15 minutes, for delicious chewy goodness. That left plenty of time to address the remaining Christmas cards and perhaps wrap one more gift. She was looking forward to sitting down to watch a Christmas movie, with a plate full of cookies and a cold glass of milk. But first, as soon as the cookies came out of the oven, she was running a nice warm bubble bath. Tonight she would relax; tonight was about her.

“Scarlett, honey, are you home?” Mrs. Avery’s warbled voice pierced the silence at that moment reminding Scarlett of an old worn record that had reached the end of play and needed to be removed from the turn table. Oh no, not tonight. Scarlett seriously considered remaining silent, hiding in her bedroom. She could wait there for Mrs. Avery to turn her support hose ridden little legs planted firmly in their reliable, built-for-comfort loafers, back towards home. Mrs. Avery was patient tonight though. That crazy feline fur ball of hers must be loose again and Scarlett was in no mood to go looking for her.

Scarlett figured she might as well get whatever it was over with so she could resume her night of relaxation. As she opened the door, she noticed that Mrs. Avery’s grey hair was all she could see sticking up from behind the stack of beautiful packages she carried. They were brightly adorned in Christmas wrappings with festive pinecones and sprigs of holly instead of bows. Scarlett immediately felt regretful for her earlier ill-mannered decision to delay answering the door. She had unknowingly caused a frail woman of 83 to stand outside under the weight of this colorful burden.

“Come in, please. Let me help you with those packages. Where are you going with all of this?” asked Scarlett. “Oh, they are all for you my dear. I probably went a bit overboard wrapping mostly food stuff, but I wanted to bless you”, replied Mrs. Avery. “Go ahead and open them up as they will need to be refrigerated.”

As Scarlett opened boxes containing homemade meals, complete with desserts her eyes filled with tears. “You did all of this, just for me?” she asked. “Well, I see you getting home after work every day and most nights you have to rush right back off for class. I know you don’t eat right because I see you cleaning out the fast food bags from your car. I thought the best gift I could give you was the gift of time, so I prepared a couple of weeks’ worth of meals so you will to be able to just relax and enjoy yourself when you do finally get home. I know your family is far away and you aren’t going to make it home this year. I pray for you every day and I wanted to bless you.”

Scarlett was overwhelmed with shame that she had even considered ignoring this beacon of light. She was also suddenly reminded of what Christmas was all about. She thought about the Christmas plays back at home and her dad reading the Christmas story from the big black bible. Jesus came to give the greatest gift. Scarlett had received that precious gift of salvation as a child, and she was thankful that Mrs. Avery had reminded her about what this season was really all about. She made a mental note to find out what time the Christmas services were at her local church and see if Mrs. Avery had plans.

For now though, the timer was going off on her oven, so she excused herself to remove the cookies. As she returned, she said, “Mrs. Avery, were you doing anything special tonight?” Mrs. Avery smiled and said, “No, I was just going to go home and call a friend and perhaps do some reading or watch that new Christmas movie”.

“That’s great!” said Scarlett. “I have warm cookies, just out of the oven. How about I change into something more comfortable and bring them over and we will watch that movie together?” Mrs. Avery squeezed Scarlett’s hands in both of hers and said, “Yes, come on over, that would be delightful, my dear”.

That night began a new chapter in Scarlett’s life; her friendship with Mrs. Avery continued for many years until her precious friend left this earth to be with Jesus. Scarlett would always remember the tiny little woman, full of life and faith and love and she would always try to be “Mrs. Avery” to someone.

Filed Under: Christian, Family and Home, Uncategorized Tagged With: God

The Old Green Truck

December 14, 2015 1 Comment

Deer, Big Cypress

My post from yesterday made me begin to ponder pride and I thought about other times that mine has caused me to feel bad or to make others feel bad (or both). This brought to mind an old green truck.

As I have mentioned before my dad was a commercial fisherman and stone crabber for most of my childhood. It was seasonal; there were some times of feast or famine and I even remember once when my stay-at-home mom had to get a part-time job to help out when Dad suffered with a ruptured disc in his back. I think Dad’s pride hurt more than his back did then as mom had never worked, but that’s another story.

This story stars an ugly old green truck with multiple compartments on the sides. I don’t remember where my dad got it or why, but I hated it. It was the ugliest old truck I had ever seen in my life.

Dad worked hard, but on the days he got home early enough, one of his favorite things to do was to load his family up and go for an early evening ride on one of the neighboring dirt roads. My brother and sister lived for this kind of stuff as they got to ride in the back and let their hair whip in the wind. I enjoyed it too, but I didn’t want anyone to know that. I think I was around 12 and maybe hormones played a part; maybe I was just a brat.

We would all pile into the truck with me finagling a way to ride in the front when I could. Many times I got my way since my brother and sister actually wanted to be in the back. Our first stop would be at Mrs. Watson’s general store about a mile (if that) from our house. One of the highlights of stopping here was talking to Mrs. Watson’s mina bird, Sam. The other highlight was the candy.

Dad would get his beverage of choice and we always got to pick our favorite candy. Mom would always tell us we were silly if we got anything other than chocolate (her favorite). My sister would usually get chocolate too, but my brother and I often ended up with wax candy bottles filled with juice, gobstoppers, or Laffy taffy. My sister says we always wanted what she had, but I don’t remember this. I will have to take her word for it. Often, we would all get Astro Pops. Remember those? I learned an interesting fact about them today. They were created by Rocket Scientists working on the space program in El Segundo, CA who decided to quit their jobs at Rocketdyne and create the Astro Pop®, modeling the pop after a three-stage rocket. They were very pointed and had wax around the bottom. We used these to poke each other after we licked the tips until they were even sharper than they came. We had to be very discreet about our pokes.

After talking to whoever we might have encountered there, we were off for our backroads drive. Dad would crank up his country tunes and make me sing along and we would see our share of wild animals and a beautiful sunset. My husband and I take the same drive sometimes and I now understand why it was so relaxing to my parents.

The part of this memory that brings me pain is my hatefulness about the old truck. I remember one time in particular that I really did not want to go on one of these outings; I wanted to be left behind at home. I made up every reason in the world, but my dad finally discerned that I was embarrassed to be seen in the old truck. He was absolutely correct, even though I denied it vehemently. I remember the look on his face when that realization set in that his eldest daughter didn’t want to be discovered in the old green truck by one of her friends. I don’t remember the outcome on that day, but I am 99% sure, knowing my dad, that my high-and-mighty little backside was parked in the back of the truck with the rest of the family.

When I look back, my despicable behavior was rooted in pride; the same pride that caused me not to want to be seen at church in yard shoes. Looking back, of course it was incredibly silly as I know none of my friends would have thought any less of me and probably would have loved to be doing the same thing with their family.

Surely I am not the only one who had these types of struggles and I am thankful that I have learned from them by the help and grace of God. I try to be transparent here in hopes that perhaps something I say may resonate with someone or spur a conscience. It is a great truth that if we can learn from our mistakes, there is potential for growth in our character. The lessons we learn can be considered a gift that keeps on giving.

Filed Under: Family and Home, Inspirational, Uncategorized Tagged With: God, Home, Parenting, pride, selfishness

The yard shoes go to church

December 13, 2015 2 Comments

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Last Wednesday night, I was extremely tired. It was that kind of tired where all I could think about was snuggling in my comfy bed and watching nothing but the back of my eyelids for several hours. Pushing myself through it, I got ready for church, decided what shoes to wear, and put them near the front door so they would be waiting for me as I dashed out the door. I had on a top in browns, green and tan with blue jeans, so I picked cute tan sandals with a large tan rosette-looking decoration on top.

Since I was now ready, I sat down at my computer to try to write a little before I left for church. Several minutes later I looked at the clock and realized I needed to leave immediately, or risk being late. Late is something I do not like to be so I jumped up, grabbed my bag, slipped shoes on and in seconds, I was on my way. The parking lot was crowded, so I parked in back, in a darkened area and walked towards the front door. Just as I was crossing the threshold, I glanced down and was horrified to find that I had mistakenly slipped on my nasty yard shoes. They are lovely grey and pink croc flip flops that have seen their better days. They are several years old and adorned with paint splatter. I was so embarrassed. I expressed my distress to my friend, who was greeting folks at the front door and he said, “No one will even notice”. This was the answer I would expect coming from a man’s perspective so it didn’t allay my mortification in the least.

I made it to my seat without detection (I think). I stood there through praise and worship, hoping no one saw my feet, which admittedly is not what I should have been thinking about. When we sat down I did my best to hide them under my seat. As embarrassed as I was, I was also angry with myself that I was prideful enough to care so much about my mistake. The scripture came to me from Ephesians 6:15 about having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. I smiled because of the ridiculousness of my worries and because it’s just like God to remind me of the important things.

As long as my spiritual feet are shod with the gospel of peace, which means that symbolically I have put on peace as part of my spiritual armor, I am armed with the peace that comes from the Good News.

My family got a good laugh when I got home and shared my blunder but throughout the week, I have been thinking about feet and my walk and how and where my walk should take me and how I prepare for that. So, it just goes to show that even in our silliness, we often find a lesson.

Filed Under: Christian, Family and Home, Uncategorized Tagged With: embarrasment, Ephesians 6, feet shod, footwear, shoes

The List

December 6, 2015 2 Comments

My brother at Christmas

Although I loathe admitting it, when I was a young girl, I was sometimes referred to as sneaky. This isn’t an adjective I am proud to have had my character associated with, but I’m willing to suffer the embarrassment for the sake of the story.

There were several reasons I was labeled as a wily one. One of them was my practice of parking myself in a room full of adults with my nose in a book, while my ears were fine tuned into their conversation. I got away with this at my grandparent’s house more easily than at home because Granny had a hard time finding any fault with her darling grandchild. Perhaps I would have never been discovered if I didn’t have a penchant for repeating the information I gleaned from these conversations. You would think I would have learned after one spanking, but alas, it took a little longer for me, hence the other adjective used to describe me at times; hard-headed.

Anyway, the stealth that I used to take the most pride in came at Christmastime. My parents didn’t pretend there was a Santa and no, I don’t feel the least bit of injury or remorse at that. We always opened our gifts on Christmas Eve. Mom would start putting gifts, beautifully wrapped and laden with ribbons and bows, under the tree as soon as we put the tree up. This was advantageous, because it gave me plenty of time to pursue my quest to discover the contents of anything tagged, “to Lisa” prior to Christmas Eve. My siblings were in on this, but to my knowledge they never told. If memory serves me correct, I may have even talked them into doing the same, once or twice. I do remember Mom threatening to take everything back if I did try to ascertain contents.

This wasn’t a task that could be done in haste. I had to ensure that gifts were unwrapped and re-wrapped without tearing the paper or causing the tape to wrinkle. Since mother was very much aware of my propensity for chicanery, she checked these things out. Since it did take some time, I often had to do this in one of the few times we were left home alone. Otherwise, it was early in the morning or very late at night.

One day, even though it was forbidden, I was digging through one of my mom and dad’s bedside drawers and unbeknownst to me I was about to hit the mother lode. Nestled near the bottom of the drawer was a note pad that I had seen my mom writing in only the night before. Why was it in the bottom of the drawer? What secrets would my eyes feast upon if I could sneak that out and take a better look? Now wasn’t the time though, I decided, as one of my siblings looked around the corner already giving me that, “what are you doing on mom’s bed” look.

See, my mom was funny about one thing and that was her bedroom and yes, even her bed. I honestly don’t remember ever seeing that bed unmade and once it was made, you were not allowed to wallow on it and mess things up. There was always the comforter and pillows with shams and she liked it looking just so and sweaty, dog smelling kids were not allowed on it. We were always taught that you didn’t go into your parents’ bedroom without knocking, you never brought friends in there and it wasn’t a place to hang out. It was mom and dad’s private domain and that was to be respected. When I was actually allowed to stay with other kids, I was shocked at how they would barge in on their parents and it always made me uncomfortable. However, I digress. My point is, I shouldn’t have been in there anyway, so why was I and why did I just slam that drawer shut? I made some excuse and left the room, with full intentions to return at a more convenient time.

When the time came, I made my way back to the drawer and this time, the notebook was right on top. I opened it and to my surprise, I saw “the list”. My precious mother, in all of her love and wisdom, kept a list of what she bought each of us for Christmas and how much it cost. It occurred to me upon further investigation, this was so she would spend approximately the same amount on each of us. Within a 10 second perusal, I knew everything under the tree, without un-wrapping the first thing. I didn’t know how I felt about this, but it wasn’t particularly good.

I don’t remember when I ever admitted what I had found or who I told first. I do know that finding that list, in mother’s beautiful cursive, lovingly taking care to be fair to her children, did something to me. I’ll never forget that moment. I won’t pretend that I mended all of my ways immediately, but change was underway in my little 12 year old heart. The story became a familiar one in our home and we laughed about it in years to come, but honestly, it still makes me feel yucky. I did learn something else though. When I became a parent, the list was hidden better and the packages were excessively wrapped and taped.

Filed Under: Family and Home, Uncategorized Tagged With: Christmas, Christmas tree, gifts, presents, sneaky

Twist it again, Nana

December 3, 2015 Leave a Comment

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Staring at the shiny orb filled with snowmen sporting colorful hats and scarves and painted on smiles Ayda exclaimed, “Nana, make the music play again!” She sat there balancing on her knees, fascinated by We Wish You a Merry Christmas accompanied by the make believe snow settling down around the frozen friends.

I handed her another one, and with a few quick twists, we heard the strains of Silent Night as glittering snow fell upon the scene of Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus. I admonished her to be very gentle with this one, as it is Nana’s favorite.

As she flittered from one decoration to another, I thought about the beautiful snow globes and how they present a moment in time so beautifully. Thoughtfully, I began to imagine the really special moments of my life, captured as a scene in a snow globe. Pictures of memories flooded my mind as I began to take a stroll down memory lane.

But wait! This wasn’t the time to get caught up in the past; I needed to enjoy the right now with this precious angel beside me. Then, lo and behold, I visualized a scene with a little girl sitting up on her knees holding a snow globe, looking up lovingly at her Nana with her brown eyes sparkling with the joy of Christmas.

Filed Under: Family and Home, Uncategorized Tagged With: Christmas, granddaughter, memories, Music, snow globe

I did it my way

December 1, 2015 2 Comments

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The day after Thanksgiving was reserved for putting away fall decorations and putting up all of my Christmas decorations and the tree. I had promised my granddaughter that she could help me and she was excited. My girls were laughing at me because I am so meticulous about everything is done and taking videos of me singing Christmas carols. They were cracking jokes about how mom has to the ornaments just right on the tree. I blogged about my tree perfectionism in Gone are the Matching Bows, where I told the story of how my mother in law encouraged me to let the tree be a kids tree instead of my own beautiful, flawless creation. Since my girls are grown, I have reverted back to decorating “my way”, so I assumed having a five year old help might be a little crazy. However, Ayda is a lot like her Nana and she handled everything so carefully. She packed away the fall decorations one by one, wrapping them carefully in tissue paper. Nana was very impressed!

This all caused me to reflect upon one of my failures as a mother. Yes, I had failures; lots of them, although it wasn’t for lack of trying to be the best one ever. I was always such a stickler for perfection in all of the household tasks, that I never could accept how other people did the job. It’s not that I think I am perfect, or even that I did things perfectly; it was that it had to be MY way. There was only one way in my mind to load that dishwasher, fold the clothes, clean the bedroom, or organize underneath the bathroom cabinet. So, instead of saying, “I don’t like the way you do things”, I would just do them myself.

I remember when the girls were young and they would clean their rooms. I remember being careful to tell them thank you and praise them for a job well done. However, I didn’t realize that they took notice when I went behind them rearranging and re-doing. I couldn’t help it, but they probably felt like it wasn’t good enough. When they got older and I would try to have them do their own laundry, it went much the same way. If they didn’t switch from washer to dryer right away, I just did it, because I didn’t have the patience to wait. When they folded and put away, I would cringe to open a drawer and see all the mismatched socks and wrinkled shirts. I spent way too much time arranging their drawers and sincerely thinking I was doing them a great service. I have now realized that they really didn’t care; for them, it was fine just the way it was. I know this because I have been to their homes and they didn’t learn from our drawer cleaning events; they look the same way they did in high school.

When I try to figure out why I was the way I was, I remember my mother behaving very similarly. She was a stay at home mom most of our lives and she took great pride in her home. She was kind about it and I always felt nothing but love, but I got the sense that she would just rather do some things herself.

You don’t get much help from the kids or the husband if you don’t take what you can get and be thankful for it. And it isn’t helping you anyway, if you are constantly re-doing it. I also ended up with spoiled children and a spoiled rotten husband. I’m not complaining because I’m to blame, but I feel like it was a dis-service to my girls. They both know how to cook and clean, but they hate the cleaning part and I wonder if that is because I made it such a big issue and did so much myself instead of making them help.

I guess what I am trying to say is let them help, or MAKE them help and be happy with what you get. If you have daughters, their future husband will thank you and if you have sons, don’t you want their future wife to appreciate the fact that he does dishes? My husband doesn’t do any household duties; never has and probably never will. I almost passed out the other night when he offered to dry and put away the dishes. The dishes were almost done but he did try. After he dried a couple of things, he got distracted by something on t.v. so I grabbed the towel and finished myself….see there I go again.

Filed Under: Family and Home, Uncategorized Tagged With: Christmas, Christmas tree, Family, perfectionist

Left over cold

November 30, 2015 2 Comments

Hydrangeas Okay, I know yesterday, I said to enjoy the leftovers; the sweet memories.

However, this morning, when I woke up with achy muscles, swollen glands and a headache, I was not the least bit thankful for the “left-over” cold my eldest brought with her to FL. Her trip was delayed on the way down due to feeling ill, but I guess she had enough of it left to share.

Today was my first day back to work after over a week off and it needed to be productive. Lo and behold our network is down, so things just aren’t going according to plan. My head is in a fog and all I want to do on this lunch break is go to sleep, but if I do, I’m afraid I will feel worse. Since I am dedicated to my 30 day blog challenge, I figured I better get this done, while I had a minute because if things don’t change, I will be in the bed when I get off.

Prayers appreciated 🙂

Hope you are having a marvelous Monday!

Filed Under: Family and Home, Uncategorized Tagged With: cold, daughter, Holidays

Enjoy the leftovers

November 29, 2015 3 Comments

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As I looked in despair at the remaining Ziploc bags and plastic containers of left-overs in my refrigerator today, I thought about just throwing them away. Some of it looks like it’s starting to congeal and we are all to the point where if we never see another green bean casserole that would be fine. The economical side of me won out for now….or was it sheer laziness? So, the leftovers will survive another day and tomorrow the ham will probably find itself floating in some kind of bean soup.

I thought about the other things “left over” from the holidays that won’t ever spoil. The memories of hugs that say “I’m not sure when I see you again so I am holding you especially tight” or the ones where a mama hopes her child can feel the love that she is overcome with when she holds them. The laughter shared when Granny comes back with something unexpected when a child is playfully picking on her. The smile and perfectly executed wink unexpectedly returned from a precious grandchild. Yes, there are all of those warm left over memories that we will revisit time after time over the coming weeks.

My eldest and granddaughter left yesterday and I remember the ache that I had to push back down as I told my baby girl, “Don’t be sad. Remember it’s not goodbye; it’s see you later”. I told her that it wouldn’t be long before Nana found a way to see her again, which is true. But in the meantime, I’m thankful for the leftovers.

Filed Under: Family and Home, Inspirational, Uncategorized Tagged With: goodbye, granddaughter, Holidays, love for children, memories

Another grey hair

November 28, 2015 4 Comments

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Anyone who knows me at all or reads my blog very often will understand that I loathe snakes of any kind. Real ones, plastic ones, stuffed ones; it doesn’t matter. Pictures of snakes, branches that are shaped similar to snakes and even the dead vines in my fence that resemble snakes, all receive mutual disdain.

You can suggest it is a phobia or an irrational fear, you can say I’m being ridiculous, call it what you like, but you won’t change the fact that I abhor snakes. My husband made the mistake shortly after we were married of thinking it might be cute to bring one in the house to “show me”. He quickly learned, in the best interest of our marriage, not to ever try such a thing again.

I don’t live in the best area for snake hate, since I have probably seen four outside in the past 3 months. My husband rarely sees them and sometimes I wonder if they just come out when I’m around to torment me. He always insists that the ones I describe (and send him photos of) are not harmful and will keep the bad ones away. He can’t seem to understand that it doesn’t matter if they are venomous or not; if I ever step on one, one crosses my path, or touches me in any way, I will likely die anyway.

My mother was the same way and so is my eldest, so I am sure our critics would say my mom passed down her irrational fears to me, and I did the same to my daughter. My granddaughter is well aware of this, so she likes to tell her mom she is a slithering snake and slither across the floor and hiss. She is a little stinker.

She was in the living room playing earlier with my husband and she came into another room where I was reading and said, “Nana, can I have a hug?” I said, “Of course you can honey” and put my book down and made room for her on my lap. She is a little snuggle bug so she does this often and any grandparent will tell you that those hugs are a precious gift. Little hands patting my back and those bouncy curls grazing my face; ahh, one of the best feelings in the world!! She got up into my lap and out of the corner of my eye she snatched something from behind her back and said “SSSSSSSSS!!!” Dangling from her hand was a snake made from the silly putty that I had bought her, crafted into an instrument of torture. When I yelped, she threw back her head and giggled and I grabbed her little snake and squashed it. She found that to be even funnier. After a tickling session, I sent her back in there with her papa to make something sensible.

Tonight as I was covering the grey in my hair, I remembered that I have heard quotes about our grandchildren keeping us young, but some of their antics can also age you prematurely. But, oh they so are worth it!