All posts in Life Keeps Changing

Spring, New Little Potted Plant and Growing Now (fourteen)

by admin on March 28, 2011 in Feeling It (Thankful), Life Keeps Changing with No comments
(A precious little plant sits near my front window… potted by my eldest daughter… it is a sweet reminder of life and growth.)

Going to a gardening show with my eldest child’s class reminded me it was time to wait and watch for spring. Time has been flying this year and I actually missed the brooding months of winter because I was simply to busy for it, BUT I do adore spring and so I am excited to feel its approach. Winter appears to still have a steal grip on the land when you look at all our ice and snow but my morning jog is graced with the presence of an earlier sun and the kids complain of too much light at bed time… all this is a grand sign of springs inevitability!

Winters end makes me reminisce and examine my own history. I am a mother of four. I am a wife, have been for almost eleven years now. I am a Christian, and have been for about 15 years. Have I grown up? Perhaps…

I am certain that I have grown and the learning curve of life has often spiked straight up. A heart willing and fearless about growing helps the climb go smoother and quicker. Different climbs have been far more straining on my body and others on my mind and even others still, on my heart. It is good to look back long enough to see where we began and how far we have come… and I used to think it was essential to then look ahead with big dreams, to grind my teeth with determination and walk with stubbornness… but lately I am better at enjoying the climb, where I am at, and that is largely because this growth is happening without me…

Spring is change, growth, rebirth and that is in the now of our lives. It is beautiful, delicate and oh so short. The return of spring reminds me to live today. I have and am surrendering dreams and finding better… I have and am embracing my shortcomings and finding strengths in their place… I am learning all the time what love is, what wisdom is and I am blessed. I feel freedom in my heart more then ever before and I believe that is a true sign of growth!

I thank God for spring, and more then that I am thankful for each and every day for growth, for NOW in Christ.

TTFN

Carry On Keeping The Winter Wind At My Back

by admin on January 2, 2011 in Bits Of My Personality, Holiday Messages, Life Keeps Changing with 2 Comments

I know it is a matter of days before I will have to take down the Christmas decorations… I am holding out because I always find it harder to be cheery this time of year once the Christmas decor is gone. Winter here is long, very cold and very snowy with short days and long nights.

HOWEVER this year feels so different since I have been able to get out lots and I may be discovering a really joy in winter sport. Jogging in the winter accomplishes so much more with less distance. Sledding and skating are super fun and I always have company since I can make my kids go with me. I am loving hiking with my dog loving pal and looking forward to finally getting my skis waxed for cross country. I hope to try snowshoeing again and have the boots that can click right into them.

Winter seems less bleak since I don’t feel hindered from GETTING OUT THERE. Here’s to activity and joy in the snow! I hope my optimism keeps up and outlasts this season. Here’s hoping the bone chilling winter wind stays at my back (a tweak on the old Irish blessing).

Merry Winter to you all and may you find warmth of heart no matter the weather:)

TTFN

Jogging With Riddick

by admin on October 22, 2010 in Bits Of My Personality, Life Keeps Changing, The Pet with 2 Comments
(My dog and I ready for our morning run.)

Most know that in the past I have always maintained I HATE to run… Well I started running… for Riddick and because of Riddick, can’t imagine running each morning without his company.

He had so much energy that it just seemed unfair to make him walk on the leash all the time. We don’t get to the dog park as much as I want, that is where he can really run. So I started jogging behind him to use up more of his energy each walk. At first I was in pain and the one who was most warn out but after two weeks of doing a little bit with him each day I can occasionally ware him out.

Yesterday was my first day of coming home and feeling good thanks to the run and today I really was eager to get a good work out in. I actually had to pull him on the leash a bit to get him to keep jogging with me.

I have to admit I finally see why people are so into this, I don’t think I will ever be an impressive runner but I saw results so quickly as far as strength building that I see the appeal now.

TTFN

Thanksgiving Is So Autumn

by admin on October 11, 2010 in Holiday Messages, Life Keeps Changing, My Year of Right Sacrifice-TIME, People In My Heart with No comments
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad. ~Edwin Way Teale

Ah the colors, the fresh air, the friendly sun, and the food!

How very autumn is Thanksgiving! At a time of year when we start to settle in (to a new year to the prospect of another long prairie winter) and become comfortable it is an excellent time to stop and to really think about all our blessings. Counting our blessings prevents complacency and wards off bitterness! Now if only fall and Thanksgiving could keep away bitter winter!

I can’t remember the last time we have been blessed with such a warm autumn! It is warmer and sunnier then our rain filled summer was! Playing in the leaves and making mud pies with my kids while their grandmother, my husbands mom, prepared a gluten free Thanksgiving meal (celiac in the family) was wonderful!
Sharing pie and turkey with loved ones, and then another piece of pie and more turkey is pretty full filling, and filling!I am absolutely thankful for these people around me!

I am also so thankful for all I am learning lately in the area of thankfulness. It is a state of the heart and not just an emotion reacting to your current circumstance. I hope I can continue to let peace, patients and the other fruits of the Spirit work in me to make me a woman with a heart of thankfulness and, therefore, a woman of love.

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot

TTFN

Riddick, An Introduction!

by admin on October 7, 2010 in Life Keeps Changing, The Pet with 1 Comment

So the dog for us found us, so often how things in life work. All my worrying and searching wasn’t seriously needed. His owner was retiring him from dog shows and he needed a families attention. Well we are a big family and ready to shower attention, also home often so he doesn’t have to be lonely with us.Riddick is a four year old smooth fox terrier and a real little gentleman. He is gentle and patient and willing to learn our new house with new rules. He hasn’t made a noise yet, I will be surprised when we finally hear what his bark is like. Turns out my dad had a fox terrier as a boy so he gave us a glowing review about the breed.

(Baby Boy can’t pronounce Riddick so he calls our dog ‘RICK’!)

We have already been on a few walks with him and he is a lot of fun to play with at the park. Obviously all the kids are very excited! Garnet and I have waited a long time to find the right dog and timing for a pet in our home and we are both very excited too.I am really optimistic! Feel like this is a real blessing for the family. We knew adopting was the way to go but never ever thought we would be able to adopt a purebred. I don’t think I have ever ever owned anything but a mutt before. Oh I still love a lovable mutt but I also have to change my stance on the idea of purebreds and male dogs now that that is what I have! Never had a male before either! Then the fact that he is so mild and well trained is a super big deal for this mama. Makes my job of integrating him into the family a whole lot easier. I am so glad we didn’t opt for a puppy. This over sized honey of a lap dog is more my style:)

TTFN

My Next Step

by admin on October 3, 2010 in Bits Of My Personality, Life Keeps Changing with No comments

I am very excited, nervous excited… so excited I feel so nervous!

My next step in life fell in my lap… here it is and I have no time to digest the idea of it, so I suppose I will learn as I go. Starting tomorrow I am working again. Not outside of the home, thankfully. The schedule isn’t totally decided yet but it all starts now.

This is very much outside of my comfort zone, I have been home full time, with no work on the side for nine years.

Did I mention we might be getting a dog this week too? We have waited a long time to get a dog, wanting it to be the right time to introduce pets into our family. In the same week we become dog owners and I become a working mom again.

Life is full of steps and you don’t have very much choice about when the next stepping stone will come along… Here I go… However this all works out it will be a new experience!

TTFN

The Return of the Ballerina

by admin on September 12, 2010 in Do I Call It Parenting Advice?, Four Little Eggs In My Nest, Life Keeps Changing, Mama Heart Mushings with No comments
(Little Woman happily showing off her new pink ballerina outfit and her freshly painted pink toes.)

JUST when I thought I was going to have to say good bye to the ballerina presence in our home, both my daughters love for this art reemerged. No, we don’t have them in lessons or have any grand ideas of them becoming prima ballerinas… of course they will always be OUR prima ballerinas and that is enough… But there was a time when other little girls where into dolls about snobbery and young singers with no real life experience and I had sighed with great relief that my girls enjoyed ballerinas. It seems such a beautifully feminine play time pass time for a little girl.

We watched ‘Angelina Ballerina’ together, ’12 Dancing Princesses’ got all 3 of us up and fluttering about. I decorated their room with paintings of beautiful dancers… and then Big Girl appeared to grow out of this stage right around the time she grew out of her adorable dancing outfit that had been give to her by her Grams. With no enthusiastic example, Little Woman’s interest petered out and I only got her to dress up and try it out now and then.

A year or two went by and I brought out the ballerina cartoons again just because they had been away long enough to be new again… and the icing on the cake was when I bought Little Woman a new dancing out fit that had sparkles on it and matching leggings. Well Big Girl had to teach her everything she knew, after all she had been an expert in her youth! Before I knew it they where practicing routines together, wearing their dancing outfits through out the day and asking me to film their performances in the ‘FEHR FINE ARTS THEATER’ (a.k.a. the family room). I went out and got Little Woman’s closest in age cousin a matching dance outfit and now the return of the ballerina is a guaranteed success. I hope they always dance.

TTFN

The Romance In Sacrifice

by admin on September 9, 2010 in Bits Of My Personality, Life Keeps Changing, My Romance with No comments
(Please watch the above video to get you in the mood. This is a song that moved me right away because I knew exactly where it was coming from.)Sacrifice is part of romance, as it is so obviously part of love.

One of the most stretching times in my life ended up being one of the most binding times in my marriage. I am so very blessed in the man I married and so I want to share this story, not as a rebuke for his honest mistakes, or mine for that matter, but for the ending. It has a lovely ending.

I was a young mom. Only been married for a few years. I had two babies born about 18 months apart. We where financially tight and lived in a small town with no family near by.

My husband was a young dad. He had a very tired wife, two young children and again, money was tight. Commuting every day two hours a day to a very negative environment full time job. He also had a second job, basically, with the band he was in.

I felt like I was being pushed too far. I was too lonely.

He was pushing so hard. He was wearing out.

At the end of the day I missed him so bad it hurt and he just didn’t have much left for the babies and me.

I had to ask him to sacrifice for us. In the end we both did.

I felt like I was fighting for our marriage alone…. I was far from correct…

In the end, as he showed me his intentions to fight for our marriage I realized I needed to as well. He wrapped up the band life style and I left the small town life behind for a city life that was easier for him. The move meant he was able to get a better job and be close to it. It also meant the kids and I got so much more Garnet!

All part of God’s plan, things where better in so many ways for both of us.

I learned to talk about things before they get so hard and to remember if the marriage is rocky it probably isn’t easy for your spouse either. Compromise out of love. Give more of yourself to your lover. PRAY for your spouse! AND never ever take for granted a spouse who will refuse to give up on marriage no matter how hard it gets, don’t use that as an excuse to not try harder yourself!

We walk together, fighting for our marriage today and loving one another so much more as time goes on. Sacrifice was key, not easy but important. I look back today and the pain was big but the healing was beyond beautiful. I see my husband as a hero of mine. He is that romantic man that will swoop in and put me first… can I learn to be better at doing the same for him so we can walk on taking care of one another?

TTFN

Little Things

by admin on September 7, 2010 in Better Check Out Links, Do I Call It Parenting Advice?, Life Keeps Changing, Little Things, My Romance with 1 Comment
( I spent a whole afternoon washing the upstairs floors with my youngest two. Yes it took that long because of their help but it was boundlessly cheerful as we played Cinderella and sang ‘Sweet sweet Nightingale’.)

Kids remind you life is full of little things. If you don’t protect your time you don’t get to enjoy life, the little things. I sometimes imagine more ‘me time’, but I want to be a content woman… so I count the little blessings and then I remember how I had time to:

relish nap time with my little woman,

watch the girls catch fairies,

pamper my girls with gusto,

find joy in the daily mama tasks,

learn from my baby boy,

celebrate when big boy learned to tie his shoes,

purposely do nothing really with my kids this summer,

snuggle up with my man and watch endless episodes of our favorite tv shows on dvd…

and more…

No time of life is perfect… all time is fleeting and the next stage will not have all the blessings of the last, so we must grab it and take note and enjoy it. I am thankful.

TTFN

The Return To School

by admin on August 29, 2010 in Bits Of My Personality, Four Little Eggs In My Nest, Life Keeps Changing, Mama Heart Mushings with No comments
This was one of those perfect New England days in late summer where the spirit of autumn takes a first stealing flight,
like a spy, through the ripening country-side,
and, with feigned sympathy for those who droop with August heat,
puts her cool cloak of bracing air about leaf and flower and human shoulders.
~Sarah Orne Jewett

Every joyful summer must come to an end.

Every child must return to school.

I complain about all the supplies that need to be collected for each new school year but truly I am grateful for the distraction. I have been bustling around all weekend trying to ignore the conflict in my heart and mind. I don’t think I am afraid to send them as I daily was when they first started this grand adventure of education out side of the home, BUT, I still feel emotional this time of year.

I feel thankful for the schedules return. Yet I want to complain about the pending doom of winters dark cold mornings at the bus stop. I feel thankful for alone time with my youngest too, it is so much simpler and quieter and the house remains clean longer, but I also feel so heartsick with loneliness for my older two. I feel excited for them, thankful that they are pumped about being with friends again and yet… I want them to be with me, they are mine (or so my mama heart screams)!

…

Well I think that could just be a complete list of my battling emotions…

I feel better already…

Back to sharpening mounds of pencils and labeling each and every one along with every pencil crayon, crayon and marker…

TTFN

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