day 7: light

The sunrise outside my east facing back door is seen more often now than ever before in my life, due to the whole middle school schedule.  {what brainiac determined that it was a stellar idea to get adolescents up at dawn to begin their days, anyway?}

I thought the street lamp looked lovely in the midst of the blue and orange sky {which, btw, was quite something this morning...the sunrises tend to be much rosier in hue around here - these colors are often reserved for what we call Broncos sunsets} and snapped a pic.

Nothing hugely insightful today ;)

 

day 6: i'm thankful for....edited to add

 {Whoopsie, I totally winged this and did "Something that makes me happy," instead of "I'm thankful for..."  In either case, I limited it to my time-constrained answer, and today, I'm realizing there is a hell of a lot more to put in this post than that which was originally here.  Updated words are in teal.}

My family. {makes me happy.  See also, I'm thankful for....}

In the Colorado mountains (pictured here, Rocky Mtn. Nat'l Park, Cub Lake).

Yeah, we have a lot of drama.  Yeah, family is hard work.  {and so is hiking to the real treasures of the Colorado mountains.  Worth it?  ABSOLUTELY!}

But at the end of the day, nothing makes me feel better than a big bear hug from Kelsey, the latest pop song being echoed by Colton, Christopher's goofy antics or Seth's never-failing humor.

This magical combination of: them + the outdoors = my personal nirvana.

I'm thankful for God's unfailing love for me, especially when I'm clinging to the fear that He's not really there or that He doesn't really care for me.  Yeah, I've had a season of doubt and desert wandering.  It's been intense.  And Satan, that expert manipulator, used someone in the church's good intentions to hurt me and catapult me further into this questioning.

And then God, used the kindness of someone I barely know to raise me up and remind me, bad things happen to good people and life sucks that way, but we can choose to let it keep us down or we can choose to help others going through similar hardships.  I needed that as much as I needed this prompt in things for which I'm thankful.

I'm thankful that despite some rough at-home behavior, the overall product of our family is kids who are loving and kind and thoughtful.  I'm thankful for check-ins with teachers that validate the work is paying off with them, even if I'm one of the last ones to see it.  {we had Kelsey's Advanced Learning Plan meeting Monday, followed by Parent-Teacher conferences the rest of the week}

I'm also thankful that the week of crazy meetings is over and we are back to our regularly scheduled program.  :)  {oh middle school, you and your 8 teacher schedules...}

I'm thankful for Fall in Colorado and the beauty that greets me every day.

I'm thankful that after some slipping up with health and wellness, my two best buds, Seth and Sarah, are taking their on steps to fitness journeys.  It is inspiring, motivating and has helped me get off my duff and make sure I'm eating thoughtfully again.

I'm thankful for my spiritual family and the tremendous strength I am able to draw from them, even without them knowing it.

  

day 5: shadow

So this is totally the cheater's way I suppose, but here's today's picture:

COMING SOON!

We had a cold front move in, and with it, cloud cover through which light was impenetrable, at least shadow making light.  

And indoors?  My house has little unused wall space on which a shadow could be cast.  And it is a crazy mess.

I will come back to you, day 5.

I was so pleased with the way this shot came out, because it is completely illustrative of what I need in my heart right now.

Yes, there's shadow, and the vast majority of the picture is swallowed up in it.

But there's a sliver of illuminated ground, and that bright beacon burning through the tree that is fighting to be seen.

I need to cling to that light.

 

what i wish she would have let me say to her

Backstory: the latter part of July, I received a msg from a colleague regarding an executive position opening at a local non-profit.  While I am currently at home, it has always been part of the plan for me to return to work when Christopher began school.  We're not quite there yet, but seeing as this opportunity found me {I was not looking} and our finances are still pretty dire thanks to Pneumo-Geddon 2009 and the crapped economy, Seth and I had some very frank conversation about whether I should even pursue it, and decided together that indeed, I should at least test the waters.  I interviewed {x3}, took a personality test, and landed in the top 3 candidates, but alas, it was not meant to be.  And I was actually ok with it.  What follows is a conversation I wanted to have with a friend, after we'd had an exchange that crushed me up quite a bit.


Motherhood should be a blessing, not the guilt-inciting, martyr-making chore that the level of sacrifice you keep wanting me to make has turned it into.  I don't want motherhood to be the cross I have to pick up daily, I want it to be something that I enjoy, treasure and am thus able to offer my best to my kids.  The financial trauma my family has faced in the past 3 years has taken away from that, and I'm seeking to restore the balance of having enough {and my enough is not a materialistic enough fwiw}and being more present with my kids.  I am fully aware that the trade off of time away from my kids seems counter-intuitive from this, but trust me, my eyes are wide open looking into this.  To suggest otherwise was insulting to me, as I thought you knew me to be the thoughtful, analytical person I am.

I'd like to remind you, as I pointed out in subsequent communications, that I know your thoughts on the Mommy Wars quite well; as a result, I did not seek your advice or blessing regarding my potential return to work.

I also did not seek your encouragement after my child let it slip that we needed prayers because mom didn't get the job she was seeking.  But I got it.  Ninety minutes of it.

day 4: what you read

So, despite having kids aged 11, 9, and 3, I recently started going to the brand-spanking new MOPS group at our church. Not because I don't know how the motherhood drill goes, obvs, but because I'm feeling more stretched than ever with the constant hokey pokey of one foot in middle school, an arm in elementary, and the other foot in toddlerhood.

I had heard of MOPS before, but seriously, I thought it was more suited for the Stepford types, and bypassed it for many years. I had some good IRL friends and in the early years with my older two, I belonged to parenting message boards, which ultimately evolved into blogging circa 2006.  Now that I'm doing it, I've often thought, "Where was this in 2001, when I needed it so?"  No matter, things happen the way they're supposed to, right?

This book is the topic of our guided discussions and so far it is pretty good.  More cheerful than I am by nature, but definitely not Pollyanna or Stepford-ish.  Maybe it can help me be more focused on the big picture instead of the crisis of the moment!

day 3: this happened today

So, you can't really tell, but the wind was blowing those leaves HARD when I snapped this.  And that cloud in the background?  Just got bigger and darker as the gusts pushed it in.

We were sitting at a nice 80ish degree day with an occasional breeze, and over the course of the next couple hours, dropped a whopping 40 degrees.

day 2: lunchtime

So, there is no beautiful food picture for my 'lunchtime' photo.

No, today was one of those where we had a hearty breakfast, Christopher had a late late morning snack, I was fully engaged in housecleaning, and when I felt the first pang of hunger, I looked at the clock in the kitchen and saw we were more than 2 hours past noontime.  And, we needed to go run an errand before Colton got home from school in less than 2 hours, which would then initiate the evening crazy: the daily 14 mile round trip to pick Kelsey up from cross country, dinner, and parent teacher conferences (day 2).

So it was lunch on the go.

I hate the convenience of those Golden Arches whose food never decomposes :/

day 1: where you stood

So, in six years of blogging (give or take, what with the 6 month hiatuses and all), I've never done any of these daily blog prompt things, but I really hope to get back in the swing of it, so what better than a quick, easy photo of the day, with or without some words, to dive back into things?

While this is not a great photo, it does represent several things for me about where I've stood.  

free falling or dancing in the wind?

Yesterday while out doing mundane errands {that I'd put off for as long as possible...I hate getting license plate renewal tags}, I had a Moment.

It was not a Moment of epiphany, nor one of any huge significance, but time stood still and I just...watched.

I was driving out of Old Town, approaching the University and got stopped at the light.  And then I marveled at the light.  No, not the stoplight, but that September lighting that always seems to captivate me.  That gold-washed luminescence that seems to bathe everything in a radiant amber; it's a fleeting phenomenon, this seasonal aura seems to dissipate with the shift in axial angle of the earth and something compelled me to just watch it, because... well, just because.

The Jesus Factor

Lately I've been practicing being more mindful of my words, a difficult task for a compulsive blurter and out-loud-thinker such as myself.  Tucked into this study of my speech is a look at what my actions communicate as well.

Partly inspired by the {largely} unnecessary rift my as-yet-unprocessed, somewhat reactionary words recently caused between a friend and me, a large part of this introspective exercise has been prompted by social media and the endemic disregard for viewpoints other than one's own.

Blowing the dust off

I should be doing anything but writing a blog post.  Especially since I haven't touched this blog in over 5 months -there is no readership, no community waiting to hear from me.

But...

Something pulls at me.

I have work up to my ears, professionally and personally, that need attending.  Work that is why I got up before the sun this morning.  Work that I need to finish.

But...

Something whispers to me, "Awake!"

I've been asleep for a long time, wandering in the desert in a semi-conscious stupor, not really grumbling at God like the Israelites.  I couldn't be that short-sighted after all He's done for me, now could I?  No, I haven't been ungrateful, unable to remember the remarkable things God has done in my life, so much as I've been....

Veiled.  There's been something between me and God that keeps me from really seeing, hearing, feeling His presence in my life.  Pride?  Weariness?  Apathy?  Shaky faith?  I don't know.  I haven't been able to put my finger on it, but suffice to say that I have been in a pattern of just going through the motions for a long time.  I don't know the last time I sat down with God and really communed with Him, at least outside of church, anyway.  Because there have been plenty of moments not unlike a party where I've really connected with a lifelong friend, but then something comes along and I promise to take up the conversation later.  And yet, I never do.

Last night we went to our church's youth group since our Life Group wasn't meeting.  Rather than a lesson, we had a conversation about how life, particularly Christian life, holds no promise of being a walk in the park, among various other cliche's.  I, being the pop culture thinker I am, immediately heard a reprise in my mind...."I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden."  That song, though not that version, is older than I am, and so universally true.  

We talked about the barriers, often self-induced - though not always, we struggle against as we strive to walk with God.  Throughout the discussion, God kept nudging me, as He often does when I'm struggling, with Scriptures that have been present in my own recent glimpses at the Word: Romans 8:31-39, Hebrews 12:1-2, and a few others that fade in my memory Toward the end of the discussion, a wise sister brought up a passage in 2 Corinthians 3 that spoke to me, as well as her thoughts regarding the words inspired by God.

¹² Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. ¹³ We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. ¹⁴ But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. ¹⁵ Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. ¹⁶ But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. ¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 

As she shared this, she likened our tendency to pull away from God and try to prove our independence in our struggles, that we can handle this On. Our. Own! to that veil on us today.  That when we turn to the Lord and proclaim our dependence, and our joyful submission to that dependence, there is nothing between us, that we are free to become....

...transformed into His image with ever increasing glory...

Huh....another repeat (look at my header).  Blog has since been redesigned {again}.

Thanks for the reminder, Father.  I thank you for your enduring patience with my stubborn independence, and praise you for your gentle and abundant love.  I pray that you will help me to proclaim my dependence on you and bless me with the unveiled glories of your presence that follows submission.  Thank you for Jesus and his humanity, his example, and his sacrifice.  Thank you for the hope you provide in the promise that you will transform us, that we are not doomed to continue the same heartaches of life over and over, but that we may rise above them with your help.  In Jesus' name, Amen.