LG + AG 4Ever

Happy Valentine's Day

to the love of my life.

And with a good marriage counselor

I hope it stays that way.

Keeping it real.

I love you LeGrand Gold.

There is Hope

Does love really hurt?

No.

The lack of love does.

Love is the best feeling that exists.

It's more than a feeling.

It's a state of mind.

And nothing is better than love.

Nothing.

I love someone very much.

That person keeps hurting me.

Repeatedly.

I go to God in prayer

and ask Him to release me

from the hurt.

Release me from the pain.

"Please," I beg.

I don't want to hurt anymore.

I don't want to let myself not be loved.
I want out of it.
Let me out.

This morning I got the same answer

I keep getting.
I've been getting it for years.

Hang on. Hold on thy way.

Keep on keeping on.

Be patient.

Stand by.

Be loyal.

Love.

Even if it hurts.

Do as I do.

Be strong.

Oh, and by the way Alice,

you aren't the best at

loving either.

So maybe you can

change too

while I give the other person

the same answer in your behalf.

That's how God loves.

I wish I was more like Him.
I hope I can be.

You know who you are.
This song is for you.
I'm sorry.
I will try to love better.

When I get done praying
and pouring my heart out.
God doesn't shame me.
He tells me there is always hope.
For all of us.

Sophia the Wise

The name Sophia means wise.

When my Sophia was born 

I took one look into her eyes

and I knew she was an old soul.

Sophia was on our short list,

I knew it meant wise,

and I knew the name belonged to this

little one.

Whenever I take the time to think about it,

I realize that I made the perfect name choice.

I was supported

when yesterday Sophia came home from school.

Her teacher is really into the Chinese zodiac

and Sophia's class has been getting their fill.

Sophia said that she was born in the year of the snake

and that snakes are wise.

What a coinkydink.

I am so proud of my Sophia.

She is many of the traits listed above:

quiet, unassuming, prefers to work alone,

sympathetic, intuitive, and amorous.

She is an angel.

Truly.

She is also very talented.

I would love to take all the credit

for her compassion, kindness, and nurturing ways,

but she came to us with them.
I know that she is

not just special to me and LG

but she is also special to God.

She embodies God.

She embodies love.

She has blessed my life so much

and she makes me want to be

a better person.

The school rewarded her

yesterday

for being the way she is.

I told her she should call her Grammy

and tell her thanks

because she is so much like

my mother-in-law.

The funniest part of Sophia's

character connection award

is that Sophia came home

and said,

"Mom, I was so weird-ed out.

I am 11,

I don't want to be known

for love."

I am so glad I don't have to retire yet,

we obviously still  have a lot to learn

about love.

Well Sophia doesn't,

she has it down.

Maybe I just need to explain.

The sense of a goose

I've been watching

The Canadian Geese

for several weeks now.

The seem to want to follow me

wherever I go.

On my run, at my house, on my errands.

They just keep coming.

I love to hear their honking greetings

and watch them change up their formations.

Call me weird.

That's what my kids do.

One of them said the other day,

"Mom. what's your fascination with the geese?"

I answered, "I don't know

they are just so beautiful,

and we are lucky their flight

patterns go through here."

The other day 

while having a particularly hard married day

(oh c'mon, you have those too),

I was on the phone with a friend.

Outside of Wal-Mart,

crying a bit, is where I stood.

Pondering life.

While getting my pep talk,
tears were flowing freely.

I was in a place of major frustration.

Why?
was running through my head and heart
repeatedly.

Why does it not seem to matter

how hard we try?

Why can we not just arrive

where we need to be?

Why do I have to keep working so hard

just to be beat down

again and again?

Let down.

Again.

and

again.

I watched a large group of geese

and another.

Cried on.

Chatted on.

And then God sent me a sign.

In the form of two straggling geese.

They were all by themselves,

braving the big skies

without their group of friends.

They seemed to be in a hurry.

I instantly remembered a story I read

years ago.

It was titled

"why do we not have the sense of a goose?"

It taught that geese mate for life.

If the mate goes down for whatever reason,

so does its mate.

Couldn't we have more loyalty as humans?

I looked up at those determined geese

and wondered of their story.

Then I heard God's voice.

It said,

"Keep going,

don't give up,

you may fall down,

he may fall down

but just like those geese,

you'll get there

eventually.
Go the right direction.

Together.

Who cares

if every single other pair

of geese get there ahead of you.

All I need you to do

is

get here."

Be like a Bee

I have a fascination with honey bees.
Remember this old post
when I took my camera into the shower to photograph them?
Good times back in Knoxville.

Anyhow,
When M. Russell Ballard
gave this address
entitled
Be Anxiously Engaged
during General Conference,
I was delighted to listen.

Today I went outside with my camera
to try and capture something beautiful.
Why not the honeybees across the street?

It's pretty powerful to think about what we can accomplish when we all focus on the things of God,

even if we, like the bees, each just produce our 1/12th of  a teaspoon it will be more than enough.

On another bee note. 

The BYU documentary that I just saw for the first time on Sunday also inspired me to do more for others.

I love so many metaphors from this documentary but perhaps the one the most lovely is that bees use white clover (a normally discarded weed) as their food-source. The bees see the clover like no one else does.

 If I live my whole life and accomplish all that I wanted it will be in vain if I can't look at every other person I meet and see the white clover inside of them.

Book Review - Daring Greatly

This is a paid for review as part of BlogHer BookClub.

Getting paid to read a book that I would have been 

snatching off the shelf anyhow is a very proud moment for me.

Do you want to change the world?

Do you want to have more powerful interpersonal relationships?

Do you want to explore into your own soul 

to make sense of your life?

Do you want to live whole-hearted?

Do you want to rid yourself from shame?

Do you want to understand men and women better?

Do you want to give your heart a hug?

I thought I would do something different this time and give you a list of questions for this book review. This book is so jam-packed with the "hard stuff" that I don't even want to dare pretend that I get it all. I will be reading it repeatedly until I have absorbed and memorized every nugget of wisdom. I wish every other person on the planet would do the same. It would seriously bring world peace and most certainly would give everyone inner peace. I'm not kidding, It's that powerful.

I was proud to be a part of this book campaign. I was thrilled. I mean I jumped up and down when I got the e-mail confirmation and cooked a fancy dinner for my family when it arrived in the mail. I have been pouring over its pages and sharing parts with my hubby every chance I get. I have compromised my facebook relationships with the overabundance of quotes from this book. I just can't stop. It's too totally amazing not to share. YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK. If you don't want to buy your own copy, borrow mine. I can't share it though for at least another month until I have it memorized.

I had a powerful experience at work last night, using the principles learned in this book. I was substitute teaching a class at the therapeutic boarding school where I work. I gave the kids a reward for every half an hour of hard work. We listened to a song of their choice (with my approval). One boy chose a powerfully emotional song about a girl who wanted to be with her dying boyfriend forever. I loved it. Another boy in the class didn't. He started to shame the song choice kid. I stopped him and talked with the whole class about "shaming" and talked with them about giving people space to be who they are, even if they are wrong or different. I then turned to the shamer, and told him how much I loved him and admired him and that I would hope other people would give him space to love what he loved. He got teary-eyed. He turned to the other kid and said, "Dude, I am so sorry, I don't like that song, but it's cool if you do."

World peace, people. World peace.

A huge thanks to marriage counselor friend John Morgan who turned me on to Brene Brown just months ago. He shared with me her talks from Ted. I was hooked. Brene is a researcher and has a PHD and LMSW. Her life's work is shame and vulnerability. Here are her videos. Watch them both. Come back if you have to. They will make you understand why you need to read this book. Even if you aren't into that psychological mumbo-jumbo, you need to be.

CameraMan

Sing us a song

you're the cameraman.

LG bought me a new camera

and signed me up for a photography class.

He's so amazingly awesome.

I love it that he pays attention to my bucket list.

We went to a free rooftop concert on Friday night.

It was super crowded.

We couldn't get anywhere near the stage,

so we found a secluded corner of the parking garage.

We listened to the great music

with a bird's eye view of the stage.

And we made out all night.

Just like being teenagers.

It was awesome.

I know are sad that you weren't invited to the party.

Don't worry.

We played with the camera too.

Captured some goodies just for you.

Oh, how I LOVE this man.

Every day just gets better.

And now you see why I need a photography class.

How the heck do I make these photos larger

without distorting them?

It''ll have to wait.

I have to go to work.

My Love

Happy 15th anniversary to my love.

Yesterday.

He got a ukulele

and no action at all

because I just had a miscarriage

and it was the best anniversary yet

because he needs nothing from me.

Nothing at all to love me.

It's his unconditional gift

and I am the luckiest girl in the world.

My love is bottomless.

It goes on forever.

Like through a black hole and back.

Or up to Jupiter

and all around it

and through it 

to the next solar system

and then back

and then back again.

It would take the strongest hurricane ever

to spread the true power of my love for you.

Of course the hurricane would

have to travel the whole earth.

It would take a mouse's 

smallest tiniest squeak

to fitfully stand as the opposite my 

loudest declaration

of love.

The prettiest fullest

most colorful flower fields

are not as beautiful to me

as your smile

or your eyes

or your hands

or your laugh

and especially your tears.

The happy and the sad.

The grandest canyon

which we witnessed together

as we stood in awe

is not even as miraculous

as how I feel for you.

Even the great Pacific

that gently caresses

the shore

while the sun falls

in majesty

is not as glorious

as what we share.

And I sit

to try and

put words to

communicate

how I feel about you

and nothing comes

that can do it justice

because 

I know that

no matter how much

I love you today

and no matter how huge

that love feels

like my heart is going to explode

somehow

tomorrow

my love will be even greater.

Every day with you adds

a universe to travel,

another canyon to explore,

a garden planted,

and an ocean shore.

How can I express that?

How can I tell our future?

The slowest person

may be the last to laugh.

And that person may be me

every time

but I know I will be o.k

because you will always be at my side

and you

will always laugh first

because you are miraculous

and you will always be smarter than me

but that is one of the may infinitesimal

reasons I love you.

And I will always love you

and that love will always be growing.

It will never ever stop.

Just like our lives together.

Eternal.

Totally mind-blowing.

Completely flustering

because I am not smart enough to understand it

but I know one thing

the only thing that is important.

My love for you

needs time to never end

because it needs

that much time to grow

to reach it's fullest potential.

You're Beautiful

I've been struggling for months.
I couldn't pin-point what was going on.
I thought it was just part of the grief of losing my nephew,
and it partially was, but it started before we lost Braxton.
I was angry.
I just got angrier.
For months I didn't want to pray.
I didn't want to go to church.
I didn't want to read the scriptures.
I just wanted to stew,
and get angrier about all the unfairness of life.

I spent a night at the cabin with a few friends last week,
and we took the time to have a honest share with one another.
I was floored by the experience.
Just a few moments of humble and honest self-reflection
completely turned me around.

I was able to see a part of me that I already identified long ago.
I was able to see the part of me that went straight
to pride and anger
as to protect myself from the hurt or disappointment.

I was angry because I felt like I could never measure up.
I was angry that people around me didn't appreciate me.
I was angry because I didn't want to need God.
I was angry because I was hurt.
I was sad, so I was angry.
My subconscious thinks it's easier to be angry.
But it's not.
Pride is destructive.
Anger is a form of pride.

After two seconds of honest reflection,
I immediately felt God telling me it's o.k.
I am just human doing the best I can.
He wasn't mad at me.
He was glad that I finally figured it out.
I don't need to be angry.
I need to be vulnerable
and let God heal.

I most of all needed to re-understand that
I am not alone.
We all need God.
We all need to be told that we are beautiful.

 

Loving my body.

I feel very uncomfortable being called inspiring when it comes to my body. My mind, my faith, my writing, even my family...they can be inspiring, but not my body.

Why is that? Because I have a horrible self image. I believe myself to be a fat girl. I have always been the biggest of my three sisters. I have been teased as a child, adolescent, and adult because of my weight.

So I got a message from a friend the other day. She has been following me on facebook. She knows I started running again and she wanted me to know that I am her hero and that I am inspiring. It makes me cringe to write those words in reference to my body, even though I have read her encouragement at least ten times.

She wants to know how to start. She is sick of being over-weight. I feel 176% unqualified to answer her. In fact, I don't really know what her answer is. I don't even have full confidence that I can keep helping myself in this regard. Every day is a battle for me. I truly believe I have a less severe form of food addiction and every day I am still battling it. I don't have all the answers for me yet, how in the world can I help someone else?

I have been on a self-discovery journey for a few years now. It started with just getting to know my past and my emotions and has advanced to making changes. My body is a place that I needed to change. I don't know if anyone can heal physically without first the emotional healing.

I can't even describe my whole journey. I am inadequate to express the process. So, I don't know what to tell you. I wish I had the magic words to motivate you. I wish I had the magic words to make Oreos less appealing also. That would help me out a lot.

However, I do have three tips.

Number one. Get real. What is really going on with you? Why do you loathe yourself? I promise you that inward there is some self hatred. That was what made the final decision for me to start exercising. I really made it a matter of prayer about how I could change. My answer wasn't anything I expected. My answer from God was a question. "Alice, why can't you love yourself like I love you?" When I started really pondering that question I felt empowered. The master of the Universe loves me. He loves me even when I don't love me. Shouldn't I love myself as well as he loves me? And isn't the way that I am treating the temple he gave me a huge indication of how poorly I am doing in the love department? If you really don't know how to do this for yourself, I highly recommend using the 12 steps in your own life. The LDS church puts out a great manual, and the steps can be used by anyone to apply the atonement in their life and make lasting changes. The fourth step is a really great tool at getting to know yourself. Years ago, I became acquainted with the 12 steps for my codependency, but I truly believe that the principles I have learned there have been greatly beneficial with my body image also.

Number two. Just start. One step at a time. After I had my spiritual awakening (which I am still in the middle of - still figuring out) I made a promise to myself that I would get started. I've done all the calorie counting many times in my life, so this time I wanted to focus more on getting strong. I decided to go back to where I was when I felt strongest. It was back when I was 17 and running every day. I decided that I would once again run...no matter how hard it was to get there. I set a goal. I could barely run a lap. I decided that in two months time I could at LEAST do a 5k, even if I had to walk it. I would try my hardest to run it, but I would walk it if I had to. No matter what, I was going to do it. And I did it. I ran the whole thing. It only took me two months to get in shape enough to run a 5k. I surprised myself. I was way stronger than I thought I was. In the process, I got to see the me that God loves. All along the only thing keeping me from doing it was myself.

Three. Get real again. Don't set yourself up for failure. Everyone says that a person should exercise first thing in the morning. I would always fail because I am NOT a morning person. Figure out how to make exercise doable for you. It has truly become a break for me. I like exercising in the afternoon. I decided my older kids could watch their baby sister after school two times a week for an hour. It's the least they could do for me when I do so much for them. (Again I had to love myself enough to believe this to really be true - all part of the journey) A lot of the time the baby is napping and it isn't a big deal. I only run three times a week. On Saturday my husband does baby duty. It has been working just fine for me for 6 months. 6 months. Wow, I didn't realize it had been that long. I kind of feel proud of myself. See! See, how I just wrote "kind of: ?Downplaying!  That is what I do when it comes to my body. So excuse me while I say, "I am damn proud of myself." I hope the Lord will forgive me for taking up the d word for a bit. It helps me get through to myself.

So I guess my answer is this. It's a journey. An old Latin saying is "know thyself." Knowing thyself is a journey that everyone should take. It's scary. It's actually totally debilitating for a lot of us, but it is so worth it. Because really, you are amazing. You are loved by the Supreme Creator, the Father of all. He wants you to love yourself like he loves you. The only way you can love yourself is to figure out how you don't love yourself and change. The change starts in your mind.

So, I like to sing to myself when I get unmotivated. You're gonna love me. Sometimes I just have to fake myself out. I have to tell myself that I am going to love me on the days that I know I don't. Here's your soundtrack. Get started. You won't regret it.




The best thing about being at the bottom is that it gives you more reason to be pleased with yourself. Other people are worried about getting to that 8 minute mile mark. I am fighting against nobody but the couch. If I get off the couch I win. When you have neglected yourself for so long, the only way to go is up and out. Every time you get on the treadmill you feel like a rockstar. It's totally awesome. I want that feeling for you. I have only lost 20 pounds. I mean I have lost 20 pounds!!! Amazing. See how that works. It's all in the mind.

The Trenchcoat

I was pretty stoked when I found this trenchcoat 

at the thriftstore a while back.

Did you know that it has a special pocket on the inside for a gun?

My hubby is the one that explained that to me.

I was just thinking how my hubby
would love for me to show up at his workplace
with just the trenchcoat.
If I packed a gun along with it,
I do believe it would make me 50% more sexy.

I got a free item with my purchase.
Of course I picked a book.

Happy Valentine's Day y'all.
I dare one of you to go to your husband's workplace in just a trenchcoat.
Let me know how it turns out.

Sorry LG.
All you get is another dumb poem.

There are days.

There are days I want to strip down
and arrive at your workplace in
nothing but a trenchcoat,
but then I remember that you have co-workers.

There are days that I look at our children
and think how amazing we are
and how our posterity is the finest
and then I remember that they screw up,
but they are still the best kids ever.

There are days I can only feel love.
A love so consuming that I feel nothing else at all.
All I can think of is you with your arms around me
and then I remember how that actually feels
 to my skin
and it makes me love even deeper
which I never think is possible.

There are days I want to scream at you
because you frustrate me to no end.
Why don't you do everything the way
I do everything?
And then I remember that you do the taxes,
and the technical support, and the math homework
and I am grateful that we are different.

There are days that I wonder where you are.
Are you in a man cave or another universe?
You retreat often inside yourself
because you are introverted and overwhelmed.
And then I remember what a great listener you are
which really helps me because I am the talker.

There are days in the distant past
(and hopefully many more in the future)
that the world consisted of just you and me
and we laid around and did nothing
but be together
and I remember those times as
the absolute best.
Ever.

There are days that are swallowed up in the busies.
And you and I run around serving our kids
our co-workers, and neighbors and friends
and we don't have a second to think about ourselves
or each other.
And at the end of the day,
it's all we can do to sneak in a good night kiss
and mumble an "I love you"
before the night turns into dreams
and I remember that I missed you
all day long.

There are days.
Many many days.
And hopefully many many more.
Where you and I are in love.
Through the think and the thin.
The wrong and the right.
The counseling and therapies.
And lessons learned and mistakes made.
The tired and the awake.
The kids and the jobs.
The cats and the dogs.
The sick and the health.
The sane and the crazy.
The summers and falls.
And winters and springs.
The basketball practices and dance lessons.
And doctor appointments and lunch breaks.
The afternoon delights and faraway business trips.
The jokes and the tears.
The broken down cars and the puking kids on flights.
The campfires and lightning bugs.
The mountains and hills.
The lakes and the oceans.
The hotels and pools.
The woods and the downtowns.
The pounds lost and the delicious treats.
The Christmases and birthdays,
and Easters and Flag Days.
The scripture readings and temple trips.
The vacations and lack thereof.

But really all those days
make up for the most beautiful thing ever.
Me and you.
Sharing the days.

Because through it all
we can count on one thing
and that is that
There are the days.
And they are ours.

My Man w/o a Middle Name

I love LeGrand Gold. I wish he was given a middle name so that I could say that I love LeGrand _______ Gold because that would seem so much more official.

I do love you LeGrand LG Gold. I hope you enjoy your new given middle name since that is what I mostly call you by anyway. I am so proud to be your wife.

I wrote about my man while sitting at church a while back. This blog seems like as good of a place as any to copy my words for the posterity.

Please ignore if you are single or just mad at your hubby. I don't want to add to your pain. Just know that I have been single and mad at my hubby plenty. It's just that right now I can't imagine my life without the total complete insane love that I feel at this moment and so many others. I am one lucky lucky girl.

I look around the room. One dad takes a screaming toddler out while his wife sits looking relieved for a break and for her partner in parenting and I realize that you are him. 

Then I look straight across the way and I see another dad holding a newborn baby tenderly and I remember how much I love it when you hold a baby. You seem so much stronger in those tender moments. You are the protector for our little ones and the protector of me when I let you be.

I see the teenage boy excitedly taking notes and I think of you and doodling your L's and your G's in a boxy font so they array the way you like and I think of your special experience about the Savior of mankind and I thank God for it and how it has given you the courage to keep trying day after day. 

I look up at the Bishopric and remember the days when I was honored the privilege of seeing you lead with humility and devotion. 

I see the father with the teenage daughter and marvel that I did such an amazing job of picking a father for our very lucky daughters. You are a father that is fun, involved, kind and oh-so loving. 

Yes, LG, the 80% of you that is beautiful trumps the 20% that is still learning. 

I love you LG.

Book Review - The Magic Room

This is a paid review for the BlogHer BookClub.

The Magic Room: A Story about the Love We Wish for Our Daughters by Jeffrey Zaslow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Let me start this review by telling you that I got married 10 days after we decided to tie the knot. The day after deciding that we didn't want to wait any longer, I ran into a local wedding-dress shop and asked for something simple and cheap. I tried on one dress off the clearance rack and said "I'll take it." I shopped alone and I called my then non-official fiance (he never really proposed) and asked him if he would o.k. me using $200 from my paycheck to buy the blasted dress.

I felt it appropriate to start this review with my own wedding dress story as this book is a compilation of wedding dress stories. In The Magic Room Zaslow did a great job of telling the story of Becker's Bridal in Fowler, Michigan. In this teeny tiny barely thriving US town, there are a few constants, Beckers is perhaps the most impressive, only outlasted by the loyal long-standing families that reside there.

Even though I am not much of a romantic, I really enjoyed this book. I thought the author did a great job of interlacing the stories of various recent brides with the stories of the Beckers' royal family. For five generations the Beckers have faithfully served a very large portion of the bridal industry within the United States, many times selling dresses to mothers who years later bring in their own daughters to the same shop to purchase a dress of their own.

Unexpectedly, I learned a lot about the worldwide and US trends of marriage in this book. Zaslow has a knack for making statistics interesting, statistics like "25% of first-time brides have children. Another 7 to 8 percent are pregnant" and "forget the seven year itch, UofM researchers have found that more divorces now happen in the fourth year of marriage than any other."

Overall, this is a great book jam-packed with various intriguing biographies, families' dreams and losses, wedding magic, and like it says on the cover it's mostly "a story about the love we wish for our daughters." Indeed, I do hope to one day take one of my four daughters to this magic room or at least one just like it in my own region of residence.

View all my reviews

You can read more discussion about this recently published book at the BlogHer discussion boards.

Only Have One

I'm a codependent.
A full-fledge flaming codependent.
What does that mean?
It means that I am addicted to others at an unhealthy level.
It means that my core issue is
needing other people to fill my love tank.
It means that I unconsciously do things
(all the time) to feed my addiction.
Things like making too many comments in Sunday School.
Or blogging for attention.
I often cry myself to sleep at night because nobody cares.

And then there are the times (too many times)
that I try to require things of my husband,
things that I need to let go.
I don't do it to be wrong,
I just want to be loved
and I just want to love others
and so I hold on to that thing
far too long.

It's part of my addiction.
I try to control other people.
Unconsciously.
To gain importance.
To get love.
I can't have enough of love and importance.

Just saying it is part of the addiction
doesn't excuse it
because it is still very much my life
and I have to own it and change it
and sculpt me into what I want me to be.
It does give understanding
and the first step to fixing is admitting.

So, this post is my way of letting something go.
Something hard.
Even though I have every right to care about it.
and I am completely justified in my desires
because they are pure.
Yet, they are my desires for him,
and not his desires for him,
so I have to let it go.
Even if he is wrong
and doesn't see it.
Because I can't live his life.
I can only live my life.

Apparently JJ Heller understands
why I cried myself to sleep last night.
Next time I am going to sing this little song
instead of getting all frustrated with myself.
Because let's face it,
nobody gets it right every time.
Everyone needs room to screw up.

And I have decided that true love is
really only one thing.
Loving each other through your screw ups.
And boy do I love that man.
I'm the luckiest girl that he loves me back
even when I try to control him.

Beautiful Heartbreak

I've experienced heartbreak.
More than one.
I remember vividly a day years ago when my friend Lindsey
walked in my front door
to find me completely debilitated,
inconsolable, defeated, and heartbroken.
I was on my couch crying uncontrollobly
while my three small children
were running around neglected.
When I told Lindsey what was going on
she cried too.

Earlier in the day, I had tried to go to the library
to escape the pain,
my toddler was a monster,
surely responding to her mom's emotional state.
A mean old man confronted me
and told me I was a horrible mother.
Of course, that day I was a horrible mother.
It was all I could do not to shoot myself in the head.

He didn't see all the other days.
The good days.
The days before the crippling pain.
But the other mom did.
She was usually by my side for weekly storytime.
She rushed out to my car and prayed for me
while I bawled some more at the wheel of my car.

You may think I am just some dramafied attention mongrel,
but you will never know.
The heartbreak is one I have shared with very few.
But it was awful. It is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

I have worked for years to overcome that pain.
The only thing that finally gave me solace
was turning it over to the Lord.
Over and over again.
I have become
an expert at handing it over.
So much so
that I have become a new person.
A better person.
A stronger person.
A happier person.
A more peaceful person.
And a person who seeks the Lord.

I have experienced a beautiful heartbreak.
More than one actually.
I have experienced a repeated heartbreak
until I gave it to my Lord
so many times that it
became beautiful.
Just because I shared it.
And He turned it into beauty.

So, I loved this song this morning.
Even if Hilary Weeks
stole it from this life-changing blog post.



I hope we can all be Lindsey's
or praying moms,
but really sometimes we may
be moms who neglect our kids
or ornery old men who are mean and critical.
And hopefully other people will just remember
that we might be at the bottom,
or trying to hike our way out of the
beautiful heartbreak.

But even though I don't have a video made about me
or I am not an inspirational speaker
or a famous blogger,
I can testify
with all the honesty of my heart
that God will bring us through
our worst pain.
He may even take us through it on purpose
so that we can have a new and beautiful vista
when we reach the top
where we have learned to
stay right by His side.

P.S. Help DeAnne not to experience the heartbreak of coming so close to first place as HeroMom of the year and not winning. Please go vote now. If you get someone else to vote, besides you, leave me a message and tell me who you got to vote and I will add you into a real special post coming up very soon.

Peace and Quiet

Yesterday I was reading a blog

where the mom was keepin it real.

I like those kinds of blogs.

The real ones.

As opposed to the fake ones.

The blog's author (who I have no recollection - sorry)

shared her concerns

over not having adult conversations

and what it would be like to go back to the workforce

someday while her working-mom counterparts

build their careers as she changes diapers.

She talked about her fight with depression

over the years.

I personally think she needs to up her meds.

It's amazing what you can tell about a person from their blog.

She was real and she was also somewhat depressing.

I've been there.

I have those days.

But thankfully, because of some psychiatric drugs that work,

they are few and far between.

Not a day goes by that I am not grateful that my anti-depressants work.

Overall, I am a pretty content person.

I am such a happy mom.

I love my job as a stay-home mom.

I don't know if it will last forever,

but I love it for now.

And the longer I live,

the more I understand that

the now is all you should worry about.

I love my kids.

I love spending time with them.

I love teaching them.

I love nurturing them.

I love watching them grow.

I love building friendships with them.

I love discussing with them all kinds of things:

fashion, hygiene, religion, boys, music, cooking: 

the list is endless.

I love it when they make me laugh.

I love it when I make them laugh.

I also love getting away from them.

And having adult time.

Free time.

Me time.

Peace and quiet.

Any mom who doesn't admit this is a liar.

Or is generally psychotic and needs therapy.

I told this other blogging depressed mom that there

have been two practices that

have kept me sane

through the years.

#1. 

I try to have a lunch-date with a girlfriend once a week.

It can be the same friend or different ones. 

It can be with kids or without,

but for some reason that connection 

really helps me to be happy.

#2.

I have to have my weekly date with my cute hubby. 

It is a MUST.

I HAVE to have it.

Like the air that I breathe.

Even if it just means that hubby and I sneak away to the library for some peace and quiet.

Peace and quiet is sometimes better than you know what.
Especially the longer we've been married
and the more kids we accumulate.

Meet Me At Mid-Day My Dear.

Another poem for the love of my life.
Feel free to eavesdrop or ignore.


  Funny sidenote:
LG does not have a poetic bone in his body.
I was just translating this poem for him.
He says, "where our bodies can entwine, what does that mean?"
Then I showed him entwined fingers
while asking him if I needed to pull out a dictionary.

He says, "Our bodies entwine every night."
I said, I know.
Don't you get it?
All this whole poem is saying
is
Come home at lunch time and have sex with me.

Now, after barely browsing the poem the first time
all the sudden he is interested and even excited about it.
Men!
I work on this poem for an hour
and all he even hears is the last three words of my explanation of it.
sex with me.

He is now trying to fight me off the computer so he
can read the poem with an all new perspective.

Lyrics with Lessons

I recently really enjoyed this post by Cameron Smithson. Cameron used a great song to prove his point that if you want to be loved, you need to give love. You can love without being loved, but it sure does work better when it goes both ways.

Happy Mail

You've heard of snail mail,

E-mail,

junk mail,

and even birthday mail.

I want you to know about my new discovery.

Happy Mail.

Sharing Fortune

LeGrand took me for the yummy Chinese lunch buffet today.

He ordered me an additional dish
of my favorite walnut shrimp.
On top of the all you can eat buffet.
Just because it's my favorite
and it wasn't part of the buffet.
Now, that's true love.

When it came time to pick a fortune, 

I felt equally drawn to both.

And when we opened and read, I realized why.

They applied universally.