All things family-related. My husband and me, the children we made, the grandbebes that thrill us now. Our whole great big, loud, messy family. Love! *sigh…
That his name is Alva Ross, pronounced “Al’ vee Ross” and now that I have let the cat out of the bag, I must ask for your total cooperation in never mentioning it to him.
I was almost 2. He was 22. Des Moines, 1961
My dad was named for a dad he never knew, a very young man tragically killed in a car accident when my dad’s mom was 6 months pregnant (and 2 little girls at home). He was born into adversity.
We struggled to know each other, understand each other during the years of his workaholism, perfectionism…then mine {we end up being what we judge, people} and I regret the time lost, but I truly treasure him as a close friend and mentor now. I admire him for being 75 and still crying out to God to transform him, lead him, guide him. I plan to be like him in that, too. And mostly, I am loving the restoration of the years the enemy tries to steal as I am learning to be his daughter, his little girl, and he is learning to be my daddy.
On relationships: It s good to pursue the great gifts God intended because He is able to rewrite the whole story, even if it gets interrupted or broken by enemy tactics {or our own stupidity}. Dads and daughters (dads and sons, too) have much to share on the journey toward being whole and holy. Writing it off would have been such a loss.
I arrived for a visit so late my dad didn’t see me until breakfast, at which time his first words were, “Jeanie – why is your hair so dark?” Haha. Dads. Gotta love ’em.
I love my dad!
“God rewrote the text of my life
when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.” Psalm 18.24 The Message
Then there is Dave {the father of my children}
Happy Father’s Day to the man I entrusted with our 5 incredible children. You were born to be a daddy and even though you’ll be the first to say you didn’t do everything right, I can attest that you tried. And I can vouch for the times you re-adjusted your sails and changed your mind and your tactics and that you are still looking for ways to bless and father our bunch.
And I hope the kids all know those morning blessings are not just idle words, they are deeply meant, spoken with the authority of a God-appointed and anointed dad and he means business. Please don’t ever take that lightly. You should say everyday, “I receive my dad’s blessing spoken over my life today.” You cannot go wrong receiving what he still has to offer, even though you are grown. And if you need to know how much he really loves you, let’s talk!
And Happy Father’s Day to Tristan, DP, Rocky and Ryan!
You are the daddies God chose to raise our grand-est loves, the 9 for whom our hearts pound with furious love and devotion.
But they are yours, these nine grandbebes, your heritage, the fruit of your love and marriage. And we are in 100% agreement that God has given these children good, really good daddies.
You are all men to be admired and I wish all children could be fathered through this life as well. Thank-you for being the courageous men you are and for carefully and intentionally raising, disciplining, teaching, playing, understanding and covering with love these granchildren we know and the ones to come.
My grandchildren are blessed, so blessed.
Happy Father’s Day to all the men who have loved a child enough to keep trying even when it wasn’t easy.
There aren’t enough good examples out there. Hope you had one or got to be one. And remember~
It’s never too late to be the family God meant for you to be.
This is a picture of him at the age of 80. Just up on top of his 2-story home near the Lake of the Ozarks, checking something on the roof and acting goofy about it.
But that was just hamming for the camera. He was anything but goofy for real. Handsome, very affectionate and loving, constantly speaking sweet words and kind wishes and showing us how a man should love a woman (I’ve written about him and my grandma HERE, with a short video about their “Epic Love”).He was strong, he was authoritative, and I saw even my dad “behave” around his father-in-law.
He was always dressed (with a few buttons left undone) and shirt tucked in, he always had a great tan from being outdoors all the time and his hair remained jet black almost until he died at 88 or 89. He was a handsome, wonderful man and incredible dad to my mamala. And the only person in the whole wide world who called me Debbie-Jean.
I think of him often and still hold him as one of the greatest fathers (and grandfathers) of all time.
“Spring, being a tough act to follow, God created June.” ~Al Bernstein
Happiness in the house::Just some yard trimmings: Peonies, Scented Geraniums, and Russian Sage. Even the fading blossoms are magical in June…
Rascal Flatts even sang about June: Words I Couldn’t Say
“In a book in a box in the closet / In a line in a song I once heard / In a moment on a front porch late one June / In a breath inside a whisper beneath the moon…”
June makes me romantic and hopeful. June is for falling in love. The Blue Hour holds tight to the June sky for all it’s worth, the sun regretting the end of such a perfect day. Dogs bark in the distance, neighbors scuffle by, safe under soft-blue June skies. Flowers tease then bloom in wild profusion, scented and heady, and oh-so-glorious. Every June I feel a little intoxicated by the power of the garden renewed, the soil, the sun, the heat, the long days that twinkle into sweet nights where you drive with the windows down and sing the love songs of youth. I do love me some June.
And how about my newest garden-girl?
She loves grass and I love her!
That Summer
by Sam Hogin, Phil Barnhart, Sunny Russ (performed by Lisa Brokop)
Love was alive on the telephone line
Honeysuckle hangin’ in the hot sunshine
Dust piled up on my daddy’s combine
That boy, that girl, that summer
Thirsty for somethin’, they didn’t know what
Tried to control it but they couldn’t stop
She was his rose, and he was her rock
That moon, that kiss, that summer
June and July and an August to remember
Ninety miles an hour straight into September
Memory still warms me in the dead of winter
Of love so true that summer
Two kids from Kansas on a yellow brick road
Watchin’ the world through a magic window
There wasn’t anyplace they couldn’t go
That hope, that dream, that summer
June and July and an August to remember
Ninety miles an hour straight into September
Memory still warms me in the dead of winter
Of love so true that summer
June and July and an August to remember
Ninety miles an hour straight into September
Memory still warms me in the dead of winter
Of love so true that summer, that summer
Love was alive on the telephone line, that summer
Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time by Rob Sheffield
I am enthused about a book right now.
The Back Cover:
Mix tapes: Stick one into a deck and you’re transported to another time in your life. For Rob Sheffield, author of Turn Around Bright Eyes that time was one of miraculous love and unbearable grief. A time that spanned seven years, it started when he met the girl of his dreams, and ended when he watched her die in his arms.
Using the listings of fifteen of his favorite mix tapes, Rob shows that the power of music to build a bridge between people is stronger than death. You’ll read these words, perhaps surprisingly, with joy in your heart and a song in your head—the one that comes to mind when you think of the love of your life.
You can’t get the book at the library right now. Because some one else has it. ;)
He is a lots-of-fun-words {funnier observations} kind of writer, so highly quotable. I melted to the floor when I saw that he used “epiphanic” twice (so far, I am not done reading yet) because no one I know {except me, see herein 2010 and here in 2008} uses that word (is it a word? WordPress does not think so…) and I was SO happy. I mean – I am a blogging-Nonna, a plain ol’ person. He is a BEST-SELLING AUTHOR! And we used the same word. Yeah-I am getting carried away.
But suffice it to say I love his words and the way he stacks them and strings them and draws me right into sound of the life he describes. And his words about music and song, emotion and relationship, and just life, really – ohmygoodness! LOVE.
Some of the mixes he shares, I am like, “Oh yes – best music ever.” Others, I have no idea and nor would I, as, whilst he was living and listening and loving it, I was this very serious pastor’s wife with very small children’s whose ears would had to have been covered to listen to it. A lot of 90s rock, alternative, f-word stuff. But, ya know. Still loving the story!
One Amazon reviewer of this book spoke of people who had never made a mix tape for some one, people for whom music is just background noise. He referenced them as people having no soul. I am inclined to agree.
So, if you love songs, if there is a tune for every person, place or thing in your life, nearby or loosely associated, a melodic memory groove in any way, shape or form and if you have indeed made or been the recipient of a mix tape: READ Rob Sheffield’s book!!!
Moo.com
I wish I could have these very business cards. They are at Moo.com and are a variety of cassette images on one side, and the back is fashioned to look just like the enclosure card! They call them, “I made you a mix tape.” LOVE!
I wish I were a singer or managing singers or some wildly important industry-type or something fabulous like that so having these would totally make sense! I. Love. Them!
~~~~~~~~~
Answer: Because a song stays with you, cutting a path to remembrance deep in your heart and soul in a way you will never forget.
[Hum Jeopardy song here…]
Question: Why did God communicate His very important message to the children of Israel through Moses and Aaron by song?
Deuteronomy 32 // Moses…spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people. When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, he said to them, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day…They are not just idle words for you—they are your life.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Would you even be surprised to know…
That I have cassette-tape gift wrap on hand for special occasions?
That I still make mix tapes all the time via Youtube and Spotify??? It is so much easier now to go to YouTube and make a playlist of Patridge Family songs {don’t judge me} or even a Motown mix, or Billie Holiday. As kids, making a mix tape meant listening to the radio and waiting until you heard the song you loved coming on, then pushing record as fast as possible. It also meant that if your mom came in and said to clean your room while you were recording – you’d forever hear that, too.
That1974 is one of my all-time favorite years for music (because I was in love with love and love runs as a certain theme through the top 100 that year, as it does most years) and coincidentally is the same year I got my first cassetterecorder? Oh. blessed cassettes, how I loved thee. Before that, I was using a miniature reel-to-reel. Yes, they had those in the olden days.
That I have an entire folder in my laptop pictures file devoted to images of old cassettes and that I have 32 drafts of songs I plan to write about on this very blog and have used said images for those posts?
Probably not a bit surprised, are you? Reading this Rob Sheffield book has just confirmed to me that my zealous love of song and ability to recall every detail of the circumstance during which the song became important to my very existence is, well, maybe not normal, but certainly…acceptable.
And now, of course, I just put together a little mixed tape for you. I call it 1974, which was a very good year!
I am sure I will add to it, but for now, it has 53 songs for a nice 3 hour and 9 minute listening experience.
What? You don’t have Spotify yet? RUN, don’t walk – go get it. It’s like having all of iTunes available to you – for FREE!
#tbt Throw back Thursday
Me (and my little brother, Tim) in 1974, of course.
Worship Leading-also a mix tape
And while we’re on the topic – it occurs to me that putting together a worship set for a Sunday morning service is sort of putting together a mix tape experience, right? A little Matt Redman, a little Chris Tomlin, some Hillsong and a good dose of Jesus Culture. Bam!
And what the heck – family is a mix-tape, too, right?
If, as Wikipedia describes it, a mix tape is a name given to a compilation of songs recorded onto any audio format, then, I count my family. They are my song of life and they are most certainly an audio-audible, boisterously loud-with-the-sounds-of-living lovely recording.
Yes, if love is a mix tape, then family is a mix tape, too and the titles and artists are as follows: my Dave;Tara and Dp, Hunter and Malakai; Stephanie and Tris, Gavin, Guini and Gemma May; Tredessa and Ryan and baby Evangeline; Rocky and Jovan, Averi, Amelie Belle and baby Bailey; Stormie; my parents, my siblings, my nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles and grandparents and great-nieces and great-nephews and all the people I came from and all those who are still to be – we are a pretty amazing mix, I think. :)
It’s Thursday. I love Thursdays.
I will be exactly where this picture was taken, oh yes!
We have made it people – the pool is up for the season and another weekend is in sight! I shall be in Estes Park for three days with some of the most fantastically beautiful women on the planet (5 friends, 1 niece, 2 great-nieces and a sister-in-law). I hope I soak in a little bit of each them and come home a more wonderful person than ever. It could happen. :)
And very good advice. You are enough. Not just because I say so – but because God made you so uniquely, wonderfully, creatively and awesomely in His very image. That HAS to be good. So, kick insecurity to the curb!
Gavin turned 11. He also just got his 6th grade schedule, a different teacher for each subject – a middle-schooler. He has this big, authentic smile, a shock of the most amazing red hair, a sprinkling of freckles and an emerging sense of humor. He erupts into giggles over things I didn’t know he would get and it doubles my joy, triples my fun, quadruples my absolute love for him, this all-American boy.
He was my first grandbebe, my first oh-good-grief-I-am-undone feeling. I never thought I’d be one of “those” grandmothers – effusing and gushing, feverishly, wild-eyed in-love with some small child not even my own.
I mean – I loved my little munchkins, the five children I birthed. I thought they were just unusually talented and amazing and they brought Dave and I so much joy. Then they grew up and they became the people I most admire in this world. But I wasn’t really mentally expecting grandparenting to be that big of a deal.
But then Gavin arrived and – GEEZ-LOUISE!!! He was breathtaking. He was astonishingly beautiful (well, he has beautiful parents, so…), a magnificent tiny being, so impressively smart from the start and his smiles thrilling beyond belief. He .changed. everything . with his bright eyes and full-of-wonder curiosity. He really did. He altered my identity by adding this whole new generational dimension and infused our familia with new wonder and excitement.
The Harry Potter I made for him for his 11th birthday
Gavin-L-K // YOU are amazing!
So, of course, I MUST bless your life and thank God for you. I must tell you that I speak words of blessing over you and I speak kindness and good wishes over your life because I love you deeply and want it to go well with you. I want you blessed in the city and in the country and I want all you put your hands to and all the things you attempt to do and to be to prosper and be over-the-top successful.
I pray for you to be strong, not just physically, but in your heart and mind and to be a young man of courage and conviction – to stand up for holy things and protect people around you who can’t protect themselves. I pray you will right wrongs and be a generous giver to people in need.
So I share this scripture with you on the occasion of your 11th birthday and I like it because it was originally delivered to a regular man named Gideon who was just working hard threshing some wheat in a winepress. I am not sure what that means exactly, but I know God’s people were in trouble and they needed a leader, a Judge – some one to help them battle out of the oppression they were living in, some one to answer their cries for help. And here was Gideon just doing what was right, day in and day out. And because Gideon was faithful when no one was watching (except God), He chose Gideon to lead the armies, to save His people.
I can see you as a Gideon…And so the angel appeared with God’s message to Gideon, and I speak it to you, over you,
“The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.” Judges 6.13
Really, Gavin, you can do anything. You will be amazing in your life. The sky is the limit, my Gav – if love is the fuel that powers your plane, then between God and your parents and your Gramps and me, your plane will fly to infinity and beyond and never come down.
He loves to garden and eat tomatoes as much as me. The kid is a genius, I tell you!
I cannot remember life before you-
In all the world, no matter what happens, my heart for you will always and ever be partially, at least, pinned to your sleeve, hanging on for dear life – never letting you go. I am so pleased with the person you are, so proud of the young man you are becoming, so excited to know the blessing of God on you because you are such a parent-honoring kid! I just think you’re pretty cool.
Hoping all your wishes come true on your 11th birthday and the whole year through! I love YOU! {nonna}
NOTE: All photos by his mom, whose beautiful work can be seen at MayDae.com
Her mommy is a fantastic photographer and I fall in love with the photos she gets of my grandbebes (her children and nieces and nephews) :)
Our lively, darling grandbebe #4, Gemma May just turned 7 a few days back. She is silly and giggly and has this amazing cascade of red hair that just knocks you out. She dances, she acts, she smiles with her eyes, and she wears glasses now.
I can wrap my arms around her two or three times, wisp of a thing she is. But what I love most is the delightful, insightful, thoughtful conversation. The dancing light behind her eyes when we talk, behind those super-cool specs, sets a soft breeze in motion. Gemma May is more sugar than spice, she is sweetness and demure. She’s the girl next door and a little exotic, too.
I love this little girl like there is no tomorrow!
This is the cake I did for Gemma. A ballerina. In Gemma’s very proportions, give or take a centimeter! :)
So, Gemma-Roo/Gemma-Loo, let me just tell YOU:
I bless the day you were born, the beautiful-beautiful May day you came along with that perfect round, soft-as-silk head and the sweetness of that button nose and those little pink lips from which so many laughs have escaped since. I bless the days of your life, all of them, as you grew and downy-soft red hair started curling every which direction and you could barely talk, but you could sing songs from Annie and do the dances with gusto!
I bless the days of pre-school and coloring and cheering every time you did something wonderful, which was every 8.4 seconds and pattering around in your galoshes with an umbrella in the rain and singing, oh-so-much singing.
I bless your life and I bless your heart and I bless your dreams and your wishes and your gifts and talents and I bless your place in this world. You know why? Because I love you and I can. I am your Nonna and I get to speak a blessing over you that they actually hear in the halls of heaven!
So I am agreeing with God’s plan for you, with His total delight in your life – and all the things He planned for you when He created you for us. Everything God wants for you and all the things Jesus is saying about you when He intercedes for you, I am shaking my head YES-yes-yes! And may the angels attend to you, and keep you safe!
And Gemma? Even though I never-ever-ever want your heart to be broken in any way for any reason, I do pray your heart will always be flesh and blood and that you will feel the intensity of living with all the sensitivity you now possess and that in spite of anything life throws at you, you’ll keep feeling and risking love and refuse to have a heart of stone.
For you are beautiful and your thoughts and feelings are precious beyond words. And oh, my sweet, your Nonna loves you. You are, as your name indicates, a jewel, a rare treasure.
And now, here is a promise for you, from the God of good promises:
“On that day the Lord their God will rescue his people,
just as a shepherd rescues his sheep.
They will sparkle in his land
like jewels in a crown.” Zechariah 9.16 NLT
Of course, the grand-girls are always actually interpreting songs from Frozen these days, but I didn’t leave that music in because YouTube would poo-poo it. Imagine the Frozen soundtrack, though.
I love celebrating you and your birth~day, week, month. Happiness and love, darling Gemma!
Oh, Stephanie, Happy Birthday…I am thinking of the day you came and all the days you have changed our lives…
I was browsing through your baby book and 1st year calendar, neither of which I kept well at all, I am sad to say. But I saw enough to stir intoxicating memories of really treasured times in the early 80s with a little girl who won my heart as I reached through the small opening in your “incubator” and you wrapped your tiny fingers around my pinky.
Everything about your impending birth, from the life-and-church filled, busy days leading up to your almost 6-week early arrival to the months that followed were just amazing light-filled, Technicolor, fun, happy, frazzled and most cherished days.
You were born to one big sister and some young, energetic, wildly-in-love parents who were over the moon about every single part of the pregnancy and expectancy of you. Our Thursday night birth classes were highly romantic date nights to us. We’d drive home in a buzz, planning and dreaming, the radio playing Chicago or Air Supply!
It’s odd to think that when you were born, boy or girl? was still a surprise! That, coupled with your early arrival {which was a real surprise}, left us pretty unprepared for what was happening. We thought maybe we’d have a boy and name you after your dad, or maybe name you Christopher Michael, or Tristan (yes, “Tristan” was a name on the short list).
So when the administrator came to ask your name, we were a bit befuddled. We hadn’t much time to choose and so your name came, heaven-sent, I think now.
So it was Stephanie (“crowned one,” “victorious crown,” “crowned in victory”). Stephanie May (for the merry-merry month in which you so delightfully arrived). And from that moment, we were a household of children, multiples of babies and little girls and dolls and stuffed animals and chatter {oh, the chatter} and heart-warming conversations. You started a party, you and your sister, that was so much fun we could barely call a halt.
But you were so tiny, your lungs undeveloped…
And when I was too stupid to even understand how very grave the situation surrounding your entry was, when I should have insisted on going to Indianapolis in the life-ambulance with you back in the days before they knew what damage might be caused by ripping a baby from her mommy minutes after birth and saying, “Stay put,” I am so glad God gave you to me and kept you safe.
I am so grateful there was no distance ever in my heart from my tiny, tiny girl-baby, with me at Howard Community in Kokomo, you at James Whitcomb Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis. I promise you, Stephie, I got there as fast as I could. My heart was beating with yours, my love never once let you go. There was much we didn’t know back then, but I know God went with you and He held you until I could.
It was years before I realized, after reading preemie studies, that as much as my empty arms were missing you in those first hours and days, as much as my longing was breaking my heart, you had to be wondering where I’d gone, too – the sound of my heart and my blood pulsing nearby… I am so glad they understand these things better now.
But you were always passionately burned into my heart and soul. I fought my first bloody battle with the enemy for you. For this child I prayed… I hope your tiny little center-of-being somehow knew it was so.
It was all a whirlwind after that. God healed your lungs – poof – breath of life into them. You thrived, you developed, you healed so quickly it surprised the medical teams. But no wonder there: you were anticipated, received, welcomed, adored, sung to, kissed, snuggled and loved, all 4 pounds, 8 ounces of the baby we brought home just 12 days after being told it would be “months.” Like a movie scene going fast forward on the DVR, I remember a wisp of a baby girl in a yellow carrier/car seat (so dangerous by todays standards I can’t even find a picture of one on Google). I can see a very small baby girl whose eyes would search the room, taking in details, cheeks full and kissable. A little night owl she was, from her earliest days. Like her daddy.
Mixed up days and nights, tiny appetite, staying tiny, wearing doll dresses…
The baby girl “catches” up to growth statistics at one and becomes a toddler in a teal-blue Martha Miniature dress, and at once her humor is notable, her conversations with Sunday School teachers get replayed for the awwwww-factor.
She giggles and sings. Oh my goodness, the singing! She falls asleep with a song and wakes up in melody…
Her hair, like silk, grows thick and shiny, her rosy cheeks and pink lips the stuff Hollywood pays big money to obtain. Laughter and utter hilarity reign nightly in the yellow room of three sisters on Armstrong Street. She chases and teases her big sister. Soon she is leading younger siblings about, teaching them everything she knows (which is a lot).
And there is a gentleness behind her eyes, a knowing, something deep taking place in the middle of a big, noisy familia.
She goes to school and becomes a thoughtful friend, a bright student, a girl who cares for issues and the earth and animals and other’s hearts and feelings. People comment, “Stephanie is special,” I swell inside. “Stephanie is a rainbow, a multi-faceted, colorful girl.” “Oh, look at her,” I often heard when sharing photographs, “she is just beautiful.”
Years speed by and she is smack-dab in the middle of silliness and mayhem, but also close and soft-hearted {mystically sweet}, a hand-holder.
Her hair gets curly at puberty, just like her mommie’s did and her humor becomes sharper, her wit more keenly developed. And while traditional, public school methods (not to mention home school) could not capture her brightest shine or contain her unique genius, it also could not dull the quantum creativity, the kaleidoscope of sparkling treasure and color emanating from her brilliant, astute and observant mind.
Girl becomes beauty becomes alluring becomes woman becomes Tristan’s fascinating wife and then a mommy herself.
And even still, Stephanie {my second-born and much-beloved daughter}, so accomplished and courageous, so influential and efficacious, stands at the youthful brink, just hitting her stride, just beginning to be all and do all she will, all for which she was created and healed to be and do.
Because the breath of life is so wholly, fully strong in her, the healing so complete – she will create Gardens of Edens, and place brilliant stars in night skies and build cities of ideas with long-awaited answers to mysteries. She will and she has and she is, already.
Oh my goodness, Stephanie. You are an amazing spring of crystal clarity and rich depth mixed with unstoppable determination. I sensed from the time you were very small that you thought deeply and felt keenly and understood beyond your years. You’re surely one of the smartest, most intelligent people I have ever met.
And so I bless you, I bless your life…
I recognize and publicly receive the full beauty of God’s work in you, in your heart and life and teaching and leading and creating and informing and helping people. You were formed perfectly with great purpose and I just concur with the God of the Universe that what He has seen and planned and prepared for you is good and far-reaching. I recognize His iconoclastic call on you (to change the landscape for the better), His stamp of extreme approval and His delight in you and I thank Him for trusting me to be your mommy, then your mom, then a woman who admires and loves you deeply.
Like anyone else who is ever near you for even the shortest time, I have learned so much from you, received your grace and forgiveness so many times and been the joyful recipient of your humor and creativity, your thoughtful gifts {you’ve been especially gifted to give good gifts} and wealth of insight and knowledge on the world in general. I am so grateful to get to be near these things.
And so I bless you back and pray that all you have given comes back to you by the armfuls. I pray that the result of you helping hundreds, if not thousands of people toward renewed health returns to you in supernatural vitality and God-given strength (May the same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead quicken and strengthen your mortal body, just as it did when you were born). I pray increased love and joy in your heart, total peace and all the wisdom you need, when you need it. I pray you’ll prosper and find success in every area you put your hand to and continued favor from the God who sees.
Of all the things I ever gotten to be part of, of all the days God planned for me, of all the people in the universe to get to know, getting to be your mommy and know you now are the best things I can think of, more than I ever would have hoped or dreamed.
Where on earth does the time go? It’s the middle of May!
5 minutes ago, it was May Day, and suddenly the month is halfway gone, school is about to be let out, graduation parties are happening in earnest and spring seems awfully late this year (a little snowstorm on Sunday and Monday???).
What do 30 kale seedlings, 14 tomato plants, a couple dozen pepper plants, zinnias, daisies, cauliflower and cabbage, 4 cubic feet of vermiculite, 9 cubic feet of peat moss and a bunch of bags of compost have in common?
They are not in my garden, as they SHOULD be on Mother’s Day weekend because they are waiting for some sunny warm days to happen, you know, inarow! Do I seem bitter about the spring snow? Because I obviously am.
Where in the world are DP and Tara?
Paris. In France. Or maybe London, in England today? Not sure which. But they are somewhere 8 hours ahead of us.
I am watching Kai while they are gone. He is a little bruiser and quite independent. He is 16 months of power and speed. But when he runs to me with his little arms up, I scoop him close as fast as I can, before the moment passes.
Yesterday, I was cuddling him for his nap and I swear a blanket of deja vu swept over me and I felt like I was in my 20s again – a young, energetic mommy. It was a heady moment, so sweet. And Dave and I still have our co-parenting rhythm, I have found – the gentle give and take and ins and outs of baby-chores: diapering, bathing, feeding, diapering again, playing cars on the floor. We were once top experts in our field, with so many babies in the 1980s!
But at about 1 am I woke up with aching back, neck and shoulders and realized, uh no. I’m not in my 20s anymore. I am a Nonna in my 50s. Ha! But Malakai’s darling squeals and trails of cheese crackers and Hot Wheels do take me back. Memories…
How is it possible to just so deeply love this many people I have known for 11 years or less?
It’s like – I couldn’t have imagined them and then, *poof,* here they are and I cannot fathom anything without them. I could ramble on about them all, I actually could. But suffice to say, Steph gave me these shots for Mother’s Day. And I just want to give them all a *kiss-kiss* from Nonna. Tonight is Gavin’s last band concert of the year. It’s scheduled to be outside. Hope the rain holds back. He’ll be 11 soon, and officially a middle-schooler.
Here is the low down, left to right (above): Hunter (9 1/2); he is holding Eva (5 months tomorrow), she lives to smile with her whole heart and face; Then there is Averi (6); Gunivere (8 1/2) is holding Bailey (who is 1 and wants to run); Gemma May (7 next week) got glasses recently; Amelie Belle (4); Malakai (16 months) making a getaway; and finally the one who started it all, Gavin (turning 11 in June).
The lovely and fair Guinivere, as soft and sweet, thoughtful and gentle as she looks (but also sharp and wry, with a sense of humor that comes out of nowhere) just became an official business woman. She has been sewing decorator pillows (by machine, then stuffing, then finishing by hand) for $3 each to raise money for a camping trip at the zoo.
She worked really hard and sold lots more than she even needed to reach her goal and her mommy said she felt the pressure of deadline order filling. But she did it. And she did it well. I am so proud of her.
Which is worse: failing at something, or not even trying?
I think almost everyone would say that not trying would be so much worse than trying something and then failing at it. But maybe the question is really this, Which is worse: failing at something you had the courage to try, or feeling ashamed by others’ reactions when you fail at something?
Forget Hunger Games, the shame game is the most deadly in the world. Though we understand that failure is just experience in the making, a stepping stone to something really great, the heaviness of having shame heaped on when it happens keeps us from trying the things we were born to try. Shame says:
You did it wrong. You shouldn’t have tried.
You have now ruined it for everyone else in the universe.
I hope you’ve learned your lesson.
Shame is a liar.
Don’t you just wish we would call its’ bluff more often? I want to master the art of “the shrug,” the oh-well, I tried. I did my best. I love people who can take flying leaps, outrageously stumble, then tumble, skid on their knees into brick walls, get up, hobble away with a smile and say, “Ok – next time, I think I will..” Yes! Those kind of people amaze me.
Keep trying!
BTW-what the heck with the vermiculite?
I used to be able to buy course grade vermiculite for about $3 per cubic foot at a garden center in Westminster. They closed and I need a new supplier. Now I am paying more than $10 per cubic foot.
As I understand it, vermiculite is made from mica and other minerals being heated to the point of “explosion,” puffing up like popcorn! It’s like tiny, rock-looking, little sponges that soak up moisture and keep it in the soil near the plants’ roots where it is needed. It also keeps the soil from getting hard and compacted.
I am creating more tomato space in the garden this year (of. course!) and I just had to pay more than $50 for 5 cubic feet of this stuff. I am willing to raid a vermiculite stash in the night, trash bags in hand, if anyone knows where I might find such a place?
#tbt Throw-back Thursday time again!
Since I am having memories of when our kids were little so strongly this week, well, I’ll share from that era. You know I always tells you the 1980s were a blur, as we added to the family in rapid-fire succession. Oh, they were sweet days. Big hair. Silly children. Songs, church, gerbils, bikes, face paint, kids clubs, walking to school and oh, so many hugs and kisses and love among us!
At the beginning of the movie, “While You Were Sleeping,” the Sandra Bullock character is recalling her childhood and they were depicting scenes from her hazy, muted memories and she says something like, “I just don’t remember it being so…orange.” haha. I feel somewhat the same!
Baby Dessa napping with her handsome daddy. Summer 1983.
Does it go without saying that I, like my mother before, would not be caught without lots of sailor-inspired outfits for my children. We even brought one to their little cousin, Jordan one year!
Stormie’s first birthday.
Getting Stephie ready for her dedication at church, summer 1982.
Tara’s 2nd birthday.
Rocky’s dedication day. Fall 1984.
One of those church directory photos. They are always the worst! But still, October or November 1982. My little family in Kokomo.
I was the picture of a pastor’s wife, I think. Pantyhose and dresses at almost all times! Fall 1987, when the kiddos were 1 1/2 – 8 years old.
Well, this was quite the mish-mash of memories and thoughts and garden frustrations. But that is what Thought-Collage Thursdays are all about.
Please let me know if you have the answers to the riddles of life that swirl in my head, and plague my existence…especially if your know where I can get that vermiculite! :)
I remember your belted, fit and flare house dresses while you mopped and ironed. I recall your pin curls and pony-tails and flats and when you first tried pantyhose, the revolutionary invention that saved you from a life of daily girdling.
Last November. My mom was telling me how perfect that leaf was.
I recall huge family Sunday dinners and the one piece of chocolate cake always missing from the corner – the way you rewarded yourself for having to get up and cook at 5 am on Sundays, go to Sunday School, then church, then drive lots of people home, then come home and feed us, then get us all back to church for the YPE and Junior choir before Sunday night service. You deserved every crumb of that chocolate cake corner, mamala.
You followed pops from church to church and city to city and made a potato dish at every single meal until Louisiana when you finally learned the right way to make rice, too.
You combed our my tangles an helped me finish cleaning my room because I always thought it meant a total reorganization and in-depth re-do and in my emotional collapse when the job took forever, you would start showing me how close I was to done – and I’d just sit there smiling, while you finished it. You saved me.
Mom was learning the art of a selfie.
You played the piano and taught me all the important songs every child should know like, “Well, it’s a highway to heaven,” and “Jesus on the mainline-tell Him what you want.”
And when I started choosing my own music, you so lovingly learned each one by ear and playing it in my invariably low-voiced key and you’d add harmony and oh, I miss singing with you, mommiekins!
You’re such a nice person – everyone wanted you for a mom. So many people all over the nation and probably in the nations where you have traveled and loved on people, too, love the Norma! But you really are my mom. And after losing several babies before me and having the doctors say you may never be able to carry to term (boy, were they wrong!), I love knowing how very much you looked forward to my arrival and how very glad you were to have me, 23 hand-sewn dresses as proof awaiting me…and 8 boys outfits, just in case.
Not long before Grandpa died, you were there, loving him, brightening his final days with fun and songs
The one life’s regret you have shared with me, in a life you have loved and embraced with gusto, is your sadness at not understanding your own mom and not being there for her, not “having time.” And I really think you were a wonderful daughter and she thought so, too. But it has helped me reflect a little more on what matters and hanging out with you is a big deal to me. You have shown honor to your mom, your stepmom and your dad, all gone now, and I am set on repaying you for it, so grateful for the chance.
Just a couple of years later, not long before she died, you were there, singing Grandma’s favorite songs to her. She was your stepmom, and you loved her for “stepping in” with so much love.
So many ways I love you and miss you, but my most recent memories are becoming my favorites. Because I laugh with you more than anyone else. You are hilarious and strong, and innocent and guileless, and silly and ornery and just plain lovely. You are the lasso queen and kick dad and me in the butt in corn-hole. You are pretty cool, it turns out. Happy Mother’s Day to the BEST there ever was! Still is!
And to the 4 lovelies who just amaze me
I have learned from each of you what grace under pressure looks like, what being great wives looks like. I see you each as such able, creative, successful business women and good-hearted ministers of grace. You please God, you wow others, you serve and love your families. And oh-my-goodness, you are just drop-dead-gorgeous, inside and out!
That is why, I have no doubt, God entrusted the 9 grandbebes to you, because He knew he could count on you to be who He called you to be and do what he called you to do in their lives. No small order. But you all four, Tara, Stephie, Dessa and Jovan – you are all doing it with such beauty, energy, zealousness and panache! I am so proud of all of you, so inspired my your lives. REALLY!
“you’re my first born child, and the person who first showed me the miracle of this love a mother has for her child. ” ~Elizabeth Noble, Things I Want My Daughters to Know
EldeenAnnette.com
I know where I was at this exact minute, on this day in history in 1979. I know how I spent the day. I remember everything leading up to its’ culmination at 7:16 pm from my waking thought at exactly 5:55 am, just before the alarm would go off.
What was that? Am I in labor? Eyes widen, fully awake!
Thirty-five years ago at this exact time, I was being born.Me – this mother, now grandmother part of me was laboring to be, to become. I was shedding the skin of childhood and girlishness and self-focus and passing through the purifying pain of labor and delivery. I was walking a pathway to an unknown and unknowable destination. I was giddy and excited, scared and alone. I trembled with each deep, slow breath.
A girl woke up alone at 5:55 am, pregnant, filled with life {potential}. At 7:16 pm, she was born – a mommy, a full-grown woman. They placed this perfectly round-shaped, blond-fuzzy-headed baby girl into her arms, the fruit of her labors, a tiny baby girl was born {potential}, too. Now they were two.
“when — naked, soaked in sweat and blood, and a heart thumping from a marathon — you are squeezing onto your bosom ‘the whole universe wrapped in harmony with your soul’ and realize that this is the tiny body of your own baby. Mytyr, Mana, Mater, Muter, Madre, Mother, Mamma, you are the circle of life; heaven and earth pass through you.” (Eleftheria Mantzouka)
Yes. Today is Tara’s birthday.
Thirty-five years she has walked this earth, which is hard to believe when you look at her, overwhelmingly stunning, her spontaneous smiles so youthful, so nineteen! It’s the celebration of Tara, it’s her birthday! Her arrival changed everything! The entire course of my existence was altered right there on the spot. This is a bit of her story, her glorious entry, as I recall it.
When I’d arrived at the hospital, just 30 minutes before she was born, I was {quite unknowingly} in deep, transitional labor, my entire focus on cooperating, breathing, bringing my baby forth. I asked the ER attendant to wait before wheeling me upstairs.
“Oh honey. You’re never gonna make it, ” the sassy girl said. “You’re going to be in labor for at least 20 hours and if you’re acting like this now, you’re never going to make it.”
I had never wanted to hit some one so badly in my life (transition!), but I was on a mission to birth a baby. I closed my eyes to shut her pointless babble out and breathed, {inhale} in through my nose, slowly, to maintain some control, {exhale} out through my trembling lips.
She rolled me onto the elevator and her negativity became a drone, the sound of the “adults” on Peanuts cartoon specials, like unseen teachers talking to Charlie Brown, “Wah-wah-wah-WAH-wah-wahhh.”
Could she not see that I was bringing forth perfection – and soon?
In their defense, apparently hospitals work with first-time moms who freak a little too soon in the game, but I’d been laboring, working hard for this since 5:55 am.
I was wheeled into the laboring room at about 6:50-something, given one of those magnificent gowns to don and left to my devices. I swayed, I breathed, I called this baby (boy? girl – my secret dream?) forth. I braced myself for 20 hours of this hard work, my reasonable service.
When nurses returned a few minutes later, they were surprised to find that my royal child, this gift of God, was ‘crowning.”
MayDae.com
Tara was born.
“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.”
She was born at 7:16 pm, just about a half hour after we’d pulled up to the hospital doors and no one there really had anything to do with it. It was me, my baby and the God of the Universe. The Creator – He was there, having just applied the finishing touches on a life so uniquely formed and perfect, His own (full and complete) delight splashed all over her, perfuming the air with His very Presence, His absolute love. I inhaled the scent of the heavenlies from the top of her tiny head.
Alone with my baby a little later in a dimly lit room, this exquisite girl-child and me, she slowly opened and closed fawn-shaped eyes. The holiness of the moment, of the realization of the redemptive work of God and His total love lie swaddled securely in my arms, as irrefutable proof of Him. He was here – He was with me, for me. Proof!
Tara was a gift to me from God Himself. To me.
I’d awoken a girl, filled with questions and wonder and trepidations. I was going to sleep, having been ushered through the courtyards of the Lord, arms and heart filled, into motherhood. A daughter!
I am ashamed to admit I still sometimes struggle to truly, really, wholly trust God. That is terrible. Especially because He has actually completely shown His trust in me – 5 times!
Do I even need to tell you that a gift from God is good? That He gives beauty for ashes, a garment of praise instead of a spirit if despair? Do I need to remind you? And He sent the healing oil of joy for mourning. Our good friend once called Tara, “Liquid joy.” And it’s true, because oil is poured out and nothing it touches is ever the same.
The enemy tried to take her from me once {from God’s great plan for her life}, but the full-force of heaven stood with a mom, born that day, May 9, 1979, who said, “Give. my daughter. back!” And what could hell do but whimper sheepishly away?
MayDae.com
So, Happy Birthday, Tara, and happy {joyful} day you made me a mom
You have grown up to become a compassionate, loving woman. People are drawn to your smile, your sincerity, and your gentleness powered by strength. You are a star in the darkest of nights and a voice for your generation. You’re a wonderful mommy, the fun-nest kind and such a devoted wife. Your house, all interesting and textural and colorful and serene absolutely looks like you. The lyrics are in you, the melody pours forth sweetly, and you, my most darling and beloved first-born, are such treasure on the earth, let alone to me.
And baby girl, I can tell you this about God’s gift of you to me, for these words could not be truer in any situation,
“Now to Him Who, by the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]—To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen (so be it).” Ephesians 3.20-21 Amp.
And so, as your momma, you need to understand how desperately I pray this for you. And how deeply I KNOW God is hearing you and your heart’s cry.
And because I witnessed your birth, felt you emerge straight from the hidden place where the Hands knitting you together delivered you into my arms and into your bright-light existence, because I understood His delight and joy in having created you and written your story, I KNOW He hears you now and that this same God, His power at work in you (in your heart, in your body, in your womb, in your reproductive system) is able and will carry out His purpose so far beyond anything you even dare to ask or think or imagine or wish or hope.
Beyond your highest and most powerful prayers or your wildest dreams, infinitely more than you may even have the courage to ask or think, God can do anything, anything.
It’s not too late, my Tara-girl. And I once fought hell over you. So believe me when I tell you, I am believing, petitioning, agonizing, asking, reminding and staying put before the throne for you, for your life, for your deepest, wildest dreams to come true. Because I was born that day, too. And this is what mommies do.
God has given you so much love in three adoring fellas. From you to them, from them to you. But you have more to give, more love, more joy. So sing, sing in the Spirit and with the understanding. I’m joining in your song {Tara’s song}. Let’s see what will happen. :)
