Blessings of multi-generationalism

I have been very remiss in posting anything lately.  Mainly because I got so many awesome comments on my last entry that I knew that I could never come up with another topic that would generate such great feedback.

We just finished up a much enjoyed spring break.  It was awesome to not have to work either job for several days in a row.  As much as I enjoy both of my jobs, I enjoy my husband and kids more.  We went up to the mountains and spent a few days at the cabin.  It was warm enough to hike and play in the creek, but cool enough that there were no mosquitos or chiggers or poison ivy yet - perfect weather.

We also had Grandparents Day at school.  It is always the last day of school before spring break.  There is a special program just for the kids and grandparents, and then the kids get to leave at noon.  My hubby and I are blessed that we both adore our inlaws.  Our kids are blessed to have 3 full sets of grandparents that all get along with each other.

I have tried to make a point of making sure that my kids appreciate their grandparents.  Neither my husband nor myself have any living grandparents - and haven't for a while.  It is kind of an empty feeling.

My oldest, J., and I were talking about this while hiking at the cabin.  She had a neat way of putting it.  She said that you have your friends to be your friends, your parents to be your parents, and your grandparents are like your friendly parents.  Friends, parents, and grandparents all fill a different role and meet a different need, and none can fill the space of another.  I thought that was a neat way of looking at it.

My grandparents were awesome people and I was so blessed to know them.  In a way, they remind me of my children.  My oldest daughter, while funny and fun-loving, is a nurturer.  She is always careful of others feelings.  My maternal grandparents were the same way.  My youngest daughter, while a nurturer as well, is very up-front and no-nonsense, the same as my paternal grandparents.  While she, and they, would do anything for you, they will also let you know where you stand and did not waste time on stressing about pleasing everyone.  I think this is the best mix in the world as they balance perfectly.  You need both personalities in your life in order to make your life complete.

I think this is why my husband and I work so well together - we balance each other.  If you have two personalities that are completely alike or so completely opposite, you have nothing to use to complete each other.

Well, this was another one of my posts about nothing, so if you are still reading - congrats and thank you.

Please sign the guestbook and let me know you were here.

Hey - remember me??

Wow, it has been a long time. Not sure if anyone still visits or not, but if so, I’m glad you’re here.


I kind of took a blogging break over the summer. I enjoyed my wonderful kiddos and my sweet hubby. Each summer I realize how little time I have left with my kids at home. J. is going into 10th grade this year and M. is starting 6th grade – Junior High!! I cannot believe they are that old. Nor can I believe that I am old enough to have children that old. I still believe that I am a decade younger than I am. It is always a big shock when I realize that I will be turning 40 in January instead of 30.


While we did not do anything extravagant this summer, we did get to spend some quality time together. We had day hours at the gym, which let us have the evenings all together, which will not happen during the school year.


Since I tend to be verbose, here is the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version of our summer:

- J. got to go to church camp in Arkansas
- The girls got to gymnastics camp and train with the GA Gym Dawgs. They loved it!
- We got to spend some time at our family’s cabin in the mountains – our favorite place
- Vacation Bible School
- Anniversary trip with hubby to Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Cherokee
- Starting on the orthodontic road with M.
- My baby girl turning 12
- Drivers Ed. For J.
- J. getting a boot on her foot for tearing up a ligament/tendon and bone bruising
- Went to funerals for 3 different people
- NOT GIVING IN TO THE DEPRESSION MONSTER!!


The depression monster really tried to get me this summer as I had a lot of things hitting me all at once from many different locations. I really worked hard into not giving in, but it took everything in my power. While normally I have a very low sense of self worth, I was actually quite proud of myself for being able to hold it together this time. I have never had some of the things happen to me before that I had to deal with over the summer; nor have I ever been treated the way I was by some this summer. I got hurt very deeply while dealing with some stresses at my jobs as well as a lot of changes going on at church and at home. There were many nights that I cried myself to sleep, and many days that I hid in the bathroom and cried. There were many times that I could not stop thinking on all of the things that were going on. However, I NEVER gave up hope! This was due to many factors – good friends, good family, and a great God. I remembered all of the wonderful things my “online” friends and my “church” friends, and my “work” friends and my family have said to me along the way. I also remembered the promises that my Father in Heaven made me about never forsaking me and that if He led me to it, He would lead me through it.


I appreciate all of you sticking with me and for being such an important part of my life.
Also, you friends listed over there on the right of my page? I truly love you all and send my apologies for not visiting your sites lately. I kind of removed myself from the blog world for a little while. I did miss you all dearly and hope that I will be accepted back.
Now I am going to spend my last evening with my family before school starts.

Hug your family – you never know when it will be the last chance you get.

Teenage epiphany

To clarify at the beginning, this is an epiphany that my teenage daughter had. NOT an epiphany that I had about teenagers. I'm still waiting on that to happen.



As you saw in my last post, J. was baptized earlier this month. Before that, she obviously had been doing a lot of thinking. One night, she came to me and said this:



'You know that phrase that you hear people say - "God is Love?' (I John 4:8) Well, you hear it a lot but don't ever think about it. If you do, it is kind of hard to make that phrase make sense. So I started thinking about it. Then I thought of that passage in the bible that says "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." (I Corinthians 13) If God is love, then you could say that God equals love. So, you could go through this passage and replace the word "love" with "God." That would make the "God is love" phrase make a lot more sense. '



I was blown away! I had never thought of this in this fashion before. It got me to thinking more about it.



Here is how that passage would read with the replacements made:

GOD is patient

GOD is kind

[GOD] does not envy

[GOD] does not boast

[GOD] is not proud

[GOD] is not rude

[GOD] is not self-seeking

[GOD] is not easily angered

[GOD] keeps no record of wrongs

GOD does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth

[GOD] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
GOD never fails



That is powerful stuff in my opinion.



If you look at this passage in The Message translation, the sentence that precedes the passages states, "So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love." Again, if you replace love with "God," it is right on target again.



This has been floating around in my head for the last couple of weeks since she said it. It has really got me thinking. I wonder if this thought went through the authors head when he wrote these words?



Irregardless, it got my teenagers thought processes going in an awesome direction - there are a LOT worse things that she could be thinking about!



Thank you for stopping by and reading.



I do want to ask 2 favors from you:



1) Please visit my friends on the right sidebar over there. Many of them are going through a lot right now and some kind words would go a long way. Just don't leave me for them. They are much more talented writers than I am and lead much more exciting lives than I do. You will enjoy their sites more than mine, I promise. But remember how insecure I am and still come back and visit me, please??????



2) Leave me a comment and let me know you were here. You don't have to say anything other than "I was here." I just like to know I am not alone. Plus, it helps my insecurity issues when I look at my blog and see that I have comments posted. :-)

Where in the world are you?

As usual, our minister Jody, got my wheels turning this weekend.


Have you ever thought about the demographics of our planet? It has crossed my mind, but I have not really dwelt on it much.


Have you ever really thought about the difference between how those of us that live in America versus those that do NOT live in America? Again, I have thought about it. I’m sure you fellow Americans have thought about it as well.


Have you ever gotten frustrated that you could not get in touch with someone because they did not read their email often enough? (Yes for me.) What about ones that did not even have email? (Oh my goodness yes.) And the ones that don’t answer their cell phones? (Um, certainly.) How about those that don’t even have cell phones? (Yes, yes, yes!) Do you ever find it hard to believe that there are people in the world that don’t have email or cell phones? (Resounding YES from me, again.)


Well, our minister mentioned a website called 100 people. They took the worlds demographics and converted them into numbers we can wrap our minds around. Look at this:

If the World were 100 PEOPLE:

50 would be female

50 would be male

5 would be from North America

9 would be from Latin America & the Caribbean

12 would be from Europe

61 would be from Asia

13 would be from Africa


31 would be Christian

21 would be Muslim

14 would be Hindu

6 would be Buddhist

12 would believe in other religions

16 would not be religious or identify themselves as being aligned with a particular faith

17 would speak Chinese

8 would speak Hindustani

8 would speak English

7 would speak Spanish

4 would speak Arabic

4 would speak Russian

3 would speak Bengali

2 would speak Malay-Indonesian

2 would speak French

45 would speak other languages


82 would be able to read and write

18 would not

76 males would have a primary school education

72 females would have a primary school education

66 males would have a secondary school education

63 females would have a secondary school education

1 would have a college education

83 would have access to safe drinking water

17 would use unimproved water

17 would be undernourished

53 would live on less than 2USD per day

50 would live in poverty

76 would have electricity

24 would not

34 would be cell phone subscribers

17 would be active internet users

1 would own a computer


A similar website had the following statistics:
18 would be white
82 would be non-white
89 would be hetero sexual
11 would be homosexual
5 would control 32% of the entire world’s wealth, and all of them would be US citizens
80 would live in substandard housing
24 would not have any electricity

So, apparently, I am quite the minority. I am a white Christian female with a college education, I speak English, I have a cell phone and access to the internet, and I do not live in poverty.

I live in one of the most affluent counties in my state. We live paycheck to paycheck and often feel inadequate around our more affluential friends and neighbors. This list helped me to realize that, truly, I am “rich” by the majority of the world’s standards.

While my head has known this fact for a while, the numbers broken down this way really helped me to get my mind around it.

The challenge I am issuing to myself, and to you, is this: What are we going to do with this knowledge? Do we try to introduce Jesus to those that don’t know him? Do we try to get drinking water to those that thirst? Do we try to get food to those that hunger? Do we try to teach those that cannot read? These seem like overwhelming tasks for you or me.

There are people who have devoted their lives to helping these people. If you are a member of a church, you probably support missionaries. Increasing your giving to church will help support those that are already out there working on these issues.

If you are not sure what to do about this, prayers for guidance and clarity are always beneficial for the person praying and for the issues and people being prayed for.

**I am not asking you to become a missionary or to sell all that you have to try to change the world. I just want to strike a chord within your heart. If we all changed our way of thinking just the tiniest bit, we could change the world. Compassion and generosity are contagious. If you display these traits, those around you will start trying to be the same. If you impart these traits on to your children, it will spread even faster. I wonder how long it would take to change the world?

Again, thank you for reading my ramblings!

Let me know you were here! I love to know that I am not talking to myself. Also, look through some of my previous comments and pay some of my visitors a visit as well.

Challenges - For Me AND For You

** As always, my posts are wordy. Sorry. If you just want to see the challenge I am issuing to YOU - scroll down and look for the next set of asterisks. **

Here it is the week of my last birthday in my 30’s. As is every birthday, it causes me to reflect on where I am, where I've been, and where I want to be.
I have decided that I am going to show the depression monster that would normally show up at a time like this that I, indeed, am stronger than it is through Christ which strengthens me.


I could focus on the fact that we always seem to be short on money, but instead, I choose to focus on the fact that we always seem to have enough to cover our needs. We may not get paid a lot at any of our jobs, but we have 3 jobs between the two of us when there are those out there that do not know if they will have a job tomorrow. Our girls have learned to differentiate between needs and wants through us having to really think through our purchases.


I could focus on the fact that our girls’ school and gymnastics tuition is a stretch to cover. I choose to focus on the fact that we are blessed enough that I am able to work at both the school and the gym to help offset those bills. This also allows me an insight to my daughters’ lives that most parents don’t have the privilege of seeing. I get to see my daughters at any time of the day if I need to. I see their friends and know their teachers and coaches.


I could lament the fact that we do not have much family time together due to our gym schedule. However, I choose to see that my family is strong enough to survive the hectic schedule that we have. I rejoice in the fact that both of my daughters love the same sport and that we don’t have different sports for different seasons. Our schedule stays the same for the entire school year. I love the fact that because my kids put a lot of time into their sport, that they appreciate hard work and discipline. They have learned to be good sports and have developed an intense work ethic. Not many kids can put in the hours that they do and still have the grades that they do. They are more discerning about what they do with their free time since they have so little of it. They still enjoy spending time with the rest of the family because it is such a novelty.


It does make me sad that I don’t get to see the rest of my family more than I do. But, I have 2 parents that have been married for almost 50 years. I have a sister that has devoted her life to being a good mom, sister, aunt, and grand-ma. She works gazillions of hours without ever taking a day off so that she can take care of whatever is needed. She has 3 kids who are all very different, but all very wonderful. I know that they all love me and my kids and hope that they know that we love all of them very much. I have great in-laws that I get along with. I have a husband who loves his in-laws and who is loved by them. We are blessed to have that.


I could be sad about getting older, but I am rejoicing that I am still alive and healthy.


I could be sad that I/we still don’t “have it together” like I envisioned 10 years ago, but I am rejoicing that we have provided a loving, stable family for our girls and that our marriage is still going strong.


** So, my challenge for you is this: I want you to sign the guestbook and tell me either some bits of wisdom you have learned over the years, your favorite birthday present or your favorite birthday memory, or something that you are thankful for that may not at first have seemed like a blessing. My birthday present for myself will be to see how many comments that I can get from you guys answering these questions. I don’t want birthday wishes for myself, but insight into you guys out there and hopefully to gain some wisdom for myself. **


Thank you for stopping by and reading my always wordy posts.

Getting to know my youngest - or Living with ADHD

ADHD. You hear so much about it. You see kids diagnosed with it and think that they need just a good swift spanking. You see kids NOT diagnosed with it and wonder why they aren’t.


We used to think that all it meant was that a kid was hyper and did not focus. We were wrong.

We have a child with ADHD. M. was diagnosed in 2nd grade after an intense and expensive psychological education evaluation. Apparently, it manifests itself very differently in little girls than it does little boys. Boys tend to be on the hyper/aggressive end and girls tend to be on the lack of focus/depression end. (Not always the case, though.)

Since then, it has been quite a ride. The analogy of a “roller coaster ride,” while cliché, is actually quite accurate.

We have learned so much about not only this diagnosis, but also about our wonderful daughter and ourselves as well. (Her dad and I think we both may have ADHD as well.)
In looking back, there were many things that we thought were just her unique little quirks. While it is sometimes hard to differentiate between what is a quirk and what is being ADHD, it is easy to see that her brain just works “differently” than our other daughter’s brain.
As a toddler, she would find loopholes in any rule that you came up with. She would follow our instructions to the letter, but would still find an alternative way to accomplish what she wanted. For example, we kept finding her sitting on the kitchen table. We did not do much at first, we figured she would lose interest after the first couple of times after we would remover her. Not so. Finally, we sat her down and told her that “we do NOT sit on tables, we sit in chairs.” We thought that we had that taken care of. We came in later and found her on the table. However, she had dragged her little chair up onto the table and was sitting in the chair that was placed right in the middle of the tabletop. When asked what she was doing, she clarified for us that she ‘was NOT sittin’ on da table. I sittin’ in my chaiw.’ (sic.) We had a similar situation with writing on the wall. We thought we had learned to be more specific in our instructions when we stated that we do not write on the wall with pencils, pens, markers, or crayons. We forgot to mention stamps. We learned that using stamps on the wall is not covered by the “No Writing” rule. “Keep your hands off of that” does not cover the use of your feet, elbows, or tongue to touch things.
In Kindergarten, she had to write down someone that she admired. She wrote down “Andrew” from her class. When I asked her what she admired about Andrew, she said that he could sit still in class and not talk. For a long time. And she thought that was amazing.
Not all of it has been fun. At least not at the time. Some of it now is quite comical. Right around the time she was diagnosed, I had the following situation happen at my house. It was morning and we were trying to get ready for school. A friend’s son, E, rode with us in the morning. E was later diagnosed with ADHD as well. So I had 2 ADHD kids to try to get out the door. Here is a copy of an email that I typed to a friend and ADHD advocate regarding that morning:


Okay – here are some phrases that were uttered by me this morning in my attempt to get everyone here this morning. My goal was to get everyone here in one piece, go over “borrowing and carrying” with M. for a minute, and stagger her medicine. Small and seemingly easily attainable goals.
“M., I printed out a few math problems for you to make sure you remember how to borrow, do them real quick and let’s make sure.”
“E., could you please quit singing to the turtles?”
“M., show me how you did this problem because it is not right.”
“E., could you sing to the turtles in your head?”
“M., this is still not right. Let’s go over how to do these again.”
“E., singing in your head means to do it so no one else can hear it.”
“M., you cannot just try to do these problems in your head; you have to write them out.”
“M., you must write out EACH problem, not just the one I said to write out earlier.”
“M., you cannot decide to randomly reverse the numbers because you don’t feel like borrowing.”
“M., you need to WRITE OUT the problems.
“E., could you stop kicking the chair?”
“M., when you borrow, you do it the same way every time.”
“M., when you borrow, you borrow from the next number to the left, not the number 2 spaces away, you know, just like we did on the previous 9 problems?????”
“No, M., I don’t know where your bag is.”
“M., those shoes are wet because I washed them; you must wear your other shoes.”
“M., THOSE SHOES ARE WET – YOU MUST WEAR YOUR OTHER ONES.”
“I don’t care if you don’t like those shoes – YOUR OTHER ONES ARE WET!!
“Why are you smelling those shoes? THEY ARE WET –WEAR YOUR OTHER ONES!!”
“M., why are you drawing smiley faces on your paper? Is that helping get your math done?”
“E., the cat is not going to answer your questions, even if you follow him through the house asking him over and over and over.”
“M., Mrs. Jones is going to break you all up into smaller groups during the timed part of the test so that it will be less distracting, probably into a different room.” “No, everyone is not testing at different times; during the timed part of the test, you all will be spread out a little more.” “No, the whole class will not be moving to a different room – how would that help?” “Ok – let’s try this again, during – testing, - - SOME of you will go to a different room.” “NO – NOT LESS TEST WITH MORE TIME – JUST SPREADING OUT SO THAT IT WILL BE LESS DISTRACTING.!!”
“M., bring me your medicine. ONLY bring it to me – don’t open it.”
“M., what are you doing? Why are you opening your medicine? I said specifically to NOT open it.”
“E., what are you doing? Please don’t play with those scissor things in M.’s open medicine bottle.”
“M., STOP trying to do those math problems in your head – WRITE THEM OUT!!!”
“How can 706 minus 700 be 124?” “No it can’t” “What do you mean that is the answer to the next problem? What about this problem?” “It does not matter that you could do this one in your head, you STILL need to work it out and tell me the answer, I do not have X-ray vision and know that you are jumping around from math problem to math problem.”

This was one of those days where I felt like I was that man in that episode of the twilight zone where he wakes up one morning and everyone is speaking a different language than him and they are all looking at him with pity because obviously something is wrong with him and he does not know how to communicate with anyone and he spends the rest of the show trying to rapidly learn the language they are speaking so that he is not locked away. AAHHHH.


Then, there were days where my heart would break for her. Here is another email to the same advocate and friend from above:

I just needed to vent to someone who would understand.
I love my adhd child,
I love my adhd child,
I love my adhd child.

I needed to remind myself a few times in order to not have any laying on of hands (around the neck.)

When she tells me that she knows that I hate her, I love her.
When she cries and yells at me because she forgot her homework, I love her.
When she tells me that she is a failure, I love her.
When she writes mean things in her handwriting book because she is angry at having to do handwriting, I love her.
When she says that she is the least important person in the family, I love her.
When she is screaming and crying about things that happened a year ago, I love her.
When I sit here with tears running down my face at what she must be feeling, I love her more.

She has really struggled with feeling like she is a worthy person because she cannot get her mind to do what she wants it to do.

We have gotten now to where we can have fun with it and enjoy to fun and exciting part of ADHD. The spontaneity had driven her to occasionally go throw in a load of laundry just because it was needed. The hyperfocus has made her into a wonderful reader – she had read all of the Harry Potter books by 4th grade. She can figure out strange and difficult math problems in her head. The verbal acuity she has helps her to come up with great stories as well as the ability to create wonderful analogies to explain how she is feeling. Her “thinking outside the box” process has made her incredibly adept at technological things. She figured out how to send and receive emails via the wii. She found out how to set up filters and signatures on her email by herself. She does power-points for fun. The feelings of failure she has had in the past make her a very caring person. She loves people no matter what they look like or act like. She is a true friend to those in need. The larger-than-life emotions that used to focus on what she perceived as her shortcomings now focus (most of the time) into showing love for her family and friends. This extends to her sister’s friends as well. They love M. like she was their own and she loves them right back.

She now knows her struggles and tries to find ways to work with them. Recently, Becky, who lives in our basement, went out of town for a few days. M. was in charge of feeding Becky’s cats. Knowing that she is forgetful, she took the initiative to leave just a few reminders for herself around the house. (As per normal for ADD kids - the goal was the note itself, not the spelling or grammer.)


Hanging on the wall going upstairs to her bedroom:




On a table at the bottom of the stairs:





On a napkin at her place at the table:




On the milk:




On the peanut butter jar:





On the chin up bar that she must hang on every time she passes it:





This doesn't include the notes that she left that I could not get good pictures of - the bathroom mirror, on the door, on the loaf of bread, etc.







All things considered, I would not wish for M. to not have ADHD. I think it makes her who she is, it gives her that little something extra. It helps her to stand out from the crowd. I would not wish her the pain and grief that she has experienced to go away either. I believe those hardships have helped mold her into the caring and loving girl that she is now. We are all products of our circumstances, our choices, our experiences. The tough times that she has survived have made her into a stronger person than she would have ever been without them. I think she is a really neat person and I love her dearly.