Saturday, April 18, 2009
New layout
Spring is here. Time for changes to include my blog. Tell me what you like and don't like about it. Be honest.
Thoughts on a Saturday
A thought that keeps running through my head is regarding forward thinking. Every time I have ever applied for a job, I have always stated that a goal is to create forward thinking students. Forward thinking to me is some one that keeps their eye on the future and how their presence can impact or change that idea of future.
Unfortunately for me, I have not been a forward thinker for sometime now. I have been caught up in the past, due in part by my activity on face book and the reconnection of old friends. This has dredged up memories of dreams unfulfilled, and a life led at times by uncertainty and a longing for past and easier times.
Where has this put me? I can only compare it to racing on a track where the only things of concern are speed, avoiding collisions and spin outs, and the greatest challenge is yet another left turn. This is where I have spent the last few months, save for an occasional break that allows for a temporary peek into the future. These are fleeting and rare. My being is consumed by the now, unfulfilled and perhaps unrecognized dreams, and that pull for what might have been.
Certainly, we all think of the past occasionally. That is what has put us in this specific time and place. Choices made and lessons learned. However, being bogged down lets those moments of time just fly past us. A snap of the fingers and yet another moment, another opportunity gone. Another snap, another missed opportunity.
Recognizing this is part of the answer. Believe me, I recognize that I have been stuck making those endless left turns. In this time, there have been losses of loved ones, additions to families, and extreme challenges. I haven't revelled in the glory of the new opportunities facing me. I have been a wallower. I will try -- I must try -- to change. Life is to fleeting to waste -- and that is what I have been doing -- making those left turns and only looking at the present. The future is where I need to place my focus.
Unfortunately for me, I have not been a forward thinker for sometime now. I have been caught up in the past, due in part by my activity on face book and the reconnection of old friends. This has dredged up memories of dreams unfulfilled, and a life led at times by uncertainty and a longing for past and easier times.
Where has this put me? I can only compare it to racing on a track where the only things of concern are speed, avoiding collisions and spin outs, and the greatest challenge is yet another left turn. This is where I have spent the last few months, save for an occasional break that allows for a temporary peek into the future. These are fleeting and rare. My being is consumed by the now, unfulfilled and perhaps unrecognized dreams, and that pull for what might have been.
Certainly, we all think of the past occasionally. That is what has put us in this specific time and place. Choices made and lessons learned. However, being bogged down lets those moments of time just fly past us. A snap of the fingers and yet another moment, another opportunity gone. Another snap, another missed opportunity.
Recognizing this is part of the answer. Believe me, I recognize that I have been stuck making those endless left turns. In this time, there have been losses of loved ones, additions to families, and extreme challenges. I haven't revelled in the glory of the new opportunities facing me. I have been a wallower. I will try -- I must try -- to change. Life is to fleeting to waste -- and that is what I have been doing -- making those left turns and only looking at the present. The future is where I need to place my focus.
Friday, April 17, 2009
My weekend
Mark is off on an adventure to see his family, so it is just the boys, me, and the animals here for the weekend. That really suits me just fine, as I am suffering -- yes, suffering -- with bronchitis and a sinus infection. I am hoping the atb's kick in soon (day 2 today), and I am feeling better soon.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
April -- I don't know the date
Somewhere, there should be a time tracker, who can tell a person how many minutes, hours, days, etc. of time that is wasted and is -- poof -- gone. I know that since I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia that I have wasted an enormous amount of time. I heard it in my husband's voice when he saying that I could easily have three hours per day for exercise; I was it on my friend's face today when she came to have lunch; I fell it in my body when I can't sleep but for hte paid that I feel from fibromyalgia. All of the opportunities that one missed along the way. Perhaps I should focus more on not wasting these minutes on foolish things. How about -- poof, here I am again -- pressing my nose to the glass to ensure I don't miss a a second of the scenery whether I am walking, riding in a car, or just whatever. Perhaps I won't begrudge the housework that goes and the things that stay unwritten so I cam have a bit of play time with my boys -- just to play and hang out. Time, is a fleeting thing -- the let it slip though our fingers, or we can act on it. I can't own it, but surely I can use that time that God has given me to work harder and longer amounts of time. This can happen so that those fleeting moments will be full, and when it is our time to pass from this earth, everyone will say that she lived her life well.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
fun day
I worked almost all day on scrapbooking. I am so addicted. I ran out of some basic supplies, so I will have to go to the store tomorrow to pick some up in order to feed my addiction. It was a good day. The boys got along well all day. Dad took them for hair cuts, and they both look super! Then we had a good lunch before a friend came over to spend most of the afternoon with the boys. It is a friend that Patrick seldom sees now that he is not at school. I can tell Patrick misses some of his friends. Just one of the positives of attending school ... we take them where ever we can get them. Mark grilled some great chicken for dinner, and I made some so-so potato salad. We were really hungry, so there was not much talking at the table. Now, I have to go work on laundry. Patrick followed me in here to talk, but quickly fell asleep after snuggling up with my favorite throw. It is from Williams-Sonoma, and is the softest thing ever. Guaranteed to relax you so you fall right to sleep. At any rate, it was a good day for all. We haven't had many of those here lately, so it was well deserved and cherished.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Homebound vs. Homeschool
My son is going to be homebound educated for the remainder of the school year. He has been at home since January. I have had questions about homebound teaching vs homeschool teaching. The difference is huge -- with homebound, we are provided with a tutor for 5 hours per week, plus that person can act as a liaison between home and school. In addition, the lessons that are to be taught at home are provided by the school. Hope this helps with the confusion.
Monday, March 23, 2009
What of life, anyway
When live gives you lemons, make lemonade. How often I have heard that refrain, but for me -- a glass is half empty girl -- I just can't seem to get those lemons to make anything drinkable. Caustic, I can do, but not drinkable. So ponder this, if you will -- how does one change from caustic lemonade to the sweet/slightly tartness that we long for as we are squeezing the heck out of those lemons?
I surely do not pretend to even be in the same ball park as one who would succeed at the task. My whole life, I have been carrying around those lemons and my half empty glass of sourness. I have seem the effects on those that love and care about me. I see it daily in my own son.
As I long for the ability to change my life -- and perhaps my lifestyle -- I cringe at the same bitterness that I have passed onto my son. At his tender age of manchild, he fights the same demons that have possessed my body time and again. He thinks of death as a welcoming blanket of relief; it being the only beacon of hope that sometimes glimmers in the pit of darkness that overtakes us.
I all too frequently visit that pit. I wonder if I will ever be able to traverse a road without falling into that same pit. I know it is there, and I do my best to avoid it. Sometimes I can take another route altogether, but, most often, I am pulled along until it looms before me as some ugly monster, and in fighting, I fall back into the pit.
I fight and claw my way back to the edge, only to be called back by the piteous cries of a manchild. I try to make myself forge ahead, if only I could get a leg over the edge -- but the cries from below make me stop -- the sound is so familiar. It oozes of desperation, of a helplessness only a child can have. I loosen my grip on the edge, and stop fighting for that leg up and allow my self to free fall backwards into the pit, not being able to full myself free from the cries, nay, the demands for help that I hear beneath.
The bright light of day begins to fade away as the blackness begins again to engulf me. Once reaching the bottom, I can no longer see, so I feel with my hands, being pulled ever closer to the cries that prevented my escape of the darkness that now I wear like a cloak. I reach forward -- I am ever so close -- and finally a hand touches mine. The voice asks for me to come closer, to provide the comfort that will sooth the now tired manchild. I wrap my cloak around him and pat him, just as I did when he was but a baby. It is then that I realize I can choose to either leave the pit on my own, or stay and teach the manchild to make his way to the single ray of light that looms ahead.
He talks ever so softly, and begins to tell me of an even larger pit, one that he has been promised will envelop him forever. He asks if this other pit wouldn't be the best choice for him -- and perhaps even me. I tell him that I am aware of the other pit, and I have sought it out before, only to be yanked away from the edge by caring hands. I tell him of things that are available only if the ray of light is followed. He can't make up his mind -- there are so many thoughts tangled, and he can only be in this moment, not even capable of thinking of the next.
I push aside my own desire to reach the light and wrap myself around him, much as I have done so many times before, and whisper that I will never leave him, even if it means that we survive, because one can never experience a full life in the pit -- it only allows moment to moment events. Thus bound together, we sit in the darkness. I am thankful that he is not alone, but wonder if together we will ever make it to the light and out of the pit. My only hope is that the transformation from manchild to man gives him the strength and the courage to try. But for now, we huddle together, one wishing for the strength to climb out, but tied in the darkness to her own flesh, while the other wishes for the strength to pull away and fall into the pit of nevermore.
I surely do not pretend to even be in the same ball park as one who would succeed at the task. My whole life, I have been carrying around those lemons and my half empty glass of sourness. I have seem the effects on those that love and care about me. I see it daily in my own son.
As I long for the ability to change my life -- and perhaps my lifestyle -- I cringe at the same bitterness that I have passed onto my son. At his tender age of manchild, he fights the same demons that have possessed my body time and again. He thinks of death as a welcoming blanket of relief; it being the only beacon of hope that sometimes glimmers in the pit of darkness that overtakes us.
I all too frequently visit that pit. I wonder if I will ever be able to traverse a road without falling into that same pit. I know it is there, and I do my best to avoid it. Sometimes I can take another route altogether, but, most often, I am pulled along until it looms before me as some ugly monster, and in fighting, I fall back into the pit.
I fight and claw my way back to the edge, only to be called back by the piteous cries of a manchild. I try to make myself forge ahead, if only I could get a leg over the edge -- but the cries from below make me stop -- the sound is so familiar. It oozes of desperation, of a helplessness only a child can have. I loosen my grip on the edge, and stop fighting for that leg up and allow my self to free fall backwards into the pit, not being able to full myself free from the cries, nay, the demands for help that I hear beneath.
The bright light of day begins to fade away as the blackness begins again to engulf me. Once reaching the bottom, I can no longer see, so I feel with my hands, being pulled ever closer to the cries that prevented my escape of the darkness that now I wear like a cloak. I reach forward -- I am ever so close -- and finally a hand touches mine. The voice asks for me to come closer, to provide the comfort that will sooth the now tired manchild. I wrap my cloak around him and pat him, just as I did when he was but a baby. It is then that I realize I can choose to either leave the pit on my own, or stay and teach the manchild to make his way to the single ray of light that looms ahead.
He talks ever so softly, and begins to tell me of an even larger pit, one that he has been promised will envelop him forever. He asks if this other pit wouldn't be the best choice for him -- and perhaps even me. I tell him that I am aware of the other pit, and I have sought it out before, only to be yanked away from the edge by caring hands. I tell him of things that are available only if the ray of light is followed. He can't make up his mind -- there are so many thoughts tangled, and he can only be in this moment, not even capable of thinking of the next.
I push aside my own desire to reach the light and wrap myself around him, much as I have done so many times before, and whisper that I will never leave him, even if it means that we survive, because one can never experience a full life in the pit -- it only allows moment to moment events. Thus bound together, we sit in the darkness. I am thankful that he is not alone, but wonder if together we will ever make it to the light and out of the pit. My only hope is that the transformation from manchild to man gives him the strength and the courage to try. But for now, we huddle together, one wishing for the strength to climb out, but tied in the darkness to her own flesh, while the other wishes for the strength to pull away and fall into the pit of nevermore.
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