That's right the Things I Am Made Of shop picture is
an apple picking picture!

I need to start taking notes. I had all sorts of things to say this week and now my mind is empty.

It might be that I finished my first college class in ten years last night, leaving my brain a mushy mess. 

It might be that I am SOOO excited to go apple picking tomorrow and the anticipation of seeing great 804 friends, having lunch at the Tip Top and the upside down apple pie that my amazing husband is going to bake when we get home has me delirious.

No matter what it is, it is Friday and life is G-O-O-D…Good!

But here is where the advice part of Free Advice Friday comes in: How about sharing your favorite apple recipes…because if you have met my husband you know we will come home with AT LEAST 15 pounds of apples!

Now go enjoy this ever improving weather! Happy Friday!

Friday, A Question for the Ages

I am leaving here in about an hour and half for a weekend away with the kids…and I have nothing in my suitcase!  So here is another effort in procrastination…

Advice time ladies…or more reassurance…I am not totally weird or lost in left field on this one, am I?

Facebook Friends:

I am not friends with this guy...and he is my dad!

I seem to be odd ball out when it comes to Facebook friends. I have maybe 35 friends (okay I stand corrected I have 84…I didn’t realize that I know 84 people, but I am glad you are all my friends!) while the rest of the world has 300 friends.  It is just who I am. I much prefer a close group of great friends to a larger group of acquaintances. I am sure there are some of you ladies who can keep up with a whole yearbook’s worth of people and feel totally connected with each and every one, I just can’t.

All of that said, I am not friends with many of my friends’ husbands. A few of those husbands are not on Facebook.  I only counted three that I am friends with – two are out of town and one I use to babysit for so I saw him more often than I see most of my friends’ husbands.  I just don’t feel right about being Facebook friends with everyone’s husband or guys in general and this from the girl who until post-college always had more guy friends than girl friends. Even my maid of honor was a guy.

Several of my husband’s friends have sent me friend requests – mostly guys from school who he is close to. I haven’t accepted those. It isn’t that I don’t like the guys, it’s just I don’t feel the need to be “friends” with them. I need a little space from that part of his life – school has already infiltrated so much of our family life.

I am friends with one of my husband’s  friends, who I have never met, but he is someone who is important in my husband’s life. At this point in all of our busy lives Facebook is the best opportunity I have to get to know him in any sense.

And it is not that I spend my time on Facebook  man-hating. If I had to guess I would say that since I am part of a couple, it is his job to be friends with the guys? Or maybe in this place in my life I have so little girl time, I don’t feel the need to drag the guys a long?

What do you think? Who do you not friend? Who do you friend?...and the infamous last question, WHY?

Friday Thankfulness

Oh, there is so much I want to say…and so much more I want to know.

Let me start here though….Ladies, we need each other’s support and friendship. We need to build each other up. We need to encourage each other. We need to be present for each other. We need to be welcoming and embrace each other. I know…I know this because I have been blessed by these very things this week, and without the women who have encouraged, supported, made time for and been friend to me I would be lost.

I have been invited.

I have had fellowship.

I have been supported.

I have been encouraged – by strangers and friends alike!

I have been consoled.

I have been inspired.

This week, I have been thrashing around some old hurts this and without the encouragement and support of other friends I don’t think I could have held on to the here and now, even as little as I did. The encouragement and support, the welcoming that I received wasn’t even directly related to those old hurts, but it was an important counterbalance to that darkness.

You know that George Strait song, I Saw God Today? I don’t know that I saw Him, but I certainly felt His presence through the wonderful women who touched my life this week.

Thank you to each of you.

How have you been encouraged this week? Were you supportive of others? Were you a positive encouragement, or did you use that moment to deride someone in need? Did you use your strengths to call others up or to hold them down?

Friday. Your Opinion, Please...

Last night as I was getting into bed at 12:45 (so was that this morning?) I had the TV on and it was infomercials on nearly every channel (all 8 channels we get with the antenna).  Each commercial insisted that whatever their product was was absolutely necessary and whatever the product addressed was the most important part of our lives.

How many things are like that? Everything?

The time I spend on-line or interacting with any sort of media, I leave feeling overwhelmed and exhausted.

I feel the world shouting that I am supposed to worry (and buy products for) my health, my skin, my heart, my mind, my eyes, my digestive tract, my future, my kids, my kids’ health, my kids’ skin, my kids’ hearts, my kids minds, my kids’ eyes, my kids’ digestive tract, my kids’ future, my kids’ social standing, my husband, my husband’s health, my husband’s skin, my husband’s heart, my husband’s mind, my husband’s eyes, my husband’s digestive tract, my husband’s future, what we eat, what we wear, how, when and where we exercise, what we drive, where we live, how it looks, what we buy, where it is made, what it is made with, what vitamins we take, what medicines we take, what we clean with, what we breath, what we drink, how we move, how we think, what we read, our financial well being, our well being, our spiritual well being, our physical well being, our mental well being....and the list goes on .

All of that is just the basics, before you add any silly keeping up with Joneses! (Thankfully, we are the Joneses, so there is no really keeping up to do. Ha!)

I end up feeling like I just can’t care enough or know enough about any of it to make a real difference in our lives. Don’t get me wrong, I try to feed our family well, limit TV, promote physical activity, watch our money (or lack there of), think ahead, be prepared…

Then there are all the other things like School and Etsy, that though I am involved in both very part-time there is definitely an expectation of full time devotion to each of them.

So for this Free Advice Friday, I want to know:

Who has time for all of this?

How do you sort all of this out?

What have you chosen for your priorities? And how did you make those choices?

How far do you take it? How involved do you get?

What do you just not worry about?

Thanks for sharing…

On the Road again...this Friday afternoon...or not...

Friday…I am ready to get out of dodge!

I don’t know what it has been lately, maybe having been in town for four weeks in a row, but I am ready to hit the road. I don’t have any place in particular in mind. I just want to go! 

The house is tidy; chores are done for the week. I have projects, but nothing so pressing it can’t wait a few more hours.

Back in the days before kids, my husband and I would frequently spend a day just out and about. We would drive up to the mountains or down towards the beach. We would visit state parks, but not antique stores (I am not my mother, yet!). Maybe it was having a jeep that made this sort of outing so much fun.

One of my fondest memories was a day that we decided to head to Crabtree Falls (back before it was just around the corner and before GPS). We had a paper map that I was in charge of, but we knew generally where we were going.

I was navigating pretty well until the road came to dead end! I thought the road we were on and the road we needed intersected, but alas they did not. The fold in the map and the wear around it had fooled me. Terry was very patient about it – though I still get teased every now and again, and I am never put in charge of the map!

It is different now. We have kids and no jeep. We have responsibilities. We have life. And it is good and sweet. So maybe this longing, this pull to get out of town is about something else.  I will offer it up in prayer today…that the Lord may lead me where I am to go…when I am supposed to go there.

Where are you going to today?

Free Advice Friday

So ladies, what is weighing on your hearts and minds today?

This morning I went to get Grace up at about 7:20 and she rather cheerily said, “Mommy, is it my first day of school?”  “No,” I said, “Not until Monday!” “Then I am going back to sleep!”

All this from the little girl who has been bright eyed and bushy tailed by quarter after six all summer!

With the impending start of school, I know Grace will be fine, I know my husband will be fine (he has been itching to be back since, oh, the last day of his internship!), but me I am not so sure about.

 My sweet baby boy will enjoy the quite of the house with everyone else occupied…and he is liable to get some extra mom time when I give up and quit trying to get it all done.

I logged into Blackboard to see if my course is posted. Indeed, it was. I have never been so scared by a syllabus! I am only taking one class these eight weeks, but between the text book – whose pages look like the internet on crack- and the syllabus with two 56 page problem sets a week I can already feel myself checking out.

That is NOT a good place to start, now is it?

We have finished the whole summer’s end To Do List, which is a good feeling, but I still have many projects on my plate and school LOOMING on the horizon. I find myself at a loss. I can’t seem to pin down where to start or what to do.  There is so much to tackle and a feeling that I will never accomplish it all…or even enough of it…

Where do you start? How do you overcome those feeling? Or avoid them in the first place?

Ladies, please do tell!

Free Advice Friday

Whew! Has it been a day here...a few good (but busy) things that I will share tomorrow in Saturday’s success...and a few not so good things. So...It is late and I am just getting this. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Friday...Supporting each other...

What does it mean to support someone?

Support –verb (used with object)
1. to bear or hold up (a load, mass, structure, part, etc.); serve as a foundation for.
2. to sustain or withstand (weight, pressure, strain, etc.) without giving way; serve as a prop for.
3. to undergo or endure, especially with patience or submission; tolerate.

Reading this reminded me of our first weeks here in Law School Land, when my husband and I attended a breakfast for law students and spouses. The pastor who spoke that morning talked about how a submissive wife is a pillar holding up her husband rather than being held down. Being supportive is an active role that takes strength, determination and courage. Each of the definitions about ties back to this idea, as well.

I know, as a friend, this is not something I do well, but I am blessed to have friends who live and breathe this! My friend Chrissy is right there. She listens to every vent, she hears every complaint AND she builds me up, she encourages me. I see her do the same thing with her girls. She uses ever correction as a chance to build them up and teach them. She does freely for those around her. She gives from her heart, always.  When I see her succeed, it makes me want to try harder. When I watch her give (and not just to me – but to everyone) I want to give, too. When she shares hospitality, I want to offer hospitality to her and others. She is an encouragement and an example.

I am I like that? When I am “supportive” of others do I help them to become better or do I just try to make myself look good – or worse, do I just try to make myself look better than the person I am helping?  Is my first priority to make myself look good or is it to be helpful?  How can I better hold up a friend?  How can I be an encouragement?

 Okay that turned into some deep introspection...but really how can we support each other? How can we as women, mothers, and friends build foundations of support for each other? How can we bolster each other? How can we endure for each other?

We are all at different places in our lives and we all need different things, but there is certainly some universality amongst our needs – a friend to listen, a friend to build us up, a friend to encourage us.  As Friday quickly fades away into the weekend,  it is my goal to help others through encouragement. I want to notice my friend successes and celebrate them – whether they are two steps behind me or ten steps ahead.

There is so much to learn from you....my friends...