Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Journal {Spring 1}…

Published on April 13, 2012January 17, 2013 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay1 Comment

IN MY LIFE THIS WEEK…

Migraines, and I am a little embarrassed to admit: TV. We stopped watching, for Lent, and have been playing catch up here and there. At first I felt really guilty about it, but my favorite quote this week really changed that. I know it’s at the bottom of this entry, but I will share it here too. It says “The time you enjoy wasting is NOT wasted time.” And really, that’s pretty true. I need to be LESS anal. I need to be LESS guilt driven. I will forever punish myself with extra long to-do lists and feel completely awful about myself if I spend an afternoon reading. Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? I don’t want to be like that anymore. While i am not a big fan of watching TV a lot- I have enjoyed “Catching up”. I could never be that person who watches all of the time, nor everyday even. We sit down as a family once per week to watch a movie, and once per week to watch Once Upon a Time. That’s all… So, I am letting myself off of the hook with this.

IN OUR HOMESCHOOL THIS WEEK…

After our spring break we were just trying to get back in a good rhythm. It’s been a hard year and March was such a stressful month that every day we are struggling to do what needs to be done. We had already decided to try NOT taking the summer off, and just do more evenly scattered breaks so I am not too worried…

PLACES WE’RE GOING, PEOPLE WE’RE SEEING…

That’s a great question! I have a women’s church get together Friday night, that I am excited about. We may try to go to the drive in, with friends. It’s low key, which is absolutely ok. It has been RUN RUN RUN since early February honestly…

MY FAVORITE THING THIS WEEK WAS…

The birds singing. I know that has nothing to do with anything homeschool related but when I sit at my desk and there is a bird song out my open window, it fills my heart with complete joy.

THINGS I AM WORKING ON…

Being less hard on myself. Not only “preaching” but demonstrating the importance of grace, gratitude true life enjoyment.

*sigh*

I’M READING…

I just finished A Dog’s Purpose by Bruce Cameron. I am contemplating the next Hunger Games book, but I’m just not sure I’m ready to go back there quite yet…

SHE’S READING…

The Anne of Green Gables series.

I’M COOKING…

I’m not, and I hate that. I did make Easter dinner and a pot of ham bone and 5 bean soup the next day, but mostly I think I am so stressed and feel so tired that I lack the creativity. I haven’t baked in 2 months and i really need to get back on the weekly bread thing… BUT I really need an amazing bread recipe and the one I have is NOT it…

I’M GRATEFUL FOR…

So, SO much. My beautiful kids, whom I am so ridiculously proud of. My tireless husband who does so much for us. The birds singing. Laughter. My kindle. Chocolate. Greatly written tv shows.

I’M PRAYING FOR…

My kids. Genny is a bundle of nerves and big feelings these days. Amanda has been in sick bay, at basic, and is miserable. Lucas deploys in just a couple of weeks. Lots of big…

FAVORITE QUOTE OR PHOTO…

BOTH!!!!

“The time you enjoy wasting is NOT wasted time.”

My niece Kaileigh, on Easter. She is such a ham and I just love this photo because she looks like she is about to share something deep and profound. :)

Four…

Published on April 11, 2012January 17, 2013 by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

I know I am late by 11 days… Late seems to explain a lot of areas of my life lately though, so that’s ok…

Me–

– make myself take time to read.

– follow the instructions of my natur0path so that I can begin to get well.

– take a time out, with a girlfriend/friends at least twice, this month.

– water fitness/swim

– take/make more time for myself in all of the areas that I do not.

Capture–

– eggs

– umbrella

– toes

– puddles

– love

– growth

– happiness

– color

– celebration

– energy

Us–

– walks

– fresh air

– baking

– sharing kitchen skills

– board games

– time with friends

– swimming

Heart–

– read a book meant for my heart.

– journal.

– remember to be grateful, stay grateful, see grateful.

– love my friends.

– heal.

Home–

– flowers, fresh, inside.

– flowers, planted, outside.

– home smells.

– line dried linens

– fresh air

Health–

– be in and consume water.

– greens.

– soft, easy to digest foods.

– teas.

– sleep.

Love–

– at least ONE date night, but hopefully two.

– weekly devotion, talk and prayer time.

– remember to be respectful of him. ALWAYS.

Happy happy, joy joy, relief…

Published on April 10, 2012January 17, 2013 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay5 Comments

Am I the only one who is breathing a sigh of relief that the holiday cluster is over?
Man oh man…

When Gen came to live with us, and we did our attachment therapy, we were told to make holiday traditions and make them STAND OUT.
Was this beneficial advice? Sure… When baskets of candy, and gift bags the size of a small refrigerator contained gifts that didn’t cost the same as a cheap car…

Now, well, with Christmas followed by Valentines day, then her birthday, then Easter (always near her birthday), plus the need for new spring/summer clothes- it’s exhausting…
And this year, with all of the legal stuff, we’ve had to get creative…

For example, instead of throwing a birthday party, we simply allowed her to invite one person to go to dinner and bowling. Other friends tagged along, (paying for themselves) and the bowling alley (who we paid NOTHING extra to) awesomely announced her birthday, autographed a vintage pin for her and made it special.

For her birthday gifts we shopped major sales (MAJOR) and were able to get her a new iPod (which she desperately needed) and a kindle (complete with 108 books) for what a party alone would have cost.

Then came easter. When we hadn’t a penny more, we stressed.
how do we make it special?
how do we make her feel like she isn’t paying a high price for this?
Introducing the less than $40 easter basket complete with BRAND NEW Converse, bath products, hair accessories, manicure items, DVD’s, loads of candy, gum and facial stuff. {95% of which was all “needs” anyway, added bonus}

The likes of which will never, ever be done again, I assure you. It was our frugal miracle, for sure…

And now, now we’re set until September when our family anniversary rolls around.

Happy us, free for another day of the evil parental guilt that nags at us, making us question if we’re “scarring her” further… The time and the legal stuff hasn’t hurt her during this difficult time when she needed to know nothing would change.

Blood, Guts, wounds and yearbook photos- Oh My…

Published on April 5, 2012January 17, 2013 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay1 Comment

It hasn’t been that long, has it?

A girl goes off of the blogging grid for just a smidge of time and blogger goes and changes everything… What is this world coming to? I feel like the whole internet changed. Which it kind of did. Doesn’t google own it yet? What’s next, France? maybe Google can buy the US from china. Hmm. anyway…

So, what’s going on?

That’s nice… Or, wow, I’m sorry… or Me too... Whichever works for you, please snag it and insert here:

___________________________________________.

What’s new with me, you ask? Well… aside from sicknesses, court craziness, expensive legal insanity, plain old regular life insanity, work, birthdays (Mine and Genny’s), anniversary (mine and Chw’s.), puppy surgeries (both Paisley and Emma), puppy follow up emergencies, (again- both) oodles of family drama, car trouble (both mine and Chw’s cars) and a date being set for Lucas’ deployment AFTER he had an episode similar to a heart attack- it’s been a whirlwind. Nay- a tornado. I’m not going to understate…

But we are here.

We are alive.

We are blessed to be exactly where we are.

We are loved.

We have AMAZING friends.

I am thirty six!!! (yes, saying it again. And again. And again)

36…

And our dogs are done being hypochondriacs just to scare us…

Stinkers…

Also, not to brag but my AWESOME husband made me this AWESOME island for my birthday. I adore it, and i love it too! {Note, yes the light fixture is out of place. We have a replacement, it’s just not up yet. See: crazy weeks.}

Also, Also, I was asked to take a quick shot of the adorable Genny for our co-op year book, as we were newcomers. This is the best I could muster. Yes, that IS siding in the back ground, thanks for noticing… (and yes, I am the mom who not-too-long-ago had a photography business… Remember what I said about the evil craziness of march? it’s the best i could do- thus scarring my poor 13 year old for life. I know.)

Kindly I will spare you the images of my husband’s knee. He decided to stab himself in it, whilst working on an over thought out project. He survived, but has 3 ugly stitches (super deep but not wide) and a fairly unsympathetic wife as, in his shock and immense pain he originally led us to believe he SAWED through his leg. MORAL OF THE STORY: when you lead into an injury story with “sawed off my leg with a power saw” and come to find out, it’s a utility knife wound- i may not be as distraught as you once expected. (disclaimer- he did not lie. He HAD been power sawing and THEN comes in screaming with buckets of blood staining through his jeans. When Gen and I asked if he sawed through his leg, he was in a bit of shock and did answer yes. *eh hem- more than once*… My thoughts at that time were actually “wow, saw wounds are much smoother than I imagined.” hmm…)

So in a nutshell- I vow to be a better blogger. The end.

maybe not poetic, but certainly probational…

Published on March 30, 2012 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay4 Comments

So i will be the first to admit that i have been an ultra crappy blogger this month. I am sorry. to say that it has been a “big” month, is kind of an understatement. Not only are we dealing with the court/legal stuff with our daughter, which I’m not really going to get into here- but personally it’s been a huge month.

If you have read Rainy Day in May for any length of time, you may remember a post around last March, in which I mentioned a deeply rooted dream that I had, when I was a teenager.

In said dream I knew, to my core, that I would never have a baby.

I knew that my someday-husband would leave and divorce me before I was 25.

I knew that i wouldn’t live past 35.

As a teen who knew everything, the dream stayed with me like some secret fear BUT i never believed it…

Until my first miscarriage at 17.

And my second, at 18.

And the four to follow.

In the years between 17 and 23, i was hospitalized numerous times and seldom had amazing health. When my husband (of 5 years) left me for another girl, at age 23- I was slowly starting to fear the dream.

At age 24 I had a complete hysterectomy.

Two out of three…

Naturally, though I ached to not believe it, I feared the third.

In 2009 i was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. The diagnosis later proved to be false, BUT it didn’t matter because the 5 months that we were neck deep in all of that season were terrifying and I knew that was it.

In the summer of 2011, when I got a cold that turned into what my doctor called “Death Pneumonia”, I was sure I was on my way out. Here we are, 7 months later and I am not even close to being better. There were so many achy and truthfully frightening nights, several months ago, when I was sure I’d never see morning. The dream would win. again.

Today is friday. Friday March 30th. Two days ago I turned 36. THIRTY SIX is, as we all know, past 35.

I woke up yesterday morning and was shocked at how I felt. there are no words… Almost as if I’ve been released from some invisible bondage. I can’t tell you guys how different I feel. It’s in-explainable.

New lease on life. A freer lease on life. I never thought yesterday, and especially not today, would come. I have cheated my way out of cancer twice, and pneumonia once. Maybe things could have been different- but it doesn’t matter.

:) Just had to share…