Mae @ Rainydayinmay

the plan, the reality and the provision…

Published on July 7, 2014 by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

The past two weeks have been absolutely crazy. I suspected they might be a little busy as Gen returned from Jamaica and got ready to spend a hefty chunk of the summer with family & friends out west. As the mom of a teenager I get to be chauffeur and along with that we were seeing to all of the eye doctor, dental and physical appointments we usually take care of between school years. When planning the trips, it made absolute sense to have two solid weeks between the two, so we could spend quality time and lessen the blow of missing our girl (who is growing up so fast). While we did get some quality time, it was very bitter-sweet, and sad and chaotic and rushed… Minus Chw finishing a movie that Gen and I had already watched without him, (and wanted to see with him) we managed to accomplish everything we set out to do.

Though my blog was eerily quiet…

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Before she left, however, we spent the Fourth of July at Greenfield Village (A part of the Henry Ford Museum.) If you’ve never been, it’s a cool place. If you ever want to go for the fourth of July, I highly recommend it, but maybe do it differently than we did… We learned a lot about how NOT to go (which is how we went), but would do it again because the fireworks show is hands down the BEST ever…

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One of the two weeks that Gen was home, Chw was in Utah on business. This week he is once again out-of-town on business, (Chicago area) and I decided to tag along. My thoughts had been long quiet days of writing, reading, catching up on letters and just enjoying the down time. In the evenings we could try local restaurants, maybe see a movie, spend time at Millennium Park and take in a museum. Not at all a bad plan, but the drive into the area took twice as long as it should have, (think 8 hours instead of 4) and Chw had to work on a project before this morning so that was a bummer. My lovely morning was shaken, quite literally, by jackhammers and other manners of construction right outside my window. Even so, they upgraded us to a lovely suite with a full service kitchen, which will make my lunch times a breeze. (plus, there is a Trader Joe’s and a Super Target. I mean, seriously…) So I can’t really complain. Chw even left me his noise canceling Beats so the construction isn’t so bad, and I’ve decided to just pretend the shaking, vibrating and earth moving is a bonus massage. That works right?

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In April, when we were back home visiting, Gen was helping our dear friend D (her Godmother) with her (much younger) kids and D piped up and said “You know Gen, you should come back for the summer and help me.” D was serious because she works mostly from home and this would help her a ton. Gen responded with a resounded “Fine by me!” Because she loves those kids, she loves that family, she loves Idaho and it seemed fun. Of course, the weeks leading up to it (and the solo, cross-country flight) she was less thrilled and wanted to stay home. (Can’t fault the girl for trying.)

The week before Gen’s trip, D was injured and had surgery. She is now laid up in a cast for the next three months and definitely needing a TON of help. Of course none of us had any idea, prior to the trip, this would happen, but it’s still pretty cool that Gen is there to help her out. {Bonus cool is that one of Gen’s good friends from when they were younger is visiting from California and our Very dear family friend Aubree is ALSO visiting Idaho. She’s one lucky girl!}

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If I’m realizing anything, it’s that we make plans, and often the reality looks/feels nothing like the plan… BUT, most of the time it turns out awesome, OR it turns out we to be the best thing anyway, even though we didn’t know it when we planned it.

And, on that note, it’s Monday. This weeks Hi-Five:

SONG- THIS!!! Gen and I heard it on the way to one of our many appointments. We swooned. Adorable! (Not the best video, sorry! the song is worth it though!)

SHARE- Anne with an E. Have you watched these? I LOVE Anne of Green Gables and while these videos are cute, they aren’t really my favorite. (I’ve been spoiled by the quality of Pemberly Digital, I think) What i DO LOVE about this series however, is their twitter feed. (among the characters.) Absolutely adorable…

SOMETHING I’M LOVING- This Trader Joe’s REFRESH Body Wash that I picked up here. I usually use Rain Bath and the TJ’s peppermint but forgot both and so I tried this. The smell is AMAZING!

SOMETHING I’M INTO- I’m embarrassed to admit this… Clash of Clans. I found out my friend K was addicted to it when we were home in April and I held out until a couple of weeks ago. Then… I don’t know what happened. Now my husband is getting intrigued by it.

SOMETHING NEW {TO ME}- Coconut water. I’ve held out trying it due to the steep price tag, but the hype is so big I finally gave in. I’m not sure how much I love it, but I want to. Any Coconut water tips/secrets?

Joy…

Published on June 24, 2014 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay3 Comments

My fifteen year old daughter, who isn’t really that different from any other fifteen year old girl on the outside, flew down to Jamaica and spent a week with a team of teens and adults working at Caribbean Christian Center for the Deaf. Coming home and readjusting to our privileged way of life (Average American) made her state how selfish she feels she is, and inspired her to embrace a sense of deep gratitude and joy and that we’ve never seen her heart posses. She believes she is changed and we believe today she is. Old habits and patterns have a way of reclaiming even the best of us, but this experience will touch her forever. We’re encouraging her to hold tight. She’s already thinking of ways to raise support because she wants to go back on the next trip.

The one thing that caught her the most unexpected was that she stood, dirty feet planted, on a campus among children of all ages who had little and yet loved with a joy so abundant. They did not squabble, or bicker, they were simply filled with a joy she could not begin to understand. They never felt sorry for their loss of hearing, their struggles, their family lives or any other difficulties, they simply danced and played and lived every single second with a radiant joy. She is astounded, days later, when she still talks it over, trying to make sense. “Everyone…” she says, as though it’s almost unbelievable except for the fact that she experienced it with her own eyes.

She went down there knowing some sign language, she came home knowing more, and knowing what he left with better. She built a confidence in signing to a point that it’s a fluid response we’re seeing. Confidence is also something new to her. I’m feeling challenged in this raw joy she speaks up. We are a spoiled society, and while I try desperately to practice gratitude, I think I forget the key component of Joy. Somewhere along the way I think I believed joy comes from gratitude, which may be so… But don’t I need to marvel in more and allow joy to fill me, simply for the sake of joy? Have I modeled that to her? I don’t think that I have…

I am seeing though, that perhaps I’m even more aware of joy infused opportunities since she came home and I’ll admit, I’m certainly finding some in her stories…

Hurting where you’re at…

Published on June 20, 2014 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay7 Comments

As part of a writing group challenge/link up, I was supposed to write on Hurt this week. This week… The week that my world has felt rocked in every negative way imaginable… This week, the week that I’ve had to confront every horrible feeling of abandonment from my own adolescence as my husband and I face horrible choices, as parents, that I just knew I’d never have to make.
This week, I don’t know how to write about anything but hurt. I also don’t know how to write about where I am. I think, most accurately of all, I feel like I no longer know how to write at all…

I am disjointed, broken, aching and throbbing on some metaphorical floor, while really I am numb and driving through daily details with reality hovering just over head. This reality, the blackest of dark clouds which funnel and threaten to destroy everything, it no longer scares me.

I am here, yet not. Tear empty and without thought… Nothing makes sense and I’m reminded that hard choices, tough choices, the choices that leave us hovering over the toilet as vomit spews from our mouth- those choices are the ones we never want, but will inevitably come at some point. I secretly wish that I could wake up one year from today and see that everything turned out ok, and that I handled these things before me beautifully. The scariest thing, (so I lied, I guess I am still afraid) is that neither of those things will be true.

When I lay bleeding in hospital beds, or bathroom floors, or that one time standing, in my neighbor Heather’s kitchen, miscarrying my babies- I believed I had never known a pain like that. Physically, I didn’t care what my body felt, but heart-wrenchingly that hurt was soul shredding… Years later when my sweet twin girls, who we’d had for 10 months and were adopting, were suddenly ripped from my arms, I revisited a different angle of that hell. Since I became a mom there have been many moments of ache closely similar, I guess because I’m similarly vulnerable, and because this motherhood journey has not been an easy one. This past almost-year though, nearly every day has felt like some awful Groundhog Day version of those moments, twisted into something achingly unfair and worse. I haven’t the strength for many more seconds of this, I haven’t the water for many more tears…