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Things I have learned this week…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

This has been a serious week for learning and waking this morning really has me pondering many of those things. As I brewed coffee I thought I’d take a few minutes before a friend arrives to jot down the array of lessons… (I know, two lists in a row. My fellow list lovers might be cheering while the rest of you toss your hands up and question our very existence… It’s ok, together we will make it through.)

  • I am part of an AWESOME class/group and after meeting together yesterday, I have seriously had that wisdom flooding my every thought.
  • A coffee grinder will be much more affective when grinding beans, if it is plugged in.
  • Forgetting to give your neurologically needy dog her nighttime anxiety meds is a really bad thing, especially when a gigantic thunder-storm shows up to serenade the dark hours… (poor Emma)
  • Clinique eye cream for puffy eyes is wonderful, and totally my best friend today… (As will be a nap, despite the insane volume of coffee I seem to be consuming.)
  • speaking of dogs, healthy outside time is AMAZING after four weeks of unhealthy and terrible dog-sickness. It felt like a never ending form of hell, but it turns out to be that a probiotic recommended to us is not ideal for dogs and it was affecting their stomach lining. We’re on the mend and I am beside myself with relief. (I have PTSD when it comes to sick dogs, you guys. It’s a real thing.)
  • outdoor writing spaces are the best. Seriously.
  • open windows, (when the weather outside is open-window-weather) might be my new favorite thing.
  • It is possible to walk into the Pottery Barn/Williams Sonoma outlet and only spend $8.
  • Seeing things you love through your husband’s eyes/perspective can be so cool. (also, sometimes, annoying… But in this case, it’s cool.)
  • When people who love you keep urging you towards something because they see how badly it is affecting you, consider their words.
  • Video chat is fun. Video chat with several people is more fun.
  • When we listen and stick to our path, there is affirmation all around. I am more in awe of this every day, this past month.
  • Honor the people you have loved. Don’t slander them when you are angry. Don’t act beneath you to “get back at them”. We are all better than that, and you only hurt yourself really…
  • There is no too late. A really amazing story was shared with me, this week, about a woman whose husband passed away when she was sixty, in 2006. She stepped in, after having always been a housewife and mother, to take over his auto business. (that is 2006, you guys. Right before the economy tanked, right before the automotive industry took a plummet. Right before nearly the entire state of Michigan surged into a state of shock/trauma/ruin) This business has grown, blossomed, she now speaks and encourages others in their businesses… This whole story is beyond amazing to me!
  • Adult people can decide not to make dinner, and it’s ok. The world will keep spinning. This is a concept I don’t think I have ever really considered. If we are hungry, we will figure it out. (seriously, and super sadly- mind-blowing.)
  • We are surrounded by really amazing women because we women are amazing. Sometimes connecting with them, when they come to your mind, is something they desperately needed.
  • there are some really interesting jobs out there and sometimes they might call you, out of the blue. That doesn’t mean you have to take it, (i didn’t) but it is super cool to be wanted!
  • Just. In addition to my revelation about the negativity of the word too, a conversation with a friend yesterday turned me on to the negativity attached to the word just, especially for women. Wow.
  • When the weather calls for Sunshine and 82 out, it’s probably going to rain and have a high of 48- just sayin’…
  • And lastly… When getting dressed, on little to no sleep (thanks, Emma!) if you put on the first layer of a summer dress, and then after not really feeling the dress once the second layer is on- make sure to remove both layers before throwing a long tee over your leggings and taking the dog for a nice walk… (true story. As we were getting home, and my friend pulled up, I realized I had essentially walked around my subdivision in leggings, a black slip and a Lu La Roe perfect shirt. It was awesome… need more coffee.)

Too Too…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

 

On Sunday I sat aboard a riverboat, contemplating…

The projected forecast had turned grim and the riverboat had been an unplanned little adventure. It was cold and rainy while I was unfortunately dressed for the 70 degree sunshine which my weather app had predicted. There had been a whirlwind of days leading up to that slow-moving boat trip down the river. Family visits and dinners, physician visits and physical therapy appointments. New medications, a handful of work deadlines, and all of the other life bits of things that layer and weave about within the sometimes crazy.

The quiet moment was unsettlingly nice. Despite the monotonance recording of the boat announcer, I found my busy-speed senses taking in any (and every) thing in double time as the pace life literally slowed around me. I noticed the subtlety between the sweet children and the mischievous ones. I noticed the father and teen-daughter duo, each lost in their phones which confused me a bit. Why be there on that boat, in the rain and misery, at all? Why bother? With each captain’s urging to look left and we might see a deer, or look right for the rare sighting of a speed turtle, it reminded me more and more of those scenes in Jurrassic Park when the caravan look searching for a sighting, only to grow in disappointment. No deer. No speed turtles. About six ducks, the men… Apparently the women were home tending to the nests. Of course they were…

I felt heavy with sadness, really. Maybe it was due to the growing cloud coverage, but maybe it was just my increasing awareness of the disconnect that is everywhere. In the families lost in their own thing, and the couples who travel to do things together, in odd and uncomfortable silence. Every time I leave my home my attention is drawn by people doing life solo, and not in that independent way we claim as a goal. Also I am noticing when interaction happens, it is often unkind.

Several years ago we were in Phoenix for a long weekend. Sitting at a red light, with windows down, enjoying the winter warmth to which we weren’t accustomed, we heard a woman screaming at her husband across the intersection. The light seemed to last forever as she shoved her finger at his face, belittling him and growing so loud that she could have been in our car. It was so sad and I vowed to never be a Phoenix wife. That is how I remember her. I may get upset, but no matter how passionate (or valid) my anger may seem, I stop myself before Phoenix wife. In turn, when Chw is talking about particular friends or men he encounters, he will sometimes point out that their wife is a Phoenix wife. I think it is probably pretty easy to allow ourselves to decline (or escalate, depending on perspective) to that point and here is why…

I began to pick up on dialogue that others had around us, there in the lower level of that boat. Too hot. Too cold. Too crunchy. Too sweet. Too tight. Too slippery. (that one was me, we went up to the second deck and the rain made it a bit of a mess in my all-too-appropriate-flip flops.)

Too. 

Such a negative little word, that too. With it comes much weight, which is ironic considering it’s definition. It is ugly and it is critical. It is implicative. It is often divisive. It is so many, many things, but almost always it is negative. It is not kind. Nothing genuinely life giving is every summed up with the word too. At it’s very nature, when spoken, it can seem competitive. Of course, as with most things, there are exceptions. But while anything is negatively alligned with too, beyond the standard I love you too and I miss you too’s, not many positive things are. My car is too old never had a season of my car is too new. Too old. Too young. Too dark. Too light. Too abbrassive. There is never too kind, too funny, too peaceful, too loving unless it is spoken in false modesty or with a sense of complaining.

Too.

Phoenix wife’s husband was a lot of too’s, and with each mention of the next too, she grew crueler and louder. Too mentality alarms me, suddenly.

I’m breaking up with too for a while. The thing is, I have been mulling it over since the boat ride on Sunday, and growing stronger in my feeling. Maybe one day I’ll try to bring too back, but today we need a break. Whenever my mind or heart resort to too prefaced things, it is a mindset I need to correct. To be a light, we have to be willing to be a light. We have to choose to breathe on that flame and make it brighter, without that breath, it just goes right out. That is what too does, for me. Plus, let’s be honest, too is just plain lazy. Too replaces real words with real descriptions. Too takes the effort and thoughtfulness of intention away and replaces it with a generic and coined response.

I love you. 

I love you too. 

Why? Why not follow it with an embrace? Or with a thank you, I really love and appreciate you. I really love when you/your _________! Isn’t love, at its core, a gift? Who wouldn’t rather hear that, anyway? And maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you find value in simplicity so too works for you. Awesome. For me, I am seeing so much negativity. When I have worked hard and poured my heart into something and the response is that it is too ______, I whither. My broken bits shift a little, and that isn’t good. When my mind wanders to too, (Michigan is too… Doing that seems too hard… Your voice is too loud) I am choosing to ignore the multitude of good and beautiful around me to hone in on the negative. Really, that is too bad.

When someone shares with me, I do not want it to be too vulnerable. When someone shows me something they’ve made, I do not want my gut reaction be that it is too-something. I want to be honest, but I want my honesty to grow from something genuine and kind. Something that considers them more than it considers me and my opinion. For me, I am seeing that too comes solely from a place of self. It is about me.

When my mind instinctually goes to too, I will try to shift it to something nurturing.

 

It’s Friday, I’m in love…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

Of all the sunshine goodness that began this month of May, there was a little balance struck with sore throat/chronic illness junk. I’m secretly wanting to lay in my bed and binge netflix with an abundance of throat lozenges and Coke Zero. With the husband away on business, and these two crazy dogs needing things like food, walks and playtime, this isn’t likely going to happen anytime soon…

With May upon us, there is a sense of hope around. Do you feel it too?

This week, I’m loving…

  • This mom t-shirt may be my very favorite thing EVER.
  • These sunnies are FABULOUS! My mother’s day will be shared with a red pair because, well, they are so fun! (and because, if Michigan cooperates, we will be spending the day in the sunshine!
  • My sister Jennie got me to watch this show when it first premiered, and I really liked it. But then, life happened and I stopped watching it 4 episodes in. I did dive back in last week, and wrapped it up last night. I really loved so much about it, and have developed some firm opinions about how I think the second season should unfold…
  • since I learned I can’t do Keto, I have also not been feeling the best. So, unfortunately I am apparently loving carbs. No links. I do not recommend loving things such as toast, Dave’s Killer Bagels and peanut butter sandwiches…
  • My husband put this on my dash last week. I am a pretty regular user of the Marco Polo app and this mount has made all the difference! (thanks, husband!)

Also, don’t forget The Collective has a new episode this week! It is my favorite, so far! Good stuff!

Go into your weekend with zest and a spirit of openness… Amazing things await!

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

When two young, married kids learned the hard way that starting a family wasn’t an automatic given, life turned harder than either of them had imagined possible. Through miscarriage, bouts of infertility and a traumatically failed foster care adoption, hope became this certain thing they each believed did not belong to them…

Anyone who knows me, or us, knows that this is our story. This is also the story of so many other couples. Maybe a few details would be different but the key elements- the vital heartbreak and hopelessness- that is the same… It was that journey, the one which felt the length of centuries, but was really only the length of seven years, which set the stage for our actual parenthood. When the foster babies we’d believed were the answer to so many Please, God, give us a family prayers were taken, my husband emphatically and protectively decided that enough was enough. He was done, we were done. No more hopes mutilated, no more trying to have faith that my achingly empty arms would soon be full… No more.

And so, fast forward about five years. We had very hesitantly signed with an adoption agency. It was all an awkward and cautious dance, really… Within ourselves, with those around us, with dreams and ideas, prayers, and especially with each other. It is often talked about how the loss of a child is seldom something a marriage survives and I am here to say that infertility treats a marriage the very same way. There are just genetic ways that women tend to process, cope and grieve which often seem foreign to a man. This is also true from men to women.Those times when a couple need to draw together, often leads to them pulling far apart. Immersing ourselves back into the family journey, no matter how delicately we tiptoed, was a terrifying attempt. We were each so jaded and scarred from the time before. Just as we were both settling in to that same-page way of things, and trying to move towards whatever path this adoptive journey led us- a call comes asking us to consider taking a four-year old little girl. She’s unsafe for other young children to be around. She’s been hurt. She’s aggressive and reactive. She’s coming from every imaginable trauma. Please, please take her. Now.

The past bites us viciously when we least expect it. Carnal instincts are there, within us, no matter how hard we suppress them. When you unite a mother with a child who is a viciously shattered, wounded little bird- something happens. I never knew how protective I could be. Would be…

Our adoption of that little girl took far too long. With every investment of thousands of dollars, the path would only lead to an unscalable brick wall, closed-door and the urgings of another avenue followed by double the dollar signs. She was four when she came home to us, and thirteen when a judge finally made us a legal family. For nine years we were bled dry, gave birth to debt and lived in a constant state of fear. Hope sometimes speckled our lifelines, but mostly we waited for the big-bad-whatever to ruin everything we were fighting for. With each closed-door, we would have the talk…

What if it doesn’t work out. What if someone takes her. What if we never get to adopt her. What if? What if? What if? The seeds which had been planted when those twin foster babies were taken, as I lay a mangled mess of salty tears and agony on the floor bloomed, and they bloomed vibrantly. We’d flee. We’d run. We would protect her at all cost, no matter what came her way. We’d face prison. We’d find the money and hire someone to make sure no one from those who had hurt her would ever have the chance again.

There were a lot of frustrations. There were season upon season of sleepless nights. There were a lot of Oh gosh, it’s happening- this is it, type scares. I grew far too familiar with the feeling of blood running cold. I grew far too comfortable with the idea of doing what I “had to”, even if what I had to might be wrong. My ethical compass, typically solid, grew blurred when it came to our little girl.

Thankfully, I never actually had to make the decision. Even now, years later, when I look back I realize I have absolutely no idea if I really could have gone to such extents… What I am certain of is that I gave up everything and devoted my life to give her love and keep her safe. I also know that there is no way I could have made it through even a month of that journey, much less nearly a decade, without a solid faith. God has never promised me that he’d hand over anything and everything I asked for, but what He has given me is a peace when peace seems impossible, and a quiet security and strength when the world around me raged in uncontrollable stormy chaos.

I shared this story as an experience about a relevant time, in my life, when I struggled with my moral boundaries and what I knew was right or wrong, for me. This post is in partnership with the film Wraith from writer-director Michael O. Sajbel (One Night With the King).

Wraith (rāth) noun: a ghost or ghostlike image of someone, especially one seen
after, or shortly before, their death
Something’s very wrong in the Lukens’ house. After living uneventfully for years in their historic home, the Lukens family have
somehow awakened a ghostly presence. Who is this frightening spirit and why won’t leave their 14 year-old daughter, Lucy, alone? Everything changed when Dennis and Katie Lukens discovered they were pregnant
again. Expecting in your 40’s is always high-risk and dangerous, so when the Lukens
decide all options are on the table – including termination – the unexpected starts to
happen. Sinister forces are now conspiring against the family. But is this eerie,
wraith-like spirit actually trying to haunt them…or help them?
Wraith is available on all VOD platforms and Blu-ray/DVD May 8

Miraculous miracles abound, can you see them?

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

There is something absolutely remarkable happening outside…

I can’t even believe how soul-stirring it is to hear voices carrying in the breeze, from somewhere outside. Birds are singing, the sunshine feels amazing and each instant of warmth on my skin and fresh air in my hair feels like a mini- miracle.

Sun tea. Another miracle. I have a gigantic tumbler of sun tea to my right. I tap- tap- tap a few words, and then sip- sip- sip its divine deliciousness.

Also, ice cream. We have made ice cream once, and gone out to ice cream once. Miracles, I tell you. Don’t get me wrong, I love ice cream and have been known to partake in its bliss-filled offerings even when it is blustery cold out, but this wasn’t the case. No, the evenings stretched longer than yesterday and the sun’s golden love fell all around. Plus, there was ice cream. See? Miracle…

Our lawn has already been cut once, and it smelled like summer and kindness all knotted up, and real.

Bare feet, freshly painted (red) toes atop plush, emerald-green blades of new growth. Miracle.

This morning, outside, A cardinal landed on a branch and watched us, as Elenor thoughtfully pondered catching and eating all of the birds nearby, and I stood soaking every ounce of it in. (important, though silly sidenote- his feathers matched my toes. We were totally twinning, that bird and I.)

Miracles, miracles, miracles. Every second of it.

I’m sick. It is most likely some form of a virus thing combined with a fibromyalgia thing, coupled with a stress thing. Stress doesn’t look good on me, as I DO NOT carry it well. Whatever. Additionally, it was two weeks ago today that I really injured my hip/back and have been pretty miserable. Even so, with the odds stacked so hard against me, I stood there, in that grass, and exchanged silent conversation with that beautifully red bird. I walked down stairs and out doors to soak up the rays of sun. And maybe today I’ve cried, and pity-partied my heart out. Maybe I’ve been so rollercoastered emotionally, but the miracles are everywhere.

I woke up.

I made and drank coffee.

I talked with friends.

I did my job.

I video chatted with my handsome husband, who is on a business trip.

I got a video of my son and his daughter, after he returned home from a military trip and they reconnected. So many miracles, because the truth us, I take things for granted. Most of us do.

I’m here today though… #miracle