Category: gifts

Dearest Mr. Kringle,

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

In my November/December Newsletter I shared a gift list with suggestions for people you may be shopping for this Holiday season. I am a stickler for details and observant, to a fault, so throughout the year I collect ideas for things. It brings me great joy when a subscriber emails me to tell me they purchased one of the items for a loved one. (this has happened about a dozen times since my newsletter went out!) I love helping others and often dream of being a personal gift shopper because, let’s face it, giving gifts is THE BEST!

My daughters were begging me to get a list together for Chw. He’s kind of the worst at making a wishlist. When I pointed this out to him, he said that I hadn’t exactly presented him with one. We aren’t really exchanging gifts this year and my daughters both know what I would like, and wouldn’t, so the idea of making a list myself seemed ridiculous. Then, as if by magic, a long time reader emailed me and asked when my wishlist would be up. Weird right? See, every year, around December 1st, I tend to post a “dream wishlist”. It’s not a big deal, and it’s just for fun. We all have those things we’re dreaming of getting, but know we won’t. Well, apparently she looks forward to this list at the start of the holiday season, which is super cool and pretty funny, to be honest.

At any rate, after careful thought, I’ve decided this place could use a light-hearted/fun post so here it is…

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1.) Drake Tufted Sofa I mean, seriously… is this not the most beautiful sofa? This color… The tufting…
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2) If I haven’t complained on here about my current kitchen, please be amazed. It is my least favorite kitchen in all of the kitchens. This little kitchen set is SO adorable though and whenever I see it, i just grin from ear to ear! My kitchen needs some love.

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3) THIS recipe box. Do I need a new one? No. Not really…  But recipe boxes tend to be among those things that are typically pretty ugly and never really “fit in”, but this one… Well. :)

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4.) This Vase is gorgeous. Among my favorite things, in all the world, are fresh-cut flowers. I love them. I imagine this vase filled with flowers and my domestic little design loving heart soars…

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5.) These food prep boards… I mean, imagine the love these would bring to my kitchen. (remember my woeful kitchen confession above? *sigh*)

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6) This PTR face mask sampler is something I drool over every single time I’m in Ulta. PTR is my FAVORITE “something essential, yet special” skin care line, and with my Mask Monday stuff, this is PERFECT!

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7) I have been on the hunt for this Palette for what feels like ever. I have dreamed of it… Someday. (maybe. Hopefully. If only…)

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8) It is amazing. Enough said… 65-loews-spa-day-massage-or-facial-reg-125-2250482-regular

9) A spa day, complete with a facial, deep tissue massage, pedicure and glass of wine.

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10) a private jet. I miss my kids like crazy and soon Gen won’t be home either. (college) my closest friends live insanely far away and sometimes a “quick weekend” somewhere warm sounds perfect…

So there you go! Of course, I don’t need any of these things. The best parts of Christmas, for me, have nothing to do with what I unwrap. It is all about who I am surrounded by and the joy that lights up their eyes, along with what I can possibly do to make that a reality… What are you “wishing” for?

P.S. A quaint little Inn, in Cape Cod, Ma… :)

One foot in front of the other…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

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To my right a thousand little lights twinkle. Armed with my second cup of coffee, this morning, I open up this page and begin. I have not been spending much time with this blog of mine for a hundred different reasons, many based upon heart issues. I am sure someone reading this can understand issues of the heart. The heaviness, the frustrations, the aches, the loss, the less, the more…

Two thousand and sixteen has been my least favorite year and one of tremendous growth. Every time I admit this truth I am reminded of the nights spent in agony, in my bed, from leg pains. On a scattering of those evenings, my mother would be there massaging them to bring me relief. Those were among the good childhood moments, fighting through pain and not alone. While I was mostly a normal child, I did have a disorder which caused the pain to be a bit more than that of a typical childhood growth spurt. Growing hurt just a bit more. Even through the pain, which at times felt unbearable, those times when my mother was there comforting me and validating the pain I was in where among the small list of happier childhood moments. It took me decades later to realize that growth will always hurt, but people do have the ability to make it beautiful, despite the pain.

During those seasons of my life there were hospital visits, hotel stays (the most magical bits of the journey. Even as a small girl, I understood the sheer wonderful that was a hotel room.) painful exams and my mother. It was clear to me what a burden, in every sense of the word, I was to her. And the massage nights, they would likely be the kindest things she ever did for me. It does not matter that for every 25 pain ridden nights, there would be one with her sitting there helping me. Somehow, for as far as I could remember, I knew to be so thankful for that one. (I also knew never to ask her to do it, but that is a different story.)

Throughout my young years, my mother often told me to massage lotion into her feet. I hated doing this. Of the two things she asked me to do the most for, (foot massage and dumping her ashtray) thoughts of both still have me recoiling. As an adult I now live with my own feet which ache more often than not. (sidenote, my mother went on to have some serious foot issues needing multiple surgeries and there are moments when my own pains lead me to fear that is my fate as well,) Despite the tumultuous relationship I have had with my mother, i was flooded with something like peace and relief to know that maybe I had brought her something good. Maybe in those moments, with Vaseline lotion in hand, I brought her the comfort she was mentally/emotional incapable of bringing to me.

A couple of weekends ago I went to visit my mother. I had not seen her for one week shy of a year. I was wary of how it would go. Sitting down for a visit with a severely bi-polar woman who is in the early stages of dementia can be unpredictable. The 120 minutes were filled with ups, downs, confusion (hers), empathy (mine), guilt (also mine) and a precious 10 minutes where I grabbed the bottle of lotion from the table which sits next to her lift bed, and gently rubbed her feet. She argued at first, but in time she relaxed.

My mom has dementia and is in a home 45 minutes from my apartment. This is the closest I have lived to her since I was 12. Between us there is so much and it has been very hard on me, in a complicated and layered way. My dog, who was my closest companion, died. This broke the tiny piece of my heart which was still in tact and, three months later, I still miss her terribly. My marriage was in shambles and felt irreparable and hopeless. While the word felt is truly appropriate here, past tense and all, I won’t lie: it still feels that way sometimes. (I do appreciate that sometimes is a lot more manageable than always.) I went through a lot of hurt and due to a situation, have harbored a lot of flat-out hatred for a few individuals. I have spent seven long months waiting to matter, waiting to be worth something to my husband and waiting to have my heart fought for. It was in my thirty November days of gratitude and reflection that I finally had to admit this will never happen. My husband loves me. He used to love me more, and differently, or at least he pretended really well. Now he loves me this way, and that is simply how it is. I have some semblance of worth to him, though others are worth more. They have done nothing to earn this position, and honestly are really horrible women, but that is not the reflection of my worth that I have allowed it to be. As much as I may imagine a confrontation which leads my husband to proclaim his choice of me and force each of them to face the awfulness of themselves, I do not need this. I no longer harbor hatred towards them. I no longer expect my husband to love me the way I once believed he did, simply I accept that he does not. While I do not like the esteemed position of these women within his heart, this realization does not make me less valuable or worthy. It simply means to my husband I may be, but he is not the end all of my appraisal.

I am the daughter of a woman who had loving parents who worked really hard for her. They were not perfect, but neither was she. She has mental illness which, untreated, really made a mess of her life. She caused immeasurable amounts of pain and for the forty years that I have known her, she has harbored hatred and bitterness to extreme degrees. Despite everything, I will always be her daughter. I may end up with marred and pain riddled feet. I may cry in the occasional sappy Hallmark movie, melt into a puddle whenever I see a puppy and have unrealistic ideals of what my daily productivity levels should be, but beyond the little details I do not want to be like my mother. I do not want to harbor ill will to anyone. I do not want my perception of worth to be based on a man’s perception of my worth. I do not want to spend any amount of time tormenting my children, causing them to go any amount of time terrified to see me.

I will however, take any foot massage offered to me. (that being said, I am probably always going to be way too scarred to ask for it.)

We can be heroes…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

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I’m not sure if you’ve seen the trailer for the film Queen of Katwe, but it is one that I am super excited about. I love a great true story about amazing people who overcome large difficulties to do something inspirationally extraordinary. I was talking with a friend, a few weeks ago, about a different film that fit that mold, when she said movies like that simply weren’t her cup of tea.

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Wait, what??? I was shocked. As she and I sat, on the phone, and unpacked that newly discovered gap between us, I soon realized that this is not just a love of heart-tugging movies, for me. My personal life is chock full of people who have overcome, in amazing ways. While thinking about this, I struggled to find one person to write about. Just one? How could I choose? Who would I choose? I can honestly say that were I to sit down with a pen & notebook, and write it out, there would be no less than one hundred people who fit this and have gone on to do extraordinary things.

When it came down to it, I have to choose my kids. Each one of my three kid’s early lives broke and bruised them immeasurably. Our society knows of thousands of kid-turned adults with similar origin stories. Our prisons, street corners and addicted communities are full of those bruised and broken early on. It is so easy to be in that place and feel like you should have had better, kicking your heals back, settling down and accepting that. It takes a special sort of person to move out of there and strive for something more. After multiple abandonments and abuses, these three kids each found their own way out. They learned to work hard, find value and (the hardest part of all) honestly face their wounds. There is so much bravery and courage in the journeys they’ve walked, and will continue to. My life hasn’t been easy. Let’s be honest, no one’s has. Even with all I have walked, when I think of how hard these three people have had to fight and work to become who they are today, I am awed. There is such a sense of loyalty, compassion and generosity in each of them, which is lost on the majority of society. I do not know three better human beings, and when my life fell apart last fall these kids were my biggest advocates.

In their own ways, at different life stages, I have seen my kids open their hearts to help people when they truly had nothing to give. My youngest spends half the year planning and plotting for Christmas because giving gifts is her favorite thing. The majority of her part time job paycheck goes to buying gifts and small, thoughtful things. My older daughter has turned her life upside down, multiple times, because someone had a need. My son loves so purely, so vulnerably, and though it has led him to be hurt time and time again, he still puts all he’s got into loving the people in his life. These three incredible people would be heroes in my eyes, even if I did not know them. Lucky for me, I do, and (also lucky for me) I get to call them MY heroes…

If you, like me, love stories like this, I really encourage you to go see Queen of Katwe, which opens this Friday, September 30th.

Sea glass…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

photo-1433162653888-a571db5ccccfI have something that has been weighing heavy in my thoughts, which I fully intended to write about this morning. After the unfolding of this weekend though, I find myself unable to go there quite yet… It isn’t that it was a bad weekend. It was a full weekend. A busy weekend. A surprising weekend.

My beautiful seventeen year old began her weekend single, with not only no prospects, but learning to accept herself in that place. Said seventeen year old ended her weekend snuggling on my couch with her boyfriend, whom she met 2 days before in totally cute and bookish/classic movie sort of way. I will not share the story here as it is not mine to share. The part I want to talk about is related, but more so mine.

Friday was kind of a huge day for that part of me which connects my brain and my heart. I’m sure you know the part in which I speak of… Gen and I, (in case you’re new here, I’ll take a second to point out that Gen is, in fact, said seventeen year old.) went to see the Hillsong movie on Friday afternoon. (on the chance that you are not new here, I know that this part in my chain of events will be of no surprise to you.) (sidenote: it’s incredible and you really should go see it.) There were a few things mentioned in the film which really stuck in my brain. The longer those things stayed planted in my thoughts, the more they grew and the more I simply felt WOWED by life, by divine intervention, by…

One of these thoughts was a reassurance that things are not up to us and we can’t control them. To degrees we can, sure. But there are so many things that we can’t, bigger things… Sometimes really beautiful things, like the unexpected pregnancies during the difficult and tumultuous times. Though this is not a place which I have lived in, I have seen this very thing play out in the lives of my sister, my older daughter and many, many friends. It is the sea of big scary unknowns whose waves crash into something amazingly beautiful and life affirming. These out-of-our-hands miracles which we may not have wanted, expected or believed we needed are the bits of life which reflect the brightest.

A darker reality of this same idea comes in the form of child abuse. Child abuse of any nature is unacceptable and never justifiable. Anyone who has been present in our world knows, however, that it is an epidemic reality. Child abuse victims, as they grow, become one of two people. Have you ever really noticed this? Having worked in the industry of broken children (which is, sadly, an industry here in America) for the better part of a decade and a half, I saw it unfold and cycle over and over again. Option one is the bitter, self-centered eternal victim who will always wear the blue-colored glasses aiding them to see themselves as the one wronged eternally. By friends, family, lovers, cable men, creditors, land lords, employers, their own children, etc. We all know these people, the ones with the lifetime of themes of being wronged somehow. The ones who talk on and on about it. Psychologically speaking, this is a pretty interesting way to live. Though we often get frustrated with these sorts, and due to that, they may wind up alone- they are not entirely wrong. Often they either keep themselves so down that they attract users and manipulators. In the times when they haven’t, however, I personally believe they are simply stuck in a rut. Whenever their childhood wounds happened, no one likely advocated for them. Isn’t that all they are doing those 10/20/30 years later- advocating for themselves, in their own minds anyway? The second option, however, comes less naturally. It is the option of bettering yourself, and going on to impact the world for the better, in some way, because your childhood wounds made you stronger. The two options truly are choices… And though the first part is beyond our control (and I do not believe EVER destined to happen) we can decide how we handle it, and who we choose to become.

Both my husband and I were at that crossroads, in our youth. We had to decide which route to take and upon our early days of meeting and getting to know one another, we both spoke the words aloud about how we wanted to provide a home to kids who needed it because that had been done for us. Over the 23 years which have followed, we have been foster parents, been a shelter home, housed teenage runaways, and become the parents of three of the most awesome, not-from-our-womb kids we could have imagined. Our home has also been the temporary home of quite a few young adults who became a part of our little rag-tag family. There is no way we ever could have orchestrated any of that, but we would not change a thing. The absolute ugly of our young lives was turned into the most amazing things in our grown ones. The stormy waves crash, again and again, making something beautiful. It is like the origin of sea glass, or the unearthing of shipwrecked treasures…

Sometimes we simply go to work a little lonely, on a friday night and then wrap up the weekend holding hands with a cute boy on the couch whose path yours likely crossed with many, many times before…

Touch the sky…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay13 Comments

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I am going to talk a little bit about worship, but first-  I am pretty in touch with my readers and I am aware that this may turn a few of you off. I hope not. I hope that, in the way you have all been so amazing over the most tumultuous year of my life, you will stick this post out with an open mind. Even if it’s not your thing, please try to understand that I am sharing something personal and not (in any way) trying to preach to you…

Before November 23, of last year, I’d had a lifetime of loving God. That had always been something present and life defining in my adult life. I went through various stages of Christianity. Some of the earlier days looked a lot like the stereotypically shallow version, which seems far more judgmental than loving. I have always (and will continue to be) a work in progress.  I caught on, in my early twenties, to stepping out and thinking for myself rather than following the church current. Due to my history of infertility and sexual abuse, there were a lot of ideas and Christianese sentiments which did not nestle well with the heart I had developed for God. I am not saying a lot of these things don’t work well for others, but in a moment of unabashed frankness I will say that many of those I knew early on who did walk that line are pretty cold people now. It is my personal opinion that being cold and judgmental is not the plan.

Up until the summer of 2015 I really believed I had the God thing figured out. Adoptive parenting, maybe not so much. Being a writer professionally, definitely not. The two things that I was most confident in were my marriage and my faith. If you have been reading here for any amount of time at all, you are well aware that my marriage started to rapidly crumble last fall and fell apart in November.

Rock bottom is sometimes where we need to hit, to grow and be. When I say rock bottom, I want to clarify: when you slam unexpectedly, and life shatteringly hard against the hardest ground imaginable and know in the depths of your being that you cannot pick yourself up. This, for me, was November 23rd. And it looked ugly, and it felt worse. Indescribably worse.

I have, as a Believer in God, never been a fan of Christian music or films. Call me cynical, because that’s really what it was. Prior to my fall, I believed worship music was meant for Sunday service. In that “appropriate” place, I loved me some good worship music. I loved the feeling of getting caught up in praising God. And, at various times in the week, like the good girl I was, I was known to play a worship playlist and spend time with God. Worship music had a time and a place. And then, after months of contemplating suicide, I found myself at my splattered-rock-bottom place and everything I knew and believed was shaken. How does a Godly marriage fall apart? How does a woman who loves Jesus and tries to love others selflessly end up broken and alone? How could I end up in such a place at my age (39)? What could I have done differently? Layers and layers of film were removed from the eyes of my heart. I began to see things as I had never seen them before. Myself. My preconceived notions of what a woman, a wife and a mother should be like. I began to see my motivations in all of their earnestness. It was rough. I did not know how to exist outside of my wifehood and my motherhood, because in those moments I had neither. I had to admit, for the first time, that I was completely incapable of being anything for anyone. This was a hard, hard thing when I had spent my life being that rock for everyone I loved. My rock quality had become slime and I could not allow that mess to stick to others.

Worship is NOT standing in church with others and singing songs. Authentic worship was, I am not kidding, one of the biggest lessons I learned in my climb from my rock bottom hell. It can fit in church singing, at times. It can also be found in the shower, sitting in traffic, shopping, sitting on the beach, listening to music. Worship is NOT singing. Sure, it can be. It can be singing a Christian song, a non-Christian song, your own in-the-moment string of words. It can also come about in meditation, in conversationally talking to God, in writing, in working out, in washing dishes… Worship is stepping outside of self, in gratitude and love (and sometimes various other things) to focus on God. Worship is easily the most personal thing we can do, and debatably one of the most vulnerable. In that way, as a parent, where you can choose whether to think of your huge to-do list while your kids ramble on, or to tune out everything and listen to them. Tuning out everything and focussing on God- THIS is worship. And it took laying there in my metaphorical chalk outline to realize I had never really planted myself in that place. Sure, I’d had snapshots of moments like that. The worship service, Bible study or personal devotion time moments… But to LIVE that way? At the supermarket, at the gym, folding the laundry… This I had never done. Suddenly though, as I processed through these realizations, I knew that I ached to.

You know how I said Christian music hadn’t really been my thing? I LOVE music and have pretty vast taste. If it’s trendy, it’s not usually my taste. And I avoided most Christian music because honestly, the majority of it sounded the same. And then, one morning I am tearfully broken and utterly alone at church (also something new to me, as I had never done the alone-in-church thing*) and we sang this song . The lyrics of this song literally reached inside of my emotional gut and scraped it clean. It was agonizing and healing all rolled into one. Come to find out, it was by Hillsong. Sure, I knew Hillsong. They did Oceans and nearly every American Christian is overly familiar with Oceans and it’s dangerously alluring lyrics. I started listening, and listening, and listening. Praise and Worship music had never been on my music-of-choice radar and suddenly all I wanted, all of the time, was to have Hillsong in my ears. They were the balm my heart was needing as it began to heal. That original song which ripped me apart, to make me better, on that January Sunday morning is called Touch the Sky. It hit me right where I was and gave me the courage to rise and live. In that place I learned what worship would be, for me. I hit the ground, and I found a relationship with God I had never known possible. I am not perfect, I am no better than anyone else. What I am is honest and real. There is no pretense, there is no “putting on a good front” so others remain comfortable and there is no condemnation towards another soul. I’ve had a few Christians whom I respected criticize me for such transparency. I have had more people open up to me, however, (especially through this blog) because I’ve been real.

I know that I’ve talked a fair amount about Hillsong here. I was fortunate to see them twice, this year, and it was life affirming both times. I am now convinced that, if I could have a Hillsong concert, an afternoon on the pacific coast, a girl’s weekend and a night in the city every year, I would be the most well-rounded and peaceful person alive. Since that is not likely to happen, however, I can admit that I am beyond excited for the  film HILLSONG- LET HOPE RISE, releasing this Thursday! Though it wouldn’t be the same, when it’s out on DVD I will be able to watch it every time I need that boost. Also,  I really love this video where Hillsong’s Taya Smith talks about worship… (Also, I TOTALLY dig her retro jacket. #80’s!) Here’s the other reason I really love them… They are authentic. Their lyrics are raw and honest, and their persons are too. Christian or not, that deserves respect in this world.

My Hillsong projects and giveaways have been really personal to me, for the story I’ve shared above. It is on that note that I want to share another! I will be giving away two separate items. One is the soundtrack, and other is a pair of tickets to see HILLSONG- LET HOPE RISE in the theater. To enter to win, simply leave a comment in response to this post OR what worship means to you. (Comments on the Facebook post will also count, alternating in number, with one being here, two there, three here, etc…)

(*during my journey I had a single girlfriend tell me that she was so used to going to church alone that when someone went with her it bothered her. This seemed INSANE to me. I ached for my family and felt their absence screamed loudly at church. Then, the first few Sundays when I went back to church with them beside me I realized I was so distracted. Moral of that story, I guess is, every situation is only ever what we choose to make of it.)