Category: home

A note from the inside…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay8 Comments

The snow falls and falls.

From inside my home, {which never seems to get warm enough until I remember that there are people elsewhere who truly can’t get warm enough, and then I realize I am absolutely fine- if not better than fine,} the snow is beautiful. The plump flakes fall like grace from heaven and my heart soars with the glory of it. From my living room the neighborhood scape looks divinely lovely and I can’t help but feel so heart-full. From the view of my dining room deck I gaze upon an untouched field of perfect snow. The wonder of it embodies a million little miracles of blank slates and fulfilled promises of something clean, new, fresh, bright and beautiful…

From inside, this snow fall, this never-ending winter downpour of flurries warms a soul more than it frosts my skin.

Take this girl outside these walls though, and my story changes…

Driving in the snow sends my nerves singing like sharp violin notes which massacre a brilliant silence and instill fear during villainous horror films. Watching the snow through my windshield sends every morbidly grim thought racing through my brain in its own special sort of grand prix.

For what feels like years now, when the snow stops, (which does it really ever stop? I don’t think it does. I believe this is a Twilight Zone episode and we’re trapped in a snow globe… Shake, shake, shake. Shake, shake, shake.) the winds come. The winds make the snow seem like sugar falling straight from the sweet hand of Jesus. The winds are the breath of Satan. Satan has some ridiculously icy breath.

The moral of this whiny diatribe was that winter has been going on forever. And really, it hasn’t been forever, but while it’s been here, it’s been like winter times 10,000, and so doesn’t that at least equal a year (or ten) technically speaking?

The groundhog has his gig soon. We should maybe get word to him to do us a solid… If you know what I mean.

In the meantime, this is Misty, signing off from inside the bitter snow globe {where if the wind gets any colder I bet the glass will just break and then Rod Serling will be very sorry he messed with us.}

The one where I salvage what’s left of January…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay2 Comments
Me–
– since my writer’s retreat plans were changed, I carved out an intense week where during my “business” hours and evenings my focus is solely on work stuff. (I’m both terrified and excited!)
– a facial. this winter is working overtime on my skin! I’m sure being sick hasn’t helped…
– begin a weekly afternoon simply carved out for correspondence and reading, EVERY week. I’m thrilled! BEST goal/resolution of the year!
Us–
– one new year’s resolution I was to have a monthly cocktail evening complete with cards/games, and when it works out, having friends over. 
– Gen & I decided to take a bit of a girl’s weekend, mid month, complete with hotel sheets, sleeping in, no responsibilities, trips to the movies, swimming pools. I’m super excited! 
– In addition, Gen and I are going to start reading together, monthly. We share several of the same books now, which is an odd and special place to get to with your child.
 Heart–
– I’m starting a women’s group through our church. I’m pretty excited. I intended to start in the fall, and was excited to do the book they were focussing on, but I just couldn’t make that particular group work with my schedule. This new groups’ timing is a lot more conducive!
– listening to the calling to do/be more, with my life.
 Create–
– one of my goals this year is to take on 12 photo challenges.
– Since January of 2012, I haven’t been the best at taking photos and I miss that passion.
Reading–
– with the theme of my year being NEW, one thing I’m planning on doing is reading more children’s literature. I never read a lot of it. I kind of, as a reader, jumped right into adult books.
– Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
– MWF Seeking BFF
– Bread & Wine by Shauna Niequist
Home–
– a few reorganization projects.
– warm pots of soup.
– fresh-baked loaves of bread.
– one paper project (at least)
Health–
– yoga
– making more, and creative time for fitness/working out.
Love–
– a date night
– finding little ways to reach out to Chw when life and work keeps us apart.
“It is a tough road that leads to the heights of greatness.”
Seneca 

just a reflection…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay4 Comments

IMG_4343

As we wind down the last days of two-thousand and thirteen, I can’t seem to wrap my mind around the place my feet are planted now versus where they were this time last year.

We were coming to the close of what was, hands down, the most terrifying, taxing, grueling, stress-filled 16 months of our lives. They had started with me being diagnosed with pneumonia and nearly dying followed by the absolutely hardest journeys we’ve gone through with each one of our kids. {Truthfully the words personal hell don’t seem to touch how difficult that time frame was.} By the time we had reached the weekend before Christmas, of last year, it felt like my husband and I were barely dragging ourselves to the finish line. We knew that life had to give us a break, a change, or we were done…

We approached the new year the same way we do every year… With personal lists of hopes and goals. Among them, he wanted a new job. Between my medical bills, due to our horrible insurance, and other debt we had incurred throughout the horrible battles of 2012, we had pretty much supported ourselves on credit and that credit had reached a limit. It hadn’t been ideal, and at Chw’s job there had been no way at all that we ever would be able to climb out of that, BUT we had simply tried to survive.

We moved to Michigan in March. We found out about the opportunity about a month before hand. In the time since we’ve been here, we’ve paid a lot of our debt and every time we can file a PAID IN FULL statement, it’s nothing but gratitude I feel- like a miracle. But it isn’t just that…

My husband was stressed beyond belief. He had hypertension, constant bouts with chest pains, stress headaches and was (I believe) going to kill himself on stress within 5 years. He had aged himself drastically in the few years he had been at his position. He was not the man I knew, at all. Now, the man I love is back. He’s running and enjoying life, loves his new job and has a renewed appreciation for things.

And there’s me… This adjustment hasn’t been very easy on me. I love fiercely. I LOVE my sister and my friends and I miss them like CRAZY! Leaving them and living on what feels like the other side of the universe has been really hard! But, health wise, my migraines have gone down 90% due to medication and my lungs have healed drastically. When I began seeing my doctor this summer I was deaf in my right ear and my lungs were functioning at 28% after the pneumonia.  I can hear perfectly and my lungs are at 90%. Those two things just weren’t being addressed or treated back in Idaho due to my lack of good insurance.

Comparing that day then, to this date today, I’m humbled and in awe. Either of us could be dead, our bodies simply giving out. Emotionally we were pretty close to it. Financially we were on the verge of only God knows what, but it was terrifyingly bad and the darkest place ever…

But we aren’t.

We’re here, safe… healthy. Warm, fed, happy and together.

So, I know today might be really hard for a lot of people out there. I know it might feel really isolating, or terrifying, or unsolvable… But it’s just today. We have no idea how incredibly our circumstances can change. At the very least, I hope this encourages someone out there.

Color by numbers…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay1 Comment

November in statistics would look like this, for me:

Chai lattes drank: 7

Mainstream Movies watched: 14

Hallmark Holiday (Christmas, Thanksgiving) movies watched: 7

Photos taken with my iPhone: 198

Photos taken with my Canon: 0 {Wah Wah}

Creative, artsy projects done: 0

Percentage of Christmas shopping completed: 90%

Items baked: 3 {oh! progress!}

Books read: 2

Times accidentally set off home security system: 1

Super stressful work projects: 2

Surgical procedures: 1

Doctors visits: 12 {must work on this.}

By the numbers, there are some definite disappointments. Must rectify a few of these immediately. Aim to read at least 3 books in december, take photos with my Canon, see my doctor significantly less, have ZERO surgical procedures, bake more, do something creative more… Three cheers for creativity! Hip Hip Hurrah!

Overall, November was kind of a tough month and I’m breathing a bit easier with it over. Things just feel, oh I don’t know, lighter perhaps… I’m really thankful it wasn’t rough because of anything worse though, we’ve had dear friends really going through some incredibly difficult things these past few weeks. It hasn’t escaped me for a second how un-complain worthy my life is. I’m in control of these numbers, I decide them. Here’s to better numbers and some peace.

Reasons why it’s been quiet around here, as of late…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay4 Comments

IMG_9833– I’ve possibly been paralyzed with worry over what will happen to Jesse, and how Breaking Bad will end.

– We had dear friends from Idaho here, visiting, for a week. It was wonderful, but upon their return flight back, I caught a bug of homesickness.

– rainy days followed by heat advisories immediately then followed by 50 degree cold fronts are not friends of my fibromyalgia.

– I did not have Showtime was really busy when Homeland season 2 was on and so we’ve spent the last two weeks catching up, on Demand, to ready ourselves for Season 3. Suffice it to say, the amount of worry I’m feeling plagued with over the fictional characters of Brody & Carrie {and of course Jesse Pinkman and Walter White’s family from BB} are about to push me over the edge. Can we say “too emotionally involved?” Oy…

– I sent my youngest off to a real live life high school. No more homeschool for us. It’s been, well, an adventure, thus far. An adventure that inspires me to question what the cost is to retain both a hairdresser (grey coverage) and a massage therapist… Can they live with me?

– I’ve seen a few really great movies, a surprisingly great movie, a pretty good movie and so movie wise I can’t really complain too much… {Great= The Way Way Back; The Spectacular Now; Surprisingly Great: Austenland; And Pretty Good= The Family.}

– I lost my Kate Spade wallet, which had everything in it. I got it all back, and my faith in humanity was restored both BEFORE the wallet incident AND after… but it was still scary.

– We watched a car catch on fire outside a restaurant- and partially explode. (Same day as the great wallet loss/find)

– My mom found out that she has a degenerative disorder in her back and she is permanently wheel chair bound, leading our family to make some hard decisions in the near future… A lot to think about, for sure.

– My freshman daughter went to not one freshman event, but two. One, where a boy bought her a soda and spent the evening doting on her. She’s pretty much grounded until she’s 76, as she knows better. Such behavior is unacceptable. Soda accepting from boys? Inexcusable!

– I missed my very first PTA meeting, at the very real life high school, because I’m apparently really old and fell asleep on the couch at 6:40 in the evening.

– My favorite person ever won So You Think You Can Dance, which was unexpectedly AWESOME… My second favorite person EVER, did not. This pretty much sucked.

– I was on a crazy, unnecessary medication which was making me crazy sick, every day. I finally got off it last week and feel like I got my life back. Yay!

– I’m on a crazy stupid level in Candy Crush, which has caused me to question my reason for playing the dumb game and why I’ve devoted my time to over 300 levels in the first place since I will NEVER beat this level.

– I have a dozen or so books that I’m dying to read, right now.

– Right now I’m not reading much of anything. Boo.

– I wore a sweater out on a date with my husband the other night. It was pretty much awesome and made me happy.

– I have two online classes that I’m taking right now. I feel pretending they don’t exist is the worst course of action. *sigh*

– Mostly I’m trying to get my bearings and work out a routine. I haven’t been home alone since early 2007, and it’s flat out weird. Then, I worked about 32 hours a week from my home office for two different (local) companies. One was an ad agency and the other was a bigger company with their “hands” in lots of different types of cookie jars. Since 2007 I’ve consistently done something. Typically I did copywriting, or freelance for PR companies or other divisions of the entertainment industry. In 2008 I started a small Lifestyle Portrait business that did pretty well. Towards the end of 2011 though, we had a “family meeting” and I had to admit that I’d taken on too much. I was still freelancing for several entertainment outlets, photography was going strong, I was homeschooling and co-teaching through a local co-op and I was about 4 months into working on a novel. Nothing was really getting the attention it deserved, and I wasn’t really liking any of it. We decided to close the photography business after a wedding I’d booked in January. I felt so much peace about it. It had been a fun journey, but it hadn’t turned out at all like I’d imagined… I dropped most of my freelance accounts. We made the decision to no longer coop homeschool but to distance educate until we could find a suitable high school- and that the main focus (which is where my heart was really at) was the novel. AND HERE I AM… We took, together, all of the steps to get to this place. Not contributing (pretty much at all now) financially, is hard. It stresses me out. It makes me feel guilty…

– I’m feeling really guilty, and pathetic, and ridiculous when I do stupid things like leave my Kate Spade wallet on a bench. (it was worth revisiting twice.) I worked freaking hard for that wallet. A decade ago, i naively believed that when I’d made something of myself professionally, the purchasing of a “Kate Spade” bag (I LOVE her style!) Would symbolize success to me. Pretty much, it didn’t… Funny how, at the end of the day, it’s still just an overpriced handbag. (or wallet) but I certainly don’t want to lose it…

– mostly, I’m wandering around aimlessly. I wash some laundry, back some bread, write a note to stick in the mail, walk the dogs, check my email… Think to myself, this is a great time to finally start playing the cello! because, you know, I’ve always wanted to do that. But I have books unread, and a novel that’s written but in desperate need of being cleaned up… So I ignore it. I don’t know why. All summer long, I knew school would come so my time line was “the second full week of school!”

This is the second full week of school… It is here, today. Now. This minute…

And I just don’t even know where to begin. I feel kind of like that wallet is sitting there all alone on that bench, all over again. Everything important and vulnerable at risk, in the hands of someone else, because I was careless and left it there…