Holiday Happenings

This morning, I am wrapping presents in peace... I can't stand anyone to help me, especially if they have little hands and bright eyes (Bah, humbug!!!). I know that may sound terrible, but I am a compete and total control freak about wrapping presents. It makes little sense as they don't look like fantastic works of art or anything. Just simple cheap wrapping paper and bows... but the edges have to folded over a certain way or the world might implode. Seriously. I am sure it will implode if the edges are not turned the exact same way every time. And if the floor behind the toilet isn't clean. Oh, and if the rows in the grass aren't perfectly straight. If you didn't realize this, I am so sorry I brought it to your attention because you may never be the same again. You'll be neurotic about perfectly meaningless things, just like me. At least I am aware of my issues...

I am also preparing this week for our annual adult only Christmas party. And I must admit that after the stressful year that we have had, along with several of our friends, I am more excited than ever about this year's event. My mind is all abuzz with the burning questions - What will I serve? What will I wear? Who all will show? AND the most important question.... WILL DAVID GET SICK THIS YEAR??????

My little David has impeccable timing for illness. If I am excited about an event, a little light goes off in his subconscious and sets the perfect timer for a sickness. Last Christmas, it was strep. Granted, every Christmas, since he was five, he's been stricken with strep. But if he's gonna get sick, I am hoping for a Sunday or Monday arrival. Just please not Saturday morning like last year.... please, oh please!

I'm sure this afternoon Madalyn's excitement about Christmas will rise again when she sees new presents under the tree. I'll have to go over them one by one explaining who they are for and why I won't tell her what's inside. And then she'll go over her spill about her gift again and how she knows what it is. Followed, of course, by her asking me to tell her what it is. Her excitement is so pure, and I must admit I remember feeling that way. Even as an older child, long after I knew the truth about Christmas, I can remember lying in bed at night, waiting on sleep to come, and wondering deep inside my heart if the possibility were true. Did the magic of Christmas really exist? And now, I know it does. It thrives inside the eyes of my two little ones, looking at the gaudy lights hanging on the homes as we drive in the car, talking together about what Santa might bring, shaking and poking at the wrapped presents under the tree. Yes, the magic is still alive.

It's been tougher this year to get into the spirit, but it's beginning to bubble up inside me. When you see the excitement in your children who know nothing of this world's trouble or stress, you just can't help but feel the true spirit of Christmas. The giving of gifts, the biggest of smiles, and the hope for a bounty of blessings... that's what we all dream of.

Gifts

Most gifts are simply a reciprocation... at Christmas, we have the list of people we exchange gifts with, and usually birthdays are much the same. We always give the children on both sides of the family Christmas gifts, and my kids receive from them. I give my friend a pretty picture frame for her birthday, and then she'll give me a gift card to Starbucks for mine. You know the drill.

This morning, I opened my email and received a gift. I must admit, it's the most emotionally moving gift I have ever received, and I technically haven't received it yet. The email I got was from a company, Giving Anonymously. I had never heard of the organization before, so when I received an email telling me that someone wishes to pass along a gift of money to me, I was a bit skeptical. I Googled it, looked over the website, and determined that it didn't appear to be a hoax. They didn't want my social security number or me to mail a check to Africa or surrender my PIN code for my check card... just simply send an email back verifying they had my correct address, and they would forward me the gift.

All day, I have thought about this gift. I don't know who it's from or how much they want to give me. I feel honored, humbled, guilty, loved, blessed, undeserving. I feel so many things inside about this random act of kindness.

I have made it no secret that my family has encountered financial difficulty this year. We make ourliving through the selling of cars, and unless you have had a set of those over-priced noise reducing head phones for the past 18 months, you've no doubt heard that the car business had taken a blow. Even though most people reading this believe me to be incredibly transparent, I haven't been as see-through about my monetary woes. It's embarrassing. It's shameful. To make promises to pay money back and not be able to follow through... well, it's been difficult for me. To know that you've made incredibly irresponsible decisions with money when you were so blessed to have it pouring in each month... well, that's just pure shameful. To wish you could go back and make different decisions and save more and spend less and not count your chickens before they hatch... well, all that's just useless. What's done is done. What's spent is spent. What's owed is owed. And what's not coming in each month is just simply not coming in each month.

Things are better now that Scott has changed jobs and is given a set amount every month no matter what. And I am amazed every single day that I still have a warm home and a car to drive. I am so incredibly thankful and blessed to be sitting here at my computer and listening to my kids play above my head. I have learned to cherish the simple things so much more this year, and I doubt I will ever be the same since going through this financial hiccup.

And I know that this gift - this anonymous gift - no matter how small or big is truly a sign sent down from my Lord Himself.

I am in the midst of a true spiritual awakening right now. And I am reading this book, as I discussed before. And I am seeing so much of me in the main character. So self-slaughtering like her. Guilty. Shameful. Unable to receive love and simple gifts. And today, after I opened that email, those feelings began to bubble up inside me.

You're undeserving.
You've squandered so much away in years past and been so selfish when you did have plenty.
How embarrassing; someone pities you.
There are so many others who need it more than you do.
You can't possibly accept this gift.

And then as the day went by, the voice of my Creator started to rise above the other and simply said me, "Someone loves you."

Someone loves me. And they don't want anything in return. They want no recognition. They just want to give me a gift and be used as a vessel by God.

I have a strong feeling that the anonymous donor is reading this post and probably crying along with me. And I want you to know that I am more thankful for this gift than any other I have ever received in my life, and I haven't even received the tangible gift yet. You can't imagine the things I am going through right now... the things I am dealing with from my past, the demons in my head I am fighting. The amount you've given doesn't matter, but the timing couldn't be any more perfect. And my promise to my donor is that I will pass along the love that was given to me. I will pass that love along when I am given the chance...

Reading

Hold on to your seat for a minute... I am reading a novel.


I know. Catch your breath. Alert the authorities. Look up to the heavens and await the coming. I haven't read a novel since I ditched college. And that's been nine years ago. The only reading I have done has been the Bible, and that's not been as often as I should.


I have never really enjoyed reading. And that seems incredibly strange since I love to write and have a fascination with words and was an English major in college. But there have really been few books that I have been forced to read along the way that I truly enjoyed. In high school, there was A Tale of Two Cities which I remember specifically enjoying. In college I took a class about the Bronte sisters' writings and Jane Austin... I so loved Wuthering Heights, Emma, and Pride and Prejudice. In fact, I still have a paper I wrote about the use of the word heath throughout the novel Wuthering Heights. Yes... I was actually that smart. I pointed out each use of the word and explored the meaning and symbolism and so on.



Anywho... I am reading Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. And from the first chapter, I have literally been riveted. The story just speaks to the my heart. For anyone unfamiliar (like I was) to the novel, it is based off the Book of Hosea in the Old Testament. So, being the literary nerd I am, I read Hosea first. I must admit that I don't think I've ever read a verse from the Book of Hosea in my entire life. Stories involving God telling a prophet to marry a prostitute weren't that big of hits in the church I grew up in (or the Christian private school I graduated from, either). And any time I find something so excitedly new in The Scriptures, I am immediately drawn in by the wanting to learn more. More about this God and Savior I am still so utterly confused about.

So that's what I find myself doing right now. Every spare second I have, I find myself wanting to read this novel... which is so unlike me. And I'm really glad. Maybe I'll read something else when I'm done with this one. I am seeing so many words I've never seen before and thinking about these characters all the time. And I find myself looking for a piece of me in the story. Uncomfortably, I find more of myself than I'd like to admit. Not quite as tragic, but still there.

So if I am not blogging as much here lately, it's because I'm reading. And that statement alone just makes me chuckle.

A letter to my mom on the day I am putting up my Christmas tree...

Dear Mom,

Like most children, Christmas was always my favorite time of year. I have vivid memories of our tree - the way it looked with tinsel icicles flowing and colored lights, the way it smelled, and of decorating it every year with you. I remember specific ornaments, some of which you have already given me, and some that I can't wait to get my hands on and put on my tree every year. There were these wooden ones (which I know you didn't keep) that were decoupaged and shellacked on the front, and every year we had to pull them apart as they would stick together in the box of ornaments. There was a little red bird that had wire on its feet you could wrap around the branch. There were these ornaments made from an eggshell that my grandmother made. And most importantly there was that ugly Santa face we had to put atop the tree because it was your sister's. We would look at it each year and confirm its ugliness and our love for him, and then put him in his spot.

Basically, I remember a lot about Christmas in my home as a child. We did the same things every year, and you and dad always seemed so excited and happy. You never seemed stressed. You always let me help, and you never seemed bothered to have me there.

As my kids get older, I just don't know how you did it, Mom. I don't know how you let me decorate the tree with you and not lose your cool. I don't know how you listened to the hours of questions - How many days? Is that my present? Can I put that ornament on the tree? Can I turn on the lights? - without your head spinning completely around and then popping off. I don't know where you found the patience and energy to put up with me and my two brothers.

So did you really never lose your cool? Or did you just hide it well? Did you think you would die when you had to go behind me and fix all the ornaments I had hung? Did you just wish I wouldn't make up and sing my own Christmas carols over and over and over and over again? Please tell me that you felt all these things and you hid them fairly well. Or at least well enough that I never remembered...

Please tell me that my kids will one day look back and only remember the fact that they got to help with the ornaments and not the fact that I forbid them to touch certain ones or dared to move five ornaments that they hung on the same branch. I only hope I am building fond memories my kids will have forever... and that when they have kids of their own, they'll appreciate the work I've done along the years half as much as I appreciate yours!

Thanks so much, Mom! Thanks for my beautiful childhood!

Love always,
Tamara

P.S. I am truly sorry if I ever hung five ornaments on the same branch of the tree... I'm pretty sure I did. Probably more than once.

Thanksgiving Lunch

Today was the annual Thanksgiving Lunch at David's elementary school. This is his last year at this particular school, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Perhaps it's not the best lunch in town, but you'd be surprised at the number of parents and grandparents that line the hall waiting on their little person to enter the cafeteria.

I always leave that school broken hearted though. Always.

I often times forget how blessed I have been throughout my life. Yes, I've been through some hard times. But all of my hard times have some how stemmed directly from a poor choice I had made. But the children I come across in the walls of that school have no control in the situations they are stuck in, and my heart aches for each child that has to bear the load of a screwed up adult.

I hear a sad story every time I visit for lunch. There was the time that a little girl in David's class has no lunch in her lunch box and wept at the lunch table in front of all her classmates. There was the time that a little boy in his class told me about both his parents having been to jail and that his dad was away somewhere getting help so he could be better. Every time there's a kid who just hugs me and talks to me like they have never seen a smiling face before. And then today, I think I heard the worst I've ever heard...

The little boy seated across from me tells me, "I don't like my mother." Wow. How do you respond to that? So I said, "Oh, I'm so sorry you feel that way..." And he commences to tell me all the reasons why he doesn't like her... she doesn't pay any attention to him when he's at her house because she only wants to hang out with her boyfriend who just so happened to run over his dog on purpose. Did you get all that?

So I tried to change the topic of conversation to something a little more uplifting by asking, "So who's your favorite person in the whole wide world?" And a big smile came across his face and he replied, "My dad."

Well good. He does have someone who loves him and does their very best to take care of him. But then the boy beside him chimes in with his story... he, too, lives with is dad because his mom was never married to his dad. And then she had two more kids and got divorced, and now she's married again to a not-so-good guy. And he has Suddenly, I found myself wanting to run...

I just can't wrap my mind around a world where people just have these kids and have absolutely no regard to the way they treat them. These poor Innocent little souls are thrust in the middle of such selfish and ridiculous behavior. I've seen glimpses of it in my day to day life in people I know, but it wasn't until recently that I realized how common it is for a mother to chose a new boyfriend over her own children or a father to chose a life of drugs and crime over his family. Our whole society is tearing apart, and it's the children who suffer the most.

I can't say what I would do if I found myself a single mother somewhere down the road. But I can say this - I would hope I wouldn't forget that my children are just little people who need love and tenderness and security. They deserve that from me no matter what my circumstance in life, no matter what I have to sacrifice. They deserve that because it's us stupid, pitiful adults that brought them into this crazy mixed-up world. And it's our duty to watch over them.

Just had to get that off my chest. I sure do wish I could bring all those little broken hearts home with me. I really do.

Today I am thankful for coffee...

I was the little girl who worked at a coffee shop for four years and didn't like coffee... I was her. Customers would come in and always ask, "What do you suggest?" Of course I'd be forced to reply, "Well... I don't really drink coffee."


Oh, you stupid, stupid girl...


Now I'm on the other side. I adore coffee. I have to stop myself with one and a half cups (and it's a pretty large cup) every morning. There are some afternoons I'd love to brew a pot, but I hate to get myself in the habit.


I remember the moment I first appreciated the taste of coffee. I was on a cruise with - well, we won't talk about who I was with - and every night at dinner I drank a cup of coffee with my desert. It was perhaps the best cup of coffee I had ever had... perfectly balanced and light. Most of the others at my table commented on its brilliance as well. Was it the kind of coffee they used? Was it the purified water? Or was it simply the fact that we were on a cruise and it was served in such a sweet and delicate little cup? Probably a good combination of all the above.


It wasn't until right after the birth of the second baby that I began my love affair with coffee. Madalyn must have been only a few weeks old, and it was a Sunday morning. Scott was preparing breakfast. David was probably running about the house like a gorilla on Red Bull. And I was thinking, "How can I possibly make it through the next twelve hours without a nap???" So I fixed myself a cup of coffee with tons of sugar and cream, and I was immediately in love.


In love with coffee.


There have been only a hand full of mornings without my most beloved companion since that day. If I don't drink my morning coffee, it's usually when I have a nasty little stomach bug. That's really the only reason I can think of that I wouldn't have a cup. Or two.


The fact hits me this morning just how fortunate I am to have that cup of coffee every morning. I mean, sure... it's nothing fancy. It's just a little Maxwell House Original Roast brewed in a $45 coffee machine. But in reality, it's a little luxury that some homes in our country don't have. Coffee isn't a necessity (though I feel it is most mornings); it's a guilty pleasure. And I am surrounded by so many guilty pleasures - too many to count. When I stop to think about how charmed a life I live, it's overwhelming. Sure things aren't easy this year. Sure our income has been drastically reduced. Sure every month here lately I wonder, "How?" But we always make it through. We always carry on. And I still have that cup of coffee every morning.

I think this year has made me especially more thankful for the little things in my life than ever before. I know I can often times appear ungrateful and grumpy about day to day life, but that's just me making light of life to cope. That's how I deal with my days - to make fun of them, to roll my eyes, to see the funniest of funnies in some of the most difficult times I have ever experienced. But I am so incredibly thankful. So incredibly blessed beyond measure. So well taken care of by a God who continues to bless and preserve me no matter how undeserving I remain. But aren't we all just so completely undeserving of what's been given to us? Aren't we all?

So, today I am thankful for coffee. The simplest of pleasures for me. The everyday delight. The warmth of the cup, the smell of it's contents, the flavor on my tongue, and the peace in knowing I'll have it again tomorrow.

Buddy's Perfect Day

On Wednesday, the kids were out of school, and Scott took off work, and we had TONS of leaves in the yard. And I think that Buddy Love had the most perfect day...

We started on the leaves in the back yard around 9:00 in the morning. They were everywhere from the storm the day before that knocked down every brightly colored leaf along with the dry brown ones. They covered the grass and the bottom of the pool as well. And just as many were still floating atop the water. We stayed in the back yard with Buddy - all of us - for the bulk of the morning. David would play some with Buddy, but mostly the orphan dog just followed us around while we did our chores just happy to have us outside with him. We don't have to entertain him; he will pick up a ball or toy and run around and toss it in the air all by himself. He just likes our presence in the yard. He likes to be around us - we're his people.

We moved into the front yard and worked there for a couple of hours. And after that was done, we took Buddy on a little walk. This must be his favorite thing to do, and bless his heart, not something he gets to do as much as he should. But walk we did, and he smelled everything and marked his way along the path.

When we returned home, I kept him on his leash and let him sit with us a while as we watched the kids ride their bikes and scooters in the driveway. He was perfectly content to lie there at my feet and keep watch with me. Perfectly happy to be surrounded by his people that love and take care of him. And then we grilled in the back yard and ate with him at our feet. And once the kids went to bed, Scott and I sat outside and talked with him dozing at our feet.

Buddy had a great day. I told Scott at the end of the day that this must be just the perfect sort of day for Buddy - spending it with the people who mean the most to him. And maybe is was the perfect sort of day for the humans as well - at home, all day, doing normal household things, and just being all together.

I know the days are flying by faster than ever before, despite the days that sometimes seem to linger on and on and threaten to never end. I know the days of the kids being trapped here with us are fading. There will come a day when they have the freedom to leave in their own car or the car of a friend and escape the yard work a random off day in the middle of the week has to offer. There will come a day when they are too big to ride their bikes down the sidewalk. There will come a day when I can't bribe either one of them to join me for a walk with our sweet Buddy. And so I guess I need to cherish these days all the more knowing that all too soon they will be gone.

Yes, it was a perfect day.