Love

"Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness" - C.S. Lewis

Love is considered such a warm. fuzzy thing. I mean - we rarely think we are loving someone well by telling them they have a booger hanging out of their nose.

But seriously - as hard as that is - it is a better definition of love than the gooey thing that makes us get all teary eyed at sappy love stories.

One of my biggest regrets was letting a friend of mine go without telling him he had the BIGGEST booger hanging out of his nose. I was embarrassed. EMBARRASSED. I was embarrassed and proceeded to let my friend walk around with that thing in his nose until someone else finally had the nerve to tell him. I know it is crazy. But it bothers me that I did not tell him myself. I know- I need to move on.  But it was seriously selfish of me. ugh. hate it.

You have to be made of stern stuff to love others well and to be willing to be loved well according to C.S. Lewis's definition.

And of course, it is a maturity thing. I have taken a lot longer than your average person at growing up. I do believe a huge sign of maturity is how unselfish we are - how we consider others better than ourselves and sacrifice for them.

Loving others well will be uncomfortable sometimes.

I was talking to a dear friend at work the other day. She said, "If you love me, please let me know if you think I am doing something stupid instead of letting me keep on. I may cry a little - but I would much rather know than be thought a fool by continuing to do it". Such great words of wisdom. So true!

But it is hard. Especially for those of us who don't want people to feel badly. We don't want them to be uncomfortable. (hello me).

I encourage you to ponder this. How do we do this and do it well? How do we do it leaving the aroma of Christ?

It is something to consider well.

And please - if you see me with a booger hanging out of my nose, TELL ME.

A Mama's Heart

I have had a bad week. I know - I am a whiner - I complain so much. But I have to tell you even though I have had a pretty crappy week, I am incredibly blessed and I know it.

Let me tell you about it.

My house was a wreck.  I work full time and when given the choice of cleaning house or playing - I am going to play. Well...it does get to a point where it starts affecting me mentally. I get a little cranky. I get overwhelmed and I start nyah nyahing.

Wednesday night I run up to Michael's to get project stuff for the boys and I stop by a friends house to drop off some things. I see the bike in the dark and I clear the bike in the dark going TO the house. Not so much on the way back to the car. I kicked it. I kicked it hard. It hurt so bad I almost peed in my pants and threw up at the same time. I knew - I broke that darn little toe. I went to the doctor the next day and I have an infection as well as a broken toe. I had not been feeling well and I guess that was the reason. It was a blessing I broke my toe I guess. I am on double strength antibiotics now. Well on my way to feeling better.

I am now feeling LOTS of pressure though. I have company coming and my house is a mess and though I know my company would not care, I do not want them to think that my house is the reason I have the infection and fear for their lives (my house is bad - but it is not THAT bad). But the broken toe and the infection is making me feel pretty badly, so - I am freaking a bit.

Of course I call my Mama. I tell her what is going on - pour my heart out to her. But I tell her - and I mean it - that I feel God is just trying to teach me to be hospitable in the midst of everything - to focus on my company and love them well and feed them well and they won't remember that my house is a mess. I mean it too.

The rest of the week is fine. I do a little here, a little there and Friday gets here and I am gearing up and planning my cleaning process. I pull up in my drive way and as I am turning in - I see my front door is open. I start to panic a bit because my husband shouldn't be there yet. Then I see it. The blue Toyota Highlander and know that my mama has come to help me. I open the screen door and call to her and she has all the furniture pulled out and has vacuumed behind everything and is in the process of cleaning my carpets. Bless her. Bless her. Bless her.

This weekend I got more done than I ever would have on my own. AND my husband and I even got to go to the movies and dinner while she watched the kids. My goodness. How blessed am I?

God is good. He has blessed me with a wonderful mother.

My house looks and smells so good.

It just goes to show no matter how old your babies get, you still want to get in there and fix it for them when things get broken. My precious mother. What a kind heart she has! Dear Lord - help me to be as selfless and able when I am 70.

She is amazing.

Thank you Mama.

(I am indeed spoiled)

Focus

I am in a weird place. I am not loving it. I want to be through with this transitional period and be comfortable in my skin again. I hate this shiftiness I feel right now. It is unsettling.

I hate unsettling.

I suppose life is about change. It is not static....and it shouldn't be. It's not meant to be.

Maybe I need medication.

I would love it if all I had to do was take a pill and find my comfort zone. But I think that brings a whole other set of issues.

I am pretty sure I am A.D.D. It might not even be adult onset kind of A.D.D. I may have just always been able to find a way to compensate. But it seems to be getting worse as I get older. I am not managing it all very well the last few months.

I cannot focus on one thing to save my life.

I feel this frenzy of things pulling at me. The house. The kids. The animals. My husband. My job. My own desire to accomplish ideas I have had. I feel my mind shifting from one to the other and then I blow up. I quit and either go to bed, or watch TV. I let something else take over my brain just to get rest from the frantic images in my head that cannot find purchase on one thing.

It makes me sad. I feel wasteful.

Maybe I should go to the doctor.

I hate doctors. Not as people. But I hate all of that attention focused at me. It makes me feel defensive.

It makes me feel defensive because I know I don't take care of myself. There is always something else to do.

Oh goodness. It is probably menopause.

crap

Philippians 4:
⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
⁸ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

This will have to be my go to. This can be overcome.

1 Corinthians 10:13

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

 

2 Corinthians 4:7-9

⁷ But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. ⁸ We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

Biscuit

I am home today. My baby G is sick. I decided to stay home with him instead of sending him to grandparents. He needed to be able to lay around in his PJ's. I am thankful to be with him.

About 7 years ago my baby was 3 years old. Apparently he had been reading about a dog named Biscuit. He said over and over again that he wanted a black lab. And he wanted to name it Biscuit. It mattered not that biscuits are not black. The logic of a three year old cannot be questioned. My absent minded reply was always, "We'll see."

We have an Australian Shepherd named Pistol. He is a pistol. His name should be Houdini. The man can get out of anything. Not kidding. ANYTHING.

My neighbor told me we needed to get him a friend to keep him in the fence.

One day I was driving to school to pick up my boys and I saw a sign, FREE PUPPIES TO GOOD HOME. I pulled in for some reason. Low and behold there were 3 adorable little mixed lab pups. One was black, one was chocolate and one was - well I don't remember what color it was. I was looking at the black one. I didn't ask my husband. Bad me. But - she was adorable. A tiny little black ball of fur.

Precious little girl. I kept wondering if I should get her. It was pretty evident that she was in a bad place. They had about 20 dogs and the smell alone was more than I could stand. I took her. I wrapped her in a towel I had in the car and handed her to my three year old.

Who immediately said her name was Biscuit.

We took her home, bathed her and she was ours. As she grew it was evident that she was most assuredly "special" - in many ways. She was not the smartest pup. But you wouldn't find anything sweeter. She loved us well. She put up with a lot - until she wouldn't. She bit Pistol because he tried to hump her. He got a bacterial infection from it that cost us a load of money. She had flea allergies and she lost all the hair on her butt from them, She would cry this horrible cry when she was excited, or hurt, or thought you were leaving her. It sounded like someone was killing her. She would not have her nails clipped . She got car sick. -  managed to vomit anytime we took her in the car for any length of time. She was the smelliest dog ever. Didn't matter if I just washed her, she went outside, she came back in smelling very, very doggy. She was just stinky.

But we loved her.

She was part of our family.

She cracked me up. We would let her out in the back and we would see her just sitting there staring off into space. We often wondered what she was thinking. She was an amazing hunter. She could catch anything. I had to back her black behind out of the tree house at least twice when she ran up the ladder after a squirrel. She had a way of looking at you even when she was being a stinker that made you just want to hug her and kiss her right between the eyes. She had a dead eye - I could throw her a piece of food and it didn't matter how bad a toss it was - she could catch it. She loved chasing the ball. What was funny about it is, she would almost have to wait for Pistol to start doing it before she would catch on. Every time. Just a little slow on the take sometimes. So funny. It made her endearing though. And she was exactly that. Dear.

A couple of weeks ago, she started acting a little strange. Her stomach was bloated and I was afraid she had that "bloat" that labs sometimes get. We cancelled our trip to Mobile and took her to the vet without an appointment. They took x-rays and assured us that this was constipation. They gave her an enema and said she would be fine.

Tuesday I e-mailed them because of work I don't always get calls and asked them why she was still so bloated and told them she wasn't eating. I let them know she still did not feel well. They advised me to feed her pumpkin and that as soon as she evacuated her bowels she would feel better. I tried. She wouldn't eat it.

We opted to take her to another veterinarian. He immediately saw that she had a uterine infection. A serious one. He diagnosed her from the x-rays our previous vet had taken. He said the x-rays looked bad and that was almost a week prior to his diagnosing it. He felt that she was so infected that her chances of making it through surgery were not good. About 30%. And even if she made it through the surgery - he said her chances were not good - she would probably become septic. We asked the vet to make her as comfortable as possible.


That day - I picked the boys up from the bus stop. We met my husband at the vet and kissed and hugged our little black puppy out of this world. It still breaks my heart.

She was going to be 7 on December 1st. She should have been with us a lot longer.

I have struggled with my anger over this mistake. I have gone between wanting to slap the vet that made such a heinous mistake and wanting to fall at her feet just crying - I don't know that I would have words. I want her to know how much we hurt. She simply said she was sorry when we called her and told her. I guess there is not much more you can say.

The fact is - it is useless for me to continue to be mad at her. It is a waste of my energy and it only hurts me. I pray that she did learn to check things closer.



Pistol is missing his girl. He used to get her on his paws and roll over on his back so she was laying under his chin. So sweet. He always let her go down the steps first. When she was sick - he never would touch her food - he wanted her to eat. He normally had no problem eating her food if she left it. But she rarely left her food untouched. We were usually having to get her to stop eating his. He let her do anything she wanted to. He loved her.



 She was such a girl - my only girl in this house of boys. Very emotional - it was good not to be the only one.



But it is done. She is gone. All of the I should haves and I wish I would haves won't change a thing.

I am so thankful I stopped that day and got that little girl. I am so glad G got his little black Biscuit.

She will be missed so very much.

Here are some more pics of our girl.