Q.

I am w-a-y too easily influenced. There are thousands of really quality blogs out there, writers with incredible talent, commenting on countless topics and seasoned with great photography. I've heard all my life Don't try to be someone else. Just be the best you that you can be. My problem is not being able to narrow that down. When I read a well-done post by a foodie, I think I want to do that. When I read something irrevent and hilarious, I think I want to do that. I want to be sassy and witty, straightforward and uncomplicated, or informed and well-read. Or all of them collectively.

I don't know if it's that I like a million different things or if I just don't know me well enough. I know that figuring out your target market is essential in book publishing, but I'm not marketing anything. I just want to write. And I want it to be good. I need to be proud of it because it's going to represent who I am and what that means.

More than halfway through my life, and I'm still asking the question of a lifetime: Who am I? I have a great starting point for the answer to that, and I wonder if there can ever be a conclusion to a quest of this scope--or if it's so simple that I'm missing it...

Did I say thanks for that?

It's day 31 of Project Gratitude, and I'm glad to say that so far I haven't missed a day. It's been a terrific exercise in examining the blessings in my life, and I find myself thinking about them way more than I ever did before. I've always appreciated the words Thank You, so to apply them more often only seems appropriate, especially given the humongous blessings that wallpaper my life.

I was coming back from feeding the horses when I realized that it was going to be a sunny day. I grabbed my camera and waited (not very patiently) in the snow to watch the sun slide up behind the mountain. My camera freaks out in bright light from a sand mishap in Corpus Christi, painting horizontal stripes across the pictures, but I manage to like this photo anyway. There are frozen weeds right in front of my eyes, but beyond them is a bigger, brighter landscape with Hope glistening like floodlights. It's a lesson in perspective for me, something I've needed for a long time.

Off to go be grateful for something now. Tootles!

New Year's Resolution

"If the only prayer you ever pray in your whole life is 'thank you,' that would suffice." ~Meister Eckhart

I am inspired by this quote and the notion of being grateful, for at least one thing, every single day. I never make New Year's resolutions, so this year is different. I'm challenging myself to nurture a grateful heart, so I'm going to post one thing for which I'm thankful for the next 366 days (it's a leap year!) in a new blog called "Every Day Grateful."

My God is generosity, kindness, love, grace, provision, and joy. I'm looking forward to naming some results of that mighty gifting, as He inspires.

Thank You, Lord, for this opportunity.

Thanksgiving 2011

This last weekend could be dubbed "The Best Thanksgiving Ever," or at least the best in a really long time, but that title's too long. For being the first one without my mom, only my God could turn it into a scrapbook full of wonderful memories.

Kev's brother's family came over and brought their mom with them. My nephew Brian lives in LA, and it was his idea for us to all get together here. He's a brilliant young man! It was his first time here, as well as his sister Jamie's, and Mel's. Doreen and Mom came up in 2009 for my folks' 50th.

Jamie with my Sahib

Brian with Sahib

The boys went on a Thanksgiving Day ride, one of the two things Brian wanted to do during this visit. The other thing was do some shooting, but the next day's ride went into sunset, and it was just too dark.
On Friday's ride, Mel drove the four-wheeler, and Brian and Jamie switched on and off Sahib since she didn't get to go the day before. Here, Brett and Brian are tooling around the fields.

Dinner! We deep-fried two turkeys to make sure we'd have leftovers after 13 people ate. Alan's was absolutely deluxe. He injects his with a buttery garlic marinade--eeYUM!

Mom, Doreen, and Wayneen

The Kids' Table

We all rambled outside after dinner to get some pictures. Three cameras, one tripod. We are a talented lot. This is the one I used for our Christmas cards. The original had Doolie's butt in it, so I digitized it right outta there. Wish I'd cleaned up Jylle's hair before I had 50 cards printed, but I honestly didn't notice it was all fly-away on top until she pointed it out. It's fixed here.

We don't have very many pictures of just the two of us. I'm sure that'll change some if we retire and do some traveling. I'm just glad this one turned out.

"Brydia"

This is one of my very most favorite pictures. I liked it so much that I had it printed, and it's sitting in a lovely frame on my kitchen window sill where it cheers me 50 times a day. He does not get why everyone likes it so much, but WE do. He might not think it's uncharacteristic, but we know better.

All of us

All the Mulligans

We liked this one so much that we had an 8x10 enlargement made for a Western style frame that Kev made last year. We'd been waiting for just the right picture, and this was it.

What a grand weekend. One of the things that impressed me is that for three days, 11 of us were pretty much together all the time, and there was no friction. There were no jabs, offenses, or hurt feelings to my knowledge. It was absolutely great.

There was one time that might have produced some disappointment. It was quite accidental, and again, I'm really sorry, Lydia, that Ryan and I managed to forget one of only two grocery items you needed. We cannot be left to do the job of one normal person. What can I say--we must always be supervised by an adult.

Sweet, sweet days altogether. Thank You, Lord, for your goodness and grace.

Goober

This is Goober. We got him about 15 years ago. But we didn't mean to.

A friend asked if we wanted a kitten. We did, but I wanted a gray tabby. He shook his head and said they didn't have one.

About a month later, he asked again if we wanted a kitten. I said we did, but I wanted a gray tabby. He paused for just a second and holding my gaze said, "It's a gray tabby. It is." I remember thinking That's funny. I thought he said last time they didn't have one.

We found a box on our porch the next night, the promised gray tabby. We opened it in the house, and out jumped a sleek, gray kitty, completely freaked out by the ride, the box, the new humans, and probably the scent of dogs. He shot down the hall, and we chased him all over the place for about 15 minutes before we caught him.

"Caught" isn't exactly accurate. In his panic, he flew down a dark hall, wheeled into a bedroom, and dropped down an uncovered heating vent. We checked it out in the basement, and the duct was slanted, dead ending him in a tube too slick to climb back up unless you're Spiderman. We left him there overnight (it was around midnight). Kev unscrewed the mount the next morning, and we slid him back into the box. He still looked nervous, but nothing like the previous night.

He spent his life being a garage cat instead of the barn cat we wanted, but he was a good mouser--no mice problems on Goober's watch! He never liked being held, but he appreciated some attention. He was stealthy, dependable, and always on duty.

Later last year he started getting really verbal, meowing loudly and constantly. He also began pacing, or at least moving a lot. He would jump onto the garden bench and paw you if you didn't pet him. When he started losing weight, I did some Internet research and figured he probably had feline diabetes.

We came home from church, and Kev found him in the garage... He buried him with the horses, Jake and Gadget, under a lone pine, fitting for a loner who had little fear of the horses. I like this picture. Looks like he's going off now, business to do and all.

See ya later, Schnoobers. And thanks for everything.

wattawoman

Glenice. Even her name is unique. Some friends are the entree, and some are dessert. Glenice is the whole meal.

This is what I mean. I anticipate her company; dig into, consider, and enjoy the things we talk and laugh about; savor the time; digest and remember happily the time we spent together. This is what I do with a good meal--anticipate, enjoy, savor, and remember it all over again later. There is never a time I do not come away from her company unsatisfied.

Like a favorite restaurant, I'm often pleasantly surprised by new entries on the menu. I've known Glenice for about 12 years, and it seems that about every three, I find out something completely new about her. When I met her, she'd just gone on a three-mile run with her son. She hadn't been exercising daily or working up to running, just up and went. She's that naturally athletic. She used to have a job setting bear traps. Yep, she's my bear trapper friend, no confusion over any other friend there! She hand dug a pit for their outhouse. She knows sign language--like, fluently! I can't wait for the next discovery. It's due in two years.

She wields a drill better than she does a tube of lipstick, and her projects are usually accomplished with both speed and love. When we made decorative birdhouses for the Ya-Yas for Christmas last fall, I held the pieces of wood while she operated the nail gun. *Ka-chew!Ka-chew!Ka-chew!* The trigger went off like a machine gun while the blasts of air pelted me in the face. I must have flinched 50 times that day. Turns out she had to be a little less trigger happy if we wanted enough nails to finish all the birdhouses. I kept the one with the 105+ staples as a remembrance of all the laughing we did...

She is so kind, loving, and fun, and her gazillion friends love her. I'm just blessed to be one of them.

Do-over

I just woke up from the sweetest dream!

The boys were little. Brett was about 4 and Ryan not quite two, so they were younger than in this picture. Ryan was running around with that twinkle of possible mischief in his eyes, and Brett was building a Lego fort bigger than both of them. He jumped up on top of it, and I told him to get off (joykiller :/ ). My mom was trying to sleep in the living room, so I took all three of them--Jylle had joined us by now--and rearranged the furniture in one bedroom so they had a kind of stairs to climb where they could jump down onto a bed. Not quiet fun realistically, but hey, this was a dream, and stuff just gets to "be" in them.

Jylle asked if she could jump too, and even though the boys weren't thrilled, I said yes. She was so excited. It was so. much. fun. to be playing with my little ones again! Ryan would run around just like he used to, cape flying behind him, curly hair framing a face starting to bead with sweat. Brett was studious, in the way he had of absorbing all the details around him. He was their leader, showing them the best way to do things, even in a dream...

I always did relish playing with my children like that. I remember taking a door we weren't using and setting up as a slide in the living room, propping it up on the couch and throwing a couple of pillows down at the bottom to soften the landing for their little bums. More than once we made a game of keep away on the bunkbeds--you had to stay on the beds, no touching the floor, or you were out. My favorite games were ones that ended up with me hugging them, which I pretty much ended with no matter what we were playing, come to think of it. Yeah, Hug Da Babies--my favorite game of all...

My mom needing quiet because of a headache was something all too familiar from my own years of growing up. They plagued her so regularly that it was more uncommon for her not to have one. It was either fairly quiet in the house because noise really played havoc on her hearing aids, or because she was trying to sleep away a throbbing head. In my dream, I was the one making noise that disturbed her though, not the kids. I kept tripping or banging my head, just klutzy stuff. I don't think I really did that in real life. Of course, there wouldn't be a long piece of metal roofing set at a precarious angle in my real life living room that I'd have to dodge like there was in the dream.

My sweet chillins and my mama in pain--memories of the sweet and the sorrowful... I'll take it.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

I sure do love my mother-in-law. She is an incredibly wonderful inspiration and role model. There are so many adjectives that come to mind when I think of what she's like:

Selfless
Humble
Demure
Thoughtful
Generous
Serving
Loving
Joyful
Peaceful
Patient
Kind
Good
Gentle
Faithful
Tender
Self-controlled
Forgiving
Intelligent
Surrendered
Willing
Worthy

Anyone who knows her could add more virtues to this list, which is definitely not exhaustive. Those are just the ones off the top of my very limited head. Honoring, practical, and thrifty just came to mind.

After I lost my mom, I told her that I would need her more than ever. Since then, she has signed all her emails to me "Your mom." Creates a lump in my throat every time I think about it. I have a voice mail from her that I'll continue to save. She's thanking me for calling and telling her about my mom (who was in the ER and not expected to live). She clears her throat and says that we'll talk soon and to take care. She's a very brave and private person, so I can imagine that she was trying to be strong and keep it together to make the message easier on me, so as not to be a distraction to me.

She is distracting though, in that the absence of any thought to herself stands in stark contrast to my own self and most of the people I know and have ever met. She is the closest thing to the Proverbs 31 woman I have ever known, while also being totally approachable.

As we celebrate her 81st birthday today (and in person this coming weekend), I raise my hands in grateful praise for the woman who raised my husband, has taught me what it means to love Jesus in word and in deed, and continues to inspire, motivate, and encourage me, using words if necessary.

I love you, Mom. Thank You, Lord, for this WW.

My Online Memory Minder

Stuff I jotted down on all different pieces of note paper that I don't want to forget about, but don't want to physically keep anymore:

Songs to check out:
Cannot Turn Away, Chris Tomlin
Worthy of All Our Praise (?), Selah
I Fall, Phil Baquie
My Offering, Kelly Minter (sp?)

Books to check out (ha, literally):
The Suncatchers
A Thousand Tomorrows (Kingsbury series)
Red Glove (Kingsbury series)
Elm Creek Quilt (series)
True Believer (Sparks)

Movies to check out:
The Red Pony
The Field
Goodnight, Mr. Nick
Dancing at Lhugnasa

Ryan's 2010 Wish List:

• Some really good gloves
• Anything super cool by guys like Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll, Ravi Zacharias, those kind of dudes--books, videos, stuff like that.
• Sanpera I (Foot switch for Peasy Vyper modeling amp ($100)

Hillsong

• Faith + Hope + Love
• This is Our God

Hillsong United

• Tear Down the Walls

Desperation Band

• Light Up the World

I found a scrap of paper with this scrawled on it: Dad's 1st Place, 512 S. Union St, Shawano, WI. While I don't remember the context of it, I googled it just for funzies.


He said that except for a porch that used to be off to the right in front, it pretty much still looks the same. He got a kick out of seeing it again. Kinda cool to think that this is where my daddy started out his life, a life that I am so deeply thankful for and love to da moon and back.

Lydia is allergic to pineapple! Do not forget this one.

It gives me the heebiest of jeebies to think of losing anyone I love. "It's impossible" is what would I would feel, as quoted from the book Making Toast. I still feel that way every one of the hundreds of times I think that about my mom.

Life is good, especially when we remember how tissue frail it can be.

Delight yourself in the small things. Someday you will realize they were the big things.

More Salad

This was written on a scrap of paper in my nightstand:

Days go by, I lead a little life,
An ordinary mother, daughter, sister, wife.
Acquaintance to many, friend to a few,
Irrelevant to most... but not to You.

I read this today and don't know if I wrote it or if a speaker did: "Hindus look to the future, Jews to the past, Christians to the NowHere." The "NowHere" throws me off because that's something I use fairly frequently.

Can't find the English lyrics to "My Nipa Hut," whose title I found on yet another scrap piece of paper, and my cousins don't know the words even to the Filipino version. I found the words "suman" and "kuchinta" on the same scrap, so I googled one of them and found this site. I bookmarked it so that the next time I see my cousin Aida who loves to cook, we can try out one of these recipes.

I have got to start writing down where I hear or read things I deem worthy enough to jot down--makes me nuts. These two quotes are on the same "kuchinta" scrap. Nothing that causes me to launch into study right now, but I wanted them in a safe place so I can toss the note.

• Every Utopian vision involves death on a mass scale.
• My imagination is a creative force.
• Pride--the unwanted guest.
• All of God's stories end in peace.
• Little girls who make their mothers live grow up to be such powerful women.

Ryan is amazed at the influence we have on people even without words. I've been thinking about it ever since he told me.

On an reptilian note, Kev asked a science teacher what to do about the turtle I captured a few days ago. He said it was migrating, looking for a place to hibernate. I painted two red spots on its shell with nail polish in case it , and released it in the field pointing south. It must've been used to not being able to go anywhere because it sat there inside its shell for a really long time. It was also terrified of the dogs, judging by its antisocial tendencies.

The journey of a thousand miles....

Off to ready us for the weekend. Jolly good...