I am both a mother and a child. I was thinking about my two roles and the amount of time I spend in each of them and a couple of points came clear to me. They may not be everyone’s experience.

Over a period of years, parents (and in my case me, as a mom) create a habit of thinking about their children. They say if you can repeat something for what, thirty days, it becomes a habit? Well, living and interacting with my children that were raised in my home created a habit that is very hard to change. I think about my daughters multiple times every day. I don’t have to do anything for them anymore, they don’t live near enough for me to see them often, there is no reason for me to have to think about them, but I do. I miss them.

In my life as a child I didn’t have to think about my parents very much. I had the habit of being with them and I did miss them when I moved away, but I never had responsibility for their welfare and didn’t habitually think about them. I was always kind of busy building my own life and doing new things. I think they call it self absorption. My sense of family connectedness came about because it was always so wonderful to have somebody who wanted to know what I was doing. My grandparents and parents were always there waiting to hear from me and happy when they did.

My conclusion is that parents think about their children much more than their children think about them.  At this stage of my life I am hoping to make a more equal adjustment in my roles, and not that I’m wanting to think less about my daughters but I want to think more about my parents. I appreciate them more. I’m aware that I may, at some point, be able to offer them help that they need. Although my days with them have always been numbered, now I’m aware of how small the number may be.

My experience with family goes farther, kind of repeats itself in the spiritual realm. I believe God thinks about me much more than I think about him. I see how very much like a child I am (the self absorption thing again) in my thinking toward my Father in a larger, more eternal sense. I’m reading about beginnings in Genesis – stories that I’ve heard since I was a child in Sunday school.  One of the characteristics of God that stands out to me now is how responsive he was to the men and women who kept him in mind. He looked forward to their communication with him and blessed them against all odds.

 I used to wonder how firstborn Esau could sell his rights to a double portion of inheritance (and his father was rich) for a bowl of stew – he probably just didn’t spend much time thinking about it. He was his father’s favorite and probably figured Dad would fix everything for him later.  I have a lot more in common with Esau than I’d like to think. For one, I have an inheritance coming that’s literally out of this world. Secondly, I don’t spend nearly enough time thinking about it and respecting it. But I am growing up and giving more time to this parent as well.

My maternal grandparents John and Clementine, in picture on the wall, Me, holding Esther and Dennis in back row My Mother Gwen, Julia, my paternal grandfather Roy, my Dad Owen taken in 1982

I have always loved how God teaches me about himself through family life here and now. Thankful.



This cupboard will be the worst… just sayin”



The spiritually painful part is that I have to question why we let it get into such a state. That one’s heart and mind could look like one’s garage is a frightening possibility. It’s mostly a failure to deal with problems when they present themselves – thinking that they will go away? solve themselves? I don’t know. It’s a brand of laziness that refuses to make a decision and throw something away.  It masquerades as thrift.



Honestly, we have tried to sell lots of this stuff.



I’ve actually been working two days to get to this point.

I have many fortuitous moments in an average week. They are small but they keep me cheered up – like happening to open my blog page at the exact time I was 3 pageviews away from 7,000.

Two days ago I shared a moment with my employer. Actually I wasn’t there but I was part of creating the moment.  I had baked blueberry muffins for her that morning and set one out for her lunch. She had told me to take one home but I forgot it on the kitchen counter.  The next day she told me that later in the day she had a terrible low blood sugar episode, so bad she called someone just to have them on the phone in case she blacked out. Wishing she had another muffin she made her way to the kitchen, and there one was! On the counter where she could reach it! It was like the heavens opened and God was smiling down.

The muffin was great, the whole experience was greater.  I remembered thinking as I drove home that day, “dang, I forgot my muffin. Well, if it bothers her too much, sitting out on the counter, she can just eat it.” And she did.

There’s more than one way to do most everything.  There’s more than one way to get yard work done.  The most common one in my experience is to do it yourself.  I’m getting more familiar with a second way which is to pay someone else to do it. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to pay someone to do your favorite job for you while you do something else that you don’t like as much and that is kind of what is happening now, but I see no other way around it.  It’s sad.

I was feeling hopelessly overwhelmed with chores in the oneacrewoods when Joe appeared at the door looking for work. I guess I was impressed that he was out, on his bicycle actively looking, not afraid to query strangers.  I took his phone number and the next day I called.  I’m not quite as trusting as this sounds so far – he had actually been to our house before working with someone else that we knew and trusted. Joe was at our door because this person suggested he offer to work for us.  Yesterday Joe cleaned out all the gutters around the house. There are a lot of them and they were full of leaves. Today he cleaned out a fern bed that had grown very unruly over the past year.  He has a good eye and I’m beginning to like the way he finishes off a job. He’s interested in the different plants I have around the place and asks questions.

I guess I’m a little worried about whether I can afford the luxury of a gardener…  But, until I know I can’t I’m going to go with it.  I’m redistributing wealth which is a very popular thing these days. God seems to be taking care of my needs, and the others who depend on me financially, plus the whole thing just feels right. 

I have to go to work tonight. We have lost another employee – gone without giving notice.  I would be angry with the departing person except I totally understand how she feels and have been in nearly the same place, more than once. But I’m praying for the ability to extend grace, as it has been extended to me time and time again. I will get twice as many hours for this night shift as I do for my usual day shift and I think God knows I need the money.  He knows I need to pay my gardener. Just sayin’.

As a result of a couple of things I’ve read lately (and a couple of people crossing my path) I have come to realize that I spend almost no time at all thinking about the subject of feminism.  I never have.  For starters, I have an aversion to lots of things classified as “isms”.  The word  “feminism” seems much more angry and repugnant than the word “feminine” which I have nothing against. I guess I have heard so many talking heads in the media arguing rudely with each other about sexism, racism, marxism, socialism, feminism, etc… that all those classifications fall into the categories of unhelpful and divisive.  At least in my mind they do.

Secondly, I think I have just been busy seeing the world through the only pair of eyes that I have. I haven’t been wishing that I could be something other than what I was since I am fully engaged in being what I am. It’s enough. I suppose if I put high priority on material things I might feel angry that men earn higher wages than women doing the same work in some cases.  But how much is earned has little to do with how much the work is enjoyed, and that is always what has mattered more to me.  My observation is that men and women have equal access to being miserable, unfulfilled and depressed about what they are or are not.  Equal access to being happy, content with circumstances and productive. It seems to me a matter of personal attitude, period.

I have one area of thought that might have a feminist ring to it – that is frustration over trying to fix value to the jobs of childrearing and homemaking, which often have no monetary reward. I say often, because you do see instances in movies and real life where people with a need will pay almost anything for someone skilled to come in a take the job of a spouse they’ve lost. Or you hear about the valued, trusted housekeeper or nanny who is the equivalent of an executive secretary – a Mary Poppins if you will, or a Mrs. Doubtfire.  But think about it – if we really valued those positions wouldn’t there be someplace where they taught the necessary skills to be good at them? And not just for women but for men as well? No, it’s pretty much left up to on-the-job learning, or self-help books, or trial and error. And there’s all too much error going on and the stakes are much higher than we are willing to admit. I am a little bit concerned about being elderly and in the care of a generation of people who have been disregarded, neglected, often used and abused, and don’t have a lot of examples in their lives of how to care for and love people. I feel cultural remorse over this.

But I see both men and women who are willing to undervalue raising the future generation, so it’s not a gender issue to me. I think I have recovered from past feelings of low self worth, thinking that time was wasted when I was making a home for my husband and children.  I think it was the most important thing I could have done (and I probably should have done more of it).

I love being who I am and will not waste time envying those who are other than me. I would also say that it makes me very happy to be around people who also enjoy who they are – be they male or female.  Just sayin…

For anyone who wants to be a homeowner (and isn’t yet) please know that homes do not do anything by themselves except deteriorate.  It is entirely up to their people to do everything for them – they are dependent, like a young child or a pet.  Today after work I worked on the outside of the house cleaning gutters and mowing the lawn.  It is spring here in Florida but since spring is when live oak trees shed their leaves, it is also fall.  Fall in the spring.  Mowing the lawn is almost like cutting hay in a field, except it’s furrows of leaves you end up with instead of hay.

We have close to 30 trees in the oneacrewoods, most of them oaks, and the leaf fall goes on for about six weeks, at least.  The new crop of leaves pushes the old ones off, and acorns drop at the same time.  This makes a tremendous amount of mess and it is my least favorite thing about having a yard full of shade trees.  What do you do with all these leaves? This is a question I have wrestled with for many years  and the best thing I’ve come up with is just to pile them somewhere and let them rot.  I use leaves for mulch wherever possible, and they look good enough but are terrible for sticking to your shoes and coming in the house with you.  I pile them around the base of their tree, or put them in a pile by the garden for comoposting. But there are really too many even for those uses. I have to blow them off the roofs and scoop them out of the gutters. It’s awful.

So after work, and then working more after work, I was tired. I was even glad that music practice was cancelled tonight so that I could be tired at home instead of someplace else.  So as I was fixing supper (which is also work) the husband comes home and guess what? He is tired. In my mind it is almost like a rule that only one person can be tired at a time. Whenever you or I start complaining about being tired, face it, it’s because we figure someone else might take care of us, or at least not make us do any more work.  Between my employer, who is always tired first before I get to say anything, and my husband who is tired the minute he steps in the door, I never get to be the tired one. Not fair. And it’s not as much fun to be tired in secret and not tell anyone. Just sayin…



One of my favorite pics from Boone Reunion 1984


A favorite subject for me.  I grew up with cousins being the closest of friends. Their visits were always the highlight of the summers and letters were written back and forth during the year.  They are still some of my most special people, on both sides of my family.  I’ve also been thinking of my daughters lately and the relationships they have had and will have in the future with their cousins. They have many things in common because of their ages and their common relatives and heritage. They probably have more in common than they actually know. I hope they continue to forge bonds and share their lives with each other.

I wish we could have had digital cameras back in the “old days” so there would have been more of these cute pictures and they could be shared more easily.  We all deserve to remember some of these times (even if we groan inwardly at some aspects of them…). Julie and Esther, what a priceless pose. And Jonathan and Jamie, love the outfits. And Lissy, already into purses! You all continue to brighten my days and give me much to think about.

I am sitting at my desk looking at a coupon that would allow me to save 50 cents on any Excedrin Migraine product I wanted.  I’m thinking that I could eat some of that right now if it would make my head feel better.  It’s been a slow day at home and it seems that I do get headaches on days like this quite often.  Is it dissatisfaction with the day’s activities? It could be that I wish I had gone outside more, moved more, talked more, even worked more. The things I did do needed doing but they aren’t very visible things. I think there’s something wrong with me.

So I’m left with my headache, thinking about the day and wondering if it can be salvaged or if I should just go to bed and try again tomorrow.  Maybe I should have gone off to Saturday night church with the husband.  He looked kind of lonely heading out by himself. If I listened to every sermon he listens to I think I would go out of my mind, no matter how good the sermons were.  It’s just not my favorite way of hearing from God and I’ve decided to choose carefully how I involve myself on the corporate level. I don’t want to go to more than one church and I want to focus on knowing and caring for the people I worship with.  Our problem is that he can’t commit to the church that I am involved in and I don’t want to go with him when I’m already going somewhere else.  This is not a new thing with us.  We have been with many different churches for many different reasons but hardly ever the same church at the same time. I think there’s something wrong with us.

Today we got a phone call from a travel agency.  A couple weeks ago we stopped at a home show and looked at all the displays and unfortunately, signed up for a lot of free “contests” and “give aways”.  The offer was probably a good value for a vacation, but who takes vacations? Not us. We wouldn’t do a thing like that, unless it was to visit relatives.  I think there’s something wrong with us.

I’m not saying that we’re unusual, or on the brink of falling apart because we aren’t.  But I have to say that God isn’t finished with us yet and sometimes we get uncomfortable while we’re being worked on. That’s probably part of my angst, my headache, my discontent.  And part of it is that I didn’t get much sleep last night and don’t feel well, so goodnight.

Lots of mornings on my way to work I see the sun coming up in a way that just takes my breath away – but I never have time to sit and look at it or take a picture. This morning I was 10 minutes earlier than usual, traffic was light, so I stopped at the boat ramp and took in the view. Here is a bit of what I saw.  Hope it inspires you as much as it did me.