It has occurred to me in recent months that life does not always happen exactly as we would like it to, and there is not much we can do about that short of beating our chests and screaming "why me"?, which to me seems singularly unhelpful. Given the circumstances of my own life, what with parents dying, volcano's erupting, children's illnesses, a bad back, yoyo dieting and a multitude of other personal and natural disasters, one would have to conclude that I am profoundly obtuse not to have noticed this sooner.
This idea of circumstances being beyond our control is an extremely vexing concept for someone who is compelled to try and orchestrate every moment of her life and I...I mean, they...yes...they must find it quite difficult to accept. As for me (because I'm not "they"), if I could choose it to be so, my life would be set to a truly epic soundtrack (and in my head it already is). I would have no physical trials and all of my relationships would go perfectly. My perfect life would be filled with masses of witty repartee and perfect weather (my definition of perfect, of course). Fascinating friends and loving family would abound, and I would fly to far off, exotic locations at the drop of a hat. On Friday date night, Derek and I would decide to whisk off to India for the weekend in search of some really exceptional Tikka Masala and Pompodoms, and over the Easter holiday, we would jet down to South America to photograph Mayan ruins for National Geographic. Oh, and I would also be younger, thinner and better looking.
It is a lucky happenstance that I actually have many of those things in my life now (aside from the younger, thinner, better looking thing). I am surrounded by intelligent and witty people who care about me and whom I adore. I have traveled the world extensively (and yet always seem to want to see more) and done and seen some pretty fabulous things. I have amazing children, adorable grandchildren, a truly exceptional husband, a beautiful home and great friends, and yet I have not mastered the ability to control all of the events in my life. For instance, if I WERE in control, my bust line would not have gone south for the winter and crows would not have built nests at the corner of my eyes and stomped their stupid little crow's feet all over them. If I were in control, on cold mornings it would not take Derek's helping hand and a significant amount of Motrin to get me out of bed in the morning. There are so many things that would be different if I were in control. For instance, it is my belief that if nations and governments would just ask me for my opinion, things would even run smoother on a global scale.
Then it occurs to me what a good thing it is that I am NOT in control, because I suspect that if I were, I would muck things up royally. Instead, I have discovered that being in control of our fate is not what is important. Don't get me wrong. I agree with that whole master of my own destiny thing for the most part. I can choose an education, I can choose a career, I can choose my spouse, with a little plastic surgery, I could even choose a different nose or bigger lips...by the way...yuck. I'm not talking about the control we have over OUR decisions. I'm talking about the control that we DON'T have over other people's decisions. The real trick in getting by in this life is what we do with the hand that is dealt us. I don't think that God sits up on some glistening throne thinking "You know, just for kicks I'm going to really mess up so-and-so's life today". I suspect he is more likely thinking, "I can't wait to see what imaginative and inventive solution so-and-so will come up with to solve THIS little conundrum"!
Our God is not like mythological Gods of Ancient Greece and Rome. He is not motivated by malice, jealousy or arrogance. Whoever thought those guys up had issues and should have sought out a few counseling sessions with Plato or Aristotle, or Dr. Phil.
No, our God is the cleverest of parents. He sees when we will not learn a lesson simply by being told. He knows just when to twist our knickers into just enough of a bunch to get us riled into taking control of OUR actions, and more importantly, our REactions vs. trying to control things that are simply beyond our control.
So, while my life does not always go in the exact direction that I think it should, I have found that if I work within certain parameters, it will always go in the direction that is best for me, whether I like it or not. Thank Heaven (literally) for the little trials and hiccups that are sent our way every day. Life really would be mind numbingly boring without them.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Black Friday – A Cautionary Tale
I admit it…proudly. I have, up until this year, been a Black Friday Virgin. Never gone before, never had a desire to. But something entirely unexpected happened this week to change all that. Derek actually found something in one of the sale ads that caught his eye. Please understand…Derek does NOT shop. So when something in an ad actually peaks his interest, action is required. Not surprisingly, his interest was in the Menards ad. For those unfamiliar with the Midwest, Menards is a hardware store. What a shock. Derek was intrigued by a few fabulously priced tidbits that he thought would make good Christmas gifts and actually expressed, if not an actual desire, a willingness to go to the store on Black Friday of all days in order to secure these treasures at a spectacular price. For those unfamiliar with the origins of the term “Black Friday” I should explain that this designation commemorates what is, for many stores, the first day of the year that their books are actually in “The Black”, meaning, they make a nice tidy profit. The idea is to lure you into the store with a few great sales and once they have you there, entice you to spend your children’s college funds on Christmas gifts.
I strongly suspected this was all nothing but a lot of talk on Derek’s part because Derek doesn’t like to go shopping…ever, let alone at 5:30 in the morning. We went to bed Thanksgiving night with me fully expecting to sleep in until 8:00 am. That’s when the unexpected happened; Colt, who is presently working at radio shack while waiting to marry Michelle and go into the army, had to be at work by 4:00 a.m. and as usual, he had not planned ahead and had no clean socks. Socks being a dire and urgent need, he thought nothing of tromping into our room at 3:30 in the morning to commandeer some of his father’s socks. I hate it when he does that. It makes me regret that I didn’t drown him when he was too young to struggle. Sadly, once I was awake, there was no going back to sleep. I tried…really I did. But by 4:30 I knew I was done for the night and started to get up. To my amazement, I heard Derek’s voice beside me in the dark! “Where are we going”? I was perplexed…“Ummm….to the bathroom”? He popped out of bed and informed me that we were going to Menards! If you know Derek at all I’m sure you are currently thinking that Menards must have been selling bars of solid gold for a nickel a piece in order to lure him out of bed, but the truth is, it was pretty mundane stuff!
I have an adventurous spirit, and this foray into Black Friday seemed like the perfect holiday adventure. I jumped up and got dressed and by 5:00 am Derek and I were pulling into the parking lot of Menards. There was a line, but not an unmanageable one, certainly not the nightmarish lines that I have seen on the news where mobs of crazed shoppers rushed forward and practically knocked down buildings. Derek dropped me off with instructions to secure a place in line while he searched for a parking place. We were actually having fun! There was a lighthearted mood of anticipation amongst the shoppers and people chatted with whoever was next to them in line. This all seemed pretty easy. A few minutes in line and we would save a bundle because of the great prices. Then the elderly woman in front of us mentioned some nonsense about only another hour to wait. That was impossible. The store opened at 5:30. I mentioned this to her and she firmly corrected me. Seems Derek got the times wrong and the store didn’t actually open until 6:00 am. Still okay…we were there to have a fun little adventure. We could wait an extra half hour…in a light fall jacket…in 39 degree weather…it would be fun…really…
By 5:30 I realized that I had burned all of my spare calories shivering and probably should have eaten breakfast before we left. I offered to wait in line while Derek drove to Burger King for some much needed French Toast Sticks but he was feeling gallant and said I could go get the food while he waited. I headed across the parking lot to get the car and looking around, realized that if I forfeited my parking place the nearest one I would be able to get upon my return was at our house. I headed back to our spot in line determined to stick it out even though I was starting to feel queasy, but Derek insisted on walking to the McDonalds just down the road. My hero! Feeling renewed and invigorated after some hot chocolate and a McGriddle, we faced the final twenty minutes or so with renewed enthusiasm. By now the line ran right around the parking lot and out to the street. The woman in front of us asked if this was our first store of the morning. FIRST? It was 5:45! How many stores could we possibly have been to already?? Turns out JC Penney’s opened at 4:00! The crowd was starting to stir restlessly. About five minutes to six we noticed that there were a number of people gathering in the parking lot directly in front of the entrance to the store and that’s when things started to get ugly.
The shoppers who had been waiting in line for two hours started crowding towards the door, fearful that these latecomers might actually get into the store before them. Eyes became wild at the thought that these interlopers might get to the $2.00 leather gloves before they could. Comments started flying from the shoppers in line. “Hey, go to the back of the line, we’ve been waiting here for hours”. Fierce inquiries were thrown to the security guards standing at the entrance. “You’re not gonna let them in are you”. The crowd kept pushing in with more fervor. I’m REALLY claustrophobic and this was NOT entertaining! This was a BAD adventure! People in line literally started chanting “Go to the back, go to the back”. Derek and I started laughing. This was unbelievable. At 6:00 a.m. the doors opened. We were swept up in a mad surge. The line crowd cheered as we flooded past the group of parking lot crashers being held at bay by security. As we burst through the glass doors in a wave, Derek was literally swept away from me and we were separated. I tried over and over again to reach a cart but each time I reached for one someone else would pull it from my short little fingertips. I was really only interested in the cart as a possible defensive weapon if things got any uglier. A tall woman finally took mercy on me and pulled a cart towards me. As I wrapped my fingers around the side of the cart, a man grabbed the handle and jerked the cart out of my hand. I gave up and headed in the Direction I thought Derek might have been swept. Just as I finally caught sight of him, I heard a thunderous voice behind me bellowing “keep it moving, keep it moving”! A split second later I was slammed to one side by a really big woman who literally body checked me out of her way with her shoulder. I raced towards Derek and hid under his arm as the crowd surged past us. He’s big. I can do that. He laughed at me and huddled me close to him. From there we successfully found all of the treasures that he had on his list and headed over to the paint department. The aisles were a virtual sea of writhing, shopping humanity. We just kept laughing at the insanity of it all. There were a few tempting looking deals that I wanted to check out, so Derek headed towards the quickly growing line at the checkout so our wait would be a little shorter. I spotted a really great deal on reed diffuser gift sets and picked one off the shelf to test the scratch and sniff sticker on the front of the package. Having sampled one, I picked up another in my other hand. As I sniffed the second sticker a woman actually snatched the other one out of my hand, glared at me and stomped off, apparently in search of other things to grab out of unsuspecting shopper’s hands. At that I knew I was done with Black Friday forever and started crowd surfing my way back to the registers where I finally landed right back under Derek’s arm where it was safe and sound. While at least 75% of the shoppers there were cheery, polite people, the other 25% were certifiably insane. I would prefer not to shop with them again…ever.
After Menards, Derek decided to take me to Target. I think it was his way of apologizing for the severe trauma I suffered at Menards. Unsurprisingly, Target seemed unwilling to demean themselves with anything as crass as a Black Friday sale, so it was relatively peaceful there. We found a couple of boxes of ornaments and a few other tidbits and hit the register in record time. We watched as the clerk rang up our purchases, two little dollar books and the two boxes of ornaments…Derek cleared his throat. “Ummm…those ornaments had better be made from real elves. The clerk and I both looked at him trying to understand the thought process behind the comment as he tapped his index finger on the display screen. The register indicated that we now owed Target $517.00. Yes, the ornaments HAD better be made of real elves. The harried (and obviously new) clerk summoned a supervisor as Derek tried to look sincere and patient instead of pointing and laughing. A lot of button pushing and debate ensued, the upshot of which was that the customer ahead of us had apparently not been run up correctly and so her payment hadn’t registered. Target had just donated $500 dollars worth of merchandise to one happy shopper. Merry Christmas to you lady!
Derek and I decided that while our foray into Black Friday had been entertaining, we would be happier never doing it again and headed home to sort through our spoils of war.
As Black Friday was also my sister’s birthday (no reflection on you Jeannie) I had arranged to spend the afternoon with her. She and Jess and I had lunch as Jazz downtown. A great Cajun place with surprisingly good alligator for being in Nebraska (it’s so hard to get good alligator in the Midwest). After lunch we stopped at a quaint Christmas shop in the Old Market called Tannenbaum. In a fit of nostalgia, I had been pining away for a German decoration that we had when I was a child. It’s called a Christmas Pyramid. It has balsa wood blades above a diorama and candles around it. You light the candles and the warm air pushes the blades causing the carousel to spin. The one I grew up with had eventually succumbed to old age and I was thinking how nice it would be to have another when we found a nice little one tucked away in a display cabinet in the shop. I eagerly made the purchase and also purchased candles so that we could try it out when we got home. After our shopping, we headed out to see New Moon. It was significantly better than its predecessor, Twilight. Frankly it would have been hard for it to be worse. After an hour and a half of feeling like pedophiles for ogling the 17 year old actor who plays Jacob (a werewolf) we headed home to put up the Christmas tree. I have decided that I will have surgery every year just before Christmas so other people will have to put all of my Christmas decorations for me. This is a good plan. While Jess and I were prepping the tree and sorting through ornaments, Jeannie decided to get my newly acquired German treasure set up. Jess made some flippant comment about how only the German’s would make a Christmas decoration that combined balsa wood and fire. Not two minutes later Jeannie howled something that sounded suspiciously like “FIRE”. The acrid smell of burning wood hit my nose as I looked over to see my pretty Christmas Pyramid turn into a spinning flame thrower. As we stood staring at it in horror, Jess grabbed it and tossed in into the kitchen sink. Here’s the interesting thing, while the pyramid made no mention of being for decoration only, I noticed later that the back of the box of candles cautioned. “These candles are for decoration purposes only. We do not recommend lighting these candles. If you wish to light these candles, do not burn for longer than 90 minutes. Really? Decorative candles that you aren’t supposed to burn? Why would you waste a wick on a candle that you’re not supposed to burn?
Once the furor of the moment died down it seemed reasonable for us to disband before we managed to burn down the entire house. Thus ended our most interesting Black Friday ever.
I strongly suspected this was all nothing but a lot of talk on Derek’s part because Derek doesn’t like to go shopping…ever, let alone at 5:30 in the morning. We went to bed Thanksgiving night with me fully expecting to sleep in until 8:00 am. That’s when the unexpected happened; Colt, who is presently working at radio shack while waiting to marry Michelle and go into the army, had to be at work by 4:00 a.m. and as usual, he had not planned ahead and had no clean socks. Socks being a dire and urgent need, he thought nothing of tromping into our room at 3:30 in the morning to commandeer some of his father’s socks. I hate it when he does that. It makes me regret that I didn’t drown him when he was too young to struggle. Sadly, once I was awake, there was no going back to sleep. I tried…really I did. But by 4:30 I knew I was done for the night and started to get up. To my amazement, I heard Derek’s voice beside me in the dark! “Where are we going”? I was perplexed…“Ummm….to the bathroom”? He popped out of bed and informed me that we were going to Menards! If you know Derek at all I’m sure you are currently thinking that Menards must have been selling bars of solid gold for a nickel a piece in order to lure him out of bed, but the truth is, it was pretty mundane stuff!
I have an adventurous spirit, and this foray into Black Friday seemed like the perfect holiday adventure. I jumped up and got dressed and by 5:00 am Derek and I were pulling into the parking lot of Menards. There was a line, but not an unmanageable one, certainly not the nightmarish lines that I have seen on the news where mobs of crazed shoppers rushed forward and practically knocked down buildings. Derek dropped me off with instructions to secure a place in line while he searched for a parking place. We were actually having fun! There was a lighthearted mood of anticipation amongst the shoppers and people chatted with whoever was next to them in line. This all seemed pretty easy. A few minutes in line and we would save a bundle because of the great prices. Then the elderly woman in front of us mentioned some nonsense about only another hour to wait. That was impossible. The store opened at 5:30. I mentioned this to her and she firmly corrected me. Seems Derek got the times wrong and the store didn’t actually open until 6:00 am. Still okay…we were there to have a fun little adventure. We could wait an extra half hour…in a light fall jacket…in 39 degree weather…it would be fun…really…
By 5:30 I realized that I had burned all of my spare calories shivering and probably should have eaten breakfast before we left. I offered to wait in line while Derek drove to Burger King for some much needed French Toast Sticks but he was feeling gallant and said I could go get the food while he waited. I headed across the parking lot to get the car and looking around, realized that if I forfeited my parking place the nearest one I would be able to get upon my return was at our house. I headed back to our spot in line determined to stick it out even though I was starting to feel queasy, but Derek insisted on walking to the McDonalds just down the road. My hero! Feeling renewed and invigorated after some hot chocolate and a McGriddle, we faced the final twenty minutes or so with renewed enthusiasm. By now the line ran right around the parking lot and out to the street. The woman in front of us asked if this was our first store of the morning. FIRST? It was 5:45! How many stores could we possibly have been to already?? Turns out JC Penney’s opened at 4:00! The crowd was starting to stir restlessly. About five minutes to six we noticed that there were a number of people gathering in the parking lot directly in front of the entrance to the store and that’s when things started to get ugly.
The shoppers who had been waiting in line for two hours started crowding towards the door, fearful that these latecomers might actually get into the store before them. Eyes became wild at the thought that these interlopers might get to the $2.00 leather gloves before they could. Comments started flying from the shoppers in line. “Hey, go to the back of the line, we’ve been waiting here for hours”. Fierce inquiries were thrown to the security guards standing at the entrance. “You’re not gonna let them in are you”. The crowd kept pushing in with more fervor. I’m REALLY claustrophobic and this was NOT entertaining! This was a BAD adventure! People in line literally started chanting “Go to the back, go to the back”. Derek and I started laughing. This was unbelievable. At 6:00 a.m. the doors opened. We were swept up in a mad surge. The line crowd cheered as we flooded past the group of parking lot crashers being held at bay by security. As we burst through the glass doors in a wave, Derek was literally swept away from me and we were separated. I tried over and over again to reach a cart but each time I reached for one someone else would pull it from my short little fingertips. I was really only interested in the cart as a possible defensive weapon if things got any uglier. A tall woman finally took mercy on me and pulled a cart towards me. As I wrapped my fingers around the side of the cart, a man grabbed the handle and jerked the cart out of my hand. I gave up and headed in the Direction I thought Derek might have been swept. Just as I finally caught sight of him, I heard a thunderous voice behind me bellowing “keep it moving, keep it moving”! A split second later I was slammed to one side by a really big woman who literally body checked me out of her way with her shoulder. I raced towards Derek and hid under his arm as the crowd surged past us. He’s big. I can do that. He laughed at me and huddled me close to him. From there we successfully found all of the treasures that he had on his list and headed over to the paint department. The aisles were a virtual sea of writhing, shopping humanity. We just kept laughing at the insanity of it all. There were a few tempting looking deals that I wanted to check out, so Derek headed towards the quickly growing line at the checkout so our wait would be a little shorter. I spotted a really great deal on reed diffuser gift sets and picked one off the shelf to test the scratch and sniff sticker on the front of the package. Having sampled one, I picked up another in my other hand. As I sniffed the second sticker a woman actually snatched the other one out of my hand, glared at me and stomped off, apparently in search of other things to grab out of unsuspecting shopper’s hands. At that I knew I was done with Black Friday forever and started crowd surfing my way back to the registers where I finally landed right back under Derek’s arm where it was safe and sound. While at least 75% of the shoppers there were cheery, polite people, the other 25% were certifiably insane. I would prefer not to shop with them again…ever.
After Menards, Derek decided to take me to Target. I think it was his way of apologizing for the severe trauma I suffered at Menards. Unsurprisingly, Target seemed unwilling to demean themselves with anything as crass as a Black Friday sale, so it was relatively peaceful there. We found a couple of boxes of ornaments and a few other tidbits and hit the register in record time. We watched as the clerk rang up our purchases, two little dollar books and the two boxes of ornaments…Derek cleared his throat. “Ummm…those ornaments had better be made from real elves. The clerk and I both looked at him trying to understand the thought process behind the comment as he tapped his index finger on the display screen. The register indicated that we now owed Target $517.00. Yes, the ornaments HAD better be made of real elves. The harried (and obviously new) clerk summoned a supervisor as Derek tried to look sincere and patient instead of pointing and laughing. A lot of button pushing and debate ensued, the upshot of which was that the customer ahead of us had apparently not been run up correctly and so her payment hadn’t registered. Target had just donated $500 dollars worth of merchandise to one happy shopper. Merry Christmas to you lady!
Derek and I decided that while our foray into Black Friday had been entertaining, we would be happier never doing it again and headed home to sort through our spoils of war.
As Black Friday was also my sister’s birthday (no reflection on you Jeannie) I had arranged to spend the afternoon with her. She and Jess and I had lunch as Jazz downtown. A great Cajun place with surprisingly good alligator for being in Nebraska (it’s so hard to get good alligator in the Midwest). After lunch we stopped at a quaint Christmas shop in the Old Market called Tannenbaum. In a fit of nostalgia, I had been pining away for a German decoration that we had when I was a child. It’s called a Christmas Pyramid. It has balsa wood blades above a diorama and candles around it. You light the candles and the warm air pushes the blades causing the carousel to spin. The one I grew up with had eventually succumbed to old age and I was thinking how nice it would be to have another when we found a nice little one tucked away in a display cabinet in the shop. I eagerly made the purchase and also purchased candles so that we could try it out when we got home. After our shopping, we headed out to see New Moon. It was significantly better than its predecessor, Twilight. Frankly it would have been hard for it to be worse. After an hour and a half of feeling like pedophiles for ogling the 17 year old actor who plays Jacob (a werewolf) we headed home to put up the Christmas tree. I have decided that I will have surgery every year just before Christmas so other people will have to put all of my Christmas decorations for me. This is a good plan. While Jess and I were prepping the tree and sorting through ornaments, Jeannie decided to get my newly acquired German treasure set up. Jess made some flippant comment about how only the German’s would make a Christmas decoration that combined balsa wood and fire. Not two minutes later Jeannie howled something that sounded suspiciously like “FIRE”. The acrid smell of burning wood hit my nose as I looked over to see my pretty Christmas Pyramid turn into a spinning flame thrower. As we stood staring at it in horror, Jess grabbed it and tossed in into the kitchen sink. Here’s the interesting thing, while the pyramid made no mention of being for decoration only, I noticed later that the back of the box of candles cautioned. “These candles are for decoration purposes only. We do not recommend lighting these candles. If you wish to light these candles, do not burn for longer than 90 minutes. Really? Decorative candles that you aren’t supposed to burn? Why would you waste a wick on a candle that you’re not supposed to burn?
Once the furor of the moment died down it seemed reasonable for us to disband before we managed to burn down the entire house. Thus ended our most interesting Black Friday ever.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Another Thanksgiving day and, as always, I am in a reflective mood. What an amazing year it has been, full of triumphs, tragedies and failures and personally, I am grateful for them all. We saw the birthday of our third and fourth grandchildren. Actually, I literally saw the birth of our grandson. That was an amazing experience that I am grateful to have been a participant in. I will admit that having never seen a life birth from THAT side of the birthing bed, I was a little surprised that the nurses and midwives didn't look more panicked at C.J.'s appearance when he first popped out. I was fairly certain that Heather had given birth to a wad of used chewing gum, but after a few minutes he took on a much more baby like appearance and within the hour was completely adorable.
In August I took a leap of faith and quit my job with ConAgra to embrace our part time photography business full time at the risk of our financial security. In truth, chances were pretty good that my salary at ConAgra wasn't going to make or break us, but there was a very real possibility that I would have to cut back on shopping, decorating and pedicures and possibly even have to cut back to one color with no highlights on my hair. You have no idea how hard this is to admit because undoubtedly, you all thought that at 48 I still didn't have a single gray hair yet. I even magnanimously offered to stop getting my hair colored when I quit ConAgra, but after a couple of months, Derek ever so tactfully suggested that since I do a lot of senior portraits, it would be bad for my business image to have gray hair. I decided not to take it as an insult and just enjoy the fact that I had permission to keep getting it done.
This year we also enjoyed our children's many triumphs. Chi graduated the police academy and is now with the Omaha Police department. When I asked him if he enjoyed his new job he simply stated "Mom, they let me carry a gun...all the time". Apparently that says it all. Mark graduated from BYU-Idaho and even before graduation had three solid job offers. We were thrilled when he accepted a job with Lockheed in Colorado Springs as a software engineer, since it's a lot closer to us than Idaho Falls! We have watched Colt's present, start to gel and solidify into an exciting future. He and Michelle are getting married in February and Colt is going into the Army in communications in March.
While this isn't a particularly funny or witty post, I wanted to prove that I do have a serious side and put in writing my thoughts about the blessings in my life.
I am incredibly grateful for my family. What awesome children I have! I am grateful to see that each of them has become exactly what I have hoped for since they were born. Good people. Everything else is icing. They are loving, kind and caring people and have found wonderful spouses (and pre-spouses). I love seeing them interacting with their own families and developing these amazing lives of their own.
In addition to our amazing children, we now have four fabulous grandchildren. THIS is a fabulous thing! Our favorite hobby now is babysitting the grandchildren. The best part is hopping the kids up on sugar right before bedtime and then giving them back to their parents! I live for my phone chats with Eden and love hearing about Autumns daily antics.
Derek and I are embracing the freedom of having all of our kids grown and having more time to spend with each other. We are enjoying learning more about the people we have become 29 years after marrying. It is mind boggling to realize that we will have been married for 29 years in December. Marriage is it's very own adventure and what I've learned in all this time is to be grateful for each others qualities and to work through the hard times because, it's worth it in the end.
In August, I had my 48th birthday. (Let's face it. I have four grandchildren, there is absolutely no point lying about my age). As a birthday present, Derek rallied the troops and together they bought me glass blowing classes! This has become an exciting new hobby that I really love. To get the details on my adventures in glass blowing, you might want to read my early blogs;-).
So on a completely serious note, I will end this blog on a serious note by expressing my gratitude for the gospel. For the lessons we learn and for the patience and love that our Heavenly Father has for us. I am incredibly grateful for my family and for all the years that they have put up with me and loved me. In particular, I am thankful for Derek. For his love for me and his dedication to our marriage. I love him so. I am also very grateful for extended family and for friends. I have enjoyed reconnecting with lost family members on Facebook and have enjoyed the friendship of amazing people who support my choices and efforts. I hope you enjoyed this foray into sincerity and serious because it makes me feel all funny and will not be repeated very often.
Love to all of my friends and family and a Happy Thanksgiving!
In August I took a leap of faith and quit my job with ConAgra to embrace our part time photography business full time at the risk of our financial security. In truth, chances were pretty good that my salary at ConAgra wasn't going to make or break us, but there was a very real possibility that I would have to cut back on shopping, decorating and pedicures and possibly even have to cut back to one color with no highlights on my hair. You have no idea how hard this is to admit because undoubtedly, you all thought that at 48 I still didn't have a single gray hair yet. I even magnanimously offered to stop getting my hair colored when I quit ConAgra, but after a couple of months, Derek ever so tactfully suggested that since I do a lot of senior portraits, it would be bad for my business image to have gray hair. I decided not to take it as an insult and just enjoy the fact that I had permission to keep getting it done.
This year we also enjoyed our children's many triumphs. Chi graduated the police academy and is now with the Omaha Police department. When I asked him if he enjoyed his new job he simply stated "Mom, they let me carry a gun...all the time". Apparently that says it all. Mark graduated from BYU-Idaho and even before graduation had three solid job offers. We were thrilled when he accepted a job with Lockheed in Colorado Springs as a software engineer, since it's a lot closer to us than Idaho Falls! We have watched Colt's present, start to gel and solidify into an exciting future. He and Michelle are getting married in February and Colt is going into the Army in communications in March.
While this isn't a particularly funny or witty post, I wanted to prove that I do have a serious side and put in writing my thoughts about the blessings in my life.
I am incredibly grateful for my family. What awesome children I have! I am grateful to see that each of them has become exactly what I have hoped for since they were born. Good people. Everything else is icing. They are loving, kind and caring people and have found wonderful spouses (and pre-spouses). I love seeing them interacting with their own families and developing these amazing lives of their own.
In addition to our amazing children, we now have four fabulous grandchildren. THIS is a fabulous thing! Our favorite hobby now is babysitting the grandchildren. The best part is hopping the kids up on sugar right before bedtime and then giving them back to their parents! I live for my phone chats with Eden and love hearing about Autumns daily antics.
Derek and I are embracing the freedom of having all of our kids grown and having more time to spend with each other. We are enjoying learning more about the people we have become 29 years after marrying. It is mind boggling to realize that we will have been married for 29 years in December. Marriage is it's very own adventure and what I've learned in all this time is to be grateful for each others qualities and to work through the hard times because, it's worth it in the end.
In August, I had my 48th birthday. (Let's face it. I have four grandchildren, there is absolutely no point lying about my age). As a birthday present, Derek rallied the troops and together they bought me glass blowing classes! This has become an exciting new hobby that I really love. To get the details on my adventures in glass blowing, you might want to read my early blogs;-).
So on a completely serious note, I will end this blog on a serious note by expressing my gratitude for the gospel. For the lessons we learn and for the patience and love that our Heavenly Father has for us. I am incredibly grateful for my family and for all the years that they have put up with me and loved me. In particular, I am thankful for Derek. For his love for me and his dedication to our marriage. I love him so. I am also very grateful for extended family and for friends. I have enjoyed reconnecting with lost family members on Facebook and have enjoyed the friendship of amazing people who support my choices and efforts. I hope you enjoyed this foray into sincerity and serious because it makes me feel all funny and will not be repeated very often.
Love to all of my friends and family and a Happy Thanksgiving!
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