My, oh, my. It's been a while since I've been able to see you all. My dear, precious readers, I am sorry to have left you. In case you've had sleepless nights and wondered where I ran off to, I'm back to tell you.
I've made the Dean's List. (That's an awkward transition. What does that have to do with anything??) You see, this is the first time I have made the Dean's list since my first round of college. No, I have not been doing poorly. I've had a tremendous GPA since going back to school. But last semester was the first time I had taken enough credit hours to be considered a full time student. Perhaps you understand now. I have been buried under a sea of lectures, readings, papers, and all the rest. Every time I get my head above the waters it's only because the undertow has gone out for the next tidal wave to smash upon my weary head. Woo, dramatic. Quite frankly, being a full time student is a young person's game. I cannot juggle between full time school hours with homeschooling, driving, cooking, cleaning, and all that other junk that goes on while still maintaining work hours and my own personal health. It's draining. I have two and half more weeks left before spring break. I wish I could tell you I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but the truth is, it's just a freight train racing towards me. I need to get off the tracks before I die. And I will. I'm doing my best to manage my time and still provide myself with rest. I'll get there. As for you, my poppets. Keep pressing forward. Find the good in life. Work to do better and be better. Life is about moving, not staying stagnant. If we all can keep pressing on, we can make it onto the Dean's List of Life. Be safe. Stay well. I'll try to see you again shortly.
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Today's society is filled with parents and grandparents that believe children, their children, are perfect. Go back 30 years. Go to school. Teacher contacts a parent. Parent shows up to the school. How does this play out? The kid is in some major doo doo. Right?! Today, what happens? Teacher is in doo doo. Nothing has changed in the rules, it's the people.
What about everywhere else? Who's fault is it? Who's the bad guy? It is always easier to take the bad situations of our children and make it someone else's fault. Always. What happens if someone isn't at fault? Then we have to discipline, console, or worse, admit the truth. It creates a world of truth blindness. And when the children grow to be teens and adults, they don't know how to handle the truth. And that's even harder. I read a post on Facebook in a mom group that her son was cut from the basketball team. I know a friend of mine's son has also been cut from the team. It's hard. It is really hard. As a coach, I hated cutting kids. I hated cutting kids with good attitudes that lacked skill. I hated cutting kids that could play if we were at a smaller school. I hated the disappointment. But it was a job that I had to do. I had to build a program based upon positions, skill level, age/grades, and everything else. When I was growing up my father was brutally honest. He told me I was too short to make it as a good basketball player. Ouch. But true. He would usually follow it up with some sound advice- You need a quicker first step. You need to have a faster release on your shot. You need to be faster, stronger... I went into high school with something to prove. I wanted to show my dad, and everyone else that the short girl could be the fastest, strongest, quickest, best everything. Sure, there was some unhealthy competition levels for myself, but it gave me a drive and a purpose. I had a focus. And I never had my dad blowing smoke up my butt. Do I wish I had received more compliments? Naturally. But we had a strong relationship because I knew he wasn't lying to me. Now, as a parent myself, I find it best practice to meet somewhere in the middle. My kids need to know when they mess up. They need to know the truth. I can tell them their weaknesses. But I also tell them their strengths. I tell them where they can improve, but what is looking great. It's a balancing act. Sometimes I want to jump in with parents today and say that my baby got robbed!!! But I know that if I simply tell them, "Hey, guess it wasn't happening today. That's alright, get 'em next time." I'm more likely to help them deal with failures healthily later on in life. It's hard. Life is hard. Being a mom is hard. When someone hurts our kids, we want to hurt them back. We can't. We have to learn to rise above and teach our children to do the same. My dad was blunt. That hurts. But I'm thankful that I wasn't blind to the truth. I'm still short, but I proved to the world what short girls can do. It's been a while since I've written. Not just a blog, mind you, but written anything of substance that wasn't a paper for school.
Let me just tell you. I'm beat. I'm struggling. This has not been an easy time for me. I'm balancing and juggling school, homeschool, work, book sales, and keeping the family going. I think the worst part of it all is telling people that I'm struggling. Last week I had a class that was only Monday through Friday. It was self-paced. Watch the lectures, turn in the work. It could take you a day or three days, or maybe even all five. Didn't matter. Before that, my seven week classes were difficult. One class in particular was just difficult to deal with. More so, a professor made life miserable. The last two weeks of that seven weeks, I basically told people that I barely had my head above water. I was close to drowning. Today, I start the next seven weeks of classes. Not exactly fun. But I know the professors for these classes and I feel confident that I will do well. But that doesn't mean that my mind and body will be able to keep up. It's still three tough courses. It's still seven weeks. I still need to keep my family going. I still need to homeschool my children. I still need to spend my weekends (and some weekdays) working and signing books. I still have clients. And now we enter the holiday season. Gifts to buy/wrap. Decorations to put up. Parties to plan and attend. Additional markets. Last session was hard, what will happen this time around? What made everything so difficult about telling people I was struggling was that it ended at that. I was watching Home Improvement (yes, I am BINGE watching every chance I get!) and there is a time when Jill, the mom, decides she's going back to school. When she enters her first round of finals, her friend is amazed at her. And why not? She's raising three kids, living with an accident prone husband, and kicking college's butt! The friend decides to bring over meals. Every afternoon, Marie brings over a nice meal for the family to eat for dinner. The family is excited because Jill is known to not be a good cook while Marie is top notch. I watched the episode and cried a bit. Sounds silly I know. The truth is, I know that if I called up two maybe three people, they would help in a second. They would drive out of their way to take the kids to dance. They would cook a meal if I asked for help. But I would have to call. Let's face it, I'm getting by. Nobody is starving. Everyone is passing classes and understanding material. No harm is coming. But Jill didn't ask her friend. Marie showed up. She brought food. Nobody asked her. She looked at Jill and thought, "I can help my friend." She did. I shed a tear while I watched because I didn't want to ask. I don't want to have to call someone to give my kids a ride. I don't want to ask for help. And no, it isn't the whole too-much-pride thing. It was that I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be known. I wanted a friend to look at me and say, "You are kicking butt! I'm so proud of you. But here, take a break! You've earned it." Coincidentally, at the end of the seven weeks courses, a friend did come over with dinner. They were escaping from people in their home. But they brought food for us. I didn't have to worry about cooking that night. And we had a great time. That wouldn't have worked if they showed up a week before. I'd be trapped in school and stressed about when they would leave. So even though it wasn't a "I see you, let me help" reason that they came over, they did, in fact, help me out. As she does all the time. No, this isn't a post asking you to cook for me (you know who you are). I just wanted to share my heart. It is so important to be seen and known. If I have not seen you, heard you, known what's troubling you, I'm sorry. I'm a bit preoccupied. But even in my busy occupation of brain cells, I want you to know that I do see. I'm trying to listen. I hope we can all take a moment and really look at the people in our lives and not just hear what they are saying, but listen to the silences. Know each other. Hear what each other is not saying - due to fear, pride, exhaustion. Let's show a little love. Alright, let's tie it all together.
Parents today are enabling children. Why? I'm not here to blame, but I think it's important to be honest. Generations before us have been more strict. There have been rules. There was respect. There was discipline. Then someone came in and said that discipline hurt children's feelings and we should stop. Enter in the Time Out of parenting. The problem was that some parents, not many but some, were abusive. They hit. They beat. They screamed into faces and shoved into walls. But that was not the majority. Yes, those people are monsters. But they were not the majority. A spanking taught a child that they should not do something. Minds that lacked reasoning and understanding needed something simple to help them understand right from wrong. It's an immediate consequence. It teaches a lesson. But it isn't all about the discipline choices. A lot of it is about communication. I remember when my son read Little House on the Prairie for school. I had never read it growing up. I had to read it with him. The amount of times the idea of seen-and-not-heard was brought up was shocking. I mean, I know I grew up with it. I know it's how I was raised. But I had never really seen it as a lesson in a book for kids to live by. That has changed. Some for the good, some not at all. Kids who were told to sit down and be quiet became kids that said, "I won't treat my kids that way. They'll have a voice. They'll have a say!" Again, parent is a noun and a verb. We can't let kids rule the house. It doesn't work. Adults should have life experience, knowledge, wisdom, and be able to guide their children in a proper way to live. That's why kids don't need to share their opinion on everything. They don't have the experience and wisdom. Parents should be teaching their children how to make decisions and the difference of right and wrong. But we have far too many households where the kids reign. Everything from what's for dinner to what is on the TV to where are we going on vacation gets voted on, and often dominated by children. I think this is where there should be balance. If I'm cooking dinner for my family, I'm cooking dinner. If I ask them what they want for dinner, it isn't a dead set that they will get what they want, but maybe I'm just brain dead and don't know. They may even come to me and ask if we could have something for dinner, when they do, they add the words "please," and "soon". It isn't, "I want spaghetti for dinner." It's "Mom, can you please make spaghetti sometime soon?" Question versus statement. Okay, that's a silly example (though necessary). But what about some bigger things? Depression isn't new. But it hasn't been a topic of conversation until recently. Why? We didn't talk about such things. Everything was swept under the rug. And any mental health discussions were kept in the house. Obviously there was no internet for us to share our world with, but there also wasn't genuine face to face conversation with friends and loved ones about depression, struggles, or anything else that would create a weird tension within the group. Quite frankly, that was personal. We don't share personal items. It isn't for the world to know. And to an extent, yes, I agree. You do not need to share all of your life with the world. BUT! I've always wondered what it would be like if I had been able to share with someone my struggles. What if my friends knew that I wanted to die? Would I have grown deeper relationships? Would my teachers have understood me better? Would it have mattered? I don't know. But I see teenagers now who are getting help. The stigma is taken away when it comes to mental health. We don't have to sweep it under the rug. There's hope. No generation is perfect. There isn't a single generation that has done right as a whole. But each generation has the chance to do better. I was always told we study history so we don't make the same mistakes. It was always presented in a "Hitler was bad" format, but to be clear, we are all a part of history. We are all making ripples into the world that will last. Are we willing to look at the generations before us, and the people who weren't famous, to help figure out a better path? This is our chance. What mark will we leave on society? We interrupt your anger reading with a purposeful tangent.
All of these little things that are seemingly harmless may one day add up. One day it's carrying your kid's backpack. The next day is answering their texts during class. And out of nowhere your kid gets fired from working at a chain restaurant. Hmm... that escalated quickly. Let's see, you taught your child that they don't have to be responsible for their personal items. You taught your child that if something is difficult, you'll do it for them. You taught your child that they don't have to follow rules if it doesn't fit with what they want. You taught your child that you would clean up their mess. You didn't mean to, but it happened. I know, this is a bit of a stretch, but is it? My real purpose in pointing this out is that parents today have a lack of intention. Honestly, many people go through life with few to no intentions. It's sad. It's hurtful. As a parent, you should be intentional. You choose your words carefully. You choose punishments with a purpose. You make dinners and go grocery shopping with intentions. Or at least you should. I see a lot of parents that let their kids eat whatever they want. Hello, childhood obesity and early diabetes diagnosis. I see a lot of parents that will give the same disciplinary action for every single infraction. But that isn't how life works. Different actions have different consequences. What is it this time? No screen? No phone for the night? That'll teach them. Especially since you'll give the phone back in the morning so you know they are safe when they go to school. Man, how did we ever survive going to school without a cell phone in our pockets. (If you didn't visualize a look of disdain laced with sarcasm and a hint of an eye roll, you might not get me.) Many people go through life with a mindset of "Do no harm." As long as the action, words, whatever, doesn't actively do harm, I'm fine. Right? But I ask this - we may not intend to do harm, but do we intend to do good? You see, that's the point. The philosophy of do no harm keeps us from being intentional in go do good. And grammatically, I mean "good" not "well." It isn't, go do well on your schoolwork. It's go, do good. Bring good. Change the world. Be intentional. It is my deepest belief that so much of life's troubles stem from unintentionallity. I don't believe that is a word, but it will be for me! Let's look at the most common problems of American adults. Poor money habits/debt Divorce Broken relationships: parent/child, sibling, friendships Addiction: drug, alcohol, social media Pick one of those and ask, "What if?" What if we are intentional in our money habits? Paycheck comes in. 10% to tithing Pay bills % to needs % to saving Repeat. If we do that every time, we know where our money is going. We know about how much is being saved. If we know how much we are saving, we know if we are saving in stocks or an account, or for a trip, or... When the car starts to die, it isn't a trouble. You have x amount saved aside. Fix the car. Move on. People are a little harder. But what if we were intentional in our relationships? Call to check in. Text message of support. Bringing over flowers or a treat for no reason. You can live a life that doesn't harm your friend, but are you actively going and doing good? You can live a life of no harm in your job, but are you intentionally trying to end the gossip? mend fences? hang out with the outcast? Sure, this matters as a parent. More importantly it matters as a human. Where are you being intentional? Where are you drifting through life? I can tell you this - living a do no harm life, becomes harmful very quickly, usually when we least expect it. Why? Well, it wasn't our intention. Hopefully we left off last week with a hint of curiosity mixed with agitation. That's good. That means you're thinking. If you were completely offended, well, get over yourself. If you don't have a dog in the fight, but like to watch things play out, welcome.
So, last week we talked about carrying school bags for children. I ended the post with the statement that I will not enable my children. It seems a bit of stretch to go from carrying your kid's backpack to being an enabler. Let me unpack it for you. As you read this keep some things in mind - I am still around children all the time, despite not being a teacher anymore. My husband is still in public schools. My kids are heavily involved in dance. And I am, unfortunately, still a tutor. Alice picked up her son's bag from next to my dining room table. She walked to the door, while her son Jerome finished the last problem on his page and followed her out the door. I thought Alice must be in a rush. But then it happened again. Alice carried his bag from my floor to her car. Now, Jerome is not a little boy. He's finishing the third grade. He is stocky and strong. His bag is not heavy. But every single day I watch Alice carry his backpack. She carries it to the bus stop. She carries it to her car. She carries it all the time. Her claim: to help Jerome. Jerome doesn't need help. I learn more about the family. Jerome has an older brother Mike. Mike is not a go getter in the classroom. He often forgets his homework at the house and asks Alice to bring it to the school. If she refuses, he asks her to scan it and email it to the teacher. She does. Sometimes Mike doesn't manage his time well. He enters class and just after the bell rings for class to begin, he is trying to leave for the restroom. The teacher, wanting to teach (how dare they!), asks Mike to wait. Mike texts Alice to tell her that the teacher won't let him go to the bathroom. Alice calls the school. Bathroom denial is unacceptable. Except - Mike had time before class. Mike should have remembered his paper. Mike thinks that Alice will always rescue him. I spoke with Mike at a tutoring session (yes, I took on both children). I asked him about his plans for the future. He was quite sure of himself. He was going to take over the family business. Sounded good. I asked him who would take care of the books, as he was struggling with algebra. He figured his mom would. He didn't think about the fact that if his father was retiring his mother would too. Mike just grew up thinking his mom would always take care of whatever he couldn't. I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but I think it's funny that Alice is always helping her boys at a young age for things they don't need help with, only for them to grow older and expect her to help. Well, hop, hop, hop. I guess I will jump to that conclusion. Alice created a home that wouldn't allow for her children to fail. She picked up the slack. She picked up more than just a backpack. I became a tutor for her family because she didn't want her son to fail. I get that. Nobody wants that. But as I learned more and more about the help that was received during homework, it showed me that she was giving answers, not helping. Alice isn't alone. Again, I'm a tutor because parents don't know how to help their kids without giving answers. But in tutoring, I have seen so many parents enable their children. They don't allow their child to fail. Honestly, I fail all the time. Still. as an adult. And you know what? I don't go off the rails on a drinking binge, or shopping spree. Failure is part of life. I know that. Every human needs to learn that. Keeping children from failure keeps them from reality. They are unable to cope with failure as adults when they don't deal with failure as a child. So let the kid carry their own bag. Let the child struggle to walk to the bus stop. Let the kid ask his own teacher for help, not you setting up a meeting. If you want to help your child, help them figure out the answers to their problems. As I pondered my writing of this post, I realized the tangents and rabbit holes that I found myself within. It took me a bit too long that what that meant, was a series. So here you have part one of this new series, "What Are We Doing?". Today's post will merely set up a scene. We'll see where this takes you...
School is back in session. What this means for me is that I definitely want to get my workouts done earlier. Okay, that's not true. As the sun takes its time to rise, I too would prefer to sleep a bit later. Although this summer taught me that I do not like to run when the sun is up, I still could afford a few more minutes in the comfort of my bed. The problem with that - I then workout when kids are heading to the bus stops. I know, that sounds pretty ridiculous. Who cares if the kids are at the bus stop? I do. They're obnoxious. Just today I was privy to hearing a girl screeching for no reason other than to hear herself screech. Who does that? My own daughter wanted to go outside and kick children for being so loud and obnoxious (gosh, I love her). For some reason, children forget that rules exist when it is time to wait for a bus. You might be thinking, "Where are the parents?" I'll just stop you there. That's a whole different rabbit hole that I don't feel like diving into right now. So I will just say, I don't know where they are, but if I did, it probably wouldn't do much good anyway. The reason why this post began is not because of the children at the bus stops, but more about the parents of those children. This week, I've had the joy of watching a mother carry her daughter's backpack to the bus stop. Two separate days I was close enough to them to witness. I don't know, maybe the mom just misses the days of throwing her backpack on and heading to the bus. It's all nostalgia. But all I wanted to do was rip the bag off of her back and tell her to make her kid carry it. Over the years, I've seen this a lot. Parents carry their kids' backpacks for them. They carry it to the bus stop. They carry it from the bus stop. They carry the bag from the house to the car. Stop. Just stop. Did we ever have help carrying bags from our parents? No! Our bag, our responsibility. Quit making excuses for your kids. It's too heavy. They have so many books. (They don't.) It's the size of them. (So get a smaller bag). It's a long walk. They already have so much. Blah. Blah. Blah. It may sound mean, but parents, stop carrying your kids' bags. If it truly is too heavy, take a look at what is in the bag and decide what doesn't need to be there. I've looked, most of the time, the heaviest thing in the bag, is their lunch bag. You can be all angry and out of sorts. That's fine. I'll take it. What I won't do, is enable my child. Yup. That's for part two. So stick around as I continue to offend you, and let me offer my perspective. This seems like a silly post to have to write about. Perhaps it will serve as a reminder. If it isn't, then I do hope you'll grow from it.
I have seen a great deal of people that seem to think that opinions equal truth. This is not the case. It has never been the case. It can never be. Truth is fact, not opinion. However, we convince ourselves that our opinion is the truth. We hear the phrase "Speak your truth" quite often. Or even, "My truth is..." That should make you think. As children, we learn truth versus opinion. It is very common from second grade on up to learn the difference between the two. It may start with something silly like knowing that a bear is not blue and flies in the sky, but it can get tricky. Snakes are scary. For some people that is completely true. For others it is not. Therefore, according to elementary education, that is not a fact. It is an opinion. Society has taught us that our opinions matter. They do. If my friend despises Japanese food, I'm not going to take them there. It isn't because Japanese food is bad. It is because I don't want my friend to sit there and not eat. My decision is made on her opinion. Simple. If I drive 23 mph in my neighborhood, someone might tell me I MUST slow down. That is their opinion. The law states I can go 25 mph. However, it is safer if I drive 20 mph. It isn't that their opinion is bad or wrong. It's just that it's an opinion, not fact. I am, by law, not speeding. Therefore, I am not in the wrong. We must, as a society, learn to separate our opinions from facts. We must learn to understand that just because it is our preference, it does not make it true, law, the end-all-be-all. It is still just our opinion. No matter how passionate we are about it, it is our opinion. Please do not get strung up that your opinion is right. Without facts and evidence, it is not truth. Once we learn to separate the two, we can better live our lives in a way that will be productive to society. I'll never forget the day I found out I had back fat. It was traumatic. Truly. I knew I had gained weight. I knew my belly was bigger. But I had never had fat on my lower back like that before. Ever. I didn't know what to do.
I was on a medication that made me gain weight. A lot. Quickly. I thought that it was just water weight, but apparently I was wrong. I was miserable. Love handles and back fat on a personal trainer are not what people want to see. So I decided I needed some changes. The first thing I did was ween myself off of the medicine. You may think that was crazy of me. After all, it was for my fibromyalgia. But the truth is, my body had become accustomed to the medicine. The pain was there. And the medicine made me foggy. I could fall asleep anywhere at any time. Worst of all, I was cranky (that's a lot coming from me). The medicine made me less human. I thought since the medicine made me gain weight that when I stopped taking the medicine I would lose the weight. I did... kind of. I lost about two pounds. So then I got on my calories. I dropped calories. And I lost weight. Then it happened. I did it. No, I didn't lose all the weight and get my abs back. I hit the dreaded plateau. So, I called in the big dogs. I hired myself to be my own personal trainer. I wrote out my workouts. I planned everything. I tracked all my food. And I found out I was in deprivation. I wasn't eating enough. Ugh. I added calories to my day. I gained some weight back, and then lost more! My workouts were stronger. I felt better. Things were coming together. And the back fat was gone. Recently, I tried to drop calories again. I lost a couple of pounds. But then I gained it back. I couldn't understand why. Then my belly got flabby. Not a fan. And it hit me! I was still in lower calories. You see, I can do a week or two at dropped calories, but that's it. Then I need to go back to eating. My body will keep the weight off and I stay lean. But when I deprive myself for any longer, my body rebels. Truth is, all our bodies do that. Maybe not in the same way, but it's all thanks to our brain. When our brain experiences deprivation, it makes us respond with binging. Not eating enough? Binge weekend. Not spending any money to be a good saver? Shopping spree. Not standing up for yourself? Goes on a rampage for the next 17 years to make up for taking crap from people. It's how our brains function. So I ask you: Where are you depriving yourself? Is the binge going to make it better? Life is supposed to be full, not deprived. On a fairly regular basis I wish that I had the talent of painting. I wish I could sit down at a canvas and easel with watercolors or acrylics and create the beauty I see in the world.
I've been known to be an early riser. I make my way to the bathroom to mentally and physically prepare myself for whatever workout lies ahead. I leave the bathroom, cross through the dark bedroom and enter the main house. I find my desk in the dining room and turn on the lamp. I open the Bible and hope that my mind is awake enough, and the Spirit strong enough to feed the goodness of God to my ever hungry soul. Then I begin the day. I take the dog for her morning walk. I exit my yard the same way every day. I turn east. There along the treetops is peace. And though some days may not be enjoyable, the majority of mornings greet me with a beauty that I cannot put into words. Dark skies lightening to a violet with stars speckled brightly. Deep hues call to me, while the dog pulls me along. Some mornings are a bit lighter and the sun is rising over those trees beyond in the east. The soft pink blending with the barely blue sky to let me know that everyone will be awake in my home upon my return. How I wish I could stop then and there to pull out paints and show the world the beauty that I saw. Some would say, "You could take a picture." That is true. And I have been able to capture a few gorgeous moments in the past. But I want more. Here I sit behind a keyboard and hope that I can display worlds to people that I've never met. I have read books that take me to far away lands and I feel myself a part of them. I have read others that leave me feeling lost. I cannot picture my surroundings. But I continue to sit behind the screen. I pray to make the words match the picture in my mind. I hope to show the world through printed word, all because I lack the talent to show the world in another way. This is all I know to do. I don't know if descriptions will ever be enough, but I do hope they are. |
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