Blue Tape

I've had so much going on, and most of it has had me running around like a chicken with her head cut off I had to stop to reflect on the silliness of this. I should have pulled out a real camera but I think I was still kinda ruffled all I got was a cell phone shot of it.

Yesterday I had a company come out to replace the windshield of my convertible. Someone driving on the 78 kicked up a rock and sure enough a nice sized crack across the drivers side of the windshield was the end result. Neat huh. So I finally got past the King and I performance, I pulled together my son's 15'th birthday party, dealt exhaustively with my ex, and even today I finally got my 13 year old off on her trip to DC, New York, etc.Yesterday before getting her off at 4:o0 am to the airport I had scheduled an appointment with one of those companies who come to you to do the work. Pretty nifty I thought.

As per the usual appointments of today I was given the time slot of 1-5. Seems as if we are now living with a generation of people who can't actually schedule appointments they would have to keep, by sliding you into a time slot, ie 1-5, they are more likely to actually fill that request. Ok, ok enough of that tangent. Sometime around 2:30 they show up. I find out that in fact Im going to get an upgraded windshield, as if having to pay the $250 would make me feel better to hear that I get a tinted top half of the windshield, but ok, so they are here, problem is being fixed.

After they finish up I walk outside and see two large blue strips of painters tape holding the windshield to the car. Hmm. I can't resist, nor can I hold back. "So, umm, tape huh? That is going to do exactly what?" He looks at me and says promptly...."it will keep the glass from falling". Uh huh. Ludicrous! (no I don't say that) I look at the car again and say, ok but how am I going to close the convertible top, that I had been nice enough to lower down for them to remove the older glass easier with. Hmm he says, good question. "Ill fix that" so he moves the tape to the side of the window and says "ok, leave this on for 24 hours." Uh huh. Now am I just not seeing the reason for this or am I alone in thinking this guy is completely nuts! If indeed the windshield wasn't put in correctly do I or anyone else really think that two small pieces of painters tape is going to hold it in, while DRIVING????? Anyway, that has been my amusement for the day, as I drove around and thought I would share it with 'cyberspace'! :)

Take me away to a Vineyard!

I watched a movie that I wasn't thinking would be what it turned out to be this afternoon. What is it about watching a movie that takes place in a small chateau in Paris that can quickly take away all the pains of the day?

Today it all hit me, the conclusion of the most hectic season of this school year to date, another trip to the airport to say 'good' bye to Dennis, the letters and then the long conversation on the phone with my ex, it all hit me today. I came home from work and felt it almost as soon as I thanked my mother for stopping by to watch the kids and bring them lunch. There are times like this I need to just curl up and watch a good movie, and I gave myself that treat today.

I stuck in the DVD player " A Good Year" with Russell Crowe and I was swept away to the countryside of France and for a few sweet minutes I left the pain and slipped away. I think that is what I like so much about 'chick' flicks and the like, the ability to just disppear and feel comforted. The movie was sweet and I especially enjoyed the Henry's take on life "there's nowhere else in the world where one can keep busy doing so little, yet enjoy it so much!"

The Path not taken

Words are hard to pick from after the whirlwind of this weekend. My girls dressed to the hilt, my son turned 15 and I, in a heap from the weekends events. That was this weekend, and thinking I had got through it all, at the present moment I would love to slip back into the craziness of that weekend and avoid dealing with what I have found in my email today. Another letter.

My ex hasn't been dealing with me very well lately. Im not really sure what the deal has been but yesterday I received in my email a note from him demanding that he has Easter with the kids. Our parenting agreement states I get the kids on Easter Sunday and he the day before each year. Not the 'a typical' custodial arrangement, I realize but this and having the kids on Christmas was one of those things I wasn't going to budge with early on. After gently trying to remind him of that and even checking with the kids to see if they wanted a change, I suppose he didn't take it well. In fact he took it horribly wrong. I received first thing a really long rant about, what Im not really sure of. A half winded threat about him taking me back to court and a bunch of things only seen from his perspective. This is the aspect of a broken family. The parents only see things from their perspective. The children get put into the middle of it all, and absolutely NO ONE wins. On top of it all I had conferences at 8 am this morning. The teachers were great and knew that all three girls were in the production and didn't expect more then what I had to offer. In fact the fact I had it all together (minus the return of one costume) had them impressed. Whats the right way to respond is what I was left pondering all morning?

I could have blasted him with one fact after another from all the things he accused me of doing, pointing out how he would take one thing I said and make it sound like another. I could slam him with the way the kids 'really' felt, or my take of it. I could get knee deep into it and start slinging the mud right back. I chose not to.

I called my girlfriend and forwarded it over to her. She was good the night before helping me see that just by adding tone to my other letter Bill was probably going to take it wrong. While I read it to her all sweet like, he wasn't going to hear the sweetness in my voice. She said I hadn't said anthing wrong, but he would take it wrong. She was right. I called her back and we discussed how Christ would handle this situation.

In the end I acknowledged he was missing the kids, but he had a perspective that was not mine. I told him I didn't know what to answer in his letter because it was so filled with emotion I didn't want to get suck into it. I told him I could start mud slinging with him but to what end? In the end I took the road less traveled. I tried to acknowledge he had feelings that needed to be addressed, but I couldn't figure out what. I try as a mother to see things from my kids perspective. Im not infalliable thats for certain. In fact I probably screw up each and every day with the kids, but I haven't given up trying to do the best by them I can. These are the struggles that single parenting brings about each and every day. God didn't design a marriage to break apart and leave such a mess in the path we leave. But it happens, more then we want to acknowledge, and we must learn how to communicate with each other better.

Communication or lack thereof, is what usually ends a marriage. Communication is key when it comes to dealing with each other with regards to the children in a broken family. The road less traveled, is the one I find myself on this morning.

One of my favorite all time poems.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Deadlines, Insanity, Pressure, Stress. . . Breathe!

This week has hit, full force and then some. Working the hours I have has been rather sweet, everything falling into place, nothing seemed stressed until today. The owner came over to ask me if I could work on a project, or I should say another project, and he needed it by tomorrow at 1pm. No biggy, I said, sure Ill take it home and work on it. The kids schedules are crazy, the performance is this weekend, and sure Ill take on another deadline! :)

I like my new 'job'. Working on spreadsheets as the 'assistant buyer' as I was given the title of today has been 'relaxing'. Kind of funny really, I explained this to the owner last week, that in fact coming to work was a bit of a 'repreive' from my usual daily list of things to do and get done. Its a way for me to relax by going to the office and working on spreadsheets, putting together formulas, learning macros, and learning the buying trends of video games. Today was a new eye opening experience though. Im charged because I completed the task and even got the house cleaned up this evening, but it was stressful all the same.

I started thinking about the week ahead earlier tonight while I was sharing with Dennis all I had accomplished, and all that I still had to do this week. I started feeling myself lift off in the air and feel like I was spinning. It's funny how when you have a week that is so full you can't imagine how it will get done that simply taking each day at a time, it all works out. Carpooling comes through, chores get completed, it all just 'works'.

It's small moments like this that make me just want to shout, 'Thank you Jesus for reminding me to breathe.....and showing me how it all just comes together.'

Good, Better, or Best?

As I sat in the car waiting for the girls to come out of school from Muscial Theater practice (ending after next weekends huge performance thankfully) I found myself talking to a girlfriend. Im wore out, I told her. Its not just that working, taking the kids to and from school, and going back and forth from California to Arizona, Im just wore OUT. I say yes to way to many things for the kids and I have to learn to just say NO. She smiled and offered me some advice. Funny thing is, I use to teach on this advice. She told me this: "Ask" yourself from now on, is it good, better or best?" She went on to say it was "usually the 'good' choices in life that took away from the best". Today there are so many things available for our children to participate in, far greater then when I was a child, and my mother still can't believe what my children have as choices compared to when she was a child. The best things in life, usually don't make us second guess ourselves. We dont find ourselves wore out running to and from participating in the best things that we sign ourselves or the children up for. The better things will wear us down a bit, but its the good things in life we need to watch out for. The good things are the extra play dates, extra tutoring, extra curricular activities that we just dont need in our lives. This comment has left me questioning all of what I have been doing as of lately and I am starting to see how this really lays out in my life to be true.

Andrew was in Awana's with a new church this year (at the beginning of the school year). It was a better choice then we had, but not the best. I've dropped him from this program. Last night I took him to the old church we use to attend, a smaller church youth group. He came home beaming. The church we attend on weekends is a 'Mega church' and his personality can get lost in the crowd. That would have been a good choice had I started taking him there on Wednesday nights. Last night, I was wore out. Running the kids all over, working 6 hours, cleaning the house, laundry and all the things I still need to do around here and then taking him off to church at 7pm and picking him up at 9pm. I didn't want to leave, but it didn't hurt to do it. I was wore out, but it was the best choice so I wasn't questioning myself like I was on Sunday afternoons driving him to Awanas. Best choice made sense over the good.

What I need to do now is start to ask myself, is it best, better or just good? I signed up Ashley for Volleyball after Spring Break. The one hang up is that there is practice on Wednesday nights, the same night and time as Awana. Awana will have to be dropped. I'm confident that Volleyball is a greater choice over the Awana's. It is hard for me to say that since its making a choice to be athletic over learning more about the Bible. But in this instance, I feel confident that she will get more out of participating in Volleyball then in this particular Awana group. Im sad about Awana's ending. It use to be the best choice I had for my children, its dropped down to just a good choice. Looking ahead I want to make only the best choices for my children, but that isn't always as easy to do as it is to say.

The choice

Each day that passes we find ourselves facing new and difficult problems. Sometimes the problems are ones that make us want to run and bury ourselves under the sheets. We are given a choice. The choice we are given is to confront the 'problem' head on or we can run. Today I made the choice to face a problem head on.

Today after working all morning and early afternoon and then starting my 'real' job --shuttling kids too and fro I had a brain storm. Time to fix the sprinklers and get them working again since we have had such beautiful weather. I decided to first pull out the fertilizer spreader and get the grass all taken care of. I walked down under the house where I keep most of my gardening stuff and guess what a lovely suprise I had waiting for me? Yep, another WATER leak! The flexible pipe that connects to my water heater was leaking. Leaking doesn't really seem like the right way of wording this, but after the events of the night laid out, leaking is the best way to describe the way the water was spraying all over under there. I felt at that first moment of realization as if my heart was going to stop and I couldn't move. I could say I hate plumbling, but that would really be a complete understatement. So lets just leave it at that. I first felt myself literally running away. What to do? My dad is up North getting the house up there ready to sell. My mom would be clueless and Dennis is a state away. "Lord I cried what do I do?" I felt myself make a choice at that moment, I decided to face this head on and as a problem but nothing more. I dug out a wrench, (yes I know what a wrench is and how to use it!) and started to tighten the connection, and it stopped, or really it slowed down. Cool! But now it was 'leaking' .. not so cool. Hmm, calling to talk to dad - he knows the layout of my home, I got a voice mail. I picked up the phone and called Dennis. Talking to him calmed me a bit, he encouraged me. After getting off the phone I decided to tighten it up a bit more. Bad idea, or maybe it was a good idea. Maybe instead of thinking I destroyed the pipe, I could simply say, I sped up the process of it completely bursting. Whats the difference? It burst all over me and covered me head to toe in water, and started to flood the entire area as the pipe complete burst. The pipe would have completely burst at any moment, I choose to believe I'm blessed right now in that it burst while I was home and not while I was gone, gone for the weekend just to come home to a flooded home (this is the same wall that flooded the home in the first flood after the rain gutters failed in the back yard). It could have burst in the middle of the night, like the water main did 3 years ago and my dad had to drive out at 2:30 in the morning because for the life of me I couldnt turn the water main valve off. I was blessed, it burst this afternoon at 5:00 pm while it was still light enough to work outside. I did finally get the nerve up to walk across the street and ask a neighbor for help. Im such a coward when it comes to this 'asking for help' business. Jeff was great and helped me fix the problem with a $12 dollar pipe instead of paying the plumber I had called and would have cost me over $100 for the repair. Problem solved, or so I thought and this is just the beginning of my story.

Around 6:30 I hear my daughter growling for lack of better description. I yell up to her as I sit there trying to light the pilot light of the water heart. "Whats wrong?" Not getting a reponse and getting very angry with myself for not getting the pilot light lit, I stomp upstairs to see whats going on. Emily, my 10 year old 4th grader, has decided to get her schoolwork for tomorrow done tonight. She is stumped on a few math problems and literally throwing a tantrum. I'll admit it, I was upset! I spoke firmly with her (ok I yelled at her) and told her to put it all away that I was not in the frame of mind to deal with her like this and since she had made a choice to act like this, she was making the choice and loosing the priviledge to do her school work early. I stomped back down stairs and took on that pilot light. I should add a note, or maybe I should really just think about writing a repair manual for single mothers who will face "plumbing" and fix it issues on their own in the future. See I was thinking that a pilot light on a water heater was just like a BBQ. You click the red button and it ignites. Hmm, I didn't read the part about having a match to "Light" the pilot light. Anyway, finally exasperated with myself I did get the stinking pilot light lit and the water heater is good as new, just soaking wet outside.

Walking back in I was feeling a bit pumped. An issue handled, something I can say I handled better then any other in the past, I was feeling good! Then I realized hmm, where is Emily? I searched the house to find her up in her bed with the bedroom door closed and light off. Hmm, time to be 'super mom'.

Emily I said, why are you hiding? She insisted she wasn't. So I replayed the evening out for her and told her flat out she was. I asked her this, "Emily, what if mommy had decided to run to her bed when the pipe burst?" "What if I had pulled the covers up over my head, what would have happened?" She dropped that 'wall', and sat up and listened. She knew I had a point, and she knew instantly how she was acting was wrong. I told her "We each have a choice each and every day, we can simply choose to take the 'problems' of life as something happening to us, or something happening with us." "We can take them head on or we can run and hide under the covers, the choice is ours, but ultimately, it will effect who we are and those around us. " What do you want to be known for? Do you want to be known as someone who 'hides under the covers in life' or as 'someone who takes on the challenges that come each and every day as just that a challenge, something to grow through? The choice is ours."

Significance?

As far as I can recall back in my childhood I can remember being completely facinated by lights. Driving at night my sister would fall asleep in the car on a road trip somewhere, but me, I'd be staring out the window looking at the lights. Lights capture my attention, I can't help but stare at lights in the dark and be awestuck.

Flying into the San Diego Airport this evening it was crystal clear except for one little cloud that covered the full moon. I sat peering out of the airplane window as we sailed across the air looking at all the lights over San Diego. You can look out of that small little window of an airplane and feel like the smallest little insignifant bug. Who am I really I questioned myself as I sat thinking, and what really is my importance? Looking out that window I saw one small square of a home and then another .......so many people, who would care if I, Jenice, disappeared and was never seen of again? Yes a bit melodramatic, a bit emotional, but given I have had to say good bye again, it shouldn't be too surprising that I found myself feeling a bit contemplative on the flight home. It is so easy to be up in the sky in a small airplane looking down upon the city below you and feel so completely small and insignificant.

One of my all time favorite scriptures is John 8:12 "When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." I strive to be as Christlike as I can and I will also admit I fall short of this each and every day. I sat there thinking about all the things I want to do, all the things I use to think I should no longer be allowed to do. After going through a divorce it is easy to feel like there is a red letter D stamped on your forehead. You feel stained, soiled and completely worthless. Who in the world would ever want to listen to me or seek advice from me again? This has been the opinion of myself. Writing a book has made me take on this fear dead on. Not that I think I would be ministering to anyone in writing this book, but all the same who in the world would care to read it? Fear, and the questioning of my signficance. Jesus told us to walk in the light. He also told us to be a shining light. The lights that draw my attention are those who set their lives apart from the world. People who Love people. People who offer encouragement to those they hardly even know. What lights are you drawn to? What light do you want to be?