Where I Am From

My friend Martha made me do this. I wish I saw her more often so I could still call her Marth Brooks like I used to when we were young and we could still sing country songs super loud together. I could use some fun like that in my life. She has a precious blog called 50 Sticky Fingers which is the best blog name ever in my opinion. Anyway her post today told me to do this and I decided to listen to her. I will let her explain exactly what it is I am doing here. It was a pretty fun diversion. I hope you'll try it too and if you do I hope you will leave me a comment letting me know where I can read about where you are from.

Where I Am From

I am from a round dinette table and four chairs with white metal backs, from Kool Aid and love.

I am from the dark, cool living room with Little House on the Prairie turned on.

I am from an Aloe Vera plant making boo boos better and the morning after a storm.

I am from pizza on the coffee table and stubbornness, from McCoys and Andersons and Braggs.

I am from excitement first and thinking later and fierce loyalty and shyness.

From who loves you baby and accidents happen.

I am from the church altar and going forward at the invitation..

I'm from Oklahoma, fried Chicken and Wacky cake.

From Dad bringing me chocolate milk everyday after Kindergarten, playing at Mom's office while she worked, and Master Lee's Karate center.

I am from a park in Virginia, Make A Wish day, good grades are important but not as important as love.

From family being all that mattered.

If you were just wondering where the best place to get boxes is... now I feel silly!

A friend of mine recently asked me for moving advice. I moved a lot when I was a kid. I have had three major moves since I was an adult. Adults are a lot less adaptable than kids so I actually think in a way moving is harder for an adult than for a child. I feel like I have learned a few good lessons about moving the hard way and decided to share what I told my friend about them here to maybe save someone else a little trouble:

I have one big piece of advice about moving that I had to learn the hard way about three times before I finally figured it out. It may seem weird but here it is.....decide you are going to love it before you go and realize that just because you love where you came from doesn't mean you can't love where you are going. What I mean is for two of my three big moves as a grown up (one to Virginia from Oklahoma and one from one town in Virginia to another where I didn't know anyone) I was so busy thinking about the place I had come from and how awesome it was that I wouldn't let myself see all the good things around me in my new place. It was kinda like I was afraid to love the new place because I already loved the old place so much. So I spent a lot of time focusing on how much I missed the old place and no time enjoying the new place. Then after a lot of time had passed I would wake up and realize that this new place isn't bad at all and actually has a lot of good about it. I always regretted spending so much time being sad and miserable at the beginning of new place that I would eventually end up loving . Anyway so when we moved here I decided ahead of time that I was going to love it from the beginning. It didn't mean I wouldn't miss Virginia and all the memories I had there. It did mean I wouldn't set my new town up for failure by constantly comparing it to where I had come from. I would find things I liked about it right away and start enjoying them. More importantly, I would start treating it and thinking of it like home not some strange new place. Those are hard things to do for someone who is sentimental like me, but I made a decision to do it and this has by far been the best move ever. I have realized through all my moves that you can truly love more than one place with all your heart and that makes opening my heart to a new place much easier because I don't feel like I have to turn my back on other places. Places that in their own way are still very much home to me. I don't know if that makes sense but I hope so! Also, I hope that is the kind of advice you were looking for. If you were just wondering where the best place to get boxes is... now I feel silly!

One other thing I had to learn the hard way. Making new friends as an adult is a lot more challenging than it was when we were young. Adults have their own routines and ways of doing things. They aren't really worried about making new friends. They don't have to meet all new people every year in classes like kids do. So my advice for when you move is don't wait to start making friends. Jump right in. Find a church and maybe hobby or something and start meeting people. Don't wait for them to ask you over or out for dinner. You do it. The quicker you jump in and make it happen the quicker you will have friends and the quicker you have friends the quicker you will feel really at home. I didn't do this in my last move and I found it hard the entire time to make friends. I learned though from watching a few military families come in and out of town that when you are the new person the responsibility for making friends lies with you. If you put forth the effort people will happily open their hearts to you. You just have to jump in and do it. If you are shy like me that is hard but totally worth it.

One awesome thing about moving when you are our age is that you you get to take your best friends with you. Having Ron and my girls with me means home is anywhere I am!

Umm....

I have always been a little shy. Afton is not. She is not afraid to talk to strangers. She strikes up conversations with them all the time. Of course they usually think she is precious and I just smile. Lately, however, her comments have sometimes taken an inappropriate and, yes, embarrassing turn. Especially embarrassing for a shyish Mommy who doesn't make it a habit to talk to strangers. Here is an example from today. It took place in a very small waiting area where everyone could hear every word she said.

A: Mommy, can I get out of the stroller.

J: No, baby, this isn't a good place little ones to be running around. Just stay right there. We are almost done.

A: I wanna get out and go sit by that lady. (Points at a lady.)

A: Is she a nice lady?

J: Yes, she is a nice lady.

A: (Points at another lady.) But that lady is a naughty lady?

J: ( Mortified.) No, she is a nice lady.

A: No, Mommy, she is a naughty lady. Look at her hair!

At this point I got up and pushed the stroller over to Daddy and tried to recover. What kind of hair did the lady have? I know you are wondering. Perfectly normal old lady hair. Nothing the least bit naughty about it.

My New Year's Resolutions

In December of 2003 my husband Ron sent me a postcard from Florida. On it he said, "It is cliche not make New Year's because they're cliche, so think of something good." That has pretty much been my view on the subject ever since. Here are mine for this year:

1. Brush Afton's teeth twice a day EVERYDAY.
2. Do the dinner dishes at night instead of the next morning.
3. Have friends over for dinner once a week.

I am sharing these here because I hear publicizing your goals is a good way to keep you from quitting on them. I am totally embarrassed by one and two because having them as goals is like saying to the world "Hey, I don't brush my daughter's teeth and I leave my dishes sitting out all night!" But I posted them anyway. Judge me if you must. I don't blame you.

For the record I do brush Afton's teeth, just not nearly as regularly as I should. She squirms so much that it seems pointless, so it never gets high priority. Now that I have outed myself on the Internet though, hopefully those cute little teeth will get the attention they deserve.

As for the "I leave my dishes sitting out all night" part, well, I have no for the record statement for that. I do it. Pretty much every night. I know, I know! I am stopping though. That is what this humbling (humiliating) post is about.

As for the last one, I know it sounds very ambitious. It is meant to be. It is designed to be a boot camp of sorts, on the reasoning that if you do something a whole bunch of times in a row it stops being scary. Time for embarrassing confession number three. I am terrified of having people over for dinner. Every time we do have company we have a great time. We always talk about how fun it was and wonder why we don't do it more often. I know why though. It is because I get totally nervous about the prospect of cooking for other people. It is quite silly, really. It comes down the fact that I only know how to cook really normal things. I always feel like I need to be able to pull something fancy out of my hat and I know that I have nothing fancy in there. Nothing. Just stuff like spaghetti. Anyway, I always tell myself it is not about fancy food it is about fun and fellowship. I can tell myself that until I am blue in the face, but until I overcome my nervousness I am going to let fretting over fancy food keep me (and my family) from lots of occasions of fellowship and fun. (How is that for alliteration?) That is where resolution number three comes in. If I force myself to cook for friends fifty times this year I think I will beat back the majority of my nerves and I know we will have a lot of fun in the process.

So, there you have it. Wish me Godspeed! Happy New Year!

100 Things

1. I am really tired.
2. I am almost always really tired.
3. Pregnancy has never been my friend.
4. I am disappointed that my first three things sound like complaints.
5. I try to white wash my complaining by passing complaints off as statements that sound like complaints.
6. It looks like we will have a bad storm tonite.
7. I am from Oklahoma, but I have never seen a tornado in person.
8. I like storms now.
9. They used to scare me so bad I would get sick to my stomach.
10. My baby is sleeping.
11. She is a very sweet girl.
12. I had P.U.P.P.
13. That fact is what make me think I should do a list like this.
14. I love clocks.
15. I love my husband.
16. I have never been very good at fixing my hair.
17. This is harder than I thought it would be.
18. I love lists.
19. I mean I really, really love them.
20. When I was a kid I used to spend hours in my room making lists of names.
21. I am kind of a loner, but I love being with people I am close to.
22. I am mad that I worry about ending sentences with prepositions.
23. I mean who really cares.
24. Something weird just happened to my computer and erased the last several lines I had written.
25. I can't remember what they were exactly. Oh well.
26. I love the country.
27. I like the city, too.
28. I am always very eager for the next big thing.
29. My husband is good at tempering that quality in me.
30. He is very good for me.
31. I hope I am good for him.
32. I am very, very shy.
33. I am fine with that and I wish others would be too.
34. I have read that shyness is a form of self-centeredness.
35. At first I was offended, but now I am willing to admit it may be true. Partly.
36. I pray that I will be able to turn my back on self-centeredness.
37. I absolutely adore Corrie Ten Boom.
38. Once when I was in a hospital in Italy God miraculously revived and sustained the battery in an iPod I was using.
39. You don't have to believe me, but it is true.
40. I never make statements like that.
41. I want to be a really good mother.
42. Selfishness will be my biggest obstacle.
43. I still miss my Aunt Debby.
44. I believe in heaven.
45. I hate going to Sam's.
46. I hate waiting.
47. I love getting packages.
48. I guess were are all the same like those last two.
49. I love kindred spirits.
50. I haven't met one in a long, long time.
51. I had a great time in high school and college.
52. I wouldn't go back to either even for a day.
53. Dogmatism in little things annoys me.
54. Making big things out of little things annoys me.
55. I desperately want to do what is right.
56. I am afraid of baring my soul to others.
57. I wish I could find Savong Donovan.
58. Misty Sargent is one of my heroes.
59. Not that I have lots of heroes.
60. Basically just her and Corrie Ten Boom.
61. There are a whole lot of things that I could have done a lot better, but not a lot of things I would do over.
62. The only thing I can think of is that I would have stood up for Angie Wacek back in seventh grade.
63. I am so weak.
64. I was a regional spelling bee champion in sixth grade, but now I have a really, really hard time spelling.
65. I don't like country music as much a I used to.
66. I rarely miss home anymore.
67. I hate putting lotion on. It takes forever.
68. I hate being criticised.
69. I hate being misunderstood.
70. I just deleted the last two things I wrote because they were too embarrassing.
71. I hate TV, but I watch it a little everyday.
72. I do worry a lot about my family.
73. I hate having to explain myself.
74. I have been too hard on my husband.
75. I want people to think the best of me and my motives.
76. That is what I think of when I think of the golden rule.
77. I love relaxing.
78. I kinda like cooking.
79. I don't like things that are really complicated.
80. Except movie plots.
81. I wish I could remember how to make snow flakes.
82. I love hearing birth stories and engagement stories.
83. I hate listening to glory trips.
84. I don't like being one of a number of multi-tasks.
85. I don't like multi-tasking.
86. I love garlic.
87. I waited tables for over two years and it wasn't good for me.
88. I am overly considerate of service personnel.
89. I love the taste of red wine and would love to drink it every evening like Europeans supposedly do.
90. Other than that I am not at all impressed with Europe.
91. I was treated very, very well when I spent a week in a hospital in Italy.
92. My baby is waking up.
93. She is a very good baby.
94. I hope her brother or sister is just like her.
95. I am 13 weeks pregnant.
96. I am very, very happy about that.
97. I just started learning Latin with Rosetta Stone.
98. It is really fun.
99. My brother got it for me.
100. I love my brother.