Heather Nestleroad's Blog, page 10

Fan Girl

I’m not sure if I have ever mentioned to you that I’m not exactly cool or not but…yeah I’m not cool.  One of the cool things that has happened since my book coming out and well turning that big number birthday is that I have been able to go to meet a couple of other authors and get their books signed.  Granted you can go to a book signing whether you have a book out or not, I just never had before.  In fact, it had never occurred to me that I could.  Not a lot of authors have one stop light towns without bookstores or libraries except for the one in the elementary school on their book tour junket.  I don’t like to drive for longer than thirty five minutes so you see my dilemma. 

For our eighteenth wedding anniversary we drove to Cincinnati to see Dave Ramsey live.  Yeah I know, you are either thinking we are big nerds or that we are the coolest right now.  Who wouldn’t want to see Dave Ramsey?  I have to tell you I was stoked, BUT it got even better because we found out that Jon Acuff was going to be there too.  I don’t know if you know this but I have read all of Jon Acuff’s books and I am pretty sure that we are twins.  You know, aside from the fact that he’s younger and we don’t have the same parents and have no relation whatsoever, I am pretty sure he is the male version of me.  When I read Quitter I asked my husband if he knew him and had called him and recounted my thoughts to him.  When I read Start I thought he was a genius and that while parts of it reminded me of things I think, mostly I thought wow my little brother is so much smarter than I am. 
Back on topic, I had the privilege of meeting him at the event and getting a couple of books signed.  We had a small conversation where it came up that I wrote and that I had a book out too.  So what does he ask me?  Do you have one with you or do you have a card?  Uh…nope.  I had read Quitter and the quitting part I have down pat it’s the starting that I have trouble with.  I was only part way through Start at the time and was not at all prepared for that question.  It never occurred to me that anyone would ask especially someone so accomplished.  So my first and maybe only encounter and when I see him first I take sneak pictures (think Tina Fey in Date Night) of him because the line is long and I may not get my turn, and then when I do meet him I’m an idiot.
Fast forward one month.  Some years ago my cousin introduced me to Jen Lancaster’s books.  Jen Lancaster is a Purdue Grad.  My husband is a Purdue Grad so automatically she is family.  This woman is hilarious.  She, at least in her books, is that friend you have that uses really foul language but you love her anyway because she makes you laugh so hard you almost pee.  I want to be her best friend and drink cocktails with her after my kids are in bed.  I want to float in the pool and talk about the summer reading list with her.  I’m pretty sure we would be very good friends if we were only to meet.  We would meet and I would say something funny then she would and then I would and then we are besties, except that isn’t how it happened.  And do you know why?  Because I am an idiot, that’s why.  My friend and I drove four hours to Michigan to go to her book signed and meet her.  I am finally there and I shake her hand and she thanks me for coming and what do I say?  “No, thank you for coming.”  Who says that?  An idiot.  Me.  Because I. Am. An. IDIOT. 
I did the same uncool 12 year old girl meeting One Direction thing I had done when I met Jon Acuff.  Because I have not one ounce of play it cool mojo.  I am apparently a fan girl.  When we left I needed a drink so we stopped at a gas station to get a Coke Zero because I was having an ok day but not a great ‘I met someone famous and I didn’t make a fool of myself kind of day’.  When I don’t make a fool of myself I get ice cream.  (Side Note:  Did you catch the Easy A reference?)  Yeah I have teenage daughters and little boy.  All I get to watch are teenage shows and movies and superheroes.  Don’t judge me. 
Later that night I was recounting to my friend Kelly what I had said.  I groaned.  She said well when I had my turn I said, “I like your brain.”  “Who says that?”   I lost it.  I laughed and laughed and laughed some more.  I couldn’t breathe I was laughing so hard.  Then later I started to laugh again.  I told her that at least maybe Jen would remember her and she might even get a tweet out of it.  So far no such luck. 
So apparently I wasn’t the only one who went fan girl on Jen.  I feel a bit better.  I have had exactly one book launch party and I have had one speaking engagement since that time.  It is not that I haven’t been asked it is only that I am not sure how to handle it.  I have mentioned several times that talking in groups is way out of my comfort zone but looking at it from someone like Jen Lancaster or Jon Acuff’s point of view I have to wonder how they handle it.  They have far more experience and they seem so calm and cool.  I can’t even meet someone cool without coming off like an idiot.  How do they not only keep their wits about them but also handle the crazy fan girls like me?  How do they go to the store without being recognized when they just want to run in and grab some groceries and get home?  I’m not sure I am ready for that kind of responsibility also I sometimes go to the store in a ball hat and no makeup and you know someone would tweet that.  It’s the world we live it.  Going undercover is hard to do. 
For those who have paved the way before me and for those of you I have met and those I have not yet had the pleasure I want to thank you.  Thank you for being cool even when those of us who admire you are not.  You handle your responsibility with grace and that is to be admired too.  Sometimes (ok usually) it is only after the fact when I have time to think and reflect that I start to get it.  It has to be stressful, humbling, and amazing all at the same time to do what you do.  I’m not there yet and maybe I never will be.  Even if I never become a true peer (read besties) and I stay the fan girl it is still the coolest to have the opportunity to meet someone who has accomplished much and handles it with grace. 
For those who I have had the pleasure of meeting at my own events, I thank you too.  Thank you for your support.  I’m not cool and I don’t have it all together, but hopefully that will come with time.  Just know that deep down I’m a fan girl and I’m your fan too. 

I Only Blinked...

I had this dream that my children were growing up.  One was a senior, one was a sophomore and one was a fifth grader and I was just getting old.  I looked at them and I saw them as a seven year old, a five year old, and a baby but then I blinked and they were seventeen, fifteen, and ten.  It was the oddest experience.  The only problem is that it wasn't a dream.  It is reality.

These children are growing up and I am having a hard time reconciling myself to that fact.  These teenagers of mine drive me crazy.  I'm going to keep it real here for a moment.  You will never hear me say that my children are perfect or that they have no area that needs work.  They are teenagers and I have to tell you that when I was a teenager I didn't like teenagers.  My opinion hasn't changed much.  I love these girls more than life itself and I would given them my life if they needed an organ to survive, but they make me crazy.  There are days when the drama is so intense with them that I have to excuse myself and just leave.  I can't say anything right, I can't look at them right, I can't exist properly around them because whatever I do is wrong.  So I leave and take a break for a bit to get a coffee drink that tastes nothing like coffee and come back. 

It occurs to me now that I think about it, that my mother did the same thing.  We fought all the time.  She would leave and go to the Legion to sign the book.  I still have no idea what that means but I think it was a pool of some sort to win money.  I think she was trying to win enough that either she could take a long vacation from me or send me away to boarding school.  I have thoughts of just leaving the girls the house and taking the men of the family and moving away.  It sounds like a good plan when in the midst of the drama and they are either yelling at each other over the bathroom sink (which is only amusing because there are three bathroom sinks in this house but they have to fight over the one) or yelling at me because I "bully" them into studying for finals or because I looked at them wrong.  Was I this bad?  I was a good kid in my memory and it really isn't that they are bad.  They are good kids they just may have to become lawyers because they love arguing. 

To clarify I would never leave them.  Part of my issue is that I am terrified of them leaving me.  How dare they grow up and leave me!  I blinked, I swear it was only a blink and now I have a senior?  I was just taking her to Sears to get her two year old pictures taken and now she is a senior?  Now I  have to get senior pictures taken.  I'm guessing that since our Sears went out of business I'm going to have to find someone else to take her pictures. 

When I look up from my desk I see the plaster  hand print she made in preschool hanging on the wall.  A token from days gone by.  Then I look farther into the next room and see the wall hanging that has Jeremiah 29: 11 "I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  One of my favorite bible verses.  I have looked to that verse as it applies to my own life time and again.  I may not know God's plan for me all the time but I have to trust that His plan is best.  Now I sit here and contemplate what that means for my daughter who has one year left of high school.  I know I am scared of her leaving and I know she is scared to leave too.  We don't know the entire plan here.  She has ideas of what she wants, I have ideas of what I want for her but God is the only one who knows what He wants for her and what His plan is for her.  He knows the plans He has for her.  His plan is to prosper her and give her hope and a future.  In that I take my refuge, in that I place my hope and my faith and I know she will be o.k. and maybe, just maybe I will be o.k. too. 

Acne, Attidudes and Weird Car Conversations

My ten year old is a little traumatized currently.  He has started breaking out with a little bit of acne.  My daughters began puberty at ten and I was assured by my husband that it takes boys a bit longer.  But the first signs are starting to arrive and I have to tell you I am a bit traumatized myself.

The question that popped into my head last evening was this:  acne and attitudes are they related?  When my girls were at my son's age they started getting a bit of an attitude with me.  Suddenly I didn't know everything.  I was just stupid mom.  As they have grown into teenagers apparently my IQ has lowered.  I was unaware that this was going to happen.  When they were younger I was brilliant.  I may not have had it all figured out or together but they thought I was smart.  Of course, I think that was mainly because I knew the words to the theme songs on their cartoons.  When they are little being able to sing Down By the Sea or I Love You, You Love Me is way cool.  Now they listen to music and half the time I can't make out what they are saying; and forget about knowing all of the artists because new ones are popping up all the time and I can't keep track of all of them.

This morning the conversation in the car was whether or not Madonna could have been Lady Gaga's mom.  Kid number two was trying to convince kid one that Lady Gaga came from Madonna's uterus.  Seriously?  That is the terminology she used.  She is currently in sex ed at school so she is learning more about the reproductive system and is ready to share.  Kid three seeing where the conversation was heading plugged into his headphones to watch a video in the car.  What was he watching?  Saved by the Bell.  So Kid one gets on the smart phone to look up their ages.  Kid two is discussing which kids Madonna gave birth to and who she didn't.  I am telling her to not use the word uterus in front of the ten year old.  Kid one gets back to us with their ages.  I said, "Madonna is not Lady Gaga's mom but she is old enough to be her mom."  Kid one says, "No way!"  I said, "Do the math if Madonna is 54 and Lady Gaga is 27."  She does the math and says that Madonna would have been 27 when she had Lady Gaga.  It is not unheard of.  I was thirty when I had my son.  These are the conversations we have in the car. 

Back to my boy.  He is a very laid back kind of kid.  He just goes with the flow.  He gets upset when the girls fight with each other or with me.  But here comes the acne and will the attitude follow?  I have discussed the girls with him.  I have told him that he is never to talk to me the way the girls talk to me.  He understands.  This weekend on one of our outings to get away from the tension and hormones of teenagers studying for finals, I told him that if he starts talking to me like that he will crush me.  He promised he would never go there.  I certainly hope so. 

I am curious as to what conversations we will have once his sisters are both gone to college.  I think our car is apparently the safe space for any conversation.  Those girls come up will all sorts of crazy things to talk about.  If it's not Madonna it's Gwyneth Paltrow or some other random celebrity or sometimes it's something else.  Currently everything with my son is about video games and camp.  He is excited to go to camp for the first time ever this summer.  Sometimes they talk about farts and sometimes I hear about recess.  What will he talk about later?  What do boys talk about when they get into puberty?  Girls?  So far he says, "Mom, I'm ten and in fourth grade.  I only like girls as friends.  I am too young to be worrying about a girlfriend."  How awesome is that?

It has been such a crazy busy year.  School is almost out and I am excited to see what summer brings.  In the meantime I will take any heads up as to what you think about the connection between acne and attitudes.  I'll keep you updated on the car conversations.  I am convinced our oddest conversations happen in the car.  Those may be my favorites.  It doesn't matter if they have acne or attitudes I suppose, I think the part I like best is that they find me worthy to talk to at all.  I love their imaginations and their curiosity.  From diapers to depends I will always love them and their weird conversations best.

Memorial Day, Teenagers and Hiding at Walmart

I'm not sure how you spend Memorial Day but our family doesn't get together.  In fact my husband had to work today.  Today is the day before finals start for my two teenagers. They have spent the weekend studying.  Tensions are running high in this house as you can imagine.  My husband made schedules for them to go by so that every subject would get studied.  They haven't left the house now since coming home from school on Friday.  One working in her room and the other working down at the kitchen counter. 

With it being a long holiday weekend my son's friends are gone and unavailable to play.  I have spent the weekend rearranging furniture and cleaning my office in between entertaining him.  Saturday we went to see Star Trek, Sunday we went to church and then he played with one of his friend until we went to the camp nearby for a festival.  Today we have been watching a Pawn Stars marathon and I think we are just bored enough at this point we are going to venture out to let him spend his gift cards for Walmart.  He has his eye on the newest Big Nate books.  He is a reader like his mom. 

The girls are so stressed that we can't even look at them without them getting mad.  Compound that with the fact that Aunt Flo is in town visiting them and you have a dynamic that the boy and I are trying to avoid. 

As I sit at my desk I can see the Navy pictures from both of my grandmothers.  In fact, one of my grandmothers started in the Navy but when they found out she had lied about her age she was kicked out.  When she came of age she went into the Army.  If I turn my head I can see the picture of my dad from when he was in the Marines.  There is a line of Marines in my family.  There are military vets on both sides of my family and also in my husbands family with nephews currently serving in different branches. 

I don't know if you are spending your day together with family members having cookouts or coming home from camping trips.  I don't know if you are spending your day hiding from teenagers or taking advantage of Memorial Day sales.  No matter how you are spending your day, might I ask you to stop for a moment and remember those who have fought for the very freedom you are enjoying today?  We may not be able to be with them but don't forget to remember. 

A Look Back at Mother's Day and an Update

It has been a busy few months.  I have been plugging away on the new book.  I just sent it out for editing.  I hope to get some information about that to you soon.

The day before Mother's Day I spoke at a Mother/Daughter Banquet.  I'm not sure if you know this about me but I have a fear of public speaking.  I spent weeks stressing about this event even though I was certain that God wanted me to do it.  I couldn't sleep, my imagination went into overdrive, and I was an all around basket case.  I am pretty sure I just  had way too much time to think about it.  In the future I will try and go about it in a more healthful way.  This time I failed.  As I sit here and think back I realize how ridiculous I was being.  I had thought I would be standing in front of 40-50 people alone.  In reality I stood before roughly 75 people but I wasn't alone.  God was standing with me the entire time.  So I thought I would share with you what I had written and also the link to the video in case you want to see why I don't do public speaking unless God tells me I have to.

Here is my speech for Mother's Day 2013



I have to tell you that never in my wildest imagination would I have thought that I would be standing here before you today.  In fact, the last thing I wanted to be doing was giving a talk about my mother and my life, the day before Mother’s Day.  I put up a pretty good fight, too.  But it has become increasingly clearer to me that when God wants you to do something, you are going to do it.  Obviously, I lost.  When Sharon called and asked me to do it, I initially told her no.  I told her that I was sure that God would provide someone to speak … but it was not going to be me, because I am not a public speaker.  I’m a writer, I’m a kindergarten aide, I’m a mom, I’m a taxi driver for three kids, I’m a lot of things—but a public speaker is not one of them.  I became so stressed out by the idea of doing this, that my sleep was disrupted and I was in physical pain.  I’m an excuse maker.  God told me to be here and I said “But I’m pretty sure you don’t want me to do it.  You want someone else.  I can’t possibly go speak to adults, I work with children,” I said.  God came back with, “You are failing to see that they are all My children.” When I think of children I think of well…children. Not adults that are God’s children.  I had conversations with my husband about the situation.  I had conversations with my friends. Then I revisited my husband and asked him how I could get new friends, because none of them were agreeing with me on this one.  In the Bible, God asked Jonah to go speak to the people in Ninevah.  Jonah was scared and didn’t want to go.  He tried to run from God and got on a boat to run away and hide.  God sent a storm and Jonah was thrown into the sea.  Jonah prayed to God and God sent a whale to save him.  The reason I remind you of this is because I think it applies to my life.  I skip the boat, the running away and hiding, and go straight for the whale, every time.  Take the road, you say?  Forget about the road.  I will just go hide in the whale until God changes his mind.  God may have a sense of humor, but he rarely changes his mind.  Almost nine years ago, I lost my mother to cancer.  I’m not sure what kind of relationship you have with your mother, but my mother and I fought like cats and dogs.  If I said up, she said down.  If I said left, she said right.  I was always right and she was always right.  The one thing I was right about, I wish I could take back, and be wrong.  I told her every day to quit smoking.  I told her that she could get cancer and that it would kill her.  So being right isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.  My mother was a yeller.  I was a smart-mouth kid and I gave her reason to yell.  I had many ideas of what I thought I would be like when and if I ever became a mother, and I was not going to be a yeller.  Sometimes I open my mouth however, and my mother comes out.  I also swore I would never drink coffee like she did. But now that she is gone, I drink coffee fully doctored with flavored creamer, not black like she drank it… but I drink it nonetheless.  I grew up an only child. My mother was unmarried when she was diagnosed with cancer, so when she became sick, I took care of her.  My children were 7, 6, and 2 at the time.  I was a stay at home mom. We moved her in and doctored her  the best we could.  Every plan I had for having another child, every normal thing, became skewed and put on hold.  My mother was not going to die.  In fact, she said she wouldn’t.  She was going to fight and that was it.  She wasn’t going to lose her hair either, and the day she lost it was devastating to her. It hurt me too, because it wasn’t me she chose to help her with that.  It was a friend.  I had to force her to have conversations with me about her death.  She would say “I’m not going to die but just in case I want this,” or “I want that, and don’t get rid of all my stuff because I have good stuff.”  Watching her suffer was heart wrenching.  They gave my mother six to eight months and I got to keep her for almost a full year.  Then in the wee hours of the morning, on July 14, just one day before my birthday, Jesus came to my house, stood at the foot of her bed and took her home.  She went home to be with Jesus, and I told everyone about it.  I rejoiced that my mother was saved and baptized the year before she died and told everyone how happy I was that she was no longer suffering.  Then the day she was laid to rest, I fell.  I came into what was her room at my house. There were funeral flowers all around the room.  I lay down in the middle of them and wept.  I fell into a pit of depression and didn’t re-emerge for two years.  I went through the motions of daily life.  Doing only what was necessary and nothing more.  It was so bad that when I was delivered out of it by Jesus, my mother in law revealed to me that she was afraid they would never get me back.Every year on her birthday, and the week of mine, I go into battle.  The guilt that I didn’t save her comes back:  I didn’t fight hard enough.  I let her go.  I didn’t take her to that cancer hospital they advertise on TV. and they may have saved her.  Then comes God and asks me when I got so big that I think I have the power to keep people alive.  I don’t.  There isn’t anything I could have done, and the reality of that both saddens me and relieves me.  I am happy that my God is strong enough to save her and ease her suffering.  I am happy in some ways that my mother got cancer.  Had she not, she may never have come to know Jesus and the question of her eternal salvation may still remain.  Today I know for certain that my mother is in heaven and that one day I will see her again.Until then, I am here with two teenage daughters and a ten year old son.  Not one but two teenage daughters, in case you missed that.  There are days with these girls that I think I may be seeing my mother sooner rather than later.  I love them but they drain me like nothing else.  Everything is so dramatic all the time.  They are nineteen months apart.  I had them close together on purpose.  I wanted them to be best friends and to always have someone.  I wanted them to have what I never had.  But they try to kill each other half the time.  They argue, they fight, kick, hit and carry on like they are mortal enemies, not sisters and best friends like they are supposed to.  God has a sense of humor.  Although I wanted siblings, I was not at all convinced that I wanted children.  I grew up wanting siblings but not children of my own.  I had cousins and I thought they were terribly behaved. If I did have children, I would do it better.  Well, I have not done it better.  I don’t even have my mother’s “look.”  She could turn on me and give me a look and I would know to backpedal and hide.  I give my own children what I think is “the look” and they refuse to backpedal; they go straight to the edge and jump.  I thought they would have a healthy fear of me and a certain amount of respect.  Instead I believe I’ve made them so comfortable and loved them so much that they may never leave.  What is worse is that I’m terrified that one day they will leave.  I have no idea who I am without them.  I got pregnant one month after I got married.  I have been married with children almost from the beginning.  What do we do when they are all grown and gone?  Hang out with the cats?  My mother hated cats. Now I have three cats.  I have no idea who I am.  I’m terrified of being alone and yet I am never alone.  Sure, I would like to go to the bathroom alone.  But I do not relish the idea of being alone in my house without the children for any longer than a school day.  They fight, they create a lot of laundry, they control every television, and chip all of my dishes … but I love them.  I miss my mother every day, some days so much, I forget that I myself am a mother too.I guess with all of that said, I don’t know what the moral of my story is.  I already told you God must be crazy to ask me to speak to you.  Maybe it is that God can take a smart mouthed kid -- who was never going to get married and have children because she thought kids were brats and the parents never stayed together and fought all the time -- and transform her into a wife and mother with the family she always wanted growing up.  Maybe it is that God can take you from the pit and deliver you into higher ground.  I have been to the pit and back a couple of times, but God will keep coming for you to bring you out again.  Maybe it is that even if you take the whale instead of the road you are going to end up right where God wants you eventually.  I’m not sure.  All I can tell you is that without God, I wouldn’t be here with you today.  Without God I wouldn’t have a family.  Without God I wouldn’t be able to do my job, write, live through the teenage years with my girls, and I sure wouldn’t be able to prepare a mostly edible meal.  I think the lesson is to focus on what you still have and not what you have lost, even if they drive you nuts.  So for this Mother’s Day, hug your mothers, love them, enjoy them, fight with them if that is what you do, and don’t miss one moment. For each of them is a gift that may not stay here on earth, but will remain in your heart forever. 
Here is how it actually came out
 

Level Three and Karma for Me

In 2008, I  lost about sixty pounds.  I kept that weight off for about three years, and then the weight started creeping back on after I stopped exercising and went back to work.  What can I say - I can only focus on one thing at a time. 
This year my husband and I are trying to lose weight together.  Our oldest daughter is with us in this quest also.  Friday we had yet another snow day, so we were all home. The girls started getting too aggressive with each other, so I sent the oldest to get on the treadmill to work it off. 
She did level two, which is an improvement from the level one that she usually saunters through.  While she was walking, she kept telling me how much she hated me.  Of course then I started giving her a hard time for saying that, when she was only on level two.
Saturday morning I couldn't talk myself out of getting on the treadmill, which is what I normally do.  The girls had to be somewhere early so I was up, with time to kill before getting ready for my son’s basketball game.  I got on the treadmill and started on level three.  When it started, I thought to myself, “This isn't so bad, I have no idea what her problem was with level two.” 
Below are the things that passed through my mind as I continued.1.       Wow, this is a little harder than I remember.2.       Speed four is really fast.3.       Incline ten?  Really?  I don’t want to climb Mount Rushmore; I just want to burn some calories.4.       I haven’t gone a mile yet?  This thing might be broken; I know I've gone three.5.      Wow… my head is starting to hurt.6.      If I trip and fall off of this, can my ten-year-old get me up?7.      My spine may be out of line.
Climbing a mountain again?  Don’t they give you ropes when you climb mountains?  I think my head may explode.  I think I have a brain tumor.   It could be a blood clot.  It can’t be in my legs, because they are now rubber, so it must be in my head.
When my husband got up, he asked me how I was doing. I told him I was pretty sure I was going to die.  He asked me what level I was on.  I told him three.  He shook his head, chuckled, and walked away.  He didn't know about the blood clot in my head. 
When I got off the treadmill, the room started spinning.  I felt like I was walking through a clown house on my way to the other room. 
So the moral of the story is this:  Don’t laugh at those who do the work you should be doing – or karma will give you a headache. I think that’s going to be a popular phrase soon. 

Dear Mom, Happy Birthday

Dear Mom,
Today is your birthday.  You would have been sixty one today.  Crazy to think that this is another year we won’t be celebrating your birthday.  Things are getting better.  I can get through every holiday like a trooper now.  It’s your birthday and mine that get me every time.  How is it that February 25 is here and you are not?  If you were here we would go to Texas Roadhouse for your birthday dinner.  I would have made you a white cake with peanut butter icing.  What would you have asked for? 
My heart hurts today.  I feel like I’m being ripped in two.  I think about all that has happened that you weren't here for.  I learned how to make jewelry and you loved jewelry.  Are you mad that you didn't benefit from that?  Do you even know that now that you are in heaven or are you so busy you haven’t noticed what has been going on?  I started writing.  I’m not sure that I am good at it.  I suppose that is subjective but I do enjoy it.  Your oldest grandchild is starting to drive, your second is going to start driver’s ed in the summer, the baby is ten and he has hair.  You would be so proud of them.
Today I find myself in another battle.  The voices that haunt me are back for the day.  “It is your fault.” “You didn't fight hard enough.” “Did you really do everything that you could have?”  “What if you did this or what if you had done that?”  “You just gave up, you gave up and now she is gone.”  They persist with their accusations and it tears me apart.  Eventually reason comes into play and I realize what is happening.  I suppose I am a slow learner or after almost nine years I would be able to shut them down faster. 
I did not then and I do not now have the power to save anyone.  While I took on the responsibility to take care of you alone, I was not then and am not now an oncologist nor am I God.  Your life, just as mine, was in God’s hands and his hands alone.  I know that God has a plan to bring beauty from these ashes.  I revisit those last days and then I remember that even at the end God was there.  He sent his son to stand at the foot of your bed and take you home.  I know that.  I was there, I felt his presence.  I know you are home.  I know you are having a wonderful birthday in the presence of our Lord.  I know all of these things and I am so sad I am missing the party.  I can only imagine the kind of party that God would throw.  I can only imagine the joy he felt that you came to know him and you were saved and are with him now.  These thoughts bring me peace when I feel that I cannot hold on. 
I keep asking God to keep me moving.  I ask him to tell you how much I miss you and love you.  Sometimes I just get so mad at you and I tell him that too.  I didn't get all of my questions answered.  I didn't learn everything I needed to from you.  I can’t bake like you could.   I miss talking to you on the phone while I fix dinner.  I miss shopping with you.  I miss arguing with you.  I miss all of your expressions.  “What do you want to do now kong?”  “Do you have to go poo poo in the pee pee potty or pee pee in the poo poo potty?”  The kids still remember that one and they think it is so funny.  I walk through shadows today with the hope that tomorrow the sun will shine again.  God brings the light to my weary soul.  I know that he will bring me through this day like so many others. 
I keep moving because I have hope.  Hope for tomorrow, hope for His plan for my life, hope that one day I will see you again.  Hope that when July comes as it always has and it’s my birthday God will bring me through that battle as well.  This year we will be very busy.  Busy is good it is less time to dwell on things that I still have no control over.  Then the light bulb goes on and the lesson is learned yet again.  I am not in control.  I never have been and that is such a relief.  It relieves my soul to know I can go to my father and lay down my sorrows and troubles at his feet.  He will wipe my tears and pick me up again and we will go on with the journey he has for me.  And somehow I think maybe you know that too, that maybe he fills you in. 
Love until we meet again,Heather 

If they don’t get older in the scrapbook, does that mean they will never leave?

My oldest daughter is a junior in high school this year.  My time for getting her scrapbooks caught up is ticking away like the second hand on a clock.  I may have to hire it done.  I’m not even sure you can do that.  I just know that my feet are stuck in the sands of the hourglass, and I am not getting it done.I think part of me thinks if I don’t get it done, then she will stay with me.  I’m not ready for her to go.  Sure; there are days when I am more than ready to see what comes next for her. I am terrified to not have her here.  How do you go from spending every minute with them, to sending them away to school?  I don’t remember that section in the book we received at the hospital..  You go from having them with you twenty-four hours a day, to not having them with you at all.  I know by the time we were juniors in college, we didn’t even go home for the summer any more.  We just stayed at college and came home for major holidays.  I can’t decide if that was a blessing to our parents, or if they struggled also.My middle child, a high school freshman, went away to honor band for a weekend recently.  I was lost.  I kept thinking that a part of  me was missing.  There are supposed to be three of them here, not two.  It was odd.  This letting go business is hard.  We have started the journey of looking at prospective colleges with my oldest daughter, and true to my nature, I notice the quality of the food at each place.  It is good that colleges provide food.  If left to her own devices, she may starve.  She won’t have a stove in her room, so she wouldn’t be able to make a pizza, and that is pretty much the only thing she can cook.  She once tried to make a hot dog in the microwave and she cooked it for four minutes.  Do you know what a hot dog looks like after four minutes under nuclear heat? I’ll tell you - it doesn’t look like a hot dog anymore.  This doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in her striking out on her own.  When I worried about her going to first grade, I wondered how she would carry her lunch tray to the table without spilling it. Now the first thing I worry about for her in college is her food situation again.  Of course, I also worry about her safety, her study habits, and her ability to make friends.  She is pretty quiet. If she and another quiet girl met, they could be good friends—but then again, if they are both quiet, who is going to talk first? I met the love of my life my senior year in high school.  I had him for support during college.  She hasn’t started dating.  This is a fact that I am happy about currently, because I have seen how some of those high school boys drive; heck, I have seen how SHE drives, and it is a frightening prospect.  There are upsides to her leaving, of course. It’s one more person to write actual letters to; I remember waiting anxiously for mail.  Back then, you waited days for letters.  Now with email, the wait is minutes.  I suppose in that instance, the immediate-gratification era has a point in its favor.  With cell phones and email, we can be connected at all times.  And she’s good about calling me. As it is, she calls me from her room, when I am downstairs.  So if I never finish the scrapbook, will she never leave?  Will I be holding her back from all she is yet to discover and be?  Should I force her to do things she doesn't think she wants to do, just so she doesn't miss out on the experience?  What will I do when I do let her go, and she pulls a Heather, and doesn't come home at the holidays?  Does that reflect well on my parenting, or poorly?  Which part is easier—sending them to college or marrying them off?  If I hit menopause when she does get married, can I request a winter wedding, so I won’t sweat like a pig and stain the satiny dress I will be required to wear?  Are teenagers so difficult to understand and deal with so it will be easier to see them go?  Oh, how I wish I could ask my mother or grandmother about these things My questions are many, but the solutions are clear.  When crunch time comes, the scrapbooks will be done, and I will let her go.  She will spread her wings and she will leave the nest to see what the world has to offer, and experience what God has planned for her.  I just need to realize that while she is my child, she is also a child of God, and I don’t own her.  I have to hope that I have taught her something about the world and that she knows how to get through life without too many scrapes.  God is as much with her as he is with me, and he will be with both of us during the next chapter.  After all, once in high school, I caught the kitchen on fire making a Pop Tart for breakfast.  All she did was overcook a hot dog, and the microwave is still in working order.  She is already ahead … and I turned out fine.  Right?

My Statement

The name of my first book is God Has Better Things to do Than My Laundry.  I clarify that it’s my first book so that you won’t think that I am an expert my any stretch of the imagination.  This body of work is far from what The Notebook was to Nicholas Sparks.  As you will notice the first word in the title of my book is God.  It seems that there is some confusion by people that I have never met and maybe even by some I have as to what this book is about.
I am here to clarify for you.  This book is about our lives, my life to be more specific about it, although perhaps there are those that can identify with what I write about.  Perhaps you have been where I have; you have experienced much of the same things that I have.  I happen to be a Christian.  I believe in the Father and I believe in the Son.  I believe that Jesus came down and died on a cross for me and not just for me but for you also.  I believe it even though I cannot see it, but I have to challenge you to look at the faces of your children and the sunset on a warm summer day and try to explain it any other way.  My belief in God is talked about in my book.  God is a headliner in the title of my book.  God made the mere possibility of the book a thought in my head and He is the one who made it possible. 
I do not claim to be a professional.  I do not even claim to be good.  I write not for the fame of those who have come before me but because to not write seems an impossibility.  Because if I don’t write I will never get to say all I have to say.  Because If I don’t write no one will know necessarily how much I love my family and how very much I love my God.  As has been established I am not a public speaker.  I’m not one to witness to the masses on a stage or even to a classroom, but I will type my thoughts and express myself with words on a page.
If you are expecting a Bible study you won’t find it on the pages of my book.  If you are expecting a work of great fiction or for me to not talk about God you will be severely disappointed in my book.  My book is not even something I wanted to share with the public at large.  It was an idea, a dream, a little something that maybe I might attempt someday.  That someday happened and while I am thankful for the opportunities that God has presented me with, I am at a loss as to handle people who don’t get it.  Maybe because I don’t get it, I don’t get the plan, I haven’t been filled in as it were to what God has planned with all of this and why on earth He would choose me to carry this out.  I only know that I am trying very hard to be obedient whether I “get it” or not. 
The thing is although this book is about me, the project really isn't.  This isn't about me, it’s about God.  It’s about His plan, His timing, His work, His will for me.  Whatever that looks like, that’s it.  There is no clear end in the book because it’s ongoing.  This work He is doing is ongoing.  My life as it were continues and has continued even in times when I thought for sure that it wouldn't and couldn't and shouldn't.  It has and it will until God deems it differently.  Until then I will continue to write what He gives me to put on a page.  I will type out the stories of our family and I will watch as it all unfolds as words on a page.
You don’t have to read it.  You don’t even have to like it.  But if you cannot type out the name of God I can only hope that maybe something will speak to you in the message He has given me to convey.  If not then I am sorry you chose a book with the first word of the title being God.  I don’t understand your thinking.  But I am a believer and I will never apologize to anyone for whom or what I am.  Take it or leave it, I am who I am and I won’t apologize to anyone for that either.  Why should I?  I am the daughter of a King and He doesn't make mistakes.

It's NOT the end of the world, but what about Christmas?

According to the Mayan calendar I shouldn't be typing on my computer today.  The end of the world should have happened on December 21, 2012.  The speculation surrounding that date has been made into movies, some were scared to send their children to school.   Meanwhile, the schools here were canceled due to weather and a lack of power at one of the schools.  We didn't rejoice, in fact my teenagers were pretty distraught.  They had hoped to finish up their final exams that day.  That day may go down in history as the first day that my children were NOT excited about a snow day.
I have to ask the question:  Were you concerned?  In our house we made jokes.  I also informed my children that if Jesus did decide to come back on that day I was ready.  I operate under what I know to be fact.  The Bible says that no man knows when the coming will be.  The Mayans were not told before the Son.  That’s a fact.  The Mayans probably got tired of calendar making and instead started working on something else.  I have no idea what happened, maybe they thought it would be funny to mess with a future generation they wouldn't be around to see, and just stopped. 
It wasn't the end of the world but is it the end of Christmas as we know it?  All over the world people are finishing their Christmas shopping and wrapping in preparation for the big day.  We count gifts and make sure that we have enough for everyone; we think to be sure we haven’t left anyone out.  We get together with family and some members don’t even speak to each other.  Some go into debt in an effort to provide their children with the best possible Christmas and for what?  What does Christmas mean?  I hear people asking for specific gifts.  “Johnny wants a pair of jeans but they must come from the Buckle because otherwise he won’t wear them.”  “Sally wants Ugg boots.”  “Fred wants a flat screen TV.”  Seriously, I have to ask myself what happened to Christmas? 
In a manger thousands of years ago a Savior was born with no crib for a bed.  He was wrapped in swaddling cloths and placed in a manger.  No heat, no air conditioning, no Pampers, no layette, no hospital staff, no sterile conditions did our Savior have for a beginning.  No He was born in a barn with farm animals and the smell of well…farm animals.  Do you get it?  Did Mary have a baby shower?  Did the mother of our Savior, a teenage girl, get the things she would need to care for a newborn?  No.  She was visited by three Wise Men who brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  What was she supposed to do with that?  They rejoiced.  They celebrated the birth of the Son of God. 
What are we celebrating?  We get together with our families and we exchange gifts and sometimes we don’t exchange words.  We don’t even see them the rest of the year.  We make no effort.  We buy them gifts and send them on their way and think that covers us for the rest of the year.  Is this of God?  Is this what God intended for us to do in celebration of the greatest gift known to mankind?  I hardly think so.  I am not saying we shouldn't get together with our families.  I am not even saying we shouldn't exchange gifts.  What I am saying is this:  Can we do those things and remember the purpose?  Can we do those things and remember why we celebrate in the first place?  Or have we become so commercialized that we can’t even remember why? 
I don’t want to go through the motions.  I don’t want to get so wrapped up in the things of this world that I have forgotten who gave them to me to begin with.  I don’t want to forget the true meaning of Christmas.  I want to REJOICE for our Savior was born.  In ALL things rejoice.