Continually Give Thanks

This morning my heart woke up thankful.

Thankful for the cross and new mercies each day.
Thankful for the chance to learn and grow in this community.
Thankful for my girls and my job and the opportunity to do life with them.
Thankful for my closest friends who are some of the most caring and courageous people I know.
Thankful for a season of cold and dark to search for warmth and seek.
Thankful for laughter and those who know me best and know exactly how to make me laugh.
Thankful for passions that the Lord has placed on my heart.
Thankful for the options and possibilities that I am given each day.
Thankful for a family that is loving from afar and always protects.
Thankful for sweet mornings.

The list could go on and on...and for that I am thankful.

Abandoned House Syndrom

I am self diagnosing myself. I really believe that I have abandoned house syndrom. I see the stories of the past. I see what it looked like when it was first created. I see what it was like when everything was functioning as it should and playing its part. I also see the other side. I see what it could look like with a little work and love and care. I see the potential for beauty and incredible memories to be made again. I don't want to disregard that. I want to develop it and challenge myself to make it great. It will for sure take time, probably lots of it. It wont be easy, but to me I can still see worth in that work. But yet sometimes the house and bulldozed and you really dont know why and you think back to ways you could have changed it. But that is a waste of energy.

Love me some hardwood floors

This space was incredible, exposed brick..yes please.

Who doesn't love built in storage? 

But yet still...sometimes.. it gets bulldozed...stories, histories, memories, possibilities.

I just have a fight in me. I hate when things dont work and I feel like I wasn't able to give it everything I could have. However, even when I can not understand I know my God knows exactly that I need. And clearly I needed it to be bulldozed. And one day hopefully I will be able to look back and see and understand. Today I am thankful. I am grateful for the times I had with the abandoned house. The things I learned about myself when I was there. I will rejoice in the life that it lived. It will live on in other ways and hopefully bring grace and peace in those ways. I am blessed for having the opportunity to dream, explore, grow, and learn.

Courage

“Courage, the original definition of courage when it first came into the English language- it’s from the Latin word cor, meaning heart - and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart…


This is what I have found: to let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there’s no guarantee — and that’s really hard, and I can tell you as a parent, that’s excruciatingly difficult — to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we’re wondering, ‘Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?’ just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, ‘I’m just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I’m alive.’”


-Quote by Brene Brown, speaking about The Power of Vulnerability at TED


Am I letting myself be deeply seen?

Am I being consistent in gratitude and joy?

Christmas "Old Stuff": A Guest Blog from my Mama!

I am so excited to share my mom for a little bit! I asked her to guest blog about something that is very special to her around Christmas time! So here it is! (I had serious formatting issues so all the pictures are at the bottom)

I like “old stuff” with memories attached. Christmas gives me an opportunity to bring out things I don’t see during the year, but that are loaded with memories. I can’t ever imagine having a coordinated Christmas tree because I will want to have ornaments from the past and they are a jumble of different colors, sizes, etc. Because I have a late December birthday, people have been giving me ornaments as gifts for the past 5 decades! We like to get an ornaments from trips we have taken and this little angel is one I remember seeing on my Grandma Weingartner’s tree.


Making Cookies gives me an opportunity to use the rolling pin I got from Grandma W’s house, and for some reason my mom gave me her Christmas cookie cutters. She must have gotten a new set. This gingerbread man (probably from the 50’s) is one unlike any I’ve ever seen elsewhere. Is he a policeman or what, he’s got holsters and two guns!

We drink more tea, coffee, hot chocolate, etc. when everyone is home for Christmas and so we got out the spoon holder from Aunt Ann’s house. Do other families use spoon holders? Maybe just those families who eat lots of cereal and soup, and serve ice cream at most meals. The spoons from a silverware set always run out first, so you need a bunch of random spoons handy! This one has a Thistle on it for Thistle Downs, Aunt Ann and Uncle Jim’s home for their last 30-40 years.

I don’t remember using this tablecloth at my Grandmother Manson’s house, but I found it in her basement when we cleaned out her house. She lived there until she was 103 and we found lots of treasures as we opened up drawers in the basement, etc. I wish we had gone rummaging around while she was still there so she could answer questions about the things we found. It seemed rude so we just memorized her favorite dozen stories which kind of went on a loop the last few years of her life. I think I will be more “rude” and be sure to ask my mom about her things. We got a start this weekend by having her talk with Paige and Grant about her photo albums from summers at Teton Valley Ranch in Jackson Hole Wyoming and college days at the University of Colorado.

I do remember these angels and where each one would sit in her house. Grandmother liked collecting angels and one of the fun things to do when we visited was go around the house and see how many we could find. Some of them were out all year and some just came out at Christmas.

The nativity isn’t handed down to me, it was a wedding gift, but it also has a history. Libby Moore is the artist who created the molds for the figures. Libby went to our church, I was good friends with her daughter, Joy. My mom had purchased a set of these figures when I was a very little girl. When I got married, she asked Libby to make three more sets, so all of Mom’s children have a matching nativity set. My dad made the stable to match one his dad made for theirs. I have a camel in my set, but my mom’s set has leather camels my grandparents brought back from Egypt. The sand that they are stuffed with leaks out of their feet a little each year.

So my Christmas decorations don’t match, they aren’t expensive, but they are priceless to me. They are a way to connect with those loved ones who aren’t around to celebrate with anymore.