For the year 2010

I went to a funeral of a dear friend last night. It was a shock that he was really gone to everyone. I entered the funeral home, passed several other friends and neared his wife standing in the greeting line. She seemed like she was holding up reasonably well. When I finally got up to her she said " it all seems like a dream, I am still walking in a fog, it hasn't hit me yet, its just that...he...he was the Love of my life. I hugged her, we talked for a while and when I walked away I lost it.

I wasn't crying because Mike was with the Lord I was crying because I could not imagine being in Diane's shoes. I knew one day soon the cloud was going to lift and the reality of her husband being gone was going to hit. I couldn't help but glance over at Tom every now and then while he talked to many dear friends who had come to the funeral and think about what if it was me and I ached in my heart for Sandy.

I began to think about how Diane probably didn't care at this time about all of Mikes annoyances or the presents she wished he had gotten her, about the mistakes he had made. No she was wishing she has said "I love you" that morning before he left. She was just wishing it wasn't real and she would go home and he would be there. I understood in an instant that if It was me there not Diane and Tom was gone my focus would be totally different. If I had any petty issues, any disappointments lingering in my heart anything like that at all...It would be in that instant trivial and I would gladly have them back along with him.

So for this year 2010, I am going to try to live in my heart and mind that way. Thankful that he is with me, letting go of anything trivial and carrying the joy in my heart toward him as if I came home from his funeral to find him there! I know this will be difficult some days but with Gods help I hope to live this way more then not.

Christmas, Yesterday and Today

Decorated the Christmas tree yesterday with my 16 year old daughter Bri, 19 year old son Garrett, and our Korean student who lives with us. His name is Bobby he is 18. It was such wonderful fun.

There is nothing like those early Christmas memories with tiny children running down the steps in footie pj's sooo thrilled and happy. Decorating the with little ones was always new and I remember telling them the stories behind old ornaments of mine and new ones bought for them the year before they had forgotten. The tree always had all the ornaments on the bottom 1/2. Christmas really is for children in so many ways. Those times were so precious. Christmas's with teens are different but they can be just as wonderful in different ways.

Because we had Bobby with us this Christmas the kids sort of naturally taught him our traditions as we went along. They brought him into our holiday and it was interesting to watch.

We cut down the tree, Garrett asked Bobby if he wanted to lay in the muck and snow to cut it down. Garretts face looked like he was giving him a privledge. Bobby looks at him like he is crazy, but for Garrett it was a right earned at about the age of 11 when Dad finally let him do it himself. Garrett never saw the muck, he only saw a job earned, a right of manhood and he was still happy to do it.

We set up the tree and began to put on the lights, ribbon, beads and ornaments. Bri easily tells him the order of things and he complys. I thought to myself, when was it that the order had become written in stone, the tradition had become law. I smiled!

"Mom" does the ribbon", "This ornament I made in Nursery school and it looks terrible, but its Mom's favorite." " This was my grandmoms when she graduated high school", this one we bought at Disney, Hershey Park, Ukraine. On and on went the stories and traditions, hysterical memories, and precious moments that each ornament or decoration brought to mind. They even explained the annual dispute of which one of them gets the Old Nativity from Italy or the new one from Avon when I am dead and buried. Garrett began to mentions traditions he hopes to pass on to his family. I couldn't help but smile at the idea. We laughed we smiled and enjoyed every moment of it.

In Christmas's past who put the angel on last year and who is supposed to do it was easily the biggest deal of decorating the tree. I removed it from the box a bit more wrinkled, expecting the usual arguement when Garrett said "Well I think our new brother Bobby should put the star on tree", "Oh yea I agree", said Bri

They agreed???? They were going to let Bobby do it? I was teary as I handed our Angel to Bobby who did a great job putting the angel on the tree and even made a new funny memory.

I sat back, watching all this and thanked God for healthy Children who, love Jesus, Still love me, love our family and were willing to set their own wants aside, break a tradition and include someone else. I was thankful that the stories and memories had become theirs. I was reminded of this verse. Do not be deceived what so ever a man sows that shall he reap.

Those early years were precious and I have them forever. But seeing them become who God is making them to be is soooo much better.

Keep up the traditions, the memories and the lessons. They stick with them,they remember them.

My small congregation of 4.

I was thinking about my early years as a wife and mother. I stank at it, truely stank. I yelled to much. I got to frustrated to easily. My expectations were way to cinderellaish and hardly realistic. I was a control freak and yet wanted Tom to figure out what I wanted him to control. Poor thing, How did he survive it?
I would cry because I couldn't figure out how to get something to work or because I couldnt figure out how to make someone else stop crying.

I would flip flop, one day thrilled to be a wife and mom and the next missing that feeling of working and wondering what the world thought of little mommy me. My big accomplishments were getting a great deal on meat and reading book after book to the kids.

I remember the day I first saw Marthat Stewart on TV. I cried like a toddler. I was thinking I cant even draw a stick figure and this women can do everything. I never felt my house was clean enough, decorated well enough, food quite gourmet enough, etc. The worst part was, I thought everyone else had it all together and I didnt.

It took several years for me to realize that loving my family, taking care of them and keeping my home was not just a honorable job it was a ministry. Infact it was the only ministry that only I could do and no one else,talk about being called. Only I had been called to love and honor my husband and be his helper, encourage him, help him become the man God wanted him to be. It was my ministry. Only I was called to teach my children the alphabet and show them who God is! I was entrusted with the huge task of discipling them so that they love God more then anything. I was responsible to care for Children of the King.

I may have had a small congregation but my little family of 4 was my ministry and I was going to do it the very best I could. If your feeling today like being that wife and mother is not very exciting, well ministry is sometimes like that. It has its highs and lows, but it is the ministry God has called you to. Its important to him and its so worth all the effort you give it.

Brag on your man!

I was thinking about thanksgiving day and I came up with an Idea.

Some of us will be at other peoples homes or have our homes filled with people.I had the idea that this is a good time to brag about our husbands to others infront of him. Yes, brag on him, praise him. It is soo fun and does huge things to his self image. You would not believe how much it means for a man to hear his wife boasting about him like he would a new car. There is nothing a man cannot accomplish if he believes his wife believes in him.

I know he may not return the praise and thats ok for today. Just let it be a time where your giving him the gift of encouragement.

Are you sitting there thinking...What is the world would I say? Well here is some ideas you can use and revamp to fit your man. We will use the name Sneed, because I am fairly sure I do not have a Sneed reader or married to a reader.

Sneed has been working so hard for our family. It means so much to me that he is willing to do that.

Sneed puts in hours of over time for us to have nice things.

Sneed is such a great Dad he is always willing to ________________.

Sneed knows so much about _______________ I am amazed.

Sneed still makes me take a second look when I see him.

Sneed makes me laugh all the time. Its so nice to have laughter in your life.

Now remember dont start the praise with a qualifier, "Sneed isn't a very good cook but he sure tries". Not quite it!

Dont say "Sneed tries to be a good Dad". That seems empty.

Don't use scarcasm, say it plainly.

Do it several times over a visit and watch your mans chest puff up bigger then the Turkey on table. If you happen to see me, do it infront of me, it will surely make me smile. Let me know how it goes!!

Have a blessed Thanksgiving, I want to thank you all for the secret inbox messages and the opportunity to help many of you with little problems you have had and insights you have shared with me. I am enjoying writing the blog.

Almost deleted the blog!

I was reminded by a dear sweet friend that I had not blogged in awhile. I told her I would write that day, but I did not. I even sit here today trying to figure what to write. I think its because last week I tried to delete this blog, but I couldn't figure out how. I sat at this computer with Tom standing over my shoulder telling me I was being ridiculous and to wait and give it time. I had no choice since I didn't know how to delete it.

I had had a terrible evening as a wife. I lost it with Tom and yelled and acted like a total fool. He was upset too and for the first time in ages, I mean ages we went to sleep mad. (Not biblical, not good) I went to work the next day still feeling the seperation between us. I just felt terrible all day long. Tom texted me the sweetest message and it sort of broke the frost so to speak.

We are perfectly fine now. I just felt like,who am I to be writing about being a good wife when I was so aweful. I am reminded now of the "Love Bank". A love bank is a way to describe how people fall in love and stay that way. When we do nice things for our husbands or they for us they make deposits into a love bank. Things that we do that hurt our spouse or neglect them they are like withdrawls. Marriages get in trouble when the withdrawls are more then deposits.

I was awful to Tom and definetly made a withdrawl that night, but thankfully because usually I am trying to be a good wife and meet his needs there was plenty in the account for us to easily forgive, forget and move on.

I wanted to delete the blog when it happened because I was feeling so hypocritical, but perhaps it is good to be more real.

I would love to hear your struggles, maybe we can all help each other be the best wives we can be.

I am thankful that he doesn't pick his nose.

A little detour from the norm. I was thinking about Thanksgiving. Many people I know are posting things on their facebook each day saying what they are thankful for until Thanksgiving.I am doing it too. It is always a great ideas to count your blessings.

When I thought about it I suddenly remembered a time in my life when intentionally finding the good in my husband saved our marriage. Yes thats what I said, it saved it.
You didn't think I learned all of this the easy way did you. There was a time many years ago that Tom and I were not doing so well as a couple. I don't want to go into details but bascially I was disenchanted by him. I had lost some of the love along the way.

The day I decided to fix our relationinship I realized that a big portion of my problem was not him, but me and my expectations of what I thought he should be as well as my inability to appreciate his gifts.

So, I began to make a list of all of Toms qualities, his gifts and good things he did and I gave thanks for them. I told myself I had to come up with 100 before I could stop. I got to about 10 and sort of got stuck for a day and I prayed to God to help me see my husband in a new light. So I got the idea to list little things. Numbers 11, 12, 13, 14 went something like this.


He doesn't pick his nose.
He likes my food.
He doesn't mind grilled cheese night.
He doesn't chew with his mouth open.

It was funny at first but a weird thing happened everywhere I went I saw men that picked their noses or chewed with their mouth open. I heard wives telling me they had to make big meals every night or their hubby was not happy. I realized these little things were not little, they were all important.

The farther on the list I got the more I had to pay attention to what he was doing and it causes me to see more and more.

He loves his children with all his heart.
He adores me.
He is sad because I am sad.
He never looks at other women.

Somewhere between 75-100,I fell in love all over again. I don't even remember what it was that caused us to go through the difficult months but I do remember the feeling of falling in love more deeply then ever before.

If your going through a time where the sparkle is gone, your having difficulties or the relationship feels flat, perhaps taking a few days to be thankful for all your husbands good qualitites would be just the thing to help you.

If this is one of my male readers why not do the same for your wife.
Wouldn't it be great to have the sparkle back by Thanksgiving.

Make him glad your the one waiting inside.

One time Tom was sweetly calling Cubby to come to him, simply to pet her and play a little. When she came up the stairs the smell came to greet us first. She had rolled into something outside and was smelly and dirty. All of Toms desire to spend time with her, pet her, was done. He had to take her outside and give her a bath before he could even conscider petting her again. In fact he loves when she is really clean and shiney. No one really likes a Dirty Dog.

One of the things that happened to me when I had my second child was I got really busy. I had so much to do and so little time. I wanted to spend quality time with my kids, make yummy meals, keep my house clean and continue to do ministry. I dont know how, but in all of that I put how I looked on the back burner. I didn't intend to, but it happened! I would look good if I went out, but not in my home day to day.

Tom would come home and I would have my hair pulled back, no make up on, sweat pants and usually a t-shirt that had something on it that indicated what the kids ate for lunch or what was planned for dinner. He didn't care he loved me and knew I was busy. Right? Maybe he didnt want to drag me out to the yard and bath me, but I began to wonder if comeing home to a shabby wife day after day was discouraging to him. I decided to change this after a visit to his office.

I went to his office to bring him something one afternoon. He had several IBM visitors there as well as regular office staff there. All of the women I came across were dressed for work. They were cleaned,they were well made up, they looked very nice and put together. I thought to myself he spends all days woth these women and comes home to Mrs. Sweatpants and pony tail. I came home feeling like I was an old mom. I momentarily had a thought that I missed the work world and that was the problem. However, that was not it, I loved being a wife and mother and would not ever want to do anything else. I just knew that I wanted to look more put together, partly for me, mostly for Tom.

I didnt want Tom to have any reason to look anywhere else. I wanted him to walk in the door and think, there is my beautiful wife. So, that next day I looked at the clock and knew Tom would be home in a few minutes. I flew up the stairs, ran a brush through my hair, put on a touch of make-up, perfume, and a nice shirt to go over my jeans. To be honest it was nothing at all like the buisness women I had seen at his work the day before, but it was A LOT better then what I had looked like.

He walked in and as I smiled and greeted him he said, "Wow you look great, where did you go today?" He had assumed that I only looked that way because I had been somewhere special. "No where, I just wanted to look nice for you" I replied.

I have continued to do a little primping if necessary, right before he comes in since then. Trust me there are days that no one looks good, but I wanted to look better for him on a more consistent basis. I wanted him to be glad he came home, glad he came home to me.

Its so easy to let ourselves go, its easy to make excuses, but its just as easy to do 10 minutes each day before they come home to make them glad your the one waiting inside.


.