How To Cause Misery/ Why My Children Don't Deserve Me

1. Be on the guest list for a church-style celebration which involves adorning oneself in a manner befitting such a setting. Correction: Which involves explaining to and insisting upon one's offspring on dressing in such a manner as to not bring undue shame upon one's maternal head.
2. Have a family member who only wears one pair of pants, and only t-shirts with witty sayings upon them. Explain patiently and insistently that grandmothers in their seventies will not be amused to have these witticisms forever gracing their walls in the form of The Family Portrait.
3. Have a minimum of one pubescent offspring who reacts to any and all stimuli, suggestion, frustration, and gentle teaching as personally directed trauma to which there is only one possible reaction: tears, slams, sarcasm, and a subtle victim mentality worn as a dark and burdensome cloak.
4. Have a minimum of one genetic representative with numerous hangers clad in gorgeous fashion that you yourself have spent your hard-earned earnings on. Be utterly prepared to hear the following: Too floofy. Too drapey. Too dressy. Too beachy. Too wrong. And best of all: TAKE ME TO THE MALL!!
5. Have the will power not to break skin or crush molars as you suppress your rising, cresting, molten rage. Remind precious offspring that yesterday was spent in a mall. Remind offspring that you are a humble labourer incapable and unwilling to buy shares in adolescent fashion. Remind offspring that just yesterday the urgencies involved particular binders, thumb drives, running shoes, and even passport photos for an upcoming European fieldtrip.
6. Remind offspring that you brought them into this world and you can take them....... NO. Resist. Repress. Begin to break skin and crush molars.
7. Switch to boy clothes in an attempt to regain your centre.
8. Discover button-up shirts buried deep in the recesses of the closet.
9. Watch son steadily beat his head upon the edge of a doorway and tears well up in his pretty blue eyes.
10. Consider visiting the sick and infirm at a local hospital, seeking out victims of H1N1 and breathing deep, deep, deep, swallowing their sputum, rolling in their bedding, and sipping from their urinals in order to bring an alternative home to the family. Just a deadly case of the swine flu to keep us from the agony of resting the black pants, cut-offs, and sweatshirts for an entire, impossible day in a pew-lined sanctuary, all clogged up in buttons and zippers.
11. Either that, or slapping us all full of honey, and laying ourselves down in a field of red ants.

Dear Wellbutrin:

I find it necessary to remind you of your proper place and function in the chemistry of my mind. You are here to slow the seratonin reuptake between the neurtransmitters of my brilliant and capable mind. You are here to stave off the exhaustion and darkness of depression.

Why then, do you find it necessary to wake me up nightly at 3:33 am, or 2:34 or4:12 or all of the above? What in the world of all things healthy, productive and proactive makes you think for a minute that robbing me of precious REM will benefit my mental health in any way whatsoever?

Are you so narcisistic and self-centred that you think it a good idea to get my attention at my most vulnerable moment and remind me of your uber-helpfulness? 'cuz I gotta tell you. Sleep deprivation in the realm of mental health is as dumb as mustard on strawberries. It's just not that sexy.

Now, I'm way above throwing threats around.... but.... I'm just sayin'. NO TOUCHY MY NIGHT NIGHT!! or I'll kick your po white trash to the curb and take up with some other lover.

After all. I've got my standards.
I'm just sayin'.

Being Part of a Large Family...

......Means a lot of good fun for the kids.

So, Another Day That Looks Like This....

...Will also look like this.

Much To Their Relief and Joy...

....the boy had reserved some of his strength and talent for creative ventures not exclusive to computer gaming and lego movie making..

With impressive dexterity and diligence, he set to work on that plain old cookie and turned it into a veritable icing masterpiece.


There was no icing bag or decorative tip too challenging for this virtuoso to master.


And when it was all said and done; there was no need to fuss with dinner either.

That's one impressive kid.

God

I tend to be somewhat private about my spiritual faith. In part because I don't like to offend. In part because my faith is so tender, so dear, so not black and white, so not filled with quick and easy answers or solutions to the world and its people. People with simplistic, formulaic, or difinitive religious statements put me off immediately. They sort of frighten me the way a kool-aid dispensing Jim Jones prophet would.

My blog isn't one of those places where every post wraps up with a testament to my faith. Or where every bump along life's way gets summed up like a nice object lesson fit for a church basement.

But.
My faith runs deep, stubborn, and eternal. It's questions and assurances circulate in my head on a daily basis. I have heard the still small voice of God and I trust Him.

This morning before church, I dipped into the links on someone else's blog and found a lengthy quote by Charles Spurgeon. It spoke clearly to the question of defining personal value.

"It is the Holy Spirit's role to always turn our eyes to Jesus and away from
ourselves, but Satan's role is exactly the opposite, for he is constantly trying
to make us think of ourselves rather than Christ. Satan insinuates, "Your sins
are too many to be forgiven, you have no faith, you don't repent enough, you
will never be able to endure to the end, you don't have the joy of God's
children, and your grasp on Jesus is weak and wavering." All these thoughts are
about self, yet we will never find comfort or assurance by looking inside
ourselves. The Holy Spirit turns our eyes away from self, telling us we are
nothing - but that Christ is our "all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28)...

Don't
look at your faith - look to Jesus, "author and perfecter of our faith" (Heb.
12:2). We will never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our work, or our
feelings. It is who Jesus is that gives rest to our soul - not who we are.
Quickly overcoming Satan and finding peace with God comes only by "fixing our
eyes on Jesus." Fix your eyes only on Him. Keep His death, His suffering, His
work, His worthiness, His glory, and His intercession foremost in your mind."

Now, personally, I find the word "satan" frightening and full of culturally appointed images. I tend to replace it with "evil" or even "distraction". But that's just me. I do these things to encourage my own faith to be based and rooted in Love and not fear. The point of copying the quote here is to remind myself of the truth of real confidence. Confidence not in myself so much as in the One who created the self. Knowing that authenticity comes out of recognizing the creator, and finding freedom in that allows one to simply be. (Well, it sounds simple, but it's not always that way.)

I'm embarking on a bit of an intentional spiritual journey these days. I don't know how much of it I'll be sharing here, if at all. I don't want to chance sullying it. But I will say this. Having decided that today, Sunday, was "start date"; my day has been filled with whispers, shouts, and affirmations of God's positive intentions.

And that's just sweet enough to share.

Best Quote I've Heard In a While...

"The trouble with jogging is that the ice falls out of your glass."

(Martin Mull. I discovered this little piece of brilliant wisdom in a Real Simple magazine.)

In other news; I'm sure that you're not gathered around your computer waiting for something interesting to appear on Blunderview... but if you're wondering "why the dry spell?", so am I.
I appear to be on empty.

I hate when that happens.

Can't Talk...

.. reading.

Barbara Gordon; "I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can".

I've read some great insights in this book, and so appreciate the candor in which it is written.

(yay summer library card!)

The Committee In My Head

Relentlessly negative and accusational. It wears me down.

Reaching for that first rich, dark cup of morning coffee... you drink too much coffee. All that caffeine aggravates your fibrocystic breast lumps. You should cut back, you know. Drink more water.

Changing from pajamas to clothes... You are fat. When are you going to do something about that? You know that muscles don't come out of thin air. Goodness. Your legs are getting even more flaccid- your thighs are starting to fall into folds around your knees. How mortifying. And what happened to your stomach?! It's starting to look like bread dough gone bad...

Walking past my sewing room....what if you don't start craving your sewing machine soon? You know you've got a ton of great fabric in there that people have entrusted to you. It's not just yours, you know.

Going to the bathroom... gosh, this place is disgusting. You really have to train your children better. they should be doing some of their own laundry by now, picking up after themselves a whole lot better, and... when is the last time this floor got properly cleaned?!

And that's just a sampling. Keep in mind that I'm presenting a thin slice of life inside my head, and that is certainly not adequately representative. There's a lot of joy and laughter in there. A lot of zeal, a lot of good ideas, a lot of happy. But that committee sure gets in the way of switching up Guilt for Gratitude.

This morning I started a new form of exercise. When I sat on the can and took in all the nasty laundry and grimy sink, I challenged myself to find the gratitude in it. That was easy. I'm so grateful for my children. For what they are learning. I'm grateful that we've managed for six years on one bathroom instead of two. With almost no fighting.

Sipping on my coffee; I decided to google caffeine and fibrocystic lumps. According to the research, I'm not increasing my risk of breast cancer. I love my coffee. I'm grateful that Brian is just as passionate about good coffee as I am. It's a simple, deeply satisfying, daily ritual.

The sewing room and the way my committee rants about my body? Well, those aren't nearly as simple for me. The best I can do these days is to tell myself that it could be worse. The committee is pretty relentless in these areas. Pretty critical. Very judgemental.

There's another "G" word that I'd like to throw into the equation.

Grace.

Take those committee members captive, and trade up their voices of guilt for ones of grace and gratitude. Maybe we'll all undergo some sort of transformation by the renewing of our members.
Maybe that will help to give the crabby commmittee a little less air time and a whole lot of perspective. They've been around for a long time, and I've gotten pretty used to them, so there's little value in thinking that I'll topple this government overnight.

But I'll give myself the grace to try.

I"ve Had A Lot of Posts...

... begin in my head. Brilliant. Funny. Award-winning.

But my ever-present lethargy says.... nah; that sounds like a lot of work...
And of course the posts aren't really brilliant, funny, blahdy-blah-blah.... They're just kind of blah.

I hope to come out of my reverie. I hope to get passionate and energetic soon. I hope to find some kind of core strength that has something to do with faith and nothing to do with Windsor Pilates.

I am hopeful.
I am grateful for people who speak wisdom into my life, and eager to seek it more.

(check out a new website: what are you giving away? by Heather Plett... (http://whatareyougivingaway.com/)

Happy Camper

This spring Brian and I dropped a little bit of money on a tent trailer. I felt like I should be pinching myself continuously- never thinking that I would be so lucky as to have one of those beauties to enjoy with my kids on this side of the pearly gates. We've had the privelege of using that little piece of wonder a few times this summer; even though the weather has been less than cooperative. (eight consecutive months of below seasonal temperatures in Manitoba this year..... *sigh*) But that's OKAY because when it rains and pours, we are comfy and dry, and above ground in our generous beds. When the nighttime temperatures dip to eight degrees in JULY, we are cozy and warm with a handy dandy furnace, warm quilts, and dry beds. Soooo unlike tent camping. (yech)

And this August long weekend, we are enjoying the wonders of the tent trailer once again. It's a Kehler tradition to trek up to my brother's cabin and spend the weekend together enjoying good food, playing on the lake, and talking and laughing together. Yesterday there were 22 people at the cabin; and no- it's not a mansion. But that's okay, because this year we brought up the trailer, and that left the biggest bedroom open for my elderly sister and her husband. That means that when we got tired, or grumpy, or just wanted our own "home" to sneak off to- we could!

This year we've enjoyed the trailer at: The Winnipeg Folk Festival, Boler Babe's Outdoor Retreat Center, Clear Lake National Park, and Caribou Lake. And we've still got Spruce Woods to look forward to.

I think it's possible that my hope is coming true- that this trailer will be a unifying element as my kids venture headlong into their teen years.

At the very least- I've got a place to hide in when family storms brew or icey breezes blow.