Tag Archives: writing

Procrastinating & Reflecting

I should probably be scurrying about like Mrs Tiddlemouse fussing over the state of my house and trying to get it all tidy. I do not have it in me. We live here; it’s clean enough for us; I will give the bathroom a once-over tomorrow before guests arrive and make sure we don’t have any dirty rags hanging out around the sink.

Tomorrow, we host our annual Family Birthday Party which for now is focused on the younger ones. As they mature, I hope to keep the annual summer party alive with a growing focus on the family as a whole. Mine and Love’s wedding anniversary is in July, and a while back I heard of a family doing a “family birthday party” on the parents’ anniversary and that stuck with me. We did become a family in July, after all; it’s worth noting and celebrating. For now, however, we are enjoying throwing a big celebration for the kids, whose birthdays span the summer months.

Love went out to acquire some balloons (we are so prepared, ha ha) and my job was to . . . clean? But it’s almost 10pm and I plan to be up early and I got distracted on the internet like any genuine elder millennial, so here we are.

Aaaaand, the party has come and gone, and the only snag was not ordering enough pizza. We should have gotten thirteen and instead we got . . . eight. The year before we hadn’t planned on having food and decided last minute to get pizzas, only to have them arrive after most of the guests had left. I did not want a repeat of leftover pizza for days, so I overcorrected by . . . a lot.

Anywho, the kids had so much fun they were sad that it was over; we hosted over fifty people; my mother-in-law’s slushie machine was a huge hit; we got to see some people we hadn’t seen in ages.

While I am not a party person, and I don’t seek out large gatherings, I love seeing people enjoy one another’s company. Most of the people at the party were engaged, talking with people they didn’t know and catching up with those they did. Very few people got their phones out unless they were taking pictures. Everyone made themselves at home. It was amazing to see people from all different communities all participating in a celebration of our children.

Love and I believe our children worth all the fuss, but I am still moved by how many people showed up for them. We are unbelievably blessed, and our children are growing up in a shower of love and blessing. It is almost incomprehensible to me.

Heading out to church now . . . Thank you for reading. This blog exists because of people like you who take the time to read my silly musings and tell me you enjoyed reading. Remind me to tell you all about how a unicorn job fell in my lap last week. Until next time . . .

Delicate Flower

Something I think about too often is this time when my supervisor told me that I am a “delicate flower”. She was not trying to compliment me. This supervisor routinely told me that I was making her job harder, that she didn’t understand why I was hired, that all I did was make mistakes and that in this job, mistakes are not allowed. “You are just a delicate flower,” she sneered; “I know you go crying in the bathroom when I give you any criticism. I don’t even know what you are doing here.” When I finally got the courage to ask for a transfer from the person who actually hired me, the Operations Officer, she wondered if maybe there was a language barrier.

A language barrier. Sure. I shrugged and said, “Whatever it is, I don’t think I can keep working here if I have to work for her.”

I wonder often if I am just too sensitive. Do other people just hear criticism like that and “take it on the chin”? Do they respond with, “Okay, I will stop making your job harder and never make a mistake again,” with a little rueful, penitent smile? Do they fire back with something about how difficult it is to work for such a particular person?

I have received criticism without batting an eye. I don’t always take it personally when people make unflattering observations or comments about me. I have been a liar, adulterer, murderer-in-my-heart, envious, ungrateful, disobedient. I am not someone who walks around believing that I am in any way a good person, or even always a well-meaning person. Criticism doesn’t make me fold.

What makes me feel like a delicate flower is raised voices. My fight-or-flight kicks in pretty quick when someone around me is yelling, insulting (calling names), using exasperated tones, or threatening. My ability to think rationally, even to the point of understanding what the person is saying, vanishes. As I have gotten older, my ability to steel myself against verbal assaults has diminished. I don’t know if I have ever been the type of person to laugh while someone else is clearly having an intense moment. That has been the case as long as I can remember, but what is happening lately is this lingering sense of I am not okay, long after the yelling has stopped or I have left the situation. My mind swirls with fear. I do not feel safe.

Over a year ago, someone went berserk on me in a parking lot for hitting their car. The kids were all talking and I was distracted and all I was thinking about was getting parked so I could just stop for a moment and CRUNCH. Ooh, that was bad enough, but the person whose car I hit was sitting in it and she was livid. I think too often about that. I am more careful in parking lots, quick to hush the kids, afraid not just of hitting someone’s car, but of what the person might do. The kids probably remember this incident, but they aren’t scarred by it. I am.

I am not scarred in the sense that I replay the scene or constantly fear someone yelling at me again; I am scarred in the sense that I don’t trust myself to be okay if someone does. That may seem like splitting hairs, but the difference is staggering. Fear of someone yelling is focused outward. I can scan for threatening people and avoid them. I can drive more safely in parking lots. What I am afraid of cannot be avoided. I am afraid that I am not a strong person. I am afraid that I make things worse by reacting to anger instead of choosing to respond to it. I am afraid that something is terribly wrong with me, broken inside me, and I am terrified that there is no way to bind it up or heal it.

I don’t know if these are words fit to be shared. I just know that this is what kept me silent yesterday when my husband was asking me to please just talk to him. I spent years whining and acting like a victim. I don’t need to go on and on about how unsafe I feel in my own skin, having these sensitive ears, carrying this too-tender heart. I do not need to make much of me.

So in hopes of rescuing this post, I will answer my fear with what I know to be true: there is One who binds up and heals my brokenness. Fortunately/unfortunately, He refuses to do so by making me strong. His strength is sufficient in weakness. I may live the rest of my life practically blacking out when people yell at me. That doesn’t make me less safe, because my safety doesn’t come from my own coping skills. He is near to the brokenhearted. No matter what my broken internal alarm system is screaming, I know that He is near. And I do not have to tolerate abuse. Refusing to stay in a room where someone is yelling at me isn’t weakness. Do I really believe that? No. Should I? Yes, one hundred times yes. It is not weakness to leave an abusive situation, regardless of who the abuser is.

Maybe I am a delicate flower. But it doesn’t matter, really. Whatever I am, or was, I count as loss compared to the surpassing knowledge of knowing Christ. He is continually forming me, and I can say with great joy that it is better to be a delicate flower in His hand than a strong rock apart from Him.

Walking this out may take a lifetime. But the truth remains: God is good. His strength is perfected in weakness. All my hope is in Him.

Excuses

My latest excuse for not posting online is that I don’t want to feed the LLMs. I figure if I post something on the internet it’s fair game; the AI goblins will surely gobble it up and spit it out as some Foundmercified version of whatever ugliness it reflects back at the fools who eat up its psuedo-psychobabble.

I am rusty. That’s the real reason I don’t write much: I try to put out something meaningful and it either feels disjointed or smacks of the social media I spent too many hours consuming. I haven’t read enough real books lately. I discovered Substack in the last year, and while at first I was thrilled with the longer form content I quickly got sucked into the Notes page and scroll-scroll-scrolled my brain to mush.

My brain isn’t mush, but it is moving slower. I have so many thoughts, but everything else takes precedence. Part of that is as it should be. I take care of more than a few people; I have some special needs to tend to among my charges and myself as well. I do wonder if my soul wouldn’t benefit from a bit more of this, however. Simply the tactile experience of typing scratches an itch I sometimes believe will drive me up a wall and is often left un-scratched.

My latest thought is about confirmation bias, and how if I am not guarding against it, I can wreck my mental state before I have had a chance to get out of bed in the morning. The tricky thing is remembering that a large portion of what occurs around us and even towards us is neutral; we assign meaning to events based on our preconceived beliefs.

For example, I want to believe that my children arguing with each other is evidence that I am a horrible person whose influence they should be far removed from. (My English teacher would fix that sentence; I know it’s clunky.) The truth is, my children argue with each other for myriad reasons, and my influence is just one factor.

I have wrestled deeply with why I want so much to believe lies about myself, and why it is so difficult to rewrite the scripts. I think the answer is actually stupid simple: I want to believe hurtful things because somewhere along the way those beliefs seemed to help me, and my sin-wrecked body and brain take time to catch up to my renewed soul — because of pride-driven confirmation bias.

I have to have compassion on the dead-and-dying old me, because the new-in-Christ me was only ever rescued by unfathomable mercy. When I catch myself collecting evidence for some garbage belief, I am learning to ask myself, “What if I’m wrong? What if I’m not {fill in the blank with just about every hurtful adjective you can imagine}? What if I am who God says I am?”

I can’t jump straight to affirmations. Telling myself I am a new creation doesn’t unravel the yarn. I have to start where I am; if I am in the middle of spinning a tale that depends heavily on me being {insert adjective}, I have to stop it by first asking myself if I’m sure that I’m right.

Confirmation bias isn’t entirely evil; it is a function of our brains’ amazing streamlining abilities. Why question everything all the time? That is exhausting. Eventually, confirmation bias will work in my favor as the lies are less reinforced and the truth becomes the more worn neural pathway.

But in the meantime, maybe I should write and post more because I need to put more evidence out there that God has given me a means to bless people with words. I could use a bit more evidence that, despite being rusty, I still have a gift. I have a purpose beyond meeting the needs of my family — high purpose though that may be, and more than enough if I didn’t possess gifts outside of an ability to tend to needs. (I must say, I do not feel gifted in that at all, actually, but it does feel like a gift to me that I am able to do the laundry, dishes, homeschooling, etc.) Maybe writing and sharing my writing will help me overcome some of my “all I’m good at is cleaning and accounting”, self-protective lies.

But in the meantime, though it’s not much, I do hope this little article blesses someone. If I made you think, or made you laugh, let me know.

SDG

A Reflection on Appreciation

Katie said she misses my writing. Here’s something I messed around with a couple months ago and kept waiting for inspiration on how it should end. Looks like the ending is good enough. It’ll do, anyway.

I was in my late twenties when I posted a “shower thought” on Facebook: Saying thank you when someone does what they should anyway is sorta like thanking them for existing. No one responded except for one lone comment: It’s called showing appreciation. Try it sometime. Ok, ok, the “try it sometime” is probably an addendum of my bitter imagination and several years’ rumination, but the correction stung. 

In fourth or fifth grade, I was asked to be a reading buddy for younger children. I did not do it for long. I can’t remember how it ended, but I do remember being chastised for my lack of encouragement and enthusiasm. 

When I was doing some team-building exercise with my youth group in high school, my team wasn’t doing well. In an attempt to spur us on, I called out, “Guys that was pathetic!” Mrs. H knitted her brows at me and said, “Well now that wasn’t very nice.”

Appreciation. 
Encouragement.
Niceness.

These are things I learned in time, and often through these kind of unpleasant experiences. I still am quite confused by niceness, but I try to make up for this, and frankly most other things, with genuine kindness. 

I grew up being told, as most children of my generation were, that I was good inside and smart and could do anything. And yet I was also berated constantly for my thoughtlessness, rarely praised for anything but perfect results, and frequently told that I can do better. 

I grew up believing that the way to success is through constant criticism. And why praise anything less than the best? It cheapens the meaning of praise. I grew up thinking that spurring people on meant correcting every error until all errors were gone. Then and only then would it make sense to let up, to show appreciation and offer praise. 

I started to see in my mid to late thirties (far too late) that this is entirely backwards. We don’t grow from condemnation. Success isn’t the result of ruthless criticism. Ruthless criticism kills the drive to succeed at all. Sometimes it even kills the will to live. 

I cringe at high-school me shouting, “That was pathetic!” But I also want to wrap her up in the biggest, warmest hug and tell her that it’s okay — you don’t know what you don’t know. Because I know now that this is what I needed. I know now that we grow through nurture, which includes a bit of pruning, but is certainly not the whole work. 

I don’t post much anywhere anymore (another learning curve), but when I do it is with this in mind: the world is full of hurting people who are still learning what “appreciation” means. The least I can do is be kind. 

My Secret to Saving Hundreds on Audio Entertainment

I’m gonna do one of those posts. You know those posts. The “try this!” “Three Easy Steps!” posts. I don’t typically write like this, but I have been sitting on this information for months and letting this and that get in the way of sharing it. No more. Today is the day.

First, you have to know that involved parents have been hassled for years now about screentime. Many companies have found a way to capitalize on this guilt most parents have about both excessive screens and not entertaining their children every waking minute. It is important to include both of these guilt-trips together, because one independent of the other would not be profitable for companies peddling screen-free entertainment for children.

If you have children and are on social media at all, you’ve seen these advertisements for Yoto Player, Tonie, or Storypod. All of these things basically offer the same thing: wi-fi free, screen-free audio entertainment. I happened to catch the Storypod on sale about two years ago and bought it because my children are wild and I could just imagine what would happen to the cards that go with the Yoto player or the hard plastic figurines that go with the Tonie.

I will describe the Storypod for a bit in case you’re unfamiliar, because the concept is pretty neat. A Storypod is a screen-free, interactive audio learning system designed for young children (typically ages 0-6) that uses a combination of physical “Crafties” (small, tactile objects) and audio content to provide engaging learning experiences through listening, with features like interactive buttons, stories, songs, and trivia questions, all aimed at promoting developmental skills without screen time. (Thank you AI for the description.) It is very kid-friendly and one of our favorite features from the beginning has been the Craftie that comes with the Storypod which allows us to record our own stories and songs for the kids using the Storypod app. Unfortunately, the recorder does not allow pausing audio recordings. I don’t believe I need to explain how frustrating that is for parents of young children who are frequently interrupted. Also, each soft “Craftie” costs around $20 and we’re library people if you know what I mean.

We have overall enjoyed our Storypods and still use them frequently, but aren’t willing to continuously purchase new content, have difficulty recording new content, and it doesn’t connect via bluetooth. Naturally, that hinders us from keeping it fresh for the kids. We also weren’t able to afford one for our oldest, who absolutely loves audiobooks.

Well, one day, my husband pointed out the mini speaker we had bought for $20 has an SD card slot. “We could put music on a SD card for the kids,” he mused. Before long we figured out that we could record stories on the SD card using my phone’s built-in voice recorder and I started recording stories and songs for my eldest.

Today, I want to walk you through the simple process of making your own!

First, purchase a speaker with an SD card. The one we love for ease-of-use, portability, and bluetooth features is the one I linked above: Anker Soundcore Mini.

Next, make sure you have some mini SD cards. These ones will do: 2 Pack SD Card 32GB.

Open up your phone to the Voice Recording app and do your thing! Sing a lullaby, spin a yarn, tell a joke, or read one of your kid’s favorite books.

Once you’re done, email the file to yourself so you can put the mp3 on the SD card from your computer. If your voice recording app saves files to mp3 automatically, you’re smarter than me because you don’t have an iPhone. For iPhone users, recordings are m4a files that needed to be converted to mp3 to work on the speaker. Use the link provided to download a Windows app that we use.

To put the file on your micro SD card, an external card reader may be necessary. This one looks good: SmartQ C368 USB 3.0 Card Reader. Save the file to the card and pop it into your speaker. Press the mode button until it starts playing your content and enjoy cringing at the sound of your own voice!

Well, I am not very good at these types of posts. But if you keep looking at these ads and thinking, “Man, I wish I could afford that!” consider that I own one of those fancy things and we use our $30 homemade “Storypod” more than the expensive one! We have the option of using bluetooth and streaming, or pre-recorded content on the SD card. Simply that flexibility has made it our go-to for quiet time or bedtime.

You still have time to buy a speaker, record some treasured lullabies and favorite stories, and gift it for Christmas this year.

Happy recording!

Pressin’ Words

I found out today that I’ve had a wordpress site since 2006. I guess I shouldn’t say I found out; that implies I never knew. I rediscovered.

This is going to be the site I use to practice this skill I’ve developed of putting words to ideas. I’m not one of those writers whose words always spill beautifully like a perfectly coordinated slow-motion splash. Sometimes my sentences are too long. Sometimes I give up on a thought halfway through a paragraph. I get stuck sometimes wondering if I’m wasting time, pressing these words out onto the page. I care about such odd things, always have, and it seems nobody is sparked by what I write.

That’s my goal, to create a spark. And maybe that’s too lofty a goal. I know most writers seek to entertain or amuse. But I can’t rest until something I write makes opens the floodgates in someone else — because this is the writing I’ve always enjoyed the most myself.

And this is the place I’ll dedicate to creating sparks, even if I never succeed.