January 7, 2014 My 500 Words

SHOW AND TELL...

Today, I want to introduce you to some of my favorite people! They are talented, gifted, generous friends and family who are life-changers.

My son-on-law, Shane Callicutt, is a musician/worship leader/writer/photographer/ web designer.  He came to our little city from Mississippi and swept my daughter off her feet.  He is the guardian of my two oldest granddaughters.  Intimidating in stature, with a big booming southern voice, he chases hard after Jesus and has the heart of a teddy bear.  He accepted a worship leader position in Missouri a little over three years ago, packed up his family and they started a new life.  Here is his blog address...I know you will enjoy his musings and wisdom.  http://www.shaneshack.com/

I have known Kim Luke since the 1980's.  She is a firecracker!  She is full of life and light and creativity in every area of her life.  For the past two years she and her husband, Bob, have given us a bed to rest our heads and delicious food to fill our tummies, when we drive back to Colorado after seeing our daughter and family in Missouri.  As a published author, writing is one of her favorite passions.  You can check out her book, "Circle of Sun" , at Amazon.com.

Bob, is the chief tree wrangler on their Christmas tree farm.  He has been a dedicated educator and retires this year to take on the tree farm full time.  If you know anyone in the Kansas City area please pass the word on for next year. 
Here is the website..http://www.fortosagechristmastrees.com/

I have a precious, anonymous woman whose story has to be shared.  She writes of the heartache of her husband's unfaithfulness in honest, real, gut wrenching language. I am blessed to know her and her husband personally.  They survived the betrayal and are building a marriage and life that are stronger than ever.  You will be encouraged by her faith, transparency and tenacity.      http://woundedsoldier429.blogspot.com/

My friend John VanDusen is a songwriter/musician/worship leader/published author.  His two writings are pictured above.  I can best describe John and his writing with this quote I read today by Donald Miller..."Most people try to avoid suffering, but those that accept it as a reality and seek to redeem it live a more meaningful, impactful life."  John's heart pours forth his redeemed suffering through his music and his pen.  Find out more about his books, "Duck Butts", and "Standing By the Sea", at Amazon.com.

John's wife, Kerry, is an artist/writer.  I have several of her oil paintings gracing my home.  She is also an artist in the kitchen.  You are blessed indeed if you have sat at her table. She wraps your weary heart up in her warm and gracious presence and the gift of her hospitality.

Anthony and Samantha Alvarado are the parents of 5 beautiful children.  Rourke, their oldest, twins Frannie and Lydia, and the youngest twins Esther and Zinnia.
 In June of 2012, at three and half years old, little Esther was diagnosed with cancer.  My daughter-in-law, Robin, and Samantha are sisters.  This wasn't a story about someone I didn't know.  I KNEW this family...I can only describe it as  a roller coaster ride of one medical treatment after another. Today, Esther is a happy, fun-loving little girl with no traces of cancer in her body.  You can follow their journey at...http://spendandbespent.blogspot.com

I hope you visit my friends and family and discover for yourself how rich and full their hearts and talents are.

January 6, 2014 My 500 Words

 My Sweet Monday....

How was your day today?  Do you have that odd let-down that comes with the chaotic rush of the holidays being over?

I treated myself today.  I took a couple of hours to do exactly what I wanted to do, things that make me happy and help me to order my life.  I took myself to lunch at my favorite bistro, toting a journal and my Kindle to do some reading over a cup of coffee after my meal.


One may tend to think that order and happiness can be generated with increased activity and busy-ness.  In my life, I have found the opposite to be the reality.  Increased busy-ness on top of busy-ness only creates burn-out.  In order to avoid a constant condition of being overwhelmed with life, I was encouraged to create a list of things I enjoyed doing.

 When I become aware of my energies waning, I am intentional about taking time for myself and choosing from my fun list.  It's not complicated or expensive but it is purposeful.

When our children were little, we would drive to Ft. Collins and attend our favorite church.  Finances were tight, it was a sacrifice, but we needed a break from our daily grind.  Lunch was always at a 39 cent hamburger stand.  Cheap, and a wonderful memory.

Here are some of my favorite things to do.... a movie in the middle of the day, wandering antique stores and flea markets, reading fiction.. I love a good mystery, eating lunch in the park, taking a nap, gardening...simple pleasures.  Every week I buy myself fresh flowers at the local Wal Mart. Many mornings I light a scented candle as soon as I get up and I always have one on the table at mealtime.  Every day is a day to be celebrated.

 Maybe you need a honest to goodness real vacation. Is there a college class you have been wanting to take?  A friend you have been wanting to have coffee with?  How about a date with one of your children you have been concerned about? Do you and your spouse need to sit in a park without the interruptions of children or having to compete with the television or computer?

It has not always been easy for me to take time for myself.  I had a martyr complex the size of Texas.  The questions I had to honestly ask myself were...what happens if I crash and burn?  What would happen to my family?  Would the world really come to an end if I said "no" to an activity that someone else needed to be doing anyway?  I battled false guilt and sometimes still do.  I am seeking to be humble to receive help from friends and family and listen to wise counsel.

I hope you are encouraged to begin your own fun list!  I would love to hear from you and the ways you are going to begin to take care of yourself.


At this website, you will find the signs and symptoms of burnout and prevention tips.
 http://www.helpguide.org/mental/burnout_signs_symptoms.htm




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Meet My Dads

This is one of my favorite photos of myself and my dad, Jerry. I have been wrestling with how to share about our relationship as father and daughter in an honest and grace-filled way.  Family secrets, dark and intimidating, trap families in prisons that seem inescapable.  Our secret was his alcoholism.

His choice to refuse help for the alcoholism, plus his infidelity, ended the thirty- four year marriage to my mother.  Twenty-four years ago their divorce signaled my new responsibility, as an only child, to be "on call" for all the medical emergencies and chaos created by his drinking.

 Sixteen years ago he quit drinking cold turkey.  That created a medical situation, doctors telling me he would need nursing home care for the remainder of his life.  Only by God's grace did he recover enough to live in his own apartment and begin a new life.

Three years ago he suffered an unexpected  brain bleed, the second in his life.  He was airlifted to a larger hospital a hundred miles away where he lay in a coma for a month.  I lived in his hospital room by day and slept at a friend's house a few blocks away at night. Miraculously, he is one of the twenty percent who survive that type of brain bleed.

After two months in a rehab facility I brought him back home to his little apartment.  Amazing Grace...
Since that time, I deliver meals to him twice a day, set up his meds, drive him to appointments and pay his bills.  He is able to keep his apartment clean, do his laundry and carry on a fairly normal life.  I have two God-sent respite caregivers who love him and care for him when I need a break or I'm out of town to see my children and grandchildren.

The two brain bleeds left him with a condition called aphasia. Communication is difficult...some days are better than others. In spite of that, his most endearing characteristic is his simple child-like enjoyment of life.
He is outside, before sunrise, taking pictures of the moon with his garage sale film camera.
He is fascinated by the jet contrails in the summer sky and ponders where he thinks they are traveling to.  In the summer he edges the lawn in front of his apartment. In winter, when it snows, he scoops a path from his front door to where his caregivers and I park. He has a warm charismatic smile and laugh that instantly draws people in. He loves people and they love him.


This is the love letter from my adoptive Father.  I'd like to introduce you to Him. These are some of my favorite notes He's written to me..He whispers in Psalm 139 He knew me and saw me in my mother's womb, knitted me together and formed my inward parts.  In Romans 8, He declares I am free to cry out to Him as Abba! Daddy! Papa! because I have chosen to be a follower of Jesus, His Son. Through the words He gave the Prophet Isaiah, He promises He will never forget me because  I am engraved on the palms of His hands.  This Father, the God- of- the- Angel -Armies, graces me with the strength, compassion, patience, love and forgiveness to care for the earthly father I am named for.  I am a blessed girl.  I have two dads who love me!

January 4, 2014 My 500 Words

I'm wondering if I will be as excited on January 16 as I have been the last four days writing here every day.  New Year Resolutions have flooded social media.  Writing every day for the month of January is the single "resolution" I made at the beginning of this new year.  As I have aged I have become familiar with myself and my quirks, idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies.  And I have found a measure of peace in admitting I have those aforementioned  quirks, idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies.

In years past I have compiled a list of important, world changing, go for all the money goals.  I have notebooks full of notes taken at innumerable goal setting classes taught by some of the wealthiest women in the country.  As recently as this past July, I convincingly voiced my determination to be in a management position in my direct sales business by December.  Every month since July has come and gone and needless to say I am no closer to my goal.

I  have been humbled and embarrassed by that outcome. There were people involved in the goal that I respect and care deeply for. The despair forced me to set myself down and take a microscopic look at my heart and the reason I was continuing to set the same goal over and over...then proceed to not do the work I knew it would take to reach it.  Somewhere I  heard the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.  I was definitely fitting that description and I was making myself insane!

What I came to realize was I had been pursuing an end result that had nothing to do with the desires of my heart, but was tangled up in my people pleasing behaviors. I came to the freeing conclusion that this goal was no longer valid for my life and my future.  Oh, how the burden rolled off of my shoulders!  I made the decision I would continue to pursue the good of my business and my customers in a way that brought peace and contentment to my life.  I am no longer willing to push myself into the painful desert of burn out for a path that I do not want to be traveling on. 

Are there areas of my life that need discipline and attention?  Absolutely!  But, I have made the commitment to myself to determine what works for me and not copy what has been successful for someone else. I have lost count of the diet books and matching cookbooks I have purchased.  The exercise programs, the gym memberships, the workout clothes, the new athletic shoes...my list goes on and on.  The chosen diet plan wouldn't produce the results I wanted fast enough so I would abandon it to repeat the process with the next wonder diet, only to have that one fail and go back to the first one.  There's a hint of that insanity definition again.

I have become so frustrated with goal setting, always chasing the carrot at the end of the stick. I found myself so focused on the future and the lie that when ______happens I woud finally be happy, that I was missing the life that was being lived right underneath my nose.  I was not attuned to my heart and the passions I truly wanted to pursue and fill my life with.

Which puts me right back to my opening sentence.  How will I be on January 16 when I set down at my computer to write my 500 words for the day?  I'm completely okay with saying I don't know how I will feel.  Will it be easy or hard?  I don't know.  The one thing I do know is this....I am writing because I want to. I chose this because it has been patiently waiting at the back of my mind and heart for a very long time.  This is my New Year's gift to myself.  Not a resolution....a gift.

January 3, 2014 My 500 Words

I ran away from home today...I came back, though.  Periodically I need time away from my daily routine and responsibilities. I left a kitchen full of dirty dishes, an office needing organized and inventory for my in-home business begging to be counted.

I traveled only forty miles.  But crossing a state line gave me the illusion of being further away.  I opened the cover of my sun roof allowing the sunlight to stream in through the glass. Thinking I would enjoy some music, I turned the radio on...but after five seconds  I only wanted the comfort of silence.

 I found myself lost in thought, pondering what  to write today. I realized I was missing 'being in the moment'. I began to look in wonder at what was going on outside my car. Above me there was a white transparent cloud cover over the sky's usual color of vibrant light blue. The sheer white film of the clouds, like a torn remnant of cloth, allowed  the calming blue of the sky to peek through in patchwork fashion. The fields, pastures, and grass lands were matching shades of dull brownish gold.  The cornfields lay barren with stalks at all angles of broken, cattle grazing contentedly a midst the now harvested rows.

There were farm houses longing for better days.  Their paint now peeling, worn and tired against the starkness of bare trees and abandoned farm equipment.  Birds of prey were perched atop telephone poles and balanced on single wires like tightrope walkers. They sat patiently scouting their next meal from their top of the world vantage point.

Long sections of irrigation pivots were lined up inside fence rows like cold steel skeletons, their wheels rusted and tires caked with dried mud.  In but a few months they will come alive with movement and sprays of life giving water for the crops a farmer has poured his sweat and prayers into.

The winding creek bed lay empty and dry waiting for the fullness of the melting spring snow that will travel from the mountains a hundred miles away.

Scattered across the landscape were windbreaks, rows of evergreen trees, intertwining their branches to protect the homesteads and livestock hidden behind their dark green facades.  Kamikaze tumble weeds met their demise as they careened crazily in the path of my tires.

Giant mechanical windmills stood like sentries along miles of 250- foot- high chalk cliffs.  Their larger than life arms catching the wind and spinning in  mesmerizing rhythm.

I reached my desired destinations.  I wandered through the "world's foremost outfitter" searching for a pair of winter boots, only to leave empty handed.  I searched for old and new treasures in a favorite antique store.  I gathered half price Christmas ornaments to tuck away for another year and joyfully I discovered a watercolor picture of Venice, adding to my dreams of water filled canals, romantic gondola rides, and flower boxes of riotous blooms on rod-iron balconies.

On the road home I was gifted with the crown jewel of the day.  Perfectly, like a mirror, a pond reflected the shadowed sky of dark grey clouds contrasted with the gleam of the setting sun.  There, across the surface of water and patches of ice, were ribbons of gold and the gentle hues of a day at its end.

January 2, 2014 My 500 Words

I am a secret wanna be chef, even though cooking was not a priority in my home of origin. At grade school age I signed up for cooking and baking in a local 4-H club.  I learned how to bake cupcakes without giant air pockets inside of them, and jelly..although there was the morning after a practice batch that my mother and I went into the kitchen to find sugar ants by the thousands feeding on the sweet concoction. In high school I enrolled in FHA (Future Homemakers of America) classes where, for days, we created every known and unknown recipe for left over cooked pinto beans, of course, we learned and experimented with many other food groups...the pinto beans just seem to stand out in my memory. I wonder why?

Marriage brought daily responsibilities for kitchen duties on top of a full time job.  I was 19 years old and had never lived on my own. I remember calling my dad one day to ask how to cut up a whole chicken to be able to fry it.  At that time I didn't know you could purchase them already cut up.  There were stories of dove breast soup peppered so much it wasn't edible...but my husband and his co-worker managed to choke it down, the neck bone soup I made my parents...no one told me there was no meat on a neck bone, and a winter or two there were many pots of ham and beans due to tight finances.  Thank heaven for that high school cooking class on the many ways to recycle pinto beans! And I can't forget the gourmet meal I made my husband and married children for Thanksgiving.  The idea came from a ladies Bible study.  No one in my family was impressed with my gourmet creativity.  My first clue should have been ladies luncheon menu...light fare.  Back to the turkey and dressing I went!

Over the years I have been surrounded by friends who were wonderful, talented bakers and loved to whip up meals in their kitchens.  One friend in particular truly has the gift of hospitality.  I  loved an invitation from her. There was nothing more meaningful in my life than sitting down at her table over food, wine and conversation.  She and her husband now live hundreds of miles away and I miss those sweet times.  I spent a few days with them last year.  She planned menus, baked me a beautiful chocolate cake and treated me to their favorite restaurants and foods.  She recently surprised me with an ebook, "Bread and Wine" by Shauna Niequist.  The words of the book inspire me to try my hand at new recipes and my perceptions of being in the kitchen are changing.  For the author, food and fellowship are one in the same.  Deep relationships and true friendships are created over kitchen utensils and table settings.  That's what happened around my friend's table.  We shared our heartaches, joys, frustrations and victories. Her table was warm and simple...complete with a soul searching question at each place setting that was answered through laughter and tears.

 Once a month I have a group of friends who arrive at my home with their home-cooked meals to share around my table.  We created a life long bond working in the same department in an orange box store.  We are now scattered to other jobs and positions, but our hearts are tied together forever and we celebrate each other over a blessed meal.
Maybe the reason I want to become more adept in the kitchen is what it truly brings to the table, the sacred experience of sharing my heart and life with those who want to be in my presence and those I could not imagine my life without.

January 1, 2014 My 500 Words

Yikes!  I am excited and apprehensive all at the same time.  I have never done anything like this before in my life.  My education is in Nursing....not English Lit. My  employment experiences have been in direct sales, retail sales and a short stint as a barista.
 I must have been sleeping in my grade school English classes.  I struggle with punctuation...especially commas.  I am so glad punctuation doesn't matter with this exercise!  I have been journaling for over 30 years.  I love to write.  I love journals.  I can be a little obsessive about finding just the right one.  I love pouring my heart out onto a page.  Blogging is new and something I decided  to do for myself.  It was a giant leap of faith. I tend to be an introvert and putting my feelings and thoughts out in the open for others to read was a bit intimidating.  I have been looking for opportunities to learn to write..so glad this came along.  Other than journaling, my only experience at writing was in high school.  A very, very long time ago. I had an English teacher who designed a creative writing curriculum. She gave us movie clips to respond to, cartoons to write jokes for, subjects and words to write about. Every quarter she would publish a small booklet with a sampling of everyone's work.  I still have those booklets after 40 years. I go back to them to read not only what I wrote but what my classmates and schoolmates wrote. After all these years  I continue to be impressed with what she pulled out of all of us.  People who I didn't know had a sense of humor wrote lines for the cartoons that were genius.  The quiet ones wrote deep thoughts about their life that made me approach them with a little more kindness.  I was 17 years old with relationship drama and my writings seem a little dark.  I was growing up in an alcoholic home and didn't know how much that was influencing my life until may years later.
In the early 80's I was gifted with a new friend who shared with me her habit of journaling about her life and her emotions.  I have filled journal upon journal since that time.  I really believe I have saved thousands of dollars on professional therapy!  My first grandchild was born in 2002.  Prior to her birth I burned every journal I had poured my life into from 1982.  A cleansing of sorts, a new beginning for a new generation.  It is again time for one of those burning parties.  I am entering into a new phase of my life and I like the clean slate that comes with purging the past.
I have lived the majority of my life...literally in number of years and in a survival mode emotionally.  I want to take the risk to finally do what I want to do, what I believe I was created to do.  I am anticipating the revelations that will come with writing each day this month!