Author Archives: melissafed

When you are a little ‘testy’

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It just took over an hour to get my kids to sleep.

If anyone else says/types “just saying” in my presence, I will punch them. I know this is going to set off some sort of craze thinking its witty to say that around me. It isn’t. I will stop liking you.

I have a serious issue today with my computer. It is driving me buck wild.

I may be the most social, socially awkward person. Thus making me the most awkward person I know. I am not coming down from my cabin in the woods ever again.

My house is a disaster.

I can’t spell. Or think of anything interesting to say.

I feel like a really bad mother today. I told my son I would return the new shovel I bought him to the store. Or break it in half if he didn’t go to sleep. Oh boy. Super fail.

Yowser. Time to get that old thought life under control isn’t it?

Thankful today for:

619) Loving him everyday

620) A GREAT church family camping weekend

621) Getting dressed up for work, having a great meeting, feeling like a functional person for the first time in ages…

622) That they choose to hold hands in a crowd

623) Day off family hikes and explorations (in her celebratory Jets jersey)

624) Discoveries

625) Sunset play

626) First sports

627) First sleepover

628) Big girl bed, big girl pants. GULP. Crib is in the basement. TEAR.

629) Cuddle with sweet baby Mae to remind me that there will always be babies to cuddle…even if they are not mine.

630) A radio/cd player in the new vehicle. Oh boy such bliss.

631) Hot, hot, hot! Summer finally here? I know, I know spring would have been nice but I will take whatever I can get!!!

632) Cool evening breezes.

633) Dirty feet, scabs and a 7 foot pile of laundry. Evidence of a childhood memories made.

634) Umbrellas.

635) The look on his face as he set out on his first highway motor bike ride. Bliss.

Much better. Time to tackle the laundry and disastrous house.

 

Your Love Story Is Still Being Written

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I saw him at Coopers. This little old man had shrunk three sizes since I saw him last; that day we had sat, fingers entwined,  and watched his wife breathe last. I had fallen in love with her too. I was a brand new nurse and my grandmother was two years dead already and this woman spoke just like her in practical and gentle ways. Each shift I would take my lunch in and eat with her, I just couldn’t stay away.

This day at the grocery store, he crumpled the moment he saw me. Curled into my arms and wept. We found a deli table and sat and he sipped coffee and ate crumbly cookie that stuck to his quivering lips as he tried to tell the whole story. Love story from beginning to end…

“She was the only woman I have ever loved. She was the best person to have ever walked earth”. His eyes were all full of truth and I knew he believed every word. I had only worked in palliative care for four months but I had seen full eyes before; eyes full of pain, full of regret, full of relief. Here though, was the first time I saw eyes full of love with no hint of any other emotion.  He had loved her every day.

My twenty-two year old mind shifted that day. All the romantic ideals and fairy tales died on the deli table. The truth of what love is and how to live the best of stories was clearly evident in this mans eyes. All that Hollywood tells us about being true to yourself, about fleeing when things get tough, about ‘friends with benefits’ none of it could hold a candle to the romance in this mans eyes.

At age 21 their story could’ve ended with ‘they lived happily ever after’. That is what we would all like to believe, the truth though is that the story was just starting. The bravest and truest tales were yet to be penned, the showing up for each other on the hardest days, the honouring each other in all circumstances, the fortitude it takes to stand side by side when so many are giving up, the warfare on monogamy and the games it plays on hearts. Once we know the outcomes of each of these chapters, once we see if the ‘happily ever’ stands, then we know if this is an epic love story. The kind of love future generations can hang their hope on.

Today my friend, your love story is still being written. Maybe you’re like me and you’ve let the story write itself for too long. Maybe your heroine has not invested what she should. Maybe she got lazy and distracted by babies and work and home and one thousand excuses. Maybe, she needs to pick up the pen and start writing deliberately. The best part of the story, may very well be yet to come. The ending I want, is my husband big brown eyes wet with love, teaching a young nurse someday, what ‘happily ever after’ really means, how he loved me every day.

and

Carving out moments

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“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” ~Annie Dillard

It was one of those days where there was too much to get done and not enough motivation to get started. So you know what I did? Nothing. I sipped coffee and I chased after my children. I had a pillow fight with the pillows already left on the floor. After a busy, away from home weekend, I really should have spent the day cleaning. Instead, we cuddled a lot. We danced a little. We wrestled on the area rug and we read books and we baked dozens of cupcakes and licked clean every spoon. We talked about how to do right and being a kind brother.

The housework will wait. Not for long, I believe strongly in a home well made, in mamma  loving her family by creating safe and comfy spaces. I’m learning though, that safe and comfy does not translate to surgical grade sterility. I never feel more at home than when I spot a dust bunny under your living room furniture.

I’ve been thinking often lately that a well lived life has very little to do with the time you have but with how you spend it. Six years ago I was incredibly efficient. People were pulled into the pulleys and motors of my life chewed up and spit out. Everything moving so fast I had no control over the outcomes. I judged others on how full their calendars were, how much output they produced, how efficiently they could produce it. The one most marred by the pace was my own spirit. I forgot what it needs to thrive.

So now, I try to carve out moments for ink and paper, for Bread of Life, for playing outside. The things that whisper hope to me. The places I find my strength, the identity that stands stronger than the day-to-day incidentals and failures.

How is your time carving going? Are you creating sweet moments for God to speak to you in your deepest places? Do you even know what that feels like? Do you remember how to find Him?

I know if feels like luxury friend…it isn’t. Make quiet space to breathe in air that smells like earth. To eat words that taste like truth.  One day, realizing your soul has died back will take much more time to repair; will cost much more than the few minutes it takes to live fully.

Beauties

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It’s hard to imagine isn’t it?

Hard to imagine that anyone could miss it…

When we look at these girls, we cannot help but see their beauty, their potential, notice the way the room lights up when they enter.

Somehow though, living in a world that tells them otherwise, sometimes they forget.

It’s hard to fathom I know.

We took the weekend to remind them that they are:

Created.

Chosen.

Celebrated.

Cherished.

How about you?

When you have a week like I had this last week.

When the marriage is thread-bare and listless.

When you feel like the worst parent to have ever walked earth.

When you feel like you couldn’t possibly fail at anything else.

Will you remember that you can relax a little?

Trust that even when you feel overwhelmed, exhausted and inadequate, the One who lives in you is Greater?

Last week I forgot. It took telling someone else of this truth to remind myself and today when I opened my mail box there was a beautiful gift to remind me everyday.

THANKS (in)courage! I needed that.

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Like Weeds

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The grass grew up long these last seven days and turned itself to green. Dandelions sprouted up and speckle the lawn and other bright yellow flowers dot the hillsides. The herb garden doubled in size and the whole forest seemed to wake from hibernation and is lush and green.

Even with all this change, its nothing like them. The way they say new things like “Good Golly Miss Molly”. The way the two of them looked six feet tall as I stumbled down the concourse eyes all blurry.

Seven days flew by for me. I felt like I was gone a blink and yet somehow I’m Rip Van Winkle and missed a whole season. And I know that I’m dramatic and these little people are better for my absence and I’m better for it too. I say this only to remind myself not to blink and not to take a single breath for granted because these little people are growing faster than any weed I know.

Thankful this Monday for:

606) Going away

607) Coming home

608) Marrying into a really amazing family

609) Fun adventures

610) A week of reckless irresponsibility

611) Snorkels, fins, masks and an ocean full of extravagant beauty

612)  Time alone with this guy

613) Coming home to kids who keep saying “When Gummy and Pappa were here we….” and all of it is joy laced. THANKS.

614) REST

615) Little faces at the arrival gate

616) 4 more days till the conference. YIKES.

617) Back to a real life even sweeter than holidays…Missed my kids too much.

618) Watching my kids dance at a wedding last night. Thinking of the parents who watched their kids get married, knowing better than to take these short and precious days for granted.

Visit others who keep their eyes wide for the gifts here:

Tipping Point

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I’ve got to tell you, it’s not the last time that will happen. I saw that little girl laughing wild one moment while you chased then turning on you eyes full of fire. The moment when that happens is not something I can teach you. The tipping point from joy to rage is, in some women, the width of a head of a pin.

I will never be able to explain at what point you will know that recovery is impossible, gravity has triumphed and the only option you have is to fall with grace.

I don’t think I will be able to explain to you the subtle change in a strawberry that turns it from the sweetest delight to rot. You will learn by sampling many and you will learn how the texture changes, how the smell shifts. Today, after few sips of smoothie you left the table and came back refusing to have more. You’ve tasted sour milk and anything left behind is ‘old’. You know already how distasteful warm milk is on the tongue.

I drove past an elementary school today and my stomach jumped into my throat. It can be ugly there. You will have to learn for yourself how fast the economy of cool can shift. Learn what darting eyes mean and feel the sting of a conversation intruded; the function of which is to tear you to shreds.

Choose wisely then, son of mine, which fulcrum you place the lever of your life. And remember, wherever you tip, I’ll be pressing on the other side, doing my best to lift you out of the dirt.

EmergingMummy.com

Blue Sky

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Has the sky always been blue like that? It’s too beautiful to have been sitting there all along, millions of us milling around under it with not one shouting praise. The fact that I have ever walked one day without noticing is almost criminal. A sky like that should be remembered, its maker should get some credit.

So much of life is like that you know. Every single day you can choose to notice the extraordinary gifts you are surrounded by. You can also ignore them and walk glumly under piercing sky.

Counting gifts today…

595) Piercing blue after a long cloudy winter

596) Boy telling wild magnificent tales than whispering in my ear “I’m just using my ‘magination”

597) Giddy little girl laughs

598) Great replacement dates for a royals party when I ran out of energy to plan the other one I wanted to have.

599) A date for coffee on the deck when I had thought I was all alone.

600) First dinner on the deck

601) Impromptu picnic

602) Little buddies in the bath

603) Lots of time to get my homework done this weekend (though now my only excuse that I didn’t get it done is my own laziness).

604) Winged wonders

605) This much bliss. This much love.

605) First beach play of the year

606) The little missus is back. She hadn’t been around for a few days and I’m counting on her to give us some ducklings on the pond this spring.

Visit others who keep their eyes wide for the gifts here:

Country Chronicles: He’s back!

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Here is a good story.

Joel called on his way to town to pick up the youth kids to come over He said that he just spotted the owl again on the fence post. Emily and I both squealed and then my girl raised her index finger in the air, stopped short her squealing and said:
“But…we can’t scare it away” very seriously.

“Lets go, let’s go!” I said and we headed down the driveway. People should know that heading down my driveway is no small task (its long and its steep!), especially when it snowed three inches in the morning and that snow has turned the driveway to mud. In any event Em and I will not be deterred and we run down the hill while Emily YELLS

“Lets go see da owl. Lets go see him. I’m going to take a present from him”

In our exuberance…we may or may not have got going to fast.

I may have seen Emily blur past me in no-good-for-running gum boots.

I may have shouted at her to slow down.

I may have tried to catch her.

I did not and the poor little girl ended up FACE first in a mud puddle. I wish, oh I wish, I had a photo for you (I admit I was tempted to take the photo before rescuing her but thankfully I thought better of it) because I’m not sure you will believe me if I tell you that her face and left shoulder were literally stuck in the mud. Her feet where in the air. It was amazing.

She only cried for a moment thankfully, though she did pout occasionally for the remainder of the outing because of her very dirty self and she did insist that I carry her oh-so-muddy self all the way to the top of our mountain when we were finished. However we would both tell you..

So. WORTH. It.

What an amazing creature. And yes…most definately a Great Gray Owl.

Country Chronicles: Barn Raising & Learning to Do Community

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There have been points in my life in recent years that I put up strong and impermeable fences around the borderlands of my family. I thought the way to keep us strong together was to keep others out. I believed that if we spent energy on others, we would run out of love for each other. We have found the opposite to be true as we are experimenting with expanding the boundaries, inviting others in. I want to do community better.

I’ve sat next to people thinking we were going deep only to find out just days later that their world was shattering, heart all broken up. I’ve thought I was loving people well only to find out later that I wasn’t. I’ve not been at hospital bedside, holding hands, when I should have been. I’m terrible at phone calls but I want to do community better.

My mamma said to my daddy last weekend “whatever happened to an old-fashioned barn raising? When everyone comes and they get a barn up in a weekend? That just doesn’t happen anymore…”I thought that is true but then this weekend, my husband built a fence, and young men kept finding their way up our mountain and digging ditches. He didn’t call any of them and they built a fence to keep my children safe. I gave them ham sandwiches and we heard about a couple of love stories in the making and they called it ‘the property’ (instead of Joel and Melissas house) and it was good. We also got a new truck except it is old. A dear one gave us a Jeep a few years ago. We gave our Pathfinder to a guy who needed it. He gave it to another friend when he could afford better. He passed it to another who kept it for a while until the gas was too much. It came home today. We trade around vehicles again because one truck is better than another and one needs a different kind and I think this is how church is supposed to work.

There is so much for me to learn on this. Much of the time community, authentic and true, scares me. People in the flesh make me nervous. But then, there is this new fence. It is permeable and it creates safe places for gathering and life building.

And friends? This is something we just have to get right; people are lonely and broken and have needs right next door to you. We have to do community better.