Today was the first day back to school after break, where it’s a combination of excitement to see friends again and sleepiness from the early morning wake-up call.  The fifth graders shuffled into my room this morning, most of them looking like they wanted to head back to bed.  This is actually nice because behavior issues drop off considerably – they’re just too tired to misbehave!  Then came my chatty 3rd and 2nd graders, all excited to tell me, each other and my student teacher all about their holiday, the things they did (or didn’t do) and what they received as gifts.

Then after lunch came Kindergarten.  I warned my student teacher that they would all want to stop on their way in and tell me all about their break, and of course they did.  Imagine five and six year olds jockeying for position like racehorses at the Derby to see who could get to me first and keep talking while others try to push their way in.  As I finally get them to their dots in the room, I introduce my student teacher, letting the students know that she is a teacher just like me and that they need to make sure they follow her directions just like they follow mine (ha!). Then this little voice shouts out, “because you’re Queen of the music room!”, to which I reply, “Why yes.  Yes I am!”.

Queen of the Music Room.  Only in music does this work.  Okay, maybe art, but could you imagine the Queen of Math?  Really?  The King of Computers? The Princess of Punctuation? Just doesn’t have the same ring.  Ah, but music –  music is magical and so the title of Queen seems perfect. Just picture it – a tambourine for a crown and boomwhacker as a scepter.  I’m sure I could use one of my scarves as a cape.  Purple of course.  Name any other class that has the same accoutrements available to them at all times.

I don’t always feel like Queen of the Music Room.  Some days I can feel more like an evil queen or a bit like Cinderella, worked to the bone.  But today as I listened to one of my boys tell me he had special powers to be able to know someone’s voice without even looking at them, I knew we were in a magical kingdom.  He also said his senses were tingling.  I suppose we can have Spiderman and a Queen.  It is magical.

Towards the end of class we focused on snowflakes.  We watched a feather fall to the ground like a snowflake and tried to move like the feather.  We talked about how quietly the feather moved and listened closely to see if we could hear it land on the floor. Then we played music to accompany the feather falling on glockenspiels, a wonderful tinkling sound like fairies dancing on ice.  So quiet. The class listened while friends played the instruments, oohed and aahed, describing the sound as beautiful.  And then we played a game where a whole bunch of snow (feathers) was tossed at them and if they were touched by the snow, they were out.  There is truly nothing more magical then watching a child share an excited smile or giggle as they wait to see where the feather floats, and cheers when it floats away from them or lands on their heads.  Nothing more magical then hearing children excitedly say “Again! Again!” in the hopes of playing one more time.

So as Queen of the Music Room, I have the responsibility of teaching them all about  musical concepts and terms, but I also have the responsibility of helping them to experience the magic of music.  That indescribable art form that makes them feel things and inspires them to think and imagine.  As we begin the second semester, I need to remember to spend a bit more time creating magic and maybe less time creating assessments.  After all, isn’t it important  for students to know that music can be soft and that music can be beautiful?  It’s Magical.

Not that it’s very relevant in real life, but I’m a Libra.  Libra personalities supposedly have a distinct sense of balance, of fairness, and as they age, a keen sense of right and wrong.  If you believe in this kind of thing, it makes life difficult for us Librans because it feels like there is so much wrong in the world right now.  There is a huge sense of frustration for us because we want to FIX things, to balance things, to make things fair.  Because we’re control freaks.  If people would just let us fix things, all would be right with the world.

The problem with this premise is that control freaks, at least in my case, tend to operate from gut feelings and not always from knowledge. We just KNOW.  However, what happens when you gain more background knowledge, I’ve found, is that it just brings in more layers of needed balance.  Things aren’t just black and white anymore when the layers can be a combination of blacks and whites.  Then things become grey.  And yet, I still want to fix things because what I think is right.

Just about every day, my husband and I ask each other, “what are your plans for the day?”  And the answer is always “we’re going to take over the world!”.   Because on a day to day basis, I find myself privy to situations and and circumstances that I could fix if people would just listen and let me do it!  I don’t mean to sound like a “know it all”, but it’s the need to fix things that moves me.  It’s always because I want to make things better, always rooting for the underdog, always wanting to help those who don’t believe in themselves to believe in themselves.  And this is not a bad thing, right?

The problem is when you don’t know or understand the entire story, all of your efforts to fix it may just complicate the situation.   Those shades of grey.  As a Christian, I find myself praying for things to be the way I think they should be, not necessarily how God may will things to be.  After all, He sees all of those layers of grey that I don’t see and He knows how the story is going to end.  My trying to fix things may just get in the way of the lessons to be learned or the experiences meant to be had to make the people in question who they are supposed to be.

So at the moment, I find myself in another one of those situations where I just want to fix everything, but this time it’s personal – emotional.  The outcome affects not only me and my family, but several other families whose stories I don’t completely know.  So much grey.  Right and wrong seemed so clear, but then you try to see things from other perspectives and the grey starts to get in the way.  The decision here needs to made by someone like King Solomon and yet all decisions will be made by fallible human beings, using laws rather than emotions, working to make sure everyone’s legal rights are considered.  And so, against every control freak bone in my body, I now fight to let go and let God.  And it’s hard.

I don’t see myself changing my zodiac sign or control freak tendencies any time soon, but my prayer for right now is that I can graciously accept whatever God’s will is in this situation and to support others in any way I can after decisions have been made.  And then I’ll try again to fix things.

 

As the group of boys ran like crazy through the maze of levels at the fast food play place, I found myself wondering if the manufacturers had tested it thoroughly enough as little sock covered feet pounded mercilessly up and down the ramps.  There’s a fine line between where boys are just playing and where they can start hurting each other because they just get too rough, and these eyes have had plenty of practice seeing the difference after having raised three boys.  My boys got a little wild sometimes and even if they didn’t get hurt, they certainly took it out on the places we lived and the furniture we lived on.  One of the other women watching her boys looked at me today when I got up to check on our foster grandkids and asked, are my boys being too rough?  I looked at her with an understanding smile and said no, it’s just how boys are.  She responded with a sigh of relief saying, “you know, either you understand how boys are or you don’t”.

I don’t mean to stereotype, but in my personal experience when a group of boys gets together, anything can happen.  These same boys, when they’re alone may be very quiet, preferring to read books or play with Legos, but together – oh my.  In fact, while watching the boys today, ALL the boys (men) in the house were playing with games and toys.  It’s who they are at heart.  I seem to remember my boys, including Doug, running throughout the house shooting each other with nerf guns.  There was a pit with a fireplace in the living room and some of the boys would use it as cover to shoot others running down the hallway.  The pit was also great to put large blankets across and build forts.  Or fill up with pillows and jump in.

And while you and I might think the top of the toy box is just that, the boys will turn it into a vehicle to slide down the steps, making sure they have taken every pillow in the house to put at the bottom so they don’t get hurt.  Never mind the front door, of course.

So to keep them from tearing up the house, you send them outside, right?  This is where they find old deer bones out in the woods and play with them, or play in a muddy creek outside church in their dress clothes.  The boys still talk about how I made them take their muddy pants off outside the car in the church parking lot, put them in the trunk and then have them sit together in their tightie whities in the back seat.  They didn’t do it again.  At least at church.

Stitches and broken bones were always a thing.  Not from something as simple as organized sports, but from things like jumping off a retaining wall at church, or throwing a cup at your brother’s head or talking your younger brother into stomping on a butter knife in a sandbox.  We weren’t told exactly how the bottom of the foot was cut until many years later.  Probably a good thing for them.

Having grown up with a brother and then having to raise boys, I didn’t have a lot of experience with girls, but I’m glad God chose to put boys in my life.  Boys can have a fight, make up in a little while and it’s over.  Boys come running when you yell “spider!!!” to kill it for you. Boys can help you lift heavy things and, if you’re short like me, reach things on the high shelves.  It’s a wonderful thing.

As a culture, I think we’re losing the art of raising boys and I believe it’s due to fear on the part of parents and teachers.  So many are concerned that allowing “boys to be boys” will keep them from growing up to be kind, respectful gentlemen.  So as adults, what we do is try to contain or stifle the energy and creativity of boys at play, not allowing them to use their imagination to make up games on playground equipment, trying to organize everything they do so that it’s “fair” and so they won’t get hurt.  All kids, boys and girls, learn fairness and how to play with others through experiences and working things out for themselves.  In our house, our boys may have created some havoc, but they had the example their father set as to how to treat others, particularly women, with kindness and respect.  As a parent, you know your kids are in pretty good shape if they can let loose with you but they understand the boundaries they’ve been given in terms of how they behave with others outside your home.  My boys seldom disappointed me in that respect.

As a teacher, a parent and now a grandparent, I would urge us to allow boys to be boys, allowing them to let loose and be creative, to explore and experiment, testing their limits, all the while understanding that it’s imperative for us to lead by example in terms of kindness and respect for others.  It is possible for boys to be boys without being a part of the “good old boys club”.   So grateful that I had the opportunity to raise, love and learn to understand my boys.

 

 

The billboard on the way to the restaurant advertised for a business named Giga-Byte-Me.  Clever and at the same time, demonstrating just a bit of what I might describe as the kind of tackiness one might expect in certain parts of the country.  We were headed to dinner with my in-laws at a local place they frequent and we were all in because we’re always looking for fun little places to try out.  Named after the owner, the place was like going to someone’s house.  Obviously originally built as another business, it had been converted to a bargain basement version of Cracker Barrel, various knick knacks covering the wood paneled walls and window sills.  The tablecloths were a combination of red and white gingham and a french country design, about twelve in all, with those uncomfortable red banquet chairs you see in banquet halls.

I should admit right away that after having been brought up the way I was, I can be a bit of a – well I might as well say it – snob.  A well meaning snob, much as I would describe my dad, both of us having champagne tastes on beer budgets, but never, ever wanting to hurt people’s feelings, just wanting to make things “better”.  We both just happened to be lovers of cities and did not have the opportunity to experience a more rural setting. I share this because I have to really work to leave my preconceived notions at the door knowing how judgemental I can be.  A work in progress, so I hope you won’t judge.  But I caught myself spending time looking at the mismatched plates on the tables, the mug of coffee given to my son that said “Oh, no, the big 5-0” and the blue plastic cups.  The food on the menu was what I would call very southern with a lot of menu items described as “fried”.  A sign on the wall said “Sweet Tea – Wine of the South” and so that was a must to order along with my hot brown.  Quaint and eclectic to say the least.

The patrons were obviously locals, enjoying a meal with their friends and families with the owners walking among their customers engaging in conversations, refilling glasses and making sure everyone had what they needed.  Nothing fancy, but truly genuine, people doing what they loved doing.  My in-laws are wonderful people, humble and living simply, caring more about others than themselves.  We had spent another evening  going out to a local Burger King with them and Doug’s aunt and uncle.  They all have a weekly date together, going nowhere fancy but getting together gift cards and coupons to see what they can get that night, laughing together at silly jokes and stories and sharing simple food.  It challenges me to see things in a different way, to not be so shallow in terms of what I think is important and change how I perceive others.

Now, this is going to sound really hypocritical here, but it’s just this type of place that gives people the wrong impression about the south and it makes me slightly crazed.  To those who live in other parts of the country, particularly on the coasts, the south is just what I described at the beginning.  The perception is that the south consists of tacky hillbillies, rednecks, camo, wood paneling on the walls and fried foods.  The assumption that the people are uneducated and uninformed.  Breaking news; this is NOT the case.  Those same in-laws who were satisfied with a simple meal at a tiny, local restaurant are also the same people who worked hard, own their home and land, ran a successful business, and raised three great kids.  They are well versed in what is happening politically and culturally and are very outspoken about what they think about it.  They are the very heart of this country, and so, I find myself defending the very thing that I tend to judge myself.

It’s all in what we choose to see without the perceptions.  It’s looking past the cover to see the book inside.  It’s discovering how much blood, sweat and tears a person has shed to create their version of the American dream.  The last time I looked, blood, sweat and tears weren’t pretty.  And sometimes, that dream consists of paneled walls and mismatched dishes because that’s just where we are right now.  Maybe it’s the dream of creating a simple place where people can come and relax and enjoy good food with friends and family.  And maybe it’s creating a computer repair service called Giga-Byte-Me, bringing their talents to help the people of their community keep working and learning.  Still not sure about the name however, so I suppose I’ll just have to keep working on shedding my judgemental ways.

 

 

We all want things to be better for our kids than they were for us.  One of the goals of parenting is to help kids acquire the tools to not only succeed but survive in a not so kind world.  I understand the pain of watching your kids not succeed at something, or letting them bear the circumstances of their choices, praying that this proves to be a learning moment for them.  Every parent wants to provide that utopian experience for their children but as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote “Thy fate is the common fate of all, into each life some rain must fall”.  My fear is that most parents are continually holding an “umbrella” for their children and not ever allowing the rain to fall.

“Some days must be dark and dreary” is how Longfellow ends the poem.  At some point, no matter how hard we try to protect those we love, everyone will experience difficulty, sadness and disappointment in their lives.  Life happens.  People lose their jobs, experience natural disasters, divorce, get sick, die.  The list goes on,  What defines us is how we handle those situations.  We talk about the generation before me as “the greatest generation”.  Why so great?  Because they dealt with some ridiculous hardships – the Great Depression and World Wars and yet they continued to work hard and do their best for their families and for their country.  I’m not saying here that these people didn’t suffer both physically and mentally, but they found a way to make life work.

You see, as much as we would like to protect our kids, life happens.  There are bullies and test failures and car accidents and parent divorces and abuses.  Life happens.  And yes, I’m all for getting help when it is needed, but in the moment, when it’s do or die, are our kids prepared to choose do over die?  Can they get up each morning to go to school or work determined to do their best, no matter the circumstances and make logical changes when necessary?

I am a baby boomer, the child of one of those of the Greatest Generation.  He had very little patience when I whined about things being hard or unfair and for good reason considering his past.  “Life is unfair” he would say, and he was right.  As much as we would like life to be fair and everyone get their fair share, we have to remember that we’re dealing with PEOPLE here.  And people are flawed.  And not everyone thinks or believes the same way as others.  So my idea of fair and yours may be completely different.  So, as BIST would ask us (Behavioral Intervention Support Team for all of you non-educators), “Can you do your job even is someone else isn’t doing theirs?” is really a great question.  Even if you have to deal with another flawed person, can you still go on and do what you need to do or be who you have to be?

Unfortunately what we’re teaching our kids is that everything we do is for YOU right now.  You deserve everything you want, don’t let anyone get in your way and there’s always an easier way to do things.  We have failed to teach them that work is hard, results/achievement takes time and sometimes hard work is the only way to achieve what we want to in life.  And even then there are no guarantees.  There are too many variables.  Kids are leaving high school expecting college to be more of the same – teachers reminding them day after day that they need to turn things in or finish assignments.  Then when they get to college and the professor says “sorry – the syllabus says it was due now and you didn’t so now you fail”, the kid implodes.  They feel like a failure or, worse than that, they blame the professor for not letting them turn things in late.  The truth is, as teachers and parents, we didn’t let them take their falls when they were younger and teach them how to deal with them and now they’re suffering because of it.

Now I’m hearing of young teachers who are leaving the profession in droves because we as teachers, professors, parents, supervisors did not prepare them for the real world of hard work, inevitable failure and no rewards every time they follow a direction right the first time.  One such young teacher I heard about couldn’t even get out of her car one day before school,  so anxious that she couldn’t walk into the building.  No one taught this person that you just need to get up in the morning, get yourself fed, showered and dressed and work hard to do your best all day and MAYBE, one day you’ll get that promotion or that raise or that recognition you feel you need.  Otherwise, welcome to life my friend.  You either make it yours and survive or you die.  What is that old saying – you either adapt, flee or perish, right?  Right now all we’re teaching our kids to do is flee or perish.

So now we have young people who feel unsafe because of words.  I will concede that words ARE powerful and I would never tell someone to “get over” being threatened by someone.  However, if words are the only things ever used against you, consider yourself lucky.  Words can be met with words, YOUR words, words that are just a powerful.  There is no reason to be threatened by someone’s words as long as your own ideals are solid and you can articulate them.  Feeling threatened by someone because they disagree with you is weak.  The ability to participate in civil debate, even if choosing to agree to disagree makes a person powerful.  Young people need to be taught how to convey their thoughts and ideas in a clear, concise and intelligent manner.  Coming back with hatred or even worse, cowering in fear is not going to make anyone’s life better.

So, like everyone else who is reading this, I too have had some hard times – abuse, depression, two premature babies, the death of my parents, etc.  Life.  And I learned to ask for help when I needed it.  But I’m grateful to my dad for teaching me to suck it up, because sometimes that’s the only way we survive to live another day.  And another day may be all we need to make our lives better.

 

Probably the last time I heard this particular recording on this exact album was close to 40 years ago.  It’s an album I grew up with, introduced to me by my dad.  The Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2.  My dad loved Russian romantic music, particularly Rachmaninoff and Rimsky Korsakov ,and his favorite thing to do was to listen to them as loudly as possible so that you not only heard the music but you could feel the music as well.  You needed the music to resonate inside you.  The concerto is especially memorable for me because it was a love both dad and I had in common.  It was playing over the house speaker of the funeral home for dad’s visitation.

My dad wasn’t an overly emotional kind of guy, at least on the outside.  He was your typical stoic German, wearing sunglasses if there was the slightest chance of eyes watering.  And music was just about the only thing that did that to him.  It didn’t matter if it was marching band, a symphony orchestra, a big band singer or a broadway belter, or my brother playing drums with a rock band – they all got to him emotionally.  He had great taste in music.

Dad was my first music teacher, having me listen to orchestral recordings at a young age, learning about the different instruments and teaching me to read note values and note names at the kitchen table.  He came from a family of serious musicians, but he was not a musician himself, although he did play trumpet for a while as a kid.  He also sang and made a little record with some of his buddies at one point.  But life got in the way and so music became more of an escape for him – something to listen to after work in the evenings to relax.  And he shared this love of listening with me.

So this Christmas, my sweet husband brought back some of the past with my dad by giving me a turntable, which are much fancier than they were when I was a kid.  I had picked up a bunch of dad’s vinyl after my mom passed away and they’ve been sitting in a closet for years collecting dust.  But not tonight.  Tonight through the magic of bluetooth I was able to hear the same album dad and I listened to together so long ago.  All the scratches still where I remember them, every nuance of the pianist and the orchestra the same.  This was an album I used to listen to to go to sleep at night, the third movement being my favorite.  I sat and closed my eyes and went back in time.

I don’t tend to remember a lot of my childhood for whatever reason, but one of the things that does stick with me is music and I’m grateful for it to help me remember my relationship with dad. Whenever I have a mountaintop musical experience now, I think about how much dad would have loved it, even just hearing about it.  He never got to see me become state president of our music education association or now representing the region at the national level, but I think he would have been proud.  I never had the chance to share with him my experiences with the Met and Julliard or seeing shows on Broadway. Even though he wasn’t a musician, he passed on the musician genes to both me and my brother and I think he would have been pleased that music is an important part of our lives.

So as much as I fuss about technology being a pain, tonight I am grateful.  Tonight I got the chance to spend time with my dad again for just a little while listening to Rachmaninoff.

 

We broke a record this morning.  Not the kind of record you want to get excited about and certainly one you don’t want to repeat.  Our low temperature hit -17 this morning.  It beat the old record by 2 degrees.  Woo hoo!  It’s always funny watching the weatherman get slightly giddy when talking about it.  And then he says, something about dangerous wind chills this weekend of 35-40 degrees below zero.  I thought he was going to have a little party.  Of course he warned us to keep animals in and gave everyone the whole safety spiel about frostbite and the like, but we usually see this kind of excitement only reserved for tornado season.

In this part of the country, it’s like a badge of honor to brave the ridiculous temperatures this time of year.  Here I’m bundled up in a couple of layers and a parka to go out today and I’m seeing these teenagers in sneakers with no socks and hoodies.  If we had been out long enough I’m sure we would have seen some ex high school football player braving the sub zero temps while wearing shorts and a hoodie.

People start talking about things like “I remember when…” and “shoot, this is nothing compared to…”.   There are always colder temperatures, more snow, more ice and this little  cold snap is nothing compared to all of that.  Those who choose to live in this part of the country live here because during some times of the year it is beautiful with clear blue skies and green fields with furnace winds blowing from the south.  Did I say furnace winds?  Anyway, nothing like living in a place where there can be a 120 degree differential from summer to winter.  Explains the roads buckling, that’s for sure.

Those who have always lived here really go with the flow and seem prepared for just about anything.  I on the other hand just pray that a streak of beautiful weather will continue or maybe we won’t have those awful wind chills with ice and/or snow.  What is it they say about insanity?  In my case it’s still living here and expecting different weather.  We had that discussion again today as we froze going from the car to the grocery store and back to the car.  Normally not very far, but today it felt like miles from the parking space.  We both hate this weather.  Then why do we stay?  Therein lies the complexity of the situation.

In our culture, it’s perfectly acceptable for children to grow up and move away (although it’s really nice for all of them to be in town) because you expect them to spread their wings and look for new adventures and opportunities.  Very seldom do you hear about parents moving away from their children and possibly grandchildren.  If anything, you want to move closer to everyone.  It certainly makes things complicated.  Move somewhere warm and preferably close to salt water or stay and be a part of our children’s lives?  On a secondary level, we have lived and worked here for a third of our lives now.  We have close friends and have built careers here.  It doesn’t mean we couldn’t start again somewhere else but unfortunately we also live in a culture that practices ageism.  Although perfectly capable of working for a while longer (if we wanted to),  getting someone to hire us might be a different thing.

So, where exactly am I going with this?  Good question.  I’m still asking myself that same question.  At what point do you just take the step to be where it is you want to be?  I have this fear, that one day when we’ve both retired and have the freedom to go where we want that something will happen to one or both of us and it will shatter the dream.  The dream of traveling, of living in another place, to have more adventures with each other.  It is a challenge for sure.  In the meantime, we’ll keep plugging along, turning up the heat, wearing layers, sitting under cozy throws and loving those heated seats in the car.  And keeping in mind that it’s only 82 days until spring.

 

 

 

You’ve seen the commercials.  The middle aged man with the pronounced Minnesota accent touting the advantages to buying his…I mean MY Pillow.  He holds the pillow to his chest like he’s carrying a precious child. From what I understand, this pillow has been his life work, the answer to his difficulty in finding a pillow for himself that would allow him to sleep without pain.  A path that was not straight and narrow, but a path that dropped him to the bottom before he found his way. And now, I have one, given to me for Christmas.

Reviews of this pillow are mixed.  My oldest son swears by it.  Not ABOUT it, by it. Says he’s sleeping better than ever.  On the other hand, we’ve had friends who have said it’s awful.  I haven’t used it yet, so I’ll have to save my review for later.

But let’s go back to this My Pillow inventor.  His life’s work.  He saw a need, albeit for himself, and has worked to fill the need.  This may not seem to be the most life altering work or product in the world, but could it be?  Are there people who have difficulty sleeping?  Yes.  Is sleep necessary?  Absolutely.  If this guy invented something that helps people is it important?  For those people it helps, you bet.  On the outside it may seem a little silly to focus all of your attention on a pillow.  But if this is his gift, his purpose, and he is fulfilling it, then it’s not silly at all.  And a side benefit was that he has provided jobs for 1500 people.  No, not silly at all.

Finding ones purpose is top of the list for many of us.  A while back there was a best-seller called The Purpose Driven Life.  Best seller because so many of us want to know what our purpose is.  We see ourselves in a job where we feel like we’re going nowhere, in a place we don’t feel like we belong, with people we don’t want to deal with.  We all want to feel or know we’re serving an important purpose in life, that we make a difference.  Who’s to say you aren’t?  You could absolutely be serving your purpose no matter where you are.  It doesn’t have to be something huge.  In our culture we all want to have our 15 minutes of fame doing something important that everyone notices but that’s not necessarily the truth.

The man behind the counter at my local donut shop who gave me free donuts on the last day of school with a “Merry Christmas” had no idea that he lifted my spirits before what would probably be a crazy day.  And I’ve seen him do that for others as well.  Is his life’s purpose to be a fast food manager?  Or is his purpose to be a bright spot in someone else’s day?  Sure, his job is to wait on customers, provide good service and monitor employees, but it doesn’t have to be his purpose.  His job can merely be the vehicle for his purpose.

I think when you can align your job and your purpose is when you find your passion.  And that’s where you can do some really powerful things.  Like My Pillow perhaps.  I wish I had the formula as to how to match up purpose with the right job, but if I did, I would be a millionaire.  I do have a theory that most people can feel when they’re not in alignment but most of us are afraid to take the steps to do it.  I’m sure people laughed at this guy when he said he wanted to invent a new pillow.  According to the story, when he told his daughter, her response was that it was “so random”.  $280,000,000 later, I’m betting it doesn’t seem so random anymore.

Now, I’m not saying that monetary gain is the only thing that comes from the perfect  combination of job and purpose.  That would be pretty shallow.  I’m pretty sure most of us would be grateful to wake up every morning, excited to go to our jobs, knowing that we’ve made that alignment we all dream of.  It may not be the perfect pillow, but if we follow our hearts to those things that bring us joy I believe we will find our purpose.  Oh, and I’ll let you know the verdict on the pillow in the days to come.

 

 

At this moment in time there are five remotes on my coffee table.  One for the DVD player (yes, we still have one of those), one for the cable box, one for the new sound bar, one for the roku (which we probably won’t need because the smart TV is smarter than the roku I think) and the TV remote.  There are 26 separate buttons on the TV remote alone, not including the numbers.  I’m sure all of the little symbols on the buttons are supposed to be user friendly, however, I struggle as a user usually.

My husband responded to his gift like a little kid on Christmas, which was good because it was Christmas.  And not just because he had just received a new TV that would fit beautifully with the sound bar and sub woofer he had bought for me (yeah, sure), but he had all these new remotes.  All of these cool new connections.  Bluetooth palooza!

It’s been an entire day and the men of the house have been playing with the TV all day.  We had to watch the beginning of The Force Awakens just to hear the opening music through the sound bar.  We watched part of an NBA game just to see the colors and checked out the Netflix which is part of the TV somehow.  I haven’t had to figure out anything in terms of the remotes yet but I’m afraid to be alone with them because I may never be able to watch TV by myself ever again.

I mentioned the sound bar and sub woofer as a gift for me.  You see, my sweet husband and son bought a new turntable for me to play some old vinyl I got when my mom passed away that used to belong to my dad.  Music I used to listen to when I was a kid/teenager and has great meaning for me.  It seems however, that my husband saw the need to get me the best speakers he could so that I could listen to my records anywhere in the house or something like that.  Hence, the sound bar.  Never mind that he had been looking at these things for a while, saying how much he would LOVE to have one to watch movies with.  And now he had a reason to buy one.  Pretty convenient, don’t you think? : )

In the meantime, we’ve brought new technology into the house.  Back in the day, I would turn on the record player, guide the needle onto the groove of choice and the sound came out of the speakers.  Everything was hardwired, no Bluetooth.  Easy Peezy.  So this should be interesting when we pick up the turntable tomorrow.  Will it also be smarter than me like the TV?

I certainly don’t want to be one of “those” older people who struggle completely with technology.  After all, I use my computer at school with my short throw projector, occasionally use my iPad and I get the difference between HDMI and Apple TV.  But changes in technology happen so quickly it feels like I just can’t keep up.  And while all of this technology is supposed to make things faster and easier for us, for me it just slows things down because it only improves your way of life if you’re good at it.  So for me it can be a source of great stress.  It makes me grateful for friends and family who don’t make fun of me (too much, anyway) and help when I can’t make things work.

And now, I will depend on the techy people in my family to help me learn how to deal with this new smart TV.  Because even thought it’s hard, I have enough pride to know I never want technology to be smarter than me.

Christmas Eve.  We’ve finished wrapping the presents and the three of us are sitting on the couch watching A Christmas Story and drinking hot chocolate.  With marshmallows of course.  The commercials are still all about those heartwarming  Christmas stories, but not for much longer.  Children everywhere are either in or getting ready for bed so Santa can put things under the tree tonight.  Our day tomorrow will be a quiet one, again just the three of us and we’ll all get together the day after Christmas with everyone else.  Doug will be baking and we’ll have a nice dinner together and open a few presents in the morning.  All the traditions of Christmas, right?

So many of us forget the real reason for the season, the birth of our Savior, Jesus.  As a kid, Jesus was not a part of our Christmas.  My parents decided that when I was old enough, I could decide for myself what “religion” I wanted to be, if any.  On very rare occasions when we would visit my great aunt, we would go to the Catholic church and I would have to wear a lace doily on my head.  I always thought that was pretty, but didn’t understand why of course.  When I hit Jr. High School, I had this one friend who, when she found out I didn’t attend church, invited me all the time.  I remember telling her I was going to become a Mormon (because of Donny Osmond of course – I’m not kidding) and she responded with “well as long as you go somewhere”.

I should say here that in the 6th grade, I went away to a summer camp.  While this doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with the story, it is actually an integral part.  This was not really my usual thing – archery, row boating, fishing, etc.  However, I met another girl who, like me, was homesick and a bit awkward like me.  Her name was Laurie and we become friends.  Years later she stepped into my life again when she invited me to come to her church because they were going to have a musical and she knew I loved to sing.  So I accepted her invitation and not only sang with the group but sang a solo.  The solo was as Mary singing to Joseph, explaining to him how God had come to her and told her about the birth of Jesus.

For me, these were just lyrics, just characters to be sung.  But as we learned about the music, we also had a couple of college students spending time with us and explaining what these lyrics were about, helping us answer questions from scripture.  The evening of the first performance, I sat in my room and it suddenly hit me.  I was not worthy to be singing this part.  Mary was the mother of God and I was this completely unworthy person.  How in the world could I face an audience and sing these words?  I got on my knees by the side of my bed and prayed.  This was not something I was really used to doing.  I remember asking God to grant me the ability to fly when I was about 8 or so – not quite the same thing.  I had prayed for people before, by way of watching Davy and Goliath on TV but I had never prayed like this.

You can choose to believe me or not, but what happened next is something I will never forget.  I had a warm feeling that started at my feet and went to my head.  There was this buoyancy, this knowledge that Jesus was now my Savior.  I almost ran to the end of the street where the church was and where our group leader was standing outside.  She said she see the glow on my face coming down the street and knew exactly what had happened.

It has been slightly over 40 years since that night and while I have not always been the shining example of what He would want me to be, I know the reason for the season.  He has been with me through good times and bad, helped me grow in character, been the glue that solidified my marriage.  My faith grows as I get older and I am more sure of His presence in my life every day.  I’m not always as vocal about my faith as perhaps others might think I should be, but He knows my heart and my personality and He loves me despite my faults.  And to think, he used the passion He gave me for singing to speak to me.  So music isn’t just something I do for a living, it was the pathway to my salvation.

Merry Christmas and God’s blessings for a Happy New Year.