The Blessing

My firstborn grandchild "graduated" from 8th grade tonight into high school.  It was more of a recognition which I liked.  Why not leave the cap and gown to the high school graduation and keep it special.  And we were there to cheer him on, give him hugs, smile and share the joy with the family...patchwork as it is.   This was followed with dinner and a blessing from the grandparents and parents. 


So many things come to mind at this milestone.  
1)  Emma was able to share the moment.  Blessing.
2)  PAC gave up the 8th grade dance to spend time with family.  Blessing
3)  Parents broke bread together and blessed him with words and with presence.  Blessing.
4)  Grandparents new and old fellowshipped and spoke words of blessing over him.  
5)  A great grandmother who has shared so many moments in his life was there to speak blessing over him.
6)  Tears of joy were shed over him and rejoicing and acknowledgement of the wonderful young man he is now and the potential for the future.
7)  I am now old enough to see the passing of time in me, my mother, my daughter and my grandson.
8)  The missing of a daughter and son and their families who influenced PAC so much.
9)  The witness of God's work in the hearts of so many tonight
10) We need more opportunities to bless our children.

Reflections

It's Sunday and a holiday week stretches before me with a laundry list of things to do and accomplish before the week really starts.  Around are the remnants of unfinished projects and undone tasks.  Where to start?  I feel like the child at the bedroom door looking at the jumble that is my room wondering where to start in the clean up process.  Such is my life at the moment.  Where to start?  How to prioritize?  Which list to make?  


Perhaps it is in the chaos I need most to take a moment to breathe.  Take a moment to breathe a prayer.  Take a moment to breathe in and out.  It is in the breathing that I can begin to see what to do.  It is in the quiet slow movement of time that I can get my bearings.  If only the chaos did not have to begin again in my mind of all the things to do and to accomplish.  One step forward.  Holding God's hand.  Looking to Him for priorities. I will get it done.

Surprise!

As the pond rebuild progressed, digging to deepen the pond began.  The optimum depth was to be thirty inches.  Looking at the pond, I am not sure where the thirty inch measurement is taken.  I am not sure why that number, but it seems the experts in charge deemed that the perfect number.  But then again, life is seldom if ever, perfect.


During the deconstruction, it was discovered the bad pond builder found a sewer clean out just below the ground.  He just covered it up in a way that lessened the effectiveness of the design.  The new pond builder had a goal of thirty inch depth.  Not sure why that exact number, but the dig out began to deepen the pond.  Continuing to dig, the sewer pipe which branched off at ninety degrees was uncovered...at a depth of twenty six inches below the skimmer intake (aha, the point of measurement becomes clear.)  What to do.  Is it a sewer line?  Why was the clean out below ground level?  Is it connected to the fire hydrant in the front yard?  Calls to the city produced no answers.  Calls to the company boss produced no answers.  Standing and staring at the pipe produced no answers.  Problems with no answers.  Not a good place to be in the process of the rebuild.


A call to the plumber.  No time until the next day to come check it out.  The mystery stared at us.  In the meantime, I chose to begin pulling up the Asian Jasmine that had become unsightly and completely overgrown in the little garden area outside of the pond.  What looked green and lush with trails of dead leaves marking where the dog had beaten down the plants, was actually harboring the moles digging up my yard.  They no longer had to work at moving dirt.  Behind the cover of foliage, they easily walked above ground to get from deck to deck.  


Life lessons from pond building:  1) Expect the unexpected.  In life, no matter the plans, things are not under my control or my calendar.  The unexpected popped up.  No immediate solution was available.  It did not matter what I wanted or what the expert wanted.  The person with the solution had a different calendar. 


2) While it may seem easier to just cover up things instead of dealing with issues, it seldom is effective.  Covering up usually causes more problems.  Just as I had no idea about the clean out, the cover up caused the pump to burn out and yucky green algae to grow.  Not a permanent solution to the problem.  But doing it right will always produce good results in the end.  Even when it takes more time and effort.  A life lesson that is hard to remember when covering up is so tempting.


3) When there is a problem, go to the expert.  In life, go to God first. The nice thing about God is that He is always available to talk with about life.  Ask for wisdom in who has the ability to actually help and not give lip service or worse - bad advice.  It may take time, but the effort is worth the result.


4) What is pretty on the outside may have varmints lurking just under the surface.  The green garden area looked good but had telltale signs of disturbance.  And once uncovered and discarded, the real beauty of the area could be shown.  What in my life looks good for the moment but has something eating away at that surface beauty?  Where do I need to prune in order to allow God to shine through?

Happy birthday to my sister

Today is my sister's birthday.  She would have been 53.  But time has stood still and she is forever 9.  Some years this day goes by without a glance until a day or two later.  For some reason it was often on my mind this year. Not a significant birthday (ending in a 0 or 5).  My thoughts have been more along the lines of how life can change in a moment...or even less...and the world is not the same.  Lives are changed.  Futures are changed.  And yet not.  Circumstances of life do change us.  Change our course; change our attitudes.  But it does not have to be so.  God redeems.  We are so much more in tune to the needs and challenges of early death on a family.  Would it have made a difference in the outcome of the lives of my brothers?  Questions that can never be answered.  So we continue to travel the road before us.  Praying for my brothers to allow God to work at redeeming their lost years shrouded in pain and self recrimination.  

Pond rebuild begins

Last week our pond was taken apart and rebuilt.  A simple three day project.  Of course, remodel of any sort is messy.  Always something unexpected.  Sort of like life.  You never know what is just below the surface - out of sight.  Such things interfere with plans; call for decisions to be made.  Some decisions are spur of the moment; others take time and contemplation.  We had both.


The reconstruction plan was for a deeper pond with the skimmer (filter) location to be moved to allow better water flow.  Draining the pond and temporarily housing three very small goldfish in two 250 gallon tanks (can we say overkill?) went smoothly enough.  Even the very, very large and very, very green frog managed to safely find other lodging, all by himself.


The old pond had not been functioning for a couple of weeks and algae and moss were everywhere.  As I looked over the mess, I thought about how quickly something so natural could take over an area.  How often do I think some little something in my life is no big deal only to turn around and the life is being sucked out of me by the stranglehold I now have in my life.  Removing the rocks, green with slime and mold revealed a staining that could not be washed away.  Unusable.  


My mind wandered back to mucking out houses in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  Everything was tainted with mold.  Black mold.  Aggressive and dangerous mold.  Everything had to be discarded.  Everything became unusable.  Beyond salvation.  Life lessons.  The world taints lives; makes them unusable and unsalvageable.  God's touch alone brings life, but not just life.  New life.  Better life.  Regeneration.  Thank you, God, for a love that sees the value beyond the muck.

Nothing simple is ever easy

Work today to cut up and haul off the cover for the sand volleyball court.  Found 5 little mice hiding.  Three down and traps set for the others.  Hoping there are only two.  Saw the tail of the critter under the deck near the house and verified a rat.  Trap now set.


Heard moth balls would cause animals to leave under the decks.  Bought some, hammered to break into pieces and dropped pieces down between the boards on the deck.  Now the entire backyard smells like someone's great grandmother.  Not exactly the peaceful setting I envisioned.


Pond remodel started and sewer clean out found in the middle of the pond.  One more piece of evidence of how bad the other pond guy was...and deceptive.  Now we are delayed waiting for the plumber to come and figure out what we have.  Remodeling at its best!  Even in the outside.


Don set out traps so either the moth balls will get to the creatures of the traps will work.  Not sure what to do about the rabbits.  And the moles are escaping Gary's traps.  Great.  Not only do we have wildlife, we have genius ones who can escape being trapped!  Just wonderful.


Wonder what tomorrow holds for us.

Millican Menagerie

Decision time:  nature preserve or Caddyshack?  Do I let the varmints win or fight.  We have at least 5 rabbits in the backyard.  We have squirrels everywhere trying to remember where they buried the acorns...kinda like me trying to remember where my phone is or my cup of coffee.  We have blue jays, cardinals and mourning doves.  And the biggest mice ever.  Thought I saw one the other day along with the bunnies.  Today my mother watched one eating...in the flowerbed.  


So, traps, D-con, sprays...someone offered Don a repeating pellet gun.  Since I don't want to go through the red tape it would take to open my backyard as a nature preserve, I guess it is war.  Oh, my hero, Gary M., has come to take care of the moles in the front yard.  Since when did MY house become the gathering place for nature's creatures?  Where is the sign on Garnett pointing to my yard?  No one asked my permission.


This week is THE week to declare an end.  The Mother-Daughter tea for the high school juniors and seniors is Saturday.  The grandchildren come on Friday.  This will be a varmint free zone by Thursday.  Or .....

Special Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day.  It is also my firstborn's birthday.  And it was this firstborn's firstborn that made me a grandmother.  Ironic it's all tumbled together into   TODAY.  The firstborn child is at an advantage/disadvantage in birth order.  While you get to do things first, you are also the first recipient of trying out parenting methods.  Parents are more uptight with the firstborn...or we just get more tired and outnumbered with subsequent children.  But firstborns are, well...first.  It is through the eyes of the firstborn you discover the parenting side of the wonder of the world, the heartache of young love, the difficulty that you cannot smooth the path before your child (nor should you).  Most importantly, you discover to the smallest degree, the love God has for you.  You develop a deeper understanding of grace and mercy and what agape love is.  


So, today I celebrate becoming a mom AND the special day of my daughter who made me a mom.  And I celebrate the mom my firstborn is to her children.  

Watching them grow up

Yesterday one of the interns who spent most of his college career at our house became a dad.  He courted his wife for several years post graduation and the day of their wedding was beautiful...and now he is a father.  He has remodeled a house preparing for this time and they are ready.  At least they think so!  The joy on his face radiated from his Facebook picture.  Seems like only yesterday he was a struggling college student trying to figure out life.  


Congratulations Todd and Jamie.  Life just got sweeter.

I did it all by myself!

Writing my thoughts is not the issue when setting up a blog.  THAT's the easy part.  I have spent several hours trying to set up feeds to read the blogs of my family.  I would have them listed only to have them disappear when I would re-open the Google reader or Blogger reader.  My usual fall back is to call my very patient and wise son-in-law to ask him what I am doing wrong.  Since he is at work and I don't want to take his attention away from what he is doing, I called his wife (my daughter) but had to leave a voice message.  Stymied but not down for the count, I finally figured it out....on my own...by myself.  I feel the pride of accomplishment a two-year-old feels when success at a given task is achieved.

Oh, and in the meantime, I went back and forth to my own blog page so it looks like there are many people interested in what I have to say.  Hmmm.  I may have to do that more often.

Funny thing to find this blog after all this time.  I set it up in 2006 and immediately forgot how to access it.  So it has been sitting here, waiting patiently for me to find it and begin the journey of blogging.  It was never a high priority for me...journaling is hard when you go full tilt during the day and drop asleep exhausted.  Now I wish I had worked harder to find this blog because I could have a great reminder of the ups and downs of the past six years.  


In many ways this blog is like my spiritual walk.  How many wonderful adventures were not mine only because I didn't look hard enough to find them.  But a life of regret is not a life well lived so I will simply be happy for the road I will now travel.  A great adventure to record, remember and rejoice in the life that is mine.