Sunday Breakfast

We have chosen not to go to organized church anymore so we go to breakfast with a group of friends and work on building our relationships, this includes our relationship with God, because He is invited to be in the center of all that we do. Our favorite place to go is a little restaurant downtown called "lilly's". The have a breakfast special every Sunday and they have some great Mexican dishes for breakfast as well. We are usually there for a couple of hours and we either go through a few pots of coffee or a few pitchers of tea, depending on the weather. We love the atmosphere there and we can sit outside in the spring and summer months. We went to Lilly's this morning and I had one of the Mexican dishes called, "Chichilles"(I know that isn't spelled right) needless to say it taste better than my spelling. We took our granddaughter Zoey with us and of course she was entertaining us all, my mom joined us too and that was nice. Going to Sunday Breakfast with our friends is a great way to start the day and one of the best things about this is that we are all ourselves, we are sharing our lives, who we really are, the good, the bad and all the inbetween. It made it much easier to come home and finish the mountain of homework that I have. Believe it or not I only have to finish this blog and to study for a test and I am done for the day. Well I guess this is really all I have to say on this subject so until later.

Weekends

Weekends don't really exist for me right now, relaxing ones anyway. With all the homework that I have, plus cleaning house, doing laundry and trying to spend time with my husband and my children I can't seem to find to much time just to relax. It is now almost 3pm on Saturday and this is the first time that I have sat down since I got up this morning at 7:30. House is cleaned, laundry is going, grocery shopping is done and here I sit writing this blog which is part of my homework this weekend. I still have math to do and study for a pretty big test on Monday and oh yes I don't want to forget that I have Human Communication yet to do. I feel a little spent, but I only have a few more weeks and then I am taking the summer off, although I am going to look for a job in a restaurant, but hopefully only part time, I still want to have some time to just have fun before I start the fall semester. I don't begrudge all that is on my plate right now because it has purpose in my life and it is something that a few years ago I didn't think I would ever get to do. There is still alot ahead of us, but I think that we will be a little more prepared. At least I know in a couple of weeks I won't be doing much because my husband and I are going away to celebrate our anniversary and the house and homework will have to wait, because we are important too. Well that is all I have for today, I am off to do math before I begin preparing dinner.

The Hardest Decision I Ever Made

In August of 1982 I placed my birthson in the arms of another family, trusting that they would raise him with love and good morals. As I placed my son into his new mothers arms I looked at both the mother and father and I said, love him. I then walked away and got into the car with my mom and cried, wondering if I would ever see him again. Over the years I thought of him often, wondering what his life was like, if he was happy, if he had everything that he needed, did he feel loved, how it was affecting him knowing that I had placed him up for adoption. If I had it over to do again would I, knowing what I know now, no I wouldn't I would raise him myself. It was good for him but it has been really hard on me. I wish I could of shared the love I have for him with him. I know that it was the right decision at the time, but you don't realize how it is going to affect you for the rest of your life.

I have been blessed to have made contact with my birthson whose name is Russ and we have communicated through email, FB and Myspace, but that is only two dimensional and I desire a three dimensional relationship, but he isn't ready and I accept that. He is pro adoption now because he realizes that I chose life for him. He has had a good life with bumps in the road like the rest of us, when I saw a picture of him for the first time I couldn't believe how much he looks like me.

Even though I didn't raise him, I miss him and I think only a mother who has placed a child up for adoption can understand exactly what I mean. I am so thankful to know that he is happy and healthy and is having a good life. Do I agree with everything in his life, no, but he is an adult and has the right to choose and I do need to respect that.

I believe that adoption is hard, but it is the best thing that you can do for a life growing inside of you instead of ending that life. I am glad that I gave Russ the chance to live and love life.

I don't think I will ever make a decision that is any harder than chooing to allow someone else to raise my child.

Pottery

One of my favorite things to use as accent pieces in my home is pottery. Pottery of all types and colors. We took our living room to a very nuetral pallette so that we could add color through the accent pieces. I have used green, blue, gold, several shades of brown and terra cotta. There is a plant shelf in my livingroom and instead of putting plants or pictures my is full of pottery. My favorite coffee mug is a piece of pottery that friends of mine gave me for my 50th birthday. Whenever we sell this house and move in a couple of years I am not sure what I will do with all of my pottery pieces, but I am sure that I will come up with something. Whenever we travel we look for new pieces to add to our collections. I love pieces made by American Indians with all of their traditional artwork and colors incorporated. I don't own the pieces that are on this blog, but I sure would like to, they would work in the grand scheme of things. My daughter would love to learn to make pottery, she is always on the lookout for a potters wheel and a kiln, hopefully one day I will be displaying the pieces that she has made. As I am sitting here blogging about my love for pottery I really have no idea where that love has come from, maybe my heritage or maybe one day a piece just caught my eye and well as they say the rest is history. I am sure when we open our Deli we will proudly display a few pieces.

Purses

I love purses and if I could I would buy a new purse every week. My favorite is a Coach, but even with that I only like certain Coach purses, then I like Kate Spade, Louis Vuitton, Prada and of course Dooney & Burke and then there are those that I don't even know the name of the designer, but I love the style of the purse. I would prefer to have a purse to match each outfit that I wear. I own more black purses than any other color, because black will go with anything. Last summer I bought a bright yellow purse and I carried it until i wore it out and had to throwit away. I have a few purses (backpack styl) that I bought when I lived in New York and I carry them when I go to visit and am going to be walking around the city, it makes things much easier. When I go to the city I try to buy at least 2 purses and more if possible, I carry them for a while and then give them away. My purses are all shapes and sizes, I carry a small purse if we go out somewhere at night. My least favorite color for a purse is red and I don't own a single red purse. My next purse will be a Kathy Van Zeeland, I haven't decided what color it is going to be, but I know that it will be faily large to accomodate all the things that I like to carry. I like to have wallets to match, but I don't always do that because I get tired of changing the contents from one wallet to another, but it is time for a new one, one that will hold pictures and my checkbook as well. I like to buy purses as gifts if I really know the style of someone. I do have a limit on how much I will spend on one, but that is for me to know and not share. One of the nice things about purses is that you can keep all of your necessities in them and then add snacks for your kids or grandkids. I think that this is enough about purses for one day, what do you think.

Drown Your Sorrows

I use to live my life trying to drown my sorrows, either through alcohol or drugs, trying to run from my problems, only to discover that I was creating more problems. I faced some really hard challenges in my life that created a lot of pain. I didn't trust anyone, because one of the people in my life that should have kept me safe, someone that I should have been able to trust, turned my world upside down and so I didn't want to feel the pain, so over time I ended up doing drugs and drinking. So instead of drowning my sorrows, the sorrows started piling up on one another. I created so many other problems and my family suffered from the choices that I was making trying to run from the problems that others had created for me. I am so glad to not feel like I have to drown my sorrows any longer. There are so many people out there who are trying to drown their sorrows one drink at a time, which turns into one bottle at a time or one pill at a time, not realizing they are destroying their lives, their health and those that are around them.

It has been 25 years since I have lived my life this way. I have experienced so much healing in my life now, that I face my problems head on.

A Belief That I Have Discarded

For years I was under the delusion that in order to serve God that you had to go to an organized church, that to truly serve God you had to be in church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night and just about any other time the church doors were open. With this mind set I just about wore myself completly out. Not only was I in church all the time, but because I was on staff I had to be at staff meeting and any other meeting that came up and then one day I read a book by George Barna and another man called "Pagan Christianity" and then I read "The Shack" by Wm P Young and then another book followed called, "So YOu Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore" by Wayne Jacobsen and all of the sudden a light bulb went off so to speak and I relized that I was caught up in religion instead of relationship, that I was so busy about doing work for God, that God was getting left behind, so my husband and I talked and made the decision to leave the world of organized church and to begin pursuing a real intimate relationship with God. Now you may be asking how is that working for you and my answer is, it is working amazingly well. I have more freedom than I had ever experienced in church, I have a deeper more meaningful relationship with God and as a direct result of that I have deeper relationships with my family and my friends. I understand more what it means to be blessed, I understand more the price that Christ paid for me. I have experienced more opportunities to share my relationship with God than I ever did in organized church. I am being the church like Christ intended instead of going to a church built by the hands of man. I know that organized church has it's place, it had it's place in my life at one point, but it is not where I belong at this junction in my life. I belong right where I am at. It is amzing the turns my relationships with people have taken, it was painful at first when people walked out of my life when they couldn't get anything from me any longer, they couldn't ride on my coat tails, it was time for them to stand on their own two feet and not on mine. I love my life and I love God.