Thanks and Giving Days 2 and 3: Weekends Are For...

Soul Perspective.

Saturday I woke up three groggy, grumpy kids at 6 am to take them out into the cold for a little giving. Safe Haven is a wonderful program helping homeless families in the Nashville area.  A few weeks ago, I signed us up to volunteer for their annual Hike for the Homeless event.  I thought it would be a good way to get the sprites out into the volunteer community of our new town.  It took a solid hour (or two) for the grumpy to wear off.  We were assigned to the children's area, which meant we were moving between the craft table, the climbing wall, and the football toss.  As more people began to arrive, the sprites began to shake off the bad attitudes and have a little fun with it.  It helped that an awesome funk/reggae band started jamming on stage before the hike began.   The hike went smoothly, everyone had fun, and money was raised to help the program continue running through the cold winter months approaching.

After the event, we decided to explore the park where the hike took place.  The area was new to us.  It was a beautiful place to hike in, with tall tree lined hills that were splashed with autumn colors.  We will definitely go back for a family hike soon.  Some fresh, quiet air is almost as good for the soul as thankfulness.  I think I'll add that to the prescription for our perspective overhaul.

We ended the day with family and friends for what I'm calling "Halloween, Take Two".  Halloween night was rained out with harsh storms that kept us all inside in PJ's rather than costumes.  That night we had cuddled up on the couch and watched The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and The Nightmare Before Christmas.  It was a nice night but the kids were definitely hoping to go trick or treating.  Luckily the rain held off long enough on Saturday to allow for a redo.  We decided to join family and a few new friends to explore a new (to us) neighborhood.  After some frights and some looting, we enjoyed a great dinner with some great people before coming home to crash into full sugar comas.

Sunday, we spent time together, just the four of us, cleaning house, making soup, and adding leaves to our Thanksgiving tree.  I'm thankful a lovely weekend filled with good people, good food, and good soul perspective.

Thanks and Giving

"Thanks therapy is God's prescription for joy"

-Ann Voskamp, A Holy Experience

We need some thanks therapy around here.  We've been sulking and pouting for a few months now. These months have left me soul weary.  A weariness I can feel beyond my bones.  We're spiraling into the dark hole of Oscar's trashcan.  Folks, we're grumpy.  (Albeit more real life than puppet, although there are days...)

We need some crisp autumn truth in our spirits.  We need the shedding of the leaves and the color rush of fresh vision. We need something to change. I'm tired of the grouchiness and the weariness and the pouting and the sulking and the general unease that comes with all of that.  I'm just so tired.

I'm trying to be patient with the changing.  I know that major life movement take time to adjust to.  I'm still giving it my year.  I know that it's all still too strange and unfamiliar.  I know that we have yet to find our community.  And I know that we are all still fresh with the missing.  But I fear that in the missing we are neglecting our life here, now.

The crazy truth, the thing I'm not supposed to say out loud:  I'm making up this parenting thing as I go. The thing that comforts me:  you are too.  There's no instruction manual.  There are these crazy things called intuition, logic, and love.  I try to strike a healthy balance of all of the above and hope I land somewhere near north.  I don't know how to help three kids get over a loss.  I don't know how to help them make their home here.  I don't know where their angry/sad button is or how to turn it off.  

But I do know this.  Perspective can change any situation.  I think what we need is a little November rain.  A spirit rain.  We need to find joy in the missing.  Joy in the pain of this moment.  What we need is thanksgiving.  Real thanksgiving.

So today we begin a month of thanks and giving.  We don't have a lot to give, but what we have is His for the offering.  We aren't feeling very thankful, but we will list thanks until we feel it.

All we have is today.  Let's find joy in this wild, sweet mess.  

A Little Halloween Fun

Halloween at the zoo?  Yes, please!  We went to Ghouls at Grassmere this past Sunday night.  This event at the Nashville Zoo was a witch's brew full of spooky trick or treating with a pinch of animal sightings, a full stir on a haunted carousel, and a cup of Monster Mash dancing.  In other words, we had a Casper approved good time.  

Pumpkins

What would October be without pumpkins?  With Halloween drawing near, it seemed the pumpkins were calling to us today.  The Great Pumpkin needed to be found.  So we bundled up for the crisp fall air and made our way the closest crop of pumpkins to be found.  We searched through piles of perfect and, not so perfect, pumpkins until we found the best ones.  The best ones for carving.  The best ones for the table top.  The ones with the best stems.  We like gnarly stems.  We found our pumpkins and carried them home where hot apple cider was waiting to complete this lovely autumn day.

Update coming

I know, I know.  I'm very behind on blog posts.  I know this because some of you have kindly let me know this fact.  And I love that you have.  Thanks for sticking with me through this dry spell.    You see, this whole moving thing has been about 100 times harder than I thought it was going to be.  Moving three kids and a cat to a place where they don't want to be is challenging.  Unpacking with the fear that you might have just made a big mistake makes the whole endeavor even more challenging.  Throw in the fact that I miss my friends and my town and my church and my job like crazy, and well, you have a depressed writer.  Which should have led to some amazing writing.  And, in fact, it did.  Just not in this space.  I've been doing some personal writing.  Some "I really hope to turn some of this into a book someday" writing.  It's not that I haven't thought of this space.  It's on my mind constantly.  I just haven't known what to say here or had the energy to say what I really want to say.  But with the fall of the first red leaf on the first cool day, I'm snapped back to the realization that I've missed this space too much to leave it silent any longer.  I need this space.  The space to clear my head and to share with the world (or no one at all) the small parts of my personal world.

So, I'm back.  Stay tuned.  Updates are coming.  I have an entire summer to fill you in on.  Until then, I leave you with this.  It is the first day of autumn after all.

The Beautiful Changes

BY RICHARD WILBUR

One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides   

The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies

On water; it glides

So from the walker, it turns

Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you   

Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed   

By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;   

As a mantis, arranged

On a green leaf, grows

Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves   

Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says   

They are not only yours; the beautiful changes   

In such kind ways,   

Wishing ever to sunder

Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose   

For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

Three Gifts Acorn Small

Acorns fall in bunches, so instead of three I give you thirty.  Thirty acorn small baby toes on three beautiful baby girls who happen to be my lovely little nieces.

Happy Halloween!

Our Annual Pumpkin Patch Trip

Our annual pumpkin patch trip was filled with extra family members this year which made it even better!  My mom, sisters, and nieces were in town for the weekend to see the middle sprite in her play.  Since we're rarely together at this time of year we decided that it would be fun to celebrate autumn together.  We're quite the circus when we get together with six kids running around.  But that just makes the adventure six times the fun!

I'm thankful for a family that is willing to travel a great distance to show their support.  We haven't lived near each other for years and yet we're incredibly close.  I can't tell you some magic formula that makes that true.  I can tell you that we make an effort to stay in each others lives.  Maybe that's all it is.  I don't know.  All I do know is that I hope that when they're older my children are as close to each other as I am to my sisters.  I would not have been able to survive the last few years without them.  They are my best friends.  And I love them (and my mama) (and our adorable six pack) very much.