Let Your Husband be the Hero

Today as I was taking down Christmas decorations, my thirteen-year-old daughter picked up a small, faded snow globe.  "I remember this.  Daddy gave it to me."  Her eyes shined with love as she admired the old globe.

I remember that day too.  Anna had to get a shot at the doctor so I bribed her with a dollar to be brave.  She was only seven-years-old at the time.  After enduring the shots, we drove to the Dollar Store near our home.  She looked through the entire store until her eyes fell upon a small snow glove with two red cardinals in a nest.  When she tipped the globe upside-down, snow would fall around the pretty birds.  A dollar later, we were on our way home with her new treasure (so worth the shot now!).

Upon climbing out of the car, Anna lost hold of her brown bag containing her globe and it came falling to the ground with a crash.  We could not see the damage since it was concealed in the brown bag, but I looked at her and she looked at me knowing the fate of her precious new toy.

With tears in her eyes, we took the broken treasure inside.

I had a choice to make.  Get back in the car, drive back to the Dollar Store and buy her a new one (there were multiple to choose from)...or call Daddy.  I thought for just a moment and decided what a treat it would be for my husband to come home with a replacement snow globe.

One thing I remember telling my young children multiple times was how thankful we should be to have a Daddy who loves us so much he goes to work every morning, and works every day to provide us with a home, food and things we need.  A mother's job is to boost her husbands self-image, right?

When Bret walked in the door after a long day work, he was carrying a small brown bag.  He hunched down to Anna's small stature and let her open the bag.  Inside, as you may guess, was a small snow globe with two cardinals sitting in a nest covered in snow.  Anna was ecstatic to see her beautiful birds again.  She gave her Daddy a huge hug.

I could have been the hero of this story.  Instead I chose to set my husband up to foster the love between a daughter and father.  Now, six years later, she stills looks at that globe and remembers the love of her father.

Am I a little bummed she doesn't know my side of the story and all my work orchestrating it all?  Maybe a little.  But what I love more is that my daughter adores her father.

Are you setting your spouse up to be the hero?  Try it and watch what happens!

Check Oxygen Level

I am on my second day off from both my jobs and I am feeling a little lost. I debated about taking some work home to do while on vacation, then decided against it since doing work would be the antithesis of a vacation.

So here I am on my second day wondering what to do with myself.  The first day my head was spinning with too many ideas of what I could do.  Take down Christmas decorations...naw, too gloomy.  Work on my Creative Memories...nope, I'd have to organize and order pictures and that would take too long.  Clean my house, read a book, clean my bathroom, re-organize my cabinets, paint my kids' bathroom, plant some flowers, clean out my garden, watch a movie, and the list goes on.

What I have realized in the last two days is that I don't know what I would personally want to do.  In all my busyness of my family and two jobs, I have seemed to have lost me in the mix.  I tend to focus on what others would want me to do.  What do my children, husband, family, friends need from me?  What tasks need to get done to keep life moving and everyone happy?

Being someone who enjoys to serve others and actually finds life and energy in doing so, it is opposite my personality to think of myself.  Life is all about balance and I know serving others too much (whether that be family, friends, work or other areas of service) can only be maintained if at some point I stop and focus on my needs too.  I know Jesus Himself had to slip away and find moments of refreshing and connecting to the Father.

I had a friend recently tell me to use the "airplane rule."  Put oxygen on yourself first, before helping other passengers. 

So my garden and movie won out.  My to-do list still stands.  My house is still a mess.  But I am enjoying extra moments to breathe in a little deeper, spend some time in prayer and experience the peaceful and quiet side of life.

I must be crazy...

I tend to be one of those strange people with odd questions and seemingly pointless thoughts.  Just for entertainment, and perhaps to offer comfort, encouragement and a bit of a challenge, I thought I would begin typing out my random ramblings.

I am a top-notch perfectionist who plans to type directly into the "Posting Square" instead of pre-typing my thoughts and crafting just the right word/phrase to get my point across (gasp). If you do not understand what I just typed, most likely you are (lucky for you) not a type-A personality who has to make everything just right all the time.  I hope my driven need to perfection will not be the demise for this blog.  Time will tell.

Currently I am on Christmas break which in turn lends me a tad bit of (hark!) free time! When life picks up again in six days I will discover the longevity of this adventure.

Why Blog?  A friend of mine recently challenged me to blog about my thoughts, questions and experiences.  While I am 80% nervous of being so transparent with the world, the other 20% of me thinks there may be a possibility that my sharing may help or encourage someone else. 

Is there a goal?  My goal is to be able to express myself without the classification of male or female, rich or poor, white or black.  A person's ability to prejudge me is lessened in this "blog" capacity and perhaps even the playing fields leveled out a little.  Obviously many people reading know me and most likely already have me in a box of their own.  A place to ramble out of the confines of the box the world puts me into is my goal in my blog.  If I offend you...sorry.  If you think I'm talking about you- probably not.  If you don't agree with me...great!  Conversation and dialogue are key to growth!  I do not at all assume to have or know all the answers and I would love to converse with others about topics dear to my heart.

So here I go to share my thoughts!  Enjoy and reply back with questions or comments anytime!