family – Page 2

A bit of calamity is common in my life. It’s a daily occurrence for me to bruise my hip bumping into the corner of the bed or bang my knee on a coffee table. My poor fingers have it the worst. I’ve sewn through one, completely closed a car door on another.

I was having a typical nutty day. I’d just sliced the top of my index finger when I got it caught in a junk drawer, my dogs wouldn’t stop barking at some workmen next door, and I had spent the last 20 minutes spraying Formula 409 on, and trying to sweep out, the hugest and oldest palmetto bug (Florida cockroach) I’d ever seen–which I’d found in said junk drawer–while shrieking like a banshee with each sweep of the broom.

I finally got the demon beast out of my house and realized that I had to leave right at that moment to pick up my kids from school. I’d accomplished NOTHING that I’d set out to do that morning. My plans were thrwarted early on when Hubs left me a letter to send certified mail, a check to deposit, and a reminder that we were all out of something (string cheese? milk? OJ?) so I had to stop at the grocery store, too.

I was frustrated and in pain when I pulled up to my son’s school. The whole way there I was cursing (cussin’) under my breath about how I should just STOP: stop writing, stop creating, stop running my business. STOP. What was the point, anyway? (boo-hoo, woe is me–I know.) I had 5 minutes until the bell rang and I opened my email ready to clean out a day’s worth of SPAM, when I saw this in my inbox:

To: aquaseventy6
From: christiejean17

Hey Yvette! I don’t know if you really remember me. But I used to blog over at Ma Nouvelle Mode for awhile. I dropped out of that blog because my son Bennet was born with a severe heart defect. He had 2 open heart surgeries, one diaphragm surgery and 3 stomach surgeries all before the age of 5 months old. He was 100% gtube fed (through a tube directly to his stomach) for 18 months.

I have been wanting to reach out to you because you have no idea how much your wet bags saved my life during those early months of Bennet’s life. We had to keep syringes for meds and feeds and all sorts of strange things with us at all times. Sometimes these items became pretty messy – I won’t go into detail 🙂 Anyways, i carried two of your chevron wet bags with me at all times! I just wanted you to know how God used your products to bless me during a really really difficult time.

I just started my own blog called A Beautiful Window 🙂 I would love to keep in touch. God bless- Christie

An overwhelming feeling came over me. I was touched beyond words–both happy and proud that something I made with my own two hands helped a person across the country during a difficult time, and selfish and petty for being upset that I couldn’t get to my “business to do list” because I had to tackle my “family to do list”. A list that including picking up my healthy children from school and running errands for the love of my life. What a jerk I am.

Thank you Christie for your email. Thank you for reminding that sometimes our plans change, priorities shift, and that all it takes is a few kind words to put things back into place.

To learn more about Christie, Bennet and their family visit A Beautiful Window.

Like every year around this time, I find myself sneaking back here, to my tried and true blog, apologizing for the weeks months I’ve been away, and promising to do better. So here goes: I promise to do better. I promise I will try to do better, anyway.

It’s also around this time of year that I sit down and take inventory of the last 12 months. In 2013, my goal was to give more of my time and talent (because my treasure was quite limited) by becoming more involved in charity work and volunteering.

By early 2014, it was clear that I needed some of that time back to focus on my family and on better developing my talents– which would hopefully create a little more treasure to pitch in at home. This inspired me to come up with 28 Ways to {better} LOVE Myself. I am happy to say that I’ve kept up with MOST of the promises I made to myself, and 2014 was one of my happiest and most peaceful years yet.

So what goals have I set for 2015?

1. First and foremost, I will continue to refer to my 28 Ways to {better} LOVE Myself, because we all need to securely fasten our oxygen masks before helping those around us.

2. I will remember to count my blessings more regularly. It’s easy to get so overwhelmed by life’s occurrences that we forget to be grateful for all of the wonderful things that we do have.

3. I will set small personal and attainable goals (take the kids’ clothes to the consignment shop, finally learn how to use my embroidery machine, clean out the cabinet under my sink, organize my desk) which will make my life easier and give me a sense of tangible accomplishment.

4. I will be less angry at my 5:30 a.m. alarm. There is nothing that I can do about the time my kids start school, so getting worked up every single morning is pointless and unhealthy. I will try to find the silver lining in my early morning wake-up call, even if it’s still too dark outside to see the clouds…

5. I will go on regular dates with my husband. My kids are 12 and 14 and no longer consider sitting at grandma’s house watching a VHS copy of Blue’s Clues repeatedly a successful Friday night. This, and the fact that I really do dig hanging out with them, has caused a major dip in date nights. I realized last night when Hubby suggested revisiting our honeymoon destination (Sandals resort) and my initial response was “no, because the kids can’t come”, that maybe he was trying to tell me something…and maybe I should listen. We truly love you, kids, but Mom and Dad need some alone time. Want me to go into detail?…yeah, I didn’t think so. You can unplug your ears now.

What goals have you set for the new year? Tell me in the comments!