Like glitter in a snow globe, so are the lobes of my brain.

Lots of thoughts jumbling around  in my head this morning.  Actually it's 11:53 a.m.  I guess technically that's still morning.  Well for 7 more minutes.  Ok, where was I?  
Oh yeah, the jumbling.  Shake, shake.  My brain is like a snow globe.

I got up this morning and did the "morning with three kids act."  Luckily, only one packer today, so it was less of an assembly line than most mornings.  Nobody needed any last minute cash or elaborate projects or four dozen cupcakes made, so all in all it was a success.  I sent two away via bus and then took last born to school via automobile and back home, still wearing the same sexy ensemble that I wore all day yesterday and slept in last night, complete with my glasses and crazy bed head.  

I decided since I didn't have to be at work until 10, I had plenty of time to take a shower and actually look presentable for a change.  I took a lovely HOT shower, which is a premium in my house because I have three hot water loving children who have no consideration for anybody else in the house who might want to knock the stank off with a little bit of hot water.  Today I had hot water though.  I decided to skip shaving my legs because...well.  
Do I really need a reason?  
Who cares if I'm wearing a skirt today.  I'm alone in my office.  Nobody knows but me and God.  Well.  And all of you all now.  Speaking of shaving, I just saw on Pinterest that using Baby Oil gel to shave with was all the rage.  

Exhibit A

So of course I'm willing to jump on any ole bandwagon, so I got some the other day.  It's not a new product to me; I've used baby oil gel in the past.  I'm not really sure why I was thinking this would work, because all it did was clog up my insanely expensive razor blades and made me nearly bust my ass in the the slick bathtub.  I use the Schick Hydro Silk razor, by the way.  And yes, it's the best razor out there and YES, I have tried them ALL.  I will stick with shaving with a cheapo conditioner and use the baby oil gel afterwards.  I may try just a little of that baby oil gel in my frizzy hair and see how that works though.

I got out of the shower and I could feel it.  My curly hair was trying to bust out from underneath that towel.  It's been pouring the rain for two straight days and my hair has been waiting for this moment to make is grand ROCKSTAR appearance.  I lotioned with Rain Kissed Leaves this morning to stick with the rainy theme and then I unveiled what I was up against.  I looked in that mirror and I said, "Fine, buckaroo.  We'll do things your way today."  So I quickly drew my gun (Got 2b Kinkier Gloss 'n Define Curl Cream by Schwarzkopf) available at Fine retailers worldwide (Walmart) and I pumped that bad boy three times and I could just hear my locks letting out the Hallelujah chorus when I applied that product, knowing that I wouldn't be smothering their wild desires with a flat iron today.  I found my old friend the diffuser and VOILA!  Curls ahoy me mateys!

After I got all ready for work, I decided I should put away my clean laundry that was piled up in my floor.  Then I decided I was officially making the call that winter was over (I mean...I DO have the built in hair meteorological thing going on) and I was going OUT with the sweaters and IN with the tanks.  Then halfway through, I decided "Ain't nobody got time for that!" then I just made a couple of beds instead.

Then I decided it would really be awesome if dinner was ready when I got home, so at 9:50, I took the chicken out of the freezer and popped it in the microwave to defrost.  Did I mention I had to be at work at 10?  

This leads me to my entire motivation for today's blog.  I suffer from a true illness.  Some (losers) would call it lack of planning.  Some (butt faces) would call it lack of focus.  It's a true illness though, friends!  And there is scientific research to justify my lack of planning and focus ILLNESS!  

Take a look at this.  It will crack you up.  Unless you are always on time for everything, then you just won't get it and I will really have to question why we are even friends in the first place.

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/tomphillips/18-ways-to-tell-if-you-suffer-from-chronic-lateness

In all seriousness, while I don't think I necessarily suffer from a "condition," there are certainly attributes of the "chronically late condition" which I TOTALLY suffer from.  Topping the list is "not setting realistic expectations on how long something will take me to do."  

Like the chicken in the crockpot.  

Honest to goodness, I thought with my entire being that I could defrost five chicken breasts, make a barbeque sauce from scratch and have that in the crockpot in five minutes and be ready to walk out the door.  My brain lacks that thing that says "You dummy, you cannot paint your entire house in three hours."  And that deficit causes me to start lots of various messes that I never have time to finish.

Now that everybody thinks I am a curly-headed, chronically late, freak of nature, let me close with the happiness quote that was in my inbox today.

“Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already I am."- Thomas Merton

And that's kind of what it's all about.  I'm never going to be early for everything anything or one to finish up things a week before they're due.  That's great for people whose brains operate like that.  It's just not the way MY brain operates.  
And that's okay!  
My hair is never going to be brilliantly straight and shiny like someone who has naturally straight and shiny hair.  
You will never be able to eat off my floors.  Consider it a success if you can even take your shoes off on my floors.   
I'm never going to run.  Because I hate it.  But good luck keeping up with me walking because I rock at that.  

We are all on this big, magnificent planet together and we're all made so awesomely with different personalities and talents.  We spend too much time focusing on our shortcomings instead of rocking out our strengths.  All those cliches about being yourself...they're goofy.  But they're TRUE!  
Be yourself.  
If you like doing yoga, do yoga!  If you like reading, read!  If you like making paper mache bird nests, then by gosh, you make paper mache bird nests and you rock that shit out.

Until next time,
~Lightning Bug
*shake, shake*

There's no instruction manual for this...

March 27, 2014

It’s the day after we buried my grandma.  We had a beautiful service that celebrated her life and I cried and smiled and laughed and cried.  

Today the sun is shining magnificently and life goes on.  Or that’s what I thought anyway.  I told my dad yesterday evening that I was hoping my cousins would’ve been able to make it to the funeral.  He said they probably had to work.  When dad got home he called me.  He had looked through the book and found my cousin and his wife’s name.

I sent a text to his mom this morning and told her that I didn’t see them there and please thank them for coming and tell him I love him. 

She replied that he was taking it real hard.

Then the flood of memories began…fun times we had together as kids, our rebellious streak as teens...cousin stuff.  And then I thought about how much Momaw loved him and all the kids in the family.  Everybody. 

I remember sitting in that same place as we said goodbye to his Momaw (my Momaw’s baby sister) just a few years ago.  

Life was so much simpler 20 years ago when our biggest concern was not getting arrested for racing on the four lane.  

The only thing that stays the same is everything changes, everything changes.

Time marches on. –Tracy Lawrence 

She loved

March 17, 2014

This week has been stressful.  Who am I kidding?  This year has been stressful.  Papaw died last February and we brought Momaw back to Covington.  We had tried for years to get Momaw & Papaw to sell their house on Mossy and come to Covington so we could look after them better.  That would’ve never made them happy though.  Their hearts were on the banks of Paint Creek…always had been.  And in our hearts, we knew that and never truly pressed the issue.  Momaw has continued to be solid in her mind throughout the last year.  This week she has been down with pneumonia and a kidney infection and she has been seeing Papaw and talking and dreaming and talking in her sleep.  It comforts me that she’s “back home” in her dreams.  It comforts me that her life was one of love that her subconscious returns there to comfort her.  Yesterday she was talking about it raining and the creek being up and the trees blowing down on the creek bank.  It’s sad to see those we love struggling with reality but it’s also comforting to know they are in that happy place.  

Yesterday Momaw’s nieces came to visit from West Virginia.  They are special nieces.  And their brother is a special nephew.  Their mother (Momaw’s sister) died when they were young.  Momaw served as a mother figure to them, so it’s a deeper bond than just an aunt.  Not only did Momaw serve as a mother figure to them, but Momaw’s own mother died when she was only 13 years old.  She has told me stories of her daddy working in the coal mines on the night shift.  Her younger sister used to have bad earaches and would scream and cry with her ears.  Momaw said there would be so many times when her daddy would come in from the mines and she would be awake and rocking her baby sister in the rocking chair in the living room to soothe her.  She had to grow up so fast. 

Losing parents, grandparents, aunts…that’s the way life is supposed to happen I suppose.  They are supposed to go on before us.  That doesn’t really make it any easier though.  Momaw is 93 and she’s had an amazing life.  Not wealth measured by a bank account, but by a much deeper kind.  She has said to me over the past year on many different occasions, “If Perry (Papaw) would’ve only known how things would turn out, he wouldn’t have left me.”  And the truth is, if he had any control of that, he wouldn’t have.  When Momaw’s time is up, they can surely write “broken heart” on her cause of death. 

She has expressed to me over the last year how she feels like a burden…how she wishes God would just go ahead and take her.  None of us want to see her suffer.  We know she’s ready to go.  She’s worn out.  She’s ready to go home.  I ache to think of her not being with us.  It hurts me to my core.  She was very much like a mother to me.  I have learned so many things from her.  Last week I felt like I had been punched in the gut when I thought I was losing her.  I became absolutely frantic.  There are still things I want to know.  I want to know how she made that amazing country fried steak and gravy.  I want to know what she would’ve done if she would’ve had a chance to go out in the world and do something for herself.  I want to know how she played some of the rotten cards she was dealt in life with complete grace and without becoming bitter.  I want to know how she always is able to think of others over herself.  I don’t know if I’m going to get a chance to ask her and I don’t know if I can even say the words to her if I do get a chance. 

She was ready to leave this earth the day Papaw left us.  She doesn’t understand why she is still here.  I told my cousins (her nieces) yesterday that what she doesn’t understand is that she is still serving a purpose on this earth.  She thinks she has nothing left to give.  She thinks she is (and has been) a burden…she doesn’t understand all of the people’s lives she has touched in the last year.  She has no idea.  She doesn’t know that I talk about her incessantly.  She doesn’t realize that people who don’t even know her have been touched by her.  She doesn’t know how she has touched her caregivers and those who have come in to bless her and leave blessed. 

This song by Jeff & Sheri Easter has played in my mind this week

Someone once asked

If only you knew
How short life would be
What would you do?
What would they say
When God called you home?
What would they engrave
Once you were gone?

I hope they would see
What I've done in my life
Who I've cared for
And how I survived
I hope they'd say

She loved more than anything else
She loved with all of her heart
She loved everyone she believed in
She loved...oh she loved

She loved the Lord
And served all her life
A sacrificial mother
And an honorable wife
She gave all she had
And through every trial
Made life much sweeter
Because of her smile

Everyone will see
What she's done in her life
Who she cared for
And how she survived
I'm sure they'd say

She loved more than anything else
She loved with all of her heart
She loved everyone she believed in
She loved...oh she loved

And indeed she did.

Click here for "She Loved" video

March 22, 2014

10 am

I was supposed to be cleaning the basement this morning.  I’m trying to carve out a workout room.  I need somewhere to go when I’m not eating doughnuts.  I’m trying to declutter and I ran across a box that I have been avoiding going through for a year.  It had old records and 8 track tapes that belonged to my grandparents and I didn’t want to toss them if they were worth anything, so I’ve just had them in a box in the basement for a year avoiding them.  I opened it up today and found pictures under the records.  And I found things like DARE graduation programs and All Star programs that my dad had mailed to them over the years.  Instead of cleaning my basement, I made a much bigger mess and went through all of those things.

My dad called.  Every day this week I have expected that dreaded call that Momaw has been called home.  Thankfully he was just checking to see if Riley and I were feeling ok—Riley was sick Friday and I thought I was getting it yesterday.  I was relieved to learn that was all the call was about and hopped in the shower.

11 am

Dad called again.  My heart sank.  I knew what it was before I even picked up the phone.

Momaw is soaring with the angels now and I’m somewhere in the middle of a completely shattered heart and at peace knowing that she is having one heck of reunion with her family and the rest of the saints.

She hung on for one year and one month from the time she lost Papaw.  I have talked to so many people who have been touched by her in just the last year.  Her nurse, who has become so dear to all of us, prayed with her this morning and she passed away 15 minutes later.  The Hospice worker told Dad that she had told one of the staff to go read Psalm 42 (still caring for others even at the very end.)  Her life was one of purpose and dedication and selflessness and I’m honored to have had her in my life for almost 37 years.  

I wish all of you all could’ve met her, but I hope through something I have told you about her or a picture you have seen, that you felt her beautiful spirit, even if you didn’t have the pleasure of meeting her. 

And p.s.  I asked her this week how to make gravy and she looked at me like I head three heads and exclaimed, “You mean you can’t make gravy???!”

Forsythias & Roses

March 14, 2014

Today is the one year anniversary of finding my birth mother.  I kept notes along the way and thought I'd share a few of those today.  The last year has been an incredible journey full of amazing discoveries and amazing rediscoveries.  

"Adoption carries the added dimension of connection not only to your own tribe but beyond, widening the scope of what constitutes love, ties, and family. It is the larger embrace."-Isabella Rossellini

1-4-13

I filled out the necessary forms that will be submitted to the Virginia Department of Social Services.  I don’t know if these forms ever existed when I began my search in 1996.  I have my information in a folder up in the attic.  I’m going to go up there this afternoon and see what I can find.  I think I remember sending a letter to the Covington DSS basically saying that I give my consent to be placed in connection with my birthparents if they ever came looking for me.  I actually think I typed that on a..wait for it…typewriter.  The internet was just coming into play in 1996.  Records weren’t kept in databases and there certainly weren’t any online search engines for reuniting adoptees and birth families.  

I also sent a letter to the Virginia Department of Vital Statistics under the exaggerated fabrication of “I’m doing a genealogical study” and looking for original birth information. 

1-5-13

I have so many questions.  Thirty-five years gives you a plethora of quiet opportunities to imagine what the circumstances of your life that you don’t know might entail.  I’m trying not to set expectations.  I know all of this could lead to an unhappy ending.  What if my parents aren't even alive?  What if they are never located?  What do I expect?  How can you NOT want the fairy tale ending, no matter how much you tell yourself not to set any expectations?  And what are these impossible expectations that I won’t set anyway?  If I could imagine who my birth parents are, what would that even be?  I’ve never even allowed myself to imagine a father.  I’ve imagined a mother at different times in my life.  I was in a jewelry store in Bluefield, WV one time and I saw a woman who immediately struck me as someone who looked like me.  That was the first time in my life that I had encountered someone who I thought looked like me and that was the first time I let my mind travel to the possibility that there is somebody out there who I might look like…

1-13-13

“The truth is what you live through while you're looking for the truth.” ~Marty Rubin

1-15-13

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

-Robert Frost

 Always been a favorite poem of mine.  Today I claim it for myself.

1-16-13

Home for a Bunny(a Little Golden Book):

Despite my desperate search for biological parents, I was put where I was meant to be. God puts us where we need to be and that's one of the things I'm learning throughout this journey.

And I never realized in all my 35 years of having that story read to me and reading it to my own kids...I never realized it as anything more than a bunny trying to find a home with other bunnies. Last night I saw it for the first time as a child searching to find acceptance and "likeness"--a good fit--a family. 

2-7-13

Settle down

It'll all be clear

Don't pay no mind to the demons

They fill you with fear

The trouble it might drag you down

You get lost, you can always be found

Just know you're not alone...

-Phillip Phillips

2-15-13

I was downstairs putting the laundry in and thinking about everything.
Roots.  I was thinking about what my adoption did to my "roots." I was thinking about how basically when I was born and taken away and given to somebody else how it was like severing the roots of a plant--and I was thinking about how after you do that, that the plant doesn't grow and thrive. It eventually dies.

Then I thought about the forsythia--my absolute favorite thing to see in spring. My daddy had beautiful yellow forsythias all down one side of our yard.
Do you know that you can literally cut a twig or a branch from a forsythia and stick it in the ground and it will grow...even without roots. And then it forms its own roots. 

I just thought that was kinda cool  I'm a forsythia.

3-13-13

The war you feel within - that restlessness, the unending uncertainty - is not to be dismissed, avoided, hated. That internal conflict is not dark, it is a beaming light trying to focus you, the rolling thunderous call of courage, the rays of greatness seeking to explode beyond your skin to touch once more the Spirit of Possibility.

-Brendon Burchard

3-14-13

I was in the beauty shop getting my hair done. I looked down at my phone and saw where I had a missed call from a number I didn’t recognize. There was a voicemail, so as I was sitting in the beauty shop chair, I dialed my voicemail and it was Social Services and asked me to call back. I called her back but she was in a meeting. You can imagine how long that next couple of hours seemed to me. I called her back around 2 pm and she asked if I was sitting down. She told me that she had found my birth mother. She said that my birth mother most definitely wanted to be contacted and gave me her phone number. That’s when she proceeded to tell me that she lived in Wasilla, Alaska! I just shook my head and thought…of COURSE she lives in Alaska.  *rolls eyes*

Social worker told me that I needed to be aware of the time differences in Alaska. When it’s 9 pm here, it’s 5 pm there. They are 4 hours behind us, so it makes for tricky communication.

"You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it."~We Bought a Zoo

At 10 pm, I went downstairs and I dialed part of the numbers and I hung up.  And again and again for probably 30 minutes until I finally got up the courage to let it ring.  And I have never been so scared in my entire life. What on earth do you say to someone when you call them up after finding out they are your long, lost birth mother? She answered the phone and said “Hello, This is Rose.”   I said, “Hi Rose. This is Amanda Griffith. I think maybe you were expecting a call from me.” She was in complete disbelief. I said “This is the most awkward, scariest, most exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life” and she agreed. She was so happy to hear my voice. She had to put me on speakerphone so her husband could hear my voice. Emotions ran high. After that first awkward moment, we talked like we had known each other forever. She asked me what color my eyes were. She has blue eyes. My eyes are green. She asked if I had red hair. 0 for 2. Ha! I told her I was tall, long legs and she said she was too.  Things that normal mother and daughter know about each other from early on, we were just starting to discover. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

3-14-13

Me

To roseloveshair@hotmail.com

Mar 14, 2013

I wrote this a few years ago on Mother's Day eve...Mother's Day has always been bittersweet for me.  I always hoped one day you'd get to read it.

Happy Mother’s Day from the adopted child…

I do not know you

Have you seen me?
In a crowd of people
Would we be able to see

That we are connected
In some cosmic way
By something we would do
Or something that we would say?

How old are you?
Are you even still alive?
Maybe you are fifty
Or maybe fifty-five?

Is your hair dark as coal
Or maybe laced with gray?
Do you remember back thirty-three
Years ago this day?

The only Mother’s Day
You would ever share with me
For you must have loved me so,
Because you set me free.

You carried me inside of you--
Nine short months is all we had.
With every kick and wiggle
Were you happy or were you sad?

I know not the reasons
You had to let me go
I am not certain
If I will ever know.

Do you think of me today
As I think of you?
Do you wonder where I am
Do you wonder what I do?

Do we look like one another
Do our voices sounds the same?
I wonder if you even know
That Amanda is my name?

Amanda means loveable
And rightly named was I,
For I love with my whole heart
And when it breaks I cry.

Do you have squinty eyes
When a smile glistens your face?
Is your life blessed with laughter
Or is that really not the case?

Is my Grandma still alive?
And what about my Dad?
Do I have brothers and sisters?
I want to know so bad.

I was raised by two people
Who thought I hung the moon,
I was far from perfect though
They would find out soon!

I had my share of rebellion
Got in trouble a time or two,
But all in all I wasn’t bad,
The exceptions were quite few.

I grew up and got married
And had three children of my own,
I wish there would’ve been some way
That I could’ve made that known.

I wish you were around
To talk and just to chat,
To do mom and daughter things--
Paint our nails and stuff like that.

I have love all around me,
But I have never felt quite whole,
I have always wanted to know you
In the deep depths of my soul.

So on this Mother’s Day night,
I will look at the stars above
Blow sweet kisses into the wind,
And send you Mother’s Day love.
~A

~Amanda Griffith

“There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.”~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

From: roseandarnie

To: amandaandkevingriffith@yahoo.com

Sent: Fri, Mar 15, 2013 14:55:05 GMT+00:00

Subject: Emailing: Family013

Your poem brought me to tears and made me so proud. I don't think there ever was a day that my thoughts about you didn't cross my mind. I cannot wait to get to know you and your family. Your family is beautiful and so are you. Your daughter looks alot like me when I was that age. Emotions here are running at full capacity, as so they should. Take care Amanda and thank you for reconnecting us. Love Rose

----- Original Message -----

From: roseandarnie

To: amandaandkevingriffith@yahoo.com

Sent: Friday, March 15, 2013 5:50 PM

Subject: Happy

I am home from work. Let me tell ya, you never left my thoughts all day. I feel like screaming to the world how HAPPY I am that you have come back into my life. I had an hour break today  so I drove to my girlfriends work to tell her about you. CRY,CRY,CRY,HAPPY,HAPPY,HAPPY.  Love Rose

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Me

To roseandarnie

Mar 15, 2013

Aww :) 

I'm so happy too.  I shared the news with some of my closest friends today and everybody was crying :)  I have held it together pretty good until Tracy told me about how she used to rub cocoa butter on your belly and how you guys have a picture of me!  You are probably the only person who has the picture.  I never remember seeing a picture from the hospital. I am absolutely exhausted tonight.  I think I slept about 3.5 hours last night, so I'm going to get snuggled in.  It's almost midnight here.  What's your favorite color?

Sleep well.

Love, A

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Homemade Laundry Detergent

Back in September, I decided to make my own laundry detergent.  

In a family of five, you wash a LOT of clothes and laundry supplies can get pricey.  I haven't kept good enough records to truly say whether this was a money saving venture but I liked it enough that I am going to make more today!  I can tell you what I spent initially, but I added fragrance crystals and I really can't remember how many I added (maybe three bottles total?)  

My original detergent consisted of the following ingredients:

4 lb, 12 oz box of Borax
4 lb box of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda
OxyClean 3.5 lbs 
3 lb., 7 oz. box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
3 bars Fels-Naptha Soap or 2 bars Zote Soap

Cast of Characters

These ingredients are about $21 total.  
Divide that by 4 months and it's $5.25/month for detergent.  

All of these items I found in the laundry aisle at Walmart.

I have been thinking about switching from Fels-Naptha soap to Zote, simply because I have read that the smell was better (there is essentially NO smell to laundered clothes with this recipe) but I haven't decided yet.  

UPDATE:  Switched to Zote Pink and LOVE it!

When I made this in September, I didn't have a food processer, so I had to hand grate 3 bars of Fels-Naptha with this.

Nothing particularly fun about that part.  

Luckily, I received a Ninja for Christmas, so I will chop the soap in that today!

Zap, Zap, Zap, much easier!

After you do that part, line a bucket with a trashbag or get a container about this size.  Layer all the ingredients and stir, stir, stir with a big heavy wooden spoon!  This is a great job for kids!  

Layering

This is how much detergent this recipe yields!

Fragrance.  

Well, if you don't like any fragrance, this recipe is perfect.  I like my clothes to smell good though!  I added Purex Fragrance Crystals to this recipe when I made it and then about two months in, I added two more bottles and I still didn't notice my clothes smelling fresh.  The didn't smell bad, just...well neutral.  I read that Scentsy made something called Washer Whiffs and had rave reviews and I was so excited and then I looked and they were $12/bottle and it called for four bottles.  What?  Umm, no.  I could hire somebody to do the wash for me with that kind of cabbage!

Downey makes fragrance crystals (Downey Unstoppables) so I think I will give that a shot.  I'm not going to add them to the mix in case I hate them, but will just add to each load and make my decision from there!  Be sure to add the Downey beads/Purex crystals/Scentsy Washer Whiffs BEFORE you put the clothes in!  If you want to add your fragrance crystals to the detergent, I would start with 3 bottles of fragrance crystals/beads.  The Purex crystals smelled FANTASTIC!  They made my basement smell wonderful.  They just didn't transfer that fantasic smell to my washed and dried clothes.

UPDATE:  I have been using the Downey Unstoppables, fragrance "Fresh" and I am in LOVE!  I just sprinkle a few beads when I start the load and my clothes are smelling wonderful!

Get rid of your liquid fabric softener and use plain white vinegar instead. 

You can put it in your fabric softener dispenser or in a Downey ball.  I put it in my fabric softener dispenser.  It softens clothes and I can leave a load of clothes in my washer for two days and pull them straight out and toss in the dryer and no sour smell.  Sometimes I get busy and this happens and I have spent enough of my life rewashing or rerinsing and I don't have to do that anymore.

I tried a recipe a month ago for homemade dryer sheets using liquid fabric softener and sponges. 

http://lifecheating.com/2013/11/16/never-ending-dryer-sheets/

It seemed really cool and it DID make the clothes smell good but I found it was more expensive and more of a hassle than just using a regular dryer sheet.  

I found this jar at Walmart and found some letters at Michael's.  

Black letters would've stood out better, but it is what it is.

Most of the reviews I have read on how long the detergent will last 

claim that this recipe will last 8, 9+ months.

This recipe lasted only 4 months in my house.  

Perhaps I am using too much (I use the OxyClean scoop for each load.)  

The recommended amount is 1-2 Tbsp. per load.  

I never actually measured it with a measuring spoon, but just eyeballed and thought the Oxyclean scoop looked like 2 Tbsp.  

I'll try to be more scientific this time :)

Happy Laundering!

Waste Your Time on Me

Yesterday I had to go to the post office to get stamps.  The place was a zoo and I had to wait in line behind four people which doesn’t normally happen in Smalltown, USA at 2:30pm.  I was already running behind but I waited patiently.  As I was standing in line, I saw a little old lady come in with who must have been either her daughter or her care giver.  She was all bundled up, even though it was a balmy 60 degrees in southwest Virginia yesterday.  She had a stack of Christmas cards in her hand secured with a rubber band.  I watched her meticulously place the stack of cards in the outgoing mail slot.

As she turned around and walked back out, it made me think of the tradition of Christmas card exchanging. 

According to THIS article I found, it seems that the idea of Christmas cards go all the way back to the middle ages. 

Who knew? 

In the 1800’s, hand-made cards were the trend and were made by hand and exchanged by hand.  So many cards were exchanged in 1822, that sixteen extra mailmen had to be hired.  According to a couple of my friends who work for the USPS currently, they need to take a page out of THAT book and hire some help for our poor postal workers today!  Ok, off that soapbox for now.  Ahem.   

A few more years passed and in 1875, Christmas cards were being mass produced and that’s the way most of us grew up participating in the Christmas card exchanges—buying boxes of mass produced cards, taking them home, signing them, perhaps writing a note inside and then hand addressing each and every one for friends and family. 

Christmas card exchanging has been declining since the 70’s when making a long distance call became reasonable.  Since then, we have ushered in the subsequent decades with one new fancy schmancy new form of communication after another. 

So is Christmas card exchanging obsolete in our digital age?  Twenty years ago, a lot of my friends and family only heard from me once a year when they received that Christmas card.  Today, there’s a good chance they know what I cooked burnt for dinner last night.  Times are a changing’!  I can send a 'Merry Christmas' email, Facebook message, tweet, blog, Instagram, text…well you get the picture (no pun intended.)

So why waste your time?

Because that’s the whole point people!  It’s nice to receive a piece of paper from somebody who wasted their time on you!

It’s nice to stop for a half hour in our busy lives and sit down with a box of paper cards and that ole quill and hand write something to someone to let them know that they are thought of. 

We do a Christmas Card exchange at our church each year.  I have thought this was very silly in the past.  Most of these people we see every Sunday, after all.  A couple of years ago, someone in our church took the time to sit down and write a personal note to everyone in our church—a note specifically for that person or family to let them know what they have meant to her faith walk.  It was inspiring and humbling and just right down awesome.

So this is my point…
Umm yes, I do actually have one.

I don’t care if you are pro-Christmas card or anti-Christmas card.  I don’t care if you think it’s a treasured tradition that must be carried on or an archaic caveman ritual that is obsolete. 

Social  media gets its fair share of bashing, but the truth of the matter is that I am far more connected to my friends and family today than I EVER have been in the past.  And to me, that makes sending an archaic, cavewoman Christmas card via snail mail all the sweeter to me.

However you decide to send your Christmas greetings this year, just be sure to waste spend your time telling your friends and family what they mean to you.  I promise it won't be a waste.  

Merry Christmas!  Flicker on!

~A

Expectations

ex·pec·ta·tion

ekspekˈtāSHən

noun

1.  a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future.

"reality had not lived up to expectations"

synonyms: supposition, assumption, presumption, conjecture, surmise, calculation, prediction, hope

"her expectations were unrealistic"

anticipation, expectancy, eagerness, excitement, suspense

"tense with expectation"

Expectations. 

Last Friday was my anniversary.  Well technically it was “our” anniversary.  Sixteen years.  Husband wanted to take me to dinner but after no sitter, three kids at three different locations for sports practices, when I left the last practice at 8 pm starving and exhausted, I decided McDonald’s drive thru would really be the best bet at that particular moment.  He was disappointed and thought I didn’t want to spend time with him.  Truthfully I didn’t.  It wasn’t personal though.  I didn't want to spend time with ANYBODY.  I didn't even want to be awake.  I really just couldn’t fathom getting into anything other than something fleece with an elastic waist at that point in time.  We decided we’d have a re-do when things settled down.  I suggested the following weekend.  I was looking forward to it this time.  I had the cutest little black dress picked out for a dinner that I wouldn’t order through a drive through window and one in which I wouldn't have to answer that horrifying question, "would you like fries with that?"

Then allergy and sinus season crept in and at the eleventh hour, husband decides that there is no way he can sit through a dinner without getting up sixteen times to hack up a lung and/or blow his snout, so he backs out this time.

Sigh. 

Expectations.  He had them the week before and I had them this week.  What good are they?  Why do we do that to ourselves?  To our children?  Are they just a set up for failure and disappointment?

Just look up there ^ at the definition and the examples.  It looks like whoever wrote the definition had been burned as well.  “reality had not lived up to expectations”; “her expectations were unrealistic.”  Maybe the author of this particular dictionary was sitting at home in her jammies with a box of tissues and a bottle of Zyrtec on her lap on a Saturday night as well.

As I began to think about how often I had set myself up for greatness and how often I had failed to attain those things, I began thinking about the expectations we set for ourselves and our children and whether this is a healthy thing.

Are expectations worthwhile?  Are they healthy or unhealthy?  My dad set the highest expectations for me.  Always.  I was to be an honor roll student at all times.  Anything else was unacceptable.  “C’s are average and you are not average” was drilled into me from the time I can remember.  Two times in my life I brought home a “C” on my report card; once in the sixth grade and once in high school.  The first time I went to the bathroom of the elementary school and cried my eyes out.  I thought I was literally going to throw up in the tiny grade school bathroom.  I was going to disappoint my dad when I brought that report card home and it was unfathomable to me.  I hated that feeling.  I hated that feeling SO much that I have set those unrealistic expectations onto my own children—even saying those SAME words—“C’s are average and you are not average.”  Am I setting my children up to spend some time hovered over the porcelain god in between classes at school or am I setting them up for success?  I really can’t answer that question.  I hope those expectations are healthy. 

We all set expectations for ourselves, for our loved ones, for our children.  And I think we do this not because we cannot accept failure from ourselves or our loved ones—we all are human after all.  No, I think we set these expectations in an effort to let those we love know that they are important and capable and loved. 

I don't think hope should be listed as a synonym for expectation.  It isn’t HOPE.  It’s far MORE than hope.  I don’t HOPE that my children will succeed.  No, no, no.  I am far too confident in their abilities and their character than to HOPE that they will be learners and thinkers and doers and changers of the world.  I EXPECT it.  I expect it because I have watched them for 15, 11 and 8 years.  To not expect it would surely save us all disappointment down the road when they screw up.  And they WILL screw up.  All of them.  They will bring home a C.  Or a D or even an F.  They will not make a team that they want very desperately to make.  They will make a bad decision that will infuriate me and disappoint me to my core.  Chances are they will not get accepted into that college they want to go to so bad and they may not get that ONE job that they so desperately wanted.

My hope is that the expectations that I have set for them will always cause them to work hard for what they want in life and when they don’t, I hope those expectations will ultimately lead them back to the safe place where they know they are loved and cherished—not because of their successes or failures—but because of who they are.

Expectations have caused me a lot of grief over the years.  They have caused me lots of tears and stress and pressure on myself that I could’ve surely avoided. 

Those expecations have also instilled those little voices inside of me that said “look over that material one more time,” “follow your shot,” “do not give up,” and “you’ve got this baby.” 

Life fills you with voices that tell you that you CAN'T do it.  Having someone in your life believing in you…hoping for you…EXPECTING of you…that gives you a voice to tell those other voices to shut the front door. 

Expect greatness.  From yourself and from others :)  Start today.  

And maybe after football, basketball, cross country, allergy season, and underwater basket-weaving, I'll get that non-drive-thru anniversary dinner ;)

~lightningbug

Just a mom...

When I was pregnant with my first child at the ripe ole age of 20, it was then that I knew that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.  Maybe it was even before then.  Maybe it was when I was 6 and playing house and caring for my lovies.  Funny how “mothering” is something that seems to be deeply embedded in us.  I’m not sure if it’s genetic or if it’s learned or maybe like most traits and a combination of the two.  People speak of that momentous occasion when baby is delivered and this deep love is found, rainbows and sunshine appear, showtunes erupt and all the world is right.  I’m not so sure I felt all of that in that moment.  I remember delivering my 9 pound, 4.5 ounce baby and being so sore afterwards and wanting to kill all of womankind because nobody…not one.single.woman ever bothered to tell me that carrying that load and then pushing it  from your loins would cause your bones to actually shift and never be the same.  Nobody told me that I wouldn’t be able to walk from my bed to the toilet without feeling like I had been riding a horse across the wild west for a month.  Why all the secrets, ladies???  I could have been preparing myself for that.  Doing some sort of conditioning for the blessed event.

I was exhausted after giving birth.  Completely drained.  Yes, I had this beautiful baby boy with a cone head (thank.you.vacuum.sucker.outer.thingy), golden-jaundiced skin & a wailing cry and OH..DEAR.GAWD. LOOK WHAT IT DID TO MY BODY!  I was stretched, swollen, and pretty much looked like roadkill.  This is soooo not that pretty picture I saw of Demi Moore in the magazine not so long before.  Liar, liar, pants on fire.  And oh sweet Jebus, my boobs.  I was just about positive they were going to explode and truthfully, after the first couple of days of breastfeeding, I was praying that they would.  And then just fall off.

Where was I?  Oh yes…the joys of being a mother.  Ahem.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows.  It’s not all Fit Pregnancy and Parenting magazine cover material.  Sometimes it’s so brutally real and honest that it hurts.  Physically, mentally, & emotionally. 

I finally made it out of that hospital cell with my half-grown baby boy and then it got real.  I had to figure out how to snap that carseat carrier in the car without dumping him upside down in the floorboard on his head.  I rode in the backseat with him all the way home, his sweet little head falling over as he slumbered.  My swollen, fat head watching him.  I was in love.  While I was reeling from the agony of delivering a baby, I was falling in love with those chubby cheeks and those big blue eyes.

Days lasted forever, nights were way too short…well at least the part of the night where I was actually asleep.  He spit up like the exorcist and I was his human burp cloth.  I smelled of baby poop and vomit.  How my husband could even stand the sight and smell of me causes me to question his sanity.  Baby and I did everything together.  I held him on my lap in the porch swing, I strolled him through the neighborhood, I stamped his little feet in fingerpaint and made sweet little crafts with him.  We made cookies and sang and danced and played.  I was just a mom.

Just a mom.  Two more children would come along and I was “just a mom” to them too…just falling in love with each of them, teaching them their ABC’s and nursery rhymes, bedtime prayers and how to shoot a jump shot.  I was just teaching them to be kind to others and treat people right and to love music and art and be passionate about life.

Just a mom.

That’s what I would embarrassingly say when somebody asked me what I did.

“I’m just a mom.”

Now that my kids are getting a little older and I’ve ventured out and started to do a little more than “just a mom,” I have really begun to realize THE ENORMITY of being "just a mom."

I now realize that I should’ve stood tall with my puked-on shoulders held high and looked them square in the eye and said with complete and total confidence…”Amanda Renee Stover Griffith, human burp cloth, killer of monsters under the bed, tickle monster captain, cookie-baking chef, birthday party planning, hazardous waste managing, lost things finder, broken things fixer, boo-boo kissing, song-singing, kitchen dancing, craft-making, carpooling, sideline cheering, always there, MOM.”

So let me be a lesson to you if you are finding yourself “just being a mom.”  

 There is no more important job to be found.   

Rock it out, superwomen.

~arg