Fruitful Living: Loving Myself

This week I'm focusing on remembering to love myself. I'm appreciating the progress I've made to becoming a better person as well as a more healthy me. I'm enjoying my life, thinking about all of the positive and good things happening. I'm being positive and ignoring the little voices that snip and criticize every little detail about myself. I could go on and on and make this a long post about loving myself, but honestly, I just don't know that anyone cares to read my post of self love. So instead, I'm going to go and enjoy a cup of tea, watch the snow continue to come down outside, and be happy all on my own. Have a great Wednesday, all!

Fruitful Living: The Ones Who Built You

From a paper I wrote last semester on my ethnic history.

I think that there are many definitions of family. There is your immediate family (siblings & parents), your extended family (grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc), & your adopted family (friends who are as good as blood). There are always certain people in your family that mean a lot to you for things you learned from them or the example they set for you. For many, our family is one of the first and most important influences on who you become and how you live your life. It's important for us to remember how much they taught us and to let them know how much we love them when we can. Coming from a large....no, correction: huge... family, I have quite a few people who were like that for me. Today is a time for me to send them some love, say thank you, and to explain how they've influenced me. The only exception is my immediate family, as I think they deserve they're own post on another day (mind you, my immediate family is 7 people).

First up I'll write about my grandmothers, the matriarchs of both sides of my family. I learned a lot from my grandfathers, but they both passed a bit over 10 years ago so I've had a lot more time with my grandmothers both growing up and now as an adult. My dad's mom, who we call Grandma or Grandma Lovvorn, taught me many things. I would say one of the biggest things was how to work with my hands. Growing up she and my granddad had a plant nursery and small farm and I worked there during the summers and on weekends or holidays - or generally when my dad wanted us out of the house. :) I learned how to plant things, tend to them and grow things - I learned how to harvest crops of corn, cucumbers, green beans, blueberries, and a host of other things they grew every year. I learned from her the importance of family. This is a woman who always has time for any of her 6 children, 14 grandchildren, or her growing clan of (currently) 19 great-grandchildren. She'll play with them, dye eggs with them, teach them how to cook, or generally just talk and share with them. She's amazing and an entirely beautiful woman.

My mother's mother, Nanny (or as we've renamed her in recent years, Nan), has become a good friend in the last few years after I had the fortunate opportunity to live with her for a year after college before I moved away with my husband. She also was an amazing example for teaching the value of family, but she taught me how to be adventurous and to love learning and exploring as well. She raised me on tales of her travels with my Papa, with whom she had traveled the country for most of their marriage, spending time in campers and state parks. She (and he) gave me a love for nature and the outdoors that I don't think anyone else has been able to match in influence yet. She's visited almost any state or national park that you could think of and seen every ounce of natural beauty this country has to offer. She showed me how much there is to experience in my own backyard and how much excitement awaits me. It's an awesome gift with such an effect I could never explain.

My aunt Sheila, the youngest of my Dad's sisters, is a great woman who is a major reason in why I love education. Closer in age to many of my cousins, I watched her and my cousin Dana go through their undergraduate and graduate programs and enter the field of teaching as I grew up. I saw them learning and committing to the fight of helping others learn. Now she's a wonderful resource for me and a ton of fun to talk to about teaching or any other thing we love to talk about. She is a fantastic mom to two young ones, setting an example for me in that sense as well. We disagree sometimes (though always respectfully), but so much more often we are able to simply enjoy conversations and I learn from her something new more often than I don't. I'll always look up to the example she sets in life, both professional and personal.

Dana, one of my cousins I just mentioned, and her husband Jed, as well as Dana's sister Janet and her husband Jon, are all examples of the kind of adult I want to be. They've grown to be more than family but to also be friends. I've watched them go after dream jobs & the lives they want, explore new homes in Janet and Jon's case, and raise kids that are turning into some of the best youngin's you'll ever have the privilege of knowing. The four of them are rolemodels without even realizing it I'm sure, and they have been showing me how to be an adult for many years.

My aunt Donna and Uncle James are the last I'll write about today, before I bend your ears too much. Donna has been a lifelong example for living an organized and wholly active life while still be entirely involved in her children's aspirations and activities. She taught me that there is nothing you can't learn to make yourself, you can always take the time to do what's needed if you're willing to get up early enough, and there's nothing more important than what your kids are doing. Uncle James has been incredibly hardworking my entire life and has always shown that you can not only make things yourself but you can build them yourself. My dad and all of his brothers know how to basically build anything you could ever need and it was great growing up watching them and helping in the little ways I could to see that you can build your dream house or whatever you might want if you take the time and work hard. The city of Gainesville's current Deputy Fire Chief, he's a rolemodel and awesome person for anyone to have the chance to know - consider yourself lucky if you get to know any of them.

I really could write something about essentially all of my family, but I fear that I would drive all of you off a metaphorical cliff into boredom abounding if I did. More to save for another day. In any case, I love you all and hope you all know how much you're appreciated.

Fruitful living - loving others.

Monday's acts of kindness were one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. I'd been thinking about what I would write for this week's post so that I could write about focusing on loving others after focusing on loving my kids last week (more about that in a minute). I realized Monday that the most beautiful of all the things we did was when I was able to feed 3 different homeless men a little lunch. Not as much as I would like to have, but it was food none the less and they were so incredibly grateful it broke my heart. All day I was focused on sending out as much love towards others as I could and trying to make others feel happier. It made me happy as well as my sister, and ended up being one of the best things I've ever done. I decided that I'm going to do my best to try and go once a week to visit with and feed a few homeless people in town - I wish I could feed them all and even do so much more, but I know that I can do at least this little thing. I don't think after having talked with those men this week and seeing their faces as I gave them sandwiches that I could ever stand to go another week without trying to help ease their pain and troubles in some way. So, this week's post about loving others....it's not a post about how I'm going to focus on something for a week... it's a post about how I did something on my birthday that changed my life and my perspective.

Regarding last week and my focus on loving my sons - I wasn't too great at the whole yelling less concept, but hey - they're 1 and 3 years old. It's hard to make it through an hour much less a day without having to raise your voice so they stop doing something they shouldn't (such as hitting/shoving each other, or climbing on top of tables, or trying to play with the burning fireplace...). I did, however, enjoy them more. I spent time smelling their hair (a favorite past time), holding hands and playing and trying to focus on how amazing they've become already. It was great and definitely made the week go by more cheerily.

Here's to all of you finding a way to show more love to those around you - be they family, friends, or strangers in need. Everyone needs some love. Do what you can to share some. Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Fruitful Living, Week 2

Happy Wednesday, everyone! It's the beginning of week 2 of my 52 week project to live the fruits of the spirit. Above you can see the list I wrote out for last week's project, to list the ways in which you can love others. This was really fun to do because it helped me really think about how I show my love to those around me. Today I am going to start a week focusing on how I love and actively loving my kids, Owen & Mac. They are truly the cheery rays of sunshine in my day .... most days, haha. Even amidst the moments when they are driving me up the wall and I am ready to give up on this whole mom shindig though, they'll smile or do something sweet that just makes it better ever so slightly.

Like last night how Owen was kicking me in the face all night, but at one point around 4 he searched in the bed we're sharing to find and hold my hand as he slept. Or how last week when Mac was sick with a bug of some kind and was extraordinarily clingy and spending his nights throwing up all over himself and everything surrounding him, he was so loving and sweet and snuggled right up into me like when he was a newborn. I forget so easily (like we all do) how much I truly love my sons. I get so busy with yelling at toddler things and controlling temper tantrums or picking up toys over and over, that I forget to spend time with them being silly and fun sometimes. So this week, I'm going to try each day to do something fun with them that they would like to do, to try and yell less and get angry less. I'll give you an update on how that's going sometime this week! Enjoy the rest of your hump day, all!

"Love is the voice under all silences..."

Since today as January 1st, is Wednesday, it is fortuitous that I have planned a project to write about living the fruits of the spirit all year on Wednesdays. For January and February I will focus on Love, the first of the nine fruits of the spirit listed in Galatians 5:22. The fruit of the spirit are nine things "against which there is no law". So I am going to begin this new year with a list. Yep, a list. I have long been interested in the 52 Lists Project and think that this is a perfect post to start it myself. I am going to work in my own order (Starting today with week 6's list) but I will use the lists that were originally thought up for the project. Week six's prompt was to 'list the ways in which you can love others'. I'll be writing my list in the next few days and will share it with you soon. Enjoy your new year everyone!

*I'm sorry these are shorter posts than I'd planned but started feeling off yesterday and woke up this morning very sick. Hopefully it won't last long, but in any case, I'm excited for the beginning of this year and all of the amazing things it will hold for my family and myself. What are you looking forward to this year?