Where I'm From

I am from long stemmed sunflowers, petals facing morning sunlight.

I am from Daddy's fajitas fresh off the charcoal grill and the sound of acoustic guitars. From dancing on his feet and reading Bible stories before bedtime.

I am from dipping pretzels and wearing aprons and learning how to cook from my mother. I am from hot glue guns and handmade dresses and decorated wreaths. I am from creativity and beauty and the sound of laughter.

I am from Grammy's costume jewelry and bracelets missing gems. From paperdolls and pie-cookies and freshly washed sheets drying on the line. From reading books and feeling her fingers comb through my hair.

I am from throwing a football in crisp November air and melted whipped cream on hot pumpkin pie. From watching Home Alone every Thanksgiving night. I am from Christmas mornings eating cinnamon rolls and finding silly putty and chocolate coins in my stocking. From reading Luke 2 before we opened presents.

I am from catching bugs and baking cookies from scratch. From shooting pellet guns at old cans and legs hanging from tire swings. From daydreaming and twirling in ruffled dresses and riding horses. I am from summer haircuts and strawberry Koolaid.

I am from south Texas. From long, hot summers and playing in the sprinkler. From say hi and smile to anyone that passes you by. From short road trips to the beach, from photo shoots in fields of bluebonnets and delicious barbecue.

I am from musicals and showtunes and music listened to loudly. From family sing-a-longs and concerts and songwriting and performing and air-guitar. I am from the symphony and the orchestra and great pieces of music that move me to tears and make my heart beat fast.

I am from youth group games and worship team. From my Grandfather's two hour long sermons and Sunday school lessons with felt boards and paper Bible characters. I am from Jungle camp stories and missionaries and pastors and God-fearing and God-loving.

I am from do your best and work hard. From go the extra mile, go above and beyond. And from never do anything with a lick and a promise. I am from cleaning bathrooms and cleaning cat-pans and picking up pears and pinecones and washing dishes. I am from "Don't bite your nails" and "Tattoos are evil."

I am from choir and competitions and contests and vocal training and crushed dreams. I am from The Babysitter's Club books and poetry and stories that flow naturally from my heart onto paper.

I am from days spent at hospitals. From watching clocks tick by slowly, fragile life and from watching death that comes for ten year olds.

I am from chubby and overweight and restricted foods and diet pills. I am from torn up pictures and divorce and death and being told that God works all things together for good.

I am from vibrant and beautiful and life-giving and wounded. I am from losing my mother at 18 and missing a relationship that we never got to have.

I am from a man who adores me. From a realized dream that walks around in the form of a toddler boy with bubbling laughter. I am from fighting for my life and changing. I am from healing and moving on. From Tracy's tears and Gary's hugs and real and deep friendships. I am from learning how to hope and to live.

I am from scrapbooks, photo albums and blogs and memories nestled away in the endless rooms of my heart. All of where I am from and how I remember it is priceless and unforgettable and I shall always value the ability to remember. Because where I'm from is who I am today.

My friend Kathi did this prompt yesterday and it absolutely moved me. I thought it would be fun to do my own version of where I am from. And how about you?

Where are you from?

Thoughtful Thoughts

I feel more like me - my true and real self - when I've had the rest I need. I feel less chaotic inside and more aware of my surroundings and my heart and I guess I should take note that maybe going to bed earlier would be another thing I could do just to take better care of myself.

And this morning, I felt rested and alive and normal again. Perhaps going to bed at 9:45 helped with that and I should aim for an earlier bedtime every night.

When I walked outside to my car the air felt different. The breeze somehow almost made summer's end feel tangible. Even though my 30 years of living in south Texas reminds me that we still have at least another full month of summer-like temperatures before summer really does end here.

Though I never stop hoping that we'll get "lucky" and maybe this year it will be different. It is sometimes fun to hope and I won't ever stop hoping for an early autumn. I love fall and like every year, I am anxiously awaiting its arrival.

As I pulled out of my neighborhood, I caught the sun - just risen - in the sky. It was beautiful and blood orange. Even though the weather is still quite oppressively hot, the sunrise seemed to echo the whispers from God breathing His golden hued message that relief is on the way. Autumn is around the corner. The great shift in life and weather is coming and the long Texas summer promises to end.

God always woos me with sunrises and the warm colors of the morning that make me feel bright and cheerful and loved.

I thanked Him for beauty. I thanked Him for my job because having it allows me to catch the sunrises I love so much. And I thanked Him for creating me the way that He did so I could appreciate the sunrises that I like to think that He makes just for me.

I've been more thankful lately.

There was an accident on I-35. And it took me 32 minutes to drive three miles. It never takes long for something to happen and attempt to rob me the joy and gladness that resides in my heart. But I chose to sit there - in the traffic, in the not moving, in the frustration of needing to go somewhere and feeling like I was going nowhere. I didn't get angry, and I wasn't exceptionally happy either. I just felt the tension of where I was. And eventually things got moving and I got to where I needed to go.

Traffic is just like a hot summer. It feels like it won't ever end, and it eventually does.

And summer is always the season that leaves me waiting for something new.

Waiting. I am always waiting for something it seems. I am hating it less and accepting it more though. Waiting seems to be an important part of life. I want to live well in the places I find myself waiting for.

None of this feels like it has any real cohesive point. Just some written down thoughts on the final Tuesday of another August gone by.

Sunrises. Traffic. Summer. Autumn. Rest. Thankfulness. Tension. Waiting.

Memory Making

I love that pictures are like permanent memories for us. They help us remember.

Like this one. Where I went out to celebrate my friend Mal's 25th birthday. And I wore a dress because it was a party dress kind of event. And even though it was quite the battle to make the decision to go to the party wearing it, I did. This picture reminds me of where I am loved, where I have changed and who I am today. And how the relationships I have with both of these women next to me in this picture have shaped my heart.
I'm thinking about this picture too. Which may look like just another picture of me and my husband. But it reminds me of all we've been through the last couple of months and what life and marriage has felt like as we've attempted to navigate through some hard things together.Last night at around 11:00pm we found ourselves tired and starving since we hadn't really eaten since lunch. I made a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese to share. And as we sat there sleepy and eating an .88 cent dinner, I told him that there was no one else in the world I would rather be eating macaroni and cheese with at 11:30 at night than him. And thankfully, the feeling was mutual.

And this picture. My laughing little boy - his laughter is incredibly contagious. He makes my heart feel so full and so alive and I love him so. I never knew how someone could truly light up your life until God gave him to us.
A picture of Tommy and Wyatt jumping on the bed last night. And in the midst of laughing at them and with them in how much fun they were having at just being boys, I started to cry because the moments left that will look like this, are few.
And this last picture. They're not gone yet. D leaves before B this weekend. We hosted a farewell party for them last night. And my heart hurts.
I'm grateful for pictures to remind of us good and happy times.

I'm grateful that pictures have a way of reminding us what our hearts felt when we took them.

I'm grateful for living life and having memories that are worth making.

That's When

It's when I'm left alone in the silence.

It's when my little boy has gone to bed and Todd has either gone out or isn't home yet. When I don't have either of them needing something of me.

It's when the last guest of the party has left and all of the laughter that was filling the walls of your home feel hollow and empty.

It's when I've loaded all of the pictures off of my camera onto Facebook and there's nothing left to do but remember the memories that were made.

It's the remembering the memories. So fresh. So yesterday. So only hours ago.

It's when the chocolate-chocolate cupcake I ate is gone and the hurt that I am hurting inside still hurts.

It's when all of the laundry is put away and all of the dishes are done and everything feels caught up and there's nothing left to busy myself with anymore.

It's then.

It's then that I have nothing left to do but feel.

Tonight I am feeling. All of it.

Not giving up

This road hasn't been an easy one. And I am most definitely not where I wanted to be seven months in to this process of meeting regularly with someone in regards to my eating disorder. I suppose I thought I'd be 50 pounds lighter by now and living on salads because I would be all about wanting to eat healthy stuff and the hardest part would be behind me.

But it's not so. I don't think the hardest part is behind me yet.

I've been told that as a person begins to really recovery from an eating disorder, that the things that have been kept down with by food start bubbling up to the surface. They start coming out and there's nothing left to do but deal with them. And it's so exhausting - the things that keep coming to the surface - that I guess I wonder if I still have it in me to keep going. Will there ever be an end?

And of course there's the current life I'm living too. There's the unexpected things that life hits you with and you have to choose how to deal with those things too.

While I didn't put on the bulk of my weight until my 20's, bad habits and disordered eating started long before that. I've had an eating disorder longer than I haven't had one. I am in this process of trying to relearn things I never learned, and un-do ways of thinking that have been a part of who I am for the majority of my life. This process feels long and exhaustive because it is. And it was a long and exhaustive process that led me to this point too.

Yet, it's hard for me to give myself a break at how long this is taking. It's hard for me to always recognize progress and name where I've changed. It's hard for me not to just focus on how much weight I want to lose and what size I want to be. It's hard when I've seen others diet and have success and I have to remind myself that I'm not "dieting." All of it is hard.

I am convinced however, that what I am doing is what I need to be doing for me. This is what I've needed to do all along and there has been change and there will be more change, but it's going to take more time. This is the only thing I've ever done that's given me any kind of hope that I could change here - and not just to lose the weight and have a trimmer figure so I can wear cuter jeans. It's more than that.

I've been given this hope that I really can feel differently with and around food - and I know I can because I've felt and experienced some of that over the last seven months. I can live where I don't feel powerless to it and I can make healthier choices because I actually want to not because I have to. I can just live and exist with food and have a normal relationship with it and see it as fuel and sustenance and not a reward or a comfort or a place to hurt myself with.

But the process is sucking. I've been at this stand-still for what seems like forever. I've been stagnant and unmoving in regards to my weight. It hasn't really gone anywhere. And though some clothes are bigger and looser and I see shrinkage in my face and arms and even some in my legs, I am still virtually the same size. The temptation to give up and throw in the towel is ever present.

I'm seven months in to this whole thing and I'm not ready to give up yet. I've put in way too much time to sabotage myself now. I've spent way too much money on therapy to quit now. I don't want to go back to the misery and the sadness I felt because food was ruling my life. Even if I have to stay at this size forever and just struggle in it and be alive to what's going on and have good days and bad days, then it's better than it was before. Because right now I'm having good days with food, and not-so-good days with food. But I'm having good days.

I'm needing to remind myself of that today. That I don't want to go back to how it was. I want to keep struggling in this, because struggling out of it feels way worse.

And who I am - the real, raw, natural Jennifer...she is lovely and fun and beautiful. And she can stay in this. I know I have the guts and determination and fight to stay in it. I don't want to go back.

Even if I never drop another pound, I am committed to pushing through the hard things to have and experience and live life. No matter what size I am or I'm not.

Un-Doneness

I feel surrounded by un-doneness of life. The incomplete, work-in-progress, I'll get to eventually, un-doneness.

The unwashed dishes.

Pots crusting over and baked on salmon skin to glass baking dishes.

Crumbs that always find the bottom of my feet reminding me that kitchen floor could use a good scrubbing, or at least a sweep.

The unfolded laundry in the laundry room wrinkling up polo shirts that will have to be tossed in the dryer yet again before they are hung in the closet.

Dust and dog hair collecting around the baseboards.

The red juice stain on the carpet.

Not put away movies and open cases left on top of the entertainment center.

The cluttered desk in our bedroom piling high with papers and bills and receipts and drawings that Tommy did that I want to save and have yet to do anything with.

Pictures that need printing out, or scrapbooking or arranged into something cohesive and organized.

Junk drawers full of things that need a different home.

Cluttered utensil drawers with mangled measuring spoons.

Messy dresser drawers with tangled bras.

Barely closing closets of "skinny clothes" and costumes and old toys and memories and hunting gear that needs organizing or purging of all the crap.

The not-so-guest room containing the deconstructed crib, our DVD's and old toys Tommy has outgrown.

A garage of unused baby items and duck decoys and Christmas decorations and old schoolbooks and too many sleeping bags and dog food and paint.

The laundry room begging to be repainted a different shade.

A giant basket of Todd's button-up shirts that need ironing.

The bench on the front porch also waiting for its little face-lift and the 105 degree heat that prevents such a thing, because who can paint anything outside at 105?

A bag of tangled ribbons and bows for presents.

The ring around the toilet in our bathroom.

An unorganized pantry and a spice cabinet of chaos.

The highchair with stuck-on who-knows-what.

My mental to-do list of un-doneness seems to grow every day.

Sometimes I just get so overwhelmed with what isn't done. It's the undone things that whisper to me that I'm a failure - that any other working mom would figure out how to do all of it. And there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day, and if there are, I want to just relax and unwind. That's what I did last night - put on my pj's and sat in front of the TV and watched necessary adult things like Teen Mom. I purposefully let the dishes and the laundry and everything else sit while I just sat there and decompressed and numbed out to all of the un-doneness around me.

Un-doneness feels like chaos - I hate how it makes me feel internally. Usually after a good self-beating for what a wretched housewife I feel like I am, I sometimes allow myself to see that in the un-doneness of life, is where real life is lived. It's where I've chosen to play instead of clean or organize. Where I've chosen to take a walk and revive my body rather than sort through a closet. And where I've decided to let myself rest than burden myself with chores, that in all honesty, really can wait for another day. The world will not end if I don't load the dishwasher or iron a few shirts.

I guess I just wish I could figure out what the magic key is to having more balance in life. And is there a magic key? Has anyone found it? Is that even the point?

Sometimes, I just feel that everything I put my time and energy into comes out with mediocre results and not as I envision for them too. I half-ass my way through plenty of things and I hate how that makes me feel inside because I desire to do everything with greatness. How my home suffers while I try to work, be involved in ministry, play with my toddler and engage with my husband and so on - just feels like this big fat, glaring reminder that I haven't figured something out yet that I thought I was supposed to have figured out.

No one is harder on me than I am myself. *sigh* Another place where I know I need to extend myself more grace and kindness, and yet I don't most of the time.

I know I'm not the only woman or working mom and wife who has ever felt this way, but I still feel like I'm stuck in trying to figure out how to make things work better than they are. I guess maybe clean baseboards and put away laundry and organized drawers would at least give me the illusion that I've got it all together and figured out.

I'm curious about my need to have it all together and figured out. I wonder where that comes from....

Even this post feels undone. There doesn't feel like some clever or witty or resolved way to end it. And so is the story of undone life around me.

Redecorated: Before and After

I love to decorate. And I'm pretty sure I got the love and knack for it from my mother. I tell people that things like singing and throwing parties and sometimes just being a little loud is kind of in my genes. I can't help it. And the same goes with decorating.

I'm pretty sure that next to writing, I could decorate people's houses all day and it would never get old. I've tossed the idea around a few times about doing some kind of decorating business on the side, but well - that's still very much just an idea.

For now though, I'm taking out my need to decorate out on my home.

THE PLAN: I didn't have a lot of money and kind of next to none. After we sold Todd's boat, I used a very small sum (Under $200) and came up with some design ideas.

1) I chose a color palette. Maroon/deep reds, brown, cream and golds for the kitchen/dining. And mostly greens and creams for the living room.

2) I took EVERY decorative item and wall hanging from my entire house (including our master bedroom) and gathered it all together to assess what I had. From there I decided what things I could make-over or put in a different place in my home.

3) I went shopping - one of the funnest parts of course. I purchased a clock, some new pillows, spray paint, some hydrangeas and a few wrought iron pieces for the wall. (The only stores I went to were Hobby Lobby, JCPenney, Walmart and Home Depot). I had stashed away a few gift cards which enabled me to buy a few extra things and contributed to some of the throw pillows, but I mostly found things on sale and clearance and stuck to my list and color palette. New furniture pieces were most definitely out of the question, and the point was to work with what I already had.

4) Move, rearrange and do it all over again - For what felt like forever, I moved things around and changed things up and moved them around again. It took a while for me to decide what was going where.

And after all of that, it was finally done. Here are the results from my DIY and do-with-what-I-already-had home makeover:

My dining area BEFORE:
My dining area AFTER:
My buffet in the dining BEFORE: (And also at Christmas time. But I always had the Texas flag there, so you know, you get the general idea).
My buffet area AFTER: (and also not at Christmastime. Just to clarify.)
Shelf in the kitchen BEFORE: (Very, very sunflowery, yes?)
Shelf in the kitchen AFTER: I painted it brown to match the dining table and buffet.
Cabinets in the kitchen BEFORE:
Cabinets and kitchen counter tops AFTER:
Living room BEFORE:
Living room AFTER:

Slightly in love with these new pillows. Which could be yours too courtesy Walmart.
Things on my coffee table - that to my amazement, Tommy has left alone. And I'm a little excited that I can have nice things on the coffee table again.
Chairs and table by the window.
Bookshelf BEFORE: (The hopes and blessings boxes I ended up painting over and using for flower arrangements in other places).
Bookshelf AFTER:
I love this pretty plaque that says "Be Brave." It was a gift at my friend's wedding earlier this year and feels very fitting for me and who I today.
Above the entertainment center BEFORE: (And at fall apparently, seeing a pumpkin found it's place up there at one point.)
Above the entertainment center AFTER: (Those two plates were above the cabinets before. I spray-painted over the sunflowers and thought they made a perfect fit here.)
And the picture wall. I found the "Family" sign at Hobby Lobby for half price - only cost me $20! I think this is my most favorite thing to look at. While I would love to change some of the frames out and change the look of the wall as a whole, looking at this wall makes me feel happy and blessed. And believe it or not - I still have pictures of family that need adding to this wall!
And because no one's home is that clean all the time, I give you a redecorated shot in REAL LIFE.So tada! I'm very happy with how things turned out on my little budget. My home feels more grown-up, and just more "Todd and Jenn-esque." It was a lot of work, but it was mostly fun. And doing it all definitely got my wheels turning a bit more about perhaps helping others do the same kind of thing in their house. We'll see....

And now I have about two weeks to enjoy things as they are before I bust out my fall stuff and decorate for the upcoming seasons!

Today I am thankful for memories of my mom redecorating the house I grew up in.