Tag: #family

Sweatpants and fleece thank-you’s …

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A friend and former co-worker made me this neat fleece tie blanket as a going away gift. It’s cozy and comfy. It reminds me of her and of our new Minnesota adventures. It also makes me think a little deeper.

We recently celebrated Christmas. It was filled with family, food, games and travel. It was a “dress shirt event.” Christmas pictures, church programs and services… special times. My dad comments every year about the number of people who appear at the Christmas service. The church is full, there is candlelight and extra songs. It’s a special event. It brings people together and is a reminder of God in our lives. We remember the big gift he gave to us by sending his son. We are more likely to go to church and to perhaps thank God… to pray.

I believe that God loves our “dress shirt” thank-you’s but I think he also loves our “sweatpants and fleece” thank-you’s…The every day prayers when nothing out of the ordinary is going on. It’s easy to remember God when times are tough because we are usually asking for help. It’s easy to remember God when amazing things happen – births,  weddings or other great things because  we are so thankful for the good fortune. It’s harder to remember to be thankful for every day things.

I’m reminded of this each night when our youngest son says his prayers. He’s a kid of rituals, routines and familiar things. Each night we read from a daily devotional book for kids and say the Lord’s Prayer, then we thank God. For years, that was my section. In the past year or so, he has started to do the thankful part. It’s interesting to hear what he says. It’s a great reminder to be thankful for the “every day.” Some days he is even thankful for stuff he wasn’t necessarily excited about. He’s thankful for someone else’s good day or exciting event. He’s thankful for ice fishing even though he doesn’t love it. He’s thankful for my good day at work. He’s thankful for going out for supper. It always ends with “thank you for our family and all of our blessings.”

Sometimes our journeys take us down scary paths. We might not have expected a loss or life change, illness or move. We struggle to find meaning and hope. In those times, but also in the regular “lounge in fleece days” I hope you are able to be thankful. I know some days that is the last thing you may feel like doing. It takes strength but it also takes practice. I feel like our daily prayers make God smile because it means we are thinking of him. What are you thankful for today?

Peace be with you on our journey of enough. May you have some sweatpants and fleece thank-you’s to go with your dress shirt thank-you’s.

Season of enough…

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Are your cards sent? Did you order enough? Are your cookies made? Did you bake enough? Are your presents wrapped? Did you buy enough? As we enter the Christmas & holiday season, we are bombarded with messages that we aren’t enough. Sales that remind us how much time is left or that time is “running out” often create a false sense of urgency. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the material side of Christmas. (Pardon the wrapping pun) I find myself forgetting what I’ve already wrapped if I don’t have a list. When we moved, I found presents that I had “hid” a little too well! Those gifts were perfect for the boys at the time, but they have outgrown them. Those gifts went to the toy drive instead.

Whatever your level of preparedness, I’m guessing that it’s better than you think it is. Many people won’t remember what gift they got last year, but they will remember the time together. 2 years ago, I was recently diagnosed with cancer. At our family Christmas Bunco, I had a little too much to drink – I’m guessing that will be more of a memory than the gloves I gave someone. I remember my mom doing Wii bowling that included some interesting leg movements (she was not drinking). I remember our games of spoons, my nephew showing off his impressive auctioneering skills, & that one time when we went yulebaching.

I’m blessed and thankful to get to spend time with my family over the holidays. My kids will be fed and loved and given gifts. They don’t fully understand how special that is. I know that there are others experiencing loss, faced with a diagnosis or struggling with other issues. I hope that they can find comfort & friendship this holiday. As you rush from one Christmas concert to another, try to cram in some last minute shopping or bake a few more treats, I wish you enough.

Enough family to make you feel loved. Enough food to make you feel full. Enough activity to make you feel vibrant. Enough peace to last you for the coming year.
Peace be with you on your journey of enough. (& save a cookie for Santa)

The best kind of contagious…

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I decided to give you a break from my cancer diagnosis anniversary to let you know about a great book. I’ve followed Nicole Phillips’ column for a while. She writes a weekly column for the Forum newspaper about kindness & recently released a book. “100 short stories to remind you God is good and so are most people.” I bought 4 copies. Guess what 3 people are getting for Christmas? (Aside from 3M products) The book is a compilation of her columns, all good reminders that it doesn’t necessarily take lots of money or time to spread kindness, sometimes you just need to be nice.

The book gives you lots of examples of how something small can mean a lot to someone else. Sometimes we get too wrapped up in ourselves to think of others. I’m guilty too. We rush about and don’t take the time to listen to others, to smile at the cashier, to ask the server how her day was or to look people in the eyes. If nothing else, maybe it will make you more aware of your fellow humans.

Several years ago, when Dallas was small, we visited family & went to church in Oakes, Nd. They had “quiet bags” for the kids… a bag with some distractions for them. A stuffed toy, coloring pages and crayons, a car, a book etc. Both Cam and I thought this would be a great addition to our own church. The nursery in our hometown church wasn’t “sound proof” and we felt self conscious of our loud toddler. With our tax refund money, we bought cloth bags, found clearance stuffed bunnies, used coupons for etch-a-sketches and found Bible coloring books at the dollar store. I painted on each bag and we filled them up. Over the years, someone brought in 2 stands to put them on and our boys have helped us fill and re-organize the bags. If it makes some parents with little kids feel more welcome and more willing to stay for church with their kids, then that’s great. It was our way of spreading kindness.

There are many simpler examples though… pay it forward in the drive though… help someone who is short on money at the grocery store…visit a nursing home… find out the needs at the local shelter. The ideas are endless.

Each year, for the past several years, my best friend Jessie and our families do a giant baking day. It’s a 12-14 HR marathon day of cookies, candies, bars and snacks. It started when she lived two houses down from us. It seemed like a good idea to use our double oven and kitchen island. Over the years, we streamlined our process and added cooling tables in the garage too. The husbands were in charge of dishes and packaging up the finished product. We each brought our favorite recipes and then doubled or tripled it. We both like to bake, love the chance to visit, and like to share the Christmas goodies. The majority of our treats go to family gatherings, but also to school teachers, mail carriers, bus drivers, co workers and homeless shelters. I know I wrote about this recently, but for us it was a really great tradition… one that we are both missing this year. It’s also one that for us was an easy way to spread kindness.

As we navigate some new paths on our journey, we look towards the opportunity to spread kindness in our new location. I hope you will order Nicole’s book and it will spark some ideas for you too. And, when you are done reading it, do what I did – share it with someone. I gave mine to my new co-worker (with a note thanking her for making me feel so welcome). Peace be with you on your journey of enough… may you have enough  this holiday season to be able to share with others!

Thanks, you might hear that a few times today…

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At the risk of posting something on Thanksgiving day and having it get lost in your feed…I like this saying & it’s fitting for Thanksgiving week. Sometimes we get so busy that we forget to stop and be thankful. Instead of worrying about what we lack, we should focus on what we have. Many of us live in abundance – we don’t worry about our next meal or where we will sleep. I didn’t thank God for the ability to walk until I broke my foot. Then that simple thing that we take for granted suddenly becomes a big deal. I wasn’t thankful for my health until I had cancer and my life forever changed.

Everyone has a story. We’ve all had some event or circumstance that shapes who we are and the journey that we travel. Sometimes they are huge, significant things like death/loss, cancer, accidents etc. Other times they are small and we don’t recognize it at the time (or maybe ever). For example, back in 1993, I went to a 4H picnic & walked over with a friend to a group of “the cool guys.” The one guy asked where my ex-boyfriend was. I explained that we weren’t dating. He said, “I’m sorry.” I said, “I’m not.” The rest is history. Small, every day occurrences can shape our lives significantly also. That cool dude became my husband. Life forever changed. You may look back on an ordinary day and realize that it was a turning point.

We all also cope with those significant changes differently. Some people feel sorry for themselves, some pretend it didn’t happen, and some are more vocal. I’ve been more vocal about my cancer journey than some. It doesn’t make my way better – this is just how I cope. Writing stuff out is like making a big list. Have you ever made to-do lists? I have plenty. (I’ve been known to make a list or add to it so that I can cross something off). I do think that sharing with people allows you to bring them in, share in your joy or pain and feel more connected. You might learn something about them or yourself.

Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful on purpose. Today you may hear people be thankful for family or friends or a big turkey dinner. There will also be people who are alone, scared, homeless or wondering where their next meal will come from. They might be cold, tired or struggling with addiction. Not everyone enjoys the 4 day weekend filled with food, football, shopping &/or family. I say this, not to make anyone feel bad, but to make you aware that you probably have so much more than you realize. My husbands job at the school opened our eyes to the struggles that some kids face. Some of those kids worry about more than just turkey. They worry about being safe, where to sleep, what to eat. Yes, we have way more to be thankful for than what we realize. When we really think about it, the list could be very long. Sometimes it might not make sense.


I wondered if I should put this quote in, because it seemed kind of negative… but to me, it is a reminder to be thankful for our struggles, challenges and even difficult people. Maybe an odd thing to be thankful for, but hasn’t a difficult person also shaped your life? Did they make you realize how strong you really are? Did they make you strive to be nicer? Less judgemental? More loving? We learn a lesson from everyone who touches our lives. What path we take is up to us. Fill up with turkey and blessings this weekend, but take some time to relfect too. Peace be with you on your journey of enough.

per·se·ver·ance

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Perseverance. noun: steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.

A lot goes into training for a half or full marathon. Usually 18 weeks of training, long runs on Saturdays and lots of core strength building. For the last 7 years, my husband has done 2 marathons per year, every year. What started out with a neighbor friend suggesting a run around the development has turned into an obsession. 367 miles of just marathons, let alone the hundreds of training hours and long runs. You can train and prepare and do everything right, but race day is always a wild card. What will the weather be like? Did you “pre-hydrate” enough ahead of time? Did you practice drinking while running? Did you eat the right foods? Are you mentally prepared? To me, marathons are the epitome of perseverance. Today, Cameron completed #14. While it wasn’t his fastest time, he finished. It was warmer than he likes, the humidity was high, and yesterday he twisted his ankle. It swelled up last night to almost twice the size. I asked him if he wanted to skip the race today. That wasn’t an option for him. Perseverance. Today was the ultimate test. He finished. To him, it didn’t seem enough. His time wasn’t good enough. You know who did think it was enough? His cheering section. We had our cowbells ringing the whole time.


I have never run a full marathon. It’s not on my list. I did 4 half marathons & that was enough (maybe). I love my husband, but I don’t share his love of running. He gets jealous when he sees people out for a run…wishing he could be out with them. He gets up at the crack of dawn or long before, inspires and leads others, then goes to school and does more of the same inspiring and leading. He won’t admit it. He’s pretty humble that way. I’ve said it before, but I’m a pretty big fan of the guy.

This past week was homecoming at school. When you go to a small rural school, homecoming week is a big deal. Dress up days every day, & lots of extra games and activities. Our school also does a “chalk fest.” The students get to draw on the sidewalks. This year, a group did a portrait of him in chalk. He was humbled & embarrassed, but it was pretty cool. He had his picture taken by his portrait- he was in a “Mr. Incredible” costume. Yes, yes you are.


There are days when he feels like he doesn’t do enough. (The day following the portrait, one kid wrote that he was mean – he must have said no to them.) We all have days when we feel like we are not enough. I bet, there is someone who thinks you are though. Aside from God, who always thinks you’re enough, there are others. When you have those feelings, ask yourself if you’d say the same thing to your best friend. Would you tell them they were too slow, not nice enough, not a good enough parent? Most likely not. Don’t do it to yourself. Show some love. Look in the mirror & be like the old SNL skit, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me.”

Peace be with you on your journey of enough, whether it’s 26.2 miles or not, it will be enough.

The rest of the story…

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sunset lake

Some people don’t care for Facebook and others love it. The ones who dislike it usually do because they feel it’s “fake” or “too negative” or just not real. I understand that, but I happen to like it. I like to feel connected to my relatives and friends by seeing pictures of them. I slide past the ones that have too much drama or differing views and linger more on the pictures of family adventures or positive quotes. I “like” a bunch of positive quote sites or ones that are scripture based. It’s my way of letting in those reminders or nudges that I need just when I need them. Some days those posts are so meaningful and hit home so much that they make me teary (that happens more now than before.)

Yet with each smiling photo, there is a back story. Paul Harvey was frequently on in our family vehicle while I was young. His segment was “the rest of the story…” and would talk about the back story or give more info on what the headlines were talking about. I thought of that the other day when one of my favorite pictures of the boys popped up in my Facebook Memories. It’s of them at sunset standing by a lake. It’s a gorgeous picture. The “rest of the story” is that there were 10,000 mosquitos by the lake that night at dusk. The kids were getting eaten alive and they all tried to stay still long enough to get that photo then race back to the campground. I love the picture because I love the water and the lake and those 3 men in the photo. It also is a good reminder that things aren’t always as they seem. That mom that posted her smiling kids at the zoo… she might have just lost her cool before that about ice cream or them fighting about what animal they were going to see next. The photo of the runner who finished the marathon… his body is hurting more than you can tell, his toes are bloody and parts of his body are chafing that he’d rather not talk about. The person who has gained weight but took pictures anyway… maybe they are on medication that has caused it or 100 other reasons why. That doesn’t mean that we should stop sharing the photos. It just means that we should take them for what they are and not assume we know the back story.

We do that to people a lot. (At least I’m guiltier of it than I’d like to admit.) We assume we know “the rest of the story…”  We assume that the person in the meeting was just crabby. We don’t know that they just learned that a friend of theirs had passed away. We assume the clerk at the store is having a bad day. We don’t know that this is their second job just to make ends meet. We assume the kid at school is naughty. We don’t know that he’s unsure of when he will eat again over the weekend, and fearful of what will happen to him or his siblings. We THINK we know the rest of the story but we don’t. We should just reach out to people more and care more. Me included. When I post pictures of our family this coming week in Duluth, you wouldn’t know the back story (except I’m telling you now. You wouldn’t know that my Oncology follow up is Wednesday and this was a good distraction to make me think about the Dr. less and of my family more. You might not know that the recent loss of friends unexpectedly has made me want to embrace life. You might not be aware that we know our 13 year old might not think a “Tall Ship Festival” with his family will be cool in 3 years, so we are going now while it is.  We assume. You know what that does. (There is a saying that goes along with that – if you’re not sure, Google it) It leads us to either assume the best or the worst depending on what type of person we are. It makes us judge others when the judging is not ours to do.

My challenge to you is this… keep sharing pictures of your family, dog, cat, kids, and friends – whatever. Just don’t assume you know the rest of the story when you see someone else’s pictures, unless you’ve walked in their shoes. Even then, those shoes might be a different size. Share some love. Help people along their journey of enough – that good karma will come back to help you someday also. Peace be with you.