On Being Friends

Nature, or for that matter, God, has a way of putting the biggest obstacles and the greatest blessings in your path at the most opportune time. For example, my friend S. Here we are, two women, going through the same thing. I am just a bit ahead of her on the timeline and the circumstances are different in some respect but we are literally carring each others load when it gets too heavy. When I'm down, she's up. When I'm up, she may be down and so far it's really been a symbiotic relationship.
This weekend we just drove to no where. It is an incredible feeling to just turn left and see where the road takes you. We ended up in the Kananaskis on a logging road politely requesting the cows to move so we could pass. As we got farther in we knew we had to remember where we had been so as to not get lost. The landscape was breath taking. How do you not know there is a God when you are in the Canadian Rockies?
We crested over a hill and came to a fork in the road. There at the crest were two abandoned SUV/vans that has literally been driven to death. One appeared to have rolled a large amount of times and the other must have been literally driven to death. We just started to laugh.
We drove a bit farther and realized that maybe there was no real end to this road. We turned around and drove back turning at the sign for Priddis and Bragg Creek and followed the most beautiful paved road full of rolling foothills and beautiful acreages. In the wondering, we found peace. It was awesome.

I AM INDIAN RUBBER

What happens with divorce is that just when you think everything is copacetic a situation will arise and BAM, all the heartache and frustration and second guessing comes back.
Did I do everything I could have?
Are my kids really healthier?
Am I okay?
It all seems to come back and you just get unsure.
The thing is.....even though your head is 100% sure your heart flip flops like a fresh caught fish on the deck of a boat.
So how do I resolve this?
I cry.....and go for a check up with Dr. W.
Somehow just talking it out makes it start to make sense again and though I totally underestimate myself she reminds me I'm a great stock to invest in. I have the ups and downs but I am consistently climbing. YES, that totally makes sense.
Downs are good as long as the ups pull your higher than you are. I love the ups.
It kind of reminds me of the Indian rubber balls I played with as a kid. Before..... I was a magicians sponge ball. When I fell down my bounce was pathetic at best. Now, when I drop, I ping back up using the physics of nature and the structure of my healed soul and bounce higher then where I fell from. It's rather cool to think about.
My affirmation for the next month.
"I AM INDIAN RUBBER"

I Love You More!

Did I say how much I love my kids! What I love most is how much I love being friends. I know there are times when friendship isn't possible, like when you need to teach a lesson that only can come from the strict parent, but when you just spend time together and friendship is at the most peaceful level, I know I am succeeding as a mother.
Today, I made a decision that I know Grandma L was guiding me in. I had to put aside an ingrained belief to adapt to a new one. One of my kids just needed Mom. She might not believe like I do so I needed to adjust to let her know just how much I love her. I wouldn't change a thing because I know the Lord understands. He knew I needed to be with her in whatever capacity. I wouldn't change a thing.
What thrills me is how much of a two way street this is. She in turn is such a help to me. I love her for that.
I have such a strong testimony of the example of my Savior. I can read the scriptures and understand that Love is essential in being. How could I possibly not put my Love for her ahead of what others might think. Whatever sacrifice is made, it will always go in favor of my role as a parent. Somehow, being complete, comes when she turns and says, "I Love You Mom", and then I turn, and repeat the words of the greatest Mom I ever knew, "I LOVE YOU MORE!"
Know this, K and K and K and D. I will always and forever LOVE YOU MORE.

STOVES

When I think of how different my kids are I am always drawn to the comparison of a mother teaching her children not to touch a hot stove.

First child – I will tell her not to touch the stove because it will burn her. She’ll look at me and think about it….. Wait until I’m not looking and then put her full hand right on the burner and scorch her entire palm. She will be dying in agony but say absolutely nothing. She will hide her pain and it will most likely fester and be extremely sore but she will never admit it is painful. I will see the scare sometime later and she’ll fess up that she had in fact touched the hot stove and got burnt. Lesson learned.

Second Child – She’ll proudly announce that I am in fact wrong. Stoves don’t burn you when you touch them. Just to prove me wrong she will proudly announce that she is going to touch the stove and demand I watch her do it. Nothing I say will stop her. It will burn her and she’ll scream. She’ll be mad that I was right and probably blame me….. for a while and then she’ll come to the fact that she burnt herself. Lesson learned

Third Child – This is my favorite. She’ll think about what I told her about the stove. She’ll analyze and try to figure out the ways that she might accomplish touching the stove without burning herself. She’ll put a game plan in place and decide to do it. She’ll touch the stove, get burnt and never….and I mean never admit she ever touched it… but she will have a lesson learned.

Fourth Child – The gender might give this one away. He’ll just trust me that he’ll get burnt. He’ll have watched everyone else and just know that touching a stove isn’t safe. But he hasn’t quite made it out of the teenage years so this way of thinking still may evolve. Stay tuned!

Senseless Pennies

What is it about divorce, and I don't care what religion you are, that brings out the worst in everyones behavior. Divorcing is bad enough but then you add the new spouses and the powder keg erupts.
Today the argument is over mundane stupid things that mean nothing in the grand scheme of it all. Why not argue the real points instead of taking all these useless ones that have nothing to do with the real issue. We used to call these arguments 'The color of Snot" because there was this one time when Derek and his best friend, they were 4 at the time, got into a huge argument over the color of snot during a cold or something like that. They fought for hours, they almost came to blows all over the color of something so gross!
So yeah, argue over pennies, timing of drop offs and pick ups or just shut up and get along because hey, what's more healthy for the kids. The best advise is sometimes the hardest to take. I usually have to call uncle for this to stop. In my new found life boundaries can even been drawn. Respecting them is a whole other matter.

Easy Like Sunday Mornings.

Can you think of a better time for a three hour block of church to start then 11:00am. It was genius when they decided to change the church times....yes, that ages me, and made it so we went to church once and for three hours. Non-members think it is absolutely crazy that we go to church for that long but considering what it used to be,..... genius. (Inspired really!)
I love 11 am church. I wake up without an alarm, leisurely enjoy the morning. I don't fight with the teenager to get up. 11 am church is a God send.
9 am church, on the other hand, is the torture you go through to be rewarded for 11.
My building doesn't offer 1pm. Somehow that would be the catch 22 time. Great in the winter because, well, Calgary is not the greatest place to be in the winter but in the summer it would totally not work. No true afternoon nap can happen in that time slot. Just when you get home, settled and having dinner, some fireside is calling and your off again.
So really, all good things can happen when you're church time is 11 am.
I hear, out there in the field (ha, I hate that reference to places where heathens out number members) there is the Nirvana time of 10:00am.
A person can dream can't they.

SunShowers :0)

One of the things I absolutely love about Calgary is the sunshine. We get the most daylight sun hours of anywhere else in Canada! It's awesome. So today, especially after almost becoming Vancouverish this month Calgary got some serious sunshine. Oh....it felt great.
I had to help out with a charity event this morning and we had the first glimpses of what was looking to be a beautiful day and then by this afternoon...VOILA'. A sunny day! There is nothing like the warmth of the sun hitting your tired face and invigorating your Serotonin to happy levels again. What else could be better!
A LIFE LESSON!
I love the way that life happens to me.
So after K's dance Recital , her adorable boyfriend, she and I decided to go to an uppity restaurant to feel more special. I do that sometimes. We went to this cool Bistro downtown and had a wonderful dinner, (Thank-you Again A) and had enjoyed insightful full on adult conversation. (Just a note here, I love how my kids are becoming my best est friends.)
As we were leaving the restaurant, the coolest thing happened. A SUN SHOWER. Here we were walking down the street, rain falling on us, and shielding are eyes from the sun. K mentioned that just yesterday she was driving through one of the worst hail storms she been in but needed her sun glasses to avoid the glare. You see, the Lord works in this incredible way. Really crappy stuff can happen even on sunny days. You can feel the warmth, the oozing of happiness from being in the warmth even while it's still raining.
I love SUN SHOWERS. They remind me of how my life has been for the last few years. I could see a great day and a whole lot more great days coming but I also knew that it might rain at the same time. All I had to do was concentrate on the sun and let the rain just be an added bonus.

EMAIL ETIQUETTE

What is the appropriate amount of time that a personal email requires to be acknowledged? I ask because I have, floating out there in the world wide web three very important emails that required answers PDQ! For those with less sensitive ears that means PRETTY DAMN QUICK!

For two of those emails it's just a continuation of the control factor that the monster must infuse into our lives to show his dominance and superiority. What better way to become ALPHA MALE than to do that. ARF...ARF. :)

The third email is out of concern and I am worried that no answer is forthcoming as of yet. Is someone caving because they're hurting. Maybe a phone call is required.....hmmmm...I have to go make a call.

Calling a spade a spade!

So there's this rule in the great book " Rules to Being a Mormon" that says those that are single must NEVER, and I mean NEVER, have any friendships with those the are married for fear that they might, and this is my favorite, convince their married friends to leave their spouses. There are exceptions.
My friend, and I shall call her the card dealer, is one of those. She has just as many single friends as married friends and it doesn't bother her. AND GET THIS! It doesn't bother her husband either. He's the new Bishop. (Not that being that made her this way, she was like it before he was called.) There is a God.

A few days ago she called me up and she's like; "what's this schizophrenic thing your doing with .... and she starts talking to me about some plans I had shared with her,...... ect". That's what I love about her. She will tell me when I am getting a bit odd and she is a huge fan when I do things right. Every divorcing woman needs a friend like this!

I can count on her to tell me exactly what I need to hear so that I can ground myself... even if it hurts. Man there have been times when what she had to say hurt like hell but she knew that hearing it was like bumping me off the road to hell. Thank-you L. I owe you and there will come a time when life will realign and I can pay back all the favors you have done for me.

One of the most amazing aspects of my journey so far has been the way the Lord has put these incredible people in my path. A, L, S, E, M, V, Dr. W, Dr. Z, and some great Bishops. ( I know I've left some people out, I am sorry!) All have made the journey to a much more enlightened ZEN experience.

SetBacks

How can you accurately describe a setback. Well, if the world somehow comes crashing back and everything you thought you had packed and stored suddenly undoes.....you have a setback. It can be the result of many things but mostly it's the stupidity of opening the door just a crack and letting the monster back in.

What do you do?

 Since they are the realistic stepping stones of any divorce, you learn how to repack and restore and move forward again.

Divorce has a way of making you rethink everything you know, and question what already is there and secure in your head. It didn't take as long to rebound from this setback.....yeah!

Mondays......!

Mondays are like a curse! You have this incredible weekend and you are dreading the 6:00am alarm that is going to propel you into the drudgery of a C'Train riding, heartless downtown that is so fast and cold that you have to really meditate to find the ZEN.

Then you come home and find that you have to dig deep to not be so exhausted to do the FHE thing. What's great about having only one kid home is that FHE can be anything from reading the New Era, Ensign, to hey, lets do dinner together and talk about Sunday School and what you have learned hoping that the teenager didn't skip out or fall asleep. (Unless of course you have the less active sister who discusses all the ramifications of having a same sex crush and bisexual ism. That's when you call uncle and say the proverbial, " I love you but please understand that my precious heart can't take one more thing Give me a week and maybe then I will be able to handle the homosexual/bisexual thing".) My the world is getting interesting!

In my case Derek has an awesome SS teacher, it's me that might fall asleep. So here's to the end of another Monday and my life as a single Mormon Mom with here testimony intact.

Zen, the definition.

ZEN; (noun) a Japanese form of Buddhism

that concentrates on learning through meditation and intuition.

So there you have it. The definition of Zen. I kind of thought I needed to look it up because I wasn't really sure what it meant entirely but here I had named the whole Blog after my journey for it. Oops, maybe I was a bit off but let me give you my slant.

I think Zen, in our faith, is that place you get to when you are at church and really, you just are happy there. You're not worried that any one's talking behind your back or that your not nearly as perfect as you should be so you are embarrassed at being there. You just know that the bench you are on is the place you need to be and your at Zen. So yeah, intuition maybe because I totally think that's the spirit saying yup, your right! Go ahead!

Meditation is what I try to do during sacrament but the totally awesome church kid who sits two rows back is always on for saying the most profound things as loud as she can during it. Like when she says "Mom, where's the water going to get here so you can give me my snack so I'll be quiet" or "hey Mom, look. That's Derek and his Mom is sitting right here. I hope he gets that bread to me quick, I am hungry!" That's what I love about our church. Kids like that make it worth the effort to be there. I can almost always get to Zen when I know once the sacrament is almost over and G. has her snack and isn't obsessed with the deacon I sit with i begin to listen and feel the spirit. It's great!