Saturday, June 25, 2011

FAMILY DUCKS

Taking time away to work on the children's book...



"FAMILY DUCKS"




Duckies, Duckies

They make their own family

Who’s the Mom? Who’s the Dad?

It’s very hard to see

Do they even know who they are supposed to be?



Maybe they know more than people sometimes do

Your family is who loves you

Your family is who you love

Your family is who takes care of you

It all comes from above



Duckies, Duckies

They make their own family

I’m a duck, you’re a duck

We can make our own family tree

Thursday, June 9, 2011

"Life Boat"


Last night I had a dream that my husband and I were fishermen. We had a boat and every day we went out on the water and we fished. We even sported those long yellow slickers that were spotted with disgusting and smelly rotten fish guts.

Just describing it right now as I type on my trusty iPhone, I can smell that rank fish smell that was so obtrusive to my senses in my dream.

But, we were fisherman, and we absolutely loved being out on the waters, together, everyday... Even if it was choppy and black on some days, even if it was so foggy you couldn't see your hand in front of your face - as long as we sensed the other one was near, we were just fine and perfectly content.

But, not all days were bad and smelly. Some were absolutely crystal clear with smooth waters and blue skies with nice tans and sassy swim suits. That's after the boat had morphed into a large and expensive yacht, of course.

Now, obviously, I was not having this dream simply because I adore the water and love to fish. If you know me, you know that it is QUITE the opposite. I am not a "water person," in the least. And I also have absolutely no interest in fishing.

In my dream, it seemed as if we had lived twenty-three years on that boat. We had encountered many "episodes" of close calls with a man overboard. One of us would fall off the side of the boat (or jumped) while the other one struggled to pull them back in.

Or sometimes one of us would spend most of the time on the opposite side of the boat than the other, and the other would wonder around the boat desperately seeking our mate... Knowing they had to just be a fingertip away, but the fog was just too thick to find them. And who was in which position flip flopped from one to the other.

This would go on for some time on occasions before we both ended up back on deck together.

Of course, it all has meaning. Water generally symbolizes "life" when it comes to dreams. And everything in the dream was pretty much right on the money if you were comparing it to all twenty-three years that we've been together.

But, wait...  Suddenly, another has come onto this "life boat" of ours... We have a 3rd mate on deck now and it is our son, Jeffrey, who recently turned 18 and graduated high school.

It appears that since he's now eighteen and out of school, we have asked... Insisted?.... forced Jeffrey to join the fisherman livelihood that we had elected for ourselves so many years before.

And what happened to Jeffrey on his first day onboard? A shark bit his hand right off. We wrapped up his stump arm and pretty much said, "Yep, so there ya go." We didn't even seek medical attention for him.

But, by the end of the dream, his hand had grown back... all by itself.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Creating your own rules for Marriage


My husband, John, and I were looking through our Freshman High School yearbook a few weeks ago. He's been trying to place the name of a specific person that we went to school with to no avail. None of the names or pictures rang any bells, but something else chimed out very loudly and very clearly.

Buried deep within the pages of the old yearbook, we found two pieces of school notebook paper with six "Fair Fighting Rules" that John and I were to abide by if something came up that we disagreed on. I think I'd found these rules in a magazine and, of course, I thought that because it had been written in a magazine then these rules must be so.

I remembered the way I felt when I showed them to John back then; empowered in "knowing" that since we had these six rules we were obviously going to be set for a better life. How wonderful this magazine was to give us the key to achieve a perfect relationship. At least that's what I thought then.

After John and I reviewed the rules, we agreed that some of them had been broken many times over the years. It also made us realize that it's very easy to write things down: things married people should do, things married people shouldn't do, etc. But as our marriage progressed we both came to realize that just because something is written doesn't make it so and that the rules we came up with back then, didn’t really apply to our lives in the present.

Why? Marriage is far too complex to be summarized into one distinct category and much too indifferent to have a set of rules to be thrust upon any one couple. The marriage of two human beings is a living and breathing thing. It breathes in and it breathes out and sometimes it even holds its breath. It grows hot, warm, cold and hot again. To put rules on a piece of paper is like trying to map the travel of a swarm of butterflies or alligators. Couples need to realize that each day is its own and each year is another reason to look back and reminisce on what the good and bad experiences were in the relationship and use those experiences to help gather the positive attributes to help strengthen what you share together.

There are many things such as personal experiences, specific circumstances and the overall history of a relationship that reflect what makes any marriage a "good marriage." Sometimes the past mistakes that we’ve made and things we’ve done wrong in a relationship are actually the things that end up making us a closer couple, making us stronger and making our relationship even better.

We are all human, and people will always make mistakes. There is no manual or set of rules written by couples, themselves, that will fit into every single situation you encounter along the way. If there were, it would be marked up with so many notes, exceptions, ifs, whens and maybes that it would end up being mounds of writing on top of writing. Remembering, to live and learn will help your marriage grow and will help it prepare for the unexpected—whether good or bad.





Article published Hitched Magzine:
http://www.hitchedmag.com/article.php?id=1189




Tuesday, June 7, 2011

BOOK SIGNING - Barnes & Noble - Evansville, IN

First book signing for LITTLE MISTY: My Big Red Button

DATE: FRIDAY, SEPT. 30, 2011
TIME: 6:30 pm
WHERE: BARNES & NOBLE
624 S. Green River Rd
(812) 475-1054