October 15, 2011

Greetings My Friend,

“Make a plan, work the plan” keeps rolling through my thoughts. As I learn how to come back to health I use this phrase to get myself motivated and moving regarding housework. It helps me a ton. I like phrases like that to help me do life in general.

Another favorite is regarding men and women in the romance department. It is “men are microwave ovens and women are crock pots.” As I learned this phrase I began to understand the dynamics between a man and a woman in the romance area of life. Men are quick to heat up romantically and women tend to need time to build into that moment. I also like the phrase, “sex starts in the kitchen.” Boy that one was amazing when I heard it. It lines up with women and crock pots to me. A woman is so global in her thinking that she needs to feel loved and wanted before she gets into bedroom romance situations.

Then there is the book title I love, “Men are waffles and women are spaghetti.” Once I wrapped my brain around this thought I felt a light bulb go off in my head. For years I had thought that men and women were the same except they each had different equipment. We aren’t! We are about as different as day and night!

I heard a speaker one time describe that women tend to spider web. Again this was one of those eye opening moments for me. We women have a tendency to start off on one topic bounce to another that has no relation to what was said. We go off on that tangent several more times before coming back to the original thought. To us somehow it all ties together.

When Junior heard this at a seminar we attended he got very adept at going through a spider web conversation when giving an example to someone else. I remember the first few times he was telling it I found myself intrigued. I got all caught up in each of the different topics. I was disappointed when I found out that there was no real connection other than he learned how to go all around the block and back home again. I am a woman and I definitely spider web.

I remember when my son was young I wanted to have a son who was strong and yet sensitive. Actually I think he is. He definitely is all boy/man. I remember having a Scooter character doll for him. The head and feet were plastic, the body was stuffed. It was soft and I thought that if he had something soft he would then begin to become tender with the women in his life. The men in my life had always been rough even rough with me, the women in their lives. I wanted my son to be able to relate tenderly with women. I quickly learned that boys are rough.

The more my health comes back the less sleep I need. I really would like to sleep 7-8 hours at night. When I do sleep that long I wake up refreshed and ready to go. I also am waking up earlier which is great. Many days I get up FB a little and then head out for my walk. We have a killer hill in the road that has taken me some time to get used to. I am walking it now without being out of breath. There are days now when I don’t sleep 7-8 hours I function quite well. There for a while I would find myself nodding off all day long, now though I have days where I wake up early and other than a short morning nap…I am good to go for the day.

Make a plan work the plan comes back to me. The Janet that used to stay focused on projects lost it as I struggled through depression, arthritis pain and hypoglycemia. As I come back though the make a plan work the plan helps me to accomplish tasks. It helps me have that sense of accomplishment.

Junior has put up the shower doors in our bathroom. I love it. J and I went shopping to buy the bathroom curtains and rugs. It was about the happiest moment I had with getting the room together and a sense of a finished room in the house. The washing machine will move to the laundry room Junior has built for us and I want to paint a cabinet to put in the bathroom.

The porch has lattice up on one side. One side is being screened in a work still in progress. The laundry room is well on the way of being completed. He installed the floor. We bought a wood floor that snaps together and it looks awesome. The laundry room needs walls put up a light fixture put in and of course the washing machine moved into it. Slowly but steadily our new home takes shape.

The bedroom is next to being finished. The walls are paneled and two closets are roughed in. The closets need skin on them and an organizer built in/installed. Soon three rooms will be finished. I was talking to M on the phone recently. She came out in March and saw where we were with the remodeling. She had not seen the walls to the laundry room up yet. That helped me realize how far we had come in the last several months.

I think once more about how God blesses us. He led us to move. I would have rather stayed in MI grown old and do Fl. in the winter for a week or all winter. I am glad we listened and moved. It has been hard at times but more often than not it has been a wonderful new journey. Hardly a day goes by where I am not in awe of where we live. For me it is like being up north in MI or on vacation year round. The beauty is astounding. I feel peacefulness out here. We have made some wonderful new friends. The painfulness of my life has left me and I find joy again. The remodeling is hard. It is a journey too in the end though I’m grateful for this new experience.

As I end this I’d like to ask have you ever noticed the gifts God gives you. When you open your heat to see…it is amazing.

May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you.

Love
Janet