September 2, 2013 Greetings My Friend, Today is another stop and remember day. Today Little Brother would be 58 if he were still alive. It is sad and then I begin to move out of the memory of him. The dogs are asleep after feasting on a chew bone we gave them. Junior is talking to a Marine Corp buddy and I am sitting in the entry way soaking up the quiet. I feel a nap trying to come on and I am not sure if the nap will win out. J went home for a few days. We took him to the bus stop which is in the grocery store parking lot so we did our grocery shopping while we were there. There is something comforting listening to Junior talk to his buddy from forever ago. Sometimes I hear stories of the war, sometimes they talk about their children. There are moments talking about politics as well. For me it is soothing to hear him talk. Junior works hard on the house and when he slows down and visits with a friend I find it precious. Junior discovers that I am in ear shot so he makes fun of me. It is cute, he isn’t mean but he does tease me. I like that too. Almost daily I find myself being in awe of this man’s love for me. He truly does love me and wants stay with me and for some reason I can’t completely absorb his love. I am grateful; I am deeply in love with him as well. My love for Junior grew leaps and bounds when we were with our grandchildren a while ago. He left the game to find a gazebo so the players could have shade as they sat on the bench. He bought a long one in place of the two short ones they had. As Junior kept sitting between two of them watching the game he kept thinking the sun was a bit much and that the girls needed complete shade. So off Junior went to buy one and did. Sometimes I get extra silly and when Junior found me being sillier than normal he brought me my supplements to help quiet my mind down. As I struggled in the heat he would have me go sit in the car with the air on. My husband wanted what I wanted and I find that so precious. He loves the grandchildren as if they were his own flesh and blood. That feels real nice as well. He does not try to be a “Dad” to my children because they have a “dad.” He tries to be friends with my children and I am thankful. I try to be a friend to his daughter as well. To me she is his child and I love her because she is his. I am ever so grateful for the classes our church put on for the remarried. In them I learned that we needed to stand united which was not something I did in the last marriage. I am very likely to try to be sales person’s friend so I have learned to walk away when Junior is negotiating. When my children ask for money I will talk to Junior first before I automatically hand them money. The money we have is our money so it is a shared moment for us. Junior does the same with me. We even have set dollar limits on how much we spend when we are not with each other. If it is more then I ask Junior and for the most part I can get it. He also will talk to me when he wants to spend more than our agreed upon limit. It works real nice. Junior is sweet. Each week he goes to the bank and brings me my spending money for the week. I can do whatever I want to with this money and he does whatever he wants with his spending money. We learned this too in our remarried class. I am ever grateful for these classes because I did not know these simple things that help us stay in tune with each other. We learned that we needed to love our spouse’s children and as we have learned to love them we have grown closer together. I want the best for his child and he wants the best for my children and grandchildren. Junior’s daughter lived with us when we first were married. Their family allowed her to sleep on the couch at night. I found it hard to have a body in the room as I woke up and did my morning while she slept because she was a night owl. It was not something I allowed my children to do. I wanted to get all fussy with him about this habit. I did not and am grateful that I did not nag him about this strange to me habit. We realized that we tended to have the same morals and goals but at times we arrived at them in a very different format. We learned to celebrate holidays together. Junior was used to being alone on the holiday and I was used to having a house full of people. We found that we often were left alone and to be honest I have learned to be comfortable being alone. After 15 years of marriage at this point we tend to have blended our lives fairly nicely. We have figured out the areas of disagreement and have dealt with our differences. Junior works on multiple projects at one time. It drives me up a wall. As I take this affliction to God I find myself learning to accept his strange to me ways and frankly I am ok with his erratic behavior to me. Junior tolerates my changing a subject every few seconds. He tolerates me having very hyper moments. It has been a lot of work to blend the way we lived in the past and set up a new way as a couple but again I find contentment. I believe in my heart that learning to take my struggle to God has taught me to be more flexible and tolerant. It is a comfort that I don’t have a need to fight to be right. So in learning to accept Junior as he is and not trying to change him I find that life is sweet and he truly does not need to be fixed. I like that a lot. May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

August 26, 2013 Greetings My Friend, I am home from volunteering at the church….it is trying to rain AGAIN! We leave in the morning to the other side of the state so we can watch the granddaughter play softball in a travel league and to be honest I am as excited as I can get. This is the first game I will go to since she joined the league. I will get to see her in action and that excites me to no end. Little brother will be there so we can occupy him if he gets bored and I am sure he will. Each encounter makes me hopeful that we may finally move past the anger of what went on in that marriage. Sometimes I feel like the kids will never move past the past. Every once in a while I sense a moment of forgiveness and then I feel hopeful yet again. I have given up beating myself up for allowing the abuse, for the anger that could flame up at a moment’s notice and I even forgive myself. I feel God’s forgiveness and frankly there is no way I can make up for went wrong. I try to live now and accept that what went wrong went wrong. I have felt God tell me that “He has forgiven me” and at that point I find myself letting go. At this point my goal in life is to live, give all I have to God. In God I find wholeness, acceptance and I try to move forward instead of beating myself up. When I hurt and feel alone I again find that God is right there beside me. Junior loves me, I marvel that this man still loves me and wants me. We have friends who care deeply and frankly that feels nice. Our pets seem to think that we are the best and that feels good as well. If I like myself then I am not putting myself in harm’s way and yup that too feels good. I continue to learn to give Agape love, seek another’s highest good. When I take the focus off of “me” I find I don’t live in constant pain and I even enjoy life. I love rooting for another person to work through a difficult struggle. I still find those moments where I have private conversations about the past. Those come late at night and at that point I begin talking to God. God will tell me I am a “good” person even though I am filled with sin. The more I see “good” in me the more I want to live right. God helps me let go of the “wrong” that has gone on in my life. God forgives our sins as far as the east is from the west. I have learned that the east and west will never meet. If I am forgiven then I find I need to live in the “now.” I learn to quit making to the same mistakes and make better choices. That feels good as well. This time around there is no anger in my life. With prayer and counseling I have learned that anger does not have to rule my life. I am able to reach out and love like I am loved and that feels good. Sometimes I feel sad because certain people don’t love me and then God reminds me that I matter. God reminds me to begin a new and as I begin a new…..life seems to have direction and purpose and it feels fairly awesome. God is taking me past the point of hurt as well. As long as I stayed in MI I tried to make amends that did not seem to work. In moving I am learning to love where I am at and to accept life as it is, not the dream of what I wanted so long ago. God talked us into moving to VA and frankly I wake amazed almost daily. The house we are in is perfect for us as we continue to get older. We have pets that love us and watch out for us. We have friends and they like us as we are and frankly that feels nice. As I grow older I am accepting my limitations as well. I have finally learned that the day of spending a few hours and getting a major chore done are gone. These days I work on the house fairly much daily in small segments and it stays comfortably clean. So I am content in whom I am these days. That feels fairly nice to tell you the truth. As the renovating comes to an end I am excited as well. Soon in a year or so I will have a bathtub, I love the deck and the peace that settles over me. I love moving slower. It has been hard getting used to the slower movement in life but I have finally learned to live in slowness. The longer Junior loves on me the more content and safe I feel. I continue to ask God to teach me to be what Junior needs and that too feels wonderful. Life these days is not about “Janet” but about loving others as God loves me and life seems to feel even more precious. Those late night conversations come less frequently these days. When I am in the midst of such a conversation I begin asking God to help me move past the conversation and in short order I am thinking about what I do have instead of what I don’t have. As I accept life where I am I sometimes am given another chance to connect with my children and at that point I sense we may truly move forward. God has taught me to let go and as I let go God can do his healing in His time and it works out perfect. The more I continue on in this faith journey the more I find myself getting lost in the Lord. The more lost in the Lord I get I find contentment and life is truly sweet! May God bless you and keep you make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

August 26 2013

August 26, 2013 Greetings My Friend, I am at my morning routine. I am in my chair and I find myself looking out the screen door. I love watching the humming birds come by for a drink. I love listening to the various birds chatter with their sing song way. I think again about the phone call I had with my son. Is this where we will be the friends I long to be? I am not sure but a door has opened up once again and I am opening it. A plays softball on a travel league and they will be heading to VA in a week or so for a game. I was invited to attend and shortly after we hung up I received directions so I do believe we will be going. While we are there A’s brother will have a birthday and I am looking forward to taking him shopping for his birthday. If we can we will also get A and take her….we will see. I am excited to see both kids, Mom and Dad. My health is also on the increase and so I am also excited about that. For the last few years I have struggled to maintain myself. The biggest struggle was my lack of sleep and the less I slept the more I could not think straight. Now that I have the CPAP machine I am sleeping all night most nights and I may wake up but it will only be an hour and then I am back to sleep for the remainder of the night. I love that beyond words. I am able to make routines and keep them. I also understand my stumbling and what have you. I thought because I had put on weight for the first time in my life that my stumbling was due to my being heavier. Nope it is because I have a birth defect where my brain stem is growing inside of my vertebrae. I will need a cane to help me balance and I will continue to be unstable but I should not get much worse. That is a comfort. The Prozac helps me keep the past in the past and I don’t dredge up my old fears like I had been doing for a long time. The Zantac helps with my GERDS and I am not vomiting very often these days. So life is really sweet again. My housework routines are coming together rather nicely. That feels great as well. As Junior finishes up on the deck he is looking at starting the kitchen and I believe he will start that soon. The weather continues to get hotter and working inside will be cooler. The deck continues to help me as well. I sit outside and soak up the beautiful peaceful beauty outside. I come in from time to time to do a bit of housework and I love it. I believe I have finally gone from a working Mother in my mind to a retired woman and my routines now are more in line with my being home all day many days a week. I love my walks out here and the dogs keep me a breast of anything that may be near in the area. After seeing the bears at the side of the road I have found comfort in the dogs tagging along more so. Making it to the end of the road and back is about a half hour and I feel that is a decent walk. With the 3 hills I must go up and down I think the walk is very healthy for me. As I continue to feel settled I also find myself making new goals and frankly that feels nice as well. I am hoping to start my Yoga routine up again. I continue to lift arm weights at night as I watch TV. I do want to be as healthy as I can in old age. Mom comes back to me again. At 64 when she died Mom had a hard time walking across the front room without being out of breath. That of course was due to her smoking. I have never smoked so I hope to avoid that problem. When I was a young person I believed that if I took care of my body, my body would take care of me. Taking care of my body meant to me eat well, exercise and leave drinking and drugs alone. I did try them for a bit but to be honest I did not like the way they felt on my system so I did not continue down that path. In my heart I hope that our time together will be better because I am on the other side of my struggles. We will see. My thinking is clearer again and frankly I like that a lot. I am older and I am not what I once was but that said I think I am once again in decent shape for a person my age. We are also seeing an end in sight for the renovating. That helps me a ton as well. I realize we will always have projects to keep our house in order but the huge job of renovating is quickly coming to an end. I am on the lookout for another volunteer opportunity. I realize that I need to be able to work at my speed and the group projects for now anyway may not be what I can do. I love Friday’s where I help fold the bulletins and straighten the pews. It is a few of us, it is quiet and I seem to handle that fairly well so I am on the lookout for another quiet time volunteer opportunity. I continue to marvel at God for having us move out here. I continue to marvel at how much I love this house. I have never loved a house like I love this one and I truly hope to never move again. Junior’s creative touches also are a marvel to me. I want to do more for the Lord. I truly do. I also find that working for the Lord does not have to be a visible job. It is sometimes done quietly. We donate our money as we are able. We try to love each other as if Jesus were our Savior. We attempt to be “good” people to the best of our ability with God’s direction leading us. So we will head to the other side of the state in a few weeks. Even with our children and grandchildren I will attempt to live as if Jesus were my Savior. We used to read a Children’s Bible to the grandchildren when they stayed with us. Our role will be different and I am in prayer asking God to guide my words, my actions as we come together. May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

August 24 2013

August 24, 2013 Greetings My Friend, Today I sit out on the deck go inside and putz around. I need this day to be honest. Monday and Wednesday we ran to Johnson City and Kingsport TN. Tuesday we ran to Vansant and frankly a day of quiet sounds real good about now. My birth defect is about as bad as it will get. I am happy with that news. I will be unstable from now on and need a cane but that is about it. No surgery will fix my problem and frankly I am happy about that fact. Junior went for a prostrate checkup and we are waiting for those results. He has shown high on his blood test for years but we are in a new place so these doctors begin to learn Junior. Being a little over conscious is ok with me. Today as I do the porch sit routine all four cats are outside with me and it is awesome to have their quiet presence out here. All four cats are napping and they seem at peace. How cute. I am waiting for the sheets to dry on the line on the back porch. I have gone for my walk down to the end of the road and back. I am thinking about Yoga again and I hope to start that routine soon. I may even bring my mat outside and do it on the deck. I stop typing for a second and listen to the sounds around me. My being begins to melt and the tension of the last several days seems to disappear. I look around at the chestnut trees, the boxwood shrubs and I again soak in the quietness that is more my life these days. The other thing I love about the deck is that people can’t tell I am out here for the most part. It is hidden from view and I soak up the quiet. I look at the plants placed around the deck and enjoy their colorful beauty. Again I check out the sleeping cats. Yup once more I am enthralled with our new home. I marvel at the peace I feel these days. For most of my life I knew strife and when strife wasn’t happening I missed it. These days I love the quiet routines of life way more than strife. I love the quiet routines that fill my day in and day out. Yup life can be sweet. I always thought that was a lie. I also thought people lied to me when they got along with their mate. Nope couples can truly enjoy each other. I marvel as my days continue to fill with mundane things. I love hanging the sheets on the line so I can smell the fresh scent they have. I love cats sleeping on the deck while I sit in quietness. I love watching the dogs chase after some imagined thing as I sit up above them. I even love when I stop to listen to the quietness, birds chattering, the wind rustling through the trees and the like. I must admit for most of my life I never knew this peace. It is awesome. I love our busy days of running and our quiet at home days. Too much of either one is rough but each week we seem to balance the week out with both and I love it to no end. My sixtieth birthday is around the corner and for the first time in my life this decade change is not upsetting to me. I am old and “that is ok.” That in of itself is freeing. I need a cane and “that is ok.” People don’t like me “and that is ok.” Yup I have learned to accept life as it is instead of wishing it were more than it is. To be honest life in the mundane is truly nice. In fact I tend to look about 10 years younger than I am and for the first time I start to think that looking my age would help because people then would understand my being unable to do things. I love our country home in the middle of nowhere. I made it to this age and I marvel as well. I have survived Dad’s polio and his anger, Mom’s distance, a bad marriage and kids not so fond of me. Yup that is ok. “It is what it is.” God gives me so much that I don’t mourn like I used to. We have a very comfortable home, a beautiful piece of property, a great walk and to be honest life is sweet these days. Our pets are always happy to see us. I like that feeling a whole lot. We have friends who like us just the way we are and yup that is freeing. I feel like God is continuing to use me and that I am productive even if I am not active like I once was. I am able to come beside a young mother from time to time and I am able to give her some of the wisdom life has given me. I am my pets center of attention and yup that feels nice. Junior continues to enjoy me and that too feels awesome. My life is full and it feels complete. As the house moves closer to being finished I even imagine us living in a completed home and it excites me to no end. I also love that for the first time Junior and I have melded our home to reflect each of us. We have come to a compromise on cleanliness. As a messy I continue to find my husband a clean freak as well. He may be comfortable with stacks and piles but this man also vacuums the floor daily, mops the bedroom, bathroom and entry way weekly. He may tend to stack things but underneath that stack it is clean. He tends to wash the dishes throughout the day so over all, I find him a comfortable companion. I thank God again and again for my new life. I am married and love this man like no tomorrow. I love our new home and home state beyond words. My life is good and I am thankful. May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

August 21 2013

August 21, 2013 Greetings My Friend, It is the 4th of July today as I write. We went to town to see what the happenings were and for the most part the activities have been cancelled due to rain. So we picked up a few groceries and came on home. I put the sheets up on the line, the towels in the dryer, made a salad for lunch and conked out. I am trying to wake up and then I will make the bed and move through the day. J and B are here spending the holiday with us. They went to town in their car since they were hoping to spend the day and we were not. The rain has come down hard so the guys are suspending work for the time being. It is nap time for Junior and that works. B is in her room as we call it taking a nap. I love that my naps are not the norm anymore but every once in a while I do cave in and take a nap. The power is out so sewing is out of the question. The rain has stopped and I hear birds outside. I have been hanging the sheets on the line. Junior has strung up clothes line on the porch and frankly that is nice. I am thinking about starting to hang more of our clothes as they are washed. I will dry the towels in the dryer but not much else. I have the time and frankly the smell is awesome. If the rain stops long enough maybe we will go to town for the fireworks tonight. That should be fun. Junior and I have not done the fireworks routine a lot since we married. I think it may be fun out here, not a big production like in Detroit on the river but fun. It is fun these days as we travel about town. We know more people and will stop to say hello to them. It feels nice really. Out here people tend to love people even if they have strange ways. The church family has taken B in like she is one of the families. B can be a character and the community where she lives tends to push her away. She is smart and frankly I am not sure what it is that people don’t like. Our church family seems to like her. Again I marvel at God placing us in this community. We fall in love with the surroundings and our home fairly much on a daily basis and then I find the people taking us in and loving us and well it is amazing that God knew right where we needed to be. I soon forget that people in MI tended to think Junior was a character. They tended to tolerate me but that was it. Here we are truly liked and loved and it is precious. I find myself not missing MI much at all. I am sad but I truly would rather stay here these days. As I am accepted I find myself accepting those who are strange to me. There is the Agape love again. I truly believe when we can learn to move outside of ourselves and love people as God loves us then we will find an acceptance. When I look at my relationship with God that is the relationship style He uses with me. He takes me warts and all and loves me. I begin to want to change because I am accepted and wanted and loved and it is so awesome. I find myself following God’s laws more and more. It is my desire. My wants have changed and frankly making life all about Janet is not what it once was. I find that I want to love others the way God loves me. I find that God always has more than enough love to give me. When I begin to love as I am loved well it is awesome. As a young woman I loved to show my female parts. I loved to be angry just to be angry and now those traits are foreign to me. I at one point loved to gossip and nope not anymore. Now when I am struggling I may talk about people not to be a gossip but to try and wrap my brain around their ways. I start off by asking God to help me and He has been faithful and will. I am amazed when all of a sudden a person no longer bugs me. I start seeing them as a child of God and accept them. As the years have gone on I find myself changing. I want to please God more than anything. I don’t wear provocative clothes anymore, I don’t cave into anger and I don’t allow others to abuse me. I always see that in Jesus. He told people what he thought. It took me a long time to see that being a Christian did mean being a patsy for everybody. I was afraid that I would deny God for fear of being hurt. These days I don’t worry about denying God because frankly I often reflect on Jesus’ prayer in the Garden. He prayed “Take this cup of suffering from me, not my will but yours.” I see Jesus very distraught and not wanting to go through with the coming events of his execution. He is sweating drops of blood. He is anxious as he fusses with the disciples about praying for Him. Next I see Jesus being comforted by the angels. Then he goes from the Garden to the horror of His execution. About this point I find that if I am given a truly difficult task, God will give me the will power to see the task through. Then I reflect that God has walked me through divorce, angry children and even cancer. I realize that I truly am not alone and God will be with me in all of my trials. I find a great sense of comfort in that. I am also grateful that God doesn’t just take the trial away but will walk with me through the trial and then there is that moment on the other side where I find I am happy and even proud of what I was able to overcome. Again it is God not me. Yup life is sweet these days and I will enjoy the days I have left. May God bless you and keep you make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

August 19 2013

August 19, 2013 Greetings My Friend, In a bit we will leave for a doctor appointment for Junior in Kingsport which is a couple hours away. I think of various chores to do and I sit. I went for my walk and that is now done, I’ve read the Bible and I’ve said my prayers so I am moving along fairly nicely. With the advent of a trip though I have lost the desire to jump up and clean. It is what it is. The house looks pretty good so again not a huge problem. I’ve reminded Junior to come in and take a nap and he has yet to come in. He has learned that if he takes vitamin B 12 his energy level stays up there and his nap is not necessary. Oh there he is I can hear his footsteps and frankly I am happy he will sleep a bit before we leave. I was planning on being home so that throws a clinker into my plans. I am not good when the routines are moved around. I do love to run don’t get me wrong. I get befuddled though and my routines are a flutter. I’d rather run as well. I love the get out and do stuff type of days just as much as I love sitting at home. As the house continues to take shape though the messed up routines is not so bad and I pick up with my routines the next day. All of this is good. Junior hung a screen door yesterday for the front room. Yup I love it. We’ve been opening the door with no screen and to be honest I like the screen door in place. The door is locked and a holdover I am sure from life in the city. I started sewing my quilt last night and have done one of the pieces so far. I continue to think how to put this together and enjoy the thought process. I am planning out things again and I love it. It is what I love to do. I plan on how to decorate, to organize and even how to manage my day. I love it. I am once more doing the thing I love puzzling through life. I’ve even decided on the type of clothes I want to wear in retirement, the hair clips I like and shoes to wear. Alex is back in my lap sleeping on my wrist. Why the wrist I wonder. I will never know. He feels good though. I went outside and sat on the deck. Mary Jane comes and snuggles me. I loved on her. Tiger will let me pet him once in a while but mostly he would rather not be touched. Once more I feel the peace inside of me. I thank God for getting me out of the slump I had been in. I continue to fall in love with our new home, our new state, our pets and life in general. We are where we need to be in our retirement years. Again I marvel because I would have never thought to move out here. The thankfulness of life amazes me yet again. God teaches me to be thankful and when I am I begin to find life a pleasure. I have also learned to praise God for all that He is, does and gives. The more the praises and thankful moments are expressed the more peace I feel. I marvel that I am a happy woman married to a kind and gentle man. I marvel that I love the mundane things in life and that drama is not what I want anymore. Slowly God has changed me as the years have gone on and I tend to like the “Janet” God is creating me to be. I am done beating myself up because I can’t seem to meet another’s expectation of what they want me to be. I also think that part of turning 60 is a realization I am who I am. I am not going to have a fancy career, a high paying job, live in a model home and have a lot of money. I am ok with that these days. I have nothing to prove and frankly it is freeing. I have lived the life I lived. For the most part I am not ashamed of what I was and did. As God keeps reminding me I am ok. I like that feeling to be honest. So I move forward into my older years accepting myself for where I am. At times I am amazed at what I have overcome. For me overcoming has come through God teaching me to be what He wants me to be. I love that anger is not part of my personality anymore. I marvel that the slightest provocation does not set me off into a fit of anger. I like that I don’t cry every day because my feelings have been hurt or my body battered. I love that I am not afraid to talk to people. The shy “Janet” of my youth is long gone. The woman who thought she had no right to feel or do what she wanted with her body is long gone. I don’t have to be stubborn to prove no one is going to own me. I love my husband. He is a joy and sharing life with him is about the most fun I’ve ever had. We laugh with each other, we love God together and life is sweet. I don’t care that others may think he is strange, isn’t the most handsome. To me he is my Mr. Wonderful. We enter into each day as a couple, we think as a couple and frankly it is sweet. As I struggle with my body doing strange things and as his tries to break down we find comfort in each other being beside each other. It is awesome. May God bless you and keep you make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet