The Diaries of a Fruitcake in a Half Baked World!

Yes, we are entering another year, 2010, and this will be the year of my big 40!

Here I am, 39 years old and I feel like I am 25! Why is that?  Our mind doesn’t seem to catch up with our body.  The other day I was looking at pictures of me holding a microphone and I saw my Mom’s hand.  I was kind of shocked. My hands didn’t look young like I am seeing in my 18 year old.

Looking back from the line of 40 that is drawn in the sand, my favorite decade has been my 30’s. My teen years I would never want to relive again! So many bad experiences. But a few good things came out of it too. I met my husband at the age of 16. I got engaged and graduated high school at the age of 17 and married at the age of 18. 19 was a rough year being married and learning how to be a, not only a wife but a Military Spouse and not relying on my relatives but my husband.

My 20’s were full of mixed emotions. I had our children at ages 21, 22, 23. At 24-27 I learned how to be a married single mom. My husband was deployed and always gone while we were in Germany. Relatives were no where around to help. I couldn’t just get in my car and drive 5 hours to see them. At 27 years old I re-dedicated my life to Christ and He blessed me with a voice to sing. 28-29 was a rough patch for me. I found out that one of my children had been molested, which devastated me! I went into depression but refused to take medicine for it. I used food as my comfort and gained a lot of weight. I was really down on myself for not being able to protect my child. Her and I went to therapy together for a year, which seemed to help. So, my 20’s were years of growing and trying to find direction after seeing how I handled the years before!

Have you been there? Wondering, as you look around the house and see little ones running everywhere, is there something more I am suppose to be doing with my life?  Not realizing that being a mother is one of the most important “jobs” anyone could ever have in life! It doesn’t pay much physically but it does fulfill mentally. The fruit of your labor will show in years to come and you will see just how important being a mother is. But it doesn’t stop when they aren’t little and depending on you anymore.  They will need you more than ever in the teen years, when you think that now is the time to get out and work because they are busy doing their own thing. Not so! It would be great to get a job during the hours they are in school but the hours after school are the most important ones! I knew this from when I was a teen and I had a working mom. So, if I got on one of my kicks to go out and find a job, I made sure it was during school hours or at home, otherwise I wouldn’t be working for very long.

Turning 30 was the hardest age for me.  I remember going to the doctor for that yearly check up and sitting there talking to the doctor. I had started to break out like never before and I was over weight. I told the doctor, “I’m depressed, I have acne, I’m over weight and I need you to check my blood for cancer and I turned 30!” I thought I was falling apart. I really was a mess. I hadn’t been in church for over 3 years at the time and it showed, to me. I mean not too long ago I had re-dedicated my life and was part of a women’s bible study and now it looked like I was falling apart!  The kids were getting older and not needing me to entertain them. So, what was I doing with my life? These were the “try everything” years. My poor husband.  He was so supportive though. I think I tried every stay-at-home job I could find. I had friends that would support me also with every new adventure. I just couldn’t find the right thing I was to do.

I worked at Red Lobster as a waitress for the first time. But the hours were not good for the family. I always wanted to try it and I am glad I did. I now know how to tip! They work really hard for below minimum wage or at least it was then. I had the chance to work for LifeWay Christian bookstore but I turned it down because I was now going to church and having to leave every quarter to sing for the Marines at Parris Island. I had my own daycare, Weeble Wobbles Daycare, in our home. I also, later, worked for the elementary school my children were attending. That was a blessing for me.  I then worked for a local bank for a year and decided to become a Realtor. I have been doing that going on 5 years now.  Singing was a big part of my 30’s. I tried hard to make it in the industry but it just wasn’t meant to be. I had so many people that stood behind me and cheered me on and it is part of my life I will always cherish. I will never have the regret either! That is important.  Don’t ever give up or not try cause otherwise you will be flirting with 40 and wondering why you didn’t try.  It’s never too late to try, even if you are past the 40 mark.

I think I might be in denial about 40 though. I just can’t believe it.  I remember when my Mom was 40. I am actually looking forward to this part of my life! This will be the times that I am going to write my book and be a published writer.  I will one day be a Grandma! I cannot wait for that! I will be able to mentor women and grow more in the Lord. I am just very excited about what the Lord has in store for me.

So, have you gone through your 40 year mark? Tell me about how it went for you and what you learned…

We all have to recall a story this time of the year. You know, the crazy Christmas you had way, way back when?  I have a short story I would love to share. If you have one that will make us laugh or cry, please take a chance and share part of your life with us.

I don’t know…many of you might not know this site exists.

Once upon a time, in a land far away…ok, across the ocean…in Hawaii, my Dad and Mom would always go to a Military Christmas Ball on Christmas Eve.  I was probably around seven years old and my brother was five.  (Let me just put out there, first, that I was a bad little girl that year.) We had a sixteen year old babysitter come and watch us while our parents went out to enjoy the time with adults.  Our tree was big and there was a zillion gifts under the tree that year.  When it was around our bedtime, my brother and I yelled for the babysitter and sat down next to the tree and all the presents.  We told her that our Mom and Dad doesn’t just let us open 1 present before bedtime on Christmas eve but all of them.  She didn’t believe us at first but somehow I was able to convince her that it was true and they would be mad if they got home and it wasn’t just that way!  I remember opening all those presents and my brother and I being so excited about what we got.  I opened a my first jewelry box. I can still see it to this day. When I opened it, the ballerina would twirl to the music. We didn’t clean up before we went to bed but we did stay up awhile before sleep took over.

Now, imagine coming home after a wonderful night out with your spouse and finding wrapping paper all of the living room and toys scattered from being played with!  Mom told me about that night not too long ago and how they yelled at the babysitter for allowing that to happen. (Babysitter, if you are reading this and you were at Scholfield Barracks in 1976-79, I am really sorry I talked you into doing that and getting you in trouble.)

What did my parents do?

It was early Christmas morning and I got my brother and we ran downstairs to play with our gifts and what to our wondering eyes appear…NOTHING! All the presents were gone! We had been ROBBED! We searched all over and couldn’t find them.  We went to our parents bedroom to tell them but before we woke them, we looked under their bed and that is where ALL of our toys and gifts were.  They both talked to us and told me, especially, that it was wrong what I did lying to the babysitter. I’m sure I had to apologize to her then but I don’t remember, so just in case, if you are out there, I am sorry.

That is one crazy Christmas recall I will never forget!

Do you have one…think back…something that makes you laugh or cry? Tell us your story by hitting – submit a story!

The other morning I came across the words “lowly” and “servanthood”.  Reading the Bible I find that it is a characteristic that would actually help me and others. To strive for, to be a servant of Christ.  I, for one, am interested and desire the characteristics of Christ. Currently I am doing a workbook study on “The Mind of Christ”.   The word “servant” has a negative implication for me when it came up.  I mean, reading those two words, lowly and servanthood, sound like you are being a doormat and serving others and treated badly. I immediately felt my heart fall because I know this is one area I have a problem with. I started getting sad right away. I like to be happy and I like to make people laugh. Being a servant and being lowly don’t sound like a way to be happy or does it?

In Phil. 2:7 it says Jesus “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant”.  A Christlike characteristics to becoming a servant is being lowly. Woah there!  Lowly?  Why would I want to be lowly? There are  a couple of reasons to not wanting to be lowly. The first is not knowing what it means and the second would be pride.  I mean, if you think about it, pride has been around since Adam and Eve in the garden!  God despises the proud, but He dwells on the lowly.  *Lowliness does not mean belittling yourself. Rather, it means esteeming others.

Ok, fast forward….I am laying in bed flipping through channels around 10:30 at night and come across Joyce Meyer Ministries.  I rarely ever watch t.v. but this night I turned it on and was searching for something to entertain my mind.  Joyce was talking about depression.  We all have something to be depressed about, seriously. If you really want to get down, then you can find something to make you sad and if you dwell on it, you will stay there.  Well, she made a really interesting observation on how to get out of depression without medication.  It is esteeming others! Imagine that.

To becoming lowly, I need to esteem others. Now that is not hard or discouraging like I thought.  I know I can do that. If we all desired and put some effort into esteeming others wouldn’t the world be a better place?  When you lift others up, some might not be very receptive to it at first, but when you truly mean it and the smile on your face is genuine, people notice and can’t help but smile back or if they don’t, they will eventually.

So if you find yourself depressed right now, find someone that you can esteem.  You will find that not only does it make that person feel better, it will make you feel better because your mind will be off of yourself and your problems and on someone else.

We would love to hear your stories of experiencing the characteristic of being lowly. Tell us how you have esteemed others around you. We would love to hear your ideas.

*The Mind of Christ  by T.W. Hunt and Claude King pg. 21

It’s the countdown to my husbands retirement. October 23rd he had his retirement ceremony, which was awesome having both sides of the family there. He will be going on 24 years of service with the U.S. Army and his time has come to an end.  I am blessed that he has made it through all his deployments!  We celebrated our 20th anniversary, three days before his retirement and I have learned so much and grown so much as a military spouse.

When we married back in 1989, I was a dependent of a military Officer. I have always moved every 3 years and loved to always try a new area. Marrying into the military was absolutely what I wanted.  To keep traveling and meeting new people and setting up home where ever the Army sent us.  It was somewhat of a challenge going from being the dependent child to the spouse.

I was 18 years old when I married my husband. He was an Private stationed at Ft. Rucker, AL.  We were there during the Gulf War but he never had to deploy due to his job and where he was at.  The time did come for him to have a one year hardship tour.  Honduras.  We found out 1 month before he left that I was pregnant with our first child. He missed the pregnancy but was home for her birth, only to leave 3 weeks later to return. He didn’t come home until she was 6 months old.  So, I was 21 years old and raising our first child together, alone. I had to grow up quickly.  At 22 years of age, we had our second child in San Antonio, TX. Then at 23 years of age, we had our third child in Ft. Hood, TX.  When our last one was 2 months old, I found myself alone with 2 toddlers and an infant, 3 car seats, 5 pieces of luggage, 2 dogs and 2 crates on a plane to Germany to meet my husband for our 3 year tour.  Talk about being alone!  This time in my life was the time that I came across women who wore their husbands rank and looked down at me.  This is the time when I learned that we had to overlook those things and get along because we were all that we had when it came for help and staying sane. Our husbands were gone to field duty exercises and Bosnia.

When he came home we were on our way out of Germany to Ft. Rucker, AL for a couple of years and then to Ft. Campbell, KY where we are now and retiring.

During my time as a Military Spouse, I have enjoyed all the travels.  I’ve been to France, Switzerland, Poland, Italy, Germany, Alabama, Texas, Kentucky and he has been to Bosnia, Honduras, Iraq, Qatar, Afghanistan and so much more.  One thing I never got was a shrunk or coo coo clock or grandfather clock.  I did get my pottery and crystal though.  I made a lot of friends and one, Angela, that I met in Germany, followed us from Germany to Ft. Rucker to live one street over from us for a couple of years and then to Ft. Campbell.  I’ve watched her kids grow and join the military and she has watched mine grow.  Her husband is retiring next year too!  This world is really a small world.

Some things I won’t miss are the deployments, the TDY trips and field training exercises. The rumors that sometimes turned out to be true from those trips. Being a military spouse is really a hard job. You find yourself alone a lot and having to take care of everything. Then he comes home and takes back those responsibilities, which kind of upset the flow of things. It is very hard to have to take control and then give it back.  Many spouses find it hard to cope with deployments but my hands were always full with our children.  My friends and I would plan on the meals for thanksgiving, Christmas, easter, etc…  It was hard but at least we had each other.

So now the choices of retirement.  I have no idea what it is going to be like as a “civilian”. He got his job in the civilian world the day of his retirement ceremony and he will be with the guys at his current unit, which is wonderful for him! Today was a day of figuring out insurance, dental, medical, making those decisions and fedEx’ing them back to the company. His hair is longer than I have ever seen in since I met him in 1987. He has a beard! I will have to post a picture of the werewolf!

If you are already retired from the Military, send me some advice, if you have any. I would love to read it, learn from it.

Good news is that I truly out did myself this year with my Christmas decorations.  The bad news is that I had to take him down after 2 days!  I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever.  Great stories.  But two things made me take it down.

First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by!

Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder, almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn’t realize it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy!). By the way, she was one of the many people who attempted to do that.

My yard couldn’t take it either.  I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard.

Happy Holidays!!! J

Posted with permission of: Kate Matties

Yes, I say “Our” because their spouses are doing something for us.

It is a very hard life and can be so rough on a marriage when the spouse is gone for over a year and then comes home to find out in the next few months when he or she will be going back for another tour.  I have seen the hardship first hand and I was speaking with a friend tonight who had it placed on her heart to try and help the families, to let them know she is here for them.

Do these families need encouragement and an ear for someone to listen? I believe they do.  But where are they going to go to get it? Will it be online or would it be at church or out with the girls or guys?  I know when my husband was deployed, we lived on base and the women came together with a Bible study group named P.W.O.C. Protestant Women of the Chapel.  I would help babysit when the Catholics had their C.W.O.C.  It was a place to come together and pray and learn and allow the Father to listen and heal their hearts and grow in the Word.  The Lord is our strength.  I was involved for three years while he was gone on and off. It was like a sisterhood.  A place of refuge.  Would a bible study be the place you would go or maybe a coffee once a week?

Do you know a place where our families who have spouses on hardship tours can go to get encouragement? If so, please let me know… others are reading who might not want to write in and by those who do, they see something familiar and will go. Whether it is online or in our community, please don’t be silent about what you know.

As I lay my head on the pillow tonight, I will be praying for the marriages of our Military and the children without their parent.

Blessings to all.

What?

I’ll say it again…life is about rules.

There are rules to a football game, rules to a job or you’ll be fired, rules in school, rules for driving.

We follow these rules because of our wants and desires.  Living Holy has rules too.  These rules aren’t to make you unhappy but to help aide you in the quest for holiness.  You have choices and are free to make them.  Standards aren’t to take freedom from you but help you live free.

For example.  I am 39 years old and I have 3 teenagers.  I see the stage they are in, each one of them, and remember that age. I remember thinking almost exactly like my oldest daughter, so when I see her going down the road I went, I want to tell you the shortcut because I know it now. That way she won’t have to take the long route.  Well, that is how it is with God’s standards.  He see’s the big picture of our life and the Word is our road map.  If we decide not to be obedient and follow the directions, then we will be on some bumpy ground.

Like my daughter hearing my advice to make life easier for her, she wants to be in control of her choices. It’s hard to give up control and stay on the right path.  This control is really a false sense.  We aren’t in control of our life, really.  We just choose which road to take when we are given a choice. In a sense we are in control of our choices.  We really aren’t free, we have just been told over and over again that we are.  I think of the movie, “He’s Just Not that into You” when at the beginning of the movie it shows that a little girl is treated really badly by a boy she was being nice to.  She runs to her mom and tells her through her tears that she is hurt. The mom then tells the little girl that the boy was mean to her because he likes her. What did that teach that little girl? That whenever a man is mean to her, that means he likes her. When we are told things we tend to believe it.  Being free without Christ is one of them.

We are all in bondage until we give our life to Christ.

Maybe we have lost faith? Faith in putting ourselves in the hands of our Creator.  If this is the case, we become our own God.  Someone that knows better. Why else wouldn’t we put our faith and trust in Christ? We think we can do better because we don’t have faith.

Forget that a certain religion has standards.  This is YOUR life! To live holy, what standards must there be to help YOU?

What is faith? Read Hebrews 11.

Something to meditate on…

In people’s selfish ambitions to be more, get more, etc… our world changes.

In this day and time, change has happened to make life easier so we are lazier, heavier and our morals are dying with the ages.  There is more selfishness to make one’s life easier.  When it’s distancing one farther away from righteousness.

What is “righteousness”?  It is living right.  That is how I remember it. To help you live “right” requires obedience to the Lord.

How can these selfish ambitions and obedience live together?  Selfish ambition leads to death, obedience leads to life.

Righteousness is living right. Once you find yourself being obedient to the Word, next would come sanctification. read More >

Alright, how many of you have been to a Bible study?  Did you like it?  I was involved with Bible studies from 1995 until 3 years ago. I haven’t been to church except maybe 3 times in the past 3 years.  Why?

Well, I just don’t want me or my family to get hurt again or get in the wrong frame of mind.  ”Get in the wrong frame of mind”? How can you get in the wrong frame of mind by going to church?  Very easily. read More >

Well, I will be the first one to share a casual story. My husband has been in the military for over 23 years. He is retiring in January 2010. So excited!! Last year when he was going to retire, it wasn’t as exciting because we didn’t know what to expect or if he needed to get another job. Some things happened with the soldier who was to take his slot and he decided to stay in for another year until the unit got another soldier to fill his position. It was a relief for us when he decided to pull his papers and they approved it. The reason was it gave him more time to decide what he wanted to do with his career.
We are so happy that we did this. It gave us more time to settle into the fact that we were retiring from the military. He was able to find another job and it is going to be a smooth transition. He has been on leave since October 23rd and his new job starts on January 4th. It is a great way for him to end his career with the military. Taking it easy, growing a beard. I am proud of him.
Now it’s time for cilivian life….