Reenie's Ramblings

It's that time of year where Mother's across the land are celebrated and honored. It's bringing a twinge of pain for me this year as it reminds me of what I had hoped for but don't have. I love the opportunity to celebrate the one who raised me, chose me, and wanted me. I love being celebrated as a Mom. I had hoped I would be able to also celebrate the one who birthed me. This weekend for some reason is a reminder of one who chose to discard, not once, not twice, but three times my heart. I'll never understand the "why", and maybe it doesn't matter. I know with time, this pain will lessen and I will heal fully. This twinge of pain lets me know, I may not be as "healed" as I had thought. Lately, I am SO thankful for reminders of what I HAVE been blessed with. Reminders of those who choose to love me, those who have impacted my life even early on. Those who CHOOSE to be in my life even knowing my flaws, still seeing value. ...

She's going to hate me for this. She hates crying. And crying comes easy for her. She will also love me for this. I'll never forget the day we met. We had just moved into a new house, I was unpacking boxes and setting up our house. I had just put some salsa in the fridge and when I went to shut the fridge door, the salsa slipped out and splattered all over the floor. At the same time, there was a knock on my front door. There stood Grant, Michelle and their sweet son Mason. I had already met Grant briefly when my son was talking to him over our fence. Here they are, welcoming us to the neighborhood and handing me a gift. I am wiping up salsa all over the floor, flustered and embarrassed and I open the gift. I almost collapse when I see what the gift is. Let me back up a bit to what happened in our life before we moved to this house. My father lost his battle with cancer just months prior to moving, and the day he died, surrounded by all of us who loved...

In a time where people feel a sense of unrest... When we aren't sure who to trust or what to believe.... When we don't know where to get true information or how things will play out.... In these times we have a choice. We can choose to obsess and stress over it all, worrying about the "what ifs" and the "why's". Or, we can continue being the best we can be, taking care of the things we DO have control over and making the changes needed to improve our life. Option two gives us a chance for happiness. Option one can lead to ulcers. Giving up the desire to worry is easier said than done, but it's the path I am trying to navigate. We can spend so much time worrying over and getting upset by what is happening in our world, that we miss our window of time to live in it. Life doesn't stop just because we aren't allowing ourselves to enjoy it and make the most of it. Life continues and I don't want it to pass me by. I don...

Standing up for what is true and what is just, can come at such a big cost. We might not even see it coming until we've already started to pay it. It's still worth it. As a little girl, I wasn't usually afraid to speak up for what I believed in, or defend those I felt had been wronged.  I am thankful for those moments when I found the courage to do or say what was right. I have learned from a recent experience, that when you make a stand for what is right and just, and it is unpopular or misunderstood, the hardest part is not defending why you stood. A lot of times, you can defend your stance and a lot of times you don't even have to. A recent stand my husband and I had to make, came at a deep, painful cost. The hardest part of this instance has been not being able to explain or defend ourselves. Circumstances surrounding this need for taking a stand and taking action, required me to be silent. Silent about what led to the stance, silent about why the stan...