Loving It!

We have been busy girls since I posted last. Both of the girls are now registered for school (Macy for K and Leia for preschool). I just finished up my first semester of school as a "non-traditional student". I love that title... it reminds me of LeAnn talking about her "old lady ultrasounds" when she was prego with the twins! :-)

Speaking of prego, everything is going wonderful with my pregnancy. I am 23 weeks along and not having any problems at all! In September we will be welcoming our first little BOY!! His name will be Eli but so far I have no idea what I will put with it. Any suggestions are welcome...

I remember thinking in December that there was nothing good about the plant closing and losing my job. I am so thankful for being loved by a GOD who always has such wonderful things in store for his children. I never would have believed that I would be a single mom that was able to go back to college in the midst of a pregnancy. I am especially aware of his blessings today. I have been wanting to take the girls to the aquirium in Gatlinburg for a couple of years. Today, we were able to make that trip! Who would have thought I'd get to take them on a Thursday?!?! Funny how the little things make the biggest difference!

And just incase anyone was wanting to see one.... a prego pic!

Happy Birthday to Me!

I woke up yesterday to a rainy, dreary 32nd birthday. As I started getting ready for church I decided to take advantage of being alone in my favorite way... with the music really LOUD while I shower and get ready. I chose an old tape (yes, I still have some of those) of a local gospel group called the Tipton Family. The day quickly began to feel brighter and I sang at the top of my lungs into the shower head.


After my solo, I adorned my robe right about the time "the" song came on. The song I had forgotten about. The song that I had lost the nerve to listen to..."Send Your Best Angel For My Momma". It is a beautiful song that had a way of ripping my heart out even before Momma and Daddy were gone. The chorus of the song says "Would you please send your best angel for my Momma? I don't want her to make the journey on her own. Would you please send the same one you sent for Daddy, to make sure that my Momma makes it home".


When the song began, I felt the initial "panic" start in but it was quickly replaced by a wonderful feeling of peace and joy in knowing that Momma and Daddy were home! I walked into the kitchen singing away and happened to look out the kitchen window. There, in the dark, dreary sky, was a bright and beautiful RAINBOW!!! It was like Momma and Daddy sent me that rainbow for my birthday! I felt so uplifted and overjoyed in knowing that they were with Jesus celebrating my birthday in heaven!!! What better gift could I get?!

Lay Your Burdens

Momma had a love for singing that I never really realized until I had Macy and Leia. I have always been one to go around singing all the time (just like Daddy did) and the girls do the same thing. They have lots of songs that they love for us to sing together (mostly Sugarland and Taylor Swift stuff) just like my sisters and I did with Momma. I remember our trips to Grandma Stout's with Doyle Lawson in the 8-track player of Mom's Nova just singing away. Momma loved to teach us songs that had two parts to them (alto and base singing different parts at same time, not sure what you call that) and we loved to sing them.

I still remember all of those songs. I still know the words. I still sing them. But I'm not sure I had ever "listened" to them. But tonight, as I rose from a long and tearful talk with Jesus, this song came to my mind. It has taken probably 25 years for me to get their meaning. It is such a wonderful and gloryful message, I wanted to share it with you all. For you see, many times it's easy to forget that this is all we have to do...

"Lay your burdens at the feet of Jesus,

HE will bear your heavy load.

HE will lead you through the lonesome valley,

as you travel on life's road."

How blessed are we to have a savior that would not only die for our sins, but carry all our troubles and all our hurt for us too! Thank you Jesus... Thank you!!!!

Snow Day!

My childhood memories are full of wonderful days spent "sledding" in a cardboard box in the backyard instead of going to school. We would drag our box to the top of the hill then ride to the bottom where we were stopped by the side of the house :) I usually played until my box got 2 wet to ride in anymore. When it was time to go inside, Momma would meet us at the door and take off our wet clothes. Then we would sit on the harth and get warmed up by the wood stove. I can still remember the excitement that came from learning that there was no school and we could sleep in.
As a working adult, I drove to work on many snowy mornings longing for a "snow day" to keep me home. So when I woke up this morning and took my kids to daycare in less than favorable driving conditions, I was already dreading the drive to school and the walk across campus to get to my classes. But guess what?! My classes were cancled for today! I got a snow day!!! I planned to spend it napping and relaxing but instead did laundry and worked on the house. Not exactly the snow days of the past, but nice still the same.

Momma Macy

My girls are close enough in age that they can often be overheard giving each other "valuable advice". "Leia, you better get down before you fall" or "Macy, you know we're not suppose to do that". Macy however is much worse than Leia at giving out orders. At least once a week I have to ask Macy to let me be the mommy to which she usually replies "Okay, but one day will you let me be the boss of you and Leia?".

Tonight I sent the girls to get in the bathtub while I cleaned the kitchen. This is the conversation I overheard...

Macy: "Leia, what are you doing in the bathtub?"

Leia: "Well, Mommy told me to get my clothes off and get in the bathtub."

Macy: "That's not what I told you to do. You're suppose to mind me, not her."

Me: "Macy (wait for her to come to the kitchen) don't tell her that. You know you aren't the boss."

Macy returned to the bathroom and the rest of the conversation went like this...

Leia: "What did Mommy say?!"

Macy: "She said for me not to tell you that but she was smiling."

I don't know about you, but I think she gets it from her Aunt Kiki!!! ;~)

Do Overs

I have always been someone who doesn't believe in regrets. What's the point, right? You can't go back in time; you can't change the decisions you made. Everything that could be interpreted as a regret, should be seen as a lesson learned instead. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and our paths takes us where we are destoned to go. So why then, are there some decisions that seem to haunt us many, many years later? Is it that we didn't learn a lesson from the situation? Or is it because the lesson we learned was one about ourselves that was not very flattering?
There is one terrible decision that stands out in my mind as a regret. Now that i am writing all of this down, I can see why. The lesson that I learned from that decision is that at that time, there was a side of me that never considered how my actions made other people feel. I was a teenager trying to play an adult game that I thought I knew all about. Looking back at that decision and the people involved in it, I can see how it was the right decision just carried out in the wrong way. I suppose that my problem with this regret has been turning it into something positive. I couldn't do that until now. I couldn't do that until I wrote this and realized that the side of me that reared it's ugly head then, is not a part of me anymore. I am a better person now because of bad decisions that I have spent years regretting.
So maybe in life we don't get do-overs, we remodels instead.

Life in the Dark Ages

My world has been somewhat isolated for the last year and a half. Internet and cable were two things that I decided were not a necessity for the girls and me so I had them disconnected in July '08. I don't know how many of you have ever been without those two things but there are times that not having them can even make carrying on a conversation hard. I always loved the looks I would get from people when they would talk about a tv show and ask if I watched it. Telling people you don't have cable must be about the same as telling them you don't shop at Walmart. Both of those comments will earn you looks that will make you wonder if you have just grown three more heads.
Fast forward to present and I am now a college student again. When the company that I worked for announced in September that they would be closing in December, I did what any single mother would do... I paniced! I was a wreck the entire first day and cried myself to sleep that night. But when I woke up the next morning, I decided to "Stand Back Up" and turn that misfortune into something positive. So I decided to be a nurse when I grow up and started making plans to turn that dream into a reality. Did you know that you can't even fill out a college application without internet? You can't apply for financial aid, register for classes, nothing. And so I was forced back into the land of tv shows and websites.
Coming out of my isolation has been a bit of a challenge for me. Not because I don't have anything to say (I could talk to a wall) but because I don't really know how all the sites work. One of my oldest and best friends couldn't wait for me to set up a Facebook page but I don't know anything about it. In fact, my question to everyone with a page has been "What do you do with it?" The funny thing is that of all the people I know who have a page, no one could tell me what you really do with it except "find old friends". I am now one of those people who have a page but no idea what it's for lol :) I signed up today and what I have found so far is that everything I say to people everyone in the world can see. I'm not sure I like that game too well. I'm sure there's a way to hide what is said but the cavemen didn't leave me any drawings to instuct me on that one.
Now that I am out of the dark, I wonder what I did to keep busy for that year and a half. I could still do without the cable, but I too wonder how I survived without internet. No wonder there were so many cave drawings, they didn't internet to entertain them either.

What's In a Name???

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I am a planner. It was recently brought to my attention that I can't even get out of bed unless I have a plan for what I am going to do that day. Since that comment I have come to realize just how true that is. I have been wanting to start a blog for about 6 months. Therefore, I have been planning it for that same amount of time.

The name for my blog has been the hardest to come up with. I thought of every aspect of my life and tried to come up with something that would describe me and my girls. I thought of every "mommy" and "single mom" title you can imagine but nothing stuck. Oddly enough, my planning is the reason for the name and the name is the reason for the planning.

My family and friends all know the history of my life over the last 6 years. This post would be endless if I told the whole story so here is the run down. My daddy died in a car wreck in 2004 when I was 8 months pregnant with my first daughter. Two years later my momma went to be with him. Apparently something big happens to me every two years because in 2008 I found myself divorced and a single mother to my 2 beautiful daughters.

I told you all of that to show you this... Life is HARD! You are going to be knocked down over and over again. It is up to you how you deal with those things. You can lay on the floor and hope that somebody will come by and pick you up or you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and make a plan to turn that experience into something positive. That is where my planning "disorder" came from :)

I don't know how to add a music player yet so instead here are my favorite lines from the song "Stand Back Up" by Sugarland.

"I've weathered all these storms

but I just turn it into wind so I can fly.

If what don't kill us makes us stronger,

when I take my last breath that's when I'll just give up."

So you see, "Turn It Into Wind" isn't just the name of my blog, it's my personal motto.