California for Stefani

It is friday…most people are finished their work week, but I still have the weekend to go.  My last day at the retail job is on Saturday and on Sunday I will be doing a few hours of bookkeeping while Doug is at work.  I do get to visit with my good friend Pam first though, which will be nice.  We are going to have a relaxing evening today (friday) though.  Doug is cooking me dinner as he was off all day, and then we will watch the new show Elementary and then it will be time to go in the hot tub.  I need a soak in some hot water.

I posted the following partial blog in 2006 about what is a friend to me (my old Louiesowner blog)

1. They listen without judgement
2. They understand and respect my boundaries
3. They don't blow a gasket when they find out I am ******** (I deleted this for now so not to upset anyone)
4. They comfort us when we are sad.
5. They would drop anything if we needed them to be there for us
6. They are willing to try to understand some of our quirky beliefs
7. They agree to disagree if needed.

 

I still stand by these things.  I think these are the main things that are important to me when finding friends.  I am not fond of confrontation so I don’t usually bring stuff up and if it is a touchy subject with a friend, we don’t even get near it.  Why cause disagreements when you don’t need to.  One thing I would add to this is I think friends (local ones) need to actually spend quality time with each other.  Not just “church” time, but one on one time.  How does one grow close with each other if you never just relax and enjoy each other’s company and bring those walls down?   I have said this before and I will say it again…”church” is not the place to grow close, it is a place to worship God/Jesus and to meet with other fellow believers.

For the first 20ish years of our marriage, Doug and I would go out of our way to spend time with people, have dinner parties and just invite ourselves over to people’s places, but after so many years of doing that and people not reciprocating that same attitude, we kinda have given up. Just like a marriage that is broken, you can’t have one person in a relationship when the other isn’t into it.   Why should we be the ones that always do the inviting…it makes it seem like we are the only ones thinking about that kind of stuff.  So after awhile a person just gives up.  As I write this, it suddenly makes me understand more clearly why we want to move away from it all here… we want a new slate and this is one of the reasons.  We want to start over with friends.  I think we want to try again because obviously we have failed (for the most part) here.   I want friends that think of us and think to email (phone is so yesterday) or text us to come over, or go out for coffee.   Is that so much to ask?  Really, is it so much to ask that someone thinks of us?  Oh sure, I am sure people will say “but we are praying for you”… which comes to a pet peeve of mine…

…Prayer (again I think I have posted about this before).  I believe it works and I believe it is a way (one of many) to communicate with God/Jesus.  But I don’t believe it should be a way to wash our hands of the responsibility of friends to physically support each other.   I am not saying we have to do everything that we prayer for, for example, we pray for a friend to get a job, but we don’t offer them a job, that isn’t possible usually.  I think we do have to stand with our friends if they are down.  If someone is down, what do they need?  Usually some company, someone to just laugh with, or maybe play a video game with.  Not complicated things, but basic things.  Yes prayer works too, but we need to follow up that prayer with action.

Our bible study is going to do a thing on prayer…sigh…yes, let’s study how to pray, when to pray, why to pray, bla bla bla bla.  Is prayer that complicated?  I never knew it was that complicated… I thought it was fairly easy… talk to God/Jesus about our problems, bring up our friends in prayer to him, etc.  Then get up off your knees and knock on your friends door and ask if they need anything?  Does that seem complicated?  Nope, not to me, but apparently we have to “study” it.   Sigh… have I mentioned I am not a “church” person??  LOL.  Now for those people who need to learn more about it, I think that is just fine.   We all love to learn about different things and maybe some people need to learn more about how prayer works, but I just don’t get it.  I won’t judge others on why they want to learn what they want to learn, but is it ok if I think it just makes it all too complicated?  I am more than happy to live in my little simple world where me and God chat about things and when I think someone needs prayer, I just say it.  

I would like to hear God a little better though, so I will keep focusing on what I should be listening too and hopefully things will become clearer.  I will pray for that and for those of you out there that believe in prayer, feel free to pray for me, because again, I do believe in prayer, I just believe it comes hand in hand with action.

Let me quote a portion of a song and then I will go on with this post.

“Now I lie awake at night, trying not to think, these are the hardest times I've seen I'm still holding on I know you never said it would be easy all thick and no thin, but the man who waits is the man who wins, holding on, oh yeah, I'm holding on.”

This is what happens to me (and Doug) just about every night.  It didn’t happen while we were on vacation which was nice, but the second that we are home, it happens again.  We wake up in a panic…who is going to want money the next day, how will we pay the bills, etc. 

I woke up this morning again and made sure I properly woke up so I didn’t keep the thoughts going and then thought about things a bit and realized one of the things we are feeling right now is “forgotten”.  Obviously God has not forgotten us, but it really feels like it sometimes.  Our brain knows that God is there for us through it all and carries us when we can’t go on anymore, but sometimes our heart just gives up with thinking with the brain and says “it is broken”.  It is just how I felt and I figured I would put it down on “paper” before going to work today.  I am grateful for the new job and that I am working 3 days at a few different jobs this week.  But it is so hard.  Everyday the phone rings over and over again from people wanting money.  Fair enough, we owe the money, but it is just a reminder of how hard things are. 

I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but sometimes it is just so hard to see.  I know that we are protected by God and that he gives us peace to manage through this.  I know all these things and I believe in all these things and I have faith that these things will pass, but in a moment every so often, I just feel forgotten.  That moment will pass and I will keep praying that we will be ok.  We are not forgotten…we are protected and LOVED!

Right now I would say this is the worst I have felt in all our married life.   I know this is not what God wants and things will turn around.  This world is what brings this crap and we have to manage through it because that is the curse of living in this world.  I am looking for those small miracles though (a big one would be nice too).  Well, one small miracle is the job that I have right now, so I better get dressed and get there so I can get paid.

I went to a cousins wedding yesterday and it has gotten me thinking this week about the relationship with cousins.  There are 7 siblings on my mom’s side of the family and other than 1 sibling, they all live in Canada.  This meant lots of time was spent together as family.  We didn’t get together just at Christmas, but throughout the whole year.  Kids spent nights at each other’s house and families visited.  All of us cousins got along and enjoying spending time with each other.  I remember thinking that it would be cool that this could happen even when we all grew up and have kids of our own.  As we all got older and into our 20’s, things started to change and soon we didn’t spend time together like we did before.  Now it is only at special occasions for the most part.  There are a few exceptions, but I will get to that. 

When you are kids, personality differences are an issue, but with family you just put up with it and learn to spend time together and enjoy it (or else LOL).  I guess as kids we don’t see those differences as much, but as we get older, those differences show up and I guess you start to realize that just because a person is a cousin, doesn’t mean you have to be friends with them and that makes sense, just because someone is related to you doesn’t mean you have to be a friend to them.   I totally get that, but it is so weird that we all grew up together for the first 18ish years of our lives and then slowly things change and soon we only see each other at the special occasions.  So this blog post is too the great memories I have of my cousins.  You all made my first 18 years of life fun, enjoyable and filled with memories (good and bad).

Who is first?  Who did we spend the time with the most?

Jen & Chris Cham – they lived in Vancouver (the big city).  We spent many many days with them.  We had many a sleepover at their place.  Their dad was Asian, so he introduced us to good Chinese food.  It is where we learned about Dim Sum and the love for ethnic food.  They also had the greatest new electronic toys.  I was the oldest of the group as Jen was Andrea’s age and Chris was Monica’s age, but we all still got along.  For the first few years we would all sleep in the basement together, but as we got older, Chris had to sleep in his room and the rest of us slept in a room together.  This was still in a time when we could wander the streets and not worry too much.  We loved walking up and down the alley and just spending time with our cousins.  We got to know some of the neighbour kids and had fun all playing together.  When we started to get older (in our teens) a bunch of us cousins got motorcycles and Jen and Chris upped all of us and got some pretty fancy dirt bikes.  I remember when Jen got her Mustang…what a great car that was.  Chris landed up going to college in Chicago for awhile.  He spent a lot of time away from home, so we didn’t see him a lot.  Now he is back and we see him more with his wife.  Jen has found her roots a little here and we get to see her more now at family gatherings.

 

Nathan, Mark & John – these brothers are actually my second cousins, but we spent so much time with them and they are such a big part of our family, that we just call them cousins.  They lived on a farm in Rosedale and we had lots of fun at their place.  The parents loved us girls because they only had the boys, so to have girls in the house was fun for them.  We would spend hours with them playing in the hay barn.  We even would help out in the barn with stuff like milking, cleaning poop, etc.   My funniest memory of Nathan is when we would stay overnight and we would make farting noises with our armpits.   When we moved from Agassiz to Rosedale, we would drive to school with Nathan in his Camero… Andrea and I always felt so special to be able to do that.  Nathan was my age and Mark was Monica’s age.  John was much younger than all of us.   I would say we spent a lot of nights at their place and when we had family gatherings at my grandparents place, they lived so close by that we would always wander over.  So many fun memories…the many farm workers they had would be a whole different blog post HEE HEE HEE.  Nathan let us (Doug and I) use his car for our wedding.  We also spent grad together.  When Nathan left for school, then we didn’t see much of him anymore.  Soon he found a great woman for his wife and they had 4 kids.  Mark married and had 2 kids.  We went on vacation with Nathan, Heather and 2 of the kids a few years ago and it has been great connecting with them a bit in the last 4 years.   We haven’t seen Mark at family gatherings much and we miss getting to know him and his family.  Nathan can’t always come because he is a doctor and they live on Vancouver Island, so we don’t see them as often as we would like either.  We do try to see them when we go out to the island.   Maybe in the future things will change a little because I miss visiting with Nathan and his family.

Cheryl & Heather – my cousins from Manitoba (for most of our childhood).  What can I saw about my beautiful twin cousin Cheryl (she is born on the same day as me)?  She was my arch enemy as a child for the longest time. Every time she would come and visit, her and Nathan would take off and I would be the third wheel.  But when it was just me and her, we were best of friends.  We went to visit them once in Manitoba and that was a lot of fun.  We were fairly young, but I think I remember a lot of it.  We would write letters back and forth throughout our teen years and once they moved out here, we spent a lot more time with them, but that wasn’t until our late teens (19 or so I think).  Heather was Andrea’s age and so I didn’t spend as much time with her, but I know Andrea and Heather spent a lot of time together.  Heather landed up moving back to Manitoba, so we really don’t see much of her, but Cheryl stayed here, met a wonderful man and had 2 kids who we still spend time with.   I love Cheryl’s story of meeting Paul and how her life unfolded with having James and then 6 years later after James, came Mikaela.  We got to be a big part of their life and we will forever be grateful.  It took a lot of effort though as we are very different people with very different views on life.   But all of us made that effort and I think it has paid off in the end.  Now we don’t spend as much time together, but as we all grow up, different people come into our lives and things change.  It is a part of growing up and that is just life.  Now we mostly see them at family gatherings and occasionally throughout the year, but not near as often as we did before when the kids where younger.   Maybe that will change someday again, especially if we move some place hot and then we will see them a lot more HA HA HA.

Kevin, Loren, Naomi, Cor, Sarah, Katrina & John – my Barg family…if you read my facebook page at all, you will see me mention the Barg girls a lot.  They are my quirky side…the ones I relate too even though we are all very different.  The girls live their life as they like it, not the way the world tells them too.  I grew up mostly knowing Kevin, Loren and Naomi, when they lived in Lumby.  I would spend a few weeks in the summer with them and as a family we would always go over Thanksgiving long weekend to do fruit picking and visiting the goat farm.  I loved spending time with my aunt Connie and my younger cousins.  Kevin is the same age as Monica and the rest of the kids are even younger.  Kevin and Monica (my sister) are 4 years younger than me.  I still enjoyed spending time with my cousins though and we did get in trouble for staying up to late giggling in the bedroom.  The other 4 in the family I didn’t really get to know until we were all adults because they moved away from Lumby to explore the northern parts of BC.  It wasn’t until they moved to Creston that we started to get to know the cousins a little better.  When Naomi was looking to spread her wings, we took her into our home many years ago and eventually she found her hubby (Nigel) and had 1 kid.  Of all the cousins, they are the ones we spend time with the most.  We don’t always see eye to eye about things, but we all have great conversations and we are free to believe what we want without judgement.  Cor, Sarah and Katrina are great facebook friends and I think if we lived closer together, we would still be face to face friends.  

Jorg & Ursula – my German cousins.  We didn’t see them much at all and so I don’t really have a lot of memories of them.  Jorg was a year older than me, but when he came to visit, you never would forget him.  He was this cute young boy with a great sense of style.  He even had someone offer to buy his clothes off him at the airport.  I think I really only got to visit with him closely once and it was unforgettable.   He died in his late teens so I didn’t get to know him too well.  I would have loved to have gotten to know him as an adult and I always wonder if we would have been friends.  Ursula is a number of years older than me, so I really don’t remember her much.  She is married now and has 1 kid.  We missed seeing them this summer because of work.

Gabriella, Markus & Thomas – again, not my direct cousins, but close enough.  They where a lot older than us, but we spent a lot of time with them as a family.  One of them usually would come with us to Lumby to visit the Barg family.  We would spend time at their place in Agassiz.  Not sure if we “played” with them much as we were a lot younger than them, but I do remember having good times with them.  Thomas is now married and has two kids, Markus is married, and Gabriella is married with 2 kids and we have slowly gotten reconnected with her and her hubby Art.  It is kind of neat when you get reconnected with family that you haven’t seen for a long time and realize that as an adult, the age difference isn’t as big of a deal as it was when you were a kid.  I look forward to seeing how our relationship develops as adults.

Jeremy, Suzanne & Mikki – my young farm cousins.  Jeremy is 11 years younger than me and he is the oldest in his family.  We really didn’t get to know them as well because of the big age difference.   We would spend time with them on the farm and when we all got motorcycles, they were one of the families that got involved in our motorcycle adventures.  As we have grown up, we really haven’t been too connected with this part of the family because we never developed the relationship as kids.  It has only been recently that we have done a bit with Jeremy and last year a bunch of us all went on a Disney cruise together.  I have enjoyed getting to know Jeremy as an adult.  Suzanne and Mikki are just so much younger, that I don’t think we have a lot in common.  But I really enjoyed the wedding of Suzanne yesterday and are very appreciative that we got invited even though we are not very close.   It is great to see family so happy and even if we only see them on family gatherings, at least we have that.

 

Here is a picture of the family trip to Hawaii when I was 17.  A lot of the cousins were together for 2 weeks.  I won’t go into great detail about the trip because I have good and bad memories about it, but it was a great experience (for the most part) and it was fun getting to know the cousins just a little bit better.  We will always have our “Knight Rider” memories and Nathan and his zinc sun tan lotion… we will never forget certain aspects of that vacation together.

I managed to get some family pictures at the wedding yesterday, so here they are…

My aunt Trudy with my cousins Jen (on left) and Chris with his wife (on right)

Jeremy, Suzanne & Mikki

My family

Cheryl, Paul, James (with his girlfriend) & Mikaela

 

As you can see my life has been full with cousins.  I am grateful for them.   They have brought me great joy and some really great memories.   Life changes as we get older, and it has been hard sometimes to get over the fact that we don’t spend as much time together as cousins as I thought we would.  We have our own lives and our own friends, but I enjoy the family gatherings when we have them so that we can catch up.

We all have dreams and we try to attain those dreams.  At least I do.  I generally don’t create dreams that I can’t attain because then I am just disappointed.  We have the little dreams, and we all have big dreams and right now our biggest dream is to be able to live in Southern California, but honestly, is this an attainable dream?  I don’t know as the US and Canada don’t get along well when it comes to moving across borders.  But why California?  Why not the Sunshine Coast?  Well, one reason is the sand…the sand in California is “real” (as quoted by my niece).  But why else?  Well… here are some reasons…

1.  There is something about the California Coast people that appeal to us… watching a bunch of business people go surfing at lunch is just cool.  There is a laid back lifestyle that appeals to me, which thankfully, the people on the Pacific Coast are slowly understanding.

2.  It is the part about our life that would mean starting over…cleaning the slate and trying to create our life to go a little better and maybe do things without the mistakes we made here.   I think that might be our financial hell talking though, so maybe once things look up a little better, we won’t be so down about not being able to move.

3.  We have some really cool friends in Southern California and I would love to live close by so we could get to know them more…how fun would that be. 

4.  Mickey Mouse lives there…really, how amazing would it be to live in the same state as Disneyworld?  Is that not everyone’s dream? 

So why not the Sunshine Coast…it is close by and the lifestyle is a lot like what they have in Southern California… or maybe Vancouver Island…especially the west side where all the surfer’s are…hmmmm…do we change our dreams?  Not sure and it is what we have been pondering.  Here are the reasons we stay here and we have to focus on them because even though the grass is always greener on the other side, our grass is what we have and we have to nurture it, water it and appreciate it.

1.  My parents…they are our best friends and we LOVE spending time with them.  They support us and are there for us through it all.  How could we move away from them? 

2.  Our current living situation…we may be having issues with the tenants downstairs, but the big picture here is that we have amazing landlords and something tells me we can be long time friends.  This is one our favourite places to live so far.  We love the area and we have the support to make our space look nice. 

3.  We can work here…in California we would not be able to work, so really, we have not choice but to stay because here is where the work is.  So our prayer is that we find jobs that can pay the bills and be able to travel to California to visit.

4.  Being a Canadian…well…I would love to be an American citizen, but after this year of watching all the American people grumble and complain about EVERYTHING and how non tolerant they are with differences in people, I am slowly understanding why we should be proud to be Canadian.  We grumble about our politics, but honestly, who can do better?  We don’t live in a perfect world and the only way we can change the people in politics is to go out and vote.  Stop criticizing everyone for what they do because I think the people in our government (for the most part) are doing the best they can for the person that they are.  There is no way I could do their job…I can’t imagine waking up every morning to people talking trash about me all the time.  I can’t imagine that is good on a person’s self esteem.   I am not saying I like how our provincial government is treating us, but I will not talk trash about them personally and when it comes time to vote, I hope I will vote for what works for me.  Do people not realize that we are all different and what works for one person doesn’t work for another…it is all about tolerance and I wish there was more of it around.  I just think as Canadians, we do a little better job of it and my hope would that we can move to California and show my American neighbours how it is done LOL.

5.  I need to focus on the positives…we live as close as we can get to the US without moving there.  We have the benefits of being a Canadian, but able to save some money by shopping in the US for the things that are cheaper there.  We live close to airports that allow us to visit Southern California for cheap.  We live in a very beautiful part of Canada and we should be very grateful for that.  Even though it rains a lot here, we have beautiful green scenery because of that rain. 

Dreams…I will hold on to the ones I have and hopefully they will all come true, but if they don’t, that is a part of life.   So many of our dreams have come true so really, what do we have to complain about…we need to appreciate what we have and not always focus on what we don’t have.  I have had a hard week with the finances, so I think that is what is bringing up these emotions…but I think it will start getting a little better soon with the new job I got and hopefully Doug will find something too.  We pray for guidance and I hope we follow where God leads us because I do know we try very hard to be aware of what God wants us to do. 

If we can’t move to California, I think the Sunshine Coast might be a goal for us at some point.  But it has to be where God wants us and not where we want to be.  I do believe that God gives us the dreams in our hearts though, so I think we will be ok.   Things don’t happen overnight, so we have to be patient and live for today…stop worrying about tomorrow.  Today we will enjoy our yard that has some newly planted trees.  Today we will enjoy a car that we can use for star gazing because the roof goes down.  Today we will enjoy our home because it is cozy and has our stuff in it.  Today we will enjoy my parents because they live close by and are fun to be around.  Today we will enjoy our friends that live here.  Today we will book vacations for tomorrow

The summer is over half over which really isn’t an issue for us since we usually don’t do much for the summer anyway.  Our vacation’s usually happen during the quiet times of the year when kids are in school.  We are looking forward to our short trip to California next month.  Only 5 nights away, but at least it is something and we get to see our favourite state.  We finally managed to get the hot tub up and running which is really nice.  Even though it is hot outside right now, it is still nice to sit in our hot tub.  We really missed it and it makes this place feel like home finally.  We did help out our landlords by making the front yard look a little less like a rental, and so we tore down the front fence and replaced them with pyramid cedar’s.  It was a lot of work, but I think it was worth it.  Now we can sit in our front yard and be proud of what it looks like.  We posted pictures of the process on facebook.  We had a lot of help from my family which is nice.  Even though we live in a rental place, we all still treat it as our own.  We used to own a house, so I guess we just appreciate our living situation.  Doug had a good interview at KalTire and he is waiting for a second interview.  I had a second interview at a bookkeeping job that could give me some decent hours, so this next week might bring us some much needed good news in our job situation.  Thankfully Doug enjoys his job at London Drugs, so if he has to stay there for now, that is fine too. 

This last few weeks has brought a lot of controversy regarding the whole gay marriage thing.  I guess I just don’t get it, what does it matter who gets married?  If two people of the same sex want to get married, how does that effect us?  I think people just don’t like change…I don’t get it though, we spend the first 18 years of our live going through oodles of change, so why are we so against it when we become adults?  I wonder how society took to the change of allowing divorce as easily as it is today?  How about black people being able to eat in the same restaurant as whites?  I recall there being a lot of uproar about that particular change.  Or even women having the right to vote…so much change, but in the end it was for the better.  So I guess all my gay friends just have to wait it out a few more years and then the rest of the modern world will adjust to this bit of change too.  I am grateful though that people stand up for their rights to live the same way as everyone else though.  I believe that we all have the right to live the way we want too and as a Christian, should we not be even more tolerable of change and the differences in people?    

I know that my views have changed as I have gotten older.  I am way less judgemental of people.  We all have our own life stories and this shapes who we are and we have to live within those parameters because that is all we know.  If God chooses to change someone’s heart then that is up to God and them and we have to right to butt into their lives.  Doug and I learned that early on in our married life…we tried to do things the “church” way and in the end Doug had a stroke we realized that we should have left well enough alone.   As Christians we need to be way more tolerable of each other.  We need to support people in who they are and just allow God to work in people’s lives the way he wants it to happen, not the way the “church” thinks it should happen.  I am grateful for my relationship with God/Jesus and I will always cherish my friendship with him.   I guess my walk is going to be different than other’s so I can’t judge others either when it comes to how they judge LOL.   I think this type of thinking makes it very hard to find “Christian” friends, which I really do miss, but I guess no Christian friends is better than judgemental Christian friends who think we are less of a person because we don’t go to church or don’t believe the way the mainstream “Christians” think.   We are grateful for my parents who do understand what we are going through in this matter… it seems they went through the same thing at our age with their age group.  Who knew this was hereditary LOL.  This is where we are glad we didn’t have kids though…who wants that for their kids?  Who wants for their kids to learn how disappointing the “church family” can be when you are taught all your life that they are the ones that should support you… I guess that is yet another part of life that changes… learning about the sin in this world.  I am not perfect (yes, I am admitting that), and I plan on learning for the rest of my life. 

I want to live my life with my eyes wide open, to be accepting of people no matter what and to allow God to guide me in all areas of my life.   I want to be accepting of change and how that will enhance our lives.  So much has changed in our lives from when we first got married 24 years ago… some things were not for the best, but some things God has turned into positive things even though it wasn’t supposed to go that way in the first place.    God blesses us no matter where we are and that is what I look towards… I want all of his blessings that he can pour on us… that is what I wish for.

I am on season 5 of Grey’s Anatomy.  I started at season 2 a few months ago and have gone through the seasons quickly.  I need it to keep my mind off things right now and it seems to be working.  Today I am a little more at peace about how in shambles our finances are.  We can’t change it right now, so it is what it is.  If someone phones wanting money, there is nothing we can do about it right now… wait in line like everyone else.  This too shall pass and someday the light will be brighter at the end of our tunnel.  I can’t believe all the things we have gone through in our lives, but honestly, for the most part, in spite of all the crap, we have enjoyed so much.  I don’t believe God is at fault for any of the crap though…it is life and it is part of living in a world of sin.  God/Jesus is the reason we can survive it though…because I know there is more fun than there is crap.  I can’t say that for the people on Grey’s Anatomy though… I think they have covered all the crap in one’s life in just 4 seasons.  Must suck to be them… good thing it isn’t real HEE HEE HEE  I also don’t believe God allows this to happen us just to make us stronger… but if you choose to believe that, then so be it, I am ok with that too.  Who really cares what we believe when it comes to “crap” in our lives… the main thing we give God/Jesus credit for allowing us to manage through it all.  When we get to heaven all this won’t matter and we will just enjoy God’s glory and all the crap will be forgotten.

One thing about watching a show like this does though is reaffirm that one must live for today.  You never know when death knocks on your door and if it is your time, then it is your time.  I want to live a life with no regrets and living for today is how I choose to live it.   I am grateful that so far, we still have each other… i have watched many an episode where a loved one is lost to death and how heart wrenching that is.  I especially get teary (ok blubbery) when it is an old couple that have been married for over 50 years… how does one go on when you loose the love of your life after so many years… but you do and that is life.  Death on this earthly form is a part of our life… sucks though… not looking forward to it, so I am hoping I will have peace when it happens.  I do know a little about that peaceful feeling though… let me tell you a story (some have heard this story before)…

It was about 15 years ago and after a stressful episode of ER, Doug decided to have a stroke.  On Valentines Day we spent our early morning wondering what was wrong with him.  The doctor’s had no idea what was wrong with Doug.  He went numb on one side, and couldn’t talk properly and he kept throwing up.  I called my parents at about 2 in the morning and they showed up for support, but eventually went home because we didn’t know what was wrong.  I sat at his bedside for the next few hours holding the barf bucket.  We didn’t know it was a stroke at this point, so your mind goes everywhere thinking about what is wrong.  You have to remember I was about 25 years old at the time.  I remember thinking that Doug was going to die and I remember thinking how at peace I was about it.  That is truly only God that gives a person peace like that.  By around 9ish a neurologist had come and gone and implied what had happened.  Then our family doctor came into the ER and I remember that look on his face when he first saw Doug… it was a look of disbelief on what was going on (Dr. Bartel is also my uncle).  I will never forget that look and the love he showed to me when I broke down and cried on his shoulder.  I think it was at that point I started realizing that maybe things will start to look up soon and that I wasn’t going to loose the love of my life. 

Unlike Grey’s Anatomy, life is not a tv show where things move quickly and you can write a happy ending (or sad ending depending on the episode).  Life is what it is and we have to muddle through it no matter what.  Economies drop through the floor and we loose everything, wrong decisions in finances can’t always be written away and we can’t always skip all the bad stuff and get too the good stuff.   We have been married 24 years…and I am only 42 so God willing (or life willing), we plan on being married for many many more years.  I think right now is one of our hardest times as a couple though… we support each other and life each other up, but I think there is so much in our heads that we don’t talk about out loud.  I think saying it makes it all seem so much more real and right now we have enough reality that we just can’t handle any more.   I watch my tv shows to escape reality and Doug plays computer games or applies for jobs… but I know that we need to figure out ways to do things together to keep supporting each other in this.   Just sitting outside together is nice, but honestly, too much quiet time together starts a person thinking again… and right now both our minds are running amuck (how does one spell that word LOL).   I know we will get through this and don’t give me the bullshit that we will be stronger because of this (remember I don’t believe that crap), but I do know we are survivors and together with my parents and God, we will come through this with smiles on our faces and vacations booked. 

On that note on vacations, next week we head on a small road trip in our Mustang to Auburn, Washington to take in Creationfest NW to enjoy 4 nights of God worshipping music.  I think the drive down will be a blast (hoping to have wind in our hair and sun on our face) and I think being surrounded by thousands of Christians all worshipping our Protector will be the much needed rest we need.   There will be no smut tv (Grey’s Anatomy) and no other distractions (ok maybe a few computer games), so we can enjoy our time with each other, with my parents and my sister and my nephew.  We are looking forward to this much needed brain rest.   Who knows what fun we can find along the way… a stop at Cabella’s is probably in order, a visit with our landlords, and grocery shopping at the Bellingham Costco (and a yummy ice cream bar)… what more does one need in life?  I think we are blessed… look at the positive in life and don’t dwell on the negative.  Thank you God that you take care of us and that we aren’t an episode on Grey’s Anatomy.

I am currently writing this blog sitting in the leather chair at our front window.  The laptop is appropriately in my… lap.  I love having a front window that looks out onto the street.  I missed that.  Our new place is great and we are loving it here.  The people downstairs are a little… well… young, so that is an adjusting situation with that.  Considering we managed a condo complex full of these kids, I think we can handle 2 of them.  Minnie is sitting in her favourite spot on a Coca Cola bean bag chair in the spare room.  She loves lying there and looking out the window and watching the birds.  Doug is playing a video game called Mass Effect.  This is what we do for excitement on a friday night.  Considering Doug is usually working on a friday night, I am quite happy about the evening off.  Two cars just drove by… I love my front window that looks out into the world.

We decided to cancel our Caribbean cruise for next January and book 6 nights at Disney World at our timeshare at Animal Kingdom.  Then we will do a 3 night Bahamas cruise on the Disney Dream.  Yup, exciting times are ahead.   We also have our California trip to look forward to this September.  We sure are enjoying our Disney timeshare.  

Couple of thoughts in my head these days…

I sure find that I “grow” up as I get older.  I know that I have never considered the “gay” relationship much of an issue, but I do know that I used to think of it as a sin.   So my saying was that all sin is the same in God’s eyes… lying, gossiping, being gay… it was all the same and regardless of the sin, we are still accepted by God.  So I have never discriminated against gay’s, but I did think it was a sin.  That thinking process began to change about 10ish years ago when I met my friends Gail and Jill.  They were a gay couple that we cruised with.  We have never connected with 2 people like we connected with them.   All 6 of us got along so well (my parents included) and we did so much talking about life with them.  We are still friends with Gail and her new wife Sheri.  It is amazing how one changes their point of view when you sit down and talk to people about their life.  It was then that we started to look at being gay as just another lifestyle.  I don’t see it as a sin anymore.  If two people are committed to each other, then why do I have the right to say anything about it.  I believe in marriage, or being committed to each other.   I don’t think it matters if you are gay, or straight.    I guess being a Christian means I should consider being gay a sin, but I am hoping that God/Jesus is ok if I don’t consider it that way.  I will discuss that with them when I get to heaven and we can hash it out then.  I think some of these odd views is probably why we don’t go to church anymore.  I don’t like how people look down on gay’s.  Granted I hate how people in church are so good at judging others so easily.    We have no right to judge others… we are all sinners and personally, we should just keep our mouth shut, live our life as a Christian as we see fit and leave other’s live their life as a Christian how they see fit.  God/Jesus knows how to talk to his people and if he sees ways that they need correcting, then he will deal with it. 

Another thought in my head….

I have been listening to the Christian radio station and some of the songs kind of bug me.  They talk about how God does things to us to make us closer to him.  Now, that is a concept that I have a bit of trouble with.  God sends his son Jesus to earth… he dies on the cross for us (our sins) so that we can be spotless in front of God… then ignores all this and causes us pain?  Really?  Who buys into this stuff?  Honestly…the truth is that living on this earth is awful.  It is filled with sin and there is no way around it.    Jesus died for us and our sins… he made us clean in front of God, so why would God be causing us pain if we are spotless?   Yes we sin, but we are also forgiven.  Things happen to us because LIFE SUCKS!!!  God/Jesus takes care of us so that we can manage through it.  That is the promise.  I will not think that God/Jesus does things to us so we can be closer to him.   What a great relationship that would be… I wonder how that would work as a husband/wife, wife/wife, husband/husband relationship.   Now, my relationship with Jesus might be a little unique… I feel that I have been a Christian all my life and my first thoughts that I can remember where about my faith in Jesus.  So maybe I don’t understand that concept of needing negativity in ones life to become more positive.  I am ok with not needing that though.  I am fine with knowing that my Jesus died for me and that he takes care of me.  It is living in a world of sin that makes the bad things happen.  It is Jesus that gives me the peace to not kill myself over it.  My relationship with Jesus is amazing… not because of the crap he has done to me, but because I know that he is the reason I am surviving this life and even enjoying parts of it (Mickey Mouse).  I don’t need crap to know that Jesus takes care of me.   Maybe we need to be reminded on why we were created (without sin).  I strive to be that person that he created.  God/Jesus created me so I can be with him in the garden… that garden disappeared when sin came into this world, but I don’t think the original reason disappeared with it.  So my life is surrounded by his creation… by his love… and I will talk to him all the time, appreciate what he has done for me, ask for help when I need it, ask for forgiveness when I sin, thank him for everything he has done and just be what he wants me to be.  We all have different purposes in life and I hope to fulfill his purpose.  I go where he wants me to go and if God/Jesus sees fit to send me to church, then I will embrace it with open arms.  Right now our bible study group is enough.

On the note of our bible study group… we have two couples having babies.   Seems so weird to me to be starting this again.  I remember about 20 years ago when our friends then where just having babies and now we are doing it again.  I think it help us keep feeling young (here is hoping). 

Our life is good…yes there is crap going on in our lives, but that is just a part of living in a world of sin.  We will look beyond the crap and see the good in the other aspects of our lives. 
Here is to heaven looking like a Disney theme park (my words of wisdom for the day LOL)