Dana’s Day Guest Post (Finding your creative groove)

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Today I’m excited to have my friend Dana guest post.  Dana and I were in the 3rd grade together–after high school graduation we lost track for a while and found each other at our 21st class reunion (I know most people have 20 year reunions but . . . ).  Then several more years pasted and we connected on Facebook.  Dana blessed my life when I was 8 and when I’m . . . 40ishalmost8 . . . not.ready.for.fifty–can’t go there!  Dana has had an amazingly interesting life and she is raising future Olympiads–but she doesn’t tell us any of that today.

So without hesitation I welcome Dana to Joyful Mom!

Dana Delaney is a slightly-crunchy-granola Christian lady who is also the mom to 3 kids and wife to a very supportive husband. While a classic rule follower, she gets a secret thrill out of breaking rules of tradition – like not all kids following the same educational path, or wearing flip-flops in January. You can read more about Dana’s crunchy granola side at her website, carryitagain.com.

danadelaneybio

I had an Ahh hah moment today.

A little background: We are a blended family, purely from an educational choice standpoint. Our youngest goes to public school and is in the 2nd grade. We chose to bring our two oldest home 4 years ago, when they were entering the 8th and 9th grade. Our reasons for beginning homeschooling are far different than those for continuing. I’ll save that for another post.

Way back in January of 2009, I started a company called Reused Plastic, LLC. I worked diligently creating my product, the Carry It Again Bag Kit. Then, we started homeschooling our boys and they starting rowing on the local crew team.

I joined the Board of Directors. In the process of having laser focus on my boys and their lives on and off the water, my own creative endeavors got sidelined. I just figured it wasn’t “my season”. During all of the past 3 years, and the current school year as well, we’ve struggled to find our groove with curriculum and course dedication (on the boys’ part). Each year has been a different path. Better than the year before, but still different. (I see another post on this topic as well.)

Here’s where my ahh hah moment comes in.

I got an email back in October of 2012, in my business email box. I randomly checked that email a week ago, only to be shocked (and a little mortified) to discover an email from someone I had met at a business workshop several years ago. She wants to sell my kits in her new retail store. Very cool news, to put it mildly.

I drove a total of 365 miles today (round trip) to go see her and take the cases of kits and help her with setting up and merchandising and such. What started out as a sales call and my assisting her, turned into me being the recipient of so much more!

I came away from her shop just dying to create something! I wanted to write, to paint, to decoupage something, anything. That’s when it hit me.

That’s what’s been missing from our home schooling program – my own creative energy.

As moms we so often put our families first and ourselves a distant last, if at all. What I realized today is that I have so much more to give when I’m filled with what excites ME. I fully expect that the remainder of this school year, and next year will be so much easier and have less stress – as long as I remember to keep my creative bucket filled.

Be Blessed.

What is in your creative bucket?  Have you had a moment when you realized something in your life was missing?

Dana

Taking the day off!

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Editorial Note:  I started to write this last weekend.  MLK Day came and went . . . we did take the day off and it was awesome.  I didn’t get my cards out yet but I did take some time to slow down and listen to my soul.

Today is MLK Day!  We will be taking the day off–no school, no errands, minimal cooking . . . it will be the Sunday that I didn’t have today.

I like to keep things on the simple side–but commitments creep in . . . all of a sudden I’m busier than someone with a REAL job!  I sit back and wonder how my calendar went from blank to filled in?  How did I let this happen?  Month after month . . .

January is almost gone, I’m just getting the Christmas decorations put away, my holiday cards will go out on Tuesday of this week (the first time in 4 years!), and my goal is to have a system for taking care of the bills that come in–keep, file, pitch . . .

My word for this year is intention.  I’ve written about it here and here.  I’m stopping.  I’m practicing being still (Psalm 46:10).  I want to look at my life with intention–look at my time, look at my relationships, figure out what I want my life to look like.  What do I want to BE.

I feel sort of lost . . . I moved out of my parents house when I was 17, following in the footsteps of my brothers.  I moved from the frying pan into the fire.  The next 10 years were spent in a weird survival mode and at the end I was still feeling lost and my life had little meaning.  Then I met a guy, got married, started having kids . . . still feeling lost–how can I be a good wife and mother?  Still not knowing who I was–I know what I did–living a cause and effect existence.  Now, 20 years later–I’m still scrambling to find my purpose.  My entire life has been in survival mode.  To merely survive is not my intention.  I want to thrive.  I want to feel alive–I want to feel passion!

I have been searching my soul, wondering why?  I think I may have made some progress . . .

I felt like I had nothing so I needed to fill it with something!

I filled my life with alcohol, made horrible choices in whom I spent my time with, found that Burger King will always be my friend, and if I kept stuff . . . a semi trailer of stuff!  that if I kept SOMETHING, than I wouldn’t have nothing.  (I think that breaks a grammar rule.) If I kept toxic people in my life that is better than being alone, when I was skinny people used me so if I’m fat maybe they won’t!

I don’t want to BE THAT person anymore.

How will I move this forward?  I can’t be the only one who has found themselves in a place that they would rather not be in.  I know what I need to do–but I don’t want to–it’s hard, painful and full of unresolved memories, heartache and conflict.  I need to take one disappointment at a time and make peace–forgive.

I must look at everything in my home and ask “does this add value to my life?”  I must look at every relationship and ask–“how does this serve my purpose?”  I must stop and know that I am loved in a healthy way . . . and now it is time for me to love me–in a healthy way.  Powerful questions to ask myself.

Does a Richard Scarry VHS video that is not longer available in any form worth saving?  Do I need all of my fabric?  What does it all mean–this hanging on, to stuff.

I’m not sure what it means but I know what it is doing–all the stuff–the bookshelves lined with books I’ll never read, recipes I’ll never make, patterns I’ll never knit . . . these things have kept me in the past.  In a place I once was or once hoped to be.  I’ve never lived in the now–I have spent my entire life waiting, to grow my hair, to be loved, to get married, to have kids . . . the list never ends.

I’m not sure if it is menopause or I’m just so tired of trying . . . trying to be someone else. Trying to make everyone happy.  Trying to find peace outside of myself–I’m looking out rather than looking in.  Maybe menopause is supposed to make us “pause” and reflect.

As I experience transformation in my life, in the lives of my kids, in the books I read to my kids–I now see it as a omnipresent element in growth–I see it in everything from the Bible to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles . . . we are all destined to become something greater than where we are now.

Have you figured out your passion?  intention?  destiny?

Be Bless as we are gentle with ourselves . . . waiting for grace.

I’m linking up to Motivation Mondays, Mindful Mothering, The Better Mom,  Multitudes on Monday, Mercy Mondays, Titus Tuesdays, heart and home, God Sized Dreams.

 

 

 

Again (Five Minute Friday)

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Lisa-Jo hosts a blogging party–where we all write for 5 minutes without editing.

Go:

Please read it again Mommy.  Again?  Again?  I sit and read, over and over.

My husband comes home and knows the day I had by the stack of books on the floor.

I miss those easy days of sitting and reading the same book over and over.  I miss lining all the books up to make a road for Tonka Man and Tonka trucks.

Middle School is not as much fun.  Basketball games, Soccer games, never ending homework . . .

I just want to sit with him AGAIN and spend the afternoon looking at a Richard Scarry book and loving each moment.

It’s different now–each day is an “again” and I feel blessed.

Stop.