So many of you read my books or this blog because you love story. Tell me what I should (don’t you hate that work, should?) do, and I rebel. Tell me a story, and change my life.
Someone I work with and admire, Julie, sent out this trailer and everyone I’ve shared it with is amazed. How can two minutes be so much. Because we all have a horse God has put in our lives to learn from. Perhaps your horse is a teenage son, or a boss who beats you down. Maybe it’s your husband who has had a midlife meltdown, or an aging parent who is making you crazy.
As some of you know from my author page on Facebook it has been a sad week around our house. The dog that my first husband and I got together, Einstein, had an inoperable brain tumor and had to be put down on Thursday.
Einstein was almost 11 years old, and even though I have not lived with him for the past eight years, he has still been a daily gratitude in my life.
One of the things that has made this week tolerable (besides kids and counseling…) has been remembering all the gifts that Einstein has left behind in the form of lessons:
1. Love with Your Whole Body When Einstein greeted you, it was without reserve. He wrapped his whole body around you just to make sure that you didn’t miss one bit of puppy love (or Golden Retriever hair…) He would dance, hug, lick, and in the cases where he saw Roger, even pee a little.
Einstein reminds me to not hold back. I have to say that with all these grown up kids around here, it became easier to say goodbye without hugs or kisses on the head. No more. I want to love like Einstein loved – without any doubt that the person standing in front of me is the most important person in the world.
2. People are More Important than Work My son Justen works with his dad and would sometimes work from his dad’s house, where Einstein lived. On those occasions, Einstein was so glad that Justen decided to take the day to just snuggle with him and would let Justen know of this plan by laying his giant head across Justen’s lap and laptop.
Just because I can work from sun up to sun down on my laptop doesn’t mean I should. I was to spend more time with my husband and kids on the couch than my job.
3. Dorks make the best kind of people (and the best kind of Dogs) We often called Einstein a dork. He greeted people by peeing (just a little bit) once ate three dozen cookies cooling on the kitchen counter, and, well, really didn’t live up to the name Justen gave him. But we didn’t love him despite all those things, we loved him because of them.
I spent most of my time before my 35th birthday looking for the cool people to hang out with. Now I like the interesting people. Cool is way overrated. I like the slightly off, those people who are a bit broken and not afraid to show it.
Einstien never really made a name for himself in obedience school, but I don’t know of a dog who left a bigger impression on the people he loved.
It has been a busy couple of years. Panic-inducing, crazy-making busy.
But this year (my just keep swimming year…) I am trying to figure out how to love my God more, love my husband better, be more present for my kids, live a nourishing life, and grow my business/ministry in healthy and God-reliant ways.
And that is where my garden comes in.
You see, I was challenged by someone important in my life that I need to have something outside of ministry and family in my life. I spend a lot of time trying to do for other people, and have not set up healthy ways of replenishing. (And watching a steady stream of Bravo TV doesn’t seem to be doing the trick.)
So when said person asked me what my hobbies are, I just stared back blankly.
“You know, what do you do for fun?”
Blank stare.
So this week, I’m trying to incorporate some fun into my life – the only problem? I kinda forgot what it looked like. So I started to think and dream and consider what I really loved to do that had nothing to do with writing or speaking.
And then that is when I saw the gardening magazine at Safeway. Score.
It has been a long time since I took a day off. But today I did. I spent some time with my magazine, and started to plan for my container garden this spring. Can I tell you how restoring it was to read about dirt, and tomatoes, and to take a pad of paper and just dream a little bit.
I would love to know what you do to have a little fun in your life. It scared me a bit that it took me so long to figure out what I needed. My question is this: As a grown woman with a family or a career or both, what do you do for fun?
I’m trying to make some big hairy changes in my life.
If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that weight is an issue for me. I go up, I go down. I struggle. But this is my “Just keep swimming” year. I have been seeing a counselor who is helping me get at some of the habits I have in life that are keeping me from living the way that God designed me to.
It sounds all healthy and empowering. But sometimes, it gets just plain overwhelming. So my counselor, Julie, has been having me focus on just a couple of things at a time. One of those things? Not being on the computer at all hours so I can get to bed at a decent time and wake up in the morning without an Internet hangover.
And it’s been working. For the most part, I have been getting off the computer at 7 PM and it has helped a lot. Except in the area of blogging.
I’m so used to staying up late and blogging that I don’t even think about it until around 8 PM when I think, “YIKES, I didn’t blog again!!!” And then I would be super tempted to do it, just this once, and promise to start blogging during the day tomorrow. (Promise, really – just this one time.)
But I knew it wouln’t be just this once. And I knew that if I did it one night, it would be so much easier to do it again the next night, and then instead of building a habit of turning off my computer at 7:00, I was building a habit of not taking great care of myself.
So I didn’t blog. And I missed you.
But I started to build a habit. A good habit. Not a habit that all of you need to build. Just a habit that works for me. And today, I thought – I want to blog before I turn off my computer – not as a punishment, but because I missed you.
Totally worth it.
Are there any areas of your life where you’re trying to build a new habit? I would love to hear how you are building health into your life.
I’ve been thinking about her motto, “Just Keep Swimming” when it comes to almost every aspect of my life.
My ministry.
My marriage.
My parenting.
My writing.
And it seems that some of you have Dory on the brain as well – I’ve heard from several of you that the motto, “Just keep swimming,” has been a theme for you as well.
So it seemed natural that when I was at World of Disney on Saturday, I bought up all the stuffed Dorys they had.
(OK, it seemed natural to everyone except Darla from Oklahoma who was cashing me out, “What do you need with all those fish?!?)
Here is what I need with all those fish.
Once a month, I want you to tell me, in the comments, a time this month when you just kept swimming. A time when you were working towards something, a goal you have, a dream you want, and when something came up, you just kept swimming.
I will put all your names in a hat, pick one, and will send you one of my 13 stuffed Dorys.
I want to do this because it ties in so beautifully with my new book, THE ME PROJECT.
I want to do this because it’s important to let the world know that you did something huge, (even if huge is walking 4 blocks instead of the 3 you walked last week.)
I want to do this because it’s important that I get to cheer you on to be all that God created you to be.
So tell me – when did you keep swimming?
(I will pick a winner on Thursday at noon PST and announce it on Friday’s blog post.)
Before I became a writer, I thought that the whole Christian writing world was a whole lot of kumbaya, lollipops and unicorns.
And then I realized that even though I had a real live book contract, I still wanted more.
But hey, I’m not the only one...
If you are interested in writing, you absolutely should be reading my agent Rachelle’s blog and specifically Thursday’s post by my fellow author Marla. It is the funniest true confession I’ve read in a long time.
And definitely go enter the drawing over at Marla’s blog to win The Husband Project and Is That All He Thinks About. Tell her I told you to stop by.
So many of you read my books or this blog because you love story. Tell me what I should (don’t you hate that work, should?) do, and I rebel. Tell me a story, and change my life.
