Gratitude and Jailhouse Rock

My mentor, Sue Ellen, who is almost 80 now, who was married 50 years and who puts me in my place on a very regular basis in her loving, yet bold way, says that it is best for our brains to make a gratitude list each night, ten things at least, in order to wake up in a good mood.
Now you need to understand that 99.9% of my life before I began this practice I have woken up in a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mood. So to write this list each night has become, well, a necessity.
(I don't wake up with a rifle or anything, it's just this lingering pissation that I somehow pick up in the night and it generally takes three cups of coffee and about two solid hours for me to get over it. Not that my family even knows about it, but it's just- there. So the gratitude list friends is my saving grace.)
Here it goes.... Gratitude List January 18th, Year Two Thousand and Ten.
Number One. I am thankful today for a sense of connectedness to my neighbors and my community.
Number Two. I am extremely thankful to have had a mentor for almost a decade now who has been God's instrument of teaching me to love myself and to accept mine and others' faults and limitations.
Number Three. I am thankful for the experiences I have been given to find my own authenticity, my own voice, my own life.
Number Four. I am thankful to have been set free from the laws of religion. The closer I feel to God, the less religious I seem to be.
Number Five. I am thankful for my beautiful children who are turning my hair gray, my eyes black and my heart into gold.
Number Six. I am beyond thankful that I get to live in a piece of history, and that Henry Delk and his family left a legacy of peace, kindness and warmth where the walls speak in our 100 year old farmhouse.
Number Seven. I am thankful that God in his mercy has put the pieces of my marriage back together and is leading us into His plan for our lives, together.
Number Eight. I am thankful I live in the free-est country in the world.
Number Nine. I am thankful that I don't have to watch the 5 o'clock or the 6 o'clock Bad News.
Number Ten. I am thankful that Elvis shook his hips the way he did in Jailhouse Rock.
Goodnight friends. I'll let you know in the morning if this worked ;)
---Stacy

Ghetto

My three year old is entirely too responsible. This morning I was running late trying to get to grad school on time. I am studying to become a family therapist. So, as usual, my car is a complete wreck. And there is the coffee cup in my coffee cup container that was OLD coffee, cold and totally didn't want the ride. So. In my grown up, spontaneous way, I took and threw it out the window. Onto MY lawn. Okay let's back up here. We live on 10 acres. Nobody cares that my coffee cup is in the lawn. Nobody can SEE the coffee cup.
Except for my three year old.
Who is entirely too responsible for her age.
After a long, beautiful, arduous yet completely intellectually challenging day, I came home ready to jump on trampolines, watch Little House, read The Tale of Benjamin Button, whatever my little babies' hearts' desired.
And what did I get?
Reprimanded.
I walk in and the first thing my three and a half year old daughter has to say to me is, "Mommy did you throw your coffee cup on the lawn?" My husband is washing dishes trying not to completely crack up. "Yes Rebekah, I did." "Mommy don't do that again. That was ghetto." "Oh really!? Ghetto huh? Did I just get busted by my three year old?" "Yes mama. That was ghetto why did you do that?" "Well honey I was running late and I didn't have time to come back in the house so I thought I'll just throw this on the lawn and when I get home I'll pick it up, take it in the house and wash it."
"Mama." She shakes her head.
My husband's face is red because he is doing his very best not to blow. The kind of "Bahahaaahaa" blow. So in my "therapist-in-training" way I just laughed for him. And I apologized.
"Rebekah I am very sorry. I was wrong. You are right. That was ghetto. Now let's make a pizza for dinner."
Good Lord people, just when you think you can get a break. Just when you think you can SQUEEEEZE one by, you get completely full-on busted by your daughter who has been alive a total of 42 months.
42 months.
I'm happy to be humbled. She's right, I should have learned this lesson years ago. Don't be ghetto throwin your coffee cups in the yard.
So be it.
Can't wait to see what lesson she gets to teach me tomorrow.
---Stacy

World Peace and Marshmellow Pig Skin

So today this country girl went to the city, and let me tell you, I wasn't too happy about it. First of all, I'm not a big fan of concrete. Second of all, like my hairdresser will tell you, the injustices of the world drive me crazy. I only listen to the radio when I am in the car, WITHOUT children. And that isn't often. So we're talking maybe once a week. And I hear all this mumbo crap from every talk channel and my brain starts to fry and then I start thinking about Jesus and the manger and Eve and when things were simpler, easier, caring-er. I watch the cars go by and my memories flash through my mind like pea soup on a rainy day in Albania. And I think why was I born in Nashville, and why did all those people die in Haiti and what the heck can I do about it here? It's not happening here, right? Right. Or not so right. Not sure which. A mixture of heartache and callousedness. Is this an HBO special? Do I get to turn this off now? Is this suitable for children? Aren't I a child?
This is a blog. So I get to say anything I darn well please. Which is the whole point right? Well let me tell you. I don't like going to the city. I want to stay home and be a farm wife I guess. A farm wife and pretend I live on the prarie in 1850 except I don't.
I don't.
The little girl inside me does though. And she's having a blast. She likes it. She's happy there. She paints there. She sleeps by the fire there and reads books and plays Checkers and makes hot apple cider and pumpkin soup and roasts marshmellows over the fire.
Speaking of marshmellows. Did you know gelatin is made of pig skin? Gross. This should be on the LABEL people. Ingredients: Sugar, Pig Skin, Sugar, White stuff, High Fructose Poison, and PIG SKIN.
Okay I'm back. So I'm at moms here to study for a test. Can you tell I'm workin' real hard on that? I'll get to it. Yeah...that's the ticket. Right after dinner with mom, a movie and a real hard nap!
I'm 35. I'm a mommy. I'm in grad school. I'm sad for Haiti. I want to live in the garden of Eden and pretend none of this ever happened. I guess that's me and Sandra Bulluck...both of us praying for peace in the world...
One day. It will happen one day. It's going to be a friggin' long time from now but one day.
It will be here.
No more crying.
No more sadness.
Just peace.
Ahhhh.
I can feel it already.

"Ladybug Sings The Blues" by Ron and Stacy Jagger

Lucy the Ladybug had just moved to town.
She had no new friends and was feeling quite down.
"Poor pitiful me," she cried. "What shall I do?"
And Lucy the Ladybug began to feel blue.

When up hopped a grasshopper with a "How do you do?"
You're looking quite sullen. Are you feeling blue?"
"Of course I am," whimpered little Lucy Ladybug.
"I'm new to this place, and I've not met the first slug!"

Then along came a bee, a spider and a flea
All crying together, "Poor pitiful me!"
They each thought that theirs was most terrible news,
And each of them had gotten a bad case of the blues.

"Well hello there," said grasshopper, tipping his hat.
"Do you all have the blues? Just what's up with that?!
Then each bug sang its sad, sad song.
And when the others were singing, they each hummed along.

"My flowers," sang the bee, "were as tall as a tower
When a lawnmower came through and each one devoured."
"And my web. Oh, my web," moaned the spider in tears,
"Was knocked down by a broom when I'd lived there a year."

"But mine is the worst," cried the flea in a fog.
"For I've just had to leave my favorite dog."
"It's the collar he's got. I just can't stand the smell,
Such a horrible smell that words cannot tell."

Then the grasshopper hopped to a tall flowering weed
And clearing his throat declared words we should heed:
"While each has the right to feel down, it is true,
Sometimes just a little good action will do.

To spin a new web or to find a new dog
Is just what one needs to get out of a fog.
Often the things which worry us most
Work out in the end to be blessings almost.

Lucy the Ladybug started to giggle,
And one of her wings, it started to wiggle!
"I cannot believe it!" she laughed through her grin.
"I felt all alone and now I have friends!"

"And I," said the flea, jumping up on a log,
"Am on an adventure to find a new dog."
"To spin a new web!" barked the spider with glee.
"And to find some more flowers," buzzed a happier bee.

So think on these things next time you feel down,
And try a big smile instead of a frown.
Then lend an ear and help somebug through
When somebuggy you know is singing the blues.

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/ladybug-sings-the-blues/1707986

Good Friends and Nice and Easy

Once in a great while I am completely perplexed by the generosity of a good friend. My mind at times cannot conceive why someone would be so sacrificial and nice to me. A sisterhood in the making. A friendship on the loose. A poem waiting to be written on childhood and caring and loving each other, in spite of daily aggravations like stretch marks, tired eyes and broken dreams. In the midst of life on life's terms we are given, on occasion the gift of a friend, and it soothes our aching souls like warm pumpkin soup by the fire on a cold January day.
All I needed this morning was a couple hours of sanity to take care of some grad school business, some time to read my text and think straight with no "mommy mommy mommy" or a 10 month old climbing my legs or "powing" my face to show his baby manliness.
And wala'. A good friend arrives. With a present in hand, coming to serve. Asking nothing in return.
Miracles still happen. Nice and Easy Root Touch Up and the kindness of a good friend.
For that I am truly thankful.
-Stacy

It a rare thing when your life is changed by a box of six dollar Clairol Nice and Easy Root Touch Up. But I'm here to tell you friends, my life has been forever changed. This gray headed 35 year old woman THANKS the Lord for the miracle.
Praise Him.