When I Forgot

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Jace's school to inform them that he is going on a ski trip and to learn the proper protocol for informing his teachers, getting his make-up work, etc. And so, I walked up to the desk and smiled at Lydia, the school secretary.

"Hey, Lydia!" I said. "I am taking Jace out of school for a week-long ski trip to New Mexico in a couple of weeks. I just want to make sure I handle this properly so that he can everything made up in time. Can you help me with that?"

She looked at me in utter horror.

Now, just a quick FYI: Lydia is a very warm, gracious woman who treats everyone with genuine kindness. And that is why her unflinching response took me back a bit.

"You're taking him out for a ski trip?" she asked, confused. "We don't look kindly on that here. The vice principal won't be happy. You'll have to talk to her before you decide to do that," she said. "She's out today but she will be here tomorrow."

Her response was similar to what I imagined it would be if I told her I was going to die a long slow death...

Um...nevermind...I thought. I'll just take the easy way out...Jace will suddenly be struck with a devastating illness that lasts exactly five days. I thanked Lydia and headed out the door with zero intention of re-entering it within the next two weeks.

And so, I told Jace the plan so that he wouldn't own too many bragging rights about missing a week of school for a ski trip. "Sure, Mom...whatever," he said.

I could have told him that I was shipping him to Zimbabwe and I would have received the same response.

Fast forward to yesterday: Monday.

As planned, I dutifully called the school to inform them that Jace was sick. I expected a quick, simple phone call. 1-2-3-done. Lydia answered the phone in her cheerful manner and immediately knew who I was when I introduced myself. "Hey, Lydia. It's Vonda. I am just calling to let you know that Jace is sick!"

"Jace is sick?" she asked, surprised. And then she hesitated. "Wait. Isn't he on a ski trip this week?"

She remembered.

But? Gotta stick to the plan. I definitely had no intention of meeting with that Vice Principal.

"Well, he was going to go, but Roy got a virus, and then I got the virus, and now Jace has it. So yeah...he's sick."

"Is he running a fever?" she asked.

Oh wow...this lie is getting deeper...

"Yep. Sure is," I said, without a hitch.

"Are you going to take him to the doctor?" she asked.

I sighed. "Well, it's just a virus..." I explained.

"So you think he'll be here tomorrow?"

Ok, so now? I'm feeling a bit lost. This quick little lie has turned into a preposterous story that is never-ending. But...you know...I've dived in. I'm swimming ten feet below and sinking fast.

"I dunno," I quipped. "I mean, he's sick."

"Well," she said, "hopefully we will see him tomorrow with a doctor's note!"

And that was that.

Only it wasn't...

Suddenly I felt like a 12 year old that just got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. Because, you know...Lydia knew. 

I knew she knew.

I. Am. A. Liar.

All day the story ran circles in my head. And then that evening? It continued to run circles in my head. I FaceTimed with Jacque and she laughed at my predicament, telling me to just go come clean already. Face the bullets. Be real.

Last night I tossed and turned. It was the longest night of my life. I simply couldn't sleep, the words I am such a liar rolling from one side of my head to the other and back again...over and over and over again.

Today we had our weekly team meeting and I just couldn't get my head in the game. I wasn't sure it if was because I am tired from lack of sleep or if it's because, well...you know...I am a liar.

And so the day progressed... I looked up the Keene attendance policy and realized that I could be taken to court for truancy. They could send a truancy officer to my house, fine me up to $500!

What have I done??!

Finally, at 3:17 p.m., I simply couldn't take it anymore. I grabbed my purse, ran out to the car, drove to Keene Junior High, and walked straight into Lydia's office. She immediately looked up at me with that genuine smile on her face. "How's Jace?" she asked brightly.

"Ugh. Lydia, I have a confession. I am a liar."

She nodded, laughing. "Is Jace on the ski trip?"

"He is."

"No worries," she said. "That's just fine! Don't you worry about a thing!"

And then? In her gracious way, she told me to email all of Jace's teachers to make sure that he gets his work made up as quickly as possible. "Have a great day, Vonda!" she said as I headed back out the door, weighing about 3072 pounds lighter in my head.

And I didn't even have to face the Vice Principal!

Here's the thing. I am really not a liar. I have a difficult time being anything but authentic. I prefer living my life with integrity...

I just forgot for a minute.

Painting the Town Red

My house is quiet. Jace left on Saturday night for a ski trip in Taos, New Mexico. I keep expecting him to, at any minute, pop out of his bedroom and say, "Hey, Mom. I'm hungry." I spoke with him briefly yesterday as they arrived late morning and he was busily meeting kids and figuring out what this week will look like. Here's hoping he can let go of his inner Eoyore and find a little Tigger in that head of his.

I heard recently -- I can't remember where -- that the author of the Winnie the Pooh series based the characters off of people in his own life. Clarissa, who has the office next to me, recently asked me about my kids' personalities. "That's easy," I quipped. "Savana is Rabbit, Darian is Winnie the Pooh, and Jace is Eoyore."

And there you go.

Roy and I decided that Sunday would be "our" day. We were going to live it up, paint the town red, experience what life has to offer. First of all, we intended to eat at a new restaurant -- somewhere brand new.

And so, Roy began to research online while I texted nearby friends to learn their favorites. Pretty much? We came to the realization that everyone has their own taste in restaurants and others' tastes don't match ours. Furthermore, anything new and intriguing sounded far beyond our budget. When it came to new and different...I would have enjoyed a fondue restaurant; that's a little too out there in Roy's opinion. French? Definitely not. Indian? No. Mexican? Let's try something new...we ALWAYS eat Mexican.

We settled for Red Lobster as Roy was craving seafood.

Red. Lobster.

Tried and true. Been there, done that more times than I can count.

Afterwards, we talked about going to a movie, or walking around downtown, seeing the sites...

Roy suggested swinging by HEB and picking up a few groceries that we needed for the week to get us by.

And so we did.

Afterwards? I remembered that I needed a few items from Walmart as I was running low on hair product and such.

We went to Walmart.

By now, it was around 2:30. "Do you want to go see a movie?" Roy asked.

I scrunched my nose.

"Me neither," he laughed and we headed for home. We unloaded our groceries, put them away, and then Roy headed out to his shop to work on who knows what project while I sat on the porch and threw the ball for Piper.

That, my friends, was our Big Day Out On The Town Painting It Red.

Last night as we were getting ready for bed, Roy said, "When we are all settled and all of our projects are done, we will go experience what life has to offer in this area."

I shook my head. "No. We won't. We will still be us. We will still be eating at Red Lobster or the local Mexican restaurant and then coming home to work in the shop and sit on the porch. Because that's who we are and that's what we do."

"No," Roy argued. "It will be different when we don't have projects to finish around here."

Let me introduce you to Roy. Roy is the man of the endless project. He has never ever in the course of his life NOT had a project. He could be named Project.

But that's ok.

And so, I let him dream. I let him believe that someday we will, in fact, get out of our box and do something different, unexpected -- something on the crazy side.

But until then...well, I'll just hang on my porch and throw the ball for Piper. For Piper? He is living the dream.

And frankly, it's not such a bad life for me, either.

All There

I am home from a whirlwind trip to California. It was fabulous. Here's why:

  -I spent time with Jacque. We had some great conversations, ate some amazing Thai food, laughed a lot, and just enjoyed every minute together.

-I saw my adorable nephews, Nick and Trevs. Oh my word. Those boys...I love them.

-I had a very successful alumni event with 47 attendees, a great venue, excellent food, and exceptional service. #ForTheWin

-Friday was all about torrential rain from the moment I got up until I went to bed. For the record? I love a good storm. It was perfect. As a result? Jacque and I caught up on Nashville and This Is Us -- two of my all-time favorite shows.

I got home yesterday around 1:30. Roy picked me up and took me to dinner-- our very favorite thing. And then we came home, I unpacked, and we chilled for a bit. And then that evening, we joined Tami and Chas and saw Hidden Figures at the theater. Let me just say, that is an amazing movie. Everyone should see it.

This week? I've worked on being "all there." I read a quote recently in the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp and she talks about finding joys in daily living. Sometimes it's easy to go on autopilot, to forget to be present. I know I am good at that -- the autopilot gig.

I happen to love screen time.

Too much.

I am a typical American who can spend more time with a phone than living my life, at times. But recently I have become more aware of this epidemic in my own life. I don't want to be on my deathbed and, when asked the infamous question: What did you accomplish in your life? ... have my answer be:

I watched all seasons of 72 different shows and defeated 972 levels of Angry Birds Pop!

I remember as a child laying on the bed in the east bedroom of my Grandma Crowder's home on a hot summer day, the window open and the curtains rustling as the breeze whistled in. I was at peace with just my thoughts to entertain me.

I have forgotten the art of boredom.

And so, I have put down my phone and opted for a better way. As a result?

-I hung on the porch with Jace and talked about nothing for quite some time.
-I played ball with Piper and watched him bound effortlessly across the yard, tail wagging, fully immersed in the joys of the moment.
-I read one book and started a second.
-I blogged.
-I listened, really listened, to the wind chimes on my porch, and watched the sun wink its last good night.


This week I set my screen aside. This week I chose to be "all there."

And that made all the difference.

Headspace

Lately I've been contemplating how our head space creates our reality. I can look at someone and think, so much possibility for that life. But after a conversation with this person that reflects a world of possibility, I realize they are miserable.

Sometimes life is filled with bounty and yet we see only bleak skies and wastelands.

I remember back in the days of teaching that I would have a class of 25 students that were charming, delightful. But then there would be that one student in the midst-- the one that needled me, that tested every class management strategy in the books, that made me sigh in relief when they weren't present. I would spend hours thinking about how to deal with that one troublesome student while hardly giving the rest of them a sideward glance.

And then one day it hit me how unfair that was and how it robbed me from the joys of teaching. And that day was a game changer in my classroom and in who I was as a teacher. It didn't change my troublesome students: they were still obnoxious and difficult. But it changed my vision.

And that changed everything.

Our head space can rob us of our best life. I've been watching these videos every morning that talk about how we choose our focus in life and these videos have given me a lot of room for thought. Recently I've been in a quandary about a certain situation in my world and what to do about it. I found myself living in stress, unable to sleep at night, and sliding back into some of those old habits that grip me when my world is rocked.

And then one day I thought...enough. I can't do anything right now; I can't solve this dilemma today--or even tomorrow. It will take time, and thought, and strategy. And so, I tucked it away and chose to move forward in my now, to not let my thoughts steer that direction until the dust has settled.

And once I made that decision, I realized that I felt whole again. The sun is shining again. And I know in my heart that my dilemma will find a resolution in its time. But its time is not today.

Recently, Savana said to me -- We will never really know what we look like.

I found that funny. And it's true. Sometimes I will see pictures of myself and think -- oh my word. Is that really what I look like? We simply don't know. And furthermore, we don't know how our thoughts in our heads portray themselves on our faces, in our mannerisms.

And to take that one step further? Our thoughts interpret details and tell stories that may not be so factual. For instance, I have heard people tell their side to a story that I witnessed and been shocked at their version that is so very different from mine.

And yet, I am the same. My headspace creates stories that others find ludicrous as well.

That is why, I suppose, there is your side, my side, and the truth.

Our heads create a lot of drama, tell a lot of stories, and bind us in a reality we have envisioned. And sometimes our vision is simply not 20/20.
Headspace is everything. It is our happiness, our misery, our hopes, our dreams, our frustrations, our loves, our hindrances. Headspace makes and breaks our worlds.

And sometimes, we just have to find the time to be grateful, to search for meaning in the darkness, to find the beams of sunlight through the swarming clouds--no matter how dim.

And maybe, if we look hard enough and long enough...well, maybe that little ray of sunlight will grow stronger and brighter until our headspace is filled with to the brim with light.

A Cup of Coffee

It's 5:30 in the morning on Martin Luther King's birthday and I have an entire morning ahead of me for just me. A whole sweeping morning to fill my soul with writing and reading and inspiring stuff. Oh my word. It doesn't get any better than this.

Roy, sadly, has to work today. And so, I got up to help him out the door, as I do most every morning. As Roy is gone until late evening, oftentimes, we pack an ice chest filled to the brim with food for him. And so, I go to work on that while he readies his truck and gets his stuff together, and is out the door by 5:30.  It's kind of a job in itself getting him out the door, but that's okay.

My reward? A quiet hour in my living room, candle glowing, a cup of coffee beside me, its steam lazily curling up towards the ceiling, and my iPad.

Perfection.

Jace doesn't have school today, either, but he spent the night at Tami's. We headed over yesterday to watch the Cowboys game with them. We dined on burgers, chips, salsa, and guacamole, while we rooted for our favorite team. It was intense -- those Cowboys? They gave the Packers a run for their money...and in my opinion, they should have won it.

But they didn't.

Anyway, in the midst of this crazy game, thunder shook the house. I quickly headed to Caleb's bedroom to make sure that Jace heard it as he is always talking about how much he loves a good thunderstorm.

When he saw me in the doorway, he said, "I heard it, Mom," with that tone that says -- You can leave now.

Kids. Gotta love 'em. Cuz you can't kill 'em.

Anyway, it wasn't long until we all got warnings of a tornado that had landed in our vicinity, and the Keene siren was blasting at the top of its lungs. Chas happens to work with Keith who works on the weather team here in town, and so Chas started texting him. Keith said, no worries. The tornado is ten miles away.

And so we didn't worry. Jace came running in, proclaiming his adoration for living so precariously. "Wouldn't it be cool, Mom, if a tornado actually hits Keene?"

Hm. Not so much.

And so, once the Cowboys' road to glory hit a roadblock, Roy and I loaded up for home while Jace stayed behind to enjoy the stormy weather with the Lewis clan. They are much more fun than his parents.

I called Dad last night and he and Jo told me how they were iced in and more was on its way.

Clearly life has slowed down in the midwest. It's pretty slow here today as well.

Recently I read a statement that stopped me for a moment:

Hurry always empties a soul.

I remember one time when the girls were little and I was teaching quite a lot and had to rush out the door for some sort of academy program. I was screaming at them, getting angrier by the minute because they were taking their good sweet time, not a care in the world, and making me late. I headed to their bedroom, raging in full blast that they needed to get it together, and get out the door because I am LLLLAAATTTTEEE!!! And in that moment, I looked up.

At the end of our hallway in that Wisconsin apartment was a mirror -- a fairly large mirror that told the full truth about what it saw. And when I looked up I saw this raging ugly woman.

And it totally stopped me in my tracks. Because that was the woman my kids saw.

My kids' mom was an ugly raging woman.

And suddenly? Well suddenly it didn't matter that we were late. I changed my tone, lost the anger, let go of the rage.

I became the mom, at least for that moment, that I wanted to be, that my kids deserved.

Now I'm sure I didn't magically turn into Mary Poppins from that day forward; but I was more aware. That mirror provided a life-changing effect on me.

Our lives are busy these days. If I want to spend time with people I love, we have to be purposeful about it. Between work and school and home responsibilities and travel and the list continues, we are in the typical go go go mentality that has taken our nation by storm.

But today I am going to slow down. Today I am going to nourish my soul.

Excuse me while I pour myself a cup of coffee.

Back in the Saddle

Lately I've gotten lazy. Well, that's not really true. I've always been lazy.

But lately I've gotten especially lazy about writing.

I'm not sure why...maybe it's because I've had lots of people in my house. Or maybe it's because I'm distracted with other things during the early morning hours when I typically write. Or maybe it's because I've become addicted to Game of Thrones and it, sadly, fills my free time.

But for whatever reason, I've put writing on the back burner...until today.

A few days ago, my friend Jacque enrolled in a class called Lifebook and she gifted it to me as well. It's incredible. It's about achieving mastery in the 12 areas of one's life.

Ok--mastery might be a stretch...but the overall point is that we need to live more purposefully about creating a life we love. To begin, we take a "test" that determines our happy quotient on a scale of 125. This score is determined by scoring our happiness in each of these 12 areas: health and fitness, social life, emotional life, career, etc. I scored an 84. But my friend Jacque? She scored in the 120's. But if you knew her, you'd believe it. Jacque lives with such purpose and motivation that she always inspires me.

Anyway, the point of all this is...today the challenge is to set a goal for the next 30 days, plan how to achieve that goal, and then do it.

Do it.

The two magical words.

Now here's the thing. I'm really good at talking. And planning. And thinking. And dreaming. I've got all of that down to a science.

But the doing part?

Not so much.

For example...I'm super good at planning how I'm going to eat healthfully...or exercise faithfully...I make all sorts of promises to myself. I've created charts and found recipes and researched diet plans...

The works.

But when it comes to doing it? ...

I read recently that the resolve to stick to one's decisions has to do with one's character.

Clearly my character sucks.

So today, when I watched the guy on Lifebook challenge me to create a goal and stick with it, I thought--I'm going to choose something that doesn't involve exercise or eating healthfully. I am a wee bit tired of hating myself in those two arenas. And so, I chose writing...

For the next 30 days, my goal is to write for a minimum of 30 minutes a day.

Now I will say, that doesn't necessarily mean blogging. I'm not sure I have that much inspiration (this blog I'm writing now is quite inspiring, I realize...) But the purpose is to hopefully harness all of those excuses and get me back in the saddle again.

And so...here goes...

Day one.

Done.

Happy 2017!

It's a brand new year.

I love brand new.

This year? I haven't really made any resolutions. I'm not exactly a raging success at those. And so, through the years, I've learned that it's better to just steer clear and avoid failure. However, when Savana and Guerin were here for Christmas, we all created vision boards. I read about those somewhere online and so the girls and I headed to Walmart one day where we loaded up the cart with creativity. Then we headed home, gathered around the table, and cut out, glued, laughed, talked, dreamed and created our visions for our futures. It was fun, inspiring, and failure-free.

I read one time that vision boards are the true answer to change.

I'll let you know if it works in January 2018.

Meanwhile, I figure, for the sake of posterity, I will write down my Top Ten highlight reel of 2016:

My daughter got married to her dream guy. And it was a perfect day.
Roy, Jace, Jace's friend Gavin, and I enjoyed a weekend getaway in Gatlinburg. The boys ran the swimming park while Roy and I "chilled" and did whatever we wanted. Ah--perfection.
On a whim, Roy and I took a quick trip to Oklahoma to look for teaching jobs that, clearly, didn't pan out. But it was a moment of spontaneity, similar to what we did in the early days of marriage, and it brought hope to our hearts when we needed it the most.
We survived an entire year of Darian living in the jungles of Bolivia where we only talked a couple of times a month via Skype with a fuzzy connection. But this year proved life changing for our girl and I'm so glad that she took the plunge.
Savana graduated with her Master's in Clinical Counseling and Guerin graduated with his Bachelor's in Mechatronics Engineering. #success!!
In an absurd turn of event that still makes my head spin, we moved to Texas where I started a new job as alumni director at SWAU.
We purchased our home that is absolutely perfect for us.
Roy started a brand new career with Lamb Star as an Inspector and he LOVES his job. #bestnewsever
We talked Tami and Chas into buying the adjoining 2 acres of our property and they are going to build a house there. Whaaattt??? Sisters for neighbors...the very best kind.
We managed to have a fast and furious Oklahoma Christmas that only required 5 hours of driving one way--rather than the typical 17...and that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.

As for 2017? Here's to hoping that we don't have nearly the changes that occurred in 2016.

Here's to good health, good friends, and contentment.

Here's to the courage to communicate when communicating is difficult, the strength of character to be kind when being kind isn't easy, and the resolve to make healthy choices moment by moment, day after day...

Happy New Year, my friends!