Author's posts
Dec 03
Where is God?
These are hard times, y’all. The violence is almost unbearable to watch. As I drove into work this morning on this blustery day, I thought about what I would say to those who don’t believe. Truth be told, even the devout have times where they struggle to reconcile the tragedy around them with the belief in a good and loving God.
As I watched the leaves blow, I thought about God. How I cannot see Him, but I can see the results of Him. Despite not being able to visually see wind, we know it is real because we can feel it. We can see the beauty it creates in its power; how it bends objects in its weight. We see how it changes the things it touches. We feel it on our face on a hot day, providing respite from the heat. We feel it in the winter, stinging our face, urging us to go inside. It exists. It is invisible yet undeniable; beautiful and healing; destructive and powerful.
We do not lessen our belief in the existence of wind when a tornado decimates the Mid-West, or a hurricane destroys a city.
In the same way is God. I cannot show you His picture, but I can show you the effects of His presence. You’ll find it in the hearts of those who selflessly dedicate their lives to spreading the Word of the Gospel. It is found in the grieving mother, whose arms desperately want to cradle her lost child, but instead are raised in worship to His goodness. It is found in those who forgive the unforgivable, because He commanded us to do so. It is found in people worldwide who serve others selflessly. It is the candle lighting an otherwise dark room. And in times of trouble, you can choose to look at how dark the room is, or you can choose to fix your eyes upon the beauty illuminating from the Light.
The presence of evil will never be stronger than the beauty of God. As sharp as darkness is, it can never cast out light.
He is there always, in every moment, to heal our brokenness. In times of despair, we can always see the light if we adjust our focus.
Nov 06
Office Rug
Hey y’all! I posted this on my Facebook but I figured I’d elaborate.
It took me months to pick out the gray for the walls (Stonington Gray by Benjamin Moore), and nearly as long to pick out the rug. Hubbin asked me how many rugs we were going to buy until I screeched “AS MANY AS IT TAKES TO GET THE RIGHT ONE, OK?!” because I am a loving and graceful wife. Grays are so hard to match – I really feel like picking out paint colors shouldn’t be this hard, but it is. Since the gray is such a low toned gray, I didn’t want a dark rug to go with it.
So I finally settled on this one:
I don’t get referral links because no one cares about me, but if you’re interested, it’s the Safavieh Indoor/ Outdoor Amherst Beige/ Light Grey Rug from Overstock. Wayfair carries it as well, but it was cheaper with Overstock (and they refunded me the difference when they knocked it down by $50 two days after I bought it). It shipped relatively quickly and made it without a mark on it (which will likely be short lived, since my kids seem hell bent on destroying everything I ever buy).
I did nearly pull a muscle trying to get it down, though that was more my fault for being out of shape and ordering a rug that was really large for the room it was going in, and not waiting for Hubbin to get home before I did it myself. Instead, The Oldest One and I put it down, which was eerily reminiscent of this scene:
Anyway, I’m happy. The new curtains should be coming in today, which have to be hemmed and cut before going up, so you can sit back from the edge of your seat.
Nov 04
Living with Hooligans
Over lunch with a vendor who doesn’t have kids, I remarked that having kids is like living with drunk people. Please see the examples below for backup to my theory.
Exhibit A: they sit in weird positions.
Exhibit B: they are really rude.
Ugh it’s so bad. So on Halloween, we tackled the rest of it. It took two coats of semi-gloss paint over it, and some touch-up places, and after a couple of hours, this was the result:
Oct 04
Shelves!
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s an actual post about home improvement!
Don’t faint, y’all. It’s been busy around here. And by busy, I mean I have thoroughly enjoyed laying on the couch doing nothing instead of finishing the things I’m supposed to finish. Like the office/playroom/dining room. So this post is really like more of a sneak peek, and not because I want to keep y’all in suspense, but because I realized after we installed one of the shelves that I lost half the parts. And then I didn’t feel like looking for them, so I gave up and now I’m laying on the couch again.
You know what, whatever, the whole title of this page is The Lackadaisical Mom. If you were looking for someone who rallied the troops, you’re on the wrong page. I am just what you’re looking for, if you want a blog with rare and random posts, most of which have nothing to do with renovation lately.
So that’s going to change, though, because we are about to tear this house up. We have lots of plans for this place, now that we have friends that owe us favors.
In the meantime, I put up 1/4 of the shelves I bought in the room I redid like months ago:
I added these shelves this shelf above the desks:
This was a labor of love, y’all. This was 100% one of those “Why pay $20 for something when you can make it for $267?”They were supposed to look different, but this ended up in the “cannot even” category. I could. not. even. So, they ended up just flanges, caps, and galvanized nipples. And we are not even going to talk about the shape of them ok? Behave yourselves. Here is Hubbin, obliging me by putting them up. And by them, I mean “it” since we only did one.
So there. I did something in the house, so you cannot take away my blogger status. I also took down those hideous curtains and picked out new curtains and a new rug for the room. Once the rest of the shelves are hung, I will totally show you pictures so I can humble brag about how flipping awesome they look despite me totally throwing in the towel halfway through and redesigning the brackets because I was tired of going to Home Depot and also because of physics.
So if y’all need me, I’ll be here. Admiring my shelf.
Aug 19
The Family Picture
Grumpy Preschooler arrived home the other day with her packet of papers, eager for me to see them. As I flipped through them, proud of her work, I got to the last one – a picture she’d drawn of a little person and two taller people. I asked her what the picture was, and she replied “our family” and smiled. I asked–with trepidation–where Sissy was, and I felt my heart actually wrench (can hearts wrench?) in that moment, when I heard her reply softly, “At [her dad’s].”
And there were depths of my soul that actually hurt in that moment.
Happy Blonde, who is 11 now, has always lived primarily with me, and since her (very involved) father lives in a different jurisdiction, she sees him every weekend. This summer, we essentially switched custodial status, and she spent Monday – Friday with him, and weekends with us. It was my first taste of being a non-custodial parent–and it was awful. I learned the gritty part of it – how quickly the visitation goes by, how hard it is to readjust in a short period of time, and how it’s nearly impossible to have a child on weekends feel like they are part of the working household. It’s hard to mold them and discipline them, because you hardly want to spend what little time you have picking battles.
I learned how hard it is to plan things when you only have your whole family for very brief periods of time. I learned how many activities that they miss because they’re not with you. I learned how it’s nearly impossible to get on a true rhythm. I learned how jam packed visitation days were, trying to somehow make up all the things you waited on, because your whole family wasn’t there.
Even worse, I realized that this was not even close to what her father’s family experiences throughout the school year. I wasn’t paying child support to “enjoy” this arrangement. I wasn’t held hostage by someone else’s parenting style. I wasn’t experiencing this for nine months straight, as they do. I still interrupted it with vacations, and I actually still had her longer on my visitation times than he does during the year.
It made me thankful, and grateful, that he has taken on that burden in order to give our daughter a stable childhood where she isn’t constantly traveling. It made me painfully aware of the sacrifices his home makes so Happy Blonde does not have to deal with interruptions to her school week. Most of all, it gave me the gut-wrenching realization of the pain they must feel if their son draws a picture of his family, short one beloved little girl they all wish they had more time with.
So thank you, to all those who make unseen sacrifices.
The Lackadaisical Mom
