Running With Spears

Makeup Me!

Over a year ago, I posted about my internal debate regarding wearing makeup. Basically, I was conflicted because when Artist and Boo would ask me why I was putting on makeup, I didn’t have any good answers.

I got a lot of great feedback from you guys, and I think one of the best responses I heard was something along the lines of, “I wear makeup sometimes because I think it’s fun, and how I apply my makeup is one of the ways I can be creative and express my personality.” I like that a lot. But a year ago I still wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do.

I’ve ended up wearing makeup maybe a half-dozen times since then. But now I’m thinking I’m going to start wearing it more often…maybe once or twice a week. If I feel like it and have time, of course.

Here’s my reasoning…eventually my daughters will go through puberty and they may have times when they have to deal with bad breakouts. If they would like to wear makeup during those times, I don’t want to have accidentally made makeup out to be something abnormal or strange so that they would feel in any way ashamed for wanting to wear it.

And if (when they’re older) they think makeup is fun and want to express themselves by wearing sparkly eyeshadow or rainbow eyeliner or whatever, they should be able to enjoy that, just like right now we have fun painting our nails and wearing fun jewelry and hair accessories.

I still definitely don’t want to give the impression that you have to wear makeup to look decent. And I will absolutely set the precedent that it’s just fine to leave the house without makeup on, because, well I’m simply not a “put on makeup every day” kind of gal.

So anyway, now that I’ve decided to wear it more…I’m in pretty desperate need for some new makeup. Help me out! What are your favorites? I don’t often break out, so I don’t need or want a very heavy base. I really like a fairly natural look. And my skin is really sensitive, too. Oh, and it can’t cost an arm and a leg, so, yeah, there’s that. Any suggestions? Pretty please?!?

When Mothering Littles Feel Little

Back in December I decided that rather than a New Years Resolution this year, I’d select one word to focus on. I chose act.

It’s a good word.

But I think it gave me delusions of grandeur.

Though I’m quite the opposite of an on the go all the time girl, I’ve somehow caught a bit of the wanderlust bug. I’m yearning for the big and the exciting.

I’m not sure it’s really so much that I want to go to all the places and see all the things. I think it really boils down to this…my soul longs for significance.

I want my story to matter.

And it’s easy to feel that the stories of the people who are going and doing big exciting things matter more than my quiet little story, here in our quiet little neighborhood, raising three ~~quiet~~ brave little girls.

It turns out that this year hasn’t held very many big actions. It’s mostly been lots of the daily, unglamorous, little, tiny actions. Motherhood can be that way, after all.

Many of my friends are at Alive 2015 in Nashville right now, and I really need to just stay off of Facebook and Instagram for a few days because if I see one more picture of the great time they’re having, and the whimsical details of the set-up at the conference, and all the great stuff that’s happening there…I might cry.

I couldn’t go. Smiles still needs me to nurse her to sleep at night, I can’t leave her for three days right now. And I know that if I just went anyway and left her here it wouldn’t settle well with me.

The fun and exciting choice wasn’t the right one for me.

The main plotline in my story right now is mothering my littles. And that means making some sacrifices. It means that rather than gallivanting off somewhere exciting with Misteris to celebrate our 10th Anniversary in May, we’ll celebrate here. It means that rather than attend an entire five day book-lovers/writers conference complete with social events until Midnight each night, I’ll attend the nine-to-five portion of one day.

If I dwell too much on the sacrifices, this season can start to feel so hard. I can forget that it’s also important. It reminds me a bit of a certain chapter in the book I wrote (yes, I’m about to quote my own words, whatever).

“But I didn’t do anything,” I cry.

Elle pulls me close and whispers, “In the face of doing something big and glamorous and heroic feeling, you made the harder choice…you brought your friends home.”

My story may not matter much to the world. But it does matter to my littles. The little things are big to them right now.

When I teach Artist to play a new game for ages 8 and up and she mops the floor with me, she gains confidence in her ability to tackle new things (and when she loses, she learns to handle disappointment). When Boo comes to me in tears because her tender-heart was broken by someone’s harsh words and I hold her as long as she needs and wipe her tears and read her a story till she feels better, she’s able to go back out and face an uncertain world knowing she always has a safe place to come back to. When Smiles nurses to sleep in my lap and then snuggles into me and dreams sweet dreams in my arms…well, then I remember these precious moments are beautiful and fleeting and I’d rather be here snuggling my baby than anywhere else in the world.

So I kiss her head and keep holding her close. I pray for my brave girls, that they will each run their race and that I will succeed in doing my part to prepare them. I know that God has amazing plans for each of their lives, and I’m blessed to get to be such a big part of that right now.

Maybe my story with be “bigger” as far as the world is concerned later. I do hope there are grand and exciting things ahead of me. But in these moments of wanderlust and feeling a bit boring and insignificant, I rest in the assurance that quietly, one little act at a time, I’m changing the world…or at least the worlds of my three girls. 🙂

Wisdom from Grandma

As Moms today, it feels like there can be a near constant barrage of angst, second guessing, and self-doubt trying to slap us around.

The funny thing is, I think a lot of it comes from parenting choices. Specifically, ones where there is no definitive “right” answer. This doesn’t sound like a bad thing, and yet they can so easily keep us up at night. I know it’s not just me, so don’t even. 😉

There are really big, tough choices.

VBAC or repeat c-section? Work outside the home or be a SAHM (or work from home)? Homeschool or public school? And on and on and on.

There are also smaller, every day decisions. These can seem huge in the moment even if years from now they won’t really have mattered all that much in the scheme of things.

Here are just a few I’ve dealt with:

Should I sacrifice my Saturdays to do photography sessions and bring in at least some amount of income for our family?

Since Artist, who has SPD, still only eats a handful of things…should I let Boo choose to eat only her favorite foods too?

Is it okay for me to spend large chunks of my afternoons working on my book while the girls fend for themselves, or should I be spending that time with them? They do grow up so fast, after all.

How many weeks can I wait before I absolutely have to scrub the bathroom?

The struggle is real.

And to make it worse, Pinterest is full of great ideas that are also nearly impossible to achieve. There are a bajillion articles out there telling me how to parent. (You guys, I’ve seen blog posts with titles along the lines of, “You give your kids what you think they need, but you’re wrong. I know what they actually need.” And, “If you make this parenting decision, you will lie awake at night regretting it.” I think it was about feeding your kids hot dogs. Seriously.) And don’t get me started on the random judgmental comments all over Facebook.

Which is why a remark my Grandma made recently really resonated with me.

I posted a picture from Boo’s 5th Birthday photoshoot (which took place about five months after her Birthday…whatever), and she commented something along the lines of, “She is so blessed to have a stable, loving home.”

How easy it is to forget the big picture!!!

When it comes right down to it, these decisions we can so easily stress over and second-guess ourselves about to no end are often just attempts to find the *best* choice out of many good ones anyway. Plus the only reason we struggle in the first place is because we love our kids so much it hurts!

So Momma out there tonight angsting over whether it’s okay to serve Taco Bell for dinner for the fourth time in four days (or maybe that’s just me), give yourself a break. You love your kids. They’re not suffering from hunger or neglect or abuse. They have a stable, loving home…and at the end of the day, that’s what really matters. 🙂

Imaginary Divisions

I came across a post today that made me chuckle…until I really thought about it.

Someone apparently decided it was high time to point out that there are different types of homeschoolers, and wrote a post entitled, “The 5 Tiers of Homeschooling.”

Now, at first glance this seems like a band-wagon I could totally get on board with. After all, I still get a little scared sometimes that if I mention the word “homeschool” to someone, the first image they’re going to jump to is girls in ankle length denim skirts with their hair in buns. Just for fun, I’ve decided the images for this post (because I have to have images, that’s just how I roll) should come from my teenage years. I only occasionally looked anywhere near what I imagine people picture.

Anyway, Homeschoolers are probably as diverse as, well, people. Can we just accept that and move on?

Back to the article. To start with, it’s only describing Christian homeschoolers in North America. And I just honestly can’t wrap my mind around dividing the already fairly small sub-set of people into five distinct categories. I started to get myself really up in arms, though, when she said, “…while it is possible to marry up or down one tier, marrying up or down two tiers doesn’t happen. There are simply too many differences.”

That obviously has to be a joke, right? I mean, most homeschoolers I know didn’t even marry someone who was homeschooled at all, much less in the same “tier.” And that’s when I realized what was really bugging me.

There are no tiers.

It’s all just made up. A blogger out there came up with these divisions. They’re not real, actual things. And yet the second I read some imaginary divisions I found myself thinking, “Mmm, yeah I mean I suppose I’m sort of a five, with this four quality and that three one, and those other part of how I homeschool would probably be a six or seven…and that friend over there is definitely like a 2.5…”

Blech! Just no. There are already so many silly things that can arbitrarily divide us. I want to be a person who focuses on the things we have in common and builds a friendship on that. And the more I think about it, the more I realize just how many imaginary divisions there are. Someone, at some point in time, said, “Here are the important classifications of (insert topic here…parents, political camps, coffee lovers, whatever).”

And we accept this as true. So we try to mash ourselves into those divisions, even though I’m sure very few of us fit any mold perfectly. And if that’s not frustrating enough, I’m afraid that all too often we take those divisions, forget that they don’t even quite fit us anyway, and use them determine who we will and won’t be friends with. (After this post, I’m fairly sure the grammar-nazi people won’t be friends with me, just sayin’). 😉

What do you think? Is it helpful to be able to identify with someone, “Oh we’re both attachment parenters, that’s neat, I just met you but let’s be friends!” Or do they drive us apart, “Oh, you don’t love coffee, I don’t understand you at all, we should never speak again.”

Waiting, numbers…and letting go.

My awesome-sauce readers, I apologize for my unexpected absence in February. Life just happened, I guess. Nothing in particular, just a combination of busyness,the sickies (over and over), focusing on my book, and not really feeling all that inspired to blog.

In any case, I have big news now. I’ve sent off query letters and a few sample pages of my book to five literary agents! These are the mighty, yet elusive, champions who will help me make my book even better, submit it to all the right publishers, and negotiate my contract once a publisher falls in love!

I just need one of them to love my book!

Before I sent my first my first query letter I had a ridiculous, melodramatic freak-out because taking that step had the potential to change my story. Who knows what could happen next? It’s thrilling but also terrifying!

Then I was rejected by two of the agents I queried and I had a very different moment. Based on a few stats I’ve read, it seems that agents who are actively seeking to add new clients right now tend to offer to represent about one author out of each one-thousand queries. Yikes! Is my book really that one in a thousand? Those aren’t very good odds!

Fortunately, when I’d had my first little freak-out I spent some time in scripture. The first verse that popped into my head was the very likely over-quoted, but relevant nonetheless, Joshua 1:9

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

I was focused at first on the being courageous part. But I think the even harder part is this waiting, and clinging to the “do not be discouraged.”

I felt very specifically nudged by God to write this story that had been dancing around in my head for nearly a decade. (Please don’t ask why, trust me I struggled a bit with this seemingly non “sacred” calling. What could God possibly want from a character-driven, contemporary fantasy book for middle grade readers? I have no idea, honestly.)

But I wrote it. And God was most definitely with me in the writing. It never felt as difficult or tedious or draining as I expected. I’d had conversations before with friends who insisted that when doing the work God has for you, you don’t tend to experience the same kind of burnt-out, run-down, tired that you get when doing your own thing. Until I wrote this book I wasn’t really sure what they were talking about.

Several people have indicated that they believe actually finishing the book I set out to write was some significant achievement. But I feel like that was easy compared to this. The waiting. The not being able to DO anything part. The simply trusting God.

If He wants my book to be published, it will be. What good is my fretting about it and checking e-mail every forty-three seconds to see if I have a response from an agent?

I’m most certainly NOT saying that if each of these agents rejects me I just give up. Not by a long shot. Who knows how much perseverance will be required now? But there’s also no point in becoming overwhelmed by how stacked against me the odds seem to be. I’m not free-falling in a cruel numbers game, I’m held lovingly in the hands of my heavenly Father, and He’s in control.

I’ve loved Psalm 37:3-7 for years. I recently read it in “The Message” version and it reminded me anew of the beautiful assurance these verses hold.

“…settle down and stick to your last. Keep company with God, get in on the best. Open up before God, keep nothing back; he’ll do whatever needs to be done: He’ll validate your life in the clear light of day and stamp you with approval at high noon. Quiet down before God, be prayerful before him.”

So in the words of my adorable Smiles, who has just become obsessed with joining her sisters in their favorite song, this is the time for me to simply, “Let it go.”

Love you guys! Thanks for reading my random ramblings, and overlooking the fact that my picture at the top didn’t really have anything to do with the post. I have an odd aversion to image-less posts. 😉