I ask your prayers...

I have a few folks on my mind, which I have always taken as a signal that I need to pray for them. Believing, as I do, that prayer is powerful for whatever reasons from whatever doctrine you subscribe to, I ask you to join me in praying for/thinking of/holding them near to heart. For the sake of anonymity, as I haven't asked these dear ones if I may spread their trials and tribulations about the world wide web, I'll just allude to their identities. Besides, there are probably lots of people out there with these same situations - might as well pray for all of them.

I ask your prayers for...

...my after-dinner-mint friend who wants desperately to have a baby in her womb. This girl is the most fabulous mother and I also yearn to live vicariously through her pregnancy. All the waiting and hoping is taking its toll on her emotions and heart and faith. Pray for her to become a pregnant lady with a remarkably healthy fetus - and soon!

...my biggest-geekest friend who defends her dissertation this week. She is confident and brilliant and lovely, but a little anxious, I believe. Pray for her stamina, wisdom, and loquaciousness. (I may not have a PhD, but I can make up words, too!)

...my gay friend who is struggling with a recent controversy in our school district regarding a Gay/Straight Alliance forming at one of the high schools. Pray that my friend may be the voice of reason in this ridiculous struggle our world has to accept everyone.

...my family. We are starting a long hard summer of settling our parents' estate. Many hard feelings and bitter words could arise. Pray for our unity, our love for each other, and our courage.

...my beloved. He has an opportunity to show how brilliant and talented and managerial he is over the next little while. Pray he feels confident and that his skills are both noticed and appreciated.

...my scrawny friend who needs to be healthy enough to eat the foods that will help her return to her healthiest weight and energy level. Pray that her children will not think of her as being sick, and that they will not need quite as much energy so that she may use that on herself.

...my lonely friend who so deserves to have someone love her the way she loves him. Pray that she will find a companion who shares her respect, love, and wishes for the future.

...my teacher friends who have so much to do in the next two weeks! Pray that the students they teach will appreciate all that has been done for them.

...me. I'll always take whatever prayers you'll throw my way.

I love you people.

On HOLD

As I write this, I could be interrupted at any moment and have to pause - I'm on hold. There's a little piano ditty that sounds very Charles Schultz-y coming from the speakerphone in my friend Deb's office. I'm waiting for a nice boy (or girl) at ETS to pick up and tell me my Praxis scores which are available today for the low low price of 30 bucks.

I could wait until next week for my paper scores to arrive for free - but they won't be sent until Tuesday, meaning I won't have them in my grubby little hand until at least Wednesday or Thursday, maybe later. I just don't think I can wait until then.

Crikey. Here they are.

WOOHOO!

Okay, I passed. But let me finish my thoughts about being on hold.

I've been in a holding pattern about employment and life for some time now and I am ready for the metaphorical guy on the other end of the line to pick up the darn phone and answer my life questions! I've tried listening to the Muzak, doodling, and multitasking to pass the time, but I have reached my limit.

So, now that I know - PASS - and that I have hope of my certificate being up and running in a couple of weeks, I am ready to move on. The Hold is almost over. I can almost get on with it.

Phew.

Random Proclamations and Ponderings

For the record:

Cookies and cookie dough are two separate food groups at my house. Both are essential for life.

I never thought I wanted a cat. I love ours.

If we were all nudists, we wouldn't have nearly the laundry to do.

Weather continues to fascinate me. I like wind better than most anything.

I love the potential my back yard holds. I want to learn to unleash it.

My children are amazing, despite their rearing.

My minivan has 97000+ miles on it - accumulated over the course of almost 5 years - and I'll probably be driving it for another five years. How many miles do you think it will have on it then?

My DOG got mail from the obstetrics center at a local hospital today. I am not sure how she came to be on the high-risk pregnancy list, as she is almost 15 (yep, 105 human years) and has been spayed most of that.

I will never get tired of the hugs I get every day at school.

My husband deserves better treatment from his first wife. (yeah, that's me.)

Korianna is a scientist, an artist, an angel.

Austin Mason will always be "Mornin' Hays," and nothing feels better in the morning than him!

I watch WAY too much TV, but I don't think I want to quit.

I hold my pinkies out when typing - I wonder if it is too late for me to learn to use the home row keys and follow standard typing methods? I don't think I want to. Maybe if I were to become an actual writer...

More soon.

Yahrzeit

I am just realizing that fully half of my posts are about my dead parents. I'm guessing a therapist would have a good time with that tidbit...

Anyway, Mother's Day has come and gone, and with it my momma's yahrzeit. (If I knew how to embed links, I would highlight that word!) My friend Bonnie Nichols introduced me to the term some time back when her dad's yahrzeit was on my birthday. Apparently, in the Jewish tradition, the anniversary of a person's death is honored with prayers and candles and good old-fashioned mourning of the healing and cleansing variety. Great concept. It honors the loss of those living while honoring the life of the deceased.

So, I find it fitting that the first anniversary of my precious momma's death coincided with Mother's Day. It is still hard for me to think of Mother's Day as a day about ME and not my own momma, and now that it will always be marked around the time of remembering her death, I am not sure I ever will be able to let it be about me. I tried to make it about me by telling my husband, who had prepared THREE meals for me that day, that I wanted a present. It didn't feel greedy at the time because I really was trying to distract myself. In hindsight, it wasn't a very classy thing to do. Alas.

Well, my dearly beloved bought me a great pottery/herb pot (AKA the only thing they had at Food Lion that wasn't flowers...), but I bought myself a book yesterday that I had read earlier this year that is the PERFECT Mother's Day gift/slash/my-momma-died-and-I-still-hurt-all-over treat. It's called Someday and it was written by Alison McGhee and Peter H. Reynolds. You have to have this book if you are a mother or have a mother you love and miss dearly, whether she is living or not.

It's one of those I Love You Forever or The Giving Tree kind of books. It is so simply written, and SO perfectly captures the moments that define a mother's (and daughter's) coming-of-age. My favorite lines:

Someday your eyes will be filled with a joy so deep that they shine.

Someday you will hear something so sad that you will fold up with sorrow.

Someday I will stand on this porch and watch your arms waving to me until I no longer see you.

Someday, a long time from now, your own hair will glow silver in the sun. And when that day comes, love, you will remember me.

Except for the hair color I pay the nice lady to give me every six weeks, my hair is already glowing silver, and boy, do I remember my momma. The porch line makes my insides ache, as I remember how hard it was to leave her every time I went home for years, even when she wasn't actively dying-dying. Of course, it was especially hard when it really started to look like it could be our last visit. My momma would always stand in the driveway until our car was down the street and we couldn't see her any more. Something about that was such a comfort - and when she became confined to her bed, that goodbye wave was a huge loss. But, I suppose, it prepared me for the lack of good-bye waves I have now.

Man, I miss her.

So, here's a secret you learn the hard way: EVERY day is Mother's Day. Even the ones when you are yelling at your kids or pissed at your mother or annoyed with your mother-in-law - they are days that you won't have tomorrow, no matter how much you ball up in your bed and feel sorry for yourself.

I can't get my momma back, I realize that - but I can give Kori (and Austin) the kind of momma a kid deserves, a teenager needs, and an adult misses. Simple goal, right? So, to do that, I'd better close and go upstairs and love on them.

You know you're friends when...

Okay, I've blogged about online friends, but I haven't had much to say about real live face-to-face friendships yet. Yeah, I know, that last one was about fambly, and I guess this one really elaborates on that, too. There's some proverb about difficult times and friendships - something about how that's when you can tell who your true friends are, but with fancy language or metaphors or something. Anyway, I can't quote it, but you know it's true - fair weather friends are fine, but foul weather friends are forever. (Ooh, that's a cute alliterative statement that says what I was thinking! But it still isn't the one I was trying to remember.)

So, daddy's death has proven to be one of those times when I have really been able to tell who my true friends are. My new favorite blogging method is the LIST, so I will share with you, Jeff Foxworthy style, how to know who your friends are.

You know you're friends when...
... you still don't have to catch each other up when you talk on the phone after not having talked for a while.
... you forward each other emails - but only the REALLY good ones - not every one that comes along with the subject "FW: Fw: Fw: Fw: really funny!"
... you think nothing of borrowing feminine hygiene products.
... you know each other's family member's names, or have at least heard enough stories about them to ask things like "Is that the sister that such-and-suched at so-and-so's wedding?"
... you feel like your friend's friends are your friends (transitive friends!).
... you don't have to pretend to be someone you aren't.
... farting is not only okay, but is encouraged.
... your children are interchangeable.
... you can ask "does this make my ass look big?" and expect a straight answer.
... you harbor information that could be used against your friend in court.
... you can tell how your friend really feels with just one look or by hearing something in their voice.
... mi casa es tu casa, and the refrigerator and pantry are fair game, too.
... you KNOW what's in your friend's refrigerator and pantry!
... your house can be as messy as it ever gets, and you really don't care if they see it.
... you get ONE room in your house clean, and you call them over to celebrate.
... you pass by their place of business and call them to say something totally inappropriate that will make them laugh audibly - and you hope their boss is in the room, because that just makes it better.
... you finish each other's stories.
... no topic is off limits.
... you not only feel comfortable peeing while talking on the phone, but you don't even bother running the water and pretending you're doing dishes - in fact you announce that you're peeing and you flush with abandon.
... you have either peed in front of them, held their hair while they vomited, or shared deodorant at some point.
... you read each other's blogs!