Absolutely refusing to worry.

This Monday I started my work week like I start many, listening to a podcast on the drive to work.  This one was by Chip Ingram.  He quoted an author who said that a long time ago he decided "I absolutely refuse to worry."; and when he felt the urge to worry about any situation that life brought he would repeat those words over and over to himself: "I absolutely refuse to worry."

It always amazes me how God brings truth to you just when you need it most.  This Friday, March 1st is the ultimatum for the federal government's budget sequestration.  If you don't really know what that entails you can look it up elsewhere, I won't try to tackle that one here.  For many Americans this might be just another opportunity to roll your eyes and thumb your nose at the politicians in Washington.  For those of us that work for the federal government it hits much closer to home.  There is a great deal of uncertainty about everything surrounding this situation right now but the one thing I know for sure is that people and work that I care about will be effected by this: co-workers, friends, fellow biologists, maybe me too.  To what degree, I don't know.  That's really the thing that gets the worrying going though isn't it, fear of the unknown.

I hate worrying.  I can't say that I never do it but I think that most of the things I do worry about are actually significant life-altering situations for me or someone close to me.  I don't think I worry excessively though.  My mother's philosophy is; "I'm a mom, it's my job to worry."  My response?  "It's not your job mom, you don't get paid for it.  It's your hobby."  Sorry mom, but you know its true!

Why do we worry anyway?  (Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? - Luke 12:25) What's the point, does it really solve anything or make things any better?  Not that I can attest to.  The only things worry has ever given me were wasted time, poor decisions, stress, anxiety, confusion, fear, doubt and sickness.  I have actually worried to the point that I felt nauseous.  Ridiculous.

Jesus said: "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." - Matt. 6:34

That my friends is truth if I've ever heard it.  Kind of sounds like he's talking about my day to day life!  So if I refuse to worry what should I do instead?  Some of us would all of the sudden have quite a bit of free time on our hands.  (Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. - Phil 4:6)  We could focus on other people and helping them instead of our own problems.  Would that solve the problems I'm worried about?  No, but worrying won't do that either. 

But herein we can rest our hopes and dreams for the future; "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." - Matt. 10:29

His eye is on the sparrow.  That might not solve today's problems, but that promise gives us hope for the future. 

Blizzard Photos

With the arrival of yet another winter storm I know some of you New Englanders are now officially sick of the white stuff.  I do love snow so I am not quite there yet but still, I can't say that I blame you.  At least this time we are measuring our powdery precip. in inches, not feet.  So for a little perspective, here are some photos of what we were dealing with just a week ago:

The boys and their igloo - made with just a little help from dad!

Inside the igloo

The snow slide...

Clearly, it was a big hit!

    

The little guy loved it more than anyone.

Our tree-blocked driveway, this was after Adam had already shoveled away the 3 foot snow bank from the entrance of the driveway left by the road plows.

Mom buried in snow!

Big brother wanted to be buried too.

The only snowman we managed to pull off, a snow baby.

Let the Storm Subside

These are not my words, they are written by Joyce Meyer, but as I read them I was struck by how applicable they are to the situations that several of those dear to me currently find themselves in.  I pray that they bring encouragement to them and to you...

I have faced so many storms in my life, some like the quick afternoon storms that are common in the summertime and some that seemed like category four hurricanes!

If I have learned anything about weathering those storms, it has been that they don't last forever, and I don't need to make major decisions in the midst of them.

Thoughts and feelings run wild in the midst of crises, but those are exactly the times we need to be careful about making decisions. I often say to myself, "Let emotions subside before you decide."

We must remain calm and discipline ourselves to focus on doing what we can do and trust God to do what we can't do.
Instead of drowning in worry and fear, get in touch with God, who sees past the storm and orchestrates the big picture.

He makes sure everything that needs to happen in our lives happens at the right time, moves at the appropriate speed, and causes us to arrive safely at the destinations He has planned for us.

God, I know that I can't control everything, so I will do what I can and trust You to do what I can't do. The storms of life do not control me. I trust Your plans for me.

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.  Psalm 46:1-3

Romantically challenged on V-day?

With Valentine’s Day upon us I was compelled to share some suggestions for this pseudo-holiday that is ignored by some and dreaded by many.  As a firm believer that V-day is a holiday invented by greeting card companies and the like, our family celebrates this occasion, but we try to make it about doing nice things for each other rather than buying the commercial stuff the stores aim at you.  We make simple homemade cards and I usually bake some cookies or cupcakes and get some kind of little toys or trinkets for the boys.

As for me and the Hubs, well sometimes we do something special and sometimes not.  I have been on the receiving end of some very fun V-day gifts over the years (12 years that is!) and well lets be honest some not so fun.  (ahem, a circular statistics book honey?)  But the good do far outnumber the bad and I am proud to say that my bearded Hubster has been doing a fantastic job in the gift department for the last few years; we've even had a few gift selection home runs folks!  But without further ado here is my humble attempt at providing guidance to the romantically challenged (that means most of you men out there).

NOTE:  These guidelines are intended for couples that are married and have kids, or at least have been married for more than a year or two.  For the engaged, newlyweds, or those still dating you should feel free to read up; but fellas, the expectations of your lady friend will probably be closer to the realm of movie romance (Love Actually? Ever After?) than the solid ground of reality.  So no 100% guarantee or anything here.  But dream on while you can girls; and as much as we might hate to admit it there is still a bit of princess buried deep inside all of us married mommas.  Just in case you handsome knights need some suggestions:

Here are some pretty solid rules on what not to do:

1. Even if she says she thinks flowers are a waste of money, don’t listen to her, get her flowers.  Preferably her favorite kind (which means you will have to uncover this deep dark secret she has likely shared with you at least 1000 times, or whenever she sees said variety of flower).  If you have one of those uber-practical gals that hand weaves her children’s clothing and makes whole grain lasagna noodles from scratch then just get her a pretty flower in a pot of dirt so it will last a long time.  
2.  Skip the candy.  Don’t get me wrong, I love me some chocolate, and therefore I eat it almost every day; so its not really all that special.  Sorry guys.  If you truly believe your girl will consider candy a special treat then please at least steer clear of the stuff that comes in a heart-shaped box with fake flowers hot glued to the lid.  That stuff tastes terrible.  Just buy her favorite kind of sweets (hopefully you know that, if not start searching the trash cans for wrappers).
3.  Stuffed animals are not a romantic gift unless your special lady is under the age of twelve.
4. When it comes to fancy lingerie, let’s be serious guys; that is a gift for you.  
5. I don’t care how practical and down-to-earth your girl is, save the sensible and useful gifts for some other holiday; especially when it comes to home goods.  I don’t care how long she has had her eye on that shiny new toaster oven; it does not make a romantic V-day gift.

Here are some guidelines to aim you in the right direction:

1. Take your lady out on a date (this means you leave the kids at home, preferably under the supervision of a responsible individual – but in a pinch anyone over 14 without a criminal record will do).  *Special Note*: The date does NOT actually have to be on V-day, but if it is not you should present her with a nice little something on the big V-day and say something real suave such as: “I could only get a sitter on Saturday night, but I’m taking you out to dinner and a movie then.  Love you babe.”  You’ll melt her heart.
2. If you have absolutely no idea what your woman likes you are going to have to start paying more attention.  (Sorry this won’t help you out today but if you are desperate just go for something pretty she can wear that does not come from the underwear department)  When she opens it you should say something like, “I didn’t know if you would like it, but I think it will look beautiful on you.”  On paying attention, do whatever you have to do, keep a notepad in your pocket – even an old receipt will do - and when she says something like: “Isn’t this pretty? But I don’t really need it.” WRITE IT DOWN!  This will get easier as you do it and after a couple of holidays you will be Prince Charming in no time.
3. If at this point you are thinking: “I have absolutely no money to buy anything at all, I’m doomed!”  Fear not, this is your opportunity to give the Super Meaningful Gift That Didn’t Cost Anything!  Examples include a poem you wrote, a song you sing her, making her a romantic candle-lit dinner, taking her back to the place you proposed and saying all kinds of “I Love You stuff”, carve her a little heart out of wood from a branch of the tree you were standing under when you first met, etc.  You will have to be creative in this case but fortunately for you there is a wonderful invention called the internet where you can pirate all kinds of great romantic free ideas from other folks out there that are willing to share.
4. Similar to the above category of No Money, if you instead have A Little Bit of Money, you are in an even better situation.  There are multitudes of great thoughtful gifts you can give your lady that cost just a little.  Some ideas might be a nicely framed photo of you two on your honeymoon, of her and the kids, or possibly a lovely scenic one you snapped during your last vacation (hopefully you’ve taken one - a vacation that is).  Or drive her to a special surprise location (some nearby lovely scenery perhaps?) for a fancy dessert.  Again, the internet is your friend here.
5. Just try.  I get it, trying to be a romantic stud and failing is worse than just not being romantic at all.  But think about how much you love that feisty gal and all the things that are great about her.  Isn't she worth risking your pride just a little?  Where's your sense of adventure?  If Frodo had given up that easily where would Middle Earth be now? 

PS - When it comes to being romantic try to go for something she will have the chance to tell her friends about over and over again, extra bonus points for that. (ex: when she wears the gift you got her someone will say, “Oh what a pretty bracelet...etc.” She will say, “Thanks, my handsome guy got it for me” and they will say “How sweet, isn’t he the best?” and she will say “Yes, he is!”) and repeat every time she gets a compliment on her nice little something you gave her.  This also works for those creative low-cost ideas: “Guess what my man did for V-day!”…“What?” and she gets to say all kinds of awesome things about your thrifty romanticness.  

To the ladies; if you think your guy isn't doing a very good job of getting it right on V-day and other high-pressure holidays (birthday, anniversary, Christmas) then you likely aren't dropping good enough hints.  For instance, try sending him an email a few weeks before a holiday with links to all kinds of fun stuff you love (various prices) and title it "In case you're ever looking for a gift idea for me."  Then whenever he gets you something you don't hate, tell him you like it and how thoughtful he is and say thank you more than once.  I know it's not ideal, but you have to start somewhere, give your man a break, romance takes practice. 

So there it is, 10 easy tips to make you a romantic beast of a man.  But seriously guys, all us girls really want is for you to show us that you care.  Just a little time and a little thought, maybe a little cash if you can spare it is all it takes to show your favorite female that she ranks right up there with sports talk and meat off the grill.  The thing is, we ladies know that you love us, we just want you to put a little effort into showing it and if we need a fake holiday to give you an excuse to do that...well Happy Valentines Day.

Thanks for The Blizzard

With The Blizzard of 2013 barely behind us (refusing to actually refer to it as "Nemo", its just too silly) many thoughts are swirling in my head and with nowhere else to go I am putting them here.  After about 18" of snow in 24 hours, 2 days without power, and 5 days of being mostly cooped up; life feels a bit upside down.

Like many here in RI this was our second significant natural disaster in less than 3 months.  Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy gave us 3 1/2 days without power and destroyed homes as close as a mile from ours.  Even so, somehow this blizzard seemed to have much more impact on us and our feeling of security.  Maybe because it was a bit of a blindside to us; we started out in the predicted 1-3" zone, then it was 3-6", then over the course of 36 hours we had slowly crept into the zone of a possible 18-24" snowfall.  Even so we (the hubster & I) have seen big snow before.  We lived in the mountains of Idaho for a year (B.C.-before children) and had 3-4' of snow accumulation in a winter.  That winter the dogs used a 4x4 shoveled area for their toileting needs and we traveled through a tunnel-like walkway to reach our truck every morning.  We even lost power there a couple of times due to storms, but really not too big of a deal.  This was different.  Maybe because we have kids now, maybe since it impacted such a large area around us, hard to say exactly but I am sure we will never forget the experience.

We prepared a little for the storm but certainly could have done more.  A quick shopping trip (by Thursday night the stores were out of nearly everything, including salad!), charged some batteries, turned the heat up to get the house warmer.  We already had shovels, scrapers, salt, etc.  Someone at work had even offered to bring us a generator if we did lose power.  The snow started Friday morning and by Friday night the trees around us had limbs weighed down and bending precariously under the weight of heavy wet sticky snow.  The Blizzard hadn't even hit yet.

By daylight the snow had stopped falling and we had a good 12-18" on the ground.  The power went out at 9:30pm and the house was cool by Saturday morning but liveable with some layers.  Fortunately our stove top is propane so we could still cook and make hot drinks, we whipped up some oatmeal and coffee in the press pot.  The Hubs was antsy to make his first scouting run out into the powdery stuff and he came back with a serious face; "Its a disaster out there, a real mess."  The snow had pulled down several small trees over the entrance to our 100 yard-long driveway; the plow guy couldn't plow us out even if he was making the rounds, which meant we couldn't get a generator in or even opt to abandon ship for a friend's house with electricity. The temperature was supposed to fall to 11 degrees Saturday night. 

After some calls we had the promise of a borrowed chainsaw and borrowed generator from my work...as soon as the driving ban was lifted and the nearby highway was opened to general traffic.  That couldn't be long right?  It wasn't until Saturday evening that we had a generator running noisily behind our place and extension cords snaked through the windows powering a few necessities (space heaters, lamps, fridge, cell phones).  After a pasta dinner on paper plates and a family board game it was off to bed.

The next morning our kitchen was 45 degrees.  I bundled up the boys (much to their displeasure) for breakfast and we cranked up the 3 space heaters we had in the kitchen area.  After 2 hours we were up to 50, after 4 hours we were almost to 55.  We opted out of church since someone would have to stay home and keep the heat going (Hubs) and I didn't feel adventurous enough to travel the roads alone in their snow-covered state.

We did make it out for a fast food lunch in a warm place about a mile from our home.  On the short drive we saw roads closed due to a broken power pole, a transformer on the ground, lines in the water, trees laying over power lines and slush or giant snow piles over everything.  This was not even close to over.

After the little one's nap I ushered two grouchy boys outside for some snow play time.  We found that it was actually warmer to bundle up and be active outside than to be sedentary under blankets inside.  Thanks to dad's ingenuity they soon delighted themselves with a homemade snow slide and igloo and I tried to help build a snowman out of the powdery dry stuff that had covered all of Friday's super sticky snow.  Then it happened, the big kid had to go Number Two.  "I'll take him." said dad, and they headed in.  "There's an alarm going off in here!" he shouted as they entered.  It was the carbon monoxide detector.  We couldn't make it stop going off and couldn't decide what the cause could be; candles? space heaters? a leak from the non-operational stove/furnace/water heater? the generator?

Long story short (we'll save that for another time) we ended up with 3 fire trucks and a gang of firemen airing out our house for us due to a slow buildup of CO from the generator's exhaust coming in through the nearby bulkhead.  A tad embarrassing.  We squeezed in a late dinner of carry out pizza after the flashing lights pulled away.  Adam headed out for a fuel run before bed, he came back to report all the gas stations were out of gas, the last one he stopped at had just enough to fill his can before the pump shut off.  "It should get us through the night." he said.

The power came back on for us around 11:30 that night.  And so ends our tale; or does it?  Do things like blizzards and hurricanes and other hardships just happen?  Is there a reason behind any of these experiences?  Do we just get through it and move on?

How many otherwise seldom pondered things have been brought to the forefront of our minds only through circumstances that leave us powerless and fearful, even angry?  Without a natural disaster would we notice how many people and how much work it takes to keep the electricity running and keep the roads passable?  Would we think about how to survive without the modern conveniences of life if they were never ripped from our tightly grasped hands?  And how to be prepared for these types of situations when they inevitably happen?  Would we have even an inkling of what it is like for the 1.5 billion people in the world that have no electricity, ever, of any kind?  I believe this is an opportunity to remember how thankful we truly are for the "everyday blessings" we have access to instead of focusing on our everyday problems and issues and likes and dislikes and our house that's too small, car that's too old, stomach that's too fat, bills that are too high and life that is never quite good enough or exactly what we would like it to be.

I might disgust some out there by saying it but all-in-all I am thankful for The Blizzard.  There, I said it; and here are some reasons why: thanks for my boys that kept my spirits up with their love of snow play and complete lack of complaints about the cold, thanks for my husband who worked non-stop to shovel snow from a huge driveway and deck, hand-sawed trees, build snow structures, kept the heat running, routed and rerouted cords and made runs out for supplies, thanks for the time spent unplugged reading books and playing games with the kiddos, thanks for public servants like electric-line workers, road crews and firemen, thanks for carbon monoxide detectors, thanks for those that are generous and willing to loan things they have to spare like generators and heaters, thanks for all the friends that care about us and offered to take us in if we needed it, thanks for the reminder that God and His creation will always be larger and more powerful than man could ever become, and thanks for bringing us safely through a situation that could have gone differently.

Some would say "I don't need a blizzard to be thankful, I can just be thankful."  We should all strive for that lofty goal, but can we attain it?  My belief is not really, not unless we have a glimpse of what it is to be without that which we are thankful for.  Since I am not one to voluntarily turn off my heat and lights in the dead of winter...thanks for The Blizzard.