Huh?

You know what my daughter asked me this morning?

“Mom,” she said, “do I look fat?” I said “OF course not!!!! Why?” To which she said “I just ate TWO pieces of candy and wondered if it made me fat yet. I am not going to eat any more candy for TEN WEEKS!”

My daughter is 6 ½ years old.

I am curious....how would you respond to this? What does it reflect about our culture? Values, parenting, our children's view of this world? I for one found this very dis-settling!

I am trying to show here my plants. The hanging vine I grew from a tiny little cutting. Pretty good, eh? It is even longer now. The other plant in the pic is a potted tomato that did bear fruit in Dec and Jan. It is setting more fruits now but they are still green. It isn't doing too bad, since the cat damaged it and I had to cut one of the main stems off about 3 weeks ago. This is in my kitchen. :)

Perhaps Love Is Like my Children

Fall In Love, Why Do We?

Who knows why? Does there have to be a reason? I fell in love when I was 17 years old. It wasn’t in my plans. I had the next 6-8 years of my life planned exquisitely-get the heck out of high school, work hard, college, master’s degree and soon enough I would be a nurse practitioner. I was certain I would be capable of doing anything including graduating with precriptive rights by the age of 24.
Ha.

I fell in love like I said. “Fell” is exactly the right verbage too. It was like tripping and falling over a crack in the sidwalk! And, when you land on your face and look up, you feel completely different about yourself and the world. Since this is a romantic story I guess there was a handsome prince standing there to pick me up. Except we fell together.

I threw my plans out. I made a new plan to be a loving wife. I loved my new plan. I set about to be a good lover, a good loving wife and the lovliest friend to him. I am sure I fell short. All this falling really does get tiresome and surely we would have done things differently in retrospect.

I don’t understand “love”. I don’t even know why I love another. But, some of the most beautiful words about love (that I have seen) are contained in the following verses:

Perhaps love is like a resting place
A shelter from the storm
It exists to give you comfort, its there to keep you warm
And even if you lose yourself and don’t know what to do,
The memory of
Love
Will see you through.

Love to some is like a cloud, to some, as strong as steel
To some a way of living, to some, a way to feel
And some say love is holding on, some say, letting go;
Some say love is everything, some say, they don’t know….
(John Denver)

Guess I am part of the some that say I don’t know. After seventeen, life swirled in slightly different colors than before. There is really nothing to compare to the adventure of finding and giving love to another. Following that crooked sidewalk, we kept on falling over each other.

By twenty seven, love looked quite different to me. I watched carefully for cracks. No more falling please, due to several bruises to my ego over the years. I didn’t give strong consideration to romance, love now had a different hold on me, but is just as much a mystery as the love I felt before: my children.

Tonight as my children were in their carseats driving home, they wanted a bedtime song. I often sing the them. I can’t think of anyone in the world I love more than my three children, no one on earth I would more readily or willingly sacrifice for-my honor, my reputation, my pat answers or my very life. It would not be too much to give. And so I sang to my little ones:

Perhaps love is like a window
Perhaps and open door
It invites you to come closer, it wants to show you more,
And in those times of trouble, when you are most alone
The memory of love will bring you home.

Love to some is like a cloud, to some as strong as steel,
To some a way of living, to some, a way to feel;
Some say love is holding on, some say, letting go,
Some say love is everything, some say, I don’t know….

We christian’s profess to have found perfect love-the only perfect love, in Christ, the only perfect one. Thank goodness. At least someone (certainly not me) knows what this spin is all about and understands it. I still wonder-perfect love from Christ to me-doesn’t really help me much in the imperfect world of love between me and other-human-being-insert-any-name-here. At least the Perfect Lover of mankind gives us a stellar example to look up to and in any given situation try to live up to. And yet I still mess it up.

See my children’s angelic faces? They are the product of imperfect love. I find absolutely no fault in them (aside from their natural born sin nature). Perhaps if I can model love to them the best I know how, the most truthful I know how….. ….perhaps…… ….perhaps they will learn to choose love and maybe they will understand a little more than I this crazy, imperceptible trip we all tend to take and we commonly call “love”!

Perhaps love is like the ocean,
Full of conflict, full of pain
Like fire when it's cold outside
Thunder when it rains--

If I should live forever, and all my dreams come true,
My memories of love will be of you….

Love to some is like a cloud, to some as strong as steel
To some a way of living, to some, a way to feel
Some say love is holding on, some say, letting go;
Some say love is everything, some say, they don’t know…
(John Denver)


This column is dedicated to my children Elizabeth, Joseph Hendrick and Daniel Hendrick.

Questions, questions

Should Ruth write articles for profit (such as part time income)?? Make your comment please.

Happy Love Day Everyone.

This is my offering in celebration of Valentine's Day. After all, Saint Valentine was a proclaimer of love, was he not? Well, abuse is not love. Here is my act of public awareness and social responsibility. I adapted this from the website link at the bottom.
Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Domestic Abuse Checklist
Does the person you love...

Threaten to hurt you or your children? Yes ___ No ___

Say it's your fault if he or she hits you, then promises it won't happen again (but it does)?
Yes ___ No ___

Put you down in public or keep you from contacting family or friends?
Yes ___ No ___

Throw you down, push, hit, choke, kick, or slap you?
Yes ___ No ___

Force you to have sex when you don't want to?
Yes ___ No ___

Just one "yes" answer means you may be involved in an abusive relationship. If so, you're not alone and you have choices. It is so much more complicated than a simple checklist...
No one deserves to be abused. Get help wherever you can.

MYTH: It is easy for an abused woman to leave her abuser. Why can't she just start over?
FACT: Women who leave their abuser are at 75% greater risk of being killed or harmed by the abuser than those who stay. Nationally, 50% of homeless women and children are on the street because of violence in their home.

MYTH: Domestic issues do not hurt children. If he is bad to me, at least he isn't hitting the kids.
FACT: Child abuse occurs in up to 70% of the homes where domestic violence occurs. When a parent is victimized by domestic violence, children are abused at a rate 15 times the US national average.

MYTH: After a woman leaves an abusive partner, the abuse stops.
FACT: Separated women are three times more likely than divorced women, and 25 times more likely than married women living with their husbands, to be victimized by an abuser. These men frequently take advantage of court-ordered visitation to inflict harm on their former partners and their children.

MYTH: Batterers who seek custody do so out of love for their children and a desire to be good parents.
FACT: Custody litigation frequently becomes a vehicle whereby batterers attempt to extend or maintain their control and authority over the abused parent after separation.

MYTH: Allegations of child abuse increase significantly in divorce and custody disputes; women frequently fabricate allegations of abuse to hurt their former partner or to gain an advantage in custody disputes. She made it all up to make him look even worse.
FACT: Allegations of child sexual abuse are rare, occurring in only 2-3% of all divorce cases and fewer than 10% of custody cases. Less than 1/2 of all allegations of abuse against fathers are made by the child's mother, most are made by third parties. Allegations of child sexual abuse are not more likely to be false when made during custody/divorce proceedings than when made at other times.

Source:"Domestic Violence: The Facts" - A Handbook to STOP violence
Or see: www.healthyplace.com for more information.

Our house, our family

This is our house here in MN with the Chinese New Year decorations we put up. The cherry blossom tree in front, and if you look close can see the lanterns hanging from the ceiling that our family made together. Thank you to my good friend who sent us all the ang pow and flowers! Wouldn't have been able to do this without you.

I don't go by luck, but look at this:

The chinese zodiac for my birthdate says (among other things): Kind and helpful. Artistic inclinations who tends to be pessimistic. Indecisive and passive, yet can have fantastic luck in her life.

How ironic, because, I would have chosen most of those adjectives to describe myself. How did some chinese star-gazer get that right?

I truly don't ascribe to luck. The way I see it life is composed of

*consequences, good or bad
*hard work, the more of it, the bigger the payoff
*a little undeserved favor from God or others
*Someone to lend a hand and get you through from time to time.

What do you think??