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I don't pray. There was a time in my life when I was active in an organized religion and a time immediately after that when I gave up on anything spiritual. I am only now beginning to find a happy medium that works for me and prayer hasn't been something I have implemented into my spiritual journey. I have a strange idea that it has to look a certain way, me on my knees in a floral nightgown next to my bed with my hands in just the right position and specific words being said in order for God to hear me. I don't wear floral nightgowns.
Last week, a wonderful woman passed on to the other side and she was married to a man who has been a huge part of my families' life. He has now been a widower three times and is one of the sweetest, most loving men I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. As I was getting ready for bed Friday, I thought about the funeral services I would be attending the following day and I felt an overwhelming need to say a prayer for this man who just lost his wife. I didn't kneel and I probably didn't say exactly the right words, but I said a prayer for him. That was my gift for the day and I am starting to think that maybe God doesn't care what kind of pajamas you wear when you talk to him.
Day 8: A Gift For Me
Don't get your panties all bunched up over the title of this day, I know what you are thinking. "Isn't it about giving to others?" The answer to your question is that this challenge is about giving, period. I am not planning to spend the next two weeks treating myself to hundreds of gifts or forgoing giving to others, but I am starting to believe that old adage about filling your own bucket. Saturday was a draining day. After fighting with my son about going to a birthday party (what kid would rather stay home??? MINE), attending a funeral and coming home to mountains of laundry and a hungry family, I was wiped out and I didn't have a clue how or what to give to anyone else.
After fulfilling my duties, I told my hubs that I was going for a run. I haven't been running in weeks and if I couldn't run I planned to walk, crawl or hide under the neighbors shrubs. Regardless, I needed to get out of the house, by myself. It sounds crazy, even to me, but going out into that stormy evening and moving my limbs felt better than any therapy I have ever paid for. I didn't take my usual route and I ended up at our local lake, but instead of rushing back to the long list of responsibilities I had waiting at home, I sat by the edge of the lake. I watched birds float overhead and clouds roll across the sherbet colored sky and I stopped worrying. There are only a handful of times when I allow myself to be unproductive, to watch the world go by and it felt like a gift. A gift to me.
Day 9: Rolls
My grandma did everything. I could fill a 300 page book with all the amazing things she accomplished in her life, as a parent, a grandparent, a runner, a friend and a caretaker. She was inspiring and I thought she would live to be 100 years old. There would be plenty of time for me to learn all her recipes, make a quilt with her, hear about her marathons and eat her food. She had a brain aneurysm on Christmas Day five and a half years ago and passed away.
I have been missing her terribly lately and on Sunday I was thinking about all the times we use to go to my grandparents' farm for Sunday dinner. My cousins, aunts and uncles would be there and we would eat and laugh and play games until the sky got dark and we begrudgingly went home. My grandmother always made her whole wheat rolls and anyone who ate them will tell you that those rolls were the highlight of the meal. On Thanksgiving, we never noticed the turkey or the gravy, we wanted to know where the rolls were. As a kid, I thought every grandma made rolls with wheat that she had ground that morning and in quantities that could feed an army. I was kind of an idiot.
My sister, who was clearly smarter than me, had obtained our grandma's roll recipe before she passed away and I found it in my cookbook over the weekend. There were few real measurements, a glob of this and a few of these and no details about when to add the yeast or how long to let the rolls rise before putting them in the oven. Grandma never used a recipe, she had been making bread her whole life so there was no need to wonder if you had to add the oil now or if the water was warm enough for the yeast to work. She just knew and I miss that.
I shared my grandmother's recipe online as my gift for the day. Family members and friends alike were interested and excited to have access to those rolls and a piece of our history. Grandma would have wanted it that way.
If you missed my article on mythirtyspot last week, here is a link. It's all about work, marriage and what it means to take a backseat to your spouse's success.
http://www.mythirtyspot.com/2013/07/his-mine-and-ours-when-your-spouse-is.html
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