A Challenge, An Intro & A Count

You may have noticed a new banner over there to the right....right under my profile....touting the Ultimate Blog Challenge.  The UBC, as I will be calling it from now on to save wear and tear on my fingers and keyboard, is a month-long challenge/blog hop that takes place once every quarter and goes along with the changes you are seeing and will continue to see around here.



I've heard of the UBC before, but this is the first time I've signed up to participate.  It's not going to be easy since I'm heading to Tennessee for four days next week and then will be on vacation July 20 - 27.  I'm not sure that WiFi will be available in either location, so I will be doing my best to get posts written before hand and schedule them to post in my absence.  Scheduling posts has never gone well here on Blogger.  Actually, it's never gone at all.  I've tried.  The posts never got published.  That brings me to the big change...

In the near future A Life Lived Well will be moving to Wordpress.  My sweet and very talented blog friend, Beth (you really should pay her a visit...she is a fabulous writer), who, by the way, designed my blog's present look, is working on a new look and the switch.  She understands and LIKES all that technical stuff that makes my eyes go crossed and my head spin.  As soon as we (mostly she) get it ready you'll be directed over there.  It's pretty exciting stuff.  The blog's going to have its own domain name and everything! (That means it's going to be a dot.com....I didn't know, either.)

With all the changes going on and new visitors coming in from the UBC, I thought I'd take a minute to tell you a little bit about me and who I am.  I apologize if you're one of my handful of loyal readers who already knows me well.

Let's start with the obvious....

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My name is Stacy.  It's nice to meet you.  I work as a school bus driver, which explains all the free time I have to play with my blog during the summer.  I've been married to Tim, a project superintendent for a commercial construction company, for 28 years (29 in November).  We have two adult children.  Our son, Matt, is 26, married, and has two children of his own.  Megan, our daughter, is 24 days from turning 21.  She is still living at home with us, though by living at home, I mean we see her as she passes through on her way out and on her way in to bed.

I'm not so sure I want to keep doing the bus driving thing and I'm keeping my eyes open this summer in case anything else pops up.  It's a tough sell.  I may not enjoy the constant driving (especially on winter roads) but it does pay well for a part-time job, I don't have to work nights, weekends or holidays, and I do have the whole summer off.

My Christian faith is probably the next thing you should know about me.  I do often write posts about Christian issues and everything else I try to run through that filter.  I do try to avoid being preachy in the regular stuff and well, if the flat-out Christian posts aren't your cup of tea, you can always skip those.

Maybe I should just sum it up by saying I'm probably a liberal's worst nightmare.  I am conservative, a Bible-believing Christian, I LOVE THIS COUNTRY, I'm pro-gun rights, anti-abortion, and no (let's just get this out and over with), I don't support gay marriage.  I believe our government is out of control and is selling us down the river at a frightening speed.

This is NOT me!
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Now, before you put me in a category (redneck, racist, wacko, Bible-thumper....am I getting warm?) take the time to get to know me.  What you will find is someone who loves God....and therefore tries to practice that love thy neighbor thing.  I believe it's more than possible to love and get along with someone without compromising my values.  I try to avoid getting on my soapbox too much on here and when I do, I welcome thoughtful discussion from all points of view and promise you I will not continue to beat a dead horse.  I know that on some things we just have to agree to disagree.

Okay, we've gone over the big (and scary) stuff.  What else can I tell you?  I'm a bookaholic.  I currently have 5 bookcases filled to overflowing with books, a NOOK that is filling up rapidly, and there are still piles of books all over the place.  I like to cook (but not to clean up the mess), travel, walk along the beach, swing on a porch swing, write, garden, and listen to country music.  I don't drink coffee, but have to have a Coke in the morning.  Flea markets, auctions, yard, and garage sales excite me!  I like to live with color (my living room is painted pumpkin orange!).  I am NOT a domestic goddess, so don't expect to find housekeeping tips.

Bottom line....I'm human, I make mistakes, and I'm trying to figure this life out.

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I join in a little thing around here on Mondays called Multitudes on Monday with Ann Voskamp, author of the best-selling book One Thousand Gifts.  It's all about being grateful for the things in our lives...the big and the small.  It's about finding God's blessings in everything.  Even the bad times.  So, every Monday you will find me counting.

131.  Meeting friends for breakfast on a Sunday morning.

132.  Having exactly what is needed, when there doesn't seem to be any way possible.

133.  A life leisurely enough to allow for blogging.

134.  Friends with skills and a willingness to help.

135.  An older gentleman at the garden center who told of losing his wife 14 months ago and shared the story of their 65 years together.

136.  A husband who shares my dreams.

137.  Summer rain drumming on the roof.

138.  The curious little dog who likes to play, play, play!  And the big dog that likes to sleep, sleep, sleep!

139.  The lush, green-ness after the rain.

140.  A husband who may not have to work on July 4 after all.

Visit A Holy Experience

Too Many Fathers

Father's Day baffles me for the most part.  I understand the sentiment behind it.  I just can't identify with it.  I've never had a "daddy" in my life.

Somewhere out there I have a biological father (or what the younger set crudely calls a sperm donor).  I've never met him.  I don't even know his name.  He apparently knocked up my mother and then rode off into the sunset.  If he's still alive he'd be around 70, supposing he was my mother's classmate.  I don't wonder about him much these days.  Why bother?  He doesn't seem to have ever wondered about me.  I do wonder, though, if I have siblings out there and if they know I exist.  It might be nice to read about him (and any other kin) or see pictures, but I don't have any desire to show up after 49 years and upset everyone.

My grandfather, Pappy, was the closest thing I had to a father for the first three years of my life.  I don't really remember anything about those days, but as I grew older I loved him dearly for the character he was and the laughter he brought into my life.

Mom got married when I was three and her husband adopted me and gave me his name.  He was quite a bit older than mom and came from the viewpoint of an older generation.  He had high standards for me (that I rarely met) and was a stern taskmaster and tough disciplinarian.  I had plenty of chores to do and if they weren't done correctly I could expect to be grounded for quite a long time or to have to write something along the lines of "I will not (insert my current crime)" about 1000 times.  In response, I tended to rebel and dig my feet in.  Mom called us a train wreck looking for a place to happen.  My teen years are the only time I dreamed of meeting my biological father.  I had fantasies of him swooping in to rescue me and take me off to a wonderful life of being his petted and loved baby girl.  

Adulthood gave me a new perspective on Dad.  He cried when I got married, which stunned me....and made me cry so hard I was still crying when my husband and I reached our hotel.  When my son came along Dad proved to be a wonderful grandfather.  That role was, sadly, cut short by cancer.  He lost the battle right after my daughter turned one year old.  In his final days he revealed his big regret was that he wouldn't be around to see my children grow up and his biggest fear was that they wouldn't remember him and how much he loved them.  He worried that he hadn't been a good father to me and said he had tried his best.  He made my husband promise to take care of all of us no matter what.  His final words were to tell me, his sister, and Mom that he loved us.  I wish I could tell him now that as my kids grew up I came to appreciate some of his protectiveness and strictness, not all of it, but some of it....and at least I understand that it was born out of love and concern.

These days I have what is, technically, a step-father, but since I didn't acquire him until I was in my mid to late 30s, I simply call him by name or refer to him as my mother's husband.  My son calls him by name, but my daughter who hasn't known any grandfather but him began calling him "Pap" or "Grandpa-pa" as soon as he and Mom married.  He's a nice enough man and does quite a bit for us, though I think he's as confused about his role as I am.

So, you see, I'm never quite sure what to do with Father's Day, but I have reached a place in life where I am able to see that each "father" gave me something.  Even the sperm donor gave me life and no matter what happens or doesn't happen, I know I have a heavenly Father who loves me without fail and that's more than enough.

**This is a blog hop.  I'm joining up with the lovely ladies (and much better writers than I) to pay tribute to our fathers.  Please feel free to visit some of the other blogs and read their stories.

Making the Best of It

Mom and I with my son and his children.

"You're not good enough."  "You'll never be good enough."  "You are an embarrassment."  "You're doing it wrong."  "I wish you'd never been born."  Those are the voices (those and a million like them) that echo in my head as I sit here trying to think about what my mother has taught me.

It's obvious we've never been close, Mom and I.  There are no warm fuzzy memories that I can pull up.  There are pleasant ones, but none that are glowing with maternal love.  There were perfunctory kisses good night until I turned 12 or so, but I don't have one single memory of being cuddled, petted or doted upon.  You know, those moments when as a mom you look at your child and are so overwhelmed with love for them that you just have to touch them and tell them you love them.

In Mom's defense, I don't think she got that as a child, either.  The experience she and her sisters had with my grandmother seems to be much different than the one I had.  Nana positively showered me with all the cuddles and love I could stand.  There was also something much larger in play....

Mom was in college in 1963.  A small state liberal arts school in a small, rural, conservative, all-white town, which was the same kind of town Mom came from.  She did what was unacceptable for that time and place. She got pregnant.  Marrying my father was apparently not an option because at the age of 48, I still don't know anything about him, not even his name.  Mom has never said anything about him and I've never asked even though I'd like to know.  Why?   I don't ask because I've assumed his absence means he rejected me before I was born.  Mom planned to give me up for adoption, but her parents kept her at home and by that I mean she wasn't allowed out of the house except to go to medical appointments.  It was too shameful a thing to flaunt in public.  Once I was born, my grandparents took care of me so my mom could finish school.  I lived with them until I was 3, when my mom married and my dad adopted me.

All that explains why Mom and I have never had a close mother-daughter bond, but while I understand it, it still stinks.  I don't want the story to end here with me sounding like a whiny child.  I want to find good things she taught me.  I won't lie, it took a lot of thinking and some of it creative, but I did come up with some positives.

• Mom was a librarian.  From her I got my love of books and reading.  I read adult novels by the time I was 11.  The one thing you can find in literally every room in my house is books.
• Without all that motherly doting, I was left to my own devices a lot of the time.  I don't mean I was allowed to run wild.  There were rules and my basic needs were met, but we didn't really do anything together.  I learned to do a lot for myself and how to keep myself occupied and amused.  So, I say she taught me independence.  
• She taught me responsibility.  I will do my best to always do the "right" thing even if it's the last thing I want to do....a concept that seems to be beyond most people these days.
• Maybe the most important thing Mom taught me was the kind of mother I didn't want to be.  I tried to do the opposite of what she would have done when I raised my kids.  How's that working out?  The jury is still out.  During the growing up years, I was close to my kids and had great relationships with them.  These days I'm the one who lives nextdoor to my mother, would never abandon her, and keep my mouth shut even when I dislike what she is saying.  My children, on the other hand, either live away and have their own families (and think nothing of cutting me out of their lives for every little thing they disagree with or assume they know about me) or are planning to move far away as soon as they can.

So, there it is, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I could dwell on the bad stuff and I'd be lying if I said it never bothers me.  It does, believe me, it does.  I don't want to turn into a miserable, negative person, though, so I try to focus on the bright side.  Through good stuff and painful stuff Mom still managed to teach me about what kind of person to be and I can forgive her the bad things because now that she's older I see that she longs for the same kind of love I did, but doesn't know how.  Lately, we've been making strides in the right direction.  Thanks, Mom.  Happy Mothers' Day.

*This is a blog hop from Generation Fabulous: The Voices of Midlife