I believe there truly is a season for everything and the seasons of the earth are a natural teacher of that fact. You may want an extension of a season but wanting it, isn't going to make it a reality. Porch sitting in a warm evening breeze...sipping ice water...visiting with a friend--just isn't going to happen in December in my area.
Even within a season we can desire for things to extend and just last forever!! Moments or events that we just savor and want to hang onto. I can remember feeling a moment when all 5 of our children were home and we had a baby in our midst and feeling the sheer joy this little fellow brought to all of us. I remember thinking- how marvelous it would be if we could always have a 3-6 month old baby in our family...The seasonal plan, and a very practical plan, a very realistic plan...not going to happen no matter how happy you feel with a baby in the mix. Seasonal. almost transient. Here today. Gone tomorrow.
To me a life span covers the 4 seasons in a broad sense.
1-birth to 25 years...growing physically/education/marriage (for some)/career starting etc.etc.
2-25-50...career development/raising children/children start career & family etc. etc.
3-50-75...empty-nester/self-development/discovering skills/talents/service/grandparenting etc. etc.
4-75-100...health declines/life totally changes/figuring out joy in a NewNorm etc. etc.
Me?- I plan on living to 105. Being here for the 2nd coming. My challenge is - trying to hang into/onto the 3rd season and not transitioning to the 4th. Wanting to hang onto how things have been for years and years and slow to face the reality that there is so much on my plate and it interferes with the OldNorm...making it impossible to move ahead as I'm hanging onto trying to do the old 3rd season era and add the new and much needed 4th season and humanly...it is impossible to live a double life. Sometimes those seasons may overlap but not forever.
I'm trying to figure out and step into the 4th season and make appropriate changes, all the while not feeling gypped or mourning for what I want and can't have!! I am incapable of being in my current 4th life phase and fooling myself that nothing has changed. Practically every thing has changed.
You know that I've been trying and trying to find balance in my NewNorm. It's been very long in coming but the Lord is good. So good. I think I finally have a skeletal plan that will work! Facing how things are and what I need to change, to help us have a better quality and enjoyment of life, and to where I can live my journey in joy.
I do feel joy. I also feel empowered. I feel strong...capable...and that I can do what is right for me...and that ultimately is right for us.
That little co-d voice, of course!, whispers...you should be able to do more/what will people think and on and on. Truth be told...it's my life and I'm expected to figure out how to live/create/have the best faith-based life I can. I'm going for the gusto! OR do you go for things with gusto? Whichever. Whatever. I'm changing things up!
So you just read the intro to a Chapter Book!
LINING UP MY DUCKS
Chapter 1...Food
I remembered Emma (last one I shared about family meals) had previously told me a couple of other things about meal prep...
Yes, Aaron and I love to cook together. We did it a lot while we
were dating, engaged and married. We still do as often as we can. For a long
time Sunday meals were Aaron's time to be creative. Sundays aren't a guarantee
anymore, so he cooks when he can. His latest adventure is sourdough bread.
Some of the crockpot meals were make ahead
freezer meals. I found several recipes on the internet. I made 10 or 11 all in
one afternoon. They were hit and miss. Some just didn't have enough flavor.
Don't be afraid to try new things, but only reuse the ones you like.
it would have been interesting to hear from others but for now...enough. The important thing is aiming at eating together as a family whether it be 2 or a table full of folks.
As for me. I've watched all sorts of cooking shows...read all sorts of cookbooks...looked online at all sorts of eats...cooked an assortment of new concoctions...made all sorts of elaborate plans that never seem to fly.
I have a friend who cooks/serves her hubby an old familiar dish, one she has cooked for years, might even be a favorite of his and he questions...did you change this recipe? it doesn't taste right! something is different. He basically loves two things, and she doesn't cook them!!... From the gas station!- he LOVES chicken on a stick and their jo-jo's (?)
Do taste buds change when you age? My Mother ended up liking cold cereal! Even if soup was cooked and frozen she wouldn't fix it.
Now my hubby doesn't think things taste good! Is it Rx that pulls this freakish mouth trick? He likes cold cereal also!! I don't know but it is a pain in my neck way beyond his taste buds.
So...I simply am weary of cooking and don't necessarily like doing it! Gasp!! I've tried lots of ways but it just doesn't work anymore. So in this 4th Season...I will focus on a wonderful beautiful delicious Sunday dinner. I'll make a batch of soup during the week (which I still enjoy doing). I'll bake some bread.
The rest? Lettuce in salad spinner. Fruit. Hardboiled eggs. and then just whatever! I'm not going to use morning time in trying to figure out what to cook and doing it and etc. etc. My Mother always cooked a special Sunday meal and we loved that great dinner. I always cooked one for our family also. Now being there are just two...I no longer do that on a regular basis. I will do that for us! looking forward to it! Leftovers will be good!!
Chapter 2...Temple & Studying
Will continue to go weekly to the Temple as long as roads are safe. and will continue to study the Gospel. Right now I'm into studying about the Atonement. I favor studying Conference talks and just plain scriptures. Not many other religious books are of interest to me. For ages I felt the Atonement was for the price paid for sinning etc. etc. It was a thrill to me to later learn that the Atonement covers everything! I decided to read the book by Tad R. Callister--The Infinite Atonement. He is the General Sunday School President. I've heard him at General Conference and he is so humble. I'm looking forward to reading what he has learned.
Chapter 3...Healthy Self
I have to become stronger and healthier as more and more is expected of me. Terry does the dishes and keeps his bathroom tidy as far as our housekeeping/housecare. The rest? Ummm...that is me. On my plate. Little old pudgy me. My own unhealthy self. Sooooo....when Jeanee and Tori were here and climbing were I couldn't go and moving things that I couldn't move...they put the stationary bike right in the middle of the garage. Who for? Me.
They left and that day I started my biking adventure! I don't even do a decent jog in my pedal rate. More like a slogging effect. But that is okay. I'm doing it. Very unorthodox way but it works for me. I roll out of bed (not yet leaping out of bed. still rolling) and put on my old green bathrobe and walk to the garage (bedhead and all) and climb on my steed and putt-putt away. My floor-length robe has snaps and I unsnap the bottom 2 or 3 and really, I laugh, knowing full well I am the spitting image of the wicked witch in wizard of Oz as she cycles along cackling and fabric afloat.
My goal?...next year at our 2017 Family Reunion we will have a dance-off and I want to win it!! Plus we will celebrate 60 years of marriage and I want to set an example for my children. True it's a bit late but hey! better late than never.
So my biking is my first step. I can do 30 minutes but will even settle for 10 minutes if it needs be.
So that is my starting point. Necessary because out of Kip (our son), Kip d. (our grandson that can now use crutches and is in PT to learn to walk), and TerryMainMan of my life...anyhow-- out of these 3 I am the healthiest/strongest person. Now they might beg to differ but just trust me on this. Okay? So I am going to truly get strong and healthy. I will work this year and win the dance-off!!
I just love this meme!!
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LOVE it!!--creed point-if it's to be, it's up to me!
Chapter 4...Rational goings (and flitting about)
There will be some events I will attend and others I won't. As a member there is that guilt that we stack the bricks on ourselves. I enjoy evenings home with Terry and vice versa. He has no problem with me going anywhere and doing anything but in assessing it I'm going to pare back on a couple of things.
I'm going to drop Book Club and will not attend Linger Longer (4th Sunday meal at Church). I've never attended LL as Terry can't go but I will take those guilt bricks off my back. Book Club...it seems I'm only there once in awhile and most of the time I've not yet read the book. I'll drop out for now. I don't like being a no-show.
A really big guilt trip for me is VT. I fly solo and seldom get the engine going to taxi out of the hanger! I don't make gifts/cook cookies/ go to house and give lessons. I just don't ever quite make it to what I said I would. Two of the women are dear friends and see each other and help each other all the time. I have talked with them and in all honesty, I know I'm not as dreadful as I'm painting in such black depressing paint BUT I'm not satisfied with my performance and care and the guilt is like an unseen cavity to everyone else but it eats me alive. I do talk on phone etc.
Driving back from the Temple in all of my joy for feelings of receiving, at least for me, right directions to move into my own glorious 4th season, I expressed the thought...I wish I had a letter route. I'd love to be connected with women like that. should I ask the RSP?...and then that dab of desire for magic wand waving just vanished.
Next day--Sunday at Church, as I entered the door, the RSP greeted me with...we want to change our VT and would you be okay to do letters for us? and on and on and on...pixie dust was outshone by an answered to an unuttered prayer. YES!!!
Chapter #5- Tidy up
Don't be rude and say mean things like...good grief, woman!! you are still in a mess?? are you a hoarder? do we need to do an intervention or what?? how many years are you going to dink around before you get your act together like every other Mormon woman who keeps everything spit-spot all the time and is totally organized??
Yeppers. It made my list. Again.
And I had Chinese food and my fortune cookie reads. That's an omen don't your think????
 
note...I only saved 3 other books. That bottom one is Martha Stewart's! And that huge thick one by Peter Walsh. but the little book with my fortune cookie glued to it to remind me...you can do this!!
Chapter #6- Do not commit me!!
Tori climbed up and reached the top shelf where my fabric is. Over the years I've downsized and given more yardage away than anyone I know. Trying to get sensible etc. I willed myself to stop buying fabric. And have stopped that habit.
I had the cupboard neat and tidy. well, at one point I did! So Tori and Jeanee and I carried all the fabric to a banquet table and started sorting it. Now Terry has always laughed at my fabric craving and I dishonestly tucked some out of sight when I was into buying such gorgeous stuff! Surprise Surprise...he said that he was so glad that I'd kept what I had and he thought it was just beautiful.
That was a shock. A very nice shock!
The really big excitement in our family is thinking of next year at McCall. Never have we all been so eager. I had this grand epiphany...I am going to make every family member a quilt and take it to McCall next July. I think I mentioned this before. Years ago?
Now don't call in some psychiatrist or the likes.
Earlier I read about our Yakima Mission Presidents wife and how she sewed a huge amount of quilts. She'd gone to a funeral and the lady had left all sorts of unfinished quilts and her family wasn't sure what to do with them. That inspired her to take care of all her unfinished quilts. And she did. What she accomplished makes my goal look like absolutely no challenge. I sent her a note and told her she'd inspired me but to please tell me she did not wash all of that fabric. I could not face that task!
Now I read this before I decided to do my family quilt project but when I decided to do it, her success really fueled me!!
So I will have someone get a tote down that has some unfinished quilt tops and then add others. I decided to make all of the tops and then, worse case scenario, I can get my kiddos to help finish them if needs be. I'm going to use my store of fabrics that are on hand. maybe buy just a yard or so if I'm doing a coordinated pattern. I bought the orange flower print for this. all the rest was in my cupboard.
I pulled the needed 18 different fabrics to start on my first new quilt top. I went to the Temple or I'd have that first one sewed. I'm really excited about it because I've had the pattern for a really long time and had given up on making it. I'll share the picture of my progress.
 
Right now I'm sewing on the kitchen table and not in the back, where I'll move to, but this one is very complicated. It's simple but complicated! it's sort of measure twice and cut once. I have to be exact on cutting it & putting it together. maybe I'll love it so much...I'll make them all this way!
Now this project idea has just done amazing unexpected things in our home. Terry is so happy to see me happy. He loves looking at the progress and seeing the beautiful fabrics. I was not expecting that reaction. another reaction that I did not expect is my own. I feel creative and excited and happy and enjoying the entire experience. (okay. granted I'm just getting started but truly it's wonderful.)
Terry asked me if I was anxious to get to the "fun" part and past the "boring" part. I told him that every single thing was a joy to do and I enjoy the entire process from picking the pattern, choosing the fabrics, cutting, sewing, putting together etc. etc.
That is what I needed joy in my journey. I feel it!!
I believe it's expected of me to figure my #4-LifePhase out, with available Guidance, and act on it.
THE END
(PS- yes. I do know that genealogy should be on here. I know. I know that!)
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