The Endless Summer

Things here in Yuma have been pretty frantic and crazy the last couple of months. There have been three rabbit shows out of town and the usual keeping up with DJ and his trips to Phoenix and endless food preparation. On top of that, there has been many subbing jobs, house cleaning, laundry and the twelve thousand things that keep a house running. It's all about to come to fruition with the culmination of the American Rabbit Breeders National Convention.

Kelsie and I are leaving on Tuesday to head over to San Diego to help set up for Convention. This is our first and I still can't imagine seeing thirteen thousand rabbits and cavies all housed in one place! Just the thought of this is really overwhelming......

Overwhelming too was the first two years of DJ's diagnosis. My sole focus was autism and how to best help my son. I spent endless hours doing research and other endless hours developing a treatment plan. Once I found Dr. Schneider and other therapies, I would spend weeks and months at the Ronald McDonald house in Phoenix getting DJ the treatment he needs. Time spent away from the rest of my family. This too was overwhelming......

So how did I end up imersed in my daughter's "Rabbit Habbit"? I fell in love with many of the people!

I don't actually raise and show cavies or rabbits, but I'm intricately involved in the hobby and community of breeders. This hobby has been my complete and total escape from the world of autism. Most breeders didn't even know I had a disabled son until I started my blog and jumped into Facebook. Through this hobby, I have met some of the most amazing people and rejoined the world. Her hobby has forced me to quit living in such isolation. Although most days I question my sanity (Kelsie's hobby is even more time consuming), I realize that my daughter's rabbits and cavies have brought me back into the world! :)

I am praying that I can pull my life together to get out of here on Tuesday. I just want to experience all of the Convention this year. I have been told that California Rabbit and Cavy Shows puts on the most phenomenal Convention ever. I cannot wait to be a part of it!

I feel the Endless Summer is a perfect theme in my life right now. The point being that life hits you with an endless amount of unforeseen problems and tragedy. I would like to think I am finding a balance in the insanity. Much like taking a break to reflect and walk down the beach on a warm Fall day. When you have an intense personality like mine, it's easy to miss these opportunities for balance. I continually thank God for all my breeder friends. They bring humor and joy to my very complicated life! I am truly blessed for my daughter's "rabbit habit" as it has brought me a needed relief from the endless needs of my very special son!

Open Mouth....Insert Foot

I did something today that I don't usually do.....I got into an email argument with someone I shouldn't have even bothered with. For some reason, I felt the need to justify myself to someone who really doesn't care about me, my family, or the truth. So, I felt the need to shoot off an email and tell this person "just how it is"!! DUMB!

This person decided to shoot back another email to let me know "how it was". This is where it gets tricky........

I sat down at my computer.....madder than a wet hen....and I got busy letting them know how they were still incompetent and ignorant! My beautiful daughter told me to basically get a grip.........and just STOP! I yelled some nasty comment back at her and proceeded to type. Then it happened........God stepped in! I deleted the email and removed the person from my contacts. I quit playing the game.

I LOVE the feeling of power you get when you know that you are right. You know, the feeling of superiority when you tell someone how they need to get it together. Here's the problem with that smugness.......it never lasts. Sooner or later you begin to feel stupid for having the argument in the first place. All I accomplished today was to give this person more ammunition to use on me. I really didn't accomplish making my point or changing anything about the relationship this person and I have. If anything, my very unchristian behavior made the situation more toxic.

Sometimes the best thing to do is just let go. I feel terrible for behaving in such a trivial manner. I just wanted to make a point......I did. It just wasn't a good one.

I'm glad my daughter set me straight. It shows me that I have at least gotten something right in raising her. God doesn't always work through force.........He sometimes reminds us that we have gotten off track through our children. At least she didn't lead by example today.......today she was my example!

They Don't Have to Speak Your Language!!

Today, I wanted to be one of the Apostles during Pentecost. I wanted to speak and interpret foreign languages! But.......I'm not, and I can't. This proved to make my day complicated and difficult.

Today, I substituted in an ELL Kindergarten where these little buggers no se habla English. Seriously....they kept talking to me in Spanish and figured that I would eventually figure it out! Bless their little hearts, I know enough Spanish to get myself into trouble.........not much more.

Still, we all stumbled through our day. Between hand gestures, drawing pictures, a lot of pointing, and some good interpretation from a few children, we managed authentic communication. It just made for a REALLY long day. partially because they physically exhausted me. However, I was more mentally exhausted from trying to understand and be understood.

This whole process made me realize how much we actually don't communicate with those who are actually close to us. I thought about my husband today. I worked harder to express expectations to thirty little Kinders than I do my husband. We communicate through Post Its, email, texts, and voicemail. Then, we have the audacity to get angry with each other when we misinterpret an intended message. It's like face to face communication went out years ago when technology rolled humanity into this century.

The point being.....communication takes real effort. It takes work to formulate your ideas into language that is received by others correctly and this is only half of the communication equation. An individual still has to listen and interpret information that is sent back your way. Communication takes active participation. Think about it, how often do we really communicate??

It took some adorable five year olds to remind me that real effort on both parties is required to make our needs known. The nifty thing is that I get the opportunity to practice my skills again tomorrow! Now how cool is that? I get to practice authentic communication again.....try it.....it's a great way to learn about yourself and those you care about.

Life Goes on Without You

I do apologize to everyone for my extended absence from my blog, but I was stricken with illness the last week. I hadn't actually been feeling well for about a week and a half. By Tuesday of this week, I was completely down. I must admit that it has been quite a few years since I was stuck in bed.......I honestly didn't move a whole lot this past week.

I have been working as a Substitute and in various Children's ministry's at my church. It is inevitable that little ones with runny noses, coughs, and sneezes will eventually catch up to you. I figured that I just had a cold that turned into a sinus infection. By Wednesday, I knew it was the flu. I felt like someone had beat on me with a two by four, and I really couldn't get out of bed.

Mom's never actually get the option of being sick. I still had to have my son's meals prepared and get him up and ready for school everyday. That was about all I could accomplish as I never even made it to any stores or even out to the rabbit barn this week.

This amazing thing happened in spite of my illness..............Life went on without me!

Now, I must admit that I am somewhat guilty of thinking that my corner of the world will stop if something ever happened to me. I am learning that it won't. This lesson is a little painful in the ego department, but it's pretty darn practical in the end. All the times we stay up to finish a project knowing that life won't go on if we don't get it done.......is crazy thinking! The world will turn, birds will sing, and the sun will come up in spite of whatever we do. It's time to minimize our importance on what we do. The emphasis should be on who we love and how we have loved them.

God doesn't care how much we accomplish on our daily to do list. He cares about our relationships. Most especially, He cares about our relationship with Him. So........How much time have you spent with Him today?? He should always be the first thing on our "to do" list. I'm moving Him up to number one this week!
How about you?

It's 4-H Time!

According to the Weather Channel....Fall has arrived. I think that Yuma missed that forecast as our temperatures are still projected to be hovering around 108 degrees for the next week. That aside, everything else is starting to feel like Fall. School has been in session almost a month, and it's time to sign up for 4-H!!

For those of you who don't understand the 4-H organization, here's a brief overview. 4-H is a youth organization open to children from 9 to 19 years of age. It encompasses many projects with the ultimate goal of teaching youth leadership, responsibility, and citizenship.

4-H has been a part of my life since I was nine years old. I started in a Foods project and added more projects over the years. I attended the National 4-H Congress, Citizenship Washington Focus and learned that the world is so much bigger than Yuma. Through 4-H, I learned so many lessons that apply to my life today. No wonder my daughter is a member of 4-H too!

I have watched her learn how awesome it feels to win a competition, and how to be a good sport when she doesn't. With animal projects, you definitely learn responsibility and the inevitable facts of life and death. She has learned about politics and how sometimes it's not important what you know but who you know. All of these life skills she will use for the rest of her life.

She has also learned how to actually practice being a Christian through 4-H. She has learned to turn the other cheek when people say hurtful things and how to stand up for others when they have no voice. She always tithes her income from her animal projects and God has blessed her with awesome bunnies to boot. It is amazing the lessons she has learned in such a few years.

I'm not actually ready to start the chaos that is the 4-H year, but I am excited to see old friends again. I often am feel like I benefit more from Kelsie's hobbies than she does because of the awesome friends that I have made.

So here's to another 4-H year......craziness and all!