5 Minute Friday {Dance}

I am linking up with Gypsy Mama again today for her "5 Minute Friday" where you write about the designated subject for 5 minutes. Unedited and no overthinking allowed.

GO


First off, a bit of humor.

My husband read this to me from a friend's Facebook status recently:

"Dance as if no one watching.  Or...just stop dancing in public, you freak!"

I found that pretty hilarious!

Since I don't know much of anything about the actual dancing and since I am a somewhat clumsy and uncoordinated person who couldn't even master a dancer-cize (thinking dancing and exercise and an instructor who was WAY too flexible and coordinated) class a few years back, I thought I would write about something that I can relate to a bit more.

The dance of marriage.

I think of that old John Michael Montgomery song "Life's a dance...you learn as you go...sometimes you lead...sometimes you follow...don't worry about what you don't know...life's a dance...you learn as you go."

Beautiful song. Even more beautiful words. 

I think the words of that song relate to marriage.  At least for me.

My husband and I have been dancing for 13 years and sometimes it feels like we are right in perfect rhythm and our feet are in perfect timing, and then other times it feels like all we are doing is stepping on each other's feet and tripping all over ourselves.

In a dance, there needs to be a clear leader, I am told.  Can that leader switch off from time to time?

I wonder.

It feels like there are times when I am the one leading...saying "Hey, is everything OK with us...and what can we do to get things back on track" and then sometimes he is the leader.  The strong and confident one.  The one who says "I believe in us and I'm willing to do what it takes to make our marriage stronger and better."

We are partners in this dance of life.  Of marriage.

But what about when the steps get off and everything seems all wrong and awkward?

How can we get things back into that perfect harmony? 

I don't know.  I certainly don't have all of the answers.

But I do know that "Life's a Dance...you learn as you go" and maybe that's where the joy and the wisdom is to be found.

In the mutual learning.

STOP

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A Belated Father's Day

Since we were driving home from camping/picking up our kids on the actual Father's Day, and since the kids had been in Ohio with their Grandparents, I told Jeremy that we would celebrate our Father's Day a week late.

He seemed cool with that. 

So...the kids and I went shopping on Tuesday morning and bought all of the necessary items to do the Father's Day presents that I had in mind.  They were quite excited and had fun helping to shop for the candy bars, etc.

(Side note: Both of these ideas came from Pinterest.  No credit can be given to me.   May I just mention that I love Pinterest and I kind of wonder how I survived without it.  Ha, ha.)

We bought a T-shirt for $3.88 (good buy alert) and then we bought paints to use for the back of it.  There were several options at Wal-mart as far as what you could use to write on fabric.

Markers, regular fabric paints, and puffy paints.  The markers seemed like the best option, but the pack that had the colors I would have wanted in it cost somewhere between $12 and $18, which I considered to be a bit much.

We went with the puffy paints, which were $4 or $5.  I kind of regretted that later, because it was hard to do fine details with the paints and also hard to get the paint to come out evenly...it wanted to kind of glob up. Overall, though, it worked fine.

(Presenting the shirt. Excitement is running high. I LOVE how excited the kids get to give even simple presents to someone else.)

Jeremy is posing with the gift.  The idea of this, if you haven't seen it before, is that Jeremy would wear this shirt and the kids would drive cars on it, etc.  (like you see in the picture on the right)  Kind of a fun back rub idea.  And since Jeremy LOVES back rubs, I figured he would enjoy this gift.

The kids were all gathered around Jeremy for the presenting of the candy bar letter. Somehow, we always seem to have at least one shirtless kid in our Father's Day pictures.

(I love the looks on the kids' faces!)

We had so much fun buying all of these candy bars and then creating a story to go along with it.

Bonus:  Jeremy got to try some new candy bars that he had never had before. Like the "Zero" bar. 

His favorite of them all: The Snickers Peanut Butter one.

I also had the kids fill out a sheet with things about their Dad.  It was pretty funny how they answered some of the questions. Especially the fact the Nikki guessed that Jeremy's weight was 70 lbs.

We did all of this ^^ in the morning before church and then the rest of our day was busy with a parade in town and going over to a friends house, but I think Jeremy had a good Father's Day...all in all.

Jeremy is such a great Dad.  I think I take it for granted a lot:  His patience with the kids...the way he includes them in what he is doing and teaches them...his understanding of boys in a way that I don't always get...the way he works with me as a team to discipline and train them...his support of me as an authority figure in the kids' lives (the kids will often hear him say something like "That's no way to treat my Queen" or "You don't talk to my Queen like that!")...the way he teaches them about God and having a real relationship with Him (Another thing he often says is "Thank you, Jesus!" when a prayer is answered or God does something in our lives...whether small or great)...his involvement in the kids' lives and his interest in what they are doing...his desire to understand their hearts...

He's not perfect, but I think our kids are mighty lucky to have him as their Dad.

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I'm just thinking...

I feel like lately (maybe the last 6 months) I have been going through an {especially} intense time of trying to figure out exactly who I am.

I don't know if it is the age I am or a stage in my life or events that have brought this about, but I find myself constantly trying to assess myself and decide what box I fit into. (Did anyone else go through this in their early thirties?)

Am I an extrovert or an introvert?

Am I too quick to give advice?

Do I listen enough?

Am I a dramatic person?

How am I perceived?

When people think of "Audrey", what comes to their mind?

Are the perceptions I have had of myself throughout my life true?


I have this deep desire to be the best person I can be.  I want to grow and learn and change, where need be.  I also want to stay true to myself.  What does all of that look like?

You know how you grow up with a certain perception of yourself?  For instance, one of my perceptions could be that I am not a very gracious person. I don't have a lot of tact.

I have put myself in that "box", so to speak.  I often fear that maybe I will offend my friends if I am too straight forward. This is an insecurity of mine, especially in certain relationships.  Yet I know that my heart is good and that I rarely, if ever, intentionally mean to offend. 

I worry that people won't tell me if I do offend them.  But, having said that I always felt like I was not very gracious, I have sometimes been around others who make me seem like the queen of graciousness.

So where is the balance between just "being who you are" and trying to change certain things about yourself that might not be your most attractive qualities?

This probably part of what I have been dealing with a lot lately.

We all know people who are rude or someone who is just a jerk and they just excuse every bad behaviour by just saying "Well, I guess that's just how I am" and I find that kind of an attitude to be frustrating and a little more than slightly un-enlightened.

I don't want to be like that.

But I feel like I have crossed over to "the dark side" in that, recently, I have started to kind of question everything I ever thought I knew about myself.  I am also learning some new things.  It almost feels like a re-defining of how I think of myself, especially in relation to others.

For instance, I am learning that I am not easily offended and that I can take correction or advice a lot better than most people.  Which means that I also need to learn that people don't necessarily want ME to dish out advice to them.  Just because that is what I like doesn't mean others will.

I am learning that I intensely desire resolution in situations.  Intensely!! Like, I hardly know what to do with something that feels unresolved to me.  Yet, not nearly everyone wants to go through that process. How can I take care of me and what I need in a situation like that, but recognize and respect that someone else may not share my need to resolve and "kill the subject to death" like I do?

I am realizing that, without a doubt, I am an analyzer.  I have known that, but it has become more and more clear to me.  This definitely has its strengths AND weaknesses.  I feel like I am seeing more of the weakness side of this lately.

All of this over-thinking has started to make me lose my moorings a little in knowing where I stand in friendships and how others think of me as a friend. Are there things that I have been doing all of these years and ways of relating that are not that great, but I didn't realize it, because I was just acting out of what came natural to me?  Without regard for how someone else would want to be related to?

I have to remind myself that others perceptions of me are not really what matters, although I do care about that. What really matters is that I am a genuine person and true to myself (whoever "myself" is) and that I know what GOD thinks of me.

But...I have, for quite a while, toyed around with the idea of asking about 10 of my closest friends to answer this question for me...

"What do you see as my greatest weakness?"

And then, if I see a common thread in their answers, I can try to work on that area.  Or areaS. (Who am I kidding here?)

I have a somewhat irrational fear of being a person who has this huge issue that everyone knows about but that I am clueless to and that I will go through life causing problems because of this issue, but no one will ever tell me it is there and so I never learn to change it.

The only reason I haven't done this little questionnaire is because I feel like it would be awkward for my friends.  I think of my close friends and would I want to answer that question about them, even if they asked me?  I don't know. 

You never want to hurt someone you love and a lot of times, the things you would maybe point out, they probably already know and are trying to work on.

Sometimes too much honesty maybe is not a good thing.  But that doesn't keep me from wishing I could just know what the answer to that question would be. 

In our Sunday School class the other day, we had a discussion about whether it is good for Christians to point out the faults or issues of other friends/believers.

The Bible does say to "Admonish one another in love." 

But I will tell you what my life philosophy is about that:

"Don't answer questions that people aren't asking."

If someone really wants to become better, to change by having other's speak into their lives, they will, in some form or another, be asking those questions of those they trust.

If not, it probably will not go well if you try to point out their issues or faults.  And if you do, it is imperative that you focus on the last part of that verse.  The "In Love" part.  My Dad says this quote that is think is profoundly awesome "You cannot deliver a dump truck load of truth over a plywood bridge of love."  Think about that one for a while!

I think some people of a certain personality want to take a verse like "Admonish one another" and run with it...under the guise of "helping their fellow believers".  A lot of times, I think they get a certain pleasure out of being the one to point out the faults of others.

God just reminded me of this in my prayer time this morning:

"My job is to be a lover (of others), not a judger."

Period.

I am going to continue to strive to be that kind of a person. 

In the meantime, don't call the people at the nearest phsych ward when you read this jumbled mess that is my thoughts.  I really am sane. Most of the time.

Although maybe that's not how I am always perceived!

Maybe THAT is the question I should be asking of my friends! ;-)

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What We Wore

 Sunday morning church...

The ruffled shirt was from Kohl's (I wear it a lot), the bracelet came in the mail lately (from a friend) and the sweater is a favorite of mine and I think comes from TJ Maxx.  Otherewise, shoes are probably from a garage sale and the skirt I have had so long I have no idea where I bought it. 

I felt really good in this outfit, but I have to say, the pictures made me feel worse about it. What I thought was super cute when I had it on turned into "quite ordinary" when I saw the pictures.  Does that ever happen to you? 

And then...

Little Miss Nikki with her Sunday morning fashion.  The bracelets are from her Aunt Molly's wedding. And the "choosing of the dress" was a little bit of a drawn out affair because she wanted to wear what I would call a "play dress" to church and it took a while to get away from that and choose one that she actually wanted.  Those girls...always changing their minds!!

There is something within a girl that makes her want to look pretty...whether 33 years old or 4 year old.

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Camping in Indiana

This past weekend we traveled to Indiana (with a stop at a scuzzy hotel...as I mentioned earlier) to pick up our kids from their Grandparents.

But, I was more excited than normal about the trip because we co-ordinated our trip so that we could meet up with some great friends of ours from Ontario, Canada at a campground near South Bend.

The Grandparents were willing to bring the kids to the campground on Saturday, since we had already driven more than 1/2 way to Ohio by the time we had gotten to South Bend.

We arrived at the campground at about 4 PM and our friends, Dave and Rach, along with their two little boys, had just arrived.

Super cool story:  Rach and I were good friends back at Maranatha Bible School in 1997. Yes, that is longer than 5 years ago, for those of you who, like me, consider the nineties to be very recent.

We lost touch for a lot of years and within the past 2 years, thanks to Facebook, we have reconnected and were able to get together a few times.  We introduced the boys to each other and they hit it off as well, which is always a bonus.

See...don't they look like they are super happy they met each other?

Well, maybe the one on the left look a little over-eager, but there is a story behind that.  It involves Dave's fear of getting too close to another guy and Jeremy trying to freak Dave out with coming on too strong! 

Anyway, we spent Friday evening, Saturday and most of Sunday morning at the campground.  This was the first time Jeremy and I have "tented it" since we bought our camper almost 3 years ago.  I remember now why we bought the camper! ;-)

It was a HOT and sunny weekend up until Saturday night, when it started to rain and our tent got a "tad" wet.  But we took it all in stride like good campers and we spread our sleeping bags out on the floor of our basement to dry out once we got home.

There was...AWESOME camping food...

(Even the guys helped to cook.  Well, actually, I should re-phrase.  One guy helped to cook.)

...Fun in the pool

(This was on Saturday after our kids got there)

...Great times of just hanging out and sitting around chatting

Side-ways picture of me...Can't figure out how to turn it...Techno dummy me...

...the filling of many water balloons

(Check out Jeremy's latest "statement T"...I'm so excited about it!)

...Cute Kiddos

...A breakfast at McDonald's before we headed out

...Awkward "morning after sleeping in tent and no shower for me" photos (Hey, at least Rach looks super cute with her trendy little hat)

...And last, but certainly not least...Dave wearing a beach towel as a scarf.

I think I sense a new trend in menswear coming on...

 

Also, there may or may not have been almost an ENTIRE giant party size bag of peanut butter M & M's (best candy in the whole world...can I get a witness?) consumed over the course of the weekend.

It was such a great time...laughter...just chill-axin'...eating...hanging out...reconnecting...

In a word:  Awesome!

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What I'm Reading

This is the latest book I have completed:

(Sorry, you can't actually "click to look inside" -- you'd have to go to amazon.com to do that!) ;-)

Let me first say that I have been a Nicholas Sparks fan for many years.  Like, oh, maybe 10 years. I have read almost all of his books and one of my personal favorites was "Dear John".  Of his more than 10 books, I would say I have read all but about 2 or 3.

However, I feel like maybe Nick is getting in a bit of a rush these days.

I cannot even tell you how disappointed I was in his latest book, "The Best of Me".

The plot was largely predictable. The characters were not believable or even very interesting and the story line was boring.

I feel like maybe Mr. Sparks has gotten into a bit of a writing funk, but since he is known to crank out a new book every 6 months, or whatever it is, he felt the pressure and just kept writing anyway, even though he probably knew in his own heart that this book was definitely not among his best work.

I kept waiting for the book to get better. To hit it's stride.  Sad to say, it never did.

The plot sounded interesting.  A couple who were lovers back in high school...separated because the girl's parents didn't approve...living apart for 20 years...the girl got married, the guy never did...they reunite to attend the funeral of a mutual and trusted friend...sparks fly...happily ever after...maybe?

But it just all fell flat for me.  I wanted to like it. I really did.  I kept hoping for the book to "spark" my interest.  (Pun intended, ha, ha!)

If I hadn't been reading it for book club, I'm not even sure I would have made it the whole way through.

If I didn't know any better, I'd think maybe Nicholas Sparks had a ghost writer do this book for him.

I have almost nothing good to say about it, so I should probably stop complaining now.  I guess probably the only character that I really enjoyed was the main guy in the story (I already can't remember his name, but I think it started with a D.  Dustin?  Dawson?  Oh, yeah. It was Dawson.)  because his character was kind of mysterious and did some unexpected things.

I'm not saying I wouldn't read Nicolas Sparks next book, but reading this one certainly didn't have me holding my breath for what is to come next from him.


Bottom Line:  I think you probably already gathered this, but I would not recommend this book on any level.


Read This:  Only if you have completely exhausted the rest of your reading options and you are up for some dry and predictable fiction.


1/2 a star on "Audrey's Rating Scale"

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Favorite Quotes

Recently some friends and I got into an on-line discussion about things that we hate.

Like crocs or the phrase "beautiful inside and out" or people who use too many abbreviations (like presh or gorg or whatevs) or people who copy you or Pinterest (that was totally sacrilige there!) or flowers pins or yard sales or vintage-y stuff.  (These are not all MY dislikes, these are a compilation of various people's dislikes. Just to clarify.)

Anyway, one friend of mine mentioned that she doesn't like those pictures with quotes or those boxed quotes that people are always putting on their Facebook pages. Her and I couldn't be more different on this subject.  I absolutely LOVE quotes and on Pinterest my board with the most PINS is my "Quote" board.

I thought about doing a whole blog post where I tried to reference every single thing that everyone doesn't like in one post, but I thought that might be too much work.  Hilarious, yes, but probably too much thinking required on my part.

Instead, I thought I would share some of my favorite quotes with you, out of the 242 that I currently have on my Pinterest board.

Hopefully you like some of them too!


SO true!



I need to always remember this!



I learned this again recently.


I have been on both side of this coin and I know it to be true.



This is so powerful if you really think about it.



Ouch!





I have experienced this!




Love this.





True that!


I love this one!




OK, well, I am thinking that out of 242 quotes, I am doing pretty good to narrow it down to 10. 

I hope you enjoyed these and that maybe one of them made you think a little!

And now, feel free to leave a comment about something you don't like that everyone else seems to or a favorite quote of yours.

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