Your Path......

There is a path set out for everyone. Your life is what it is today because of a series of experiences, people and hardships. We may never know the reason why many things happen but all are put before us for a reason.
My own path is no different. When I think about it, I am thankful for the good and bad.......


I have worked with a number of supervisors and leaders in my work. Some good, some quite blind. I had one leader in my life that taught me more about my abilities than any other. She was funny, smart and brutally honest. When I met her I never thought I would come away with all I did. She would call me out and then in the same breath make me feel like I could do anything. There were chances I took in my career and life because of her. Not all of them were what I expected, but what matters is that I would not have taken those chances if she had not seen a light in me and believed in me. She taught me to be a leader and what a leader takes. She showed me that there were sacrifices and hardships to being a leader but inspired me to know that the payout of leadership can be remarkable change.

The death of my father was another defining moment in my life. We all question "why" these things happen. But what I found is that it is OK to let go and sometimes by letting go you are showing that you blindly trust that "why". He taught me that a good dirty joke could ease a situation like no other awkwardness. By letting go, it's not the end. I see my father everyday in different ways. In my humor and the humor that my children have now. And in my daughter.....ever since she was 2, whenever she sees a white butterfly, she says "there's grandpa".....I have no idea where this comes from, she doesn't remember her grandpa but it's beautiful.

My children's birth taught me about spirituality. My sense of something greater than me was reinforced ten-fold. I feel there is simply no other way to explain the birth of a child.


As a CPS worker I was blessed to work with people who taught me about the human spirit. I met people who were at their lowest points in their life. The were addicted to drugs or alcohol so bad that their life was run by the poison.... They were broken because they had so much going on in life that wasn't positive that they finally snapped and hit their child....... They were so mentally ill that they were misunderstood in society and decided to simply "fit the part" and give up on their search for meaning.

What I took away from everyone was that we all have the possibility to be in those situations. I NEVER met a person who said....I love my addiction as I watch my family fall apart......It was OK to hit my child......or being mentally ill and feeling that stigma everyday is good.


And finally, being a military wife has taught me more about myself and marriage than anything else. The lessons have been constant and about selflessness, giving and service. I learned that you just get the job done. Ryan and I have learned to completely surrender to one another. He has no other choice but to surrender and trust me with raising and caring for our family here and I have no other choice but to surrender and trust that he will serve his country loyally, but safely.

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Rays of Sunshine

I had a combination of experiences the last couple weeks that inspired me.

One was reading a blog of a friend and the other was beginning to deal with an unfortunate stage of this deployment, where I have to watch my children deal with separation in ways that are changing them....there is alot of talking about feelings at my house. There is a bit more acting out by the kids (I always remind myself when they act out that they are experiencing the hurt of separation in ways they haven't felt before and trying to find ways to channel those feelings). There is also a bit more sadness with the kids. It has been a hard couple weeks but I remind myself daily that these are the moments that define us.

Some days I am mad that I have to do this alone, but I have nobody to blame. Those days when nothing is going right and I am stressed out or those days where I simply want to sit up at night and talk to Ry.

Some days I am sad because I see the little struggles my kids are going through, but there is no quick fix. Days when I see my little boy break down because he misses his daddy and just wants mommy to call daddy but doesn't understand why we cant just call him.

And then there are some days when I am just relishing my new type of independence. Not the "I'm alone and can do whatever I want" independence. But the type of independent growth of a person...of the soul. I feel sometimes, in the depths of adversity, we choose to take out of it what we want. We can be a victim or we can choose to allow the process to transform us into a person who has learned about themselves.

In times of darkness, I try to think of some of my"Rays of Sunshine." Some of them are small, some are silly, and some are bright and beautiful in my life. I decided to share my "rays of sunshine" with you.

1. I simply LOVE naps. I can nap anywhere. As long as I can remember I have loved a good nap. Even when I have those naps where you wake up feeling groggier then when you layed down, I still love them. They seem to nourish me. Add in some clean, crisp sheets and I am in heaven.

2. I adore secretly watching my kids during moments in movies (sad or loving or happy moments) and see the emotion on their faces. My son is quite sentimental about things, contrary to his bruiser nature. There have been countless times when I have watched him and he is truly hit by the emotion of the moment. (although he gets SO mad if we notice it) When I watch my daughter, she doesn't realize she is sweetly smiling or giggling at scenes. I quietly watch her smile when she doesn't even know she is. Seeing them emote in real ways makes me smile.

3. The history and biography channel are an obsession of mine. I actually search the schedule each night for the next day so I can DVR any shows that I want to watch eventually. I usually watch something each night from these channels.

4. I love print. Magazines, newspapers...I find it hard to read the paper online, although I do on occasion. I would much rather hold the print in my hand. I don't know what it is. I'm not old fashioned but the pictures, stories and ideas I draw from seem more real if it is in my hands. I am the same about my calender. So many people use their phones for everything. I tried to use my phone calender for a while but have always gone back to my written calender. I don't have to worry about how many characters I can fit in, or limitations of pictures I want to doodle. Sometimes I even buy a new calender just to redo my calender into a fresh one.

5. Seeing my hard work as a parent pay off. I say to my kids every single day to be kind to others and to try and help somehow. They are still chewing on this and trying to decide what this will mean for them as adults, but when they say something or show little traits of service I simply swell with pride. Sydney often makes conclusions about people that make me proud. A few months ago she was telling me about a classmate of hers that is silly and acts crazy and other children aren't nice to sometimes...as she was describing this child Sydney said..."But mom, her heart is good."

Brock surprises me ALL the time. He can act like a rough and tough boy 99 percent of the time and can make you want to pull your hair out, but there is a subtle sweetness about him. This morning Brock told me he wanted to write some letters to people because others are mean. I asked Brock what he was talking about and he informed me that Mr. King (Martin Luther King Jr) wrote letters when people were not treated nice. He said that he needed to write letters so others would be treated nice. I L.O.V.E. I.T.

So, I guess we all have times in our lives when its dark and hard to handle. People you don't even know have those times. Think about your "rays of sunshine" in your life. Maybe you are someone's "ray" and dont even know it.

Family, Friends and serving others

Have you ever really thought about your life? The other night I woke up in the middle of the night and did. I used to wake up in the middle of the night because I was so stressed and had so many to-do lists. This time I simply thought about where I was a year ago, where I am now and where I am going.

I'm not having a mid-life crisis or anything like that. I just had a moment of clarity and reflection that I never had time for or allowed myself to have time for before.

A year ago, I was working a job that had changed so much that it didn't allow me fulfillment anymore. At least it didn't, unless at the expense of other things in life I loved.

Don't get me wrong, I loved what I did. One of my great loves in life is serving and helping others. It was simply the position that didn't allow me to do the things I really wanted to. I was SO busy and stressed out that I didn't or couldn't take time to appreciate or evaluate if what I was doing in life was truly making me happy. So, I looked inward and thought about what really makes me happy in life.

I found there were three things that were really what made me happy. My family, My friends, and Serving others.

Did I really serve others in my job? Yea, in many ways I did and there were definitely times in my job where I truly felt I was making a difference, but it came at a cost that was too high for me when I really evaluated it.

Was I really spending the time nurturing the family and friends that made me happy? Not at all. My work kept me from both and when I did have time to spend with either I felt I needed to catch up on things like housework and homework....

I wasn't able to see how my future dreams and what I really wanted out of life were being neglected because....."I just needed a little more time and then I would get to it".....or "next week I would start on that project" But my "going through the motions life" always got in the way and it never happened. Then I woke up one day and thought...half my life will be over before I decide what really makes me happy and doing it.

I realized I was wasting my talents and happiness in life. I wasn't doing something that was really making me happy. Was I in danger of letting my life slip away right in front of me? I had all I needed to make the changes. Change is scary, but once I made those changes, I have never been so fulfilled.

I'm sure that losing my job and my husband's deployment kick started me making these changes, but I think about how many people are doing things in life just to do them and not because they make them happy. What are three things in your life that truly make you happy?