As I poured coffee for a zillion customers at the fundraiser brunch this morning, I flashed a toothy smile that I hoped would encourage large tips and said "Happy Easter" more times than I can count.

As the last of the tables were being cleared, someone mentioned to me that the pastor's message of the day had been that Easter isn't so much about "happiness."

Easter is a jumbled and mixed up bunch of feelings of dark and light, incredible hardship and amazing renewal~ kind of like real life. She suggested that wishing a "Joyful Easter" would be more appropriate because while "happy" is on the surface, "joy" runs deep.

In theory, I agree, although "Joyful Easter" just doesn't roll off the tongue so easily. Still, I get it and can relate. 

In the weeks that have led up to Easter, I've had to work hard for the things that make me smile because life has been throwing a whole lotta heavy stuff at me at once. It's exhausting keeping up with the work of trying to cling to the joyful things when you're also dealing with stupid drama and the painful side of people and life.

Things like driving van loads of volunteering teenagers 800 miles to do construction work in a homeless village or getting up early to bake scones and serve coffee at a fundraising brunch with these same young people...these things require a good deal of caffeine in the best of times. 

But, they also make me smile both inside and out, no matter what else is going on in the world. 

So I still think it makes sense to do them as long as I can, even if I'm so tired I could cry  ~ because if I let go of the good stuff, then I'm just left holding the cr@p....

It's Wednesday, and as far as trying to string together enough words of my own into something semi-coherent, well...I'm still not feeling it.
While I'm regrouping and counting my blessings~ loving my kids and dogs and cats and people close to me~ trying to juggle and not drop any firey balls being hurtled at me and to soak up the sunshine, flowers and pollen of spring before I wither~ for some reason I'm still on this poetry kick.
So, today I'm sharing a spoken word poem. 
This piece really does nothing to improve my outlook, mood or faith in humanity, but it does give a painful example of the way people think and feel, the way we hurt each other, and go on like nothing happened....the vulnerability of opening yourself and your heart....Ouch......
****Warning~ Sad and Powerful Stuff....But It's worth your 2 minutes. 

This guy blew me away and left me thinking that it may not be light switches or cracks in the sidewalk, but I bet almost everyone who has watched that video can relate to getting stuck, stuck, stuck on things that don't really matter in the end.  And even sadder, many of them can relate to having had their hearts smashed in one way or another as well. 
I told you it was sad. Sorry.
Your thoughts?

Sometimes life is rolling along all smoothly and you're working hard, but feeling all zesty and blessed, when all of a sudden, BAM! ~ Out of the blue, you get a sucker punch right to the gut. 

You stagger around a little, and feel like vomiting, but recover enough to get up, and just when you start walking and let some semblance of a smile cross your face, WHAMO! ~ You're blindsided by a kick upside your head.

It's exhausting, and it hurts like heck, and it really makes going along with your normal plans difficult, but I bet you already know that because you've probably had some shizzle smack you when you weren't really expecting it either.

So, while my plan was to write something about poems today, because I read somewhere that April is National Poetry Month and I've been a homeschooling mom for so long that I get excited about such things, the reality is that I'm just not feeling it.  

I'm feeling bruised and beaten and like I can't muster the effort to form words into any sort of rhythm. Even if I did, it would probably be depressing, possibly bitter and maybe even R rated for language because I am too emotionally exhausted to think clearly enough to come up with adjectives.

Instead, I'm sharing one of my all time favorite poems in the whole wide world. I read it aloud to my kids and I'm reading it over & over to myself, because these are the words I need to hear right now. The more I hear them, the more I know it's true. I'll Rise...

So, I have this “real job.” It’s actually a pretty cool one and it came to me in a pretty amazing way. But that story is for another time. For now, the point is just that I’m super happy to be able to support myself and my kids with a pretty flexible schedule and to do it mostly from home.

I’m blessed beyond measure and I know this, but just to clarify, it’s not all sunshine and roses.  It takes some creative arranging and discipline (which has not always been my strongest gift) to manage getting the job done and dealing with kids, homeschooling and single mamahood / rural farm girl living with a petting zoo full of animals.

I’m not complaining~ I’m just saying…

Anyhoo~ one of the things that my job requires is monthly trips to the office, which is 175 miles over a winding mountain road to the small coastal town where the company is located. At first, I found myself whining, which was lame, I know, but still I was thinking... 

“Oh my gosh~ I have to drive over to the coast every month. How am I gonna figure out what to do with the kids and their transportation and activities and the animals? Waaaahhh, blah, blah, blah."

In the midst of my complaining (side note: I almost referred to my complaining as wanking, because for years, that’s what I thought it meant. But, I was informed by my teens that it has a very different meaning. Oops….That explains the strange looks I’ve gotten when using that term in public. Learning all the time indeed…..) So, I was inspired by something the lovely and wise Marie Forleo said about re-framing our thinking.

I realized “What the heck am I talking about? I get to go to the coast every month....”

Back when I was a cynical teenager, a friend from a Catholic family introduced me to the concept of Lent. I had no interest in the rules of her religion (and neither did she, although she still wore the title) but I did like the idea of the ritual.

Giving up something for 40 days NOT because I was being told to or  coerced into it, but because I WANTED TO as part of a spiritual quest and out of respect and honor for something that was bigger than anything I knew....Yep, I wanted in. (.....)

I love the crazy things my offspring have come up with~ wishes, plans, and hare brained schemes. 

A lot of them just fall into the category of "Kids Say the Funniest Things" and others are more along the lines of "I can't friggen believe you just said that." 

But once in a while, even kids realize that one really should be careful what they say, let alone what they wish for. 

For example, when a little boy wishes that his mom would just lighten up and let him poop in a hole in the back yard, he may years later find himself without a flushing toilet, and realize that his dream no longer sounds as fun as he had once thought it would be.

You see, we live in the woods. The back woods you might even say. My kids have grown up very familiar with nature and natural functions and life processes and all that.

When my kids were little, and would play for hours outside, they thought I was quite unreasonable for requesting that they actually come inside to use the bathroom. By their reasoning, there were acres of perfectly poopable land around them. Besides, the cats, dogs, goats, ducks and chickens all pooped out there. (Moms can be so stifling, I know)

For the record, I can completely understand exceptions when back country camping with no facilities available, but if there's an indoor bathroom around, I just think that's where humans should do their business.  I have a sneaking suspicion that there were occasions when I had my head buried in a book, or was gabbing on the phone, and the ground I was attempting to hold was fertilized by humanure though. Crazy kids. (....)

OK, it occurred to me that there's a slight chance that most people reading this may already spend a good deal of time staring at random things they find on the internet. Perhaps they don't actually need more things on screens to look at, but might even be better off being encouraged to walk away from the device altogether and go enjoy their families? 

But, who am I to judge? I'm staring at a screen too.

Besides, since I keep coming across so many interesting things myself, I thought it would be nice to share. Since this stuff is actually really cool and inspirational, it's not like mindlessly looking at cat pictures. And by inspirational, I don't mean like those ridiculously complex and perfect things everyone Pins but no one ever does. I mean there's educational value here, and I'm all about supporting life long learning.

In fact, some of my favorite findings this week fall into the FunSchooling category. Enough of my rambling...Grab a cuppa something good, sit down and enjoy!

Lego Man Photography   

This guy, Andrew Whyte, spent a year traveling around Britain, taking pictures of his little Lego Man, who was taking pictures of landmarks.  

How fun is that? And it's super cute too!

This totally reminds me of the many hours my kids and I spent photographing their toys in various scenarios and set ups, and writing stories to go along with them when they were younger.  We even have a couple of hard bound books we made from those adventures.


It also reminds me of a friend who was very concerned and surprised when they realized how much of our "homeschooling" time was spent in this way. "Ummm, you did WHAT all day?" Imagine if we had spent a whole year on it! Bwahahaha! (.......)

I realize that I've been writing a lot about philosophical life lessons lately, which is fine, except I'm neglecting some really important things that I want to share~ like the day to day fun that's found in a FunSchooling lifestyle.

While life seems to be full of all of these deep things to ponder and challenges to figure out, it's also full of adventures big and small, and really good times with the people I love most~ my crazy offspring.

Last month, we had a super fun adventure to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for their generous homeschool days. I had to reserve the tickets months in advance, but they were Free~ Yes, FREE! For the 2 adults and 6 kids that were in our friendly adventure party, this would have totaled close to $300 just to get in the door. (In other words, we probably wouldn't have gone otherwise. Thank you Aquarium~ you guys ROCK!)

After having made reservations so far in advance, and getting all excited, life threw a few bumps in my plans. An unpleasant appointment and a funeral came up, and it turned out they would both land on the day we would be returning. Oh~ and we'd be getting in at 1 AM, AFTER spending a full day at the aquarium AND driving over 5 hours.

I actually considered cancelling the trip due to overwhelm, and the realization that I would be heading straight into really hard stuff already exhausted and on no sleep. 

Then, I got a grip and realized that neither the appointment nor the funeral would be any happier for me if I skipped out on my fun.  Those unpleasant things would still be unpleasant, and I'd rather have the good times than sleep.  (.......)

Once upon a time there was a naive little girl who fell for a boy. Looking back, the girl has no idea what on earth she saw in this particular boy~ perhaps it was his fast car,  or his awesome rock band t-shirts. Maybe she just thought he was cute, and her silly young heart wanted it to be something more than it was. 

The draw to this boy certainly wasn't based on shared conversation or charm or friendship. Whatever it was, it was nothing of substance, but for some reason, she wanted it to be.

Well, the boy broke her heart, and he did it the week before Christmas. After she wailed miserably about the ordeal to her BFF, they eventually laughed that the boy was probably just wanting to get out of buying her a present. 

Sure enough, a few days after the holiday, he called her, full of weak attempts at romantic compliments. In hindsight, it was probably not very convincing really, but the silly girl thought she should be looking for love, and so she fell for it. By New Years Eve, he had done some stupid thing, she isn't even sure what anymore, but she spent that night too gabbing with her BFF about the pain of love. 

By Valentines Day, she knew the whole thing was a sham, but being young and unsure of herself, she still wanted desperately to feel loved. The hearts and chocolates and cards in every store just reminded her that she wasn't, or at least she didn't think so at the time.

And so, she wrote her BFF a note, because that's what school girls did in the days before texting. She wrote on paper of how glad she was that VD was over, how painful the whole VD had been, and how she would be glad to skip ever experiencing another VD for the rest of her life.

Well, BFFs mom found the note, and read it. Being a paranoid mom of a teen girl, she didn't know that VD was in this case an abbreviation for Valentine's Day. Her concerned maternal mind thought VD stood for Venereal Disease. (.......)

Can someone please explain to me what exactly is the deal with misery and company? I get that complaining is infectious and addictive, but what really surprises me is when misery is an expectation~ when people actually seem to resent others who don't appear to be as unhappy as they should be.

I first noticed this crazy concept a few years ago when my family had been going through some fairly public hard times. Aside from the rocky patch we were in, my offspring and I had been working on our Explore All 50 States Dream for a couple of years. 

At one point, we had put together this Pacific Northwest Adventure~ it would take us through Big Foot territory to the Redwoods, to see friends on the Northern California coast, up the entire coast of Oregon, along the Lewis and Clark route, and to visit friends, family and cheesy tourist traps in Seattle and Portland.

We didn't have a lot of time or a huge budget, but with some crazy planning skills and flexibility, we had an amazing 9 day adventure with pouring rain, washed out roads, cheese and ice cream galore and sites that were both historical and hysterical. We slept in tents, in yurts and on couches, and ate out of an ice chest. We saw people we rarely get to, laughed until our bellies ached, got a break from our troubles, continued working toward a big dream, and all around had a wonderful time.

Then, we got home and I posted the pictures on Facebook. Oops.

But, that's what most people do when they have happy things to share, right? Thankfully, most people were happy to see us smiling and having fun, but there were a few (there always are) who felt we should not be enjoying ourselves quite so much. At least not publicly under the circumstances. (.........)