A hard lesson for Carolyn...I mean me!

God teaches in mysterious ways! I spent a good 15 minutes today trying to teach my daughter that when she wants to unload her drawer of diapers onto the floor for her own amusement that she needs to also return them to the drawer when she's done scattering them about. Same lesson with toys but we haven't conquered that one either. Anyway, she did for the most part throw diapers back in the drawer while I sat there pointing to yet another one that needs to be picked up. She of course is crying and for all I know trying to explain her actions in only a language she can truly understand. About 20 diapers into the project it dawns on me that I'm learning patience here because for me I could easily just pick them all up and put them back into piles (another thing she still has yet to learn) but instead I watch my daughter cry and walk about her room picking up every other diaper and putting them away. Now that's a hard thing to do. I hate seeing her tears but I know the lesson is good for her. God's lessons can sometimes be a lot the same way for us adults. We might try to explain to Him why we decided to act on something but not want to deal with the consequences of it. We might cry at Him for not understanding but we like toddlers sometimes need to just do what He wants us to knowing full well He's going to keep pointing out all the "diapers" in our lives that need to be put away before we can move on to our next task. A hard lesson to learn no matter how old you are but I'd imagine God too hates to us cry but knows sometimes it is for the best.

Sudoku addict

I'm a addict. Isn't that the first step to climb. Check, done with that. What's the next step and where do they take me?? Hummm. Anyway, my friend Julie got me hooked and if you haven't heard of it yet...now's your chance. Instead of crossword puzzles to pass the time try Sudoku. It's a Japanese puzzle game and the rules are simple. It's a 9 by 9 grid and in each square you need to get the number 1 through 9 and the same for each row and column. NO adding them together...just making sure that each number of 1 through 9 is there with no duplicates. Easy ones will give you some numbers to start with and you can build from there. It's worth taking a look at if you like a little challenge and have time to kill here and there. Like I said though, I'm an addict and for a $1 at your local discount store...you can get a cheap thrill too. But I'm already on the first step to recovery; just don't know where these steps are taking me.

The void in my heart

The Void I didn’t know I had
Well a few weekends ago we went up to Pennsylvania and I had a realization up there. I had a void in my life that I was trying to ignore. My void…my friend Julie. Sure she’s the mom of one of my Butler beauties but she’s also one of my closest friends. We had our struggles with trying to have a friendship while I maintained a friendship with her daughter…little awkward but I wasn’t willing to give either of them up so they had to deal with it too…love you too Rachel! So anyway, when I went back...Julie and I hugged. We haven’t spoken in like to quote the Sandlot…”FOOOOREEEEEVVVERRRR”. But it was like we hadn’t missed a beat. Have you ever had that with a friend you haven’t seen in awhile? So well we caught on things a little but now we have some more memories to catch up on and I have a void no more. It’s so cool how the heart works…just when you think that life is full or you have all the relationships you can keep up on (I don’t like to do anything halfway) God makes room for one more and your heart grows just a little more. I want a huge heart!!! A Connection with another human being is enriching and beautiful! That’s all for now.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there. I decided late last week to try to be crafty (the art's and crafty one not sly crafty) anyway, this year for the special women in my life. So I made them a small scrapbook of Carolyn's first year since all of them don't live anywhere near us. I included her first picture to her first birthday and listed her milestones like walking, crawling, talking, etc. Of course they loved it and since they are far away it will be like a little brag book for them. But regardless I know it's hard to be away from family so this hopefully will help. I got the perfect gift today...a drawing from my daughter. I LOVE IT!!! It's on the frig of course. So much has changed in my life over the last year and it makes it even harder now to be far from family. Sometimes like Pastor mentioned this morning I'd love to be adopted up here to feel like family was a bit closer but then I'm a little old for this I think. There are also other moms in the church that I wish I was closer too but I feel like I'm starting to get closer to some....still there are those tough nuts to crack as I call some people who are more shy about opening up. I love people though that's why I got into journalism. I love to hear about other people's life stories and learn from them. I feel more enriched by hearing such stories. Like this morning's about Joni and Jonathan. I look at those two as tough nuts (and maybe that's being too bold to say on a blog but I'm posting this regardless) but nevertheless I still think about those two and do care for them. From what I heard this morning, their story seems more similar to Evan and I than I imagined. As a mother I wonder who God has already chosen for my baby girl. Will she enter his life during rough times and help or will he be her safety net? She's so outgoing like her mom (well like I feel I use to be at least) that she'll probably attract someone like her daddy who is more quiet and withdrawn but is intense and loyal once you peel those onion layers off like donkey said about Shrek. LOL. I see my fellow congregation members nearly every week and they are my family up here and while I say hello I don't know what goes on from Sunday to Sunday. NOt to say that I need to know about everyone's life sometimes I can hardly keep up with my own. But I hope that these individuals those named and unnamed know that Evan and I are here for them. We don't open up much to people, I mean really open up not just state facts like I'm doing this or that. I haven't opened up emotionally to other people in a long time but sometimes I wonder if it's time. I'm just not the type of woman who likes the phone, I like face to face interaction so opening up to family via the phone is still hard to do. I protect myself by telling a few details to people and it gets things off my chest but no one really knows it all but Evan. Safe huh. Well anyway, I try each day to be a good mom to the baby that God entrusted me with and while I hope to enrich her life she already has enriched my life journey and that makes living all the more enjoyable! Thanks my beautiful baby girl...your mama loves you fiercely!

My first wedding cake

Well congratulations Pam and Gene! You probably don't know them but they are getting married today and they trusted me enough to make their wedding cake. Pretty amazing since I never met either one of them before the opportunity presented itself. Regardless talk about wanting to throw up on the drive to the reception hall...I seriously bit off 2 nails and wanted to pull over to hurl. Nice imagery huh!?! Nevertheless, set up went without a hitch and those who were there early said it looked amazing. I was pleased with it and thought I would share some pictures. There are over 1,000 hand crafted flowers on the cake. Talk about time. Enjoy!

Daddy's little helper

Ahh the weekend at the Zelkovich home. While Evan did not get a son for his first born he did get a little girl that is eager to help out at his side whenever she can. This weekend, the opportunity arose to help daddy fix the window in his car by replacing some motor thing that makes it goes up and down. He gave her a Stanley screwdriver to help twist and turn every loose screw so the window was perfect once again. At he stuck that screwdrive in just about any opening she could find and clanked it around till her heart was content (which just so happened to be when daddy needed to put the door cover back on.) But I thought these pictures were too cute not to share.

Just another Thursday

Just like any other Thursday, the day began with running out to church to clean. Normally Carolyn gets to hang out with Beth and the two of them go adventuring through church together as Beth takes care of her duties while I handle cleaning products. Well today the phone rang and Beth, being the dutiful church secretary that she is, answered it. A few moments later I heard the sound of glass breaking and went running. Carolyn had decided to try to pick up the money jar from the church's cafe and there was green glass from behind the cafe counter, to the bookshelves and even all the way to Beth's desk. I don't know how it got that far but it did. Of course, Carolyn knew that she made a mistake so she tried to pick the jar back up and thankfully she didn't get cut. What a morning! The rest of today was not nearly as interesting and I'm okay with that!!!