Time for Forgiveness and to Get the Back Story before Judging Other’s Words

 

I admit I have never seen The Sound of Music. Why? Because when I was supposed to go with my family as a child, I was being punished and my mom didn’t allow me to go. So I had to stay home and lay in my bottom bunk while they went. I knew that my mom was disappointed in me for my actions. It was probably when I was little.  But I still feel at seventy that I am not deserving of watching this famous film. 

Last night, a lifelong friend who knows this history told me at our brewery when the movie came up in conversation emphatically that I need to watch it. Her exact words were and I quote….Your mom is dead you can watch The Sound of Music. Needless to say, the other people at the table were shocked. That is because Julie and I knew my story but they did not. Out of context that sounds not only bizarre but messed up. 

So I trust my friend that it is time to sit my butt down and not only watch The Sound of Music but enjoy it quilt free. Not only because my mom would approve but because I need to accept her forgiveness and stop punishing myself for something I did when I was a kid. But because I need to forgive myself for my bad choice back then. I shouldn’t have done it but it is over and time to let it go. Thank you Julie for remembering my heartache and for knowing me so well. We didn’t fully explain to the others but enough for they got it and the conversation moved on. 

 The lessons are clear. Forgive yourself for past mistakes and don’t always judge what you hear. You should clarify if something seems off. Isn’t life easier when we are slow to be offended and when we are capable of forgiveness, not just for others but especially for ourselves?  How can we love others as ourselves if we are holding onto grudges over our past? Let it go……..that is Julie’s best advice. She also is aware that I chose not to go to a musical of The Sound of Music with my kids and grandkids in the next couple of weeks and why I am not attending. You see Julie is my friend but also her daughter and my son married and are raising our four grandkiddos. We are both traveling to Washington to attend our shared granddaughter’s high school graduation. Embracing forgiveness for myself would have allowed me to fully participate in all the festivities. Hmmmmm Julie is a wise woman, friend, mother, and grandma. Who knew? Maybe I should have listened years ago.

In Him,

Joyful

5-23-26

Bear Adventures with Cora and Nabin……..Learning to Utilize Chatgpt

 There be bears in our neighborhood! Tis the season for our dumpster diving friends to come out and feast on the trash that is at our curbs. Ronnie B and I have rarely seen these trashcan flipping creatures in the thirty-six years we have lived here. But this week we have seen four and this guy right here allowed us to follow him and his shenanigans for several blocks. The pictures we captured in the videos we took were not very clear when I zoomed in. So I followed my brilliant brother-in-laws lead and uploaded the photos to chatgpt for better focus. Not only did it focus our furry friend but turned his head toward me. Interesting! Right after he realized this was a bear proof can he jumped the fence and tore the top right off. 

This guy was way smart. Our recycle cans are blue and along his route through many houses he not once tried a blue can but went right for the green, food rich cans. Now he needs to learn which ones are bear proof and which ones are easy open.

The coolest part of our bear adventure was watching him or her climb fences with ease. Also, our student from Nepal got to be in the truck taking videos with us. Cora was well behaved and obeyed Ron’s command to stay so we could have the windows down and not worry that she would jump out. 

Yesterday, Caleb insisted on going bear hunting in my convertible. We didn’t see any bears but saw three deer that he wanted to get out and pet. He loved watching our bear footage over and over again and was excited when I drove past the fence he watched the bear tear up. I am considering stopping by that house and sharing the video with them so they will know who caused the damage. I would want someone to share with me. 

I am not sure if we just have coincidentally happened upon bears this year or that they are more active this summer. But I am putting a call into our county for bear proof trash cans. It seems like the right thing to do. Then they can just come into our yard for choke cherries and apples. Probably healthier for them anyway than our leftover pizza and I asked Nabin what his mother in Nepal said about the bears, he assured me poptarts. 

 When that he did not show her them so she wouldn’t be afraid for him. I love that he protects his mama and her mama’s heart. That is sweet. He is a generous, helpful person and I am so excited to learn from him this summer. I love that Ron and I get to share our home with international students from all over the world. Each of them becomes family that we stay in touch with after their stay is over. How blessed we are! Bears, students, deer and other roaming creatures will make for a thrilling summer in Los Alamos. 

In Him, 

Joyful

5-22-26

Today is a Gift, Enjoy Your Present

Are we there yet? How much farther to go? Are we there yet, that’s what I want to know? Most of us sang this little song on car trips when we got a bit restless. Waiting can be difficult and the excitement of anticipation can wane. But there is a fabulous book The Precious Present by Spencer Johnson that explains that the present itself is the present and there are gifts in the waiting. Whether it is anticipating something life impacting like the birth of a child or a result from a doctor, or a little thing like the last day of school or a Friday for the weekend, we all find ourselves expecting and hoping. 

We give kids five more minutes when an activity is coming to an end and a transition looms. They need that time to adjust to what is next. As adults, we have a broader picture of what is coming with our calendars on the wall, on our phones and even on Alexa. But still we get anxious anticipating what is coming and how it will turn out. Then it is go time and we can take a breath and enjoy or deal with what is. Later, we will reflect on how things turned out. Did we fill our minds with fear unnecessarily or was the result as bad as we worried about? Was the celebration as joyful as we hoped or did it have a few hiccups that will be remembered fondly in the future. Sometimes the almost there is a time to remember past moments that we lived through even when they didn’t turn out like we thought they would. 

I read The Precious Present when Ronnie B and I had just had to give our first son Logan back to his biological mother after loving him as our own for two months. This young mother changed her mind about the adoption. We quickly called our attorney and began pursuing other adoptions. A mom reached out to us from back east and chose us to raise her child. After months of communicating, she changed her mind. Ron even flew back and met her. Then we got word about our son Cameron. We were a bit gun-shy but moved forward. The waiting was hard since his birth was six months after losing Logan. To begin with I just wanted to wait. I wanted to focus on when he would be in my arms and let the summer slip by uneventful. Then I read the book that said that now is a gift and should be enjoyed while anticipating what is next. So I got off the couch and engaged in life. Ron and I had a summer filled with camping, short trips to visit family, and cookouts with friends. September came and we did indeed wrap our son in our arms. All things work out as they were meant to be. Logan is an adult, Cameron is in his forties with four kids of his own, and we pray the other little one grew into a happy, healthy adult. 

The forming of our family through adoption caused a lot of waiting since all our selfless birth moms were pregnant when we met them. We waited for the births, the adoptions to be finalized and spent the rest of our lives connected to the families that adoption tied us to. These families our a part of our family now and they are a big part of our story. 

Even the little events in life have a waiting period. Heck, each of us spends time in waiting rooms of all sorts that are there for the purpose of waiting to be next. This weekend Ron and I take off on a month long road trip to see family celebrate graduations, weddings, and spend time together along the way. I don’t want to get caught up in the calendar and miss the days leading up to each magical event. We have a grandgirl graduating from high school and a grandson graduating from kindergarten and a nephew celebrating his wedding. These will be such fun but so will the hot springs and conversations as we camp our way to the northwest and then meander our way back to Arizona. I look forward to all the events but also know that the time Ron and I spend together is just as precious. We are both turning seventy this year and celebrate our forty-ninth anniversary on June 4th. The life we have shared has not been without heartache but that has been overshadowed by the joy we share being together on this journey. 

Even as I pack and prepare for the trip I am enjoying the wait. We welcomed a student from Nepal to stay with us this summer. As I have done my Bible study and am blogging, he brought his phone over and introduced me to his parents a world away. Then he prepared egg fried rice for lunch. The house smells delicious and I am grateful he is here to feed the cat and water my plants. The trip will be fun but so are the days until then introducing him to neighbors and friends. 

Enjoy right here and know that you are almost there which will be what it will be. Thankfully, we have others and our faith to get through the ups and downs of life.  

Tanner’s Words. His Heart are the Best Gift Parents Could Receive

 Yes I got it…… Thank you mom and Dad. I cannot express how grateful and thankful and how lucky I am to have been given to two of the most kind, caring, loving, generous people on this earth. It does not surprise me when I run into shitty people, who lack all morals, who always only think of themselves and how they and everyone around them can enrich their lives, because that type of person seems to be almost everywhere we look I feel like. What does surprise me however, is when you meet, run into, work or best yet, get to be raised by people who actually care, love, support and give the shirts off their backs if someone else was in need of it more than themselves. And God blessed me and Natalie and Cameron and Ryan all with the most beautiful and incredible and brilliant couple to be raised by because he knew that you two had the strength, the courage and most of all, the love that is required to not just raise a family, but to help us grow into who each of us are today. You loved me enough to say no even when it hurt you the most because you knew it’s what was best for me. You had the wisdom to know that just giving me everything I ever wanted in life wasn’t going to help me. 

This time I have spent being sober again, finding myself again, has given me a lot of new perspective that I hadn’t seen before(probably because I didn’t want to see it), or deal with it or take accountability for.  Using drugs for a decade really takes a toll on a person’s body, psyche, faith…. The amount of shame and guilt and disgust and disbelief I had about myself and my actions made me sick to my stomach all the time and continuing to use drugs just continued to numb me and keep me sick in my mind and body. And I finally have found the true me again, and it is all so clear to me now that if I were to ever choose to start using again would mean I have given up in humanity, I have given up in faith, I have given up in love and care and compassion. 

But then I think of my parents… and think of how they raised 4 kids without ever having “idiots guide to…”. I think of how you guys have endured so much pain in losing a son, a brother, a mother, a father, best friends…. And you still have the strength and the courage and the faith and love that you show all of us children all the time in your endless love and giving and it empowers me, it strengthens me and gives me resolve and today I want to be a good person, I want to be a best friend, I want to be a loving boyfriend and husband, I want to be a brother that my sister and my brother can always not only reach out to but can look up to and admire the qualities that my parents have instilled in me and that I try my best to mirror every day. 

If it weren’t for such a loving and caring Dad I wouldn’t know how to do anything… You are one of the smartest people I have ever met Dad. You showed me how to fix cars, ski, camp, scuba dive, build literally anything I want, shown me how to have patience and take my time with everything I do. 

If it wasn’t for you Mom I wouldn’t know how to be a risk taker, take chances in life, I wouldn’t know that it’s ok to be vulnerable and let my guard down. You showed me how to learn to listen to myself. Because of you I learned what my skills and strengths are and that I am very smart and talented and confident and a true leader. 

Both of you instilled in me what it is to love unconditionally.  I literally could go on for days giving you both example after example of what you have taught me or shown me how to learn for myself. With every day that passes and as the years go by quicker and quicker the more I admire both of you. The more I love and appreciate you and wish that we could just spend more time together. 

I know that with all of my past transgressions in this life words may fall flat, texts don’t truly portray feeling, and that I am never going to exclaim that I will never mess up again or fall short being a son, a brother, a father, a uncle, a friend because I know the sometimes reckless, risk taking does not always do the right thing or make the right decisions. But I just want to make sure that for the rest of my life I will never take you guys for granted, I will never doubt your love and compassion you have shared with me and I will spend the rest of my life  striving to be more and more like you two because you are the people I love and adore more than anything else in this life and I don’t want you guys to ever forget it. Even if you have to print out this text thread and slap it on the fridge to forever remind you guys I love you, I appreciate everything you do, I appreciate the people you are and the person you have raised in me.  

Mom I hope your 70th Birthday was something memorable and Dad, I hope something you do on your 70th b-day will be something unforgettable as well. You guys deserve anything and everything you want in this life. 😁😁🥰🥰🙄🙄🫶🤟Your son, Tanner

Best gift parents could receive. 

In Him,

Joyful

5-17-26

Wonderful Moments are Happening

 How glorious to wake up with anticipation of a new day. I have been on a journey of believing the best and just this attitude is creating a peaceful, expectant attitude. Nothing has really changed recently so I am not quite sure what is making me feel so expectant of positives in my life. But it is here and I am wallowing in this hopefulness. The one change I can point to is that my prayers have been more believing in situations that have been prayed for decades without movement. One is for my grown children to choose to be in a relationship with one another. Will this ever be the case? I am not sure but I do know that I have accepted whatever God chooses to do in this circumstance. There are other things in life that remain unresolved but I have somehow finally set them down and found a peace with how things are rather than wringing my hands with how I would prefer them to be. Something wonderful has happened. I am no longer feeling the need to fix everything or have my way in other’s lives. Isn’t that a part of the AA saying………change the things I can and accept the things I cannot change.  Peace comes when we let go and let others choose their own paths. Perhaps this peace I have found is that at seventy I have laid down my micromanaging wand and learned to stay in my own lane more. I am convinced that my children and grandchildren are thrilled with me trusting them with their own choices. Do I still pray for them and support them where I can? Absolutely! But Natalie for one has been trying to get me to stop advising her when she doesn’t ask for decades. Maybe this thick skull is finally getting the memo. 

Today, I expect wonderful things to happen. I look forward to packing out for a trip to the northwest in a couple weeks. Elissa is graduating tomorrow from NNMC with a phlebotomy certificate and starts nursing school in the fall. Clara is coming to spend tonight to ride with us in the morning. Our summer intern arrives today from Nepal. Ronnie B has been getting projects around the house completed with Jon’s help. Then I am also spending time on me. My sister always took the time to do her fingernails and put on lotions and potions whereas my mom and I were never really interested in all the girlie things. Lately, I have stepped up my pampering of me. With the help of Zepbound my weight that has always been a burden is not an issue anymore. Food noise is quieted and I am at the weight that I listed on my driver’s license for the first time in decades. I actually feel pretty. That is something I haven’t really felt in my whole life. Funny that this comes at seventy with all my wrinkles and bright white hair but here it is. Heck, I even wore a dress to Elissa’s graduation party. 

Life is good. Life has moments of fear, doubt, frustration but really isn’t that just a part of life for everyone. There are things I hope to do better. There are habits I want to discard. But in the end, I believe this feeling of euphoria is because I have found a way to have grace for me. Rather than dwelling on all the should have, could have, why didn’t I parts of my life, I am choosing to celebrate where I am right in this moment of time. Ronnie B and I are in good health and looking forward to our rv trip. There are hot springs to visit and lakes to swim in along the way to family. Our grandgirl, Kayla, is graduating from high school and on to Western Washington University. So glad we get to be a part of her celebration. What a joy to put most pity parties behind me and enjoy life as it is. God knows I am living a life I don’t deserve but embrace. Family, friendships and faith are such a big part of my joy. For each of you, I am grateful.

In Him,

Joyful

5-15-26

Mayve is Two, Woohoo!

Our great-grandgirl is two. Sweet Mayve is our granddaughter, Elissa’s youngest. This little one is so independent and sober. She can surely get silly but most of the time is quite serious. I adore how her brother cares for her when he isn’t knocking her down or stealing a toy. He has a tender heart for his sister and she always wants to know where her Bubby is. Kids do so well when they are gifted with a sibling. 

Elissa made MayMay’s birthday such a great Mother’s Day celebration. The zoo with other moms and then a party at a trampoline/arcade/pizza place. It was good to see her interacting with other littles. 

 In this second picture, she was observing what was going on around her as she often does. It reminds me of her Uncle Tanner. He would stay back and watch before jumping into the activity. I love how littles remind us of our own children when they were small. 

I am so fortunate to get to have Mayve, Caleb, and Elissa in our small town so I can be present in their lives. Today we get the opportunity to go to a graduation celebration for Lis. She is rocking it as a mother, student, and especially granddaughter. We are here to support each other and enjoy the moments life slows down enough for us to just be together. She has applied to nursing school and should start in the fall. Please pray with me that everything falls in place for this sweet family. 

In Him,

Joyful

5-13-26

Happy birthday Mayve……Noni adores you and yes, I will get your beefy legs. 

To Have and To Hold, I Want to Live This

 We hear this line to have and to hold in wedding ceremonies but perhaps it should apply to other areas of life as well. Today we seem to be a society of toss it out and replace rather than fix and repair. This simple saying describes my Ronnie B. He would rather repair and hold onto what we have than recycle and get a new anything. 

To have is what we already own or have in our world. I never thought about this line in our vows but the promise is to hold not release or discard. I love that. As many of you know Ronnie B and I were separated for several years. Even in that difficult time in our relationship we continued to bring the family together every evening for dinner. Not knowing how our story would evolve was hard to hold onto hope of a future together. But we never gave up and a little kidney stone brought us back under one roof. I was in agony and went to stay with him for nurturing and nursing. I never left. We began praying together bringing the hard conversations together with Christ in the center. Life has never been better since we still have one another and hold on to our relationship that is half a century in the making. 

Some would say the brokenness was too much to repair but I am forever grateful for that season that showed us just what we have but also what we should hold onto and not throw away. Would it have been easier to just part ways? Absolutely. It took real commitment and getting past hurts to come back together. But I am convinced that our lives would not be the great love story that it is without walking through those hard years. I am forever grateful to my Young Life girls and there three word prayer for us……under one roof. When we got back into one home those girls believed as do I that their prayers were answered. Susi even stitched it on the quilt she made and repaired for us. 

I hope to embrace the to have and to hold in my life. The desire to get something shiny and new only to discard what I already have is tempting. But what a gift to have an old sweater or that comfy couch that used to be my mom’s. Yesterday, I found out that the insurance company didn’t total my car from when I hit a deer this week. My Murano was my dream car but I had been researching other vehicles just in case. I didn’t find anything I would love as much. So I was thrilled when they said they would repair my Deville, yes that is her name. I have her and now I get to hold onto her a bit longer. Last night, the power went out and this morning our microwave wouldn’t worked. I was bummed I couldn’t reheat my coffee. I love this microwave and worried it was toast. But Ron unplugged it for a bit and it works just fine. I get to hold onto it for hopefully many years to come. 

To have and to hold not to toss and replace is the way to live life. It never really hit me that this little phrase in a commitment ceremony was to cling to what we have. I love that. I love my Ronnie B and the life we share because this part of our story kept us from moving forward without one another. Our amazing love story is not all romance and roses but that is what makes it so precious. I plan on holding onto my man for as long as God keeps us both this side of heaven and then reunites us there. 

In Him,

Joyful

5-9-26