Happy Weekend! Kingdom Happenings Update...

Happy Weekend Everyone! Just a little drop in to say hi and let y’all know what’s been going on at The Kingdom lately…

We are cruising through Summer and even though I will miss pool days and hot flashes, I am happy to embrace the crisp fall that we Alabamians occasionally get to experience. Football is around the corner and that means Saturdays with fun menus and great family & friends. 

Our summer has been busy. It hasn’t been overwhelming, but it has been busy.

I spent last Saturday & Sunday helping my nephew paint his parking space for Senior Year. I loved that he asked me. I was quite honored. It was also, very nostalgic. A few of his classmates were up there as well. I listened to their banter, their flirting, their comfort with one another and I sighed contentedly in the truth that some things in life never change. In my mind’s eye it was 17 years prior, only we were in the gym in April painting huge backdrops for our Junior prom – the guys had baseball games going on and the few of us girls in the gym were sweating like crazy, laughing out loud and sometimes dancing a little to the boombox playing beside the basketball court. We were young, covered in paint, at the school on a Saturday, but we were enjoying the moment. 

It was a moment in my life and I’m grateful that I was able to see it as something special before it ended completely.  Those kids Saturday took me back to that place (literally and symbolically) and I wish them so much love, luck and hope for the days upcoming – may they enjoy this last year, because there is not another experience like it. 

After that it was back to The Castle and well back to normal this week. We have been gearing up for our (Annual) Home Visit next week. The house needs some cleaning and we need to walk through to make sure something hasn’t popped up but other than that we are truly looking forward to the visit with Social  Worker “R”. She is really sweet and I know she is praying for us to find someone & their baby who will want to become our family. God has this. His timing. His plan. His joy.

The Duchess moves back to College as well. Cannot believe she will be graduating next year – December 2016. She only has 3 semesters left! She is so excited and nervous and happy and bittersweet. This next few semesters will definitely see new ways of growth with her. She is such a talented and amazing woman; we are blessed to be her family.

The pups are good. Precious, sweet and fun as usual. I cannot wait for them to have a baby in the house. It will be one heck of a transition, but what fun it will be. 

I will hopefully be getting my Etsy store up and going to raise for Baby Barr and also to be posting some fun new notecards & such that I have available. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Pray for our birthmother – her health, her family support, her heart, her to know we love her; our future child(ren)-his/her health, our social worker, our finances, our strength, our abilities as parents, our health and for us to be open to God’s guidance…It’s a long list of prayer requests, I know, but He says to speak your heart’s desire and I’m listening to  His commands.

2 John 1:6

And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

 

Trust in Him & Keep moving forward....

“Trust God from the bottom of your heart, don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go, He’s the one who will keep you on track.”

Proverbs 3:5,6 (The Message)

It’s been a few weeks. The world has turned a couple times. Newsfeeds have been full of resolutions, changes, stagnancies, deaths, births and all the events that define the lives we are living. Each day I peruse the various social media outlets that I enjoy. Instagram is my favorite – the pictures, quotes, ideas; behind it is Pinterest – there is nothing like seeing so many neat ideas, cool places to visit and recipes to indulge in; then there is Facebook – photos, articles, pictures, videos ; each one gives me various levels of happy. There are things that I have to scroll past, the articles about children being murdered, abused; animals mistreated and left to die; negative comments that pull me into a cycle of sadness and anything that causes me to be judgmental or harsh. I work hard to keep those things at bay.

I’ve learned and accepted that I am truly an introvert. That being said – if I have struggled with small talk with any of you, please know I do apologize and that it is also something I work on daily. I’m beginning to embrace the emotional parts of being an introvert, the deep connections that I attach to ideas, stories, people, pets and moments. It can be exhausting how emotional I get over things, but I love that stoic is not in my demeanor. Granted the fact that stoic usually associates with no complaining (I do complain – again it falls on the beautiful long list of work in progress personality traits) would be good – but enduring each hardship and pain without showing my feelings is definitely not my way.

All of this is to preface my current state of mind. I’m overwhelmed by the emotional difficulty I’ve had with our profile that we must create for our birthmother. Yes we answered 2000 questions and have written autobiographies. Yes we are doing physicals, bloodwork, house adjustments and mental shifts throughout this process. Yes we are fundraising, praying for financial supernatural blessings from God and doing all we can to financially provide for this process. All of that was and is draining, emotional and self-explorative – but this, this 30 page profile is the largest boulder I’ve encountered. I hit the wall with it a few weeks back. I was easily placing photos of Stable Boy M, Duchess K  and myself. Great photos, candid shots, funny shots, silly shots…I was writing blurbs about our life, our interests, some repeated from the autobiographies, some not then it happened. I printed a copy. I held it in my hands and burst into tears. These pages, these pictures are our “Sell Packet” our “Romance Copy” the information shewill hold in her hands. She  will look at this and see us – this family that is desperately wanting to be a part of her family, to raise the child she  is already so terrified to be carrying. I cannot imagine how she feels, I cannot even begin to think about how I would be, how I would see these families laid before me. I wept for her. I still do when I think about this in detail. I know that God will guide us both: me to complete this and her to love us. I trust in Him with every part of our adoption. I rely on Him with every nuance, every emotional high and low – He is my comforter. I repeat these things often and here I am typing them, because writing is part of His process He gave me to share my life and my emotions. 

I’m writing this to ask you to pray for me as I complete this packet for her. Pray that Stable Boy M and I find the words, find the way to portray who we are, to maybe give her the tiniest smidge of comfort during this time and that she somehow, some way, feels that we love her and that our request to be a family is genuine and full of all the best we have. Thank you all for keeping up with our journey, for loving us so much and for reminding me daily of the support system we have – I pray that somehow your support of us is extended to support her in this time. We will keep moving forward and excitedly work towards the family He is providing...

“But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.”

Isaiah 40:31

 

Self-Renewal

So long as a person is capable of self-renewal, they are a living being.

-Henri Frederic Amiel

***

How satisfying to know that I am a living being.

My dreaming self has been in turmoil for the past few months. At night I find my mind has deep crevices of ideas, desires, nightmares and untruths. You see a very sneaky self-doubt has continued to creep into my current state of mind.

However for the past few weeks I have been on a trek, a journey, a walk where renewal is the theme. I am working on being a better Courtney; a woman who finds relief in the simplest aspect of life & realizes that the mundane is unimportant. Mundane must not be taken lightly. It is a term that can be used to reference the earthly part of our existence – lacking in spiritual depth. I don’t want to be that writer. The spiritual side of me, no matter what your beliefs, is what has kept me above the water’s surface rather than just treading it.

Faith has been a consistent topic on my blog in the past and it is because I am strong within it. I am not Catholic but I do choose to participate in Lent every year. It is purely because I feel that self-exploration and acknowledgement of habits/vices/addictions is healthy.  My “fast” this year is a bit odd and has definitely met the challenging aspect of Lent. I gave up two things: caffeine & cursing. Sadly for your Royal Writer over here, the cursing is the hardest. You just don’t realize how often those horrible words feel the need to escape into the air. They appear to be trapped “beings” within you and when they are free they elicit a shiver of excitement. Yet they don’t earn any awards or accolades or honest smiles from those around you. Granted I do feel there have been some instances where words of the vulgar manner seem to be the best responses, yet I have refrained. Faith has kept me on my path; the knowledge that the journey is worth it – a journey in which I am renewing the woman from the inside out. Even though dark, doubting thoughts try to get me to stray. They try to make me give up.

You see I lost my way again, I really need a map. I lost my moment of clarity and decision. In all honesty, I let it slip away; I allowed my inner being to become something that I no longer see as healthy or beneficial to my dreams & goals. Self-Doubt has held court for too long. It is as though my Royal Advisor has been talking truth but instead I have been listening to my nemesis’ lies.

So today I return to this wonderful world that has always welcomed me with open arms. I am a living being, capable of self-renewal, capable of believing in her talents, capable of using her strengths, capable of selecting what is best, what is silly, what is useful, what is important and what is pure fun. The map I need is really right here. It resides in this place of renewal, in this path of light; where self-doubt is banished by the knowledge that faith will lead me home.

Breathing life into an MS beyond the inertia...

"If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it."

-Anais Nin

***

I don't like the word inertia...well some weekends I do; but on the whole I really don't. I enjoy relaxing after a long day's work, but there must first be that long day, that work to then enjoy what relaxation is all about.

All summer long I have been in a state of inertia when it comes to writing. The storm shook me up a bit, then we held the fundraiser and now school has begun for my resident 17 year old. Life is never boring, but inertia can still exist within areas that seem to be a constant movement. That is scary part about inertia. We think that we are moving, that we are being productive but really we are just performing a rote action. We have lost the excitement, the feeling of accomplishment, the ambition, the desire to better improve; we are just going along with the motions pretending that we are moving.

I was at a service last weekend that discussed life, creating habits, and looking at something you do every day differently. The application was more geared to prayer but I would be losing a great deal of the message if I did not apply it to other areas as well. I realized that writing before the storm had become a bit rote. I wasn't excited when I opened the file and I wasn't missing it when I was away. That isn't good. I had let the entire summer pass me by and had barely done anything with the story except go through the motions.

So last night I decided to apply the message to my own story. To sit down, to open the file, to read my words and see beyond what letters on the page spelled out and to breathe life back into the story. It was fulfilling to move forward, to no longer sit on the edge of something I truly desire to witness in all its elements. I broke it apart and saw myself looking at the characters, settings, and plot more openly. It is not ready to be shelved, in fact a brand new direction came out the endeavor.

Inertia had me thinking that it was time to give up but fresh air, an open mind and the desire to better the work has me now excited to see where the next scene is going...

What do you do when the words seem to be lackluster on the page? Do you give up immediately or do you work through the issues and discover something new? How do you know when it is truly time to shelve the work or it just needs an afternoon in the sun?

Why do you judge me?

"Why do you judge me?" they ask softly "Did I do something to offend you? Did I not tell it correctly? Was I out of line? Does it matter that I am not widely accepted but there are a few who appreciate me? Are those few out of line for loving me? Who is to say whether they cherish or hate me?"

Their questions are all at once.

Their voices are tones of all dialects, all worlds, all times, all nations, all vernacular.

They speak with earnest and wish only to be heard.

They understand that not everyone will like them all, that more than likely only a few will love them.

Their lives are determined by a select few and they understand the prejudice of those few - in fact they support their right to have an opinion.

They only wish the few allowed everyone else to make their own choices - for within their voices we can discover great things about ourselves, about life, and about dreams...

"Curiosity is not a sin...But we should exercise caution with our curiosity...yes indeed." Albus Dumbledore - Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire -the amazing JK Rowling.

"Language is man's way of communicating with his fellow man and it is language alone that separates him from the lower animals." - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - the beautiful Maya Angelou

Suddenly two coiled arms of twisting hair shot out of Wedgie Woman's head and grabbed George and Harold by the back of their underwear, yanking them high into the air.

"You know," said George "this isn't as funny as I thought it would be."

-Captain Underpants - the hilarious Dav Pilkey

"You know when you see a gorgeous boy on the street and you say to your friend, "Look at him!" and then your friend makes a face like, ugly? We all have such totally varied tastes that someone is going to look at you and think, yum-yum dee-lish, no matter what you think you look like. You just have to learn to see what they see." - Because I'm Worth It - Gossip Girl - the witty & utterly hip Cecily von Ziegesar

"Are you there God? It's me, Margaret. I just told my mother I want a bra. Please help me grow God. You know where. I want to be like everyone else." - Are you there God? It's me, Margaret. - the honest & unfiltered at any age Judy Blume.

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther....And then one fine morning --

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." - The Great Gatsby - the moving and melancholy tones of F. Scott Fitzgerald

"It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road." - The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

Make them more popular by putting them on a list - making them forbidden and ever so tempting.

Yes, judge them - we won't judge you for the list.

Because a list is just words & who better than the reader or writer understands words? That as a list they are just...a column of opinion...we have the freedom to look at the list, to ignore it, to accept it, to follow it and to laugh at it...

We educate ourselves in order to know that hidden within the list are lessons..that those of us who laugh at the list AND those of us who support it should always remember..

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

-To Kill A Mockingbird - the ever reclusive yet embraced Harper Lee

Pick that last one up sometime, banned/schmanned - its worth the time and the consideration to forget that its banned....

Happy Banned Books Week

For the list & more information about Banned Books Week

click Here

Oh the awesome and fun you may discover! Have a Fun Filled Friday!

Monday Memos....Routine vs Life

The less routine, the more life!

-Amos Bronson Alcott

***

Ahh...here we are again...

that word..

that stinky little 7 letter word that sometimes eclipses the wonders of that 4 letter word.

I don't mean to let it slip in and take over, let it sometimes suck the fun out of a good 4 letter word; but gosh darn it - it can.

It creeps in when I sit down to plan out dinners, when I look at a football schedule and try to decide how to time everything just right; it walks into my bedroom every morning at 7:20 and works diligently to point me in the correct direction...

but alas...those 7 letters are a formidable opponent but the 4 in the opposite corner win out every time:

Routine vs. Life

Who knew that between the little ticks on a daily planner that life can swoop in and create an inky mess or wonderful escape?

Routine can be perfect for one matter and ridiculous for another. We talk of balance, of time management, of school schedules and work shenanigans all the while forgetting that each routine must have life within it...Life wins out, even when the routine seems perfectly patterned for success. That little bump, that hitch in your time management - it isn't exactly a bad thing; actually it is probably just what you needed to remember that Life isn't routine. It is not set in stone within the squares of a DayTimer. It is messy, unforgiving, relentless, exciting, dramatic, tiring, busy, surprising, heroic, fatal, mysterious, romantic, shocking, hilarious, sad and dangerous.

It is all the elements we seek when wandering a bookstore - granted even a book store attempts to control routine, yet we all know that genre divisions can be misleading and often overlap. They segregate the books into genre, theme, author, style - forgetting that if its good, if its worth the time to read it, to enjoy it, to relish it...well, we don't mind which piece of life is in it - so long as the life is there when we turn the page....

So work on your projects, let the hitches come, let the routine slip a little, let the day planner have a blank square...because I promise if you were to flip back through it and think about that day you will remember: not a blank day with no activity but a day full of the routines of life - after all Life always wins... ;o)

***

For me today...my daily match with Life can be found in these blogs as well...

Tina Lynn asks if you also struggle to find a new VOICE...

Dear Lord! I could pass out - James Dashner graciously gives us an update on book 3 in THE MAZE RUNNER trilogy and lets us see a snippet of the SCORCH TRIALS!! I may faint from excitement...

Lola's preaching to my writing choir today and well...my choir needs to be sure to keep showing me their talent...(though telling me appears to be their favorite method) - oh the agony of realizing I tell too much... ;o)

DL has a wonderful post discussing his 'budget' that can in many ways relate to Routine vs Life - those that's and then's we encounter while writing our beloved manuscripts...

Enjoy your Marvelous Monday...I hope its full of Life... ;o)