The Cup

Sometimes in life, the cup is half-empty, sometimes it is half-full, sometimes it runneth-over, and sometimes it is bone dry. I’d like to say it is all in a person’s perspective, but I don’t really believe that. I do, however, believe that sometimes, life hands a person a set of circumstances and those circumstances define themselves and all the person can do is deal with the cup they are dealt. That is not always a negative thing, but it is not always positive either. It all depends on what is in the cup and what you do with it.

Tag: family

  • Post #7: 8/1/25

    Post #7: 8/1/25

    Cup Status: Full

    Today, I convinced my husband to leave work a little bit earlier than normal so that we could head to a larger town near where we live and go thrifting and then go out to dinner. It did not take too much from me to get him to agree. Lol! I got the kids and myself ready to go and as soon as he arrived home, we piled in the car and headed off to have some fun! We stopped at the first thrift shop and looked around for treasures. I struck out and so did my husband, but my daughter found a feminist Barbie that I thought was kind of interesting and then she found a Disney princess rolling suitcase that she just had to have. My son came home with a nerf gun and a cat piano. So, not too bad for out first stop. I had wanted to stop here to buy something that I had seen a few weeks before, but had decided not to buy during that trip. Unfortunately, it was no longer there. I never learn. I must follow the cardinal rule of thrifting. If I see something that I want, I have to buy it then or it might not be there later. Sigh.

    So, we were off to store number two where we took advantage of the 50% off on shoes sale! My daughter fell in love with some princess high tops and came home with them. I was able to find several items that I have been looking for and it caused me to break out in a happy dance! The first item I found is the first volume in the Anne of Green Gables series (the one re-published when I was a kid). I had lost it somewhere along the line and really wanted to re-complete my set because it was my favorite series when I was growing up and to see the first volume missing made me so sad. But, not anymore. The pastel pink cover again sits next to its other pastel counterparts ready for me to dive in and experience the triumphs and despairs of my favorite Ann-with an “E”. Then, I was able to add to my grandma-chic collection of copper and pink aluminum Jell-O molds. I found a matching set of flower-ish molds, a bag full of matching mini-bundt style molds, and the ever-illusive rooster mold! I was so excited! My son didn’t find anything that he wanted because he has a very particular list of things that he likes and doesn’t like.

    We then headed to the third and final thrift store where the 50% off shoe sale provided my daughter with the best buy of the day! She found a pair of metallic gold, light-up, roller sneakers in her size! They were the exact same ones that are currently on her Amazon wish list. She was so excited! I also found two more Jell-O molds to add to my collection! A round one with cherry imprints in it and a star shaped one. This was the day for molds! Some days I don’t find any molds and then, today, it was AWESOME!!! My husband did finally find a speaker that he can use for his home studio set up, so that was awesome too! My son used his shopping time to visit the skittle machine at the front of the store several times and he did start to make it clear that he was ready to eat. My husband seconded the dinner vote and away we went.

    We decided to head to one of our favorite restaurants. It had been closed for quite some time for renovations and we hadn’t been able to eat there in forever. As we drove up to the new façade, it was crazy how different it looked and yet how familiar it was at the same time. This restaurant holds a special place in my heart. It is a place that I ate at and shared pitchers of beer with friends on countless occasions. It is where groups of my fellow student teachers gathered to share our stories of triumph and woe. It is where I took my family when they came to visit me during college and after I settled to live in my college town. It is where my husband and I had our second date. It is the first restaurant we took our first born to. During the Covid 19 shut down, I made sure to order take out from there to help support them. So, when we walked inside and it looked so completely different, it was a bit weird at first, but then, I saw the table by the window where I sat so many times before. I saw the same footprint, just with upgraded finishes and realized that with so much of my life, the footprint is the same, but the finishes are different. Some might be an upgrade from the me of the past, some might need a bit of a renovation, let’s be honest, but when I walk around inside, I still see all of the good memories that are there and all of the great days that are to come. It’s so odd how important places like this bring up so much. The flavor of the cheese garlic bread was exactly the same as the first time I tasted it. The flavor of the pesto cream sauce, exactly the same. The house dressing on the side salad, the same. The person eating it, not the same. I sat there with my husband and two of my three children and watched all of us enjoying a meal while I looked over at the table by the window where it all began 20 years ago and it was such a surreal moment. The two people who sat at that other table had no idea what their lives were going to be like 20 years later, but it is a beautifully, chaotic life. The cheese garlic bread used to have leftovers when it was just the two of us. We only needed one bread basket. Now, we were lucky to get a piece each of bread from the basket and a piece of cheese garlic bread as our children descended on both like they had never seen bread before (they most certainly have eaten plenty of bread). Lol! We finished up our meal, paid the bill, and walked out the same doorway that I had countless times before, but I was a much different person than the one who first walked through that door, but I wasn’t so different that I didn’t want dessert, so we headed off to get some frozen goodness and then to head home from our day of adventure and fun.

  • Post #6: 7/31/25

    Post #6: 7/31/25

    Cup Status: Emptying One Drop at a Time

    Today, I am still thinking about stuff. Belongings. Things. Items. The trappings of life. The reason this has been on my mind so much lately is because I have been helping my mother in law clean out her parents’ house. They built this house in the 1950’s with their own hands. Her father saw a picture of the front of the house with a floor plan in a magazine and he used that to help him build the house. They lived in the house for 70 years. Raised 2 children in the house. Had a wedding the house. Celebrated many holidays in the house. Made countless meals in the house. Lived life in the house. Now, all these years later, we are sifting through the evidence of those years.

    They both lived through the great depression and lean times when they didn’t have much. As a result of this, they saved anything and everything that could be useful or that might be needed again one day. They saved anything and everything that was ever given to them. Because of this, my mother in law and I have been sorting through boxes and boxes of greeting cards sent with love and piles of used gift bags and tissue paper that could be used again and bags of pens gathered from various banks and conventions and hotels across the years. We have found receipts for the purchase of building materials back in 1961 and the first payment coupons for the mortgage back in the 1950’s. We have found four generations of baby shoes. 100’s of bobby pins and dozens of hair nets. We have found mementos of work achievements. 25 years with the company and then 30 years and then retirement. We have found outfits through the decades and have had a good chuckle at the fashion choices. Did Papa really have a tie with mushrooms on it? Did Grandma ever wear all of those sweater vests that we found? We don’t remember seeing her wear those. We have found tons of tiny Ziploc bags with buttons in them in case the original falls off of the garment they came with. We have found so many glass jars from spaghetti sauce and salsa and jelly. You never know when you might need a good jar. We have found 12 pairs of nail clippers, so far. We have found so, so many things. But, we have also found love letters written when their relationship was new when they called each other their “Dearest Darling.” We have found decades of pictures showing the expansion of family and the growth of love. Sifting through the evidence of lives well-lived and people who are dearly loved and missed has been both difficult and so, so beautiful. It makes me think about the items that are important and the items that will one day end up in a trash bag. What is worth cherishing and preserving now for later? What has true value and what is just stuff? That is the lesson that I have been learning lately.

  • Post #5: 7/30/25

    Post #5: 7/30/25

    Cup Status: 1/2 Full

    So, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about stuff. Belongings. The things we choose to bring into our homes, collect, display, keep, save for later, etc. This topic has been on my mind because my family moved twice in 2024 and each time we needed to downsize our belongings in order to fit better into our new home. Our first home was 3600 square feet and had an additional shop building that was at least 1,000 square feet, but I don’t remember exactly. And, we filled it up. I collected holiday decorations and outdoor children’s toys and craft projects to get to one day and our children had more toys than they could possibly play with in a year if they played with a different toy each day. My husband and I both have hobbies that take up quite a bit of space (I scrapbook and read lots of books which requires the collecting and storage of lots of crafting supplies and books, of course). My husband is a music guy and loves vinyl, so he has a collection that would rival any record store (and of course he needs to have the equipment to play them on, and the backup turntable if the primary one goes out and this other turntable will be awesome if he can get it fixed one day and and and…). We also really like to get things for free, so when people give things to us, neither of us are too good at saying no, especially if it is something for our kids. So, after 12 years in the same house, we needed to get rid of mountains of things, stuff, clutter, weight before we could move forward to a new beginning. We loved the potential that our house had, but we had reached the limits of our DIY skills and budget and it was time to bid a sad farewell to well-intentioned plans. So, we began the process of sifting through the things. I was ready to say goodbye to the clutter. I had watched the shows on Netflix and read the Marie Kondo books. I could identify what sparked joy and what was practical and necessary and what was sentimental. I also knew that I disagreed with dear Ms. Kondo about how many books to keep, but I did agree that I didn’t need three copies of War and Peace…my husband, on the other hand, was not in the same place of readiness as me. I’m pretty sure that we moved with him parting with one box of items, but that’s ok. He wasn’t ready. My kids were following in their dad’s footsteps, so I helped them when they were not home. I weeded through the masses of Happy Meal toys and broken things that I had no idea what they were, but they had clearly lost their function. I matched up dolls with outfits and put Legos all in one bin. I was an organization master! I could teach a master class on this! But, when it was time to squeeze it all into moving trucks, it still took 6 trucks and countless trips in my own car in the weeks before we hired movers to get the big stuff. Dear goodness. We moved into a temporary rental while we waited for our dream home. This is where the real trial began. I began stating the mantra, “If it doesn’t fit, it can’t stay.” My husband was getting on board. He could see the wisdom in this. Our rental house was 1800 square feet. Our two boys were sharing a room. My husband and I were sharing a closet. GASP!!! We used the garage as craft and music room as well as storage and where the deep freeze and extra fridge went. It was also where my library/office went and our work out equipment (did I mention that I am a master organizer?). Also, I once fit half of a dorm room into a Ford Aspire. Yeah. I did that. We filled boxes with more items to part with and each of us, even the kids, started seeing our things with less value in the “need” category and as more of a nuisance. Something they had to find a place for and keep clean so that they could function in their smaller spaces. I cut my wardrobe by half and discovered that all I did was cut out the clothes I never wore anyway. It was really nice. Then, a few months later, and much earlier than we had planned, we found our dream home on the market. It is 2400 square feet. A little smaller than we had planned, but the perfect style in the perfect neighborhood. Everyone has their own bedrooms again. My husband and I have our own closets again. We love it! But, with another move, came another round of purging. With another round of unpacking and finding places for things, came another round of, “If it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t stay.” This time I also added, “If it doesn’t fit my decorating style or a wall in this house, it doesn’t stay.” I had to add this because I had boxes of home decor that I was saving for my forever home. Well, we are in it. This is THE home. So, there goes the wall decor I bought ten years ago and never hung up. There goes the curtains I never used because I never had a window to use them on. There goes the candle holder I never used because I didn’t have a mantle for it and now that I have a mantle, I didn’t like it anymore. Letting go of stuff has helped me to lighten my emotional load as well as the physical load in my house. Now, the only items I store are the holiday decorations that I actually use and the outdoor toys and garden items that we actually use. It feels so good. I also make it a point to only bring things into our home that I love or need. My kids definitely have not kept the ways we have learned, but I am trying to help them to remember. “If it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t stay.” Why do we allow our things to have so much power over us? When we have stuff we have to tend to it. Move it around. Dust it. Store it. Feel guilty about not using it. Get mad if someone breaks it. I know that I will never be a minimalist, but I am glad that I have a healthier view of stuff than I did a year ago.

  • Post #2: 7/27/25

    Post #2: 7/27/25

    Cup Status: Runneth Over

    There are some people who enter our lives for a short period of time, a chapter if you will. Then there are those who are there for a lifetime, an epic poem, a series of novels that you never want to end. This is the case with my group of friends. We have been friends since roughly 2000. With some forming the core earlier and some joining slightly later. But the reality is that we have been friends for 25 years. That is amazing. We have seen each other through transitioning from high school to college. Our fledgling steps into adulthood when we learned and failed and learned some more how to pay bills and cook and date and fall in love and heal from heartbreak and hangovers and bad haircuts and dye jobs. We made midnight runs to Walmart and 3:00 am runs to Krispy Kreme doughnuts 3 hours away because that was the closest one. We shared so many firsts with each other in our 20’s and then our 30’s and now our 40’s. To say that I love this group of women is an understatement. They are my people. I never have to explain myself to them. I can be myself around them. I can say whatever I need to without a preface or an apology that diminishes me. They see me and understand me and get me. They always have my back. This weekend I got to enjoy a few hours with my people. It was exactly what I needed. It filled my cup.

    We gathered together at one of the friend’s houses and ate snacks and talked. It was heavy talk at first. Several of us are going through some things. We talked about one of us moving away soon. That is going to be a difficult transition even though we are so happy for her. We talked about the beauty and sadness of preparing to send your only child off to her first year of college. The what if’s of the future and the free time in the fall that is to come. We talked about our various childhoods and the concerns we have over our aging parents, one of us in particular worried about next steps in daily care. We talked about the stresses of our jobs and wishing we could come up with a better way for things to run, but we came up short. And I talked about my recent panic attack. I had never had one before that I knew of, but I had one the night before and it struck me hard. It started with heart palpitations (I have been having them a few times a week for a month now). Then my arms and legs started going numb. Then I felt light-headed. But, I checked my pulse and my oxygen level and everything was normal, so I sat down and told myself that this was temporary. I counted five things I could see, four things I could touch, etc. until my heart rate returned to normal and the crying stopped. I sat there after it ended and felt exhausted and rung out. The weird thing is that before it started, I had been sitting down, watching my current distraction, Grey’s Anatomy and working on curriculum for the school year when it began. I had not felt stressed or anxious or worried about anything. Actually, it was quite the opposite. I was coming up with a creative idea for the lesson that I was writing and it was really exciting. But then, bam. I was panicking. What was the cause? I didn’t know.

    My people understood. They were there with words of comfort and suggestions to help when another one happens because it probably will. I don’t know what has brought on the anxiety recently, but my girls had some ideas and we talked through them for the next little bit. I feel like, without them, I would be lost. Those moments of connection and understanding and most importantly, no judgement, are everything to me. We ended the night at a restaurant eating chips and salsa and enjoying margaritas and laughing until we cried tears of joy. I will never look at chimpanzees and vultures or the Great Wall of China the same again, but that is why I love these girls. They are my people and they fill my cup when it is bone dry. My wish for everyone is that they too will find their people or at least their person who can do the same for them.

  • Post #1: 6/9/25

    Post #1: 6/9/25

    Status: Cup is half-full

    I went walking today for the first time in months. I love to walk. Around tracks at the park. Along trails in the woods. On the streets of my neighborhood. By waterways. I love walking. When I am walking, I feel like I find myself. I do my best thinking while walking. My best epiphanies happen. Best comeback lines. Best first lines of chapters of novels I may never write. But, for the past few months  I haven’t gone walking. For the past few months instead of finding myself, I have been losing myself. Slowly, but surely. I was there and then I wasn’t. It was such a gradual change that I didn’t even realize it was happening until one day, I found myself picking up a book to read and I just didn’t care about it. This is strange for me because I love to read. Or, at least, I used to. I used to devour books. I could sit down all day and read a book from cover to cover. But recently, I would read a few pages and then lay the book down and stare off at nothing. I love to plan. I love to plan a party. A vacation. An organization project. Anything. But, lately, I would start the planning phase of the project and lose interest before I had even gathered my notebook and pen. I used to love to menu plan and try new recipes, but…you see where this is going. What happened to me? Where have I gone? These have been the questions circling around in my mind for the last few months and I am no closer to answering them now than I was then. A lot has happened in my life recently, and that has contributed to these feelings, but I need to get back on track. 

    So, what has happened? 

    March 31st. I woke up and got the kids ready for school. Everything was going according to plan except that my husband was sick. He was staying home from work and had been planning on going to Urgent Care later that day. We thought he might have bronchitis because his coworker had it the week before. However, when I went to say bye to him before leaving for work, I couldn’t wake him up. This was the single most terrifying moment of my life. I shook him. I yelled his name. That’s when I noticed he had thrown up. He was sweating profusely. And, as I shook him, his breathing became very labored. He opened his eye-lids slightly and that’s when I saw how yellow the whites of his eyes were and that his eyes were rolled back in his head. I yelled for my oldest son to bring me my phone because it was in the other room. I panicked and my first thought was, “Call school because you will need a sub today.”  Ok. Full stop. My husband was unresponsive and my first thought was, “I need to call work.” What is wrong with me? Why was that my first thought? I had even opened my phone app and pulled up the school’s number before I shook my head and said out loud to myself, “No, Call 911 first.” The irony is that my student’s were currently reading Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and I had never more identified with the character of Gregor than I did at that moment. No, I had not turned into a human-sized bug, but when Gregor woke up completely transformed, his first thought was that he had missed the train to work and that he was going to miss the next one as well. He completely overlooked the fact that he was a freaking human-sized bug…with an exoskeleton and antennae, and a million legs…I feel like that would be the thing I would be worried about before work. Yet, here I was, staring at my version of a human-sized bug and all I could think about was work. At a later time, when things were more stable, I wondered what that says about us and about the conditioning that humans have undergone over the years that in our most emotionally vulnerable state, we think, not of ourselves, but of our jobs. Don’t get me wrong, I love my career. I love where I work. I’m a teacher. Are there days I question the choices of my 18 year old self? Yes. But that would be true of any career choice I had made. Are there days when I want to yell at my high school students, “Please, just trust me on this one! You will see that I am right, one of these days.” Yes, but I don’t. 

    But, my husband was dying in front of me, and all I could think of was work. This is partly when I began to realize that I had lost myself. When the ambulance arrived, I comforted my son, called my mother-in-law, called my mom or my sister (I can’t remember which was first), I messaged my group of best friends, and I texted my in-laws’ church prayer group. I needed my village around me because I was starting to realize that I wasn’t strong enough on my own. This was another sign that I was lost. I could always weather any storm. I am strong. I am enough. I can do anything on my own. But, I couldn’t do this. I watched as the paramedics tried to get a response from my husband. I waited anxiously with my mother-in-law and son for updates as they stabilized and prepped him in the ambulance for transport. I held it together as best I could. Like a true Hufflepuff, I got my mother-in-law a sweater. I got her coffee. I soothed my son. I answered texts and calls. People asked what I needed, as if I knew. My husband might be dead any minute. I had no idea what I needed. Usually I have all of the answers. But, I didn’t right then. And I didn’t for the next two weeks. Thankfully, my mom, dad, sisters, and brother knew what I needed more than I did. So did several members of my in-laws’ church and my best friends. Within hours, as my husband was eventually air-lifted to a hospital much further away, I was surrounded by family and friends, while more friends and family were taking care of my kiddos, and within days so many people had come together to help us with food and financial donations. I was overwhelmed with grief at the unstable status of my husband, overwhelmed with gratitude at the outpouring of love we were receiving, and overwhelmed at what the future would hold. I am not one to ask for help, so this was really hard to receive and accept, but that was another part of losing myself. 

    You see, my parents divorced when I was 9 and I took on quite a bit of responsibility around the house at a young age. I am not blaming or shaming them here; I understand now, as a parent, that they were doing the best they could with what they had at the time. But, this did teach me to be responsible and to be self-sufficient, sometimes to a fault. I will often, finagle things to work out in the short term (without having to ask for help) even if it is not the best idea in the long run…here’s looking at you pay-day loan that I got in my 20’s…So, when Jamie, my husband, was unresponsive, I went numb. I couldn’t function. I didn’t know what to do. You can’t finagle this. All I could do was wait and I am not a patient person. 

    The other reason that asking for help was so difficult is because many of the people who were so generous and giving were from my in-laws’ church. I could say from my church or Jamie’s church, but that is no longer true. Jamie went to that church from before he was born up until 2021. I know that I am the reason he no longer goes. I went with him from the time we started dating until 2021, for a total of 15 years. We hadn’t attended that church, or any church, since November of 2021. I had been trying to step away for personal reasons for quite some time and it was around my birthday in 2021, that I decided it was time. For my sake, I had to make the split. If anyone from that church reads this, I miss the people (well, most of the people) so much, but church and God and I are not on the best of terms. I won’t go into it more here, because that is a whole series of separate posts for the future, I’m sure. But, receiving help from wonderful people, who our absence had confused and hurt, was difficult and humbling. This also caused me to lose some of myself, my pride. I needed help. I accepted it. I didn’t know how to say thank you for it. I couldn’t adequately express my thankfulness. I still can’t months later. 

    Through this difficult process of my husband’s hospitalization, I’ve come to realize that in losing parts of myself, I’m gaining a wiser version of me. I can loosen the tie to work where it is so all-encompassing in my thoughts. I thought that I had a good work-life balance, but I think it is still a bit out of whack. I can lose some of my control and admit that I don’t know what I need and let others take the reins from time to time (here’s looking at you, Elizabeth, my amazing student teacher during this trying time). It is ok to not be in control all the time. I can lose some of my pride and ask for and receive help. I can also lose some clarity and realize that I am still a work in progress. If the vision of myself in the mirror isn’t always clear, that’s ok too, because I am an ever-growing, ever-changing person. I am continuing to battle loss of interest, but I did begin writing and I walked three miles today, so the cup is half full. Tomorrow, we will see. 

    BTW: Jamie was in a coma for a week. He had a perfect storm of symptoms that caused him to have heart failure, but after two weeks in the hospital and keeping up with doctor’s visits and medication, he is on the long road to recovery.