I found this article totally by accident...I logged on to MSN to check my hotmail account and saw a link to this article featured on their front page. It's an interesting 'unveiling' to marriage in the midst of an eating disorder. Hmmmmmm....
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/22688706/?GT1=10755
Why "Masker"?
- Masker # 7
- Northern Virginia, United States
- In college, I was a member of a sorority that was known as Maskers. There were 11 of us girls, all juniors, and 11 seniors. I was the 1997-1998 Masker #7. It was a highlight of my college years and I have used it for computer user ids since then. In the 10 years that have followed, however, I am learning the value of taking off the fake "Mask" and being true and authentic with myself and others. THAT is the purpose of my blog.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Orsey
Mimi and Poppi had a great time travelling in Southern VA where Mom had several speaking engagements with Christian Women's Clubs. As all good--ahem--older folks do while travelling, they stopped at a Cracker Barrel
along the way. And, as all good GRANDPARENTS do, they found this amazing gift to purchase for their precious grandbaby! It's a rocking horse that neighs and gallops when you press the buttons embedding in his ears. They plan to keep the horse at their house for when Cassie visits. My kid is one lucky-duck...when I was little I only rarely saw my grandparents and when I did they didn't have anything particularly cool to play with. Cassie, on the other hand, has the train at "Papa's" (Tim's parents) and the "'Orsey" at Mimi and Poppi's. Thank you for lavishing us with your love, oh Grand-Parental ones!
along the way. And, as all good GRANDPARENTS do, they found this amazing gift to purchase for their precious grandbaby! It's a rocking horse that neighs and gallops when you press the buttons embedding in his ears. They plan to keep the horse at their house for when Cassie visits. My kid is one lucky-duck...when I was little I only rarely saw my grandparents and when I did they didn't have anything particularly cool to play with. Cassie, on the other hand, has the train at "Papa's" (Tim's parents) and the "'Orsey" at Mimi and Poppi's. Thank you for lavishing us with your love, oh Grand-Parental ones!Friday, January 25, 2008
Challenges with Toddler and Marriage
I just wrote this email to my email pen-pal, Mr. Riggins, but thought it might be a good blog-update as well. Forgive me for this 'lazy' approach to blogging!
"So much to catch you up on! Tim’s been out of town doing a ‘super-secret proposal’ project so I’ve been on my own with Cassie. I am sad to say that Wednesday marked Cassie’s very first toddler tantrum…we went downtown to celebrate my sister’s 34th birthday but her home isn’t ‘Cassie-proofed’ so there were a lot of things I had to tell her not to touch. Wow…she really didn’t like that…she slapped at my hands, said “no, no, no” and fell to the floor crying. I was in shock—I’m still mortified that my precious one is acting so horribly! My weekend project (hopefully Tim will be home this evening so I’ll have time to read again) will be to carefully study every book I can find on raising toddlers and discipline. Sigh! This might be more challenging than I expected!
I’m happy to report that Cassie indeed seems to be developing a fondness for sports as she’s been faithfully pointing out different balls to me…the football seems to stump her though…it’s not quite the same as the volleyball and basketball so she’s not sure if I’m right when I tell her it’s a ball too. We (my parents, me and Cassie) got professional pictures taken at JC Penny on Wednesday and the only way we could get her to smile was to show her a basketball that we found in the photographer's props, Once she saw the ball, out went her arms to reach for it so then we had the challenge of getting her to put her arms down, show her the ball, SMILE, and snap the picture all before her arms went back up! I was EXHAUSTED at the end of the session…From behind the camera, I danced and sang every song I knew-- all in the attempt to coax a smile from my USUALLY smiley kid! We did get some sweet photos though…the proofs will be emailed to me digitally soon, so I’ll be sure to send you the link so you can see them too.
I have another challenge here at home…my marriage. I don’t recall when you and Yola parted ways in relation to Rick’s age, but perhaps you can understand the difficulties Tim and I are having keeping our romance alive while also trying to be the best parents we can be. We’ve had several good, honest conversations about the ‘State of our Union’ and our need to protect our marriage as priority #1. Tim’s been so engrossed at work with many long hours/weekends away and I have filled my loneliness by throwing myself into motherhood. Now, it’s become a habit that all we talk about is Cassie (since his work is super-secret and he’d have to kill me if he told me what he was doing). I’m not sure how to proceed but know that the first step is in realizing that I am not innocent in this breakdown—I want to keep a teachable heart and be open to finding new ways to give Tim my love UNSELFISHLY! All THAT just to say, I’m going to be babysitting this Saturday because Tim and a friend are going to the Auto Show downtown--I’ll be watching Cassie and the friend’s little boy while they’re gone. After he’s been out of town all week, my selfish instinct is to tell him he needs to stay home with me and Cassie and not go out AGAIN to some dumb car show…but I suspect he might need the time to do something fun with a friend—he enjoys cars and I know he needs the friendship with other men. Again, I learn that marriage is more challenging than I first expected! "
I realize that the casual reader of my blog is going to just skim through all my words and look for pictures...which I'll include too...but I thought I'd take the risk to share my heart's prayer with my blog-friends. I will not allow myself to be shamed into silence because I'm facing a challenge in my journey toward Christlikeness. One day, when my little Cassie is reading this blog, I want her to find reality reflected rather than just the 'pretty' side of life. I've found a lot of comfort and encouragement to hear that my parents (who are crazy in love and just celebrated their 39th anniversary) went through a similar dry spell when my sister and I were small. God WILL be glorified in the midst of this challenge--to translate that into non Christian lingo...I will remind myself second by second that God designed marriage to develop Christlike character in me and in Tim--I will be obedient to God's plan instead of trying to make my own way. God is God, after all...and I certainly am not!
That seems like a good way to end this post...
"So much to catch you up on! Tim’s been out of town doing a ‘super-secret proposal’ project so I’ve been on my own with Cassie. I am sad to say that Wednesday marked Cassie’s very first toddler tantrum…we went downtown to celebrate my sister’s 34th birthday but her home isn’t ‘Cassie-proofed’ so there were a lot of things I had to tell her not to touch. Wow…she really didn’t like that…she slapped at my hands, said “no, no, no” and fell to the floor crying. I was in shock—I’m still mortified that my precious one is acting so horribly! My weekend project (hopefully Tim will be home this evening so I’ll have time to read again) will be to carefully study every book I can find on raising toddlers and discipline. Sigh! This might be more challenging than I expected! 
I’m happy to report that Cassie indeed seems to be developing a fondness for sports as she’s been faithfully pointing out different balls to me…the football seems to stump her though…it’s not quite the same as the volleyball and basketball so she’s not sure if I’m right when I tell her it’s a ball too. We (my parents, me and Cassie) got professional pictures taken at JC Penny on Wednesday and the only way we could get her to smile was to show her a basketball that we found in the photographer's props, Once she saw the ball, out went her arms to reach for it so then we had the challenge of getting her to put her arms down, show her the ball, SMILE, and snap the picture all before her arms went back up! I was EXHAUSTED at the end of the session…From behind the camera, I danced and sang every song I knew-- all in the attempt to coax a smile from my USUALLY smiley kid! We did get some sweet photos though…the proofs will be emailed to me digitally soon, so I’ll be sure to send you the link so you can see them too.I have another challenge here at home…my marriage. I don’t recall when you and Yola parted ways in relation to Rick’s age, but perhaps you can understand the difficulties Tim and I are having keeping our romance alive while also trying to be the best parents we can be. We’ve had several good, honest conversations about the ‘State of our Union’ and our need to protect our marriage as priority #1. Tim’s been so engrossed at work with many long hours/weekends away and I have filled my loneliness by throwing myself into motherhood. Now, it’s become a habit that all we talk about is Cassie (since his work is super-secret and he’d have to kill me if he told me what he was doing). I’m not sure how to proceed but know that the first step is in realizing that I am not innocent in this breakdown—I want to keep a teachable heart and be open to finding new ways to give Tim my love UNSELFISHLY! All THAT just to say, I’m going to be babysitting this Saturday because Tim and a friend are going to the Auto Show downtown--I’ll be watching Cassie and the friend’s little boy while they’re gone. After he’s been out of town all week, my selfish instinct is to tell him he needs to stay home with me and Cassie and not go out AGAIN to some dumb car show…but I suspect he might need the time to do something fun with a friend—he enjoys cars and I know he needs the friendship with other men. Again, I learn that marriage is more challenging than I first expected! "
I realize that the casual reader of my blog is going to just skim through all my words and look for pictures...which I'll include too...but I thought I'd take the risk to share my heart's prayer with my blog-friends. I will not allow myself to be shamed into silence because I'm facing a challenge in my journey toward Christlikeness. One day, when my little Cassie is reading this blog, I want her to find reality reflected rather than just the 'pretty' side of life. I've found a lot of comfort and encouragement to hear that my parents (who are crazy in love and just celebrated their 39th anniversary) went through a similar dry spell when my sister and I were small. God WILL be glorified in the midst of this challenge--to translate that into non Christian lingo...I will remind myself second by second that God designed marriage to develop Christlike character in me and in Tim--I will be obedient to God's plan instead of trying to make my own way. God is God, after all...and I certainly am not!
That seems like a good way to end this post...
Monday, January 21, 2008
Go Back to Sleep, Samuel!
Is it just my family or did your parents tell you the story of Samuel who, as a small boy living with Eli in the Temple, was called from sleep by the voice of God? When we couldn't sleep, my Mom would suggest that we should talk to God and see if he wants to tell us something (in the privacy of our little beds, away from the sleeping parents). So, how can I suggest the same thing for our guest-dog, Bumbi? My parents are going out of town this week on a speaking-trip for my Mom (she's a national speaker for Christian Women's Clubs) so we are watching their Maltese, Bumbi (the one being chased by Riley in the photo). Apparently, God had a lot to say to Bumbi last night because he was WIDE awake most of the night (10pm, 1am, 3am--finally, after listening to him fidget and scratch for an hour, I got up too at 4am). So, here I am blogging at an insanely early hour on a morning that HAS to be the coldest on record (temperature is 19 F at our house!). Thank God for my Aldi coffee-which HAS to be the yuckiest coffee on record! Ha. Okay, so I'm not in the most positive of moods...but who knows, maybe I'm the Samuel who needs to hear from God and Bumbi is a very unpleasant version of God's wake up call.
We have a new 'routine' for Sunday mornings...after struggling to establish a consistent pattern on Sunday mornings, we have finally determined that 8am church followed by Sunday school will be our new routine on Sundays. I'm writing it here to 'ask' for accountability with my blog-friends who might also be IBC attenders. Getting to church ON TIME with a baby is harder than getting out of bed with an annoying dog...but I believe it's so important that I'm making it my NUMBER 1 goal each weekend. If God brings us to your mind on Sunday mornings, please pray for us to get to church and have teachable hearts to absorb what God wants for us. My pride is tempting me to delete this paragraph...'don't be so vulnerable and admit your struggles' it tells me...'stick to recording Cassie's advances and skip difficulties'. But, no...my goal and purpose for this blog is to make a true and honest record for our family...something for Cassie to have when she's a new mother-for her to read about how God had to grow me into the perfect person, I'm sure, I will be by the time I'm a grandmother (ha!).
Speaking of Cassie as an adult...here's a tidbit that might interest her. January 20, 2008 was the first time Cassie made an ACTUAL deposit in the big girl potty. We came home from church and she made it 'clear' that she had some business to conduct in the bathroom. Being the sensitive Mommy that I am, I snapped some shots of this momentous occasion! After we concluded that bathroom visit, Cassie announced she was 'sleepy' and it was time for 'night night' so we popped her in bed for the afternoon nap. What a total blessing to have a little one who helps me determine her needs with her little words and expressions! Thanks for checking in with us (yes, you Miss Reno!)...we covet your prayers and would be honored if you left a little note to let us know you stopped by! Here's one last picture of Cassie-modeling a new dress from my sister, Beka. 
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