She Loves Africa

This beautiful girl fell in love with Africa last summer. 

She is Katelyn and she is currently a Freshman in college.  She went to Uganda last summer on a mission trip and plans on going back this coming summer.

It encourages me to know someone so young can be passionate about something so important. 

When I asked if I could blog about her, she was excited “to get the kids’ stories out there”.  She also asked, “also include if they would like to donate or help Village of Hope, we're in the process of moving our first set of kids to the village.. We just don't have enough funds right now to be able to do it by April, we need a miracle!”

Please take a few minutes and check out the link above.  God may move on your heart to help.

I’ve known Katelyn since she was very young.  I don’t see her very often, but I keep up with her on Facebook.  The other day her “status” was a couple of lines from the Faith Hill song, There You’ll Be, with Peyton’s initials after it.  That touched my heart and brought to my mind a Peyton story that includes Katelyn.

Katelyn and Peyton went to the same “day school”. 

There she is on the top row, 2nd from the right.  (Click on the picture to get the full effect of her lovely locks.)  One day as I was dropping Peyton off, Katelyn’s car was directly in front of us.  Katelyn was getting out of the car and she had her hair in a ponytail pretty much the way it is in this picture.  Peyton turned to me and said, “I love her ponytail”  I’ll never forget that; he was so serious.

I relayed this story to Katelyn on Facebook.  She said it made her day.  Then she told me about a time they roasted marshmallows over a heater in her garage.

Missing Peyton always, but stories like that make me smile.  The fact that people are remembering him along with me makes me smile more.

Thank you Katelyn.  You are a Godly woman with many ordained adventures ahead of you.  Love Africa and follow your heart.  Blessings to you sweet girl.

Power, Love and a Sound Mind

While responding to an email a little while ago, God revealed something to me.  Let me give some background first.

I am having a memory quilt made from Peyton’s clothing.  (I’m really looking forward to having pictures to show you when it is complete.)  The lady I was emailing had asked me where I was going to keep it.  I have a quilt rack in the living room and told her I was probably going to keep it there.  I plan on using it. 

(This is where God comes in.)  I went on to say that I like to incorporate Peyton’s things into our everyday life.  I’m not going to worry about them getting broken, dirty etc.  I want to use them.  I want to LIVE with them.  I believe that if I were to box them up and hide them away, I would be giving the “things” power over me.  That every time I saw the boxes, I would avoid them, etc. It has been hard to go through Peyton’s stuff and take hold of what we can use and throw away what we can’t and give away what would be useful for someone else.  I knew God was with me every step, but I didn’t realize why I needed to do it.  I was compelled to clean and make  use of what I could.  Facing all of it STRIPPED THESE INANIMATE OBJECTS OF THE POWER I had given them.  I can barely type through the sobs, not because of the things, but because God loves me so much.  He carried me through to victory and I didn’t even realize the depth of what He was doing.

The other night, I found another hurdle to face.  I was watching the movie mentioned in the previous post and I started crying very hard.  They were watching home movies of themselves and it got me thinking.  I’ve been wanting to watch a DVD of Peyton (it’s the sports one on my video bar) but I haven’t been able to.  This DVD evokes the most emotion.  It shows Peyton walking, running, playing catcher etc.  He is moving, he is alive and it hurts so much to watch.  I treasure it, I just haven’t been able to watch it again.  But God………………I will watch it and the power I gave it will be gone.  The power isn’t about the emotion.  I’m sure I will cry when I watch it and that’s okay.  The power is about the fear of the emotion. 

2 Tim 1:7

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Please comment, I would like to hear about some of your fears you need to conquer or have conquered.

Grey Gardens

Tom & I rented the movie Grey Gardens.  It is about Edith and Edie Beale, a mother and daughter duo who end up living in squalor with innumerous cats and all the fleas that come with them. 

They became known because they were the aunt and cousin to Jackie Kennedy.   A documentary about their day to day lives was released in 1975 and was critically acclaimed. 

The movie we watched  depicted the making of the documentary and had flashbacks of their wealthy glory years.  I watched a few videos of the true life Beales on YouTube and was shocked at how much Drew Barrymore & Jessica Lange looked like the mother daughter team.  Drew did an exceptional job speaking like Edie.

I think this is starting to sound like a movie review.  I wanted to tell you about this movie because I know how hard it is to find something worth watching.  It is also rated PG.  It has peaked my interest enough to want to watch the original 1975 documentary.

Making Room for the Future

Monday was a “snow day” for us.  We have had more snow this year than we have had in a very long time. 

I’d gotten up at 5:00 a.m. fully intending for Tom to take me to work when he went in.  The weatherman kept saying it was going to snow more and get worse, so we decided to stay home.  It did snow a lot more, but the roads weren’t that bad.  I wish I would have gone to work.  My day at home wasn’t that great.  I did bake two batches of cookies that turned out really good.  The first cookie sheet full burned on the bottom, so I adjusted my oven temperature and finished cooking the rest just fine.  When I started mixing the second batch, I knocked my mixer off the counter and broke it.  I finished the batch up with a 50 year old mixer I have sitting on my buffet for decoration.   I was thankful that it did the job.

I spent the remainder of the day cleaning closets, switching out books in two bookcases and cleaning more on Peyton’s room.   It is still hard.  I don’t like it.  I don’t want to go in there and physically face the fact that he does not need his “things” anymore.  I cry and it sucks the energy out of me.  I want to write something positive, but I am still having a pity party.  I still want him to come home.  I know he’s in Heaven, but I want Peyton here with us, making us laugh and thinking about our future.

It came to me just now that I am thinking and planning for our future.  I have been cleaning and organizing things so the “little ones” we know will have a space to have their toys and a place to play.  God is moving me forward in spite of myself.  He loves me so much.

This post has been all over the place.  I had to wait until after I wrote it to title it.  Thanks for wandering through it with me. :)

Tax Season Fun!!!!!

I work for a CPA firm.  The general feeling about accountants is that they are boring.  Well I’m hear to tell you, our firm is not.  Every year we have a theme for tax season and we have different “socials” throughout January – April 15th.  These “socials” usually include lunch and some sort of “challenge”.  This year’s theme is “Around the World in 80 days of Tax Season”.  We’ve been divided into teams and each team has their own hot air balloon.  Our team “the Jet Setters” won the balloon decorating contest.  Yea Team!!!

 

Here is a slide show of our balloons and the decorations of the “launch” of our balloons for the trip Around the World.

We have passports.  It lists all the destinations and the dates we are to “arrive” at each one. 

We’ve already reached our first destination, Rio De Janeiro.  We arrived just in time for Carnival.  We had to build our own floats for the Carnival parade.  We were given basic supplies, balloons, tissue paper and decorations from previous years socials to decorate our “float” aka office chair.  (I was too busy helping create our float to get pictures of it). Everyone participated and had a great time.  These socials are an important part of what makes our co-workers so close.  We work hard together and we have fun together.  A very special lady does the coordinating of these events.  If she’ll let me, I want to do a post about her…..we’ll see.

Our next stop……….Paris, for a Valentine celebration.  WooooHoooooo!!!

Tattoo

Peyton wanted a tattoo.  He was an avid hunter and wanted the Browning symbol on his side.  (Browning is a brand of hunting clothes, etc.)  It was fine with me as long as it wasn’t in a prominent place.  Before he turned 16 I called around to several places to see if they would do it.  I only found one place that would give a 16 yr old, with parental consent a tattoo.  I decided if they were the only ones that would do it, we didn’t want them.  Peyton was disappointed.

The day after the funeral, Tom got a tattoo.  It is the same design Peyton wanted.  I remember that day like it was yesterday.   We had three of Peyton’s best friends with us.  We went to the western store where one of them bought a new cowboy hat.  Then we met two other friends at the tattoo parlor.  Amanda was one of them.  We are all standing there watching Tom get his tattoo and her mom calls.  I hear Amanda say, “I’m at the tattoo parlor.”  I’m sure those are words her mother never expected to hear her say.  LOL

As you can see, Tom got two of them, one to represent him and the other to represent Peyton.  I used to watch the show “Miami Ink”.  People would come in and get portraits of their deceased loved ones tattooed on themselves.  I always thought that was kind of creepy……..until now.  I’m not getting one, I just don’t think that it’s weird anymore.  Funny how your opinion can change when you are in different shoes.   Here are pictures of other tattoos kids have gotten since Peyton has been gone.  I find it ironic they have all gotten old enough to get them, while Peyton is forever 16.

The first has Peyton’s initials above the bird’s wing (the other initials are her grandfather’s).  The second is a heart with his name and date of his home going.  The fact that they would permanently memorialize him on their bodies humbles me.

 

Thanks for reading :)

Clean-up and Peyton Story #5

As I said in my previous post, I spent ALL DAY Saturday cleaning up our extra bedroom.  The computer and the treadmill are in there and it had become a catch all for all kinds of stuff. 

I had been a little emotional on the days leading up to this cleaning frenzy and as I was going through things, I found several reminders of Peyton (not that I need to be reminded, he’s usually at the forefront of my mind).  I have put off cleaning this room because it meant going through a lot of papers.  I knew there would be evidence of Peyton throughout the room.  I didn’t want to face it.  I didn’t want to clean it, let alone acknowledge the feelings of loss I was experiencing…….again.

I found this drawing. 

I told the story behind it in this post.

I found his first savings account book.  This comes with a Peyton story.  He was 5 years old.  I took him to the bank to open up his account.  The “new accounts” lady was asking all the required questions, name, address, etc.  She kept directing the questions to me, but Peyton would answer them.  Finally, she turned to him and asked, “Where do you work?”  Peyton said, “Down at the creek with my dad.”  We had lived on our property for about a year and there was still a lot of land to be cleared.  Peyton spent hours down at the creek piling up brush with Tom.  In his mind and heart, he did “work” down at the creek with his dad.  Remembering this story did make me smile. 

I also cleaned some more stuff out of his room too.  I found some baseball hats and put them in the trash.  I got them out of the trash and took pictures of them.

I couldn’t stand not having them.  Our family spent so many hours at the baseball fields. 

I’m still working on rearranging some things.  I am starting to use Peyton’s closet as storage for some Christmas stuff. 

My mind is cluttered too.  I can’t put the memories in boxes or photo albums and tuck them neatly away in my brain.  His face and even his voice, pop into my thoughts constantly.  I want to enjoy the memories, but I’ve been having a hard time doing this. 

I am turning to God’s word.  It is my lifeline.  It is truth.  It is love.  I will come out on the other side victorious and I can’t wait to tell you about it when I get there.

 

Playin’ in the Snow!!!!!

We got quite a bit of snow on Friday.  Here are some pictures of what went on around here on Saturday. 

Tom is being pulled by my cousin Jason.  I’m so glad Tom missed that electric pole!!!!

The dogs thought that this was big fun.

Through the day we had 8 different teenagers over here being pulled by the four wheeler.  It was a lot of fun for them. 

I was in the house staying warm and organizing an extra bedroom and linen closet.  I was on a roll and wanted to get it finished.  I took a picture of the room “before” so I could show my accomplishment in another post.