The Music with Mommie Lady

Stop and Smell the Hollyhocks...

2011-04-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

The God I know and love does not require me to be happy all the time. He enjoys whatever expression I send His way. That includes joy as well as sorrow, delight as well as frustration, excitement as well as boredom. A fully-developed relationship with God is one where I share all of me.

"Before sunlight can shine through a window, the blinds must be raised." -American Proverb

Today I am feeling rather contented. Which is a little strange, but hey I'm goin' for it. And I am taking back what I have lost in trying to please everyone but myself. To thine own self be true, and writing is one of my joys. So whether I am funny one day, sad another day, or a complete dimwit the other, I plan to continue to be true to the person I am. A woman, a mom, a friend, a sister, a wife, a business owner, a therapy lover ;) haha so funny but it's true, a writer of songs and stories, and whatever else I feel like doing that day!
I was once reminded by a very dear and old friend who was my mentor for many years that life is all about "for fun and for free". Now she knew full well that life isn't free, but the point of the tellin' is that if we focus on doing what we love, with the heart of "for fun or for free", that the burdens of life are lifted and suddenly we realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves, as we give our lives over to the care of God one day at a time, with our hearts in the right place.
This is not exactly the heart of the business world. I know. I have been dealing with the business world for the past three and a half years with business people saying things to me like, "What? What is Music with Mommie exactly? Do you like dance in a circle and things?"
Business men, in general, don't exactly get it.
I will respond with something like "We are an early childhood music and movement program that teaches important life skills to young children, builds community among moms and enhances the mother-child bond."
To which I generally get a cock-eyed cocker spaniel look.
I was relieved and amazed to work with a marketing company nearby who were the first "business people" to actually affirm what I was doing. And who could actually translate my right brained self into a marketing plan that is walkable.
So I breathe...
And I say to myself, "If this is God's will, and this is God's company, and I put Him first and do my part, admit where I fall short and do my best, the results are not in my hands, they are in His."
And that is where I am today.
I do my part, and I leave the results to God.
The challenge is in staying in today. As a mother I can completely lose myself in my children, my husband, my house, making meals, trying to figure out how to get my laundry done, the MwM website reworked, the marketing plan put into walkable bullet points, get my animals fed, my house remodel finished, my dogs bathed, my children fed, my toenails painted by someone other than a two year old... And I can forget to breathe. To stop and smell the hollyhocks.
But when I do, I am so glad I did.
Because life is in the right now. And right now I am living it.
Earlier this morning, after my husband left for the office, I grabbed my guitar, sat on the farmhouse front porch and sang my songs as my children played in their sandbox. The birds sang right along with me and my Basset Hound, Hank, didn't even howl.
That was progress.
And my heart went glad when I stopped momentarily and my daughter in her sandbox, who I didn't even think was listening said,
"Keep singing mama!"
So contentment is God's gift to me today. Because I cannot give that to myself. It is a gift. And a gift I am thankful for.
All for the giving, and the taking,
And the planting.
Progress, not perfection-
Stacy

Be Still and Know...

2011-04-18T20:13:00.000-07:00

When I was a little girl, I thought of God as a big man who required Shirley Temple curls, three teired fancy dresses and shiny black shoes on Sundays to want to be with me. I often wondered why my mother had to drop me off in pink, funkily painted, cenderblock rooms for Sunday School to learn about God. I mean, wasn't God OUTSIDE? "He isn't in here", I would think. He's "out THERE".
I have always experienced God in nature. I remember spending time down at the creek when I was a kid, just to watch the water roll by. No thoughts at all. Just ripples and light and the sound of water running off the rocks.
I guess I have always wondered why people complicate God so.
The birds of the air, they do not labor or spin, and look all of their needs are provided.
They don't complicate things. They just take their worms and run. "Thank you very much", says the bird and hums a little tune.
They don't fuss about theology, or play in bands, or take up collections for buildings, or convince people of their sins. They just flitter about, little this little that, and we watch them in awe, in nature, and think, "Wow. God is a big God to make all this, huh? Just for me."
My children and I wake up in the mornings and first thing we do is go look out the farmhouse window and see if the birds are awake yet, and if they are eating their bird seed next to the big oak tree.
As I watch my little boy and my little girl look out the window, it reminds me of that Dr. Suess book where the little boy and the little girl are looking out the window, except it's not raining and the Cat in the Hat isn't really coming over. That's the difference between real, and well, not.
And I have been reminded that we, we humans, especially me, have a tendency to mold our image of what we want our life to look like and then put it on God like, "Here ya go, this is what I want, deliver buddy. Turn some tricks and make it funny." With our laundry list of expectations.
Some of us learn fast, others of us slow, sometimes painfully slow, that it doesn't quite work that way. God and Dr. Suess are very different you see. And I've had it backwards quite a while.
It goes more like this: "God, I offer myself to Thee. To build with me, and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self so that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, so that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Love, Thy Power and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy will always."
That is a prayer of surrender.
And there is no easier, or softer way.
Thy will, not my will be done.
And then I realize, while I am watching the birds out my window, that He has been here all along. Been with me all the while. Sitting and watching with me out my farmhouse window. Waiting for me to surrender my "idea" of Him. So that I can see him sitting right beside me. And he's not in a hurry at all.
And then I realize that the fear of people and of economic insecurity have left me.
And I can sit and watch in peace.

The Gift Of A Seed...

2011-04-17T11:30:00.001-07:00

Sunshine does me a world of good. And gratitude. I spent the morning planting seeds, garden walkways, painting an old picnic table, picking up sticks and putting them on the firepit, rummaging through the pile of rocks from the 100 year old chimney we removed from our farmhouse 2 1/2 years ago, and watched my half-naked son in amazement as he pee-peed on a tree for the first time, all by himself, and then pooped in the garage right by our pet bunny Lola. "Just like Joshua." he said, referring to the potty book his Mimi reads to him regularly, as with faith she reads knowing that one fine day my Lukey will up and "get it".
Sunshine after a good rain does my soul good. I have two weeks off of school to gather my thoughts, do some gardening, spend time with my children without thinking of tests and papers and group projects. Between school and work and raising two children on a farm, I have been reminded by an old and dear friend that I have at some level "lost myself". So easy to do as a mother trying to do everything right.
And yet in my heart I feel like I have turned a corner. I can't quite explain it, but it is a permission I have finally given myself to succeed, and do what is in my heart to do, kind of a recollecting of old dreams put into a new format and nobody but me could say, "Here you go gal, go for it."
I have had friends along the way encourage me with gusto, mentors who believed in me, a mother who thinks I'm wonderful (nothing like a mama that thinks you're wonderful even when you're not acting so wonderful), but I have come to realize that until you believe in yourself, no amount to belief from others can take you from the bed to the car to the destination unless you decide you deserve it.
"I was raised in an alcoholic home", has been my internal excuse most of my life. That "home" is now a thing of the past, only a fragment in my mind, even if alive most days in my heart, and I have to come to a place where I am willing to lay down the past and not allow it to control my present and future any longer.
Only I can decide if my dreams are worth reaching.
Only I can decide if going out on a limb is worth the risk.
Only I can decide if the risk is worth taking, and life is full of risks, isn't it?
Nobody promised me life would be easy.
And I cannot continue to compare my insides with others outsides.
I have to come to a place where the sun is worth enjoying, my gifts are worth sharing, and believing in myself maybe will be that bit of perfume that helps other women believe in themselves as well.
We've bought a granny sack full of lies- lies that we are not worth success, that having money is "un-holy", that shouldn't we be more "humble".
I'm not sure where exactly I picked all this up, but today, in the sunshine, somewhere among all the seeds, I laid it all down.
And today I am looking forward to seeing the sprouts, and the flowers and the harvest.
Amazing what a gift of seeds will do.
All for the giving, and the taking.
And the planting.
-Stacy

You Know You're Alive When You're Still Dreamin'

2011-04-14T18:06:00.000-07:00

Today I had the fun opportunity to visit Music with Mommie class in Cool Springs and had a great time. And some things occurred to me. Number one. Wow that this class still exists. Number Two. Can't believe my daughter is going to turn five in May. Number Three. In a few weeks, we will begin taking applications for moms with musical backgrounds who would like to teach Music with Mommie class in their communities. Number Four. I can't believe it. The mere fact that this class still exists without me teaching it is amazing to me, really. I'm kind of dumbfounded. It's like up there with walking on water.
For those of you that do not know, I am working as a therapeutic case manager (contract work) for LifeCare Family Services while finishing up my masters in Marriage and Family Therapy from Trevecca Nazarene University. My plan and dream is to first, get my license working with an agency. And then, God willing and I live, I want to build on to the back of my farmhouse and start a private practice called Sunnybrook Counseling for Kids.
In the meantime, I am in grad school (three semesters left somebody tell me I can do this), juggling swim lessons, a two year old boy who wants me to take him to the zoo for the monkeys to raise him, and I just might, my husband who has worked in the music industry for 20 years and has a crazy schedule, and my daughter who is smarter than me....
Oh and then there is the fact we are taking care of a FARM. Yes people I just don't know when to quit. But I think I have officially hit my limit, which is a good thing. Limits are good ;)
I am a person so full of ideas it makes me crazy. I was so comforted in my grad school personality development class when I found out my personality type is the one that most entreprenuers have. They should tell you this in elementary school. Seriously people. I should have known that a long time ago.
I wake up in the night with ideas, I drive, I get ideas. Thankfully my husband listens. He does a lot of smiling and nodding. He listens a lot. He has probably grown several pairs of ears since he married me almost 12 years ago. Thank God for ears.
Anyways, I digress. So I am really happy that Music with Mommie finally, and I say FINALLY, has the opportunity to grow. We are getting a new website look- thanks to JOE DESIGN the most wonderful designer God ever made that I am so happy to get to work with. And so here is my dream. You wanna' hear it?
My dream is that I get to work as a child therapist on my farm. And that I get to see moms all over the country take this class. Is that so hard? Is that realistic? I'm just askin' because sometimes I think am I dreaming too big here? Am I just impatient or what?
Yeah. Prob'ly impatient. (I am hearing Eeyore in my head right now.)
I have another dream too if you wanna' hear it.
I wanna' do another record. OKAY there I said it I wanna' do another record.
In all my spare time.
That's it for today folks. I'm signin' off.
Over and out.
Just keepin' you updated.
Stacy-

"Biscuits" by Lukey

2011-03-12T18:07:00.000-08:00

Hi Max.
Hi Hanky.
Hi Chicken.
Hi Kitty Kitty.
Big red door opens.
I play piano.
All done.
Biscuits!!
I make biscuits with mommy.
Stir stir stir
Stir the biscuits.
Cook now.
Sit in my seat.
Sissy in her seat.
Butter now.
Jelly now.
Honey now.
We eat biscuits.
All done.
Big mess.
Boots on.
Help daddy.
Barn.
Feed chickens.
Bok Bok Bok Bok
Big cow.
Moooooooo.....
Walk with daddy.
Cow poop.
Pond now.
Throw rocks.
POW! Wow.....
Walk now.
Hi horses!
Carrots.
Mmmmmm.....
Walk now.
Walk with mommy.
Tired.
Farmhouse!
Boots off.
Rest now.
Bed now.
Nap nap.......sleeeeepy sleep.....dreamin' of......
BISCUITS!!!!!!

Jesus and an Ice Cream Sandwich

2011-02-13T11:59:00.000-08:00

Conversations with a 4 year old.

Me: "Ya'll wanna split an ice cream sandwich?" Rebekah: "Can I have the biggest piece?" Me: "Well yes, but if you want to know what Jesus would do- He would give your brother the biggest piece." Rebekah: "Well I'm not Jesus."

You never know what a four year old will say. Or a two year old for that matter, but for this conversation we're talkin' bout my four year old.
So THIS conversation got me to thinkin'. WOULD Jesus have shared the bigger half of his ice cream sandwich?
Now I'm not talking about Jesus at 30 when he was an adult. You know the "Adult" Jesus who hangs on crosses in churches and is very, very serious in antique Bible books. I'm talkin' bout FOUR YEAR OLD Jesus. Would HE have shared his ice cream sandwich. We do a lot of talkin' about baby Jesus and died-on-the-cross Jesus. We don't do a lot of talkin' about four year old share your ice cream sandwich Jesus.
So let's talk. What do you think??

Little Cabin in the Woods

2011-02-08T09:12:00.000-08:00

Little Cabin in the Woods - I remember...

How do I love thee
Let me count the ways
I love thy dirt and cracks
And mouse droppings
I love the birds chirping
And the chicken hiding underneath
I love the outhouse
The bear hanging oh so cleverly
I love the blue moon
Knocking it's entrance
I love the rock pathway
to the garden overgrown
with tomatoes and weeds
and the oversized Boy Scout swing
Made of tree trunks
And the old wicker swing
Homemade wood to replace
It's decrepity
I love the bentwood lounge
Rickety and never quite level
I love the old coondog
The mutt dog
The annoying cat
named after my grandfather
to no fault of his own
I love the three mile walks
Past the creek
Past the old cabin
the doctor built but never visited
I love Grandpa and Grandma's
70 year old white farmhouse
Full of their patraticky things
they never threw away
And the five broken down lawnmowers
Waiting for the depression to strike once again
I love the shed full of moss covered
Garage sale items waiting for
Miss Suzy to come and open once
Again for summer. Monday through Friday 9am-1pm
With lemonade to spare
I love the oil lamps burning
Warming my cottage like a
Painting by Norman Rockwell
and the smell of the
Wood stove
Cooking breakfast
with black iron skillets and
my husband with his apron
And his boyish smile
I love the owl hoo
The wolves' crazy wild parties
When all is sleeping
I love the creeking doors
The fact that none of the doors
Have ever locked
And the shotgun holes
through all the entryways
I love the well pump
And the sound of dogs lapping
After a good romp chasing
The airplanes
I love the wild turkey families
And the baby deer
But most of all
I love my free spirit
My wandering mind
In all of it's aloneness
Swinging in the trees.

My Poems Hide...

2011-02-07T13:42:00.000-08:00

My poems hide in the bubbles
The Epsom salt box
The toothpaste container
The carton of half-n-half
My poems hide in my daughter's
See and Say
With the rooster and the cow
My poems hide in my dog's eyes
At the bottom of my sheets
In the corner of my bedroom window
They hide in my grandmother's attic
In my childhood homes
All sad and lonely
Waiting to be discovered
My poems hide in the deep
Recesses of my mind
All subconscious
Growing slowly, like an avocado
My poems hide
Sideways like peppermint
Popping up in the most peculiar
And embarrassing places
My poems hide in the
Left center of my chest cavity
Lurking around the corner
Waiting to stand up and be counted
My poems hide
Sickly and worn
Beaten down by air and brush
And the mean places
They want to come out
But my poems hide
They hide from the sun
And from people
And from life itself
They come out at Carol's house
When they are dug up
With a shovel and a hoe
And with caring hands
But on all other days
They hide
Shy and wondering they hide
Like a worn out child
They hide
Looking for a rescuer
They hide
They found shelter
So they hide
And hide
And hide

So Nashville...

2011-02-06T11:16:00.000-08:00

I'm still digging up old journals trying to spark my creative writer who is dying to get back out. I enjoyed reading this entry from a few years back. :)
Ron took me to the Grand Ole Opry, the mother church of country music tonight and my brain automatically started fantasizing about how skinny I would look if my five foot four frame got stretched out to six foot two like country diva Terri Clark’s kick butt self. Then when Lorrie Morgan started singing with her mouth open real wide I started wondering if her dentist ever had to remove any big nasty gold fillings and what if she got a gold front tooth with an ‘L’ engraved on it and started rapping with Snoop Dog, kind of like a Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock duo. And then I wondered how many days a week she gets to go to the Hendersonville spa she promotes in the Nashville Scene with only her robe on and how many times she gets a mud wrap and a paraffin facial and a full body salt scrub and falls asleep in Chinese meditation land on comfy three thousand dollar sheets laying inside a leafy garden with a brook running through the middle.
Then I started to think, I really did grow up in this hick filled, goo goo sellin’, honky tonk big small town. Seems like my whole life I have been trying to get out of here and everybody else seems to be moving mountains to arrive. I do love Minnie Pearl though. I know she is dead but man do I love her. How-dee!
Then this little Ricky Shroeder looking dude that looked like a substitute teacher from Topeka, Kansas, came out and sang a few heart wrenching ballads and the crowd went wild. The gal next to me raised her hands and started doing spirit fingers and I started remembering how cute Ricky Shroeder was and how I really hoped I had a little boy that cute and endearing one day and how I won’t let him get involved in boxing.
Then this really old dude named Jim Ed Brown entered stage right and I started to think how this would really remind me of my dad if he was dead, but he’s not dead. There is something about those old Jim Reeves sounding voices that make me think of dad and his guitar and his old Red Sovine records and his storytelling and his hot sauce and how he would fart in the kitchen right at the most opportune moments when one of my friends and I would be playing Mrs. Pac Man in the living room on my Atari 1800.
Rhonda Vincent, the queen of bluegrass, sang a super speed version of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” and tears started hotting up behind my eyes and I started thinking about my dad and when he took me up to Dolly’s house up on top of a big ole mountain in Townsend, Tennessee because he knew I loved her music as much as the ice cream at Bobbie’s Double Dip on Charlotte Avenue. I listened to that “I Will Always Love You” record with Dolly and her red bandana head and bandana blouse on the floor of our River Plantation condo in Bellevue, right across from the miles of cow and corn fields that now holds a huge shopping center that has now unfortunately contracted the deserted mall disease. At five years old I was swept away into Dolly’s life and soul and escaped to a world of Holly Hobby record player bliss when I didn’t know yet there was something to escape from. Who would have ever known I would live in a cabin so similar to hers twenty four years later trying to find my roots and simple things and a chance get that family feeling and a coat of many colors, not made from rags, but from conversations with my husband and with dreams of what life ought to be like. I have always been a dreamer and an idealist of sorts trying to live in yesterday and in tomorrow. It is just recently I have been learning the art of living in today, in this moment, in today’s skin. At the moment, the Rhonda Vincent band is playing a song as fast as an old Charlie Chaplan movie on speed and I think I’ll go home and write an album full of old country songs that make me think about the Shiloh trip Daddy took me on when all I did was complain when he was just trying to teach me a little history and where we have come from. Songs that remind me of the Jim Reeves statue Daddy took me to go see. He never told me Jim Reeves was his hero, but somehow sitting in that old church downtown makes me know. After all most of the songs Daddy sung for me on my guitar were old Jim Reeves songs and Jim Reeves stories about how he used to record unreleased songs for his wife in place of life insurance, because apparently they didn’t have any. Songs that remind me of the farm where my Daddy took me to see where his parents lived in a tent before building their first house and having their first baby and the tree where Daddy sh-- on his big brother’s head after waiting all day for him to stand underneath the limb without noticing his bare behind squatting like a zoo monkey.
All the rhinestones at the Grand Ole Opry must make Porter Wagner awful proud. Is he dead yet? Seems like most of these artist could be dead or are on their way to being dead. Just sitting in these pews makes me want to go home and make a pan of black skillet Martha White cornbread and a pot of beans with a ham hock in it and enter a 4-H beans and cornbread contest. And Marty Stuart’s rockabilly self makes me want to dance with a beer in one hand and the Bible in the other. I think he invented bed head.
After waiting all night I got to hear my favorite of all acts, The Sweet Harmony Traveling group that consisted of all my musical influences. Emmylou Harris, who I get to stare at when I see her at the Green Hills Wild Oats drinking coffee and driving off in her topless jeep driving in the rain. Patti Griffin, whoo God broke the mold when he installed that voice. Gillian Welch, who reminds me of Popeye’s wife Olive Oil, except she can sing cowgirl songs like nobody’s business. And Buddy Miller, who makes me wonder if my toilet needs plumbing. He sings like an undiscovered plumber, except he is discovered, or rather he discovered himself.

Rules of the South

2011-02-06T06:28:00.000-08:00

I feel sorry for people who move here. To the south that is. You know, the folks that come from California, from New England and Ohio. They come down here and get all shnookered with our howdy's and our hello's, our yes sugar's and our flashy smiles. "Oh it's just so friendly! The people are so NICE." Oh honey...
Ten years later and they are just BEGINNING to get it. Somebody needs to teach a class on the rules of the South (and other dangers of Southern Living.)
Let's just start with Rule #1. (And for all you southerners out there that think I'm breakin' all the rules? Yeah well somebody has to.)
Rules of the South-
Rule #1:
Just because the lady at the Pancake Place called you "Sugar" doesn't mean you are moving to Mayberry, or Heaven, or that everybody in the south is going to have you over for grits and coffee. Half the time she's not even thinking about what she is saying and truth be told she just wants her feet to stop hurting and to have a smoke break as soon as possible. It's not personal, it's just a word.
Rule #2:
Unless you are a complete and total athiest, you might as well sign up for "Church Membership" as soon as is humanly possible. Because I promise you the first words out of anybody's mouth around here will be "Hi. Nice to meet you.... (they turn their head one way, back the other way...) And what church do you attend?" DO NOT I repeat DO NOT look at them with a blank stare, or you will immediately be put on the local "We're prayin for you honey" list. Now. You need to understand. They are doing this out of the kindness of their hearts. (Sort of.) This is the culture of the south. Do not take it personally. Trust me honey either walk down the aisle, fill out the paperwork and start makin' casseroles or just have a church name ready to ROLL OFF YOUR TONGUE as soon as humanly possible after the question is asked. You could even use The Church of (enter your street name of your home address). Then they will say, "Oh. I haven't heard of that one yet." There are so many churches around here they will never know the difference, but the importance is to have the name come out of your mouth quickly and easily. You can then proceed to have a conversation about not a whole lot.
**NOTE TO SELF: (And when they ask you to dinner- Somethin' like this (big huge smile, draw out the last word)... "YA'LL HAVE TO COME OVER FOR DINNER SOMETIIIME!!!" That means absolutely nothing so just let it fall to the floor, into the air and let it disintegrate- don't hold a grudge- they are SOUTHERN and 98.5% percent of the time you will never, ever see the inside of that person's home for supper. It is the equivalent of weather talk. Like... "Yeah the weather is lookin' kinda' blustery out there. See you later." Again, it's not personal. It's the SOUTH.
Rule #3: If you came here to get into the "Music Business", I am so so sorry. Turn around. Do not pass Go. Go to your nearest bus station and get the heck home. It's not what you think it is. You can either take my word for it or get stuck here like the rest of the million and four folks who refuse to admit it. I was BORN here. I can SAY this. Go home. Bless the socks off your local area. If you are fabulous, come here and train, record, have meetings, whatever. If you are SUPER fabulous, you will know it is the right thing to do to move to Music City. But for the love of God do not just get in your car and move here thinking you are going to be the next God-Knows-Who. I'm a lover, not a hater, but I'm tellin' you. Grey Hound.
Now, having said all that. I was born and raised in the South. My family is here. My long time, precious friends are here. There are sweet, loving people here who walk slow, talk slow and know how to make a mean pot 'o beans with ham. I have actually wanted to move to New England until about a week ago. Why? The scenery, the "intelligent" people, the history, the beauty, the NO B.S. But somehow by the grace of God, I have learned (last week..I know I'm a little slow), that the grass really isn't greener. That New Hampshire is beautiful but my beautiful friends and family won't be there. That it is cold as a freaker. That I am blessed where I am. My granny was southern, her granny was southern. I'm southern. My daddy is REAL southern. So I've decided to embrace my heritage. Ham hocks and all. You know what they say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. So here's to you SOUTH. Looks like I'm here to stay...

"I'm proud to be from the South - where tea is sweet and accents are sweeter; summer starts in April; front porches are wide and words are long; macaroni and cheese is a vegetable; pecan pie is a staple; Y’all is the only proper pronoun; chicken is fried and biscuits come w/ gravy; everything is darling and someone is always getting their heart blessed. Have a good day y'all!..."

The Journey is the Reward

2011-02-06T05:02:00.000-08:00

"The Journey is the Reward ”
by Stacy Jagger

All of my experiences
One by one
All locked up together
Meaningful and few
Precious, like stones
Diamonds among them
Taking each one
To make something beautiful
Time is not lost
Lost is not time
I am on time
Not late, nor early
I am neither young, nor old
Depending your stature
Compared to Mathusala
I am a mere child
Wisdom I have sought you
Though too stupid to know if I have any
Smart enough to know
The only problems I have
Lie between my ears
Seeds thrown
This way and that
Water them and watch them grow
For there is no easier or softer way
The road is slow and easy
Bends from nowhere
Just to see them
And for no other reason
For the journey is the reward
And I am in it

Cracked Pots

2011-02-05T21:02:00.000-08:00

It is in the small, silent spaces in life that I realize how richly blessed I am. How many lovely, wonderful, good-listening friends I have. What a wonderful family God has so lavished me with. The phone rings with a friend of many years, and I sigh in relief that in this chasm of a world, I am not alone. The silence is deafening in a home with a sleeping baby, and a husband gone for the evening. But in this silence I get to take stock of the bounty of blessings and I count one by one. Occasionally interrupted by grumpy voices of irritation that my life has not turned out exactly as I had planned, I look through my mind’s eye of the road less traveled and I am thankful for my somewhat uneventful, ordinary life. I am thankful especially for my loved ones that love me in spite of my mood swings and post-partum blues singing. I am thankful for my home that breathes a sense of humor in every corner, except for my bedroom and master bath that reeks of adultness. Speaking of adultness, I am one now. That is somewhat scary to me, as I always have my inner two year old climbing on every counter of my mind, screaming “mine! mine!” and crossing her arms in disbelief that the world, in fact, doesn’t revolve around her after all. What a bummer. My mentor, just yesterday, suggested that I might think about the possibility of surrendering my sense of self-importance, as it might be getting in the way of surrendering my life to the care of a loving God, just for today. For when our lives are run by self-importance, it is much easier for the prayer to get switched to “My Will, Not Thine, Be Done”. I am sure I would be the next in line for the God-position. After all, don’t I know best? Oh my immature, shortsighted mind. I can’t get her to listen for the life of me. But all is well. I am human yet another day and I have two rather large thighs to prove it. Yet grateful they work, even if I will never grace the cover of Mademoiselle or even Plump Petite for that matter. I am keenly aware today, that God needs a cracked pot. His sick sense of humor requires it, you see, to have his Glory Shine Through. Liquid gold glory just a’pourin. All because of my thighs. Man am I holy or what.

Anyways, thanks for listening to my rather poetic wandering there. For a minute I thought I might be a genius. I’m coming out of it now. Back to earth. Back to the dishes and the fact that I am teaching the neighborhood kids how to sing Zipadeedoodah. You know, Zipadeeday, My Oh my what a beautiful day? Yeah, that one. It is a beautiful day after all, isn’t it? At least when I look into their faces I believe that. Even when it is snowing (not—Nashville weather men are liars). Sorry Demetria. She’s not the weatherman, I just thought she deserved an apology anyways. It’s either my codependency or I am starting to feel guilty about making fun of her hair all these years. That’s what you get when you never leave your hometown, even if it is Nashville…

I Married A Perfectionist

2011-02-05T13:04:00.000-08:00

I am mustering up the courage (see previous post) to write again. So I am digging up old journal entries and posting them to remember how much I loved the creative writing process. That is what we need sometimes I have found. To dig up the old bones, sort em out and build something new. Enjoy this entry from six years ago, before I started birthing children and losing my creative self to diapers, wipes and passies. Grateful for motherhood. Not so grateful that I left myself behind somewhere in the corner crying out, "Hey! Wait for me! What about ME?" These days I am finding that leaving my creative self behind was a mistake. But we don't get there till we get there. And now I'm there, picking up the pieces, looking for my Stacy, the one that was born to be creative, just for the sake of it. An old, wise friend and counselor once told me, and I will never forget it. She said, "My job is to help you find and become who you always were." Profound. And now I'm so thankful she's still in there. Fiesty, opinionated, fragile and hopeful. And honest. Enjoy...
It took me five years, seven months, and two and a half days to figure out I married a perfectionist. Never mind that I studied the basic temperaments, knew I was a sanguine, or an otter, or an ESFP or whatever. Knew I was a total right-brained, creative, free spirited, "Oh would she please grow up" type. I knew I was bound for a lifetime of childlikeness, which is not to be confused with childishness because I make my bed now. Knew that my husband was my incontestable, undeniable polar opposite.
During one of our premarital sessions, I looked our counselor square in the eye and asked, "Do you really think we'll make it?" She replied with four little words that made me real glad we didn't just hop in the car on a whim and do a drive-in ceremony at the nearest get-married-for-forty-bucks Pigeon Forge wedding chapel. "Marriage is the cross," she said.
Oh, well now you tell me. Forty-eight weeks at eighty dollars a pop, and now you tell me "marriage is the cross." I didn't ask for any more information. I didn't quite know what that meant then, and I'm not sure if I know now, but at the time those four little words sobered me up like a crack addict on a four-day tour of Israel with Joyce Meyer.
Being married to a left-brained, charts and graphs, recipe to the 't' man of my dreams who orders his number two pencils from a special pencil company in California and reads manuals to everything, and I mean everything, including my Singer sewing machine from cover to cover, can make a girl grow a second head. My one head says, "Oh, Honey, I love you. You are wonderful. . . . You read manuals, you change the oil in my car, you show me how to work the computer, and you have a map and directions to every city known to man. . . ." My other head says, "Oh, God, I am locked in a prison of letter dotting and special pencils and long explanations of exactly why T-shirts should be folded without the crease going down the middle."
Manuals to me are an excuse for entertainment for some sick brain-o-maniac somewhere in Japan who has a little too much time on his hands, and whose sole purpose in life is to make me feel stupid. To my husband, manuals are the key to all knowledge and must be mastered with great skill and read slowly like a C. S. Lewis novella.
Before meeting my husband, I never dreamed what my future husband would be like. I assumed that one day it would just come and bite me in the butt like a giant horsefly on a hot summer day. And it did. And I know God loves me enough to give me what I need and that we balance each other out and opposites attract and all that horse malarkey. But that doesn't make it any easier. I guess it is just God's sick way of making me realize that without His help I would be swimming in a pool of "I can't get my husband to do what I want him to do" brain sludge for the rest of my natural born life.
Not that we argue or anything. For a while even I was under the perfectionist spell, and I actually started to think we were both pretty close to perfect. This is mind-blowing given the fact that I have been hyper-aware all my life of my utter lack of perfection, that perfection is nowhere on my list of positive character qualities, nor is it anywhere to be found on my rather short resume.
In the beginning of our beautiful life together, I was determined to rise above the adversity I found in our oppositeness. So I chameleoned, and I Mennonited myself. I wore really long dresses and no make-up, and I even learned to bake a perfect loaf of freshly ground perfectly sliced whole wheat bread from scratch. And let me tell you, that was one very long three-day sacrifice of praise.
These days, I'm learning to embrace our differences and the fact that some days I feel like waking up, stretching long, putting on a long dress and red lipstick, and jumping straight out the window. But then I remember there is no controlling it. When I feel like taking a two-person bicycle ride on a sunny day in Georgia, he is locked up in the rules and regulations of traveling with a two person bicycle on the back of my 1992 convertible Volkswagen Cabriolet. When I feel like going to a Bonnie Raitt concert in downtown Chicago, he is stuck in his Greek concordance trying to figure out the genealogy of Israel and where they migrated after Christ ascended. Finding common ground is like finding the Holy Grail in a sweat suit.
On my best day, which is not today, I am grateful my man takes care of me. I'm glad I get to paint and play while he works his little perfectionist-workaholic- get-up-at-the-crack-of-rooster-ain’t-got-no-time-for-fun-‘cause-the- man’s-gotta-work-bound-up-little-self off. I wish I could say something really spiritual and holy and wonderful like, “I deeply appreciate my man’s differences today, because God in all of his creativity and holiness saw fit that I, a woman in need, needed a man to help straighten me out and give me a good taste of stale crackers. Now I know how it feels to really thirst for the good living water of God.” And then I could stabber on about how God is quenching my thirst because of these stale, dried up crackers I’ve been eating for the past five years, as the prime time of my life is slip sliding away.
‘Cause I’m getting old. I’m thirty. And a life full of "let’s act grown up ‘cause we’re grown-ups now" seems like a sentence of never-ending grown up-ness, and I just want to jump in an old Cindy Lauper record, dye my hair red, shave one side, wear a polka dotted dress, and sing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” so loud and off key that the neighbors wake up demanding we have a party right then and there while my husband is inside quietly reading his Greek interlinear Bible, drinking distilled water and green magma, and talking about the importance of pH balancing.
Now I know he loves me when I’m hormonal, loves me when I have zits, loves me in the morning when I’m all swollen and incoherent, loves me when I’m crabby, and loves me when I change my mind every second. I know he loves me when I’m inconsolable and when I am hard to live with. I know he gives me space, stays with me after I’ve hurt, never yells or calls me names, and never expects me to be something I can’t be. I know he wakes me up in the morning real softly and tickles my arm and speaks in a sweet voice: “Honey…it’s time to get up.”
“Five more minutes,” I’ll say.
Five minutes later.
“Honey. . . . It's time to get up.”
“Just . . . just five more minutes,” I’ll say and roll over.
He comes back in five minutes. Exactly five minutes.
“I brought you some water,” he’ll say.
I start to get that lovin’ feelin’, so I sit up and drink the water and thank God no one flicked the light on and off one hundred and eighty-five times and yelled, “Get up! We’re late!” And no one sang any real cheesy opera morning song to me about how it’s morning and the birds are chirping and the sun is shining. And no one opened my blinds without my permission or started stomping on the floor or turned the hair dryer on high or even turned the radio on with Metallica singing “Unforgiven.” Ahh. . . . This is a piece of heaven.
I guess I don’t have it so bad. After all, when I open my dictionary to look up a word and come across one like nice or considerate or kind-hearted, I am amazed my husband’s eighth grade class picture isn’t next to the pronunciation key to give non-readers a clue.
And I remember how a friend of mine told me once that we cannot be intimate unless we at some point hurt each other. And we eventually will. And I remember how some will choose to leave, some will choose to stay, and the ones that realize this key to intimacy and hurdle through it are all the better for it after the dust settles and the words stop shooting.
I remember how we have already hurt each other, and I start wondering on the Richter Scale of intimacy where exactly we are. And I wonder if all those times we've sat down and told each other we were sorry and forgave each other for our mistakes that day and hugged and made up and kissed up have made our marriage all the better. And I wonder if maybe we can make it to seventy something and be real old together like our friends the Brown’s. And I wonder if, like them, we can be on a country music video as the old couple who walk down the road holding hands, staring into each others faces, looking back and forth so we don’t get run over or anything. And I wonder if maybe we will laugh about our early years and tell other young couples that it really is okay to be so different. And I wonder if maybe then I will appreciate that my husband loves charts and graphs, follows recipes to the ‘t’, reads manuals, and tucks his pajama shirt in his pajama pants real tight so the spiders can’t get down there. And I wonder if maybe then I will love how he wakes up real early every morning to read his Greek interlinear Bible, and how he studies things like the fiery Gehenna and the resurrection and where the Israelites migrated after Christ ascended and the good news that we get this free gift of coming up out of the grave, because Jesus did it, and he showed us what it will be like, kind of so we won’t feel so scared. And I wonder if then I’ll appreciate how he tells me his favorite Bible stories at the breakfast table with Bible characters and rivers and stuff being oranges and bananas and granola with milk, and how he makes sure I turn off the stove. And I wonder if then I’ll love him just where he is, and not expect one more thing, and be so satisfied that the God of the Universe saw fit that I needed a man like this to help me see that he is a creative God who makes all kinds of people that aren’t just like me. And I wonder if maybe he’ll feel loved and think, Wow. . . . What a great wife I have. . . . and rub my feet for the eight millionth time right before I lull to sleep. And I wonder if maybe then I’ll love him more than life and breath, and maybe we’ll die together holding hands like in that movie The Notebook.
And then I start to think that maybe God in all of his God-ness and bigness and everything can help me just to love him like that now. Today. If that is even possible. Maybe God can give me the willingness to love him like I’m an eighty year old shriveled up prune of a mess, only I’m just thirty, and we haven’t even had a child yet, and we have our whole lives ahead of us. And I think of how grateful I am that somebody in the family likes physics and math and charts and graphs and all that heady stuff. And then I close my eyes and thank God for all of the wonderful blessings, and I tell Him how I am glad he puts up with me and teaches me how to live and how to love and doesn’t leave me stuck. And I start to see how perfect the plan is after all.

Courage

2011-02-05T06:39:00.000-08:00

Courage is a thing that I sometimes have, and well I sometimes haven't. And I know that was bad grammar. Some days I have the courage to try things that by all sets and standards our culture says, "How dare you." Like living in a non-electric cabin for 18 months, bathing in a converted horse trough, talking to ballroom students while peeing in my outhouse, watching my husband gun down a flogging rooster. You know, courage, the kind you get when you decide to birth a child with absolutely no drugs, and heck-why-not-no-hospital-either. I had the privilege of birthing both of my children at home. Rebekah took 54 hours. Ouch. Luke took two and a half. Ouch. Courage. That something that rises up in you that says, "I'm going back to school. Period. I don't care if it kills me." And here I find myself in graduate school and now have three more semesters of coursework before practicum. Next year was comin' anyways.
Courage. The thing that allows you to go against the grain. To move into a 100 year old farmhouse with falling down window shutters, terrible landscaping, one nasty bathroom, and a huge hole in the kitchen floor while you are simultaneously seriously pregnant, toting around a precocious two year old. (Before we tore the thing out I could peepee in the potty and spit in the sink at the same time.)
Courage. To live among the renovations.
One year later and by golly we did it. The year went by anyways. Why not.
Courage.

Eleanor Roosevelt says, "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."
Courage.
Courage to start a business with no money. Courage to believe God is in the revealing. The day by day unfolding of good plans planned just for us. And not a day, or an hour sooner.
Wonder why.
Maybe it's because we are learning to walk in courage.

"This flower represents HOPE. Hope that I will have the COURAGE to live. Hope that I will remain seen...noticed. Hope that before I die, I will mean something to somebody. Hope that if I am trampled on, I will leave a scent of LOVE and FORGIVENESS. Hope that my life will make a difference among so many lives. Hope that each day will represent a different color, a different shade of GRACE. Hope that I will bear seeds that produce flowers who are beautiful, strong, and always know where the original seed came from. Hope that when it is time for me to fade, that I will fade with grace. And when it is time for me to die, that I will WORSHIP." --Stacy Jagger

Today I wish for you COURAGE. Strength to try. For the best way out, is always THROUGH...

Ladybug Sings The Blues by Stacy and Ron Jagger

2011-02-05T06:29:00.001-08:00

Lucy the Ladybug had just moved to town.
She had no new friends and was feeling quite down.
"Poor pitiful me," she cried. "What shall I do?"
And Lucy the Ladybug began to feel blue.

When up hopped a grasshopper with a "How do you do?"
You're looking quite sullen. Are you feeling blue?"
"Of course I am," whimpered little Lucy Ladybug.
"I'm new to this place, and I've not met the first slug!"

Then along came a bee, a spider and a flea
All crying together, "Poor pitiful me!"
They each thought that theirs was most terrible news,
And each of them had gotten a bad case of the blues.

"Well hello there," said grasshopper, tipping his hat.
"Do you all have the blues? Just what's up with that?!
Then each bug sang its sad, sad song.
And when the others were singing, they each hummed along.

"My flowers," sang the bee, "were as tall as a tower
When a lawnmower came through and each one devoured."
"And my web. Oh, my web," moaned the spider in tears,
"Was knocked down by a broom when I'd lived there a year."

"But mine is the worst," cried the flea in a fog.
"For I've just had to leave my favorite dog."
"It's the collar he's got. I just can't stand the smell,
Such a horrible smell that words cannot tell."

Then the grasshopper hopped to a tall flowering weed
And clearing his throat declared words we should heed:
"While each has the right to feel down, it is true,
Sometimes just a little good action will do.

To spin a new web or to find a new dog
Is just what one needs to get out of a fog.
Often the things which worry us most
Work out in the end to be blessings almost.

Lucy the Ladybug started to giggle,
And one of her wings, it started to wiggle!
"I cannot believe it!" she laughed through her grin.
"I felt all alone and now I have friends!"

"And I," said the flea, jumping up on a log,
"Am on an adventure to find a new dog."
"To spin a new web!" barked the spider with glee.
"And to find some more flowers," buzzed a happier bee.

So think on these things next time you feel down,
And try a big smile instead of a frown.
Then lend an ear and help somebug through
When somebuggy you know is singing the blues.

Breastfeeding at the Valvoline

2011-02-04T18:22:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed reading this journal entry from my first year of MOTHERHOOD...thought I would share it with you...
OK so I got my first public breastfeeding experience at the Valvoline. Yeah, the Valvoline. It was way time to get an oil change, like ten thousand miles, yeah I know it’s better for the engine to do it every three but I honestly hadn’t looked at that little sticker in the upper left hand corner of the windshield in months, not sure how many months, obviously because ten thousand miles went by. Anyways, so it was a million degrees last week here in Tennessee and I was sweating bullets, and my daughter who is now all of four weeks old, was also sweating bullets. She was starting to give me that look like, “I’m getting ready to blow. Feed me now, or I am going to blow.” And God knows I didn’t want her blowing at the Valvoline, plus I’m a pretty nice person and I generally do not condone the starving of children, so I decided to take her inside the little lobby inside the Valvoline, you know with the linoleum flooring, the ugly black and chrome chairs, the funky car magazines and Ellen Degeneres on T.V. So I sit down, and I get out this really handy thingamajig called a BeBeAuLait which is basically a glorified apron that you hang around your neck and it has this underwire contraption at the top so that you can look down and see your child, but no one else can see you. So I get her all comfy and ready to go and this burly, non-shaved, 60-some-odd year old construction worker of a dude decides to start telling me every joke he has ever heard on the planet. And then he decided to rant on about how much he loves children and how I should really enjoy these years because man do they fly by and all about his oldest daughter who is living in South America as a missionary and how she’s not planning on settling down anytime soon, no sir, because she wants to see the world.
And all I could think of was, “Okay, I’m sitting in the Valvoline, my child is slurping like a banshee, and this old guy is trying to pretend he isn’t totally uncomfortable with the fact that there is a small child breastfeeding in his presence, although I am completely covered (to the pride of my Mennonite-at-heart husband) and that he has taken it upon himself at this very moment to pass down all of his various bits and sundries of knowledge and wisdom on this new mother who gives a crap. And at that very moment, on the Ellen Degeneres show appears the something dolls, the voo-doo dolls, the pussy-cat dolls, something vile like that, and out they storm with their thighs and their leather and their pursed lips doin’ the MilliVanilli while they seduce every man in America and about that time the Valvoline boy tells me where the remote is if I would like to change it and I said yes I would and thank God Mr. Rogers Neighborhood was on and the little train was just getting ready to come around the corner. Whoo, saved by the train.
All that to say, motherhood is wonderful. I am fully embracing it and I am taking care of myself in the process, which is nice to admit. My husband is awful helpful and he just got me a double barrel electric breast pump on top of all that. Whoo to the hoo.
So. I’m not sure where June went. I don’t remember June. June doesn’t remember me. But I’m planning on writing June and asking June how June was because it’s all a blur to me. Other that that, I’m just trying to figure out what day it is, where the passy went, the “passafrasser” my husband calls it, and how to take a bath once a day.
So how are you? Please write and tell me because I am home most days wondering.
Good morning July…