Jenn's Zen

A quick search on Amazon comes up empty for books with this title. Since it isn’t written yet, maybe I’ll write it.

The short story is that JD’s sister has left her kids for the umpteenth time with their mom, the children’s grandmother. Grandma is capable of handling one of the kids at a time for a day at a time. I don’t think that’s unusual. When my sister-in-law leaves it’s usually under the guise of “I’m gonna go get a Coke, I’ll be right back” and she’s gone for anywhere from 12 hours to a week, without any communication or way to get ahold of her (she won’t answer her cell phone). This happened, most recently, yesterday. However, yesterday CPS and the police were called to take the children because grandma could no longer care for them. This is new. This has never happened before. It’s time.

This starts a clock for their mother. The mother now has 48 hours to claim her kids. If she does then the circus starts all over again. If she doesn’t then she has six months to take classes and follow the rules set by the state to regain custody of her children. It isn’t a perfect system by any means. The laws are all on her side. We have to wait and see what she does. She may do nothing and the children will be available at the end of six months for placement. She may pull it together and regain custody. In all likelihood she’ll get her act together a little, just enough and this will drag out for more than six months. (more…)

In honor of our recent (Sunday June 8th) 17th wedding anniversary I thought I’d post this.

I finished up She’s Come Undone recently at the gym between classes. This quote is at the very end of the book and it had me both laughing out loud and thinking at the same time.

“…I just don’t believe in happily-ever-after”

“I ain’t offering you happily-ever-after. I’m offering you…happily-maybe-sometimes-ever-after. Sort of. You know, with warts…”

Isn’t this so true?! Isn’t this all any of us really have to offer? When we get married we think we can offer the other person perfection (and thus receive it back in return) and yet in reality all we have to offer is ourselves, “You know, with warts”. It doesn’t sound nearly as romantic “happily-maybe-sometimes-ever-after” but isn’t it much more realistic? This isn’t what young girls dream about, but maybe they should because it’s true.

Happy Anniversary to us, warts and all.

::

Pastor Fred posted this fun visual test and JD and I just spent the last hour taking all the tests. So, that’s what we’ve been up to today. It’s a hang out day, the little girl is still in her cozies. We have a date tonight, the glamming up will start soon.

I’ve never been an athlete or gym rat. While there have been times you could have called me athletic, cheerleading comes to mind, I’ve just never been that sort of person. Until possibly now.

Last May a few planets aligned and I found myself going to the gym on a regular basis. The necessary planets were 1) Oprah was a smaller size than me 2) I hit a very unmagical number on the scale 3) my wardrobe was getting smaller and smaller because I REFUSED to buy a bigger size 4) my wedding ring no longer fit and I was to embarrassed to have it sized up, AGAIN 5) Lifetime Fitness came to town and JD’s employer provided a corporate membership for all employees and their families.

So, we got our membership cards and were there at the open house in May 2007. They opened two or three days later, and I’ve been there five days a week ever since (more or less/ give or take). I’m still pretty shocked about it myself. Call it right time, right mindset. (more…)