Women Who Eat Chocolate

Hope you all are having a super Christmas break and a forthcoming New Year! Not much to type today. Next week when the kids are back at school I'll blog about our holiday. For now I'm going to put a link to check out my blog from last week on Amish Country Living. It's a little story of George's life when he was lost for three years in Oaxaca, Mexico. I have some little elves working on pushing me to get a book written about his life. It would be a page-turner. Have a prosperous New Year! George's Story

It's 1:17 am and I can't sleep. I had a two hour nap this afternoon -- almost unheard of for me on a Saturday afternoon. I guess I need to lay down and read my book. I'm reading "Breaking Dawn", the fourth book in the Twilight Series. Hunter got it for me for my birthday back in October. Somehow I just never picked it up to read -- until now. Boy does it have me in it's thrall. It's so different right from the get go, and I'm having a hard time putting it down. I can see my gently glowing boxwood bushes outside my window. It's been so cold here this week and the Christmas lights we have up really liven up the outside. I love the cold. I wrote my blog this week on coldness and our Christmas tree buying traditions. Check it out right here . My tree is gently casting it's colors over the darkened living room. George is gently snoring on his chair, where I've failed to wake him up from. When it's time to stumble into bed I wil...

Christmas music. There's nothing like it to get you in the mood. From "All I want for Christmas is you" to "Silent Night", when December begins it starts pumping through the house. Certain of my favorites has been known to play in October! I started dragging decorations up yesterday. A couple of days before that Hunter brought up the manger scene. It's always the first thing that goes up. I love my decorations. When we were first married I started collecting Christmas balls. For .10 I could buy a bunch of them at Save-n-Serve. Now they are two and three dollars each there! Insert sad/ticked face here. There are alot of people that still don't have money and need those ten cent balls. You can buy new ornaments at Wal-Mart for that price. Hunter and Selena put lights up outside for me yesterday after school. Hunter climbed up on the ladder and strung lights around my big red star -- ever the perfectionist, he had to make it just so. Selena ...

I'm ready for life to begin again. Not that it ever stopped. When Dad died last Saturday morning, it seemed as if we were wrapped in a little warm cocoon. Our grief and the realization that he's whole again held us, as a family, together. Until someone you love dies, you never quite realize what goes on behind the scenes. We all took the time to be together and soak it up. Then reality hits, and there's a funeral to plan. Emotions run on high gear and you just go and go until you're ready to collapse. My daughter was able to fly home from college in Florida to be with us. In the days before, as Dad was nearing the end, I just wanted her to walk in the door so I could give her a hug. There's something about wanting everyone near. We can let our hair down, and just know, that no matter what happens during these times, that love is never far. I will miss my dad. Even though we never spent tons of time together, I knew he was always there. His seat in the f...

A passage that goes to my heart at this time .... I'm standing on the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She's an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and the sky comes down to mingle with each other. And then I hear someone at my side saying, "There, she's gone." Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side. And just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "There, she's gone, " there are other eyes watching her coming, and there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!" And that is dying. I love you, Dad.

One need not be a chamber to be haunted; One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing Material place. ~Emily Dickinson I love Halloween. Not "All Hallows Eve" or the evil aspects of it, just the good creepy fun that makes shivers run down your spine. About five years ago, I sent in a little story to a website that collects eerie experiences in Ohio. Go here to read about it. It seems silly now to read abou t it, but at the time we were more than a little freaked out! As we speak, Hunter has tried on about ten different costume choices for Trick or Trunk tonight. He is definitely my "special effects" artist in the family. I think he should have a show on Nickelodeon. :) I also think it would be cool to go to the Ghost Walk in Millersburg. It's put on by the Millersburg Historical Society and has live actors acting out the "experie nces" that they tell you about. Not sure I will go, but thinking about it. My friend Leslie Limon, w...

Here's an overview of my week: -- Traveled the girls soccer tournament trail twice to watch my baby play in the sectionals down below Zanesville. Won the first game on Monday, and lost on Wednesday. Way to go, Selena! Good season, and always sad to see it end. On the other hand, no more $6 tickets to pay for. :) And honestly, I don't think I would want to go down there again -- they don't make popcorn for soccer games! They thought I was out of my mind when I ordered it. Well, guess what, I thought they were out of their minds! haha --Set up for my niece Heather's garage sale in Berlin. She has never had a garage sale in her life, therefore there was much to be done! We had a two-dayer, and plan on having a sort of "perpetual garage sale" if you will. As she pulls out more stuff, we will have more sales. She doesn't park in the garage so it all works out. --Tonight we worked outside. It's alot of fun getting your kids out there to mow and ...

This picture, encapsulated, is what I want. If I could take an old Airstream and fix it up into a Taco Truck, I would. Now, granted, I also want to have a "Used Book Store/Junk Store"... add into that mix my love of writing. I guess it pretty much leaves my dreams all mixed up --- a melange of all my wants and desires tangled up into one hot mess. This is what life is made of. What we want to do with our lives, and what we end up actually accomplishing. But who says we can't do what we want? Who says we have to sit in our little shells and stay content with what we have? Now I'm not saying I'm not content --- I'm so happy with my family and my little cottage. Nothing could make me happier. I feel, though, that God made us for more. Not long ago I posted a quote on Facebook that went something like this: "Your natural abilities are God's suggestions for your life's work." quote by Clyde Narramore. So what happens when you'...

I never thought I was a late writer. You know, into the wee hours of the night. Yet here I am, full of ideas and thoughts. When I was a teenager I was a total night owl. Prowling around the room until 4 am. Listening to music or reading. After you get married there is someone else that shares your time and I was always considerate of that. But just maybe, I need to spend some time roaming around the house at night, or just writing. Writing until my head unloads some of this stuff that's been building up for twenty years. I just can't believe it's fall already. The summer went so quickly what with Belle's graduation, then leaving for college. Selena starting high school, and soccer for them all. It's just crazy. Life is fragile and full of mystery. I've been delving into some heavy stuff lately. I mean, there is always the day to day, but I've realized that when my stress level gets to the top it's time to turn it all over to God. Why can...

Complacency compelled me to sit. Enthralled in life around me, yet inclusive to myself. My thoughts were a one-track cassette, endlessly playing a tune of my own liking. The song would catch me up in it's throes of singularity. Worries were few. Why. If but I could have seen earlier what my insolent insouciance would mean. It all came crashing down in a haze of pain. We had known pain. But here it was again but ten-fold. Waking me up with a blinding dose of recklessness. And it just kept heaping on. My own self and what I thought important were replaced with what I had missed the whole time. My love had been careless without regard. Expectations had been placed and my eyes were blinded to what I should have seen and done. There are things that can crush you and leave you gasping for air. Air. That heady wind that sustains fragile life within us. My air was gone. And so I clawed. I clawed without God. The center of myself said I could do it alone. We could do it alo...

This summer has simply proven too much for me to keep up with my blogging. What with Belle's graduation, and then moving her to college in Florida there has been no room to breathe! Sometimes I remind myself to sit down, put my shoulders back, and just relax. It's hard to do it! Posting a few pics is what I'll do....too many words and I'll hyperventilate. haha Fort Lauderdale. I once envisioned this town as party central for spring break, which in all honesty probably is. The rest of the weeks it's just this beautiful picturesque town. The beach was beautiful. We took this the first night at our sweet retro Hotel Biba. We just loved it here. The architecture and ambiance fit our personality to a T. ...and then we left her in the care of this university. Palm Beach Atlantic. She's on her own now studying, doing laundry, and sprouting wings. Is she ready? There is no answer to that. The answer comes with the wind and the successive years that ar...

My mind is traveling trails that lead back to Mexico. Sometimes our lives here are messy, convoluted and twisted into the fabric of Holmes County. This is my home, where I grew up, where all my family is. Then I met a most fabulous man that changed the make-up of my life. When George appeared and also became twisted into my heart, where I belong in this world became cloudy. It's almost an ethereal place to exist, this in-between place. It's a place of shifting patterns that run in my mind. It's a place I can visit just by looking on my husband's face and following crinkly lines that fall away from his eyes. My heart has been searching high and low for reasons to remain here. Yes, my family is here. My sisters....my parents... but who is my family? My family is George, Belle, Selena, and Hunter. They are my heart--walking around outside my body. We scratch and claw here to survive. Work comes and work fails. We feel like we're living inside a box so...

Can't believe how summer is flying. The days sometimes stretch into lazy oblivion, and I find myself wishing the kids would never have to go back to school. I love my kids right now, with all the quirks and idiosyncracies and all. They never cease to amaze me. Their liveliness, their candor, their anger---I need to take it all in and hold it there. They will leave me someday and never look back. I want this for them. I don't want to hold onto them so tightly in this little cocoon that they won't know how to succeed in this world. I want to give them the freedom to expand and fly. This summer has also been trying. Belle, having graduated, is taking on all the characteristics of someone who is living "outside" this house. In short, she wants to do whatever she wants to do. I bear with this, while my husband, who is the most amazing Dad ever, talks to her. He wants unparalleled success for them, and he will point out to her, in the most minute way, what ...

Well, it's done. My baby has graduated. I know, I know....it's not my LAST baby but the first one. Still, it is unbelievable that she is now done with high school. It seems only yesterday that she climbed on that big yellow bus, her nose pressed up against the glass. I watched her little face get smaller and smaller as it traveled down the road. Now she's done. Ready to go out and grab her life. God has so many plans for her that she isn't even aware of yet. Like where she's going to college. She was accepted into several colleges here in the area, but she always wanted to go out of state. She just accepted the fact that she would go here, and chose Mt. Union in Alliance. Well, God had a few other plans in mind for her. LeeAnn Miller told us about Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, FL. ---- Florida....Florida..... She had gone there, and Belle kind of got excited about it. Some connections were made, meetings had, and applications ...

There has been too much going on! My computer died, and I felt disconnected for a whole month. For some reason my thoughts have been pouring out in journal form....and I mean actual paper that you use a pen to write on. LONGHAND! I used to journal in high school, but it somehow fell to the wayside. Stories, and tidbits have been appearing in my journal and I realize that I'm letting the wellspring go. All these things that have been hiding inside of me wanting to be released--I'm letting them come out. I know that God has given me the talent to write, and by golly I'm doing it. I have a 3-pager about my recent trip to VA that I'm thinking of putting on here. Maybe tomorrow I'll do that and see what you all think....

Ha ha... this is what you do when you're stuck at home and there's 3 feet of snow outside! Needless to say these were take several weeks ago during our big snow... Ah George...always good for a laugh--and so cute! :)

Missy's life in a nutshell this week: --George is busy working :) --While people brush it out of the way...I have been ENJOYING the snow--I love the trail to my car! --Belle's car blew a tire on one of the coldest nights of the year...changing said tire in 0 degree weather was not fun! Thanks to the random amish guy who helped George get that last nut off! --Belle's boyfriend Colton, has mono! This has caused much moping and dragging of oneself around the house. Said child acts like she has it herself...which in fact...we are closely watching and making sure she doesn't develop it! Oh young love... :) This too shall pass.... --Many basketball games have been attended...including the Malvern game which was by far the best I've seen this year! Even though Colton couldn't play....he's out for a good two weeks from games. WHICH has caused aforementioned child even more distress. This also, shall pass in the blink of an eye!...

Yes, I am still around! We've been buried in snow... and hibernating just a bit. I'll post later on what's been going on!

We always sing at the nursing home Christmas Eve for Grandma Stutzman! Hunter w/his new outfit....when did he start getting such stylish wishes for clothing?! George watching the impromptu dance party that happened in Shelly's basement. Belle and Colton...the newest "addition" to our family...so far we think we'll keep him! I just love this picture w/Selena.....