Feb Moon Entry

The Art of Keeping Your Friendships Alive

Timeless sayings; “When things calm down, let’s do lunch” or “We are so busy, we don’t have time for anything!”

We have time for whatever we want to have time for. Those lunches with friends or family barbeques we talk up with one another, don’t happen as much as we all would like or need. Communication, support and plain old friendship in the everyday are lacking in our hustle bustle lives. How do we make this work with different schedules and family routines? I think the answer lies in adding the people you really want around you, into your daily life. Figuring out how to do life with them.

This is natural and easy with family members. I don’t worry about my guest bathroom (or in my case the kid/guest bathroom) when my sister stops by. But, my sister doesn’t stop by, because she doesn’t live here. The anxiety over a clean house and perfect appetizers make including other people in our lives a bit tricky.

Because many of us out here on the island live away from close relatives, the need for friendship is vital to our wellbeing. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that on Wednesdays your favorite friends were coming over with food, no matter what? Or, that Fridays are always cookout nights with neighbors. Once we get over “My house needs to look a certain way and my schedule needs to be totally cleared in order to have guests for dinner”, life will get a lot more fun.

Don’t let the carpool line be the only time you see your friends! Embrace sharing a meal with another family. Let the kids destroy the bedrooms while the adults laugh. When all is said and done, the reprieve each person receives from relaxing and being with others is priceless.

Life on the island lends itself to sharing life with one another because we are all a hop, skip and maybe a bike ride away from one another. Therefore, don’t get stuck every night within the walls of your house in front of your television. Eat together, share; let others into your every day.

More than a Guys Fishing Trip or a Girls Shopping Weekend, it would be therapeutic for us all to witness other peoples’ messy kitchens and unsparkly bathrooms and share a meal. Instead of saying, “It’s been so crazy; when everything settles down we need to catch up.” How about, “Life is sure crazy, can’t wait to see you Tuesday and hang out with your family!”

Keep on Keeping on, the Beauty is in the Simple Every Day…

Sunny C. Reed

Sept Moon entry

Fear:

I have many fears, well as of last week, I had many fears. Today marks one week of me being fearless. I realized fear was the ultimate factor in everything iI was not accomplishing or doing poorly. So while sitting in church last Sunday I decided that I was not going to be afraid of ANYTHING anymore. A lofty proclamation, huh? It might have been more logical to say, " I won't let my fears rule over me." or, " I will acknowledge the fear, and then let it go." Honestly, neither of those nice sayings have worked for me so I must eliminate the word all together.

I believe most of of my fears and yours to, are a little irrational and silly. But I had held on to these so firmly that they had become a big part of who I was everyday. Here are a few, or maybe more than a few, of my “small” fears. Perhaps you can relate to a few.

1. I fear driving in storms

2. I am scared of getting lost so at all cost I will enlist a friend or any helpless body that is near, when I am forced to find a new place, and most of the time I will ask them to drive.

3. I don't write consistently because I fear no one really wants to hear my take on life. What can I say that hasn't been said before?

4. I am scared of rats.

5. I fear thick fog and will not drive over the bridge until it has burned off.

6. I am scared of dogs that are not mine.They might bite my hand off.

7. I fear my cooking is on the lame side , so I never veer from the recipe , making it all that much more lame.

8. I am scared of re-decorating, because I might hate it and would have spent all that money on stuff that is ugly.

9. I fear painting because that's my husband's job. Why would I want to do something I know I'm gonna stink at? I can barely make a stick figure for goodness sake!

10. I am scared of elevators. While in NYC I puffed up 13 flights of stairs in heels for 3 days.

One can see how freeing it would be to get rid of all these and actually be able to move around like a normal person!

1. So that is just a few of my " I don'ts”, based on my fears. Then there are the biggies; The fear of someone breaking in my house while I'm asleep. The fear of my airplane getting hijacked, or crashing. My fear that I will be traveling with my children at night, and have a flat tire in the middle of nowhere and some lunatic might stop and bust open my window and drag me away from my children and do who's knows with me. ( this is biggie for me .... was a biggie)Or the biggest , my kids could be kidnapped.

Some of these are healthy, some normal, but a lot of them had way too much control. A lot of small fears ,come from bad experiences, and you swear you will never put yourself through that again. For me, the fog fear and elevator fear and getting lost fear were all results of bizarre instances that I turned into truth.

So upon returning home on Sunday I immediately put my girls bunk beds on Craig's List. The bunk beds were a road block I had put up so I didn't have to paint their room. “When we get them sold, I'll have room to paint” but I never did it and here a year later I was still telling them “maybe next week.” The bunks sold in 1 day and I was on the road to re-decorating and painting my girls' room. My oldest inquired about my new found energy and I told her proudly, " I'm not afraid of anything anymore and I'm not afraid that I will make your room look bad." She had a funny smirk and said " Really?" " Really” I said. “You are looking at one Fearless Mama!" She laughed a,"We"ll see" chuckle. At that moment I realized how crucial this new resolution was. My fears used to be funny to me, good for conversation and made people laugh. Despite them, I'm a pretty strong girl. For example I had all 3 of my children ALL natural.. no drugs. It was not easy but nothing about that truly frightened me. So why do I hang on to the silly stuff? My fears were not funny anymore and I certainly didn't want my daughter to be held back by such nonsense. So I told her, " I wouldn't be scared if we broke down in the middle of the night on the side of the road and a big truck pulled over to help us." She did not believe me, but I could tell she thought I believed myself. "Progress" I thought. And, as I played out the situation in my head I really felt differently. Of course I would be cautious and smart but not scared. Nope, no more of that.

So until next time, I will fight off the dragons that seek to keep me immobile and maybe be able to tell a few funny stories of my victories! ( or maybe I will tell of my hand getting bit off )

Great Pics from March

Reed Boys


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STUD

My Niece Gracie and Race