Happy Halloween

Welcome

For those of you who know me I am a total cry baby. And lately I have been seriously worried about it, because it seems to be getting worse. I cry everyday. I watched the end of Mulan with Eva the other day and bawled my eyes out. I have seen it 7,543 times! I can't comment AT ALL in any church meeting without crying. Even if I don't feel that emotional about what I am saying. I told Justino, maybe it is nerves to speak in spanish. Could be. Although I doubt it because I have commented in spanish in church for ten years now.

Today is no exception.

I have been bawling since I heard that the picture I have posted here would FINALLY be able to be taken. It is my old friend/missionary companion, Lisa, her husband Felix and their new daughter Paola. Since I met Lisa ten years ago she wanted children. She has always wanted children. It seems that god always gives us what we don't want, and so is the case with Lisa. She didn't want years of marriage before starting a family, but god gave her seven. She woke up this morning and went to work never dreming that she would get the message today that today her family would grow from two to three.

When I heard about I couldn't stop bawling. Today was a big day for Paola, she met the parents that will love her forever and she also turned two. We went over there for cake. She was serious mostly, and the neglect that she has suffered until now is evident. But as the evening progressed she smiled and lauged. I wept on the way home thinking about how she has suffered. Then I wept thinking about how that suffering is over, because she has found her home, and the ONLY thing they want to do is love the hurt right out of her little heart. They will, I know they will.

I cried when I told Justino that Paola needs them and that they need Paola. We laughed and I cried as we said that we know that this new addition to their family will not make their lives easier but it will make their lives richer and more full of joy. Then I cried thinking of my own pups and how hard and rich and full they make my life.

It is not uncommon for me to say that I am going to sell my kids to the gypsies because I don't really like them that much anyway, but looking at a little girl who really has lived in a home where they really did want to give her away, I was humbled. Then cried because I love my kids.

So here I am just crying and crying for cartoons and good news and everything in between. And today as I was stressing about how silly I feel for being such a titty mouse ( as in cry baby titty mouse) I had two thoughts that made me think maybe it was ok. First I had a flash of my aunt jolene, who cries about everyting also. I have watched her in any given conversations well up, and then simply state, " it makes me cry". Something about that made me feel like it was ok for me to be that way too. And the second thing was a scripture, particulary the way the scripture reads in spanish.

In english it says that we should " mourn with those mourn" but in spanish it says we should "cry with those who cry" That is so me. No one in my presense will ever be crying alone, or for that matter no one will ever be in even a situation that merits tears without me getting on the water works bandwagon to support them. I am going to remember that next time I feel embarrased because I can't keep my voice from cracking. I think I will also try wearing sunglasses more often so that my eyes won't look so red.

But tonight I am not even ashamed that I that I cried... ok that I am currently crying big fat tears for Paola, and Lisa and Felix who have just formed a beautiful family. I wish them the very best. These tears are a long time coming and for that I say to them and to Paola

WELCOME

Happy Birthday Grandma

Beauty

Why? you may ask, do I have a WALMART bag on my head?

I am bleaching my hair. I started bleaching my hair when I was 12. I have done it religiously since then, ( except for a small red head phase I had in my early twenties) BUT I haven't done it once, since I moved to canucn, which will be a year next month. The very dark roots that I have been sporting since I got here, have stood as very visible evidence that I have let beauty slip away from my life.

Not just my own physical beauty, but the beauty all around me. My children are beautiful, the nature here is beautiful, but I have not invited that beauty into my life. My soul has become a vessel of survial. Instead of thriving and growing and blooming, it has only allowed enough light in to merely exsist.

It is time for a change people!! Let the light shine in!! Today I didn't want to fold laundry AGAIN, or do the dishes. So instead I made beautiful wheat bread, and pulled my hair through this lovely plastic cap, and waited for the great change that this peroxide will bring.

Unfortunately, it didn't happen. I knew something was wrong, and yet I just kept hoping it wasn't, but alas.... an hour later, still only slightly faded and hair that was beginning to turn to mush. I hurried to a nearby salon with serious BO and sammy in tote with poopy pants on, and frightened my friend Norma who rinsed and reapplied new solution. Who knew a year in cancun heat could kill the potency of bleach. I should of, it has weakened my potency a time or two, but whatever.

The end result was not only a new color but a new cut. I am glad I did it. Here is me trying to get my sass back. What do you think? Is it working?

WOW

Today I found out about a lady who changed my whole day. Lifted away my lazy, and gave me so much hope. Thanks for that, her blog is
http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/

LAZY

Well as you have noticed I have been highly unmotivated to blog, just like everything eles in my life. I have been in a super rut. Sometimes ruts are sad, or angry or just because life is so the same the same, but i think I am just feeling lazy. I don't know. The mexicans have a word for it, they call it "flojera" I don't know an exact translation for it, but it stems from the word floja, that means lazy. The thing that kills me about it, is that Mexicans use it and it is widely accepted as a completely viable reason for not doing something. They say something like, " I was going to ( insert some imortant task here) but, me dio flojera, I didn't feel like it." I guess I am just from a culture where lazy is frowned upon, so it seems shameful to say it out loud. Gotta love these Mexicans.

But then again as I write that, I don't think I have ever met a lazy mexican. They actually work crazy harder than any people I have ever met. Like the women on my street actually move ALL their furniture outside to mop the floor, several times a week! Perhaps they have struck some balance I still don't get.

In the mean time, Tengo Flojera, I just don't feel like doing anything, and I guess since I am in Mexico I can say that, and it's ok.