On the Half Shell – Living in the Raw

Ramblings of a wife, mama and “JuJu” from THE SOUTH

  • Why Wait? Life is WAITING for us to participate!

    Why do I always say, “well when (xyz) happens, I can start.” Or “when I have (1,2,3) I will be able to…”

    WHY? What am I waiting for? What am I hoping to achieve, receive, obtain, lose, etc. before I make THAT move – whatever that move is? 2 Peter 1:3 tells us that HE has given us what we need for life through our knowledge of HIM. No, we don’t have certainty of outcomes of decisions or plans, but we have certainty that HE is in control and that HE goes before AND alongside us.

    So let’s continue, or START, living for TODAY and stop waiting for another day to make that move, start that class, reach for that opportunity, make those memories and living life to the fullest in HIS name and for HIS glory, in whatever way that manifests.

    Eucharisteo

  • Unveiling of 60

    I recently decided to go through counseling to discover what is holding me back and for the feelings of angst that have been strangling me over the past months. Truth be told, It has been more than the past months. It has been coming on for a long while now. But I think the past few months have exacerbated the feelings of sadness, resentment and the like. Yet there are days that I am gloriously happy and fulfilled.

    I was asked to explore these questions: who am I; what do I need and what do I want. And finally, how will I/can I refine myself.

    To Redefine myself, I first must define myself in the present. So here goes. First and foremost, I am a Christian. Jesus Christ is my savior. I am JuJu, Mama, a wife, a “little sister”, a daughter and a friend. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my family – especially my grandbabies. I do not have a lot of close friends, but the ones I have are family to me. If I befriend someone new, or someone new befriends me, if it clicks, I am ALL IN. That person becomes part of my family. I “fall in love” with people quickly and become attached quickly. I love hard. I take on the happiness and the sorrows and troubles of those I love. Sometimes that is a problem as my emotions become overwhelmed.

    I love any and all things tailed and 4 legged, and birds. I love to have folks in my home; I love to entertain them and show them hospitality. I love to make people feel welcome and loved. I love good food, good bourbon and good company and music. Lots and lots of music. I love Mississippi State University sports. I love to dance – didn’t say I CAN – said I love to. I believe that I am funny – actually, I think I am hilarious. 🙂

    I love the early morning before anyone wakes up. I love coffee in the quiet at my kitchen table waiting to hear nature wake up. I love hats. I love boots – cowboy boots. I love black clothing but I also love unusual clothing. So. Who does all of these things make me? Hell if I know. I don’t know how to define me in the present.

    What do I need? GOD, my family which includes my friends, my animals, TO BE HEARD ( note I did not say “understood”, as I do believe there to be parts of me that “they” cannot understand), and I need to feel like I am doing all I can or within in my power to help those around me. I need to learn and accept that others will not have the same emotion/passion that I have for a particular being, subject, etc.

    What do I want? First and foremost, I want my children, which includes my sons-in-love, and my grandbabies to know and trust Jesus as their Lord and Savior. This is my most important WANT – in fact, it may be a NEED. I want to take a yoga class – I am working on this one now – just have to figure out some transportation and times. I want my home to be a place of peace and joy for all.. Warm – inviting – full of fun, laughter and good food. And for the most part, I believe that it is. I want to find the time to get back to being a great pianist and becoming adept at the guitar – limitations are time and vision. I want to write. Something that someone wants to read. Stories? Tales? True life? Not sure how to go about that. I COULD “put my blog out there” – but it is just ramblings of my thoughts.

    BIG want? I want a farm where I can raise quail and have a few cows and a donkey or two. With simple, but beautiful plants and flowers. We actually HAVE the place – we just don’t live there and we don’t have the animals. So I suppose that dream could be realized, and at one time, that was the plan, until my babies had babies. But for now, I want to be close to them so that they can come to JuJu whenever they want or need.

    The thing here is to determine what of these wants and needs can I control/work on/develop. And the rest? Leave it to God? Leave it to chance? What do I do in the meantime?

    If I can’t define myself in the present, how am I to Redefine myself? Honestly, I think I have failed this assignment. I don’t know any more about defining or redefining myself now than I did 5 days ago. Let’s hope I don’t get in trouble with the headmaster of The Life School.

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  • Too Many Lessons

    I looked back this morning, and found this “gem” that I wrote a while back..I am happy to be working on it day by day…

    Every.Single.Day. I seem to have too many lessons that I have yet to learn or that I did not learn properly. I was reading this morning about Marianne Williamson’s (no I am not familiar with her) partaking in A COURSE IN MIRACLES and the book she wrote in response to her experience in the course. It got me thinking that tomorrow, I will be 59 years old. How am I still learning lessons I should have learned long ago? I guess that is the point – “should have”. Why didn’t I? Why haven’t I?

    I have longings. Yearnings. Yet, I don’t know what my direction or path is. Is it too late? Again, I am almost 59. Shouldn’t I already know the path? Am I on the path now? Did I leave the path? Did I never find the path? I have distinct likes and dislikes, yet I can also be easily swayed at times. Who am I? What am I about? Why the continuing struggle of who and what I am supposed to be? Maybe I am to simply be a wife, mother and grandmother. But if that is the case, should I still want and long for more? Where is my downfall on the other things I would like to achieve? Is it money? Is it lack of resolve? Is it lack of know how? Yes, I know the power and importance of prayer, but do I really know HOW? Maybe I am praying the wrong prayer, as I read in the Simple Abundance reading for November 13. How do I shift my focus, and to what/where do I shift? I feel like I need some deep soul searching (what is that anyway, and how do you search?), but where would I make the time, and how can I do that here, in this home with so many things going on around me all the time. Things that I dearly love – my babies, my children, my pets, my BRUCE. It suddenly dawned on me that perhaps the best place to start is to “unplug”. Unplug from social media where everything appears lovely and sublime, save from a few pages I follow that the author/creator lets you in on THE REAL. Maybe, just maybe, that would make me focus on the nitty gritty, the things that I really need to do — like organize the freezers, reorganize closets, etc. But DAMN. IS that REALLY all I am supposed to be? Maybe it is. Maybe I am simply looking in the wrong places. I HAVE prayed about it. Again, maybe I am praying the wrong prayer. How shall I rephrase it?

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  • Pure Gold

    While I am seeking my 24kt self, I must also endeavor for my life to be good in HIS eyes. FOR Him, for my grand angels and for me…through my own soul searching and looking to HIM for guidance, I will get there…maybe it will take till my dying breath, but…

    This putting thoughts to “paper” has made me actually FEEL. I had been feeling numb. An empty vessel. A blank page. The liquid in the vessel may be cloudy and the page may be noting but scribbles, but the clouds are parting.

    HE gave us a brain and a heart and soul and nerves and feelings and emotions. Even when my last nerve is silk thread thin, HE keeps me from breaking.

    If anyone who reads this is struggling and in need of someone to pray with, or for them, please reach out. We are not meant to walk this journey alone.

    Peace and blessings.

  • seeking

    I am 9 months from “delivery”. well, that is from my 60th birthday, November 15. I decided at the start of the New Year, I would spend the days prior to my birthday figuring out who I am NOW/TODAY/IN THIS TIME. My life mold doesn’t seem to fit anymore. Oh, I still love many of the same things as always, but I am facing the fact that I have been hiding myself or trying to fit a mold that I think I should be in. SHE has been hiding for a while, and she wants to be unleashed! :). I have been slowing letting her out, and it feels good!

    I have become painfully aware that I have always struggled with insecurity. No clue why – I never had any traumatic experiences as a child that would lead to that, but I was always looking for acceptance. But I discovered that I AM ENOUGH. I AM ENOUGH. FOR ME. I know that his is not an issue for a lot of people so if you happen to be one of those folks, please don’t judge me. SEE? There it is again. BUT I AM TRYING! 🙂

    Till next time, get out there and be who you are meant to be!

    Peace and blessings…

  • Squandering

    Time. Am I wasting it? Squandering it? Lately I do find myself lost in it. Lost in thought. Lost in pondering. Lost in nothing. And then my mind races. From one thing to the next and back again. Then it is as foggy as the weather outside today. It FEELS misty and dreary. Yet as I sit here at the kitchen table looking out the window, I feel nothing. I am numb. What is it? What is this blanket of fog that is over me? It is like one of those weighted blankets, but this is not a comforting blanket. For anyone out there who has this feeling today, I am sorry. I wish I could make it go away for you.

    For now, I will push through. For all of us. Jesus loves you and me, and I do too.

  • To Lent or Not to Lent. That is the Question…

    You hear it every year. “I am giving up (xyz) for Lent.” “No, thank you. I’m fasting for Lent.” “No. I can’t have that. I gave it up for Lent.” Or a myriad of other “giving up” statements.

    Now, I’m not against, by any means, anyone giving up things that consume them for Lent, or any other season. How and if folks choose to observe Lent is between them and God.

    Don’t misunderstand me—I’ve “done Lent” by giving up sweets or carbs etc. But I wasn’t really doing it for Him. It was for my own self-serving purposes.

    I guess I’m just wondering if we can “do Lent” in other ways. Like trying to be more intentional in our relationships, or in our studies of The Word, or just trying to be a better person today than I was yesterday. Which I certainly don’t need a special season for that – I should do those things everyday, not just during Lent. I know I am rambling here – I’m just thinking out loud.

    On this 3rd day of Lent, I am finding myself more reflective, more contemplative, a bit more quiet (for anyone who knows me, THIS is truly something, but it might not last long, since Mississippi State Baseball begins this afternoon at 4:00PM) :), less rushed in my study and just more at peace. It wasn’t something I set out to do or the mood, if you will, that I tried to create. It just is what it is; it is just what has happened since I began thinking about Lent early in the week.

    Maybe this is a Lenten cop-out. Maybe there are things I could give up for HIM for Lent. But I also know that HE alone, has brought me this peace, and it feels glorious.

    I am thankful for it and for HIS grace that covers me.

    Eucharisteo

    February 16, 2024

  • Do Y’all Hear That?

    Shhhh. Listen. Can you hear it? ME EITHER! 🙂

    Neither of my “preciouses” are here with me today. It’s SO quiet. Pete and Nala are resting, Hank is somewhere quietly doing cat things, and Percy bird is not chirping and singing this morning. When the boys come in every morning, he starts “going to town” with his nonsense.

    It is 8:30, and I’m still in my jamas drinking coffee. I feel like I could just sit here till noon! Now that I think about it, my backyard birds are even quiet. Now this is getting eerie – like the fog this morning.

    I can’t see them bustling about, and I can’t hear them – the birds nor my baby boys. But I know where they are – I can see them in my mind’s eye. I can hear them in the whispers (ok – maybe the boys’ aren’t whispering) of the aural of my heart.

    Just.Like.GOD. HE is here. With me. In the fog. In the silence. In the stillness. And it is perfect.

    Eucharisteo

    January 26, 2024

  • The Gate

    Pete and I made a new friend recently on one of the bloodhound pages we follow. Bloodhound Willie and his daddy, Scott, live just a few miles from us. I had been wanting to take Pete and Nala to the dog park close to our home to let them make some friends and just run and play like dogs should. Our new friend invited us to meet them yesterday. It was a fun, cold afternoon watching all the pups. All but Nala were purebred dogs. Nala was not intimidated by all the pedigrees. There were two goofy bloodhounds, a gainfully employed black lab (law enforcement officer) two Hungarian Kuvasz, a Labradoodle, a West Highland Terrier, and our Nala girl. And I have to say that she is smarter than any of the others and just as beautiful.

    The experience was new to us – our first time at a dog park. I know, right??? Why have our dogs been hiding us??? 🙂 At the entrance to the park, there is a small, double gated area. As you enter and close the first gate, you find yourself in a very small enclosed area, and then there is another small gate that opens up into an expanse of doggo paradise where they can run, smell, fellowship :), tromp through and across a small creek and play to their hearts’ delight. It was a beautiful, albeit cold, fun afternoon!

    I was reminded of that gate this morning as I read Matthew 7:14: “The gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few that find it.”

    THE gate. Ah that small gate. Trying to guide ourselves and two dogs through…

    But ohhhh THAT GATE! It doesn’t discriminate or care if we have a pedigree, or a job, or are rich or poor or smart or beautiful, or any of that. We just have to follow THE LEAD. If we can just, with the help of the Good Lord above, maneuver ourselves through that gate, what an expanse of eternal bliss we shall have!!!!

    Eucharisteo

    January 22, 2024

  • The Dog Ate My Blessings

    Yep. He did. He ate my Blessings/Gifts/Gratitude Journal/. I have had Anne Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts for a long while, but only recently began a journal of “1000 gifts” last August. This journal, like a lot of things I have really good intentions of (this blog for instance), wasn’t filled up as it should have been. I could see it everyday in my kitchen, and I thought about it every time I walked by. While I didn’t always take time to stop and write something, I always thought about the good things in my life and what they have brought to me. Sometimes, actually most times, the gifts/blessings come in the form of something as simple as the quiet of the early morning, a bird on the windowsill, or the smell of one of my little boys – freshly bathed, of course. I try to always look for, listen to, smell, feel and taste ALL HIS GOODNESS and most importantly write it down ON/IN MY HEART.

    Sometimes I turn a blind eye (or nose) to them. Get too busy to notice. Get too wrapped up in my own self worth or more likely, self pity. Sometimes it could be jealousy, anger, or arrogance. And sometimes I just take them for granted.

    But like my baby boys, just because life sometimes gets messy, dirty and smelly doesn’t mean that it isn’t sweet and precious. It is an ever evolving dynamic for me to find joy in the hard times and the mundane, but I am striving to get better at it and to never forget that all those good gifts and HIS mercies are still there and they are anew every morning.

    So today, a new fresh gifts journal emerges…

    But the old, are not forgotten. Just tucked away safely and always in my heart.