Cookie Cawthon

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May

Some of my favorite things…

Feeling a lil‘ dry and dusty in the cranial department, so I thought I would post some entries from my gratitude journal I kept way back when. I am still thankful for all of them, but some don’t pertain to my life as much as they once did (particularly ones related to students and teaching).

scrambled eggs and ketchup (yes, together! yes, I am Country Mouse! Can I get a witness?)
sunshine on my back
a beautiful moon
a book that just won’t let you go
a new appreciation for pink
service people who show up on time and are true to their word (all repair issues in the house have been resolved)
people with a new perspective on a worn out topic
a quaint local bookstore
a witty quip delivered at just the right time
Mom & Pop restaurants that serve a meat & 3
having the correct change
a tasty barbecue sandwich
hearing a compliment through the grapevine
time alone
overhearing students having intelligent conversations
$6 interest earned by my savings account (in 1998)
a returned phone call
good writing pens
the anticipation of the postman’s arrival
a full tank of gas
hope and life as symbolized by a new house plant (’til it thirsts to death and shrivels into dust :-))
all around great days in the middle of the week
freshly vacuumed carpet
finding $4 in my pants pocket this morning (I wish!)
the comforting hum of the heater
time that eases embarrassment
worries that don’t come true
an undisturbed night’s rest
second chances
skinny face days and skinny leg days
having stamps when you need them
tulips
forgiveness

Sarah Ban Breathnach says in the front of my journal, “All you truly need is the awareness of all you have.” So true in my life. So thankful to say that I don’t need a thing…

April

Candor

We don’t really have much use for it from other people, do we? Like, I really don’t want people to tell me that my hair looks awful as I am letting it grow out (it does, I know, and there are imminent plans to cut it off! I’m a short hair girl). But there is this one girl at the gym who faithfully does just that; she does not like my hair like this and she tells me. She is one of those people who casts honesty wherever she is; I expect to get that from her, and I even appreciate it in a very weird way. There’s just something pure about a person shooting straight with you. Not in a hurtful inappropriate way, but in a way that totally bunks polite fibbin‘. And I can take it from her because she loves my hair short. She would often gush about my short locks, so I know where she’s coming from.

A friend and I are kinda hashing through some hurt that has happened in our friendship, and we are doing it with love and candor. It’s uncomfortable and unsettling. I wince at hearing some of her feelings, but she is totally sharing out of her care for me and her desire to reconcile our relationship. I can dig that. I can respond to that. There’s something that makes me feel very alive to peel away all the layers of superficial interaction, to put aside all the polite fibbin‘ and really communicate on a heart level with someone else. Neither of us knows what this may look like in the end, but at this point I feel that we are approaching it in the right way. So, we’ll see…

I think somewhere in the closets of our hearts we do appreciate (in a very weird way) somebody speaking truth into our lives, BUT resist the urge to open up a can of candor with me about the five pounds I gained while Chris was out of town. I know already, but thanks the same…

April

Homestead Happenin’s

It’s probably not very easy to forget that you are reading the blog of a former English teacher. Do you hate my dorky alliterative titles, or what? Sorry, I love ’em 😉

Just wanted to catch you up to speed on life at the Cawthon ranch. Chris is home from Salt Lake City; wahooooooooooooooooo! We have enjoyed (not so much) an awkward weekend where we are transitioning back into cohabitation. Two weeks is long enough where you kinda develop a new routine without the other person, so we’re reprogramming back into our normal life again. The two weeks actually flew by and God was so good on both sides of the separation, but Chris and I reunited with very different wants and needs. He had been confined to the same hotel room (where somebody came in and cleaned up for him everyday; no, I’m not bitter) and is ready to be home, enjoy the comforts of home, just stay at home. I, on the hand, have seen more than my share of the 972 pineapples on my kitchen wallpaper, thank you very much! If you’ve been to my house, you know what I’m screamin’. He is exhausted from all the required dinners (at exotic, expensive restaurants; still not bitter) and the forced interaction, and I am starved for interaction with people taller than 3 feet. He wants family time, and I could honestly stand a break from meal time, bath time, play time, meltdown time, etc… So we’ve been in the same house since Friday night, but we’ve just arrived on the same page (after a terse discussion or two) on Sunday night. Both of us are elated he is home!!

However, he comes home to a bonus room free of air conditioning. It is literally 85 degrees up there now at 10:19 pm. And that’s where my computer resides. I am downstairs on Chris’s computer, and he is on mine (very, very sweet fella) upstairs with the window open. Our most annoying cat, Samson, did sneak out onto the roof, but has made a safe reentry.

Chris also came home to a mysterious leak somewhere between the girls’ bathroom and Carson’s room. There is a large area of carpet in her room that has been soaked for days. Call me totally distracted, frazzled, and borderline idiotic, but for a few days I thought Campbell spilled a cup of water and then that Carson stood in her room without drying off from her bath, etc… I may be confronted with a cartoon wall of water in the morning when I open her door to wake her and find her floating, sleeping in oblivion up by the ceiling fan.

Campbell has been an asymptomatic carrier of strep for over a week now. She has been on meds for more than 24 hours, but she also went to school last week and contaminated the Older Two’s class 🙁 I didn’t know……..

Are you feeling sorry for my husband? I am too as I type this. Certainly hasn’t been a Hallmark homecoming, oh well… Sometimes life is hilarious (I’m on fire tonight with h alliteration. Was thinking ’bout adding Hilarious to the title of this post – think I’ll spare you this time…)

Over and out.

April

Representin’

I have a friend who is a high school English teacher and a mom, so she’s got the hookup if you’re looking for a sitter or a teen-for-hire. She recommended one of her students to a local business in town, and the student was hired. As the student prepared to start the new job, my friend cautioned her to do a good job. “Since I recommended you, my name’s on the line here.”

I’m even like that a little with my children. When they leave their manners tucked in their sock drawers, to some degree that reflects on me as a parent, or at least I feel like it does.

And I’ve been a little freaked out about this whole concept the past few days. As I put my words out here on a somewhat regular basis and as I write for She, I am more public than I have ever been. And as I write about my life, my experiences with God, and those of other people, I am going pretty public as a Christ follower. Now I am honored and humbled to hang that sign around my neck and to wear that T-shirt, but it also means carrying around a cinder block in my belly a lot of the times too. I get so anxious I almost throw up when I stare into the screen and think, “His name’s on the line here.” Or when I have daymares about the repercussions of gettin’ testy with a store clerk, pretending not to see an acquaintance I don’t want to chat with, or indulging in gossip with other moms.

Now I know that He is totally sovereign. That I am not able to mess up His plan. That there is grace because I am not perfect. BUT I also know that I can hinder the cause of Christ by wearing the T-shirt while acting in a way that is inconsistent with His character.

So it is my prayer that I do not dishonor His name in my efforts to share His work in my life. And I am seeking the precarious balance of doing right by all people (according to His commands) without believing that I have to please everyone. I’m a firstborn; it’s my natural inclination to want to please people. But God clearly lays out that His ways are not the ways of man, so I can’t play both sides of the field and hope all that works out okay in the end.

Got the T-shirt. Wearin’ it with pride. Prayin’ I don’t stain it in the process…

Endnote: My nickname as a child was Messmaker, and I’ve already shared my tendency to collect food stains. You get my drift?

April

The Procession

An endless line of car after car after truck after jeep after car. A smileless line that stretches as far as I can see. Some headlights burning, others not. Somber and grave faces. Big sunglasses abound. A few apply make-up to eyes still puffy and swollen. Several sip on coffee and many clutch cell phones to their ears. One teen tunes out everything with headphones attached to his head, and another reads a book as they file slowly toward their destination. A funereal march of ants, really.

Glad my rotation on the commute to school is over tomorrow!!!