Love Actually

Christmas will be here soon. Okay, not real soon, but close enough that I am about to break out one of my favorite winter flicks--"Love Actually." I'm not a Hugh Grant fan. Let's just be clear on that fact. But there is something mesmerizing about his voice when he says, "Love actually is all around us." I like that. A lot.

When my life gets crazy and hectic (and this is all the time since I became a mom), I forget about all the wonderful things, big and little, around me. Love is to be had right here and right now. I spend so much time trying to dole it out in perfect spoonfuls that I forget to soak it in. I am, quite frankly, missing the freaking love boat.

In honor of Hugh Grant's voice and the warm feelings it evokes, I decided to write down a few things I actually love, or love actually. It's a work in progress, which works out great because guess what? So am I.

Heather's "Love Actually" List

1. Snuggling in bed with my boys (even with unexpected kicks and then giggles)

2. Warm puppy smell

3. Getting to walk a new trail that goes deep into the woods

4. Steamy romance novels

5. Alpaca socks

6. Sniffing permanent magic markers

7. Kneading bread dough

8. Eating homemade chocolate chip cookies

9. Kissing my hubby

10. Reading good writing, or writing some good reading

11. Quality time with those I love

12. Learning someone's story

13. Eliminating clutter

14. Dancing in the car with all the windows down

15. Buying school or office supplies

16. A hot shower

17. Sharing a meal with family and friends

18. Big bear hugs

19. A random act of kindness

20. Sending handwritten letters in the mail

I could on for a long time, I imagine, but I think there is power in just honoring a few things at a time. It would be even better to make a list each day. Different day, different list, but all things that bring happiness to a life. What's on your "Love Actually" list? Well, besides me, of course.

Sharing the Struggle

Work has been particularly grueling lately. I mean, it always moves at a fast pace, which suits me just fine, but in the last few weeks I feel like I'm hanging from the back of a bumper, white knuckled, driving way too fast down the freeway. One minute I'm screaming from sheer excitement. The next, I'm trying to keep the bugs from choking me along the way. It's a multi-tasking world, I know. But it is simply exhausting.

This is why I almost didn't go to a conference today. I was overwhelmed with the work in front of me. Although I really wanted to hear the lunch speaker, who I heard had a great story, it was my friend, Dulce, the conference organizer, that sealed the deal. I made a promise to be her helper during lunch. Did I mention that Dulce is a kind, giving soul, who radiates light and love? It's hard to let someone like that down no matter what kind of stress you're under.

Gracia Burnham, the speaker, had quite the story to tell. She and her pilot husband were Kansas-natives, who had been missionaries in the Philippines, when they were captured in 2001 by an Islamic group. For over a year, a whole year, Gracia and her husband were hostages and forced to witness unspeakable horrors in the jungle. Before being rescued, she was shot in the leg and her husband in the chest during a gun battle. He died in the jungle exactly one year and 11 days from when they were first taken. Gracia returned to her three children in Kansas.

She talked about all the prayers from back home that lifted them up in that year in the jungle. She talked about her captives, many young boys, and where they are today (a few even write her from prison). And Gracia spoke with great wisdom on forgiveness and God's power, but the tears came down in earnest for me when she reflected on why God chooses one path for one person and then quite another for the next.

"The strong one [Martin] died and the weak one [me] got to come home and tell the story, to carry on the mission," she said. Really hard to understand.

I don't understand much about life, but I know I was supposed to be in that room today. I needed to hear her story, her life-changing message. When I was given the job to pass out her book at the book-signing table, so she could stand up and hug people and write a message of hope on the inside page, I felt something shift inside me. It got filled suddenly with something better, though most days, the Lord knows, I feel so unworthy.

"God bless you, Heather," she writes on my page. No words come out, so I just hug her tight. It's not enough, I know, but I make a mental promise to pay it forward. Life is too short and precious to do otherwise.

Praying Mantis Club

I was in St. Louis this weekend for the wedding of my dear friend, Mary. She is one of the five founding members of the PMC, or Praying Mantis Club (pictured left, though Mary is absent because she's greeting her wedding guests). It's a group of girls that would get together every month, once upon a time when we all lived in Kansas City, and try a new adventure each time we gathered. Our only common thread at the beginning? Me.

It was a tentative gathering at first, as we tried to figure out our role in this group as only women do. We picked apples in Weston. We ate at new restaurants. We tried yoga in a room heated to over 100 degrees and, even though Rhonda passed out, the rest of us held our poses perfectly. We drank too much wine. We laughed really loud in public places. No ones asked us to leave, but they probably should have. We did pottery. We perfected our self-defense moves. We even made predictions on where we would end up in five or 10 years.

In the fun of it all, we gave ourselves a name, Praying Mantis Club. This came from our merriment (dark and sinister as it may be) at the role of the male praying mantis in the sex act. In order to even have sex, the female must first bite off his head and then he dies. For sex. Only a male of any species would die for sex, but only a female would bite off his head and then proceed to get it on with a headless male. Relationships are complex. We all agree on that.

All of us made it this weekend to Mary's wedding. It was a reunion of the sweetest, and even bitter sweetest, kind. I really miss my friends. These are unique women that grow stronger every year, but unfortunately it's without me being near. I'm not there for every story, or heartache, or miracle. I'm the faraway friend. Because I love these friends so much, I've even managed to block myself off from some new friendships where I live now. That may be the saddest part of the equation, I think.

Friendship is an amazing and complex thing. It's hard to understand why some groups work and others just fizzle away. Thank you, PMC, for all the memories and love. I was reminded how much I love you this weekend. It's time to move on. I know you'll understand.

Detoxifying Your Life

I heard the other day on the radio that one of the best things you can do for your body is to drink hot water with lemon every morning. It's nature's best detoxifier. Your liver will love you, absolutely love you, after only a few short days of this hot lemonade tonic. Sounds simple, right? Then again, this is me we are talking about.

I agonized for days on whether I should buy fresh lemons or the juice in that plastic yellow lemon bottle. Fresh lemons are best, I know, but they always seem to slide to the back of our fridge and shrivel up. I can't tell you how many 99-cent lemons I've wasted in my lifetime (you might hate me if I even try to give you an estimate). Then when I called my husband in the middle of the day to ask his opinion on the lemon saga, he was kind of rude. To me. About lemons.

I buy the fresh lemons (in a huff!). The radio guy says to drink it first thing in the morning because this is what your liver really likes, so I make a mental note to make this the first step in my day. Get up, stretch, then quietly drink your detoxifier. If I lived in a normal house, this might be doable, but my house is a circus, complete with two baby cubs and a dog that always need my attention. I'm lucky if manage to get a hot cup of coffee before mid-morning.

It's been three weeks. No morning detoxifier. Tonight, however, I am turning things around and trying my first hot water with fresh lemon (well, a three-week old and slightly wrinkled lemon) while I write this. Kids and hubby are in bed and, unfortunately, the dog is licking himself with unrelenting determination next to my chair. It's a sound that drives me crazy. The drink, thank goodness, tastes just fine.

I wonder if we can really detoxify our body and our lives with one single step. Is it as easy as squeezing fresh lemons in hot water and chugging it down? I think our lives are moving at such a warp speed that we will cling to any solution that might claim to help us, or save us, or simplify us. We are willing to let random people on the radio direct our lives in rush hour instead of slowing down to reflect on how our lives got here, hectic and perhaps a little hairy.

Perhaps the true detox comes when we accept our major role in making our lives what they are (because we do, after all, fill it up) and then, miraculously, choosing to embrace it or change it. We each have the power to do both though we often choose to do neither. And for those, like me, who are comfortable with worry and constant fatigue, might I suggest starting slow with some quiet time, or semi-quiet time if you have a dog, to enjoy a nice steaming cup of lemon water. It's a start and your liver will absolutely love you.

The Master Plan

The Lord has a plan for my life. I know this to be true. What I don't know, may never know, is why all the filler happens in between. I mean I'm completely good with all the joyful stuff. Bring on the warm puppy smell and loud kid giggles. Sunrise and sunset? Count me in every time. I even find value in the people I meet along the way.

It's the other stuff I'm talking about. The kind of things that bring you to your knees or, worse yet, leave you laying there in a fetal position. Helpless. Afraid. It's the hurt and sadness and despair, all rolled into one. It's the uglier part of life.

While I have plenty of downward dips in my life, it is nothing compared to what my friend, Heather, is going through right now. For 35 days, she has been trying to be boring. Doing nothing, literally nothing, in a hospital bed because she's been trying to hold her baby inside her womb. He has had a myriad of health problems, including the risk of kidney failure when born. If he is not born at more than four pounds, he will not be given the gift of dialysis.

He was born yesterday. Over five pounds (thank you, Lord!), but still several weeks premature. His name is Jacob. He is a sweet, beautiful baby. Jacob also is in kidney failure, has an infected colon outside of his body, and faces other life-threatening issues. He has had two surgeries in his short life. News is not even day by day anymore. It is hour by hour. My friend is one of the strongest women I know, but this is one of those wear-you-down-in-the-worst-kind-of-way obstacles.

In all the Lord's infinite wisdom, I wish there was a way to carry the burden for others, to take part of their struggle, strap it to our own back, and carry it away. I would do this for her. I love her that much. Unfortunately, this isn't how life works. We can only lift up our prayers on their behalf, not take away the really tough part of the journey. Perhaps it is the Lord's plan that we must be broken before we can be built back up again. He gives us each other so we can survive.

Howling at the Moon

I'm an Aquarius. A water baby, if you will. And although I rarely read my horoscope, I believe there is something to be said for how the stars were aligning the day you were born. I once read Aquarius women are eccentric, loyal (but usually with only a select few), and willing to try anything once. Sounds sexy, doesn't it? Well, it's not.

I am eccentric. Except you're only eccentric when you're rich. I'm just weird. I have all these strong feelings about random stuff, like not wearing deodorant because it causes cancer or leaving only one hubcap on my car because all the others ones have vanished. The things I should care about? I don't. Sorting laundry by color, rising up the corporate ladder, finishing things I start. Meaningless endeavors in my world.

I'm also loyal to the bone. My loyalty goes so deep in fact that I only let one to two people really get to know me in my whole lifetime. My best friend, Jamie, is one. My husband is the other. While I love having lots of different friends and sharing stories with others, I rarely tell them my darkest, deepest secrets. I don't think I'm terribly bad, but I don't think I'm terribly good either. I'm just hard to love. It's been safer along the way to be selective.

The last Aquarius trait I have in spades. I'm a risk taker. I am, quite literally, willing to try anything once. I have jumped out of an airplane. Eaten from the mouths of others to win a contest. Quit a job out of frustration. Tattooed my skin. Swam naked at night in the ocean during a jelly fish alert. All this stuff, silly and sometimes stupid, to be able to personally experience it. To say, I loved or I hated it, but I know for myself because I tried it.

I have a necklace that my Mom gave me for my birthday a few years back with a picture of the exact moon in the sky on the day and year I was born. It was a seven descending, waning moon. The note attached said, "Let this serve as a constant reminder to always look up. Is it your moon in the sky tonight?" If I was another astrological sign, it might be enough to calmly look up at the moon and meditate. Instead, I'm the crazy one running around her yard naked, covered in war paint, cursing the moon like a wild banshee. This is how it goes with Aquarius women. The only thing you know is that you never really know.

Edward vs. Jacob

When I left the movie theater last night, I was once again smitten and bitten (not literally, of course, though it is very tempting) with the vampire world in Forks, Washington. This seems crazy to me because I'm not 12. I'm 32. Yet, here I was rushing to the movies, all giddy and restless to see how the love story would unfold on the big screen.

And it is a crazy love story. Vampires. Werewolves. A clumsy, yet stunningly beautiful, heroine. Two men, also heroically handsome, who love her with such a passion that it makes everything else so trivial. It is an all-consuming love. Hold on to it and burn, or let it go and fade away. Just like the characters, even though I sense danger in every scene, I cannot look away.

So, what keeps us coming back for more in this Edward versus Jacob saga? It might be that we enjoy a good love story, or perhaps it's our curiosity about the darker side. For me, and this may be true for many women, it's the burning hot chemistry. It's the way he looks at her, as if he wants to brand her his woman for eternity. "Brand me, brand me," I often feel like yelling.

As much as I love this escapism, I also worry about it. This is not real life. This is not even real love. For those more seasoned and cynical to the world (yes, this is me!), it's just two hours to escape from kids and housework, but for other impressionable young girls, it becomes the picture of perfect love. Everything else, even something honest and real, falls short. It makes me sad because life is hard enough. You don't need to be disillusioned about love, too.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm all for hot love. I encourage sniffing people because you can't live without their scent and imprinting on your life mate, even in the womb. I like hot kissing, but agree about waiting for marriage and losing your virginity until right after graduation. When my friend fell in love a few years back, she said she just wanted to eat him up, hair and all, because she loved him so much. Did I discourage that? No, ma'am. I'm no love hater.

The story in Forks can teach us many things, good and bad. It's been very well done, but it's also Hollywood and that makes it tragically flawed. It's really hard to remember all that, especially with Jacob sporting the hot, bronzed skin and beautiful, white teeth. For now, it's back to my real life until the next movie rolls around, though I am planning to buy some tight flannel shirts this fall. I love you, Edward. I'll see you soon.