Family Matters

Many times, if it wasn’t for family matters, our lives would be void of stress and drama.  Can I get an amen!  Think of the boredom that could set in.

Today’s families, for the most part, are a bag of mixed nuts, and some bolts; not all fitting together but sharing a common thread of either bloodline or addresses.  Or some other link perhaps through marriage, divorce, and the like.  The family of today is not cut and dry simple like the olden days of Mom, Dad, Children (as my cousin would say), Grandma, Grandpa, Aunts, Uncles, and cousins.  Family matters are much deeper and more confusing today.  

Apart from the nuts and bolts, many times a family could be compared to the junk drawer.  We all have one, whether it is an actual drawer or just a bucket or spot, we all have a place where we pitch everything we don’t know what to do with.  Nothing in the junk drawer goes together, it is just a bunch of buried treasure we can’t seem to part with, a piece of something we don’t want to lose, a broken part, or something we have no idea where it came from but know the minute we toss it in the trash we will need it like our life depended on it.  

If you have a family matter and not quite sure how to handle it, never throw in the towel.  Put it in the junk drawer for safe keeping, the answer will come to you one day.  Or, pitch it in with the nuts and bolts and something will eventually fit together to make sense of it all.

Because no matter what, family matters.

FRONT PORCH SITTIN’

It is almost that time of year.  Actually, the season is getting a late start.  Nevertheless, I am anticipating a fruitful year and getting the porch ready for the hustle and bustle of nothing much but sitting a spell with some sweet tea, great friends, and the man upstairs.

My nature has always been to be busy, to be doing, or, to be planning what I will be doing next, or in the future.  This way of being has kept me from the sheer pleasure of doing ‘nothing much’ my whole life.  Until last year.

If you haven’t tried front porch sitting, alone, or with someone, I highly recommend it.  I would have thought it to be laziness, or something folks without ambitions would do.  Why anyone in their right mind would sit in their yard, or on their porch, just to watch the cars, joggers, and dog walkers go by had me baffled?  The baffle has been removed.

2013 being the first summer in my new home, I had a ball getting the porch dolled up.  I painted the front door, got a cute dangly thing-ma-bob for the mailbox and purchased a porch size table set with cushions made from ticking, and brought some plants out from the inside.  It was outdoor living, just like they talk about in Better Homes and Gardens.   Each Holiday brings out the new thing-ma-bob for the mailbox and a fresh flower pot or something lovely like that.

I began to take my morning coffee to the porch, sitting with robe and flip flops, and sometimes the local paper.  Coffee never tasted better.  The smell of the outdoors.  The folks waving and honking as they mosey on by.   Living large.

A couple questions were posed recently at a group gathering, in which I took as questions referencing health and fitness routines, but now realize they could be used for any single area of our life.  The questions are ‘if not now, why?’, and ‘if not now, when?’.  Excellent questions, wouldn’t you agree?

What took me so long to learn the soul satisfying art of being still?  And thinking about it……….really…………it is actually doing something.  Something truly quite valuable to our health and well being.  Time well spent you might say.  Soul food.

So I ask, do you partake in the pleasure of front porch sittin’?  If not, why? And if not, when?  If you want to practice at my place come on over and sit a spell with me.  It will be a blast.