Make this your year

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves,
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we're liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkdgK3adrmw

Marianne Williamson

As we start out this year, we have a chance to really let ourselves shine through. We have a choice to make regarding how we will live out the next year of our lives, how we will react in situations, how we will live each day. We are capable of great things, each one of us! Somewhere along the way, we've lost sight of that though. We've been told that we were incapable of excellence, that we were meant to live a life of 'simplicity' (ie. poverty), that we were meant to be 'just a mom' or 'just a wife'. We all had dreams of what we wanted. We all saw Cinderella in her castle or Sleeping Beauty being kissed by the prince, and our hearts skipped a beat. Deep inside of us, we all wanted that. We wanted to be swept off our feet. Now, our 'prince charming' is wearing holey sweatpants, drinking beer or sitting watching football, not sweeping us off our feet like he did during those early years of dating. But don't be fooled. WE have changed too! We've settled for the comfortable atmosphere of our homes, knowing that our husband will be there, despite our looks, weight or attitude. We forget to do our makeup. We wear our hair pulled up most of the time and have our own holey sweatpants. (And yes, I'm sitting with my hair pulled up, and no makeup on as I type this!!) We settle for the "This is how it was meant to be" or "this is how it's going to be so I just need to accept it" mentality. 

It's time to change that mindset. We are ALL made for something bigger than mediocrity. We want our kids to strive to be the best they can be in their classes, their sports or their other activities, but we don't push ourselves the same way. Could it be that we are scared of what would happen if we demanded that same type of determination for ourselves? Could it be that we are scared of the person that we have hidden behind our extra 20, 40, 100 pounds? Could it be that if we became the person we were designed to be, that we might just find ourselves in a position of authority, in a place where people wanted to KNOW us and we were surrounded by friends. 

In this near year, I challenge you to find yourself. Become the you that you were designed to be! God has called us to bigger and better. Make 2012 YOUR year to shine!!!!

Life of Compassion

Today, as we begin a brand new year, I had planned to really start to enjoy life, look for the daily miracles and things to be thankful for and begin blogging on a more regular basis about those small miracles and pleasures of life. God had an interesting part to play, as He always does. I received a message from an acquaintance that stated she needed to let me know that a mutual friend had either committed suicide or was in the process of committing suicide. Some mutual friends were on the way to her house to check on her. When the police and paramedics got to the house, she was definitely in a drugged up state. Nothing would be done, however, because she was conscious and didn't want to go to the hospital. The friends spent some time with her and called me to come and join them. I raced over to the house and was shocked with what I saw. Here was a house that hadn't been cleaned in awhile, dirty dishes piled everywhere, covered in mold, coffee grounds and cigarette ashes covering every square inch of the kitchen. She had not eaten in 2 days, and I'm assuming by the incredible dog urine smell and the piles of feces in the office, that the dogs hadn't been taken care of for several days either. My heart sunk as I walked down the hallway to find my friend, lying in her bed in a drugged stupor. This is not what a new year is meant to be! I began talking to her, taking over for those who were in the room and giving them a break. I laid down next to her in bed and began to rub her head, partially to calm her, but also to check for bumps as she had fallen 3x the night before. 

I had just set out today to begin the "One Thousand Gifts" adventure. When I logged on to one of the blogs I follow, I was shocked to find reference to the book. The blog post started with "You are worthless". "All you do is disappoint people". "You will never be enough". These are the demons in my head. And in the minds of the children we serve. Rich or poor, Satan wants to entrap us. For the children we serve, Satan wants to convince them that the absence of material wealth equals the absence of love from a Heavenly Father. For those of us in the developed world, that negative voice might be just as loud, but for different reasons.

Years ago, I began making agreements with evil. I listened to these voices spouting hatred at me, these voices saying there was nothing special about me. Believing the lies led to crippling despair.

All I could think about was how bad I am. Shame overwhelmed. I felt trapped inside of myself.

Paralyzed.

All I could do was lie on the couch, watching the beautiful and exciting people on TV. Criticizing myself that my life wasn’t as interesting as the characters I saw, or that I could never fit into an actress’s tiny dress." Courtesy of Compassion International: http://blog.compassion.com/ann-voskamp-one-thousand-gifts-the-key-that-unlocks/#ixzz1iGa8JGcJ

These are the voices my friend has been hearing. The voices of defeat and loneliness, despair and hopelessness. Satan wants to keep us in the state, where we are desperate, but where the true answers to help us are blurred by his lies. As I was seeking God tonight, trying to find meaning in this crazy start to the new year, He clearly said that 2011 was a bad year for many, but especially my friend. For her, as for many around us, it was a year of death. He reminded me of Ecclesiastes and the idea of a time for everything. She tried to end her 2011 by ending her own life, killing the death that was destroying her. For her 2012 entered in at just the right time and sustained her. Life won again! For her, 2012 is a year of life. Her strength in her lungs, her beating heart, the small pulsings of her brain were stronger than the death she tried to induce and the voices that tried to kill her.  2012 is about life anew!

What about me, Oh God? What is the meaning of today for me? His answer was that it's about compassion and servanthood....two things I'm not that great in. It's about GIVING that life to those around me! Unleashing beauty and helping others to realize their truths. What a tall order!   It's going to be one that is going to have to be a daily surrender on my part. A journey of having to build myself up in Jesus so that I am filled and ready to give it all to those around me. It's a gift....one that I'm being given, in order to give away. 

Praying a blessed 2012 for those who may read this. I hope you will follow me on this journey, and when I slack off on my posts, remind me to get back in the game and revive the broken around me. 

I've slacked...again

Man, with my addiction to facebook, I forget that I have this blog. I really want to keep a running blog though and be able to really track all our fun activities so this is my goal for this next year. Tim and I are only a few short months from graduating (me in 6 months and Tim in 9) so these next several months will be BUSY ones for us and there will be lots to talk about I'm sure.

This month, Seth and I had a great opportunity as Seth was chosen by his band director to go to UGA for a band festival. Once there, Seth auditioned for placement in one of 9 bands. He spent the rest of the weekend in rehearsals and practices, learning the songs.

 Waiting to Audition with over 100 other percussionists

Seth was placed in the #4 band so really good overall. Truth of the matter was that of all the bands, he was put in the best one from a percussionist standpoint. The conductor for his band had chosen some great songs that really allowed the various percussion instruments to really be heard and perform. Had he been in any of the #1-3 bands, the percussion sections were really not heard over the rest of the instruments or their parts were not very good.

On the last day, we spent some time driving around taking pictures of Seth proudly sporting his MSU shirt on the UGA campus. January 2, MSU faces UGA in the Outback Bowl so we made sure to show our MSU pride as much as we could this weekend!  GO GREEN!

This was a great opportunity for Seth and he learned so much. Up until this point he's told me that he wants to do marching band in high school but he's now saying that he wants to stay in the actual band and join a percussion ensemble. He  learned this weekend that he'll have more opportunities to play more instruments in the percussion section than he would if he was in drum line. Either way, I think that high school is going to be a great experience for him with his percussion skills.

Gearing up for our last 6 months in Georgia!

It's hard to believe that we are now just 6 1/2 months away from my graduation! The beginning quarters seemed to take us forever to get through but it sure is flying now. We have decided that we want to practice in Brighton, MI and have recently purchased our domain name. Now to finalize it and buy the actual DBA when we are home sometime in January. We have found a realtor who is going to help us with choosing a location and negotiations and have found a coaching company who is going to help us with getting up and running and being successful. Let the fun begin!

Thank God that quarter is OVER!

What a long quarter at school we had! Outpatient clinic proved to be 'not nice' to me and I really struggled with my advisor, scheduling and just getting my numbers. We only have to get 20 adjustments in this quarter, which doesn't sound too hard, but with scheduling conflicts, class issues and patient's non compliance, it was really a struggle. My advisor and I tend to butt heads pretty bad, and what I thought would be a great learning experience with her , has turned into complete hell! My patients, despite their lack of compliance and their skipping appointments were great. I met an amazing older gentleman who really changed so many things in my life! He ended up having to have a major spinal stenosis surgery and so I won't be seeing him as my patient due to his recovery time. I managed to get my very last adjustment at 6:45pm or so on Friday night and officially finished up the 10th quarter clinic requirements. Thank goodness!!!!

Tim took OSCE this quarter and had to retake Full Spine and Radiology, but completed both of them and will be joining me in outpatient clinic when we get back to school in July.

We both passed all our classes and I'm HAPPY to say "I'M DONE WITH DR. FOX!!!!" I don't think I've passed any of his classes with higher than a 72%, but I passed, and I'm DONE!! Next quarter should be a pretty good one for me and hopefully one I'll enjoy. Tim still has a few rough quarters ahead, but he's motivated and ready.

While we are here in Michigan for break, we are going to spend some time trying to narrow down where we want to practice. We've really struggled between staying near Detroit or going to the west side of the state (Muskegon area) but I'll write about that in a different blog. For now, we are planning on staying near Detroit and so have a TON of planning to do. Graduation is only a year away!!!!!!

So, we've done it again. We got a new dog. Today Tim and I went to Whole Foods and they were doing pet adoption outside. I talked him into going over to look and we found a couple dogs that we fell in love with. I swear we spent an hour or more looking at the dogs, talking about which one we liked and how we could make it work. We are needing to get rid of the cats since we aren't supposed to have them here anyways and they are starting to reek havoc, so talked about maybe 'swapping' the cats for a new dog. By 'swap' I mean that we have to convince the girls to get rid of their cats and get a dog instead. Anyways, Tim came home, picked up the girls and went back. They didn't like the one that I fell in love with, but they found a dog that they loved. We are now the owners of a great part shephard (possibly part pit) dog that is currently named Jake. Being we have a Jacob that we call Jake, we need to change the name though. We are sort of thinking right now about calling him Kobi.

Anyways, he really is doing great with the kids and even with Rex. He sits and shakes on command. He retrieves toys and drops them when told to drop them. When he starts to get too rough while playing, you say "gentle" and immediately walks away and goes and lays down. From what we understand, his owners had to move out of the country for work and couldn't take him. The people were marathon runners so the dog loves to run.

Here's a couple pictures of him.

Friday Funny ~*~4/1/11~*~

My youth from high school is probably one of the funniest people I know! Today's Friday Funny is one of his cartoons. If you aren't already a friend of his, you need to add Dik LaPine on Facebook! He'll keep you laughing!

April Fools Prank

Mikayla can be quite the drama queen and prankster so with April Fools Day here, I knew she'd come up with something to fool her teachers. She didn't disappoint!!! She came home from school and was cracking up. Apparently she talked her friend Omega into helping her with her trick. Mikayla worked up some fake tears and Omega went up to the teacher and said "Did you hear Mikayla is moving back to Michigan over break??" The teacher called Mikayla up and said "Are you really moving back to Michigan?" and Mikayla answered that she was. The teacher said "Over spring break????" (which started today) and Mikayla started to nod her head then said "NO! APRIL FOOLS" and blew a loud air horn that she'd been hiding behind her back.

She takes after her father....I swear!!!! ;)

Katelyn-The Artist

Last week Katelyn went to a birthday party at It's this great place where they teach you how to paint a preselected picture. For adults, you bring in your own drinks, from pop to wine to whatever you want. Pretty fun place! Katelyn had a blast and created this masterpiece that is hanging proudly in our hallway. I can't wait to sign the other kids up for a class to see what they come up with as well.

You call this "Spring Break"??

Our quarter at school ended last Friday and after a horribly stressful quarter, I was really looking forward to the break. Here is it Friday night, a whole week later, and we start back to school in just 2 short days. It has been cold and rainy all week so there's been no hiking, no long walks, no relaxing outside in the sun! I had planned on doing a garage sale this weekend but the weather has been so nasty that I haven't been able to set it up, especially being that I can't actually use the garage and have to do a 'yard sale' instead. Tim and I start back early Monday morning....and the kids get the week off for THEIR spring break! Looking at the forecast, they get warmer weather and more sunshine that we did. I guess that's a good thing because they can be outside and run off the extra energy. I'm just NOT ready to go back to school yet and really wish we could have another week. My house hasn't gotten spring cleaned like I hoped, I haven't done the reading I had wanted to do and I haven't gotten to sleep in a single day. Seriously...this is spring break??? I guess this is what spring break is like as a mom of 5.