life updates

 

Happy Tuesday, friends! I thought I'd share a few tidbits about my family members and myself for today's post. I don't often share about our sons these days, but I still love looking back on this type of thing. I thought I'd share something about each of us that we've been up to and something you may not know about each one of us.

Graham:

Not only does Graham have some pretty great friends, he is a good friend to others. I'm so proud of him for this, because we always taught the boys to treat others how they want to be treated, just as most parents I know do. He spent most of his Saturday helping a friend install something fun in his vehicle. It was an all day project that lasted until eleven p.m. and his payment was dinner. I hope it was a good dinner! He had to come back in before he left for work this morning to rub some Icy Hot on his neck, it was so sore from the weekend. He spends his days at work and his evenings with Jessi. I love that he is attentive and it's fun to see the adult version of himself date an adult girl. One night he wasn't going to go see her at work because he was so tired, but she'd had a rough day and he didn't want to go a day without seeing her when she was struggling. I think that's the sweetest thing and the romantic in me swoons at that. 

Something that you may not know about him is that he is a defender. He has always been that way, but what I mean by that is that he can't stand to see someone treated poorly. He always jumps to the defense of someone, especially his brothers. When Jonah totaled my car in the summer of 2021 and we couldn't reach Todd, Graham flew down the stairs and took off faster than I could even blink. He was the first one on the scene of the wreck that night and I've never been so grateful that he's so responsible. These traits are my favorite thing about my Graham. 

Drew:

Drew stays so busy! He works nonstop and he goes from work to the gym. He loves to work out and lift weights and when I saw him in church yesterday, he looked way too big for the seat that he was sitting in. He is extremely muscular and looks great. In the year 2020, he dropped 50 pounds and since then he's put most of that back on, but in muscle mass. He is still working as a valet and feels like he will stay put at this job for at least one full year before moving on to consider another career. He has a couple of ideas of what he may want to do, but he wants to save money and build his savings account up before pursuing that. In the meantime, he does really well and makes more than enough money to support himself and to pay all of his bills. I do often make him promise me that he is eating properly. 

Something you may not know about my Drew is that he is super clumsy. He is the one who keeps us in insurance, because we use most of it on him. I am not kidding! He is so my child. He is constantly breaking/jamming/bruising/tearing/spraining something on his body. His favorite thing in the world to do is to play basketball and to coach his friends playing basketball. This usually doesn't bode well since he is so prone to injury. 🤣 My favorite thing about Drew is that he has the ability to laugh at himself often. He loves being with his friends and having them over to their house. He is super loyal. 

Jonah:

My cute Jonah. I LOVE his dimples. He is spreading his wings and abilities with his job. He's been working full time for one year now and he's learned a lot. He started with just the diagnostic testing of certain equipment they repair (they repair medical equipment), but he's learned to repair a few things around their shop and on jobs they go on. He's grown a lot in this, because he started by not even wanting to speak to customers, but one year later he doesn't think twice about that and all the customers love him and his dimples as much as his mama. Nobody believes he's almost out of his teens. He had his first big milestone yesterday and gained them a big customer they've never worked with before. He had to go and meet the man and give him an estimation of what they would do and what it would cost. I'm so proud of him! Like I said, he's grown in leaps and bounds this year.

Something you may not know about him is that he has the BEST laugh ever. He is full of joy and lives life to the very fullest and enjoys every second. His smile is ever present and his laugh is something I love to hear, because he laughs all the time. I think that out of my sons, he may be the most like me, regarding this. I love to laugh and have fun and I crack up all the time. Life is too short not to enjoy it as much as possible. 

Noah:

First, I had to look way too hard to find a picture of my sweet Noah. Apparently, he doesn't take pictures that often and all the ones I had don't look like him right now. This one was the closest I could find, even though it was a year and a half ago. Noah is loving his job! He works at a car wash right now, and though he won't do this forever, he enjoys the job and seeing people and working with the others that work there. I'm so happy for him about this! He had a job that he loved, but took our advice and quit, when we realized he wasn't being paid the money he was due. I still think the man he worked for was super sketchy and looking back, Todd and I had all kinds of red flags about him. I'm always thankful for how things work out, because God knows all the details of what goes on, when we don't. I consider it His hand of protection over Noah. 

Something you may not know about Noah is that he is an excellent communicator. He speaks his mind clearly and with ease and has excellent speaking skills. He writes well, as does Drew, and that may have something to do with how he speaks and communicates with others. I love that Noah is so affectionate. He's my only one that is consistently this way and is always telling me to stop so that he can give me a big bear hug. He towers over me at over six feet tall and his voice is big and booming. He's such a teddy bear and he is almost always in a great mood. Now, his brothers will argue this point, but this is how he is with me at least. Contrary to what they say, I do not have favorites when it comes to my sons. 🤣

Todd:

He is still having great success at losing weight. I'm so proud of him! I don't say that enough, but he looks so different. He's down two pants sizes and he could stand to go down a shirt size. He eats pretty much the same thing everyday, with dinners being different. I try to make sure he has plenty of protein with dinner each night and this week I made sure to have something on hand that is salty/crunchy for when he needs a bite of something like that to snack on. I keep hummus and guacamole on hand for him, because neither of those are too bad, as long as you use moderation. His hernias have been so much better since he's lost so much weight, but he will still need surgery once he's at a certain BMI. I do hate that for him, that he has to have surgery, but I know it'll be good for him in the long run. Did you know that hernia surgeries don't work if you gain weight after the surgery? It's true, which is why he's lost weight. He saw a surgeon about this and that was what he'd found to be true after years of research and writing papers on this topic. It's also why Todd's first hernia surgery didn't last.

Something you may not know about him is that he has grown a moustache! I've gotten used to it mostly, but sometimes it still catches me by surprise. I'll admit, I wasn't a fan at first, but it's grown on me. 🤣 (See what I did there?)

This is a terrible picture of me, but I love it of him! I think he's so handsome. 😍 

I don't think I have anything new to share, because I'm an open book here. All of you know about my new job by now, but you may not know that I love it. It feels so good to get dressed and leave my house everyday, which I'm surprised to say. I think I was more than ready to do something like this for myself, which is why I got a job to begin with. Todd didn't ask me to do this, and it wasn't for any particular reason, it was just something I wanted to do. I love working with my best friend and our day together yesterday was fun! We cracked up several times during the time I was there, so much so that I snorted in laughter, but we did also actually work. It felt good to be a relief for her, because I was busy with lots to do! It was one less thing she didn't have to do, and it made her day a smidge better.

Something you may not know about me is that I usually don't care for my hair. I hate (HATE) seeing pictures or videos of myself, because all I see is hair. I'm rolling my eyes at myself. I said that to say I had a good hair day this weekend, one time, and I took a picture to document.

I don't know where I was looking, but I liked my hair, the makeup I had on (with new eyeshadow and lipstick) and my outfit. This was when we went out to dinner Saturday night, where we ate at one of my favorite local restaurants. 

To wrap this up, know that I always feel a little weird about these posts now that my sons are older and I never want to say too much to respect their privacy. They do know I share about them here on occasion though, and they give me their blessing. I think. Maybe I should check again soon! I also never want to boast about anything we did for them to turn out a certain way—as those of you with adults kids know, all you can do is to try your best and cover them in prayer. Even then, things can turn out so differently! In some ways, we were wildly successful at this whole parenting gig, but in other huge way, we failed tremendously. I think every parent I know would go back and change some things, if they were given a chance. I have the thought regularly that they may all need counseling someday as a result of something I did or did not do. There's lots of grace in parenting here—both for ourselves and for people we know and love who have struggles with their own adult kids. Being a parent is a tremendous blessing and privilege, but it is certainly not for the faint of heart. Along that same thought, the same could be said of  marriage. It takes time, commitment, lots of diligent watering of your own grass, love and grace. It also takes God, because if you don't keep Him at the center of it all, the whole thing could just fall apart at any given second. 

I share that because though Todd and I have the best marriage to date in almost 26 years, it's nowhere near perfect and we've had our fair share of troubles. God is good, though and by His grace, He pulled us through and helped us too many times to count. I know that will be a recurring thing too, in the many years to come. I share this because I know so many who are struggling in their marriages. Because God loves it and honors it, the enemy is after the family, in the form of their marriages. I've had several friends reach out to me to pray for them and their marriages recently and my best friend and I were talking about this yesterday, because she's had the same. Neither one of us shared any details, but it's something we could ALL be praying for. I guarantee that out of every five marriages of people in your circle right now, three would be struggling in some way. I'm guilty of not praying for my own enough, and I would guess a lot of you would say the same. Maybe that can be our takeaway from today's silly little post. Maybe we should all commit to spending time in prayer for our marriages and for others. I'll end this with one of my favorite passages about the kind of love we should all display within our marriages. 

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)

As always, thanks for reading my blog, friends! If I can pray for you in any way, let me know. I would be honored. You can email me at allboys@gmail.com. Love to all!