We Dreamers Have Our Ways....

I Made It Through the Rain (Barry Manilow)
http://youtu.be/wlQPnNy6JR0

     I thought I had "retired" from teaching piano lessons when, surprise, I was approached by two individuals recently who expressed a desire to have me teach their children to play the piano. One of them was the parent of a former student who had decided to take some time off to regroup following a family crisis. The other was a family who is new to the area and upon learning that I have taught, approached me to teach their child to learn to play. I was both pleased and surprised by their requests.

     I have always tried to willingly and openly share my knowledge and talent with others. I began teaching lessons back in 1989, when my first child was about 18 months old. We were fairly new on our path into the world of parenting and living on our own. My husband had taken a job in another state that was far away from where I was born and raised. We were fairly fresh out of college and this was our first "real" salaried job. We tried hard to be able to live on his salary alone, but we were struggling to make ends meet.

    One day I decided I needed to do something to help stretch our budget, but what? I had a two-year diploma in Secretarial Training/Administrative Support, but I had not worked since the birth of our son. We were now living in a different state than where I had worked previously using that degree, and I was unsure where I would be able to find any employment. I was also very concerned about the care and welfare of my son. If I went back to work outside of the home, who would take care of him? I had no family members nearby and few friends. So, I did what I try to always due when faced with these kinds of dilemmas - I prayed and asked God what I should do.

    I remember explaining to Heavenly Father our dilemma. I explained how I desired to help out with the family finances, but that I felt I also needed to be home with our son. I needed something that I could do, I could feel good about and something that was mine. The answer came to me, "teach piano lessons". I had studied piano for many years growing up and felt confident that I had enough skills to be able to teach others how to play. But where to begin?

      I lacked a piano and teaching experience. God took care of these concerns. I happened to have a friend who had children that took piano lessons and she gave me some information and pointers that her children's teacher used with them. Upon asking around in my church community, I came across an individual who had a piano that was in storage and not being used. She was willing to give me the piano in exchange for teaching her to play. The only thing we had to do was go and pick up the piano and move it into our home. And so it began....

    I have been teaching for more than 20 years now and I have learned a lot about how to succeed as a business owner, and how to help my students succeed at learning to play the piano. God has placed people and resources in my path that have helped me all along the way. When I look back over those years of teaching I can't count how many times the little amount of money I brought in teaching piano lessons gave us just enough to have what we needed. It was and is truly a calling from God and a blessing in my life. It is one of my life purposes, though admittedly I sometimes haven't seen it that way.

    When I returned to college a few years ago I decided to put my piano lesson business onto the back burner and limit my teaching. I felt I needed to do that in order to be able to keep up with my classes and the homework demands. While I enjoyed getting my schooling, I missed my teaching. It was a nice change of pace, and maybe the sabbatical that I needed in order to help me appreciate what I had - and the fact that it truly is a calling from God for me.

     I will be forever grateful to my parents who started me playing and supported me financially and physically all throughout my journey. I am also very grateful to the 4 women who taught me how to play the piano, and to do it well. They were terrific mentors and role models for me as I began my own piano teaching business. I am thankful for the woman who gave me the piano that got me started, and for the beautiful piano that once sat in my parent's house and now sits in mine. It is truly a privilege and a gift from God to be able to share my talent and love of music with future generations. My hope is that they too will come to appreciate and use what they are learning to make this world a more beautiful place to live. in my dreams....

The Medium Is The Messenger

Operator, can you help me place this call? 

- Jim Croce

Hello (Neil Diamond)

http://youtu.be/K0MIKngHn_c

     The more things change, the more they stay the same. I was "chatting" online with my son (who lives 12 hours away) this morning and we were discussing his keeping in better touch with his siblings. He mentioned that it was "Hard to keep in touch when we are all spread out".  Recognizing this as a teaching moment, I decided to take advantage of it to share my thoughts with him. I mentioned how much easier it is to keep in touch in his present world than it was when I was in his situation so many years ago. When I was his age and living 2000 miles away from my family we didn't have such things as email, Skype, cell phones or texting. We had to pay exorbitant long distant phone call fees and/or write snail mail that took at least a week to get to it's destination. It was VERY hard to be so far away from my family, especially my parents. Many a family vacation was spent traveling to the West to see our family and maintain close family ties. Many Sunday evenings were spent on the telephone with my parents getting updates on my siblings. My siblings lived in the West and we were in the southern United States for many years, now we live in the Midwest. Most of my husband's family live in the West. At that time they were in different stages of their lives than we were at the time. I tried to send letters and cards for birthdays, but as my own children grew and my family responsibilities increased my priorities shifted. The distance drove us apart and we stopped communicating on a regular basis. 

     I have watched myself and my siblings struggle to maintain relationships long distance. In a time of need or crisis (like my parent's death), we are very good about staying in contact with each other. But as life settled back down and returned to some semblance of normalcy, we have drifted apart and become less connected that we were during that time of crisis. It takes effort on everyone's part to keep the lines of communication open and the relationships alive. Relationships are a two-way street. It is so easy to do the "out of sight, out of mind" thing when we don't live near to each other and see or contact each other so infrequently. Sure, we are still family and ultimately love each other, but what about being an active part of each others lives? I learned in one of my sociology courses that distance can drive us apart, and it takes an active, consistent effort by all to be able to maintain close family relationships. 

  In a phone call I received just after Christmas from my daughter, she mentioned the desire to stay in better contact with her siblings. It is also a desire of mine to see my children remain close in spite of the distances between them. Life is hard sometimes, and changes can happen quickly. We need to keep the communication ongoing, and put the effort into caring about and supporting one another. I do not want to let something that is as doable as simple communication long distance, cause us to drift apart. 

   So, one of my New Year's resolutions is to stay in better contact with my family members, and develop closer relationships with them. One of the ways I plan to do this is to make "meaningful monthly contacts" with them via Skype, email, texting, or telephoning. I want to develop a list of meaningful questions that I can ask to find out what is really going on in their lives and how they feel about things. My desire is to maintain close family relationships no matter the distance, time or space, because in the end these are the things that matter most and the things that will remain when someday I am gone.

Cat's in the Cradle (Harry Chapin)

http://youtu.be/-s5r2spPJ8g

Fix You? Fix Me!

Fix You (Coldplay)
http://youtu.be/Fuqkz_sZDos

      I had a difficult weekend. After a wonderful holiday break with three of my five children, I had just sent my youngest daughter back to college across the country. It felt like I was sending her back into a "den of lions" because of her living situation. It was hard to let her go, and I was feeling anxious, tired and vulnerable. I have to admit it was so nice to be able to be "checked out" of my real life for the three weeks of the break, and I sure wasn't expecting to get pulled back into reality in such a intense way.

     I received a text message on Saturday asking for me to do a favor for a friend. This "favor", in my opinion, meant the abdication of what I saw was their responsibility, not mine. I built in my pause, hesitating to accept the request. I felt a bit irritated by what I felt was an unreasonable request. I tried to wrap my head around how I could help, but not take on more than I felt was reasonable on my part. After a few moments I responded in a positive manner, with a caveat that I only do a portion of the task that I felt was reasonable for me to do, and adding that it would be dependent on my feeling comfortable after researching the task. Shortly thereafter I received another text removing the request for the favor altogether. At this point I was a little confused, but felt o.k. about the action. However, as events unfolded over the next 24 hours, I sensed that my friend had taken offense over something and had hurt feelings. She sent a series of messages to me indicating that she felt hurt by what had occurred. I was essentially ignorant of what was going on. I have tried to befriend this person, but felt that at this point I needed to put up some boundaries and protect myself and my family from the negativity and accusations that were being flung my direction, so I decided I had to cut off the communication.

     In addition to the above mentioned incident, I had another experience that also inflicted some pain my direction. Someone else was apparently offended by something that was supposedly done to them at my hands.  However, when the details were made clear, it became apparent what the situation actually was, how it came about, and that no offense or harm was ever intended toward the supposed victim of the offense. Hopefully, that is now cleared up and will not be "held against me" ever again. But, it too made me feel vulnerable and defensive.

    Yesterday, my daughter's first day of the new semester, she phoned with some possible solutions to the "lion's den" issue. She also shared with me how things were going that first day back at school, her anxiety and worries, fears, etc. I was already on overload from the previous few days and so I finally just sat down at my kitchen table and had a good cry! I was over tired, over wrought and anxious about what had been happening and I was unsure about how I was going to be able to withstand the issues, and be able to make my life manageable again with all of the chaos going on around me.  I wanted to quit!!  And so, I decided to say a little prayer and asked my Father in Heaven for help to know what to do. Almost immediately I felt peace and a prompting about what I need to do to be able to deal with and manage the circumstances in which I now find myself. For me, it was a miracle!!!

     Now, I am a caring person and I don't like to feel like I have caused another person pain. However, some in my sphere of consciousness don't seem to feel the same way about me, and don't seem to mind inflicting their "issues" onto me or others around me. I'm sure you know some of these people - the perpetual "victim". These "victims" think that we all need to allow them their weaknesses and idiosyncrasies at the expense of our own peace of mind and quality of life.  I have decided that at some point, I have to be able to draw the line, put up the boundaries that I need to in order to protect myself and my loved ones from the "arrows" that are pointed in our direction. I refuse to be the target any longer. I cannot "fix" them or their "issues", but I can "fix" me and decide not to let that element into my sphere of consciousness to effect me and my peace and happiness. This is a big step for me because I tend to be a "pleaser". I am learning that sometimes to be a "pleaser" means giving up pieces of yourself - your dignity, your self-esteem, your peace and your sanity by allowing another person to dictate to you how they think you should be treating them. When in reality, they need to take a good long look in the mirror and examine their own flaws and fix them themselves, not expect me or anyone else to do it for them. Believe me, I have enough flaws and challenges of my own to deal with, I do not need to fix theirs as well.

    In reality, we all have things about ourselves that we need to work on, and I'm not just talking about what people might see on the outside. Things that might be changed by dieting (a whole other issue for me - especially this time of year) or by cosmetic procedures. We all need to have a good "heart examination" and take a deep, long look inside of us. Where is our heart? Are we inflicting our "issues" or pain onto another because of one of our own weaknesses or "pet peeves"? Whose responsibility is it to "fix" us anyway? As I have learned from my own experiences, there is One to whom we can truly turn when we find ourselves facing these issues and challenges. One who truly cares and One who knows what we need and how to "fix" us. A loving Heavenly Father.

   I have started to keep a penny in a small plastic bag on my desk. Why do I do this? Because, as you will recall, the saying "In God We Trust" is engraved on the penny. This is the side that I tend to keep up and see when I look down at that penny. It serves as a reminder to me in whom I can place my trust and to whom I can look when I need help and guidance to help me with the challenges and "issues" that I face on a regular basis. Maybe this is something that might help you too. The peace of mind that is gained from doing this is priceless. What have you got to lose?  Only the cost of a penny and a glance.

  

It's a Miracle (Barry Manilow)
http://youtu.be/bf3IBf7uL9k