SEO for Mom

Hi everyone!

It has been a while since I have written, but with the New Year comes new opportunities.  This post has been on my heart for a while, but it just seemed like this was the right time to share it with you.

Usually when people think of the acronym SEO, Search Engine Optimization comes to mind.  In fact, being a computer science professor, you would think that is what I would think of first as well.  However, I am not your normal computer science professor and as such, for me SEO has a different meaning.  For several months now when I have thought of SEO Soul Enhancement & Optimization have come to mind.  Puzzled a bit?  Well let me explain. 

Yes, search engine optimization has helped us in terms of how we travel throughout the Internet, but as a mom I also want to optimize how I travel through life.  It isn’t easy being a mom in today’s fast paced world and a single mom at that.  So as I prepare to teach my own students about the Internet in the next couple of weeks, this idea of Soul Enhancement & Optimization just keeps coming to mind.

Webster defines the soul as follows. 

The spiritual part of a person that is believed to give life to the body and in many religions is believed to live forever; a person’s deeply felt moral and emotional state; the ability of a person to feel kindness and sympathy for others, to appreciate beauty and art, etc.

To enhance something is to “increase or improve,” while optimization is “an act, process, or methodology of making something as fully perfect, functional or effective as possible.”  For the record, this mom knows she can never be “fully perfect” on this side of eternity, so that part of the definition I did not factor in. 

Though as a single mom and a computer science professor with a strong relationship with the Lord, the researcher within wants to dive in and investigate this concept that has been on my mind for a couple of months a bit further.  How, as a mom can I experience “Soul Enhancement & Optimization?”  With my background firmly rooted in academia at a Christian institution, I had to start with the definitions and as a student of life, acronyms always seem fitting.

S – SOUL

Anyone who knows me knows how deeply and emotionally I feel about things in my life.  As a creative person, beauty and art are things that I observe in places that quite often others do not see.  But is this just something that I was gifted with or do some people miss out on art and the beauty that surrounds them because of life’s circumstances.  Let’s face it, there is not a single mom out there that hasn’t been so overwhelmed with life at some point that they didn’t want to just tell me, “Girl, observe beauty???  I have forgotten what that even means in the midst of bills, homework and life.”  Even in the midst of my own life it would be so easy to throw in the towel and block beauty out. Sometimes as moms, not just single moms but ALL moms, we get so busy trying to take care of everyone and everything around us to the point that we don’t know which way is up and if we do look up we often aren’t praying to Jesus, but merely expressing “Help me Jesus!” just trying to survive.  We remember what a soul was, but we have forgotten what it truly meant to feel something from the depth of our souls.  But how can we find our way back?  How can we ENHANCE the seeds that were planted within our souls before life became too much.        

E – ENHANCE

As a mom, how can I improve my life so that I am using the gifts that God has blessed me with in such a way that it enhance my kids’ lives and the lives of those around me?

O – OPTIMIZATION

Let’s revisit the definition of optimization once more. It is “an act, process, or methodology of making something as fully perfect, functional or effective as possible.” 

So wait a minute here, if we can figure out how to take what we once valued so dear within our souls and enhance it, could it be that in turn, through the very act of doing this that we could become more functional and effective as moms?  Would this work for all moms?  Is there an age limit? 

Well let me share my own experience with you and then you can pick and choose what may or may not work for you. 

The week before my new semester began last fall I came down with the shingles.  For those of you who may not know what that is, it is the same virus as chicken pox, but very, very painful.  I am normally one who is moving through life so fast my best friend often tells me that it’s like my hair is on fire.  Sometimes not so good things in life happen, not because we have done anything wrong, but merely so the Lord can slow us down and get out attention.  For our souls to truly experience an enhancement and thus optimization we have to lean in to the trials of life so that we can find the beauty in the midst of the chaos. 

Sometimes, in the midst of dealing with pain and uncertainty we are able to hear the gentle whispers that He sends to our souls and in turn we are enhancing our lives and watching every second of our day optimized, but not just for our sake.  It is through this process that He is allowing us to be a light for others in the midst of their own personal trial.  It also allows us to be examples for our kids. 

The beauty of this all - when we are truly leaning into life through prayer, the study of His word, giving & doing for others when He leads us, participating in worship, and reading books by other Christian authors who have done the same, we do see that are souls have gone through an enhancement and optimization.  This doesn’t mean that it makes the pain of the trials any less, but what it does allow us to do, moms and dads alike, is take a deep breath and know that NO MATTER what comes our way, He will allow us to use it in a way to glorify Him.   

So my 2017 is dedicated to leaning in to my own SEO experience and as new doors open and new opportunities appear I want to make sure that God gets all of the credit for the incredible things He has done and continues to do in my life.  As we watch this first month in the New Year quickly fly by it reminds us once again to make every second count.  Until next time…

We Put the FUN is Dysfunction

Hi everyone!

I decided this morning to listen to my doctor and go home and rest after class, but by the time I finished the things I had to get done my morning turned into 2:30 PM.  Oh well…such is life.  One of the items on my agenda was going by to check on my stepfather.  I promised mom 4 ½ years ago I would take care of him and though at times he plucks my last nerve, I have honored her request.  But leaving there this afternoon several things seemed to hit me at once. 

For as long as I can remember I have always been more emotional than normal when I didn’t feel well.  And since I am the Queen of the Hallmark channel and when commercials come on my kids will say, “Now mom, it’s just a commercial, don’t cry,” it’s been a pretty draining afternoon.  My mom use to say that no matter how old we got, when we were sick we just wanted our momma.  Yes, that is true and thus it makes the grief kind of run over me like a Mac truck today.  It’s funny, no matter how old we get, when we don’t feel well we just want mom.  So to deal with the grief I write. 

Raising kids is tough, but taking care of our family members when we are older is not something anyone ever told us about when we were in our 20s.  Why do I do it?  Why do I take care of a stepfather that really never had to accept me as his own?  Well I do it because he did just that.  He stepped in and became the dad that I didn’t have and that I needed.  None of us who are parents are perfect.  We all make mistakes; all wish we could do things over; but we do the best we can with the cards life gives us at the time.

If I got nothing else from my crazy teenage years in this blended family I did get my sense of adventure.  And many of you who went through this time in my life with me also got a taste of Jane & Clyde’s Big Adventures as well.  Some of you are reading this, shaking your heads saying, “I can’t believe we did that!!”  I did get my ability to learn to put the fun in dysfunction from these times.  After all, there isn’t a family around that doesn’t have some level of dysfunction.  It’s how you choose to handle it that makes all the difference in the world.

In college I worked for International Paper here in town and the men under him would always ask me, “Does he smile at home.”  I guess not letting his sometimes gruff nature get to me prepared me to deal with many gruff people in my life.  It also taught me that under every gruff exterior there is a teddy bear that just needs a hug – I was saying “Whatever” through my actions long before the teens of today put it into words.

So on days when I don’t feel well and I am missing my mom; on days when he is plucking my last nerve; I smile through the tears and simply say, “Whatever” because I hope and pray that one day when I am plucking on one of my kids last nerves that they too will be there to look after their momma. 

I hope that I have taught them to always chase the sun and to always look for the fun in the dysfunction.  Most of all, I just hope they always know that their momma will always be here to give them a hug whenever they need it and when my time here on this earth is through that they will feel my hugs from heaven like I feel my mom’s.

Until tomorrow…  

Lunch with Leneil

Hi everyone!

It’s not just the sunshine in the sky that can brighten our lives, but the people that bring sunshine into our lives as well.  I have been so abundantly blessed with the most amazing friends & colleagues!  We all have struggles, we all fight to do what is right and walk down the narrow path, but it is through the people that just illuminate in all that He has done in their lives and in doing so help us work on the light in our own lives that makes all the difference.

Last spring our college welcomed a new president, Dr. Rick Brewer.  Now being born a Cajun & Catholic and being raised where music was such a big part to all family gatherings – having a president that could play the piano like Jerry Lee Lewis was a God wink from the get go!  Through the weeks and months our little college community has gotten to witness what a true ray of sunshine that he is to us all. 

In chapel today he spoke of “Looking Back, Moving Forward,” something that I think we all struggle with at times.  Today though, not only is the weather beautiful outside, but the SON was shining as bright as ever inside the auditorium as well.  

How many people go to work each week, counting the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until Friday?  How many people dream of doing something that makes them happy instead of feeling like each day they drive to work is a death march, slowly killing their soul?

On the other hand, how many people get to take an hour out of their Thursday each week to go into an auditorium, lift their voices in worship – not worrying what their neighbor thinks their voice sounds like - and just sing like no one is listening?  How many people get to take an hour out of their Thursday morning and just lay all their struggles & troubles down at a cross – and walk out feeling the weight of the world lifted off their shoulders?  Yes, I know.  I know what an incredible gift and opportunity I have the privilege of being a part of.  

Now I know some people reading this might say, “Wait a minute…you mean you go to church on Sunday & Wednesday AND to chapel on Thursday at work too?  That’s too much Jesus for me.”  But the thing is, I don’t go to church and chapel out of obligation; it doesn’t feel like just another box I need to check in my life so that I have “done the right things” for the week.  I go because I have a relationship with the Lord and I love to sing and hang out with Him and watch for His God winks because I know He has a sense of humor and I know sometimes He winks at me with both eyes and His hands waiving frantically.

Sometimes He has me give God wink books to complete strangers or surprise hurting people with gift baskets that look like they came off of “Oprah’s Favorite Things” list.  Sometimes I struggle and try to reason with Him – “you want me to do what???  For real???”  Because sometimes it makes no sense WHAT SO EVER!!  It use to scare me, but I guess having done this for over 9 years, now when it happens I just tell Him, “Ok, let’s roll with this!”

Time with Him is like having lunch with my friend Leneil.  She is such a ray of sunshine – even when she does take me to THE scariest places in town to see a house she thinks “I should buy.”  Leniel makes me laugh until I cry and she is one of those rays of sunshine that makes you want to roll down the windows of the car and let the Christian radio station play for all of the world to hear.  

I laughed on our adventure today and I also had to remind her that she HAS to  be a character in my book – there is just no way around that.  As she drove me to see my “dream” house by the cemetery I couldn’t help but laugh, since she is also the school counselor – “Leniel, Dr. Brewer said leave the past behind.  No more cemetery angel pictures or homes anywhere need a cemetery!!”  

I think when we can reach the point that we find humor in the sorrow we have truly left it behind.  I think that when we have a relationship with the Lord that let's us honestly just tell Him, "you know...I messed up today.  But on the bright side it was a better day than yesterday," it puts a peace and a freedom into our lives that money cannot buy.

No one is perfect, my own kids aren't perfect - and even when they mess up I wouldn't trade them for the world.  So just think about it for a minute.  Yes, there are times when my kids could make a preacher cuss, but it would not stop me from loving them.  If I can love these 3 kids so very much and laugh and joke with them - then just think - God sent His ONLY Son to die for our sins.  

He didn't have 3 kids like me - He had ONE, but He loved me; He loved you; He loved my kids, and everyone else in this world SO much that He was willing to sacrifice His only child for all of us.

No matter what you have been through in your life, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS remember that their is an AMAZING God out there who can bring sunshine into your soul everyday of the week AND who loves us all to the point of giving His only son for us.  

With a father like that, with a sacrifice like that - it doesn't make you want to get too far off of the narrow road.

Until tomorrow...

I'm teaching my kids to dance in the rain!!

Hi everyone,

I am so excited about all of the progress I am making at my little cottage this evening.  It is so easy sometimes when life is chaotic to try and wait for things to settle down to get back to your dreams and goal.  I learned a very long time ago that if we wait until our life is "perfect" to accomplish the things we most want, we will be waiting a very long time...quite possibly forever.

This is why one of my favorite quotes is

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it is learning to dance in the rain!!!" 

After all, whether you are dancing in the rain; running in the rain; or playing with your kids in the rain, doesn't it always seem to just wash all the stress and the worry away??!!  Taking time to dance during the storms that life brings your way will not only allow you to catch your breath and face the events in your life, it also serves as a great learning experience for our kids.  Allowing our kids to see that life is not perfect, that we will have trials and tribulations, but that if we stop periodically to allow ourselves to take care of ourselves and process what we are going through, we are teaching them to do the same when they are adults.  

So when your kids start back to school in a few short weeks and they are asked to write about their summer vacations, may they all be able to write "my mom taught me that I do not have to wait for all of the storms in life to pass me by, I need to learn to dance in the rain, right in the place where God has placed me!!"

I'm Counting My Blessings

Hi everyone,
Today I am so counting my blessings!!  While sometimes my 3 kids will fight like cats in a bag, I would not trade them for anything!!  Last night my 10 year old says "mom you are almost 2/3 of the way through your Daniel Fast!  That is GREAT, you can do this!!!" 

Seeing his appreciation and understanding for what I am doing was such a ray of sunshine last night, on what had been a gloomy day.

As I cheer on my daughter as she starts organic chemistry today, my boys cheer me on as I work on the million different projects I have on my plate right now. What they are learning is that if we all work together as a team we can get more done.  There are times that feathers get ruffled, but when night time comes the most important thing is that we are a family.

I am so grateful for all their help, love, and support!!  Yes, life may throw me curve balls at times, but someone on my little team is always here ready to help me catch them.