When life gives you lemons, make lemonade

I'm not sure what kind of a dork I have become since having kids, but apparently I'm more of one than I thought.

I left Lily in her room, sitting on the floor and playing with toys. Joei was in there as well, in the chair, stuffing things in her guitar. I was doing my daily blog reading and I heard Lily fussing, Joei was oblivious to her fussing, still shoving things in her guitar. By this time, Lily was flat on her back, mad at the world because she can't sit herself up on her own. Rather than roll over and grab a toy and just play with it that way, she laid there, whining for me to come fix her situation. Of course, as her mom, I am happy to do that...but I found myself saying to both girls, "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I have no idea where that came from, I can't recall the last time I heard that. It must be my inner dorkdom coming out or something!

It's true though! When crappy things happen, it is much easier to lay there and wait for someone to fix it, or at least to tell us how to fix it. Like Lily, I would rather flop around like a fish than muster up the energy to roll over and do something about it on my own. But how much more rewarding is it when you take that lemon, and you make lemonade?

I did not have a great life as a kid, I have shared that before...but at the age of 14, I accepted the Lord. From then on, I made lemonade. Yes, it was hard, very hard. I had to learn to forgive people, I had to realize that I was the only one that held responsibility for my happiness. Sure, it is still an ongoing process; it's not like all of a sudden sun rays beamed down from heaven and a thousand person choir was behind me singing "LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" and all was honky dory (if that's even a word!) It was a process. It is a process. We continually will get lemons, sometimes more often than other times. And you may have a season that you get to go without the sour little suckers. But when you get the lemon, make lemonade. Sure it may have seeds, sure it may still need more sugar, but doggonit, it's lemonade.

I'm not just referring to huge obstacles in life, we get little lemons all the time as well. What do we do with them? The car breaks down, there is not enough money to pay the mortgage, you have a falling out with someone...really the list goes on and on. Or you have the lemons that are not big problems in the scheme of life, but they still affect you. I really want to get Joei into some Pre-K before she starts Kindergarten, but we have not been able to afford it. Well, to me, that's a lemon. So what am I going to do with that? Not sure yet. We might be able to swing a few days a week now, hopefully. But if not, I will just have to look around and try to teach her some things on my own, and hope she gets her social end of school from church. See, that's not a big issue in the scheme of things, AT ALL. But to me, it is. Just like you may have a nagging situation that to the regular bear, aint no big thang. But to you, it is. Lemons are lemons. It's what we do with them that makes all the diff.

Well I have kept your ear longer than one should so I'm signing off with one last thought, Pink Lemonade is the best! Taco Bell and Miguels (a Mexican restaurant here) have the best. Just in case you wanted to know!

Joei is going to now watch her new Little Mermaid movie since, "she is wearing Ariel pajama's so she feels like a mermaid."