My Other Blog

This isn't my only blog. Though techincally my Monday Morning Update (MMU) wouldn't be considered a blog per se, it operates in the same way as a traditional blog. Every Monday morning I 'post' my thoughts to what I call the 'MMU Family.' We are a 'family' of 15, and this 'family' actually includes my family members, all eight of us, and the other seven are 'adopted family.' One was our foreign exchange student from Sweden 15 years ago, and he's still part of our family. Another lived in our neighborhood (next cul-de-sac over) when we were raising our children. I met her when I would go in to our middle son's kindergarten class to help kids with reading. Soon she was playing in our backyard and, lacking any real supervision at home, she sort of became part of our family in a very special way. Another MMU Family member once dated our daughter, and his humor fit with our family's so well, he seems like he must have been born in to our family. Another is our son's best friend and roommate, along with our now-daughter-in-law's cousin--they make the cutest couple! Still another is the daughter of close friends of ours (they are part of the 'Warthog Crew'), and the newest member is my niece, who is close to our daughter.

I mention this here because to me, the Bethel Valley Girls are 'family' too. I have another group of friends I call 'The Warthog Crew,' and they're definitely 'family' to me. So what is FAMILY? I am pondering that on this drizzly Friday morning, thinking how amazingly blessed I feel and realizing things weren't always this way for me.

I decided to jot down the things that come to mind first when I think of the word 'family':

Love
Security
Trust
Traditions
Fun Together
Sharing Joy, Sharing Sorrow
Shared Values
Enhancing Life

Like so many people, I grew up in what would be by today's standards a 'dysfunctional family.' No need to dwell on that. It is what it is, or I guess I should say it was what it was. Not all was bad, so having made peace with what was, I have moved forward and have embraced the good. That's what I concentrated on when raising my own family. With God's help I have designed how I wanted my life to be, and along with my husband have set out to make family functional for our three children. At the same time we have opened our arms wider to keep family from being an exclusive, closed group. It is no accident that they have gone out in to the world with their arms and hearts open to good relationships, good friendships, lives of their own. We envisioned this for them.

So about this other blog, the MMU...Five years ago we became empty-nesters when we moved from Hawaii to Virginia. That's a huge move and a real cultural shift. We didn't know then that eventually we would finally make it back to Washington State, our point of origin. For me, I left the career I loved behind when we moved yet again because of my husband's career. I mourned the loss of friends in Hawaii while I still missed my friends in Washington. Both of our sons had lived with us through their college years, but now they were college graduates, off on their own like their sister before them, pursuing their dreams and their careers. Here we were living in a state I did not know. My husband's employer would only ship one of our cars with our belongings, so he took our van to work every day leaving me alone in our townhouse with no car, no friends, no interesting place to walk. I missed my family, and I literally cried out to God about it. He sent me a solution, although I did not see at the time what a great idea He had.

My husband and I are explorers. We spent every weekend in our new state exploring all this new territory, and we were doing fun and interesting things. I would send individual e-mails to our children--who all lived in different states--telling them about our adventures. When I was lamenting to God about our family being so spread out and how that made my heart ache, He clearly said to me, "If you want to do something to keep your family close, then write a Monday Morning Update to all of them at once." And so the MMU was born, and before long, our children were writing responses back and forth. I saw a new closeness developing before my very eyes. We loved it, they loved it.

Five years later, the MMU is still going strong. Our three children have married, expanding the original MMU list to eight, including my husband and me. Along the way, as I said, seven others have asked to be added to the MMU, and I learned recently that our children having been passing especially good ones to their friends. We have a following!

I mentioned The Warthog Crew---this consists of three other couples besides my husband and me. The husbands are my husband's three closest friends, and between them they represent over 130 years of friendship. Between the four couples, we represent about 170 years of marriage. I dubbed us The Warthog Crew after we started the tradition of meeting at the Warthog BBQ Restaurant to celebrate my husband's birthday every year.

Ah yes, traditions..........don't they keep families connected through the years, even through the generations? The MMU has become a tradition. It keeps our family close even though we are spread out so many miles apart. I suspect that after I pen my last MMU, one of my children will volunteer to pick up where I left off. With the Warthog Crew we have lots of traditions. We get together every September for the Fox Island Garage Sale, followed by lunch together. We have Christmas parties, celebrate each other's birthdays, do murder mystery parties, have a Green Party on St. Patrick's Day, etc.

THE BETHEL VALLEY GIRLS AS FAMILY

We truly LOVE each other. Our motto is 'Love us!' We are SECURE in the knowledge we are here for each other no matter what. We can TRUST each other with our very lives. We have our TRADITIONS, like our once-a-month gathering for dinner (Winings and Dinings) and our Christmas gift exchange. We have so much FUN together---hello, Spa Day!! We SHARE OUR JOYS and SHARE OUR SORROWS. For instance, they gave me an Attitude Adjustment Shower when I was pregnant with my third child--truly unplanned--and was so sick, reminding me that they were there for me during those difficult months. They really did change my attitude! By the same token, 29 years later they surprised me with a fun Grandma Shower, celebrating the imminent births of my two first grandchildren, the first to be born to that 'surprise child' and his wife, the second to my daughter. We have all suffered the loss of our parents during the course of our long friendship, and we have prayed for and encouraged each other as our various grown children have gone through their own struggles. We have SHARED VALUES, and for instance, I know we'll all be voting the same in this presidential election. But more importantly, we know and love God and have put our faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. And because of all of the above, the Bethel Valley Girls have ENHANCED MY LIFE.

This has been a long blog entry, but this is what was in my heart and on my mind this morning. Here's to the Bethel Valley Girls, my Sisters, my dear friends, forever and ever. May we be blessed with many more than just these 31 years of friendship. And together we say, "Love us!"