{"id":299,"date":"2012-08-04T12:41:10","date_gmt":"2012-08-04T12:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kandynolesstevens.com\/?p=299"},"modified":"2012-08-04T12:41:10","modified_gmt":"2012-08-04T12:41:10","slug":"score-plus-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/?p=299","title":{"rendered":"Score plus five"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Team Stevens<\/p><\/div>\n

Just the other night I was out weeding my gardens, and I got to feeling sorry for myself.\u00a0 I am not typically prone to that particular pastime, but that night I was ruminating over the fact that I am unable to attend my 25 year high school reunion this weekend.\u00a0 It was a scheduling conflict that simply couldn\u2019t be avoided.\u00a0 Nonetheless, there I sat among the kohlrabi and the cabbages wishing that I could go and see how much we have all changed.\u00a0 That thought led me down a different path \u2013 one more in line with self-reflection than self-pity.<\/p>\n

How have I spent the last 25 years?\u00a0 What would my classmates see or notice about me now? What would I want to tell them?\u00a0 I spent quite a few hours among the weeds pondering that question, and thus, once again, God provided me with fodder for another blog.<\/p>\n

The more I thought about it, I could give a basic recap of my life in little snippets or I could speak from my heart by sharing that somehow God has allowed my life to mimic the chorus lyrics of my son Reed\u2019s favorite campfire song. (I married into a wonderful Polish\/German family that has sing-alongs at every get-together.)\u00a0 That special\u00a0song is \u201cBlow up Your TV\u201d sung by John Denver.<\/p>\n

Blow up your tv<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 While we didn\u2019t\u00a0literally follow this little tidbit, we didn\u2019t\u00a0choose to have\u00a0cable television until three years ago.\u00a0 My kids learned that books were a better adventure, and your imagination can carry you to more exciting\u00a0places.\u00a0 Perhaps my insistence on less mind-numbing technology has to do with the fact that I grew up to be an educator.\u00a0 As my children grow up and go to college though, I am certain they will regale the other co-eds with tales of their mother\u2019s science experiments in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Throw away your paper<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 To be honest, I still get the daily newspaper.\u00a0\u00a0I enjoy a good crossword puzzle. \u00a0Yet using a little creative license with this part of the chorus, I threw away my obsession with \u201cpapers, titles, and namebrands\u201d.\u00a0 At some point over the last 25 years, I learned to be really comfortable in my own skin.\u00a0 I became less concerned with titles (of which I hold several) and\u00a0papers on my wall, \u00a0because even my dog has those things. Instead, I focused more attention on the relationships God has blessed with me each and every day.<\/p>\n

Go to the country<\/em> – <\/strong>\u00a0No creative license here!\u00a0 Unbeknownst to me at the time, my parents moved me away to North Dakota the day after we graduated from high school.\u00a0 I went to college there, graduate school at Auburn, but in the end married a sweet boy from ND.\u00a0 We now live in a prairie town in southwestern Minnesota.\u00a0 The older I get the more I miss the South and Florida\u2019s beaches, but I wouldn\u2019t trade small town living for anything.\u00a0 I will confess that I do miss having gentlemen open doors for me, hearing \u201cYes ma\u2019am\u201d or \u201cNo sir\u201d, and having sweet tea be a menu staple.\u00a0 Yet there is nothing like experiencing all four seasons and raising my children in a town where\u00a0we know\u00a0many people by their first names.<\/p>\n

Build you a home<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 By the time I had entered high school, I had probably moved at least 7 times; so roots were not something I had established.\u00a0 Around 15 years ago, my husband and I bought a modest home in a modest neighborhood.\u00a0 We were both up and coming in our careers, and the thought was to buy this house as a starter home and then upgrade in a couple years.\u00a0 Those plans changed when our neighbors convinced us otherwise.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t by anything they said, but more so, by what they did.\u00a0 Sharing garden produce, keeping an eye out for each other\u2019s kids and dogs, pitching in together after severe storms (tornados and blizzards) \u2013 these things were just more important than a bigger house in a bigger neighborhood. A tiny house evolved into a home over those years.<\/p>\n

Plant a little garden – <\/em><\/strong>The highlight of my summer is the garden plot that my family tends. Many hours are spent caring for\u00a0those plants in hopes of a bountiful harvest.\u00a0 Yet gardening isn\u2019t the only hobby we have related to food.\u00a0 We are much more connected to our food than that.\u00a0 That steak we had last night, we saw earn a blue ribbon last year at the Lyon County Fair. Same goes for the chickens and the eggs. \u00a0All came from friends our kids have in the 4-H club or the FFA. The highlight of the fall is when father and sons start the hunting season.\u00a0 The goose, pheasant, or venison roast for special holidays is typically one that the guys brought home after spending time outdoors together.\u00a0 While I can\u2019t go to Joe Patty\u2019s for Gulf seafood, I do enjoy fish from Minnesota\u2019s 10,000 lakes.<\/p>\n

Had a lotta children \u2013 <\/strong>I am guessing for most of my classmates, this will be an understatement.\u00a0 I am the proud momma of 7 children.\u00a0 Sadly, four of those children now live with Jesus in heaven.\u00a0 If there was one defining moment of my life over the last 25 years, this would be it.\u00a0 I dreamed my whole life of being a momma, and I enjoy the \u201cfruits of my labor\u201d every day.\u00a0 Yet, losing three of my children as babies and then one of my sons to a tragic school bus crash has changed me in remarkable ways.\u00a0 I worry less, forgive more, judge less, and give more.\u00a0 God has shown me that not only can your heart begin to heal, but it can also seek out and love others who are hurting.<\/p>\n

Eat a lot of peaches<\/strong> \u2013 Right now, it is County Fair time, and my children are busy with projects and showing animals, which in our case are pigeons.\u00a0 While it is fun to earn ribbons, it is more of a way of life around here.\u00a0 Yet another ritual begins at this same time as the fair, the peaches arrive and the canning season begins.\u00a0 Over the course of the next few months, there will seldom be day that the canning jars aren\u2019t lined up\u00a0ready to go.<\/p>\n

Try to find Jesus on your own<\/strong> \u2013 We have known Jesus for a very long time, but through the horrific events surrounding the death of our son, Reed, and the injury of two of our other children we saw firsthand that God and His Son\u00a0are truly among us.\u00a0 Friends, family, neighbors, and yes, even strangers filled our home and our hearts with love, tokens of remembrance, assistance, shoulders to cry upon, and gifts of time.\u00a0 But the most important gift was that they prayed for us.\u00a0 Daily during those dark days we could literally feel those prayers as we were able to just get through minute by minute.\u00a0 I honestly don\u2019t know how you could survive tragedy without faith, because I know I couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I still feel blue that I wasn\u2019t able to join my classmates this weekend for the reunion.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t ever heard John Denver\u2019s version of \u201cBlow up Your TV\u201d, take the time to find it. When you listen to it, just know that one content, sweet little, Southern transplant is living and loving well – way up here in Minnesota.\u00a0 But no matter where you listen, it probably won\u2019t sound near as good as around a\u00a0crisp North Dakota campfire with four generations of family members singing along.\u00a0 For that, I am blessed and thankful!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just the other night I was out weeding my gardens, and I got to feeling sorry for myself.\u00a0 I am not typically prone to that particular pastime, but that night I was ruminating over the fact that I am unable to attend my 25 year high school reunion this weekend.\u00a0 It was a scheduling conflict […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[13,79,213,296,326,413],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}