Heidi G karlsson

Christmas is so funny. It's Jesus birthday, but he doesn't get any gifts. I decided that our family would give him something this Christmas. Joel gave him and acronym, Adam gave him a card trick and a magic coin trick, Noah gave him a song, Zoe gave him a book that she wrote, and Ranen gave him the letter "H" written over and over on a piece of paper... her favorite letter. And I gave him a picture and a poem. Here it is: One thing         I used to do is write poems on the spur of thought     no time to stop      fix     change     rearrange Just ... go! let words, thoughts out     in a steady flow and while that makes me      feel   vulnerable I think that is     exactly             my goal. Merry Christmas Jesus Seems silly to say      Yet every year          what we really do   ...

Our church has been trying to figure out the word "family." People were using the word to describe their experience of our church, but not everyone shared it's meaning. Family is.... Love. Disfunction. Pain. Painful memories. Joy. A dad who kills dreams. Divorce. Shame. Hope. Safety. What family means varies depending on who you are talking to. I took "Sociology of Family" in university. That was a trip. We arrived at a definition in that class, only because we had to, and it was one of those lowest common denominator things.. so loosely defined. Something like, a group of people who live together and are connected in some way to each other. It was a pretty lame definition. To me, family is at the least, a group of people you are legally connected to by genetics or contractual agreement. The rest...  is an open playing field. Being family determines THAT you are connected, but not HOW. To me, how is everything. I have spent my whole life in both a fa...

I'm going to a Christmas party… and I have nothing to wear. Oh, wait, I do. But it's not new, and.. well. .. I have just been thinking about what the other women will be wearing. Ok fine, I've been thinking about how much hotter their bodies will be than mine. How much better their dresses will look on them. I spent a lot of time today hating on myself for that. Loathing. Regretting. Frustrated. Eating chocolate, and loathing more. This has happened before. Last Christmas. And the year before that. And the wedding before that. ..  But today, something happened that has never happened before. I've been reading some really cool books this last year. The ones that stand out in my mind are by Brene Brown , where she writes about shame. Vulnerability. The gremlins in our minds that speak to us to discourage and silence us. Body shame is often about comparison. So I was comparing. In advance. But all this reading I've been doing, all this thinking I've ...

... after surgery.. after pregnancy... after 6 years of suddenly becoming a family (Glad my kids can't read blogs yet because we're not allowed to use the word "hate." It's too strong. We use phrases like, "I don't prefer," or "It's not my favourite" or  "I really don't like it.") I used to be this girl who worked out. Now, I'm clearly someone's mom trying to make the scene. I'm so thankful for those "women only" sections of gyms. There's all those mirrors and there's all these memories of what those mirrors used to reflect. But the mirror don't lie, and there I am... staring at my ankles, after I've stared at everything else, and I'm thinking, "Man! Even my ankles are out of shape." It's true. Everything is out of shape. And even though I worked out hard (making sure I had fun, mixed it up and challenged myself) nothing looks better. I'm sweaty. But nothing looks...

So…. 2014.    Decided to let the children speak for themselves.. after which I will add my own personal take.. it’s amazing how their personalities are so obviously different, and how you can see so much of who they are based on how they sit in front of the computer video screen and tell a story.  Ranen:  She is 2… and soooooo funny! She tells jokes and understands jokes, and even if she doesn’t understand what is funny, she still laughs. She is super into the color purple, and if I tell her she is beautiful, smart, funny, or kind, she just nods and says, “YEP.” To be honest, she’s not really kind… yet. She’s not unkind per se, but I am just encouraging her that kindness would be nice to develop. In the video, in the part about “we sing pop songs and dance along to a tape”… she says “pop corn” every time.   Cute. She is on my lap right now yelling “Me do it! Me do it.” So she is going to type her favorite letters for you. Sh...