The Blessing Box

Noah and I have some of our greatest chats in the car. Tonight on the way home from piano lessons we started to have a conversation about the earthquake in Haiti. He wondered if the Haitians were still able to listen to music as he didn't think ipods would have survived beneath the rubble. I told him that many people there probably had never listened to music on an ipod or had even seen one.

We talked about the poorer developing countries and how people in those countries concerned themselves with basic human necessities. These are places where ipods and cell phones simply don't exist. Together we began a list of those basic necesseties. "A roof over your head" he said. "something to eat" I added. "something to wear" he said, "and if you are lucky, shoes on your feet." "Faith," I added, wondering if he would grasp that..."Jesus," he said. "You can't forget Jesus, Mom". "I didn't forget, just waiting for your help with the list."

"Mom," he continued, "Do you know what a blessing box is?" I confess, I had no idea...so Noah explained: "God helps us when we need him, but sometimes it is hard to remember that he has helped us before. So, a Blessing Box is a box you can put things in to remind you that God helps you incase one day you forget. You can put in an object that represents or write it on a piece of paper, and then when you need it you just open it up and you know that God has always been there for you. And he will still be there for you. We need a Blessing Box, Mom."

Sometimes I wish I could be two places at once. I wish I could watch Noah learn in Children's Church... without missing the message at the other end. But the Blessing Box is a great idea, and I think it just might help me witness what he is learning. We're going to make a Blessing Box this weekend. I can hardly wait!

The Fighting Mermaid and this is all new to me...

So.....this is all new to me, and I don't really know if I'll have the attention span to keep it up, but I'll give it a shot anyways. I vastly prefer the serenity of the mermaid, slipping beneath the clear blue, but sometimes I truly am the water-bug skimming across the surface in a whirl of chaos. I seek balance, but find it too often elusive. So this is what my blog is about...the confessions of a water girl, my life here in Mathews and on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay and life with ADD whch has been not so much a struggle, but a blessing.
The Fighting Mermaid is the name of a pirate ship from a bedtime story I invented for my son Noah years ago. He chose the name. Sometime after the story was told, I found myself on a bizarre family vacation in Rin Con, PR (which would have to be its own post). While in Puerto Rico, I fell in love with seaglass, those bits of broken bottles, polished smooth by the waves and sand. I came home with pockets full, and decided to turn those sea gems into jewelry. I made earrings and necklaces, sold a few, and donated some to charity auctions under the name Fighting Mermaid Seaglass Jewelry. For me, it was more than the act of reclaiming those bits of discarded beer bottles and the like...it became a fight for clean beaches. My son and I would spend hours looking for seaglass and picking up the sharper pieces and trash along the way. It amazes me how dirty our beaches get...but we haven't done that in far too long, and it has been a year since I have made a single piece. I got side-tracked by divorce and the need for stable employment...so some of my passions, including the seaglass, were forgotten for awhile. I am still the fighter for clean beaches and healthy waters. I do beach clean-up and volunteer with CBF for the Grasses for the Masses program, raising aquatic grasses and planting them in the James ...and tomorrow, after church...I am making seaglass jewelry.