Fractures of our hearts

How do you do it?
I'm asking you mothers. The ones who have babies, and children, and husbands, and pets...People you care for. Animals you care about. How do you?

You have dinners to make, clothes to fold, children to soothe at night and sometimes it's in the middle of the night. Nights of disrupted sleep where you can't sleep, or they can't sleep, or someone can't sleep, and you're up doing the things that mothers do. Being present with those strong and capable laps that holds and unfolds every single care in the world and files them in folders marked:

"Times when mom was a superhero."
Or
"Times when mom said the right thing"
Or
"Times when mom listened and didn't talk"
Or
"Times when mom just held me."

 This deep commitment alone should win awards.

There should be awards given to those parents who mend chubby toddler knees, toes from bee stings, damaged feelings from toys not shared, or when friends words come out too honest. Far too many times, these little essential things are over looked, but they shape our lives. They matter deep inside the innermost fractures of our hearts.
Our parents nurture us. They accept us broken and whole at the same time.

I don't know how you do it. How you care so deep and still exist in other forms to other people. How you exist outside of all that you do inside the four walls of a home.
Where does this energy come from?
I thought hard about this recently, and I mean hard. I recall all those times I pined for my life to be a certain way, and now I know.
In my nursing class there are many parents.

Lets be realistic here, I feel as if my time is so limited that I am ready to give parent of the year awards to those people who are in my class (or are in any college atmosphere for that matter) and still are able to be actively present in their families lives.

I'm almost invisible to mine. I have books upon books open every day, papers strewn everywhere, and I'm typing, or reading, or highlighting, or scattering, and organizing messes. There's hellos and goodbyes, and I'm off to study.

I find time when I can to reach out to people I love and care for, but it's few and far between.
The kind of commitment raising children implores would be entirely unimaginable to me in my current circumstances.

I pray to God on the way to school, and on the way home from school, thankful. He knew what he was doing with me when He made me wait for things I previously prayed so much for. I pray for those people who have the same school commitments and families at home too.  I've become thankful for my near 40 minute commute to school everyday, because it gives me time to be thankful and prayerful.

Here's the weekly glimpse into my life:

Love,

Amber

Thanks Google!

When you're a student it's sometimes hard to save money for things. Even the necessities, and my poor dog has been suffering the "no spending" freeze too. Although she doesn't complain (as much as I do), I still feel terrible not doing the things I would normally have done for her by a profesh groomer.

You see, Ella is a high maintenance dog. Her lovely locks of hair just simply grow and grow and grow. She never sheds, and in some ways this is a blessing, but then comes the expensive grooming bills every other month or so depending on how much tangling occurs between brushings.

If you're looking to buy a dog that doesn't shed be prepared to spend more on hair products and/or services than you do on yourself because They. Are. Not. Cheap. 

So seeing my dilemma, I have had to find alternatives to keep her locks healthy and at a reasonable length on my own. 

Yes, it's extra work for me, but the matting that happens on her hair just had to STOP.

So this is where google came in, I decided to see if I could figure out an inexpensive way to get her matts out, and give her a little bit of freshening since this was going to be a longer visit between groomers than normal.

Google didn't let me down. Cornstarch is the key! If your dog is matted you need a fine tooth come or rake, a slicker brush, and cornstarch. 

1. You rub the cornstarch into the matted areas.

2. Use the fine tooth comb/rake to back up the matts starting from top to bottom. (If you were alive in the 80's, it's similar to all the ratting that you might have done on your hair.)

3. Use the slicker brush to then brush out after the matt has reasonably come out.

4. You might want to bathe your dog here because at this point they probably have a fair amount of white dust all over them. 

I was amazed how well this worked! Delighted really!

                                

Rake

Slicker