Tina The Storyteller

So far this morning, about the only thing that I've actually accomplished is making some homemade fondant.  I'm not saying it's good or that it will get the job done, but I have put forth my effort.  I think I shall use better measurements next time.  And why you may ask was I making fondant? Well because of this Which I found here  in Family Fun's magazine.  We are hoping to have a Princess dinosaur pirate tea party tomorrow and this cake will have a dino instead of or along with the princess.  I have a feeling this cake will need to be explained, alot. Luckily, it's just four little girls and I'm hoping for a great time together.  Hannah, even at such a young age, is already a great hostess.  I think she has a future in which her door will always be open and her guest room will be booked.  I'm trying to finish up my coffee before we have to head out today.  I can't wait to get back, do laundry and start with the decorating for tomor...

This week, I'm thankful for friends and family that go camping!  It was a great trip that will surely be long remembered I am thankful that my mom has been here with us! I'm thankful that we found some awesome games this past week, including Spot It!   And Rush Hour We've already had fun with them, I know we'll have more in the years ahead. I'm thankful that Hannah has had great weather for her horseback riding lessons and that they have been so wonderful! I'm thankful that we have a second car.  I'm praying that it is a blessing to not only our family but to others as well. What are you thankful for?

I think there are some of us that go camping because it sounds like a good idea at the time and then there are others of us that go because we can't not.  I must fall into that second category.  Because with all the camping misadventures that I've had over my lifetime, I should learn to just stay home. The first one that I ever heard about was before I could remember.  My family had gone camping up in the Carolina mountains.  A bear came to check things out during my nap and my faithful dog protected me.  I was probably a baby then, but it was a story my family would tell every so often. Let's see, the next one I remember is camping on the beach and our friends shirt and six pack washed away in the tide.  More than likely I was a toddler. We took a break and didn't camp again until I was in elementary school.  I remember the birds ate all our bread when we set up our site and went for a walk. During those years there were also raccoons, stolen ...

After a few weeks of researching on the internet, we finally went in to a dealership yesterday and bought a new car!  It's much bigger on the inside than I expected.  I can foresee many camping trips and I can't wait to go see a drive in movie with it! We did end up getting a Terrain. I am thankful that this was our last Thursday of driving Joel to work so that we can have the car, but at the same time, I'm a little sad that there is a great potential that we are going to spending less time together in the car driving him to work. I am exceptionally thankful that my mom is coming up for a visit and that she'll be here for Hannah's birthday! I'm thankful that I may be getting a new couch next week.  This is the one I have my eye on... What are you thankful for?

Tomorrow, we are going to get another car.  I've been taking care of what I can to prepare for it.  I cleaned me soon to be car, took ownership of the key fob that works remotely, even priced some tires.  Yesterday I spent the majority of the morning cleaning out the garage and trying to make room for two cars in our two car garage.  (It's amazing how if you have stuff in there, you don't actually have room for two cars).  One of the added bonuses of cleaning out the garage is that I found our second remote for the garage door, which had been "lost" for over a year.  But I am wondering if so much time and energy has been put into the event of getting a second car that I haven't really had time to prepare for the long term reality of having one.  It's the same as when you spend so much time and energy preparing for the wedding and then don't really prepare yourself for marriage.  The idea that I will have the freedom to come and go from our home ...

Probably one of the worst parts about being depressed is not knowing if you will ever get better.  You know that you feel bad, that everything takes much more time than it used to, and you just don't know and can't see how you are going to feel better, even with medications sometimes.  And that not knowing can also bleed into our relationship with God.  When depressed, it's hard to see God at work and it's even harder to feel God's presence.  Which doesn't seem quite fair.  When it appears that we need him the most, there is a disconnect with our ability to recognize God is present.  I think for me because it was so hard to feel anything, it was exceptionally hard to feel God's joy and to keep my hope alive.  If it had not been for my faith in what God had done and said, I may not have made it through that time.  I remember I was spending every morning reading scripture and writing in my journal, and yet, I still felt like God was very far awa...

In some ways, I think it was easy to get diagnosed with depression and in other ways, I think it was very hard. Part of that was me.  I wouldn't feel bad all the time, just most of the time, and when I felt good, I felt really good.  And I really didn't want to be diagnosed with depression.  I had a huge stigma with it.  I personally thought that depression was something that could be worked out of for the most part with medical intervention.  I had been in and out of the doctors office with giving birth and regular check ups, but I just never brought up what I was going through on pretty much a daily basis, because it just didn't seem that bad, and the symptoms could be explained because of other things going on in my life.  You do sleep more when you have a child, you do feel a little sad when your parents divorce after 30 plus years of marriage, you do get a little tired after traveling to Africa and back.  All those things were going on in my life...

I don't go shopping very often, but today we went and had a great time.  We stopped in to a consignment shop with some friends and I wanted to take the entire store home, but we ended up with just two things.  Hannah found some twig colored pencils just like these And they were only 5 bucks!  Score! And these beauties were hanging out in a little silver dish, but I like them on my table better I just wish there were more of them!  And for 6 dollars, I just couldn't say no. And then I had a coupon for JCPenney, 10 off of minimum ten dollar purchase.  Hannah found a new dress. She had to pick it out herself.  I showed it to her when we first got there, but she would not even look at it.  Luckily, she found it for herself and liked it. And I got a new pair of earrings Hannah helped me pick them out.  She liked that they were long.  I like that they move a lot. For both of those we spent a grand total of 1.12!  We bought some...

I've got a lot to be thankful for this week, but that's always true!  1. I'm thankful that my husband made it safely to his destination last night.  I'm praying that he has a wonderful visit with his family to help celebrate his mother's 65th birthday. 2.  I'm thankful that I was able to start the campfire last night at church!  Woot!! 3.  I'm thankful that the blog got a little make over this week.  If you've never been there, I would suggest dropping by The Background Fairy .  She's awesome!! I've gone to other sites on the web through the years, but she's the one I always go back to for blog beauty. 4.  I'm thankful that I've been able to share some of my walk with depression.  5.  I'm thankful that I have hopes and dreams. What are you thankful for?

A few years ago, our family met Pastor Parato at a retreat in Montreat.  It was a blessing for our family in the midst of very difficult ministry.  In fact, I was in the throws of my depression when we were there.  Every year we looked forward to our time with a loving a supportive community and Pastor Parato was part of that family.  She keeps a blog over at Minister's Musings .  Drop by and hear her latest sermons or read her thoughts on church and life.  A few years ago, she wrote a post entitled, Helping Someone with Depression .  She has graciously agreed to allow me to share it here with you.  I hope that you find her recommendations helpful and encouraging.   Helping Someone with Depression I'm part of a wonderful ministry called "Celebrate Recovery," which is for anyone who wants to deal with a hurt, habit, or hang-up. Even those of us who are leaders are recovering from something. In fact, I've been surprised at how much I...

Look at that beast of a comb!  When I ran across it on Amazon , I thought "Wow, that's a lot of 5 star reviews! And nothing less than 5 stars at that.  It might be worth checking out."  I ordered it and it came in a nice tidy package that had to be destroyed with scissors to get open.  I plugged in and we gave it a whirl.  It was amazing, but I didn't want to speak too soon, what if it was a temporary fluke.  Well, it's been a few weeks now and it's still amazing.  I love it, Hannah loves it, Joel thinks it's pretty neat and the cat, well, she could care less. The only times we've had an "OW!" are when we've accidentally caught her ear (she did that to me and let me tell you it really hurts) and when I stumbled across a piece of gum in her hair.  We are still using detangler, because Hannah has what I think they call fly away hair.  It's thick, but it will be just as knotty at the end of the day as it is at the beginning.  ...

I have to tell you, I've been thinking back about my time with depression and it's been really difficult to figure out the time line.  I know that certain events occurred, but inside me it feels like they all happened at a much different rate.  That's something that I never really knew about depression before I experienced it.  Your mind doesn't just work differently in regards how you function with the world, but it also changes the way that it remembers things.  The worst part for me is that I know that I used to be able to pull the information from my brain with greater ease.  Now I actually have to work at pulling some things out of the depths of my mind.  You might think that is not much, just the signs of aging.  But for someone that used to identify themselves by how smart they are, that's a huge blow.  But it did lead to one of my great discovers during depression.  I am much greater than what I think I am.  Even if everything ...

I had always been the type of person to be anxious about being in public.  I would do small things like refuse to go in to see my grandparents, or into the store.  Sometimes I would have friends over and then go to bed early instead of staying up all night with them.  It wasn't anything big, and I never had any panic attacks over, I just didn't do everything that I had the opportunity to do. That persisted well into my adulthood, it even happens to me today.  I just find it hard to move out of where I'm comfortable into a great unknown.  It was at its worse during our first year of marriage.  I would not leave the house for anything.  Maybe once a week, I would go out for the groceries with Joel.  My largest connection with the outside world at that point was stalking the mailman.  We would occasionally hang out with friends, in our home or theirs, but social events were completely out.  I remember there was a Cajun festival that year a...

In the midst of discovering the new title of the book, I also discovered that I should share my story of depression.  My first reaction was concern.  I was deeply involved with a group of people at the time and there were things that occurred that if I share them could potentially drag up a lot of anger and frustration and judgement, on my part and the part of those that I was with at the time.  That is not something that I want.  But then as I dreamed one night, I found how to share with out pointing fingers.  You see, I am a survivor of Hurricane Hugo.  Most Carolinians can say that, because the hurricane made landfall at night and there was a mass exodus from the coast lands.  Because of those two things all but 21 people survived that night.  But I think what tends to go unnoticed, because of the survival is the voracity of the storm.  Hurricane Katrina which caused major destruction and death was a category 3 hurricane....