Katdish.net

The new furniture and bedding has been ordered.

With the arrival of an accent pillow, we’ve been able to choose a new paint color.

This room that started out as a nursery filled with ladybugs, fireflies, bumblebees and butterflies has had subtle transformations over the past 9 years.

From toddler princess…

to American Girl princess…

About a year ago, my soon-to-be 9 year old daughter announced that pink was no longer her favorite color. Her room was way too girly. I’ve resisted the change for as long as I could, but over the summer, all remnants of this pretty in pink room will be gone. We’ve found new homes for the bed and other pieces of furniture that once resided in this very girly little girl’s room.

In the negotiation process, my daughter agreed to certain terms. We’ve been at odds for the past several months because her room is often a disaster area. She suffers from what many of us suffer from: too much stuff and not enough space to put it all. She finally agreed to part with a sizable collection of My Little Ponies, Littlest Pet Shop Pets, Barbies and all the various and sundry paraphernalia that accompanies said collections. This includes a large fold-out Barbie castle with a horse drawn carriage, furniture, clothes, etc. (LOTS and LOTS of etcetera. Two large boxes of etcetera, actually.)

We’ve spent the past couple of weeks going through and sorting toys to be given away. We’ve redressed all the naked Barbies and returned them to their original personas of Barbie Princesses, separated the ponies from the pet shop crowd, and threw in some DVDs to go with the different collections.  We wanted her old toys to seem as new as possible so that the little girls receiving them might enjoy them as much as she has.

She’s been a real trooper. Of the sizable collection of Barbies, she only asked to keep two dolls (one given to her by her cousins and one to keep the other one company I suppose) and a small Barbie car. As I was boxing up the rest of the stuff, I asked her repeatedly if she was sure she was ready to part with her stuff. She assured me she was.

There were a few items she pulled out of the box. I reasoned that she was taking a last stroll down memory lane and I was fine with that. The first item was a blow-up swimming pool complete with slide and diving board, which I found in her bathroom filled with water. This was quickly emptied, disassembled and put back into the box. I’m as nostalgic as the next person, but I’m not a big fan of indoor water toys.

The other item was a tiny, plastic recreated scene from the movie Barbie Fairytopia:

Since she had spent many hours playing with this particular toy, I asked her if she wanted to keep it. “I don’t care”, she said. “Are you sure? Because I really don’t mind if you want to hang on to it”, I said.

“No, Mom. I don’t care. I don’t really want to talk about my room stuff right now.”

Fair enough. Into to the box it went with everything else. That was Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning, I loaded up the boxes into the back of the jeep and headed to church. One friend’s daughter would be the recipient of the ponies and pets, another friend’s granddaughters would be getting the giant box of Barbie stuff. All was well.

Until…

We got home from a late lunch after church. My daughter, tired and cranky, went straight to her room. Moments later she emerged asking where her flower thingy was. I reminded her of the conversation we had about whether or not she wanted to keep it. With tears in her eyes, she told me she did. “But I need that back. I didn’t mean to give that away.”

Uh oh.

In separate conversations, her father and I both explained that we had already given her things away and it wouldn’t be right to take it back. She said how sorry she was, how that toy reminded her of when she was little. She went on to say she didn’t know how much it meant to her until she didn’t have it anymore.

After a couple of hours she was still upset. I conceded to a point. I told her I would call Mr. Randy. If he hadn’t given the box to the girls, I would ask if I could stop by and get one item out of the box. But if the girls had already opened the box, its contents belonged to them.

I think I was almost as relieved as she was that the box was still sitting in the back of Randy’s truck unopened. I don’t know if it was the best example to set as a parent. The best thing to do was to probably just tell her you can’t give something away and then ask for it back.

But I know what it’s like to have something and lose it, never understanding how important it is to you until it’s too late. This time it wasn’t too late.

She’ll be 10 years old in 2 short months, and I’m happy she has something special to remind her of when she was little. I’m even happier that she wants to hang on to being a little girl a bit longer.

It all goes by much too fast.

image courtesy of photobucket.com

There are plenty of folks who say the Civil War is still being fought around here, though perhaps not in the way most would think. I speak not of the lurking and sometimes blatant racism that is just as much a part of the South as it is the North and West. No, I’m talking about another sort of fight, the reality of which depends completely upon your point of view.

Among the great reasons to call Virginia home is its history. Some say the Indians first migrated to the our valley around five thousand years ago. Take a walk with me in the long cornfields by the river’s edge near my home, and you can find evidence of their centuries here—arrowheads and tomahawks, pottery and spearheads.

After them came the time of Washington and Jefferson and Madison, giants whose courage and vision founded history’s greatest nation. And then came Lee and Jackson and a time when that nation was torn apart.

Yes, lots of history here.

Lots of ghosts, too.

I was reminded of this yesterday when I spoke with an old-timer who told me of a house in the city that was once a hospital for Confederate soldiers. There’s a reddish-brown stain on the parlor floor there, he said. About the size of a small spill. According to the homeowners, the stain has always been there. If it’s cleaned up, it reappears soon afterwards. If a rug is placed over it, the stain somehow seeps through the rug.

Local legend states it’s the blood of a confederate soldier. The homeowners agree. Quite an outlandish claim of course, but to a lot of the people here it’s just one more ghost story among thousands.

Like the Indian warrior who haunts the factory near my home. Or the spirits who inhabit the local cemeteries. There’s an abandoned house near the railroad tracks that’s haunted by the ghosts of two murdered brothers.

Keep in mind this is just in my town. Get out of there and up into the hills, and to hear the stories you’d be led to believe there are more ghosts than people.

Such tends to be the case for those parts of our country still immersed in the old ways, where religion and folklore entwine in an always rich but sometimes clumsy dance. The older people tend to see these tales as true. The younger ones generally use them for late-night campfires with easily-frightened girlfriends.

But back to that old-timer.

Nice old guy. He’s lived in this town for ninety-plus years, and he says his family has been here for over a century. He’s a believer in the ghosts. He says there are parts of life we may never get a glimpse of, but that doesn’t mean they’re not real.

And he said this: “Those ghosts are stuck here in this world, you see. For whatever reason, they can’t let go. So they’re left to roam. They’re not living, but they ain’t dead either. And for that, they have my pity.”

In that moment all of those ghosts had my pity, too. I still didn’t believe in them, of course. To me, they were nothing more than rural fairy tales. But fairy tales tend to have a lot of truth wrapped in them, some warning or lesson to be heeded. And I began to think maybe our town’s fairy tales did, too.

There’s a lot to be said for holding tight to something, whether it’s a dream or an ideal or a hope. Perseverance and tenacity are virtues, I think. Good things.

But there are times for letting go, too. Times when holding on means to neither live nor die, but merely to roam. Our perseverance and tenacity can become twisted into something it was never meant to be, leaving us bitter instead of strengthened and a mere specter instead of a person.

And I thought, too, of those things I hold tightly to in my own life, things valuable and real. And I wondered if when the time came I could let go. I hoped so, I really did.

It’s a matter of faith, letting go. It’s the epitome of trust.

And we’ll often find that when we let go, we’ll grasp Someone who will never let go of us.

***

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.

Not really a post today. Sorry about that. The thing is, I’m not as strong as I think I am sometimes. I struggle. I fight with God instead of surrenduring to Him. Ask anyone who knows me well and they will tell you I can be the most stubborn person in the world. That can be a very good thing and a very bad thing.

I’m dealing with something that is very scary for me. It could be nothing, it could be life changing. All I know is I need to stop being afraid and simply surrender and trust. Because even though I understand on a head level that God is in control, I need to understand it from my heart.

Back to the regularly scheduled program tomorrow. Thanks for indulging me.

Let it Go (by Tenth Avenue North)

I’ve been holding on so tight
Look at these knuckles
They’ve gone white
I’m fighting for who I wanna be
I’m just trying to find security

But You say let it go, You say let it go
You say life is waiting for the ones that lose control
You say you will be, everything I need
You said if I lose my life it’s then I’ll find my soul
You say let it go.

Well it’s hard enough to hear
Harder still, to move beyond this fear
We know there’s nothing I can bring,
So tell me what do you want from me?

But You say let it go, You say let it go
You say life is waiting for the one to lose control
You say You will be, everything I need
You said if I lose my life it’s then I’ll find my soul
You say let it go, You say let it go

What do I love?
What do I hate?
What will I lose?
What will I gain?
How do I save my soul?
What if I bend?
What if I break?
What will it cost?
What will it take?
For you to save my soul.

You say let it go, You say let it go
You say life is waiting for the one to lose control
You say You will be, everything I need
You said if I lose my life it’s then I’ll find my soul

You say let it go, You say let it go
You say life is waiting for the one to lose control
You say you will be, everything I need
You said if I lose my life it’s then I’ll find my soul
You say let it go, You say let it go

Tim Edwards has completed rehab and is the guest of honor at a homecoming party given at a local church tonight. For those of you who are new to this blog, Tim is the star of a viral marketing campaign and brainchild of a father and son marketing team here in Houston called Pimp this Bum dot com Through much prayer and more than a little gnashing of teeth by yours truly, I have been able to get past my anger about this website (mostly). I am still really struggling with the whole “the ends justify the means” mentality. I don’t think anyone could convince me that what they did was right. Having said that, Tim has been given a second chance; generous donations have allowed him to get off the streets. Kevin and Sean Dolan (the father and son team) are not evil marketers bent only on making a buck at Tim’s expense, I just can’t condone their methods. Piled atop of this, is a knot in my stomach that has yet to unravel. Why the knot? Because I asked my friend and well known pastor Pete Wilson to write a post about it, which only gained the website more exposure. It still makes me feel icky. I received an invite to the party, but I am not going. There are some folks from my church who know Tim that will be there. There will be enough unfamiliar faces there without adding mine to the mix. What am I going to say to him? “Hi, I’m katdish. You know, the blogger that all the news blogs keep quoting? The one that hates the website that is responsible for you being here?” No thanks. I’ll just stay home with the kiddos tonight. I am so happy for Tim. I really am. But I’m still struggling…

I’ve been holding on so tight
Look at these knuckles
They’ve gone white
I’m fighting for who I wanna be
I’m just trying to find security

But You say let it go, You say let it go
You say life is waiting for the one’s who lose control
You say you will be, everything I need
You said if I lose my life it’s then I’ll find my soul
You say let it go.

Well it’s hard enough to hear
Harder still, to move beyond this fear
We know there’s nothing I can bring,
So tell me what do you want from me?

But You say let it go, You say let it go
You say life is waiting for the one’s who lose control
You say You will be, everything I need
You said if I lose my life it’s then I’ll find my soul
You say let it go, You say let it go

What do I love?
What do I hate?
What will I lose?
What will I gain?
How do I save my soul?
What if I bend?
What if I break?
What will it cost?
What will it take?
For you to save my soul.

You say let it go, You say let it go
You say life is waiting for the one’s who lose control
You say You will be, everything I need
You said if I lose my life it’s then I’ll find my soul

You say let it go, You say let it go
You say life is waiting for the one’s who lose control
You say you will be, everything I need
You said if I lose my life it’s then I’ll find my soul
You say let it go, You say let it go