I'm A Little Tea Cup

I'm A Little Tea Cup.... Love this story or not, you will not be able to have tea in a tea cup again without thinking of this. There was a couple who took a trip to England to shop in a beautiful antique store to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary.? They both liked antiques and pottery, and especially teacups. Spotting an exceptional cup, they asked "May we see that?? We've never seen a cup quite so beautiful." As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke, "You don't understand. I have not always been a teacup. There was a time when I was just a lump of red clay. My master took me and rolled me pounded and patted me over and over and I yelled out, "Don't do that." "I don't like it!" "Let me alone," but he only smiled, and gently said; "Not yet!" Then WHAM! I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. "Stop it! I'm getting so dizzy!? I'm going to be sick!", I screamed. But the master only nodded and said, quietly; 'Not yet.' He spun me and poked and prodded and bent me out of shape to suit himself and then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door. "Help! Get me out of here!" I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as he shook his head from side to side, 'Not yet'. When I thought I couldn't bear it another minute, the door opened. He carefully took me out and put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. Oh, that felt so good! "Ah, this is much better," I thought. But, after I cooled he picked me up and he brushed and painted me all over The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. 'Oh, please, Stop it, Stop, I cried. He only shook his head and said. 'Not yet!'. Then suddenly he put me back in to the oven. Only it was not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I just knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried I was convinced I would never make it. I was ready to give up. Just then the door opened and he took me out and again placed me on the shelf, where I cooled and waited and waited, wondering "What's he going to do to me next?" An hour later he handed me a mirror and said 'Look at yourself.' And I did. I said, That's not me; that couldn't be me. It's beautiful. I'm beautiful!!! Quietly he spoke: "I want you to remember, then,' he said, 'I know it hurt to be rolled and pounded and patted, but had I just left you alone, you'd have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I know it hurt and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn't put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn't done that, you never would have hardened. You would not have had any color in your life. If I hadn't put you back in that second oven, you wouldn't have survived for long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. Now you are what I had in mind when I first began with you." The moral of this story is this: God knows what He's doing for each of us. He is the potter, and we are His clay. He will mold us and make us and expose us to just enough pressures of just the right kinds that we may be made into a flawless piece of work to fulfill His good, pleasing and perfect will. So when life seems hard, and you are being pounded and patted and pushed almost beyond endurance; when your world seems to be spinning out of control; when you feel like you are in a fiery furnace of trials; when life seems to "stink", try this. Brew a cup of your favorite tea in your prettiest tea cup, sit down and think on this story and then, have a little talk with the Potter.

Family Affair

At the end of April was an event that had taken forever to make, it was a fun filled weekend of family celebrations. As you all know there are times I don’t feel like I have a half hour to breath let alone a whole weekend, but the event were far too important to miss. The weekend started with a small bit of me time (I know can you believe it). I got up early on Friday, April 29 to watch the royal wedding, and unless you have been living under a rock lately you should know how amazing it truly was. After working that day, I packed and got ready for a trip to Olean the next morning.

However first on Saturday, April 30^th I attended a meeting of the annual Fabulous Females Luncheon, to help tie up all the last minute details and plan what we were going to do the day of. This meeting ended up taking longer than we originally thought, and I had to speed out of the meeting at 10:30 to get back to Rochester and on the road to Olean for a 1:30 weeding.

Lucky for me AJ is an amazing driver, we enter the town of Olean with 5 minutes to spare and feeling very good about the time he had made up…but then we hit ever red light in the town!! We ran into the Church late, to be greeted by my beautiful cousin Sarah looking glowing on her wedding day. Luckily I was there in time to see her walk down the alley.

I was able to sit with my cousin Jen and Paul and their lovely babies (they will always be my babies!) Olivia and Dylan and as much as I was happy to see all of them they brought with them ANNA MARIA! For those of you who don’t know Anna is my beautiful cousin who lives in LA and because of that Nick and her are unable to get to out of holidays as much. Anna and Nick (her hubby) are excepting their first baby boy. Of course Anna looks like she has swallowed a beach ball, with only a belly to let you know she was having a baby. I was so happy she was able to make it for the wedding and I kept joking with AJ that she was my real date to the wedding not him.

We ended up hanging at the hotel for a little bit before the reception, after me and AJ made a trip to buy me flip flops. While the kids napped (or we were hoping) everyone was able to catch up and I finally had others to talk about the wedding with. We also got to hold and coo over my cousin Marie’s newest addition. The reception was so fun, I made up goody bags for the kids to help keep them entertained however they were all out on the dance floor!

The next morning we had breakfast at my Aunt Fran’s House and talked about the wedding and catching up,

AJ also found a new person to play soccer with, Olivia. It was then time to head back to Batavia for Anna’s Baby Shower. I had so much fun shopping for baby stuff for her, everyone in my family really needs to keep having kids so I can keep shopping for them! Sadly that was the end of my fun filled weekend because I had two papers waiting for me back at home to finish for school and a speech to right for the luncheon the following weekend.

Fabulous Females

Hey everyone, Mother's Day weekend is always a busy time for me. There are a number of yearly event that take place and this year I had some great Mary Kay events also to take part in. Friday night I was able to take part in a "Ladies Night Out" event at Batavia Downs. I also help out at a craft show during the Mother's Day Luncheon on Sunday. This year because of my schedule I sadly could not make it to my Church's annual Mother's Day May crowning and breakfast, however I did attend the Fabulous Females Luncheon for the YWCA. I have attended this event for over five years and love it so much. This year I was honor to sit on the committee to help plan this event. I was a little nervous however, when a week before the event I was thrown in to speech at the event also!!!!! Below you will see what I said at the event:

Blessed is the heart that finds joy in the journey. While this statement is true, sometimes the road you take is filled with bumps, detours and missed exits making it not always a smooth ride. However it is the love, and support of family that gets a person through and truly adds joy to the journey.

I stand here today to speak on behalf my family; really it’s the family that we all belong to, the family of women. Family cannot it easily be defined because family is much more and reaches farther than our front doors.

Family is the support network, the community that is all around us. I would like you to take a moment and look around the room today; we are a room filled with fabulous females. I would also wager that as you look around the room you will find a lot of women who have served as your cheerleaders, role models and support throughout your life. That’s because we are all part of a network, a community, a family really of fabulous females.

I cannot emphasize enough from my own life, how important it is for women to support one another. I can tell you when I look around this room, I can see the faces of those who encouraged, praised and loved me into the women I am today. If it wasn’t for that family of a few good men and a city full of women that wholeheartedly embraced me, I would be a completely different person.

Sometimes the journey is not always easy, there is an old sixties song, that says “sometimes I feel like a motherless child.” This phase has stuck with me for a number of reasons. First because I was that child, at the age of ten I lost my mom. But also because it speaks to the importance and emotional connection youth have with their mother and mother figures. The influence of women have a lasting impact on us as we grow up, I now pass on the amazing knowledge and example that was set for me to everyone I come in contact with. We truly pass everything on forward.

I love the paper doll chains that are found on your tables, they are so symbolic of our family. You will notices that they are held together really because they are holding each other’s hands. This is something that as women we do, we hold one another’s hands and support each other along the journey of life.

The YWCA has as part of its mission to empower women, and this event serves as recognition of those fabulous females who have blazed trails and held out their hands to others. I have been lucky as all of us have been to grow up in this community and while we come together today to applaud the work of these recipients today it’s important to remember that the work of a family is never done. Because we are all women of influence, we all have the ability to enrich the lives of all those we come in contact with and it starts by following the example of the dolls on your table and taking the hands of those around you.

It’s important to have support at all stages in life; it is the support of the family that adds the joy to our journey. Throughout our lives we have milestones that are much more manageable or joyful with our family. As women we give so much, it is vitally important that we have this wonderful family to come back to recharge our batteries with and refill our cup. There was a time where women stood together in a bond of sisterhood, women supporting women. It is only natural that the pendulum swings out of balance for a while so that we may have the experience of what we do not want. It is up to women to bring the pendulum back into balance and bring back the sacred sisterhood we yearn for at our core.

Our family is much like a bee hive, we venture out in crazy world, every day different from the next. We gain something when we are out in the world, lessons and wisdom and then we come back together and make something sweeter from what we share with each other. But most important we are each like a bee. Many years ago engineers discovered that when you calculate the weight of the bee’s bodies mass and the span of its wings, it should not be able to fly. It’s a good thing no one every told the bee that, because then we would never have honey! Every day we are each like a bee, achieve amazing things and reaching to greater highs, doing the impossible.

No one part is stronger then the whole and this is true for our family. We are each successful but become stronger because of all the other members of our family. We stand together a strong community because of the work of those that came before us and while we help along the next generation to their next great height. We are all connected just like those dolls on the chain, connected and united as one family.

**My next blog will go a backwards in time and look at my cousin Sarah's wedding and my cousin Anna Maria's Baby Shower