Little Bits of Wit & Wisdom for Life

What does Bits of Wit and Wisdom mean to me? It means wisdom for life.

It means keeping a sense of humor, also known as wit, among all the craziness of life.

Let me tell you about myself: When I was a little girl I often pretended to be Cinderella. I was especially good at becoming a martyr as I did my chores and thought dreadful things about my mother. My mother acted identical to the evil step mother, I was certain of it! I wanted to meet my Prince Charming and live Happily Ever After. When asked if I wanted to go to college when I was a little girl, I answered that I wanted to grow up and be a mommy. I have obtained that dream through sweat and tears and many more tears. Yes, more tears have been happy than sad.

A Bit about Me: What I believe in

Once Upon a Time there was a Mum who wanted to understand and know more about EVERYTHING in life! That was me. That IS me.

Wit and Wisdom: I know that life is short, unpredictable, that it’s okay to cry or even scream, and that feeling makes us human. I believe that laughter is essential to survival, and that chocolate should be named one of the major food groups. You should know, I also believe it is perfectly acceptable to ask for “Mommy Tax” from my kiddos from their Halloween candy, etc… I have a huge heart, am very empathetic and have much to share. I’ve been told for years that I am easy to talk to, and a great listener. People have told me that I am funny, and have lifted their moods. Many of them even ask for my help and advice! This does include some sarcasm, I’m afraid. This is where wit comes in. I also have much more to learn.

Family is everything to me. Relationships are delicate and fragile and need nurturing. I am blessed, yes, but it is partially because I have educated myself. I went into marriage with my eyes fully open. Sure, I still adore Cinderella, but I am not shadowed by fantasy. I strained the good from the fiction, removed the tales, added truth and faced the facts. Because of this, I have been able to talk with and help many people along the way. I can relate to many various circumstances of people’s lives, both negative and positive ones. Where I do not have personal experience or education, I have pretty good intuition. If I don’t know, or cannot feel it in my gut, I will study it out or tell you so. 

Finding My Person: aka My Prince

When I was 21, I met my adorable, amazing, and slightly balding Prince Charming. Fortunately my husband wanted all the same things that I did, and we were very well suited for each other. We were married in the Los Angeles California Temple (castle!). We started our marriage with high hopes and a great deal of love and respect for one another. Reading and research were part of my preparation. I had already taken a few marriage and relationship courses and childhood development classes. I learned a great deal about what to do and not to do in a relationship. We have been very blessed to be extremely happy most of the time. We laugh a LOT! (Honestly, no one is happy all of the time in marriage. That just isn’t real life.)

“Many of the social restraints which in the past have helped to reinforce and to shore up the family are dissolving and disappearing. The time will come when only those who believe deeply and actively in the family will be able to preserve their families in the midst of the gathering evil around us.” – Spencer W. Kimball, Ensign, Nov. 1980.

Wisdom for Mental Health: I am very blessed to be married to my best friend for 30+ years, and have five very challenging and amazing earthly kids. Why challenging? Because we have faced infertility, mental illness, loss, anxiety, ADD, ADHD, addiction and Asperger’s syndrome, which is under the Autism spectrum, medication failures and successes; among all the other craziness that comes from motherhood, life and large families.

Motherhood

I’ve been a Mum for over 30 years; my first two babies were boy and girl twins, and teeny beautiful Preemies. They only lived a few hours. Some time I’ll share my journal with you about that time. I wrote it as a fresh 23 year old mommy with aching arms, an empty nursery and a broken heart. The three youngest of my children were Special Order: Delivered by the Stork. They were adopted as an adorable sibling set of three amazing kids. But as I listed earlier, they came with some of that special baggage of their own.

I have six children who are celestial and were lost either soon after birth, stillborn, or miscarried. Experience has been mine while harboring a mother’s shattered and broken heart when it came to loss. I also know first-hand the challenges and difficulties surrounding post-partum depression, clinical depression, panic attacks, anxiety, body image issues, infertility, health challenges etc…  PCOS is a daily companion and challenge. I know, you must think I’m a rare mess, right? But I have not only survived, I have thrived. Have I gone to school for this? Well yes, (Marriage and Family Therapy major) but the School of Hard Knocks teaches more in-depth than any university, and Personal Experience flavors life like no class room spice ever could.

Wisdom for Life: I believe that keeping a journal most of my life has helped me to be a better friend and mother. I am going to share my journals with you starting when I was very young, and then share surrounding details and my hindsight too. I was a very typical kid, so please do not judge me too harshly. What I felt was important seems trivial to me now, but then it was everything. Back then a bad hair day could ruin my entire day!  In reading this way, you can look into the heart of a young girl starting at pre-teen. Maybe then you could grasp a different perspective on the kids in your realm.

Sweetie, I’ve Been Where You Are

Feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, frumpy and out of control? I get that.  Well really it is more like I was standing still and my Life was running away from me! Being a mom is the hardest and greatest gift I have been blessed with. I am not Cinderella, and now I mostly relate to her when I have dinner to cook or mountains of clothes to wash and fold. But I learned a lot from Cinderella and her graciousness along the way. I can reflect that I learned a great deal from a variety of sources in my life. I am flawed, but I am trying to be better.

Wisdom for Mental Health: Let me tell you, I’ve also discovered that I use creating beautiful surroundings, possessions and events, as coping mechanisms for the less savory things in life. So if my blog seems very dissimilar, this is why. My favorites are: I love to learn, sing, sew, read, craft and garden… I talk to my roses and breathe in the beauty of God’s creations, even as I have to turn my head just a bit as to not get a whiff of the foul-smelling chicken enclosure.

How did I become a hopeless romantic? Are you one too? Do you love lace and the Victorian era and try to emulate some of the finer attributes of that era into your life? The challenge here is to do this as inexpensively as possible. Are you an adorer of a good treasure hunt? Me too! This includes a bit of shabby French and shabby Victorian. “Do It Yourself or Do Without” has been a constant motto of mine. Yes, I am a hopeless romantic, sentimental and am admittedly a girly girl who’s proud of it.

Let’s Do This Together and help find your Happily Ever After

Wit and Wisdom: My beliefs and my religion are mammoth to who I am, and who I am becoming. I turn to my Savior and scriptures for answers beyond my own intellect. I try to stay humble along the way. As I said, I keep a sense of humor too. Life does get messy; sometimes extremely so. Sticky too, with stains that refuse to come out. That is where the wit comes in. I cannot take myself too seriously all of the time, or life will just bulldoze me right over.

Wisdom for Life: Sometimes I look at the unhappy lives of people whom I know and love, and I think, “Wow, is this what happens when we have the example of an unhappy home in our childhoods? Or does it stem from ignorance, abuse or mental illness? What happened to that charity that Paul spoke of in the Bible: the true love of Christ? Why am I the only one among so many with a happy home and marriage? How can I help them?” So how can I help you? I’ve been asked repeatedly to give bits of information on these subjects so close to my heart. I want to share some of these with you, and I hope and pray that I can help lighten your load a little, even if I can’t be there to help you fold your laundry.

~Cynthia