Tag: negative

House Hunting – Turn Negatives Into Positives

November 11, 2021

Turn Negatives Into Positives

I make that a command for myself.

When we first ran our information into a loan company portal, I felt it wouldn’t happen. I kept asking for everything I could check myself. We check credit reports constantly, we knew our shortcomings and explained everything we knew about up front trying to make sure we wouldn’t sink another chunk of our savings into an attempt and get rejected.

Last week, after being reassured falsely that I’d done everything, I was told about a secret report I can’t access that reported a “transfer error” where loans I had paid had been sold without someone passing that information along to this secret report place. My credit report showed all these loans as “paid in full.”

Doesn’t matter. This “transfer error” would take a lawyer thousands to fix and a minimum time, supposedly, of ten months, if it could be fixed because they don’t care if you “choose” to overpay… Oh well. Life.

So 20 days from what would be our closing and getting into a little house of our own, we can’t. One doesn’t have long enough work history and another has a “transfer error” that can’t be fixed quickly.

I have to find positives.

First, in less than two years, all three “issues” with our joint loan would be moot. Awesome!

Second, in two years’ time, maybe I can find a property for us to build on and keep us from any kind of loan (you know, mortgage means death and pledge, literally) and Louis said he didn’t want a mortgage.

Third, we can build our perfect simple house ourselves!!

Becky looked at me in the van last night (she’s been the most excited to leave our present situation) and said, “obviously, this isn’t what God wants for us.”

Bam! Absolute truth, but can I agree?

Flatly, once I look at the positives: Louis doesn’t want a mortgage, check, I want to build our own perfect house, check… I almost get excited.

I feel sad that I wasted so many people’s time, frustrated that again, I allowed my kids to believe we would get something we all want desperately but can’t, and sad that our savings dropped due to this. I honestly don’t care about errors, I guess we are all human.

I can only move forward: this means, making sure my children understand the importance of having everything written down. I will make paying their student loans my first priority. If it is in my power to help them better their lot, I will.

I challenge myself to move forward, learn from the past, and believe the best is yet to come… It is. Although it saddens me that my oldest daughter is an adult and we don’t have a house, I know our family is home whenever we are together!

Thank you for reading!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Evaluations

January 29, 2021

Evaluations

This week and next week are skills testing weeks at gym. Evaluations of skills each gymnast has and their ability to move up or stay in their current level to solidify their knowledge.

Most of the time, the coaches catch when their student gymnast gets enough skills and strength or knowledge to move up, but sometimes it takes a “skills test” for a gymnast to show off or put a little more power into her actions!

This made me think about life.

Life is full of levels.

Sometimes we just move through them seamlessly. You know, like gliding from toddlerhood to preschool, or moving from 9th to 10th grade. High school to college is a little more of a push – this is like an evaluation. Are you ready? Well, time is here – which choice do you make?

In our personal growth, we tend to move slowly. It’s when a climatic event causes us to evaluate ourselves that we discover strengths we didn’t know we had or weaknesses we thought we didn’t have. Your eldest child going to college and you are tossed into the whirlwind of various choices, plans, financial issues, helping your young adult navigate stress (praying you can do that well, because she is expressing what you are internalizing!), and believing that a way will be made.

This time you have to view as a positive change. You have to realize that this temporary negative appearance will prove to be the lifetime starting point for your young adult. Your attitude through this is your “evaluation,” your young adult will be taking notes on and remembering. (Everyone else in your household is also watching!)

Sometimes a life “evaluation” is others watching how you navigate troubled waters. Like the death of your father, your sister, your close friend, your child. Losing someone you treasure. That despair can allow you to create a pit to lose yourself in. Or you can look up and pull on the strength that only comes from Jesus. This evaluation is never something we want to face.

Evaluation week went along with my study: Examine yourself to see what is good and right; remove that which leads toward darkness.

(My paraphrase again, I summarized the page-long study to that line. Most of the verses linked all boiled down to that same line as my brain interpreted them.) I imagine darkness to be the depth of one’s soul without Jesus. Since Jesus is Light and darkness is the absence of light, that makes the most sense to me.

See, when trouble hits, I can either turn inside myself and go into darkness or look outside and reach up to Jesus. In Him there is strength to endure everything.

Life has taught me that.

My “evaluations” have proven it.

I pray I always choose to reach up. I want those watching me during “skills testing” to be led to Jesus. That is my goal.

Crazy writer’s brain that sees the little flyer on our desk that reads “skills testing weeks” and launches into deep thoughts… hopefully these wandering thoughts help lift you up!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

Determination Versus Stubbornness

Can our perception affect whether we interpret the same character trait as either positive or negative?

January 16, 2019

Determination versus Stubbornness

Your perception (how you look at something) certainly affects your outlook on things that come into your life.

For instance: you can see your child’s stubborn refusal to allow you to fasten their shoes as pure rebellion.  (And it may well be.)

Or you can choose to think (as they fumble with the laces for the sixth time and you know their 3-year-old hands are not quite ready for tying shoelaces – but he just has to wear big sister’s purple shoes because they “fit better,” which they don’t) “Wow, he is determined to do it himself.”

Stubbornness versus determination.

Those two character traits really are the same thing, only when we choose to see something as determination, we see it in a positive light.  When we choose to see something as stubbornness, we think of that action negatively.

Our perception of those character traits causes our outlook when we see them in use to either be positive or negative.

I wish I could say I always manage to see the positive, but unfortunately, no.  On this occasion, I was in a hurry to get going and my first reaction was frustration at his stubbornness.  I almost reacted with that first thought, but reconsidered as one shoe was flung from foot to shoe cubby.

“Is it too hard to tie?” I asked.

Lucas’ response when he can’t do something is to fume in silence and embarrassment.

“Maybe we should leave Jillian’s shoes so she can use them and use your brown boots instead.”

Lucas perked up; his “brown boots” are high-top (boots) sneakers with a camo strip and three strong Velcro closures. (I love that someone who studied burrs on his dog’s fur created Velcro!)  Lucas knows he can put those shoes on himself.

“I put them on myself!” Lucas announced once his feet were shod.

Determination.

Someday, because of his determination, he will be putting on lace-up sneakers and tying them – hopefully, though, it will be another pair instead of big sister’s obviously feminine shoes.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Wimpy Atlas

Ever feel like everything in the world is raining down on your shoulders and you can’t keep anything up? That was today…

December 20, 2018

Wimpy Atlas

Am I the only one who feels like Atlas with wimpy shoulders sometimes?

Yesterday was a good example:

I got up at 5:30am to work, the guy cancels as I’m just on the road.  Bummer.

Get back home, waste of a half-hour prep and 20 minutes gas and time, but I try to stay positive.  My breathing flared up; can’t lay down to go back to sleep.  Grrrrr… hot tea and honey while I work on my character cards for the 6th in The Devonians – 26 characters in this one because it is set during a community planting season.

I write a program for translating ages – this will make future work easier.   I had my tea.  I hoped I would avoid having to take the allergy pill (discovered a natural antihistamine as I’m allergic to both Benadryl and the emergency inhaler I was supposed to be taking 4 times a day, but I still prefer not to take anything).   I pick up the second ride.  I’ve now made $20.

I chose not to dwell on sad things pinging around the back of my brain.

But when I got home about 11, I was starved.  I made my Shakeology because Louis wasn’t hungry (the kids had already eaten, and I wasn’t going to make a whole breakfast just for me).  Louis took the next call so I could finish eating.  I gathered all my stuff into neat little piles so I could use my tools to guide my story.  Christina needed help on an Algebra problem so I set my Shakeology cup down.

But… (that word NOT in the positive this time!)

As I finished with Christina’s problem *BAM* I turned and knocked the full Shakeology cup over ($3.50 meal – I hate waste)!   *SPLASH* the broken blinds, the window, the lamp, the wall, EVERY ONE of my 26 cards, my hand-written “cheat sheet” I’d created almost a year ago for the Devonians families, and the floor are covered in goo.  Imagine slightly soupy pudding – that’s the consistency of Shakeology + coffee.

Immediately, as quickly as the drops of fluid, everything negative that I was trying to hold back rained down on my brain.

The evening before, Mom got Daddy’s ashes… all that’s left of his body is in two boxes on her table.

Didn’t get to stop by Mom’s on the way home (*thoughts* you are a horrible daughter.)

Didn’t get to snuggle on the couch with Lucas because I was cleaning while he fell asleep (horrible mom.)

Didn’t get to fix my pie or anything to take to the party (horrible guest.)

I had to drive in the morning but only had two calls & the would-be big one canceled (horrible provider.)

Lucas wanted me to play trains… I was busy teaching (again, you never play with him!)

…and on and on and on… my brain just rained down things I wished I could have done differently, things I wanted to do but hadn’t, and things I should have done.

I felt like the world was falling on my shoulders and squishing me flat.

Now I was hungry, it was noon, and the very next call was “make some rice for lunch” because we had one pound of beef in the freezer and “stir-fry would be good.”  All I wanted was to type my frustrations out and make another Shakeology to actually eat.  I wanted to get to my vitamin shake before I went to work at 2. (I was leaving early to stop by my mom’s today!)

I read somewhere that a mother is the Chief Mood Officer in her home.  When I start getting lost in emotion, I remind myself of that.  I turned on Christmas music, started cleaning so I could start rice, and prayed I’d be able to pull my own mood up (and keep the house from growing dark).  My siblings’ party is tomorrow.  I can choose to shift my focus on the positive.  Hopefully it works!

*By the way* I didn’t get my shake until I was on the way to work, my mom wasn’t home when I got to her house, and on… BUT I was working playroom so had brought my Devonians folder and was able to use the 40 “lost” minutes to recreate some of the destroyed cards.  I forced myself to focus on the positive again… this week has been a constant challenge for me.  God.  God is totally in control. (I just need to lean on Him – His shoulders are not weak.)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Movie Thoughts: Happy Feet

When you look for the good… you will find it! One point of view (review) of a movie we discussed.

December 5, 2018

Movie Thoughts: “Happy Feet”

We were watching a movie the girls got from the library.  In this movie, the hero is searching for why his people are starving, the elders don’t like his “different ways” and command him to stop so that their “God” will restore the food supply, and the hero refuses so is “kicked out” by the elders.  On his quest, he discovers another predator is taking their food and appeals to them to bring back the food using his “different ways” and since this is so uncharacteristic of his people, the other predators try to fix the problem (and they end up fixing it).

I’d heard mixed review about this movie.  Some said it was a “cute little movie” and had some adult humor, yes (I will say; the use of older classic songs and caricatures of famous singers from the previous generations’ era is neat).

One of the most common negatives I heard was that it was sacrilegious and projects a negative view of authority.  Check and check from one point of view.

But there’s the other point of view.  The one my kids came up with.  (I’m a homeschool mom who loves to find teaching moments in everything… so we usually discuss movies after watching them.  I choose to use these discussions to teach literature basics – analyze, review, react.  Everyone is involved and gets to support or debate the others’ summary.  We “review” songs, movies, stories, and even cartoons.)

This is what they got from “Happy Feet:”

  • Mumble was born with the difference because God (represented in the movie by “the Great Guin”) knew that the humans were taking too much fish and that something different would be the only way for the humans to take notice of one animal.
  • The reason Mumble has the encounter with the birds is to cause his curiosity to spike and him to believe that the “aliens” have a “better nature” and want to fix things.
  • This is why he is not discouraged by discovering that the humans are taking all the fish and left a sea of trash (even though one of his buddies is almost strangled by said trash) – rather he is determined to ask them to stop. He believes they are good-natured.
  • Rather than Mumble’s “fancy feet” being something against the “Great Guin,” it was the plan of the “Great Guin” for Mumble to be different, catch the human’s eye, and cause them to fix the problem they caused.
  • My girls believe this movie shows how God prepares unexpected people to do great things in often unexpected ways. It champions determination, the beauty of our differences, honesty, and love.

That is what I like to see when I watch it too.  Overly simplistic?  Maybe, but then simplicity is often the outlook of most children and sometimes the simple is used to confound the wise.  I pray my children will always “look for the good” in people, movies, songs, stories, and life so that they will find it.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

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