Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

Gindi

Mama Drama: The Elephant on my Chest

by 2 Comments

It’s been a while since a Mama Drama installment.  I have a thousand.  They’re the basis for my dream book I’d love to publish one of these days.

You may recall the last couple zany Mama Drama installments recounted the rollercoaster that hits when you work from home. 

So in today in Mama Drama, let’s talk about the seasons that just spin out of control. 

This season: WOW!

I was talking to one of my closest friends, a rockstar mom and career woman and wife and daughter and volunteer.  She has A LOT on her plate.  So I was venting to her about how right now just feels like SO MUCH, because she gets it.  She left two really wise and insightful voxes, a snippet of which said:

I understand the stress of having to work.  And being the one who takes care of the schedule and the doctor’s appointments and the…well, when you’re the Master Puppeteer of the House.  It’s a lot and when you add extra work stresses, sometimes it just feels TOO MUCH.  I’m telling you, I felt like I constantly had an elephant on my chest last year.  I was utterly overwhelmed. 

Ah yes.  I listened to the message again, more slowly.  An elephant on my chest.

Yep.

This year started off already busy with work, and then such sadness accompanied it with the loss my best friend suffered.  The sad came with a fog that slowed my reactions, but life and school and the house and work didn’t stop.  So all the things kept stacking on top. 

You step into that busy season and add a bunch of travel.  In one month, I have been to Minnesota, Louisiana (twice – one for a mommy-and-me trip that was planned nearly a year ago), and Washington D.C. (twice for work). Late night hours and seven day work weeks and a dog that will not quite eating my entire life around me and a few unexpected doctors’ visits that had to occur this month. 

Elephant.

Meet my chest. 

I believe this is going to be a year of big change.  I don’t know what it will hold, because I asked God not to let me see too far down the road a while back, and boy He’s been super good about that… (Sigh, exhales the Type A planner.)

If I’m going to be equipped to absorb the change and press into it, then I’m going to need to find a way to wrangle that elephant.

Not eradicate him.  That’s just silly.  But maybe relocate him slightly, off my chest.

So I’m being intentional. 

One: I stop working at dinner time.  Maybe that means I’m still working at 10 pm but it allows me to eat, usually, with my whole crew.  And then I read to the kids.  Little bit and I are reading an American Girl book and the boys and I have just started the SIXTH Harry Potter book (they only read that with me). 

Two: When they come to me with a story, I stop to listen, even though there’s a thousand things going on around me.  This morning, we really needed to get out the door.  But little bit wanted to tell me about her dream.  She got interrupted twice but she finished. 

Three: Sixty second snuggles.  This morning, I crawled into bed with each one to give them hugs and kisses to wake them up.  They rolled over smiling.  No screaming from the hallway, come on, get out of bed already.  Three minutes and a solid start to the day (but don’t let that fool you, one was still in tears when he couldn’t find his chapel sweater for school).

Four: Stopping.  This weekend, I could have worked all weekend.  But I didn’t.  I worked some.  But I asked my mom to watch the kids and I did a little shopping and got a pedicure.  Two hours of being totally unplugged. 

Five: Declining invitations.  I’m having to un-RSVP to a few things and say no to others.  Not everything.  I’m still doing some things that are important, but I’m saying no to otherwise good stuff that I just can’t make work in the next 30 days. 

And…hopefully…SIX: Writing.  I love to write.  It’s therapeutic.  I really want to make it a bigger priority in the next 90 days.  That sounds insane of course.  But it’s important to me. 

And I’ve agreed to participate in a spiritual formation retreat over the next year which I’ve long wanted to do.  This seems like the absolute worst time to do it which I think makes it the best time.  Two days, four times, over the next 12 months.  To sit.  Chill out with the Creator. Figure out what’s next.  Over and over again God has brought me to this scripture: He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. (Psalm 18, 2 Sam 22)

Then He proceeds to bring me to a spacious place (Alaska, Yosemite, Hill Country…). 

I’m always better after that.

So I’m going to “retreat” in the truest form of the word.  I’ll write and pray and relocate that elephant.  In March, the five Vincents get to venture into another spacious place: Sedona and the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park.  In April, we get to slip away with my best friend’s family at one of my safest and most regular spacious places, the farm. 

And in this pressing season, this one that feels oh so overwhelming at times, I will stand on the promises which I know to be true and look forward to the hope that lays on the other side of the test:  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed… (2 Cor 4)

Why Do You Think I Love Him So Much?

by 2 Comments

They sang a song at church Sunday: My Living Hope. 

It overwhelmed me. 

It was the first time I’d stood in a church service since attending Kristin’s son’s funeral. 

We were all five there, near the back.  I was hosting a family from church for lunch afterwards, so I’d prepped chicken enchiladas the night before but had a few last minute things to do before getting ready for church.  I was rushing.  The kids were fighting. I was yelling.  Things were tense and everyone was grumpy when we piled into the truck to drive the few short minutes to our church. 

We made it through the community greetings, all smiles, and a couple of songs when the band started playing, Living Hope.  The song, in part, says:

Then came the morning that sealed the promise
Your buried body began to breathe
Out of the silence, the Roaring Lion
Declared the grave has no claim on me
Jesus, Yours is the victory

Hallelujah, praise the One who set me free
Hallelujah, death has lost its grip on me
You have broken every chain
There’s salvation in Your name
Jesus Christ, my living hope

I was completely undone. Trying not to cry, I lifted my hand in praise and let the words sink in.  It was all I could do to stay standing because those words rocked me. My Living Hope.

After we sat, my critical mind started attacking: What a hypocrite! You are chief among the hypocrites.  You come to church and act holy closing your eyes and singing these songs but you’re a mess.  You were just screaming at your kids a half hour ago and fighting with your husband and spending unwisely and…

You get the idea. 

But then the other voice weighed in: That’s WHY the words are so powerful. Given my failures and my utter messiness, He still died for me and forgave me. Why do you think I love Him so much? I’m a wreck. And He still loves me.

I remember sitting in an auditorium with Beth Moore teaching a bible study. She told a story about her grandson singing along with a Christian song on the radio. And she got big tears in her eyes when she heard him and thought, You have no idea how much you are going to love Him! You have no idea yet how much He will see you through.

I feel like that now, especially after these last weeks. Lots of travel. Funerals and diagnoses. Busyness and exhaustion.

In the middle of it all, His faithfulness. (Webster defines as loyal, constant, steadfast. What a gift.)

As I flew home Tuesday night from Washington, D.C., a quick work trip, we took off in the middle of a storm. Initially, it wasn’t as bumpy as I feared it would be. (There’s a post just in that.) But then we got into a cloud stormbank as we rose and the plane dipped and bumped and rocked. I’ve become ever more fearful as I fly, post kids, and I gripped the seat arms.

Then, just as quickly as it began, the airplane pulled through the clouds and calmed. Above the storm, blue skies. Before, you couldn’t see beyond the window. Now, you could see the entire sky stretched forth beyond the plane.

I read a blog post yesterday, entitled The Fog Always Rises, about a woman’s struggle with anxiety and depression, and she says: Sometimes, it’s through what becomes the fog’s reprieve that we can appreciate the blaze of the sun.

Why do you think I love Him so much?

Despite my failures and inadequacies, I know someone who loves me through it all, at all times, and forgives me no matter how many times I’ve messed up before.

No matter the stormbank or the fog, there’s light on the other side. It looks different than it did before you hit the stormbank or the fog, but the blaze of the sun, the clearing, does pierce the clouds and fog.

I don’t ever forget where I’ve failed. And I have to ask others for forgiveness too, not just my Savior. I never forget the storm. I never forget the fog. My heart still bears scars from the battering it took.

Yet, He brought me into a spacious place, He rescued me because He delighted in me. Psalm 18:19

2020 – The Ellipsis

by 2 Comments

Today, it is 2020.

As my brother in law said this morning, welcome to the roaring ’20s.

For me, this new decade didn’t come in roaring. It came in in a fog.

I’m in a fog.

I left on the 26th for Minnesota to spend a few days with my best friend, Kristin, and attend her son’s funeral, and returned on the 30th. A quick turn around of my carry on bag at the house, and then I left with my family for the farm. As is our New Year’s Eve tradition.

Two of Bray’s siblings and families were there, along with his parents, and the kids popped fireworks last night and laughed and ran and drank too much soda. I posted photos on social media, as I do, and my daughter and I even snapped a photo of us with me smiling.

It felt fake.

I didn’t smile much the rest of the time. Isaac wasn’t even my son but I have been heartbroken. I can’t focus or function for very long. I’m completely sleep deprived. Last week, I slept with the phone in my hand in case Kristin needed anything in the middle of the night. She never did, but somehow me not sleeping felt like I was helping. Then I never get any sleep at the farm, and little bit got sick, so I’m bleary in my fog.

I just didn’t have a bright and shiny New Year’s post to offer.

Last year I wrote about resolutions and hopes. And this year, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to work this week. I’ve left a part of myself in Minnesota and I just want to get back. (It’s actually a miracle I got out – thank you all for praying. I ran from the snow in Marshall and got out 6 hours in advance, and then my plane just beat the snow in Minneapolis by hours too.)

At the same time, I don’t want to let go of my kids. I kept hugging and kissing them once I got back until they finally pushed me off.

As I plowed through emails today, a GetAbstract book title caught my attention, You are Awesome, by Neil Pasricha. The book professes to help you through change and failure and be more intentional. So I started reading.

His first point is what struck me and finally enabled me to write something. Like I’ve meant to for weeks.

He writes to see changes with an ellipsis instead of a period. It moves your thinking from “finality” to “future” – the gap in the sentence marks a transition. He wrote about a woman who saw a change through the lens of an ellipsis instead of a period. Seeing changes as beginnings instead of endings helped her to press forward and remain stronger internally.

This ‘door opening’ perspective, according to the author and his research, gives you the ability to say “yet” at the end of your sentence.

So, I don’t have any catchy resolutions. I don’t have any grand bargains or promises, which I most certainly will fail to execute.

I have an ellipsis for this year. A ‘yet.’

I don’t understand God, yet. (That yet may never be fulfilled this side of heaven.)

I can’t focus on my work, yet. (I’ll get there. It will be far easier for me than for Isaac’s family.)

I don’t know what’s next, yet. (Maybe I won’t know until the next happens, and so I wait.)

This fog won’t lift, yet. (It will lift. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1)

As a Type A planner, this is the most unplanned I’ve ever been. Darn near unraveling.

But maybe it takes unraveling to pull together what God has planned instead of what I planned. The dictionary says unraveling means to undo twisted, knitted or woven threads. And Colossians 2 says:
I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s great mystery. (The Msg)

So I don’t know, yet, what to expect or want from 2020. Maybe simply to expect or want this unraveling to result in a new tapestry that is woven by the hand of God.

Rejoicing after weeping.
Clothes of joy after grief in sackcloth. (Psalm 30)

Peace through tribulation. (John 16)

Beauty from ashes.
Hope from despair.
Rebuilt and restored ruins after devastation.(Isaiah 61)

Christmas 2019

by Leave a Comment

Merry Christmas.

I really have meant to write.

Upon checking, I’ve written two times in the past two months. A record low over the past 9 years. There were years I’d write four times a week.

Life happens. The holidays are crazy even though I had every intention of slowing down and injecting more meaning and less chaos. We have three ten year olds, two full time jobs, volunteer work, school activities, friends and family. It’s just busy.

It’s also been bittersweet. We’ve had uncertainty and family members struggling and people moving and then, this week, my best friend lost her oldest son.

There has been such joy. Gingerbread houses and school parties and dinners with dear friends and helping others. But then there’s just also been this cloud. Sun and rain.

Our church has a director of liturgy who has given us space this season for lament. Reminded us what ADVENT has stood for through the ages. Asked us hard questions and made us confront the commercial “merry little Christmas” gloss we Christians have put on a season with so much more meaning.

So I will write. I miss it. I miss you.

But not tonight. Tonight I pack to fly to Minnesota to attend the funeral of a sweet son and brother taken too soon. I pack the littles to go hunting with dad later. And then we’ll all be back together to celebrate the New Year.

We’ll pop fireworks and laugh and clink our champagne flutes together but we’ll also pray for healing and peace. In our hearts and in our country and in our world.

Until then, Merry Christmas dear friends. Where ever this finds you, I pray you can see God. Love to you all.

Friday Finds: Favorite Things

by Leave a Comment

Merry Christmas Friends! A week out and short of a just the perfect thing for one of your people? Well I got you!

Today, instead of Fashion Friday, we’re talking Friday Finds! That’s right, I crowd-sources some favorite things and BOY DID I HIT THE JACKPOT!

There is no possible way I can cover all the great items I got in my Facebook post, so head over to Facebook and check out the public post dated December 12th if you don’t see what you need here.

There is so much material, I’m going to test some of these out and come back to this Favorite Things post again!

But I’ll try to break some of the items up into categories and tackle them. My favorite comments were some of the intangible ‘favorite things’ – laughter, smell of cut grass, etc. Ah. That’s what’s really the best!

Also, I’ll add my own two cents if you’re looking for a favorite thing for a friend or family member: EXPERIENCES!

Last night, Bray and I took the kids to Holiday Lights at Constellation Field. Just the time together, looking at lights and roasting smores on the fire pit and decorating gingerbread houses, that was the best thing ever. I’m trying to do a family surprise date once a month. It won’t always happen, but last month we all went to see Ford v. Ferrari at a theater that served food and this month was Holiday Lights. Who knows what next month will bring!?!?!

Okay, here goes!

CATEGORY APPS:

  • Voxer – this is how I talk to my best friend every day, you don’t need to know anything other than to download it and get your friends to do it too;
  • Paprika 3 – apparently the best recipe collection app out there which enables you not to just collect your fav recipes but to categorize them by holidays etc;
  • Hopper – this will tell you the days that are cheapest to travel and if your fare is going to go up or down;
  • Down Dog Yoga – an easy download to add strength and stretching into your daily routine.

CATEGORY COSMETICS/HAIR:

  • Revlon one step hair dryer – This one got a TON of traffic with all sorts of people in all sorts of corners saying that this is life changing, it is in my Amazon basket friends (also the Dyson hair dryer got a shout out for frizzy hair);
  • Eye shadow primer – I was not familiar with this cosmetic tool but several friends swear by it, one says that Target’s ELF brand is all you need while another recommends Too Faced – the key being that your mascara won’t be all over your face anymore;
  • MAC Lipstick – this was a recommendation I can whole heartedly endorse, I love MAC lipsticks and our nominator says that their Russian Red looks fabulous on everyone;
  • Mary Kay eye make up remover – again, this is a product I use so when I saw it nominated I jumped right in – I have never found a better eye make up remover out there (you can see I basically dabble in almost every make up brand);
  • Stila eyeliner – several friends swear by this waterproof eyeliner;
  • Cle de peu concealer – Revolutionary according to my friend, and I’m sort of obsessed with concealers (I report after four hours of sleep last night), but IT Bye Bye Under Eye Concealer also got the favorite things nod and it is more affordable;
  • Invisibobble Traceless ponytail holder – keeps your ponytail from pressing a crease into your hair and won’t result in those awful ponytail headaches.

CATEGORY HOME GOODS:

  • Electric tea kettle – this was another top vote getter, lots of folks swear by these and have them for work and for home, one recommended was the Cuisinart kettle;
  • Gas fireplace – several nods for the benefit of curling up to a good book in front of a gas fireplace and I’m cozy just thinking about it;
  • Portable clothing steamer – a must for travelers to have in their carry on;
  • Sticker You – perfect personalized labels for kids young and old (and I’ve used Name Bubbles too);
  • Hobonichi Cousins Planners and Covers – I had paper planners for years, this year I went full electronic, but this friend’s hearty recommendation may make me return to having a paper version.

CATEGORY FOOD/DRINK:

  • Nutella stuffed chocolate chip cookies by ambitious kitchen – messy to make but worth it says my friend who adds this to her list;
  • Peanut butter fudge – easy and addictive, melt one tub of peanut butter and one tub of icing in the microwave, mix together and refrigerate;
  • Parmesan crisps – while this was someone else’s top pick, it’s also one of my go to snacks;
  • Lolea red sangria – comes in full and mini sizes at Cost Plus;
  • Apple cider mimosas – ‘nuff said;
  • Amici Cab – tastes like a $200 cab for closer to $40 (loved hearing this because I just grabbed their Pinot for a dinner party);
  • Frago mints – the beauty of chocolate and mint, this is the original.

CATEGORY FUNNIEST:

I don’t know why, but these cracked me up:

  • Whataburger ketchup – apparently no other ketchup comes close;
  • Earbags – do you imagine an earlobe holding a purse, well don’t, because apparently it is a headband-less set of ear muffs;
  • Pickle salsa – seriously y’all, these are little bit’s two favorite food groups, I’m totally trying this as a hysterical as it sounds!

Okay friends, you should be all set for the holidays now!

But don’t stop now! Sound off in the comments and give us YOUR favorite things!!! Food, hack, app, make up, travel destination, YOU PICK IT!