A Southern Belle with Northern Roots/Junkflirt

Healing is a Choice

A few years ago I lead a class at our church based on the book "Healing is a Choice" by Stephen Arterburn. I opened with my testimony, what it was like growing up with a narcissistic parent and come and go alcoholics. Knowing the content could be a lot for some to handle, I expected a few to leave, and they did. I was left with a room of hurting, people. Most of them processing, a few still blaming and a couple in willful withdrawal.
On the second night of class Ms. M walked in. She was pretty with long brown hair. She seemed confident, that take charge personality.
She sat at my table and began to talk of her childhood, soon the facade of that confidence crumbled. Having missed the first night and not hearing anything I had said, my jaw dropped when she looked at me and asked,"Do you know what a narcissist is?" I said yes, and smiled, perhaps I smiled out of shock.


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 oh those vintage suitcases, so lovely and so practical, I mean if you are going to have them you may as well use them. this way when your husband looks at you funny when you bring home another....you can say "Storage!" and he will believe you.


 Don't let them sit empty, I have heard of others that store out of season clothing in them, this is great if you have large suitcases, I keep winter coats in the trunks in our living room.


 In these I keep the wrapping papers, Use dividers to separate light items like bows and tissue paper on the top half.




 Tuck in  items that tend to get away from you in side pockets so you can easily locate them. Another hint...Keep most frequent wrapping in the top one or two cases. My top has general gift bags and tissue, the second general wrapping paper, larger gift bags and boxes, the third stores Christmas gift boxes and the bottom two tags, bows and smaller rolls of wrapping paper for the holidays.








all neat and tidy........
What do you keep in your suitcases?

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Pixie- 1) short hair, close to the head, around the top of the ear to ear lobe at longest length, boyish cut
           2) small human-like tricksters that lead people astray, similar to fairies

Around the age of 6 my mother wanted me to get a pixie. I hated them and didn't want one. My hair was around shoulder length but I agreed to get it trimmed, since I had loudly protested against the pixie, I thought we were in agreement.

Some time that same year my grandmother took me to pick out a dress. It was the high end children's clothing store, the one we could never otherwise afford.
 I tried on a blue sailors dress with a crisp white collar that had blue anchors on the tips. It had a pleated skirt that fluttered and whirled when I spun.
I wanted that dress, but walked home broken hearted without it. Too short.
I cried some, whined a lot, and plotted like a pixie on how to get grandma to turn around and get it.
I must have twirled that skirt in my head a hundred times.



At our home was a staircase ,at the end of that staircase was a gold mirror and in that mirror was a sobbing girl with a pixie haircut. Read more HERE


If you like to read Pig Tales, please follow the blog!  Posts will not always be linked here.  Thanks to everyone that has stopped by so far.

 Reminder to enter the giveaway too!
 ends Oct 10th.

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 Here are a few of my comfort zones at home. First my bedroom bathroom in dreamy whites.














 My kitchen with the farmhouse feel.












 And the mantels dressed for fall.








 Funky Junk
House in the Roses

white Wednesday
be sure and check out my giveaway
and my new blog Pig Tales

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 Pig Tales is up and Running. Here is part of the new post.
  I hope you will consider following along.



8 am,  bright sunshine warmed my face when my door opened. Barely awake and squinting I saw my mom enter with a man. Bob. He resembled Abraham Lincoln, much shorter but with deep set brown eyes and thick side burns. He was smiling and trying very hard to win me over.
How does a 9 year old know they are trying to be impressed by an adult?
I knew something instantly....I didn't like him, I didn't trust him.
Even with promises of returning later to make a water balloon man and have "lots of fun" I found the pit of my stomach hollow, that feeling of dread, paralyzing dread, not yet fear.
 To this day I have told my husband there is a voice that comes from an adult toward a child that gives me that same feeling. I can't explain it, I have only heard that manner of speaking, a few times since, but in an instant I don't trust that person. It is something sinister, manipulative and disingenuous.
My stomach maintained that feeling for years to come.


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 Thanks to everyone that commented and emailed on the Pig Tales posts. After a lot of thought I will be opening it on a new blog. Although it would be easier to do it here, I think a separate blog will, as some of you said, allow me to write more freely and not compromise SBNR.  Your encouragement and your own stories have opened my eyes. Many of us have carried some heavy burdens and memories. Not every post on Pig Tales will be heavy, I hope some will make you laugh and that many will encourage you as you have done so for me.
The next couple posts may appear both here and on the new blog to try to bridge the gap. I hope you will follow along and share it with anyone you think may find it interesting or helpful.
Starting a new blog can be frustrating, wondering if anyone is reading....do they even want to read? But you have each taught me that amazing bonds can be made in this outlet and we have more than simply decorating in common. Even those who had wonderful childhoods are able to help others along their journey.
I hope to tell you more stories, sad, funny, confusing etc. I hope to write on my passion for food and examine why I can't or won't control it.
 Thanks to each of you
Southern Belle with Northern Roots and North Dakota Kitchen will still run as usual, I mean a girl has to bake and collect junk after all.  My Christian blog will close and some of those posts will be imported onto these blogs, God will appear in Pig Tales, I think it will be the best place to write of how he sustained me and saved me and is healing me, even when I wanted no part of him.

Pig Tales was taken as an address, therefore the blog address is
http://[email protected]


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 Pumpkins of all shapes and sizes








 Table setting awaiting guests










 Bursts of color






 Vegetables in from the garden and that sunshine!!!








 If fall could only last all year.
Simple
Homey
Restful
Fall


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 To celebrate 400 followers it is time for a little junk giveaway!
Prize includes
1 burlap coffee bag
1 small frame
1 wooden trowel
1 box vintage bottle caps in box
6 birdhouse door pulls



 To enter
 If your a follower leave a comment here on this post
  (if you do not have a blogger id profile be sure you leave your email on your entry! if I have no way of contacting you a new winner will be drawn.)
 Giveaway will be open until October 10th at 12:00pm

 If you share this giveaway on a post or sidebar you may enter a second time, please leave a separate comment!









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 If you are a regular reader of this blog or even new to it, I would love to have your opinion in the new poll you will see on the side bar.
Pig Tales is my life story....yet unwritten, but in the process, I will continue to write it but would love your input as to what you think about the content, the style and whether or not you think this is the place for it.
I want to thank everyone that has commented here or on Facebook. Your stories are too, amazing, sad, and inspiring. Please feel free to write me anytime here, email or via Facebook. I love to hear from you. 



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You may read part 1  HERE.
  
  this and other posts are not meant to be disrespectful to my mother, it is simply my life.
  I have a few good memories of my mother. At one time she had a sense of humor, a smile, she told jokes... usually highly inappropriate.  She danced, and  danced well. I remember her teaching neighbors how to jitterbug. She especially like to move to "White Lightning" by Jerry Lee Lewis.
I don't know when her love for things, for happiness or at least the quest for it ended. One bad choice to many just sucks the life out of you I guess.

She thought a man would help, divorced from my dad with  a 4 year old, she somehow thought that would fix things. Poor choices led her to that spot and poor choices again effected both our lives.
Some guy was always around, none stayed for long, at least before Bob. Many of those men just happened to be someone's husband. We woke up to the neighbor's glass on the screen door breaking, a woman had thrust her fist through it, we didn't go out to see what was going on until the woman left, you see, her fist was meant for our door.
Less violent was the morning #1 Bitch was written across our living room window in blue crayon. I think I was 7.
Between the years of 4 and 9 I remember a few of the men,
the candy man- he always left a box of Starbursts and some chocolate
the guy who sang
the guy who gave us carpet

and Carl
he lived a couple hours away and mom never drove in fact I have never seen my mother drive. We took weekly train trips to spend the weekend at his house. He was nice enough but he too drank. A lot.
His house was cold, the waterbed I slept in was colder.
He was always remodeling.....nothing changed. Just a piece of plastic hung between the living room and the new addition. Uninsulated...without electricity or heat it just allowed more of that damn cold air in.
It was a small farm and he had goats and a couple horses. One of the goats was due to have babies, I awoke and went in their room, he asked me to go check and see if the babies were there. HE was hungover, SHE was hungover.
Bundled up trodding through snow, I set out to the barn. It was sunny but I could see my breath.

Two small white baby goats lay together, frozen solid to the ground.
The momma bellowing near by.
Tears fell to the ground...the frozen ground  where there was barely any hay, no heater and no blankets.
That isn't even my worst memory of that cold farm.
Drunks shouldn't drive, children shouldn't be in the car, stuck in snowbanks. No one should walk blindly in a blizzard not properly dressed and I cannot recommend spending 8 hours in a bar eating potato chips and pop.

Carl, like the rest of those men, came and went. Little discretion was shown one could say the model for teen age promiscuity was set here.
Mom did settle with someone, she has been with him for years, I don't like him and never did. I wish I could tell you she was happy and that she found contentment.
They live about 3 states away, I nor my children have seen my mother in over 11 years. We speak occasionally and that is sufficient. I am not cold I am protected.


I once read a quote, I cannot find it exactly now but it is, I believe, from the book Malignant Self  Love, it was something to this effect.
having a narcissist for a mother is a bit like having a 6 year old who has a doll for your mother.  The point  being made is that a 6 year old doesn't really think outside of themselves. The doll is for them...for show....for their needs. Just a doll, a doll to be dropped on the floor and trampled over when it is no longer needed, or when something better comes along.  When I first read that I was moved to tears, not because it hurt as much as it validated what I had always thought. Hurt was real, rejection was real.
I have much more to tell you but let me tell you this first. I am well.  I have been married for 23 years and have two fantastic children that I love dearly. Our house is normal, whatever that means. God is continually healing me and he is the only one who can.
I am a little girl that needed a better mommy
a mommy that is trying the best she can
a daughter who is healing
 a wife who is faithful
a sinner saved by grace


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 Leaves have just begun to turn, the sun shines warm yet low and the air feels just short of crisp in the morning. Is there anything better than a cup of pumpkin coffee on the deck, watching the monarchs fly through?

 Bringing in the burst of color somehow makes the house seem warmer, cozier and  in need of cider on the stove and soup in the crock pot.






 Grab a blanket, nestle in, the air seems sweeter. Every September I say...... "I wish fall would last all year"  this year is no exception.








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