The City Mouse and The Country Mouse (What’s your Comfort Zone?)

Posted on March 6, 2018 by mittonmusings

mouse Does anyone remember an old story about the City Mouse and the Country Mouse? Two mice who were friends decided to visit each other’s homes and soon discovered they had stepped out of their “comfort zones”. The city mouse lived with too busy a lifestyle and dangers (like the cat!) were all around. The country mouse had to work too hard to get any of the luxuries of home and enjoyed too much quiet. They quickly realized that although their friend’s home was a “nice place to visit” they didn’t want to live there.

We are much the same. I have always lived in the big city. Okay… suburbs… but still a place where opportunities are, and culture and diversity are readily available. And yet, I am drawn to the country. I love the quiet of a forest. I want chickens. Fresh strawberries mean summer. It’s quite fascinating to me how the grass is always greener on the other side (be it manicured lawns or manure filled fertilizer), and yet we fall back into what is familiar to us. It takes a special person to step out in faith and go out of that familiar spot. I wish I had just a bit more of it.

I wish I had just a little bit of that “chutzpah”. To live on the edge, just a tad, and dangle my feet in the unknown. To be radically changed. Just a bit. Not too much. Because the fear of the unknown is too great. That cat does not exhilarate the ride. It makes me want to go home where it is safe. How do we gather up that gumpshun and try new things? Where do we get that radical faith? Many of those in history labeled as “great in the faith” or “radical” didn’t think they were anyone special. They just did what they had to do, and were rewarded for their efforts.

Radical People of Faith often just do what they have to do and are rewarded for their efforts.

Francis Chan is a speaker/author I have been hearing a lot from lately. As I write this post, they are celebrating the life of Rev. Billy Graham in the United States. These men of faith didn’t do anything extraordinary. They just did what they felt God told them to do. The city mouse and the country mouse went to visit each other because they cared about their friend, and wanted to share in their experiences. Perhaps our efforts are built around our relationships. We care about the rights of the poor or the oppressed so we stand up against the injustices. We care about the next generation so we teach our children and love, foster and adopt the orphan. We care about families so we do our best to nurture our marriages. We care about our friends so we love our neighbours as ourselves and serve in our communities.

Maybe it’s not about stepping out of our comfort zones as much as deepening our relationships. Our passions flourish when we use our gifts. We get the guts to be radically different when we truly want to accomplish something that we believe in. Sheeesh… I started a blog! (I just had to ask for help doing an e-transfer last week! Talk about out of my element). (You can read more about why I started my blog in this post!) We stand up against that big, scary cat and then we go home and appreciate where we have come from. We are renewed by familiarity. Seeing things from another’s perspective is hard. My hubby reminds me all the time to do this. It’s not easy for me to cross out of my “happy place”. To go beyond the boundary and try to put myself in someone else’s shoes. But when I do… I am often rewarded beyond my expectations and find my faith stretched and strengthened. It doesn’t seem like such an effort when it means a lot to me. I think that is true for many who go out of their “comfort zone”. Perhaps we all need to just put a smile on our face, make the first giant leap and go for it!

Maybe it’s not about stepping out of our comfort zones as much as deepening our relationships.

Did you like the little mice in this week’s post? They are “felted”… a new craft I just tried (hey… I stepped out!) and the pics are on our new Pinterest Board under “Things we Love”. Be sure to check it out and give credit to the artizans who have mastered the work. They are soo cute!

Need a Niche?

Posted on February 27, 2018 by mittonmusings

Still learning to do this blog thing. Trying to get my media in better condition too. Suggestions? Leave me a comment. Would love to hear how to get those pics edited and transformed! But… this is not what I wanted to write about today.

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Niche. It’s a wonderful little word. I like it. As a scientist, I learned a niche meant where you fit in the food chain. Where you belonged in the big wide world. Eat or be eaten. The French origin means a safe spot or kennel. A place where you “fit” to be sheltered and kept from harm. That crevice in the rock where Moses was sheltered from all the Glory of God (Exodus 33:22). It’s a good word — but a useless one.

Niche. It’s a wonderful little word. I like it.

Does anyone really fit in a niche? The great blog gurus say that you should have a “niche” for your blog. This way people will follow you based on your theme… where you fit in the blog food chain. I don’t think I fit. I like my animals. I like photography. I like learning. I like crafts, I like travel, I like baking, I like eating my baking, and sometimes I even like my kids and my husband. Why can’t I write about all those things?! That classifies me as a “lifestyle” blogger according to the experts. I found another blogger who feels the same way. Chelsie, from Hey There Chelsie wrote about her views on the subject in this post from 2015. For now I am taking her advice and writing about whatever tickles my fancy.

I say this because I truly don’t think anyone really fits into this perfect little square. As much as I love it when all my pieces fit in a row and I am fully in control of my world, it never stays that way for long. Life is just like that. When I was younger, I had my life planned: I wanted to go to vet school, be married by a certain age, have my first house, my first kid by such and such and live and die — done. Of course a failing Chemistry mark and a cute boyfriend changed some of those plans. Only now, as a (ahem) middle aged grown up, do I recognize that God’s plans and timing are always perfect. Even if I don’t like them.

Recently I attended a high school parent-teacher interview. My eldest son is a kind-hearted, smart kid. He loves people and is social like his dad. He wants to serve the world in youth ministry after high school. His teachers assured me that grade 12 math is not necessary for this plan. I panicked. You need math! What if he wants other options? What if he doesn’t get in to the program he wants, or changes his mind and needs that prerequisite later? How do

: How do we let go of the plans we have for our kids and let them choose the path that is right for them? (Photo credit: Pexels)

we let go of the plans we have for our kids and let them choose the path that is right for them? Parenting often teaches us that we cannot mold our kids into the direction we want them to go. Sometimes we have to do all that we can and hope for the best! I’ve been learning a lot about learning styles lately… which is a topic for another blog post … but it assures me that we are not all the same. And that this is okay. The world would be pretty boring if it was.

We never really are safe in this world. It changes so rapidly. We can hide in that cleft of the rock sometimes and God will certainly protect us there. But eventually He kicks us out and makes us go back to a bunch of lost desert dwellers to do our jobs. We can’t protect our children or our families from this churning whirlpool we call life. We strategise and study and attempt to make plans and learn and fail and try again. We have faith that God is in control and do our best to wander in the desert. It’s just the way it is.

The bigger (and better) thing to do with our niche is to love it. To learn to love the “fit” and enjoy where we are at. It seems like I am counter arguing myself… I don’t mean we should be boxed in… I mean we should love our box! Create the passions and desires within us and then go with them! Use them to the fullest… help others… do your best… learn a new skill… try, fail and try again! Yeah, we might get eaten as part of the food chain… but maybe it fulfils a bigger picture and plan that we don’t understand quite yet. It’s something huge we can teach each other: to work together with our strengths and weaknesses to make this world a better place. If each of us accepted our role, our “niche”, if you will… wouldn’t we fight and argue less? It’s not saying one is better than the other… it simply fits like pieces of the puzzle. Links on the chain. Part of the plan. Niche. Yup… it is a wonderful little word. I like it. A lot.

Who’s in Control?

Posted on February 20, 2018 by mittonmusings

jason-blackeye-198848 So kind of freaking out right now! The Blog launched about a week ago and I am still in a major learning curve about what creating a website is all about. I am a big Pinterest junkie so I created a new board in hopes to learn more about the blogging world. Bam! Hundreds of posts about getting rich quick ideas and how to make money on your blog. Now don’t get me wrong, I would love to earn some cash from this learning experience…. but I want to be in charge of who and what gets on my website. Is this too much to ask? Am I just scared of the big, wide world? I want people to read the blog (or I would have just stuck to my pen and paper journal….) but how do I gain those readers without compromising my beliefs and views? I don’t want a hundred pop-ups to flash up saying “join me”. (Okay, maybe I do….) But good Canadians don’t really want to offend anybody. And this goodie-two-shoes girl certainly doesn’t want to rock the boat.

Then things like “Is your blog illegal?” start showing up. Illegal?! Oh no… now I have entered a life of crime! Copyrights and credits to worry about. We are trained early on in school to give credit where credit is due. Remember all those bibliographies you had to write?! Now you have to “turn it in” before you turn it in...to make sure you haven’t plagiarized someone else’s work. Okay, Okay… confession time. My cute little girl at the top of this page is not me. Her name is Lucy Doris and she’s from MelonHeadz and I think she kind of looks like me… so I used her. But she was a freebie on the site! Can I do that?! I did.

But what about all those cool photos on the websites I see everyday? Awk! I discovered things called “stock photos” (the website designers all just died laughing… hey, I am a beginner, remember?!) Wonderful photographers donate their photos to sites for people to pick and choose! Random places to find great photos! Who knew?! WordPress has one. I like Unsplash … they give you a chance to credit their photographers. Which I will. Because I am good like that. Well trained. No stealing credits here. I must admit I was a little deflated though, that those super cool blogs I have been reading are faked with stock photos. *Sigh* disillusionment is part of learning too, I suppose.

But why are we so afraid of the security of the web? Maybe some of you are not afraid at all… you post willy-nilly and don’t care what happens. I, for one, want to know what our kids are watching. Our computer is in the living room so everyone can see what’s on the screen. It’s hard now that our screens are in the palms of our hands. Why did I update our virus protection and check passwords last week? So many of our actions are “online” now. Who’s in control? I certainly don’t know all the ins and outs of the computer. I am learning. But I might get hacked. I might get hate mail from a post. Maybe a few of you will read mittonmusings and appreciate my thoughts…even follow me! (Click the follow button on the right!) But for now I will continue learning… and be cautious and be “websmart” as they say.