50+ Musings

Once upon a time….a mommy dreamt of a family vacation.
She imagined everybody together and enjoying it–talking, laughing, even shedding a few tears for the sake of the melancholy amongst them. Authenticity ranked high on this mama’s list of relational priorities and her mind worked overtime trying to create intentional ways to promote engagement.

The biggest girl in the family, it’d been a handful of years since she’d moved on to her own place, in her own city, with her own life. And the rest of the fam, they’d acclimated to a new normal, learning to embrace the beauty in every season. Then, mission and calling collided with wander-lust  and the biggest girl decided  to go on an explore even farther away—to other continents.

That’s when the mama said, “THIS SUMMER we’re taking a family vacation.”
And when that mama put her mind to something….well,  just ask the daddy, she’s unstoppable.
So, she texted her people.
“What would a great vacation look like for you?”

One girl responded saying she’d like to cook amazing meals for the fam. And the mama told that girl she’s her favorite child.
Another one wanted to star gaze under dark, clear skies.
The big girl wanted to go hiking.
And the other kid, she wanted a good spot to chill in her hammock.
Daddy, he hoped for time to relax and just be together.
And the mommers, she wanted to ride on a jet ski.

With a wish list in hand, that Mommers, she set out to plan the perfect family vacation.
Working on a shoestring budget after braces and college bills bit the chunk out of the financial pie labeled trips, she prayed. “God, your mercies, they are new and fresh every morning. They always have been. They always will be. This summer, I’d be so grateful if they’d include a family vacation.”

Then, she started investigating potential adventures and discovered that one of her church sisters had a gem of a cottage nestled snuggly on an inland lake just a hop, skip and a jump away from home. That sister, she shared her little jewel with the mama dreaming of a family vacation and they put the date on the calendar—late August, just before the sunflowers wave goodbye to summer.

Lavish menus were created, then a grocery shopping intensive. Everybody packed their swimsuits and their sweatshirts and they drove north, their favorite direction, for just over an hour and parked their van behind a little 2 bedroom, red brick cabin with a wall of windows facing the beach.

They spent the best part of a week together. All of them, plus a few more of their favorite peeps, floating in and out of their vacation adventures.

And they ate like a king and queens, the baby cooking 5 star breakfasts as the extroverted smoke detector alerted them to morning with a friendly greeting. And the one donning the chef’s apron, she prepared time intensive entrees and elaborate deserts.

The water lapped onto the shore invitationally and the mama, she hopped onto the jet ski with her biggest girl, their hair blowing wild, zipping around the lake, autonomously together.

That same girl, she set her mind to learning to water ski. She said, ”If you’re planning to move to foreign countries, you’ve got to practice conquering small challenges to remind yourself you can do the big one.” And she did.
Two of the girls got dragged around behind a speed boat in an oversized tube, banging their bodies against the waves and loving it.
The hammock girl, she leisurely paddled her way around the whole lake with her special buddy, in no hurry to get anywhere, supremely content to savor the moment.

The baby, she borrowed a substantial stack of library books and systematically read through each and every one.
Her daddy, he chopped wood and built fires. He took everybody on boat rides. And just like the old days, he read aloud a family classic, “Home to Harmony” by Phillip Gulley.
They revived the lost art of singing together a family hymn, Abide with Me.
And He did, and He does, and He always will.

They worshipped on Sunday morning in God’s sanctuary of water and sand, recounting His faithfulness in summer, anticipating His surprising mercies for fall, and casting all their cares on Jesus who’s the only one with strong enough arms to carry them through all the seasons.

And as they sat around by the firepit on the beach at night, they used their star apps to identify constellations. And sometimes, they snuggled under blankets on the dock watching for Perseid meteors and listening to fish jump and waves lap up against the shore.
And they weren’t disappointed.

And when it was time to leave, to go back to the real world, they prayed a blessing over the little red cabin and the people who would yet recharge within its walls.

Then they drove home to embrace life in its most elemental, paradoxical daily form, reminding themselves that everyday is the day that the Lord has made and if they’re watching for them, there will always be mercies to rejoice in.

Like all good tales woven and spun, there are morals to the story like:
1) Jet skis are awesome.
2) Everybody’s best adventure is a one of a kind original.
3) Learning to relax takes practice.
4) There’s always room for a few more in the family pack.
5) And generosity’s ripple effects are exponential.

But THE moral of THIS story is:
Sometimes the best vacations aren’t about going far away, they’re about being with the ones closest to you.

Dear Daughters,

‘Tis the season.
Piles of shoes heaped around our front door and some of them look gigantic.
A bunch of girls and dudes teetering toward adulthood all with in process frontal lobes.
From movie groups, to small groups, to friend groups.
From best buds, to boyfriends, to co-workers, to get-to-know-you-better acquaintances.
Ours has always been an open door policy and that’s the way I like it best.
More is always better around the kitchen table and we’re no strangers to cramming six in an apartment sized bedroom.
Dollyhouse, card games and homemade movie making have morphed into dialogue about worldview, culture, faith and relationships, seemingly overnight, and all of it energizes me.
Your girl friends and their drama, it entertains.
But it’s the dudes that fascinate me most.
Maybe because God didn’t write brothers into my story.
Or because your brother is missing in all our family pictures.
Whatever the reason, males add something special to the mix.

It’s been just about 23 years and 271 days, that I’ve been asking God to raise up a generation of good men. I’m hoping for an army of them but at the very least, our family needs 4. And those guys, they’re gonna be looking for travelling companions because “People are meant to go through life two by two. ‘Taint natural to be lonesome.” (Thornton Wilder, Our Town)

So what defines a good man, according to the Hope Webster dictionary 2018 edition?

Good men love God.
Good men are teachable.
Good men are truth tellers.
Good men are protectors.
Good men are self-controlled.
Good men are accountable.
Good men are respectful.
Good men are courageous.
Good men are chivalrous.
Good men are loyal.
Good men define leadership as being first to serve and ready to sacrifice.
Good men laugh…but also cry.
Good men listen…but also share.
Good men work hard… then play too.
Good men celebrate food, drink, wives of their youth, and all sorts of everyday blessings.
And it’s a bonus when they do it with a sense of humor to boot.

I didn’t realize it, but I originally prayed for a photo edited guy to be each of your life companions. It’s not that I wanted him to look perfect but I wanted him to be a dude with a flawless resume. A guy without the consequences of any stupid choices. A man without scars from previous relational wounds.
Honestly, I might have been mistaking him for Jesus and He’s not available.

Over time, I’ve let go of that mirage, naively well intentioned though it was, because a good man isn’t necessarily accurately identified by externals.
A perfect gpa might mean he’s smart, but it may also indicate that he’s arrogant or that his identity is rooted in performance.
One of those courtship dudes might commit to not kissing his girlfriend before marriage but imbibe privately on a cyber sexual addiction.
And the “clean cut” sort might look the part to please grandma but be disrespectful of your intellect, your feelings or your body.
Tattoos don’t predict character or lack thereof.
Hair length doesn’t indicate anything about spirituality.
And skin color is completely inconsequential to compatibility.

In its place, I’ve been learning to embrace the raw humanity of broken-beautiful, 3 dimensional boys who God’s writing into our family story. I’m making space for them to be in process. I’m valuing the lessons that can be learned by trial and error, the authenticity resulting from wrestling with God when His mercies have been sovereignly severe in their lives. Now, I appreciate guys who stumble clumsily into manhood with courage, humility, determination and resilience. The ones with a teachable spirit who get up and walk stronger, wiser and more humbly dependent on Jesus every time they trip and fall.

You girls have been stumbling your way into adulthood too, each nursing your own bumps and bruises, your own brand of broken. No, you’re not picture perfect either. You’re miracles of metamorphosis instead, growing into the likeness of Jesus and I’d say that makes you the best kind of beautiful.

Back in Texas, I planted a sapling in the back yard—a forest pansy redbud.  Remember how it struggled the first several years to assimilate into the soil? It looked pretty sickly most of the time and I wondered if it’d ever thrive. Sometimes an ice storm passed through and weighed down its tender branches. But over the years, it acclimated to native soil. It soaked up the sun’s chlorophyll and the rain nourished its roots. Even the perils contributed to its growth and eventually it matured into a healthy, strong specimen of a tree.

 

That’s you, Angela, Lily, Robyn and Starla, engaging the lifelong process of growing up in Christ.
And that’s the kind of guy times 4 that I’m asking God to tether you to in an enduring bond of intimate friendship.
All in good time…..
Amalgamated together with grace and courage and hope, transformational love will mature and kingdom impact multiply exponentially,
Just like the proliferation of my future grandchildren:)

“Dwell in Possibility,” says Emily Dickinson. And I do.
Anticipating His fresh mercies each new day as we wait to see how and with whom your futures unfold.

Love, Mama

God’s written some severe mercies into our family story.
That’s not to say we’re anything special or different than anybody else.
Trauma comes in at least as many flavors as Baskin-Robbins ice cream.
Loss is boxed into more varieties than you can find in the cereal aisle.
Pain intrudes like a nasty case of the stomach flu, leaving us squarely in the middle of a messy story.
These are the realities of life in a broken world.

And Christians, myself included, tend to conscribe to all sorts of theological straw men instead of working the steps of spiritual formation because it’s uncomfortable to sit quiet in the conundrum of God’s sovereignty and His love.
The prosperity gospel crowd “names and claims” health and wealth here and now on their terms like positive thinking will reconfigure God’s priority list for character over comfort.
The legalists thump Scripture verses supporting their simplistic solutions to complex problems to pretend there’s no paradox.
And the Pentecostals tend to expect God to respond to their requests like a vending machine. Faith in, selected product out.
Meanwhile, I’ve spent decades tousling God for control over my life and the lives of “my people”, tightly fisted, resisting His plot twists on our stories.
Gradually, however, I’m concluding, like Mr. Beaver in Narnia, that while Aslan “Isn’t quite safe, He is good.”

Honestly, I still can’t wrap my mind around the sheer mystery of God’s sovereignty but I believe that it’s in alignment with His heart and with that confidence, I live by faith.
I’m not embarrassed to trust God even though I don’t understand His ways. Faith is a gift and I’m not an Indian giver.
I’m getting more comfortable opening my hand to his sovereignty and responding to agonizing questions in life with,
“I don’t know why.”
Or, “I’m not sure I’ll be able to figure that out this side of heaven.”
Or, “I’m so sorry that happened.”
I’m demanding explanations less and sitting in silence more because processing the hardest parts of our stories, it’s like taking a cross-continental road trip.  And there aren’t any shortcuts really.
We can detour from the recommended route if we choose to, but it’ll come back to bite us in the derriere personally and relationally further down the road. Ultimately, we’ll realize, or we won’t, our desired destination can’t be arrived at without racking up the miles on a road marked suffering, with all of its potholes, riding shotgun with Jesus who’s already travelled the route before.

So how do we move forward on the transformative journey of engaging our stories with integrity so we can learn to love?
I plunked some such question down with a sigh to our mentor just this morning.
It’s not that I haven’t heard his answer before, or even that I’m not mud wrestling the process almost every day. It’s just that sometimes I need a refresher course like summer rain for thirsty ground, and he’s always there, pointing us back to Jesus when we want to kick our stories to the curb and hitch hike to Neverland instead.
Thanks, Bruce.

These musings, they’re only my scribblings. The speaker’s words, they’re the rare pearl of wisdom.
So, Bruce responds to me gently,
“Four words frame the path to spiritual transformation which is ultimately the path to genuine love: Accept. Enter. Remain. Embrace.”

Initially, it sounds a bit like a quick and dirty get-rich scheme, but actually, engaging this path feels experientially a lot more like weeding a garden. The fruit is produced only with commitment, endurance, perseverance, resilience and time.

Accept: On our own customized timeclock that’s sensitive to our developmental process, when we’re ready, God gives us the courage to acknowledge that He’s written or depending on your definition of sovereignty, at least allowed some things into our stories that are jolting, even devastating. We have been dealt unjust blows, often at the hands of others and the ones we expected to protect us from injury, including God, didn’t. We might prefer to pretend otherwise but that’s not true and ultimately, it’s the truth that sets us free.

Enter: Engaging the tragedy and hurt resulting from evil and the curse requires the marriage of a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit and a posture of surrender. We can’t solve the storm in our hearts with any mental exercise routine. We have to let go of things, like the little box we keep God all neat and tidy in. We have to be more committed to discovering the truth than defending our definition of truth. We have to be willing to revisit our story like a rerun instead of re-interpreting it according to narrow theological constructs or our own warped rendering.
God isn’t afraid of participating in gnarly stories. After all, He arranged His own murder for the sake of rescuing the ones who’d murder Him.
“When you murder love, love loves you in your commitment to murder Him.”
Soak on that tongue twister for awhile….

Remain:  A deeper spiritual health realizes that pain is essential in spiritual formation, not in a masochistic way but in a transformative way. When we surrender our will toward suffering, we drastically reduce the despair of pain. Even though initially, pain relief motivates us, over time we accept that we don’t have to be “fixed” to be healthy. We might never be fully resolved about the aches in our hearts and that’s OK but we afford loss its greatest transformative value so that our pain is not wasted.

Embrace:  Somehow in this complex process, God changes our mind about what love is and re-arranges our story in our hearts so we want it because we can see that it’s the one God’s writing for us. Instead of shaking our fist, we sit and weep cathartic tears when we realize that God has been composing our memoir to look more like Jesus. And that frees us up to look in the mirror at ourselves with tenderness and see the broken-beautiful image He sees.
We’re a little like Kintsugi pottery where the artist breaks china vessels to epoxy them back together with gold laquer. The damage is incorporated into the aesthetic of the restored item and it becomes artistically “better than new”.

Love is like that too. The Artisan’s masterpiece is shaped like a cross, a fragmented body exquisitively bonded with the blood of Jesus, and the resulting value of the work is priceless. That’s God’s model for love and it’s better than picture perfect, it’s broken beautiful.

Transferring that love from the vertical to the horizontal, it’s messy–messier than eating Chicago style popcorn. But, as we join ourselves to Jesus, He empowers us to pay forward the love we’ve received to the people in our stories and reveals to us what that should look like with each individual character.

I still have more questions than answers about the theological tension of God’s sovereignty and love. I’m saving them up for heaven when ironically, they probably won’t matter to me anymore at all. But for today and tomorrow and as many brief years as I am entrusted with this vaporous life, I keep breathing in His steadfast love and then I breathe out gratitude for His fresh new mercies, even the severe ones.
And in the end, I’m trusting that His faithfulness is indeed enough.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end;
They are new every morning; Great is your faithfulness. -Lam. 3:22-23

Every mother feels them, fears of things that go bump in the night.
Some more than others.
But it’s a universally recognized emotion.

A bunch of our worries are an absolute waste.
Imagined up circumstances, conjured from a hodge-podge mixture of sincere love,
And misguided intuition,
Hypersensitive instinct,
And our own variety of neurosis.
But we feel them right in the gut.
And our adrenalin soars to high heaven.

But some of our scares are actual calamities we’ve prayed against,
that get written into our kid’s stories anyway.
At first, they leave us dazed, like the surprise after a dog bites unprovoked.
Then, we pull up our big girl panties and walk brave even if we don’t feel it, because what else can a mama do?

It’s only Wednesday morning and I’ve already tasted both this week.

On Sunday, the Lake, it blew a gale and dumped a boatload of snow on our little corner of the world. The plows couldn’t keep up and neither could we, shoveling our driveway. My girl, the one with the trusty Honda CR-V named Winston, skated off to church before 9. A few hours later, I followed behind and the roads felt like Rosa Parks Circle after the Zamboni resurfaces the rink. So, I texted my girl.
“It’s nasty out there. Be careful.”
No response.
Then, I phoned her, but immediately the call rolled over into voicemail.
Next, I looked her up on Find Friends and it reported her “Location Not Available,” which triggered my mama alert system. I heard sirens in my head, like the annoying ones the emergency broadcast system routinely tests.

I selected my usual seat, front right for worship, but by the time our pastor started preaching, I’d imagined a fatal car accident scenario, with her organs being harvested even before he finished reading Romans 1. I spent the next thirty minutes prematurely grieving my daughter’s demise.
Wondering how I’d face the rest of my tomorrows without that girl I’d lived with and loved on for the past 20 years.
Pondering what it would look like for our family to limp along after an amputation.
Questioning how to reconcile a vibrant life of love and service cut short on a blustery winter morning.

My theology teaches me that this life is a vapor, here a little while and then gone (James 4:14),   and I believe that our temporal bodies get an upgrade in the exchange, a heavenly set of clothes and a new address, next door to Jesus. In theory, it’s an extraordinary promotion but in reality, it means she’s absent from us. And that feels like a stab right through the heart.

I exited the sanctuary at the close of the service in a daze, scanned the crowds in the atrium and then spotted her, cozied up on a sofa socializing happily with friends. As I approached with a hug targeted for her neck, she commented non-chalantly, “By the way, mama, I turned off my phone today for a technology Sabbath. Just wanted you to know.”

And those two short sentences, they entirely rescripted my fantastical imaginary tragedy and I realized that my mama alert system, it misfired. Big time. So I breathed deep, whispered thanks to the one who gives every good gift, including Find Friends, and took on the rest of my day.

Two mornings later, just before grabbing my keys to drive off to work, I messaged my four faves a reminder of God’s abiding affection.
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” says Romans 8:38-39.

Almost immediately that familiar ding, the one designated to my biggest girl, notified me of a reply.
“I was just in a bad accident.”
Those were the words in the bubble.
And suddenly, Sunday’s rendezvous into make-believe car accident drama turned real.
More texting followed and then silence.
The phone eventually rang and I heard her voice, shaken and sirens in the background.
The car, it rebelled on ice and threw a tantrum, drove itself across a snowy median into oncoming traffic and punched another car right in the gut.
Both vehicles got all busted up and left the ones inside tousled too.
Her dad and I, we jumped in our van, destination Chitown, because a parent never stops being a parent.
24 hours later, she’s nursing a mean case of whiplash and a few bruises but it’s only the replaceable that needs to be replaced. And on this morning, gratitude smothers fear and I am celebrating yet another episode in God’s story of rescue.

But the truth is, He doesn’t always rescue, at least not the way we wanted Him to and then our worst possible mama fears aren’t nightmares, they’re bona fide reality.
Terminal diseases.
Birth defects.
Sexual Assault.
Fatal or life altering accidents.
Stillbirth.
Teenage pregnancy.
Chronic pain.
Mental Illness.
Prison sentences.
Suicide.
A Crisis of faith.
Abusive relationships.
Divorce.

And we can’t change it or control it or fix it.

Those are the unexpected plot twists in our stories that shape the narrative most distinctly.
And it is in those parts of our journey that we wrestle with, yet ultimately find integrity and solace in Romans 8:28.

“For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”

It’s rarely helpful when a sincere bible thumper reminds us of this popular verse. These sacred words own a unique redemptive power and mystery that is most effectively revealed over time and in the rhythm of His unexplainable presence and love that carries us through crisis with a supernatural mix of peace and tumult that can’t be explained to anyone who his Spirit doesn’t reside in.

And so, when we look back on all of the mama moments that have threatened to break our tender hearts,
The ones that have taken our breath away, Or made our hearts race,
The ones we prayed against, But God allowed anyway,
The ones that changed everything, For always,
We see His story of rescue there too.

The musing, it’s quiet and contemplative.
And sometimes it still brings tears to our eyes decades later when we revisit the most  agonizing memories.
But even the most acute pain was tempered by His mercies, fresh and new each morning.
And, when we do the math, they’ve always been more than enough.
So we move into today with all of its unknowns, actual and concocted, holding tightly to the hand of God, confident of more mercies.
And, come what may, that makes us
Just
So
Grateful.

There’s a reason I don’t drink alcohol.
Anyone who can eat an entire bag of Trolli sour gummy worms against their better judgement on the car ride home from the grocery store, has a serious problem with self-control or an addiction to sugar or maybe both.
And I’m not talking about an isolated incident once upon a time.
My blood sugars spiked just last night as I polished off the gummy worms about 6 hours before my 2 am freezer raid which emptied a pint sized container of Graeter’s ice cream right down into my tum-tum.

I wonder how many hundreds, no, thousands of times I’ve driven to the store not sure what I’d buy but intent on securing a sugar fix.

 

Way back when I was a girl, I’d lift change off my parent’s nightstand and ride my bike to the drug store for a Butterfingers candy bar. In my teens, it was cinnamon pinwheels and ice cream sandwiches consumed in mass quantities instead. Then I went to college where buffet style dining offered me any combination of ice cream, cookies and brownies at every meal with a nice cold pop to wash it all down with.

As I’ve matured, my tastes have become more sophisticated, and with the exception of sour gummy worms and Skittles, it’d be fair to call me a sweets snob now. I snub what I don’t want, but if I’m craving it, I dare you to stop me from eating it.

Robyn, she tries. God bless her.
“Mommers, you said you weren’t going to eat any sweets this week.”
“Remember your diet. You’ve made really good progress. Don’t blow it now.”
“Think about your pants, mommy. You hate it when they feel tight. Don’t eat that. You’ll regret it.”
And then when she’s fed up, she changes tactics.
“OK, go ahead and eat it then. I don’t care if your stomach pooches. Just don’t blame me when you get on the scale. I tried to help you and you NEVER listen to me.”

Sometimes, my conscience gets the better of me and I ask my hubs or one of the kids to hide the Dove chocolate caramels or the Lindor truffles. Then, later, I whine and offer a lame explanation about why I deserve to get them back and make pie crust promises about parceling out the remaining pieces in the bag. But generally, I get caught red handed eating something I’ve said I shouldn’t or wouldn’t instead and end up feeling like a 3 year old with her hand in the cookie jar. Ashamed.

By God’s grace, I don’t have diabetes yet but I do have a dentist appointment on Wednesday to get a cavity filled and I’ve been warned that it’s so deep it might require a root canal. If it does, well, that’s my bad. As the only adage says, “You reap what you sow.”

Anyone who’s an addict or lived up close and personal with one will resonate with my little vignettes, and when I take a long and thoughtful look in the mirror, it’s like I see flashing yellow lights on the periphery of my image warning me of my vulnerability to other potentially addictive habits as well. Like alcoholism.

It just so happens that I’ve got a long list of generational garbage resulting from alcohol abuse. And it stinks. Men who got mean and angry under the influence. Marriages broken under its bondage. Vocations sabotaged. Health compromised. Pre-mature death.
And honestly, it’s not just my kin. Everywhere I look there’s carnage from the misuse of alcohol. Innocent lives cut short by intoxicated drivers. Promising futures traded for jail time. Financial resources squandered at the liquor store. Violence. Rape. Neglect. Abuse.

While I hang in crowds where people generally drink responsibly, at least publicly, enjoying a glass of wine with dinner or the communal experience of a shared craft beer at a brewery, I know a long list of people, including Christians, who have remorsefully shared their private struggle to control alcohol consumption. For them, a stroll down the liquor aisle at the grocery store feels a lot like my own experience surveying the fine chocolate a few rows away.

From my vantage point, the Bible is the authoritative instruction book on life’s lessons for dummies and I don’t believe that it teaches that consuming alcoholic beverages is sin; however, all addictions are sin, evidence of our brokenness manifested uniquely in our person and through our story.

Chocolate, booze, nicotine, pain killers, porn, street drugs, exercise, caffeine, sex, or whatever else we might be in bondage to, it all ultimately disses God. At a basal level it says, “I want something other than you, God, to cope with my ache and make me feel good. You really aren’t enough.”

Some addictions have a higher cost ratio than others though. My sweets addiction, it costs me in dental work and blood sugar spikes. And it costs my family some living expense money but, unlike alcohol, nobody is at risk of me hauling off and slugging them because of its influence, or passing out incapacitated unable to meet my obligations. I don’t jeopardize the safety of other image bearers driving on the roads. And it doesn’t take away my sensibilities or inhibitions. Eating sugar is not destroying my family.

Whatever we’re getting our short-term fix from though leaves us longer-term shamed because addiction’s a hungry monster, never satisfied, always wanting more. And so we do battle inside, good against evil. And every fresh, new morning, we have to choose whether or not we’ll feed or starve the monster. Addictions are multifaceted and complex, sometimes linked to genetic wiring or chemical imbalances. And our habits bore superhighways along the neural pathways in the brain. Nevertheless, we are not left powerless against addictions. We make choices and when we interrupt the pattern of addiction repeatedly, we form new neural pathways according to God’s amazing design. And every fresh, new morning, His mercies are enough to empower us to resist our addictions and abundant enough to lavish us with unconditional love even when we fail.

So for me, it just feels like a no brainer. Alcohol and I, we’re not right for each other. And this holiday season, I’m pulling out my plastic wine glasses from the Dollar Store and stocking up on my sparkling grape juices in all of the specialty varieties at $2.98 a bottle. And you can just call me Little Miss Teetotaler, thank you very much.