I'm invisible.......

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way
one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be
taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?'

Obviously not. No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping
the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see
me at all. I'm invisible.


Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you
tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even
a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide
to answer, 'What number is the DisneyChannel?' I'm a car to order, 'Pick me
up right around 5:30, please.'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes
that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude -- but now
they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again.

She's going ... she's going ... she's gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a
friend from England . Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and
she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there,
looking around at the others all put together so well.

It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my
out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My
unwashed hair was pulled up in a banana clip and I was afraid I could
actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when
Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought
you this.'

It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why
she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'To Charlotte, with
admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'

In the days ahead I would read -- no, devour -- the book. And I would
discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I
could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals-- we
have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a
work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected
no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the
eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the
cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird
on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you
spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by
the roof? No one will ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because God
sees.'

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost
as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the
sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of
kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is
too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great
cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.'

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction But it is not a disease
that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own
self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong,
stubborn pride.

I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of
the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work
on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went
so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime
because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's
bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My mom gets up at 4 in the
morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand-bastes a turkey for three
hours and presses all the linens for the table.'
That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him
to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his
friend, to add, 'You're gonna love it there.'

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're
doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel,
not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the
world by the sacrifices of invisible women

Watch it and tell me it's not good.

1. The later you stay up, the earlier your child will wake up the next morning.

2. For a child to become clean, something else must become dirty.

3. Toys multiply to fill any space available.

4. The longer it takes you to make a meal, the less your child will like it.

5. Yours is always the only child who doesn't behave.

6. If the shoe fits...it's expensive.

7. The surest way to get something done is to tell a child not to do it.

8. The gooier the food, the more likely it is to end up on the carpet.

9. Backing the car out of the driveway causes your child to have to go to the bathroom.

10. The more challenging the child, the more rewarding it is to be a parent...sometimes.

Technorati Tags: Humor, Parenting, Texas

Megan at Fried Okra has asked that we who can, stand with her in her public mortification and share our most embarrassing moments. If you are a man, you may stop reading...shoo, go away. Nothing here to interest you, I promise, but I simply cannot bear to let a fellow blogger down, so here's my story... I have never been what you would call a "well-endowed" woman.

Although I'm just shy of 6 feet tall, the biggest I have ever been was a "D" cup, but that was when I was 85 lbs overweight and pregnant. Normally, I'm in the "B" - "C" range. So when I turned 12, my brothers all pitched in and bought me a "Hope Chest" - a 44DD bra. In an attempt to comfort me, I can remember my mother telling me, "Don't worry, honey...they'll just pop on out there one of these days and you'll be just like me." She was a "DD"...and I was still waiting for them to grow in when I was 21. But I digress...I'm supposed to be telling you my most embarrassing moment...up to this point, I've just been laying the foundation for what would become the worst day of my life.

When I was 14 years old, my high school band and choir classes took a trip to Hawaii to participate in a music festival. It was scheduled for the first week in April and I,like most of the other students going on the trip, spent the months preceding the trip raising money to pay for it and working odd jobs around my neighborhood for some extra spending money. The big day finally came and I was on a jet bound for the Big Island with about 112 of my classmates from Choir. I had never been to Hawaii, but my BFF Kara Wilson (I can say that because her last name is no longer Wilson now that's she's married) had been several times and she informed me that the first thing we were going to do when we got there was to go shopping for bikinis.

Now, I wasn't crazy about the idea of a bikini. I had big hips and no boobs. Not a great bikini combo...no Pamela Anderson was I. But I caved and went with her anyway because I only had one bathing suit and I'd need at least two since we'd be on Oahu for 10 days. I quickly found the bikini of my dreams. I can still see it to this day. It was a fluorescent peach color with beautiful Hawaiian flowers on it. String bikini, that is. I yanked a size 11 off the rack and quickly scurried to the dressing room and tried it on over my underwear. The bottoms fit perfectly, but, you guessed it, the top was way too big. So I had to get re-dressed and go back out for a size 9 top, which fit better, but still had what I call "puckers". It was definitely lacking something. Boobs.

The gentle sea breeze beckoned us as we stepped out of the shop and we decided to go straight to the beach after returning to the room. I put my beautiful new string bikini on and took a look at myself in the hotel mirror. Kara stood beside me in her bikini and although I was slimmer than her, I somehow felt that she looked much better than me because her boobs were larger...and because teenage girls are prone to comparing, I did what any normal 14 year old lacking in the cleavage department would do. I created some. With kleenex. Well, toilet paper, because apparently the hotel we were staying at was so high class, you didn't need kleenex. Kara helped me shape it so they looked semi-normal and so you couldn't see the tissue and off we went to sunbathe, strutting our hot stuff on down to the beach.

After about 20 minutes in the Hawaiian sun (we were Alaskan girls, remember?), we were drenched in sweat and ready to do anything to cool off. One of the boys from our class told us that if we swam for a few minutes and then came back out, we'd be cooler. I suppose I could blame it on the heat of the sun -- it had to be heat stroke, because there's no other explanation for me doing what I did. I swam. In the ocean. With toilet paper stuffed in my bikini top.

When I came out to lie back down on my towel, I noted with satisfaction that some of the guys on the beach were staring and smiling at me, so I raised my chin and pulled my shoulders back a bit with pride.

It was not until I reached the towel that I noticed I had shredded bits of toilet paper streaming out of every side of my bikini top.

Visit Megan and stand with us, won't you?

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