Hello and welcome to LMNOP4U.com. I am blown away by how much inspiration I glean from interacting with you all in my daily life and I am thrilled to invite you to join me in this ongoing conversation.  I look forward to your comments, your suggestions and your questions. Please explore the site, leaving your mark by clicking on the comment buttons and by visiting the LMNOPhree page (link on the left) and joining in the conversation with me!

What is LMNOP4U.com?
LMNOP4U.com (aka KathleenMelton.com) is a daily blog that reveals the social fabric and demands of living in today’s society through the writing, musings and wit of a working mom and stay at home mom (which is it?), friend, culture critic, volunteer, girlfriend, home owner, avid life explorer, parenting partner, sister, pet owner, entrepreneur, daughter, health nut, amateur photographer, published author, alphabet lover and humorist, Kathleen Melton.

Why is this blog for you?
This blog speaks directly about life. Everyday. In blog posts, a daily status update, pictures, and recurring blog “columns.” Oh, and there is regular free stuff under LMNOPhree Stuff.

Through witty and on-point daily conversations, I try to find the extraordinary in the ordinary and the ordinary in the extraordinary. My struggles, inspirations, thoughts, and discoveries are laid out, transparently, telling it like it is for me, so that you and I might connect, validating our thoughts and experiences, finding the common threads.

Join me in these conversations as I explore our every day modern experiences, and my attempt at making sense of it all.

“Why does everyone focus on all the bad things we are doing to the environment?” Kamden, my youngest son asked me at dinner one evening. “Why can’t we focus on the good things we do?”

His question made me pause. He had a valid point that reminded me of an example of how our thoughts affect our perception.  Close your eyes for a moment and don’t think of the color green. Don’t think of the color green. Don’t think of the color green. Don’t think of the color green. Don’t think of the color green. Look up. What do you see?Most likely your eyes targeted in on anything green, because how and what we tell ourselves to focus on affects what we actually do focus on. You were not supposed to think of the color green, but you did because of how you were telling yourself to stay away from it. Rather than saying, “focus on blue, focus on blue,”  you were repeating, “NOT to focus on green.”  And what did your mind concentrate on? Green.

The same is true for our kids. If we tell them everything that is wrong, they will think about the wrong. Truly, we want them to notice what is right. So we need to celebrate what they are doing well; we need to celebrate what we are doing appropriately as parents. I know that it is often easier to go to the negative. I also know that my thoughts manufacture my perceptions, which create how I feel, which in turn produce my actions, which generate my results. Simply, what I focus on and what we help our kids focus on is ultimately what we bring into our lives.

My goal as a parent is to focus my kids’ attention on their positive behaviors and actions. If they go awry, I try to steer them in another direction by praising what they do right. That Kamden realized and was deeply affected by the pessimistic focus of this subject at school, at his tender age, breaks my heart for him. He noticed a negative way the world works. He also noticed that that way of thinking did not resonate for him. This moment with my child has made me want to change how I work within our world all the more. I don’t ever want him to stop focusing on the positive, on the gifts that each situation offers.

Sometimes it is as easy as shifting our language from a “not” to a “do.” In the case of our environment, it is more complicated, but we can focus on what we are actually doing to change it, how others are helping, and the resultant positive effect on our world. This positive energy will create more positive energy and that in turn creates constructive change. So let’s focus on that. Use your reusable grocery bags. Recycle. Conserve. Use what you have. Plant native plants. Look into alternative energy sources. And strive to make the energy you are giving off in your daily life positive, for ultimately that will determines the outcome of our worlds – locally and globally.

Throughout my life there have been many friends that have played an important role. Friends that have drifted in and drifted out; friends that lasted for a particular reason and friends that have stayed for many seasons; friends that became like family and that I can’t imagine my life without; and friends that walked away without caring, without notice, without my knowing why.

Losing a friend is painful. Whether by choice, by force, by circumstance, or by a natural drifting apart, the residual mark that friends leave on your life is indelible and cannot be erased.

Recently, many ‘old’ friends – friends I have not had contact with in five to twenty-five years – have been reappearing in my life. And while reconnecting with these new-old friends has been enjoyable, it also feels ironic that these relationships come at a time when I am struggling to keep current friendships alive. Friendships based on individuals and families. Friendships based on growing along with each other, with our kids, with our families, with the ever-changing world, and with our smaller world – our community of friendship – that we lovingly created.

I just learned that one friend from the “twenty-five plus years ago” group killed himself this past month. This has in turn, brought together a new level of reaching out within this group – reaching out to those who knew him, to others we might not have known well, but feel instantly connected to. We are reaching through time and entering each other’s lives once again, to honor this man, to remember him, to celebrate him and to try to understand what happened to him.

It has been an outpouring of urgent reconnection, of remembrance, and for me sadness. Perhaps if we had celebrated and honored him more while he was alive. Perhaps if we had connected with him before three weeks ago. Perhaps if we had told him that he was still in our thoughts, in our minds, in our hearts, and that he had indeed made an indelible print on our lives – on people that were assumed forgotten. Perhaps if we had shared how we feel, what we want, our thoughts, our lives. Perhaps. It is a perhaps we shall never know.

This event has moved me to now share my feelings with those relationships in my life that are being lost. With those whom I do not want to lose. With those whom I want to honor today, to reach out to today, to be there for and share with and laugh with and cry with today. Because we can. Still. Because I don’t want to ever feel, “Perhaps” with you. So, with a deep breath and a leap of faith….

I feel honored that I am able to call you my friend.
I feel thankful for the contribution you have made in my life.
I feel lonely without you.
I feel hurt by your words.
I feel pain that my feeling hurt is not acknowledged.
I feel unimportant in that lack of acknowledgement.
I feel sad that I am unable to communicate my feelings to you.
I feel disappointed that it is about being defensive.
I feel lost for words.
I feel sorrow when I want to pick up the phone.
I feel afraid to pick up the phone.
I feel so hopeless and sad that I feel afraid.
I feel misunderstood.
I feel insecure reaching out.
I feel unsure that any of this will make any sense.
I feel worried that it won’t.
I feel frightened that this may be mistaken as an attack and start another defensive reaction.
I feel attacked when I express my feelings.
I feel ignored and not heard.
I feel angry at the lack of understanding and communication.
I feel frustrated that I can’t figure out what the hell is going on.
I feel regret that our kids have drifted apart because we have.
I feel troubled that we can’t get past this.
I feel trapped in the decision to not talk.
I feel overwhelmed in the need to try to work this out.
I feel alone in that work.
I feel baffled.
I feel disbelief that others are incapable.
I feel cautious in expressing that.
I feel hopeless in knowing how to ask for what I want and need.
I feel resigned.
I feel accepting for what is, at the moment.
I feel melancholy and sad for that acceptance.
I feel fearful that this is the end.
I feel anxious because I never thought we would have one.
I feel relieved that I have shared this.
I feel content knowing I have.
I feel calm wafting over me.
I feel my tears drying.
I feel order being restored.
I feel curious about what is being felt by you.
I feel nervous that I may never know.
I feel resigned that there are limitations.
I feel love for you. For your family. For our history.
I feel enough.
I feel the indelible mark that has been made on my life.
I feel grateful. For you. My Friend.

I literally gasped when I saw the sign. “What? What?” Screams  from inquiring minds in the back seat begged  to know, “Are you okay?”   “Yes,” I said, calming down from my initial reaction. “Why do you sound sad, Mom?” And with that I pointed to the large,  white, upside down “L” holding a new “For Sale” sign planted in the front yard of our next door neighbor’s house. The three of us sat in silence, truly speechless, as we slowly pulled into our driveway.

Many things are changing in our world today. In my world. In my neighborhood. In my home. And depending upon whom I talk with, there are many reasons for the change: the economy, the administration, the greed of consumerism, inflation, the in-laws, the Joneses, and on and on. I listen, I comment, I shake my head in agreement or toss out the occasional disagreement. I also try to recognize what good can come of this – of each situation. I do not buy into the belief that we have to go through another Great Depression so that this generation can “learn its’ lesson,” thereby validating older generational behaviors (it’s okay to recycle the magazines dating back to 1982 and to donate old clothes stuffed into closets since the 70’s – you still don’t need them or wear them, they just take up space!)

Thinking of how different my life is now from just this same time last year, I looked out my living room window at the For Sale sign and I began to look at my home environment as a microcosm for my world.What is going on in my world, in my home, and how I choose to deal with it will (and does) affect all other areas of my life – my relationships, my finances, my body (I live on a hill), my network of people, my actual physical space, myself.

In this moment, I find my neighborhood, my world, my home, in a state of flux, with change coming in and out – sometimes a welcome visitor, sometimes not. Selling my house has crossed my mind as I went through a divorce last year, and while I gratefully came out of that with the house, I now realize how much of my life is in this home and that the way I live in this space has changed. My home environment has been affected by everything going on in my life – from the way it looks, to the way it feels and smells, to what things and which people are now inside of it. And while certain areas used to be for grown-up gatherings only, with my working more and throwing social gatherings less, my pre-teen boys are slowly taking over – even further redefining our home.

So, I ponder what is going on inside my neighbor’s house. In their lives. How their world and the happenings in their home world have shifted such that they decided to move after living and raising a family here for thirty years. How having a new neighbor will change the feel of our street, the look of our street, the safety of our street, and the socialization of the people on our street (hopefully they will become the new social gathering house!)

Our homes and our neighborhoods – and all that happens within them – can be viewed as a microcosm of our larger world. I invite you on this journey as I explore just how far our home environments can stretch us as individuals to make our ‘at home world’ and the world at large a better place to live.

HomeStretch™ will be a regular column the first Wednesday of every month on KathleenMelton.com.  Let me know what is going on in your home by emailing me at info@KathleenMelton.com

It’s 5-o-clock in the morning.  Regardless of what time I go to bed, or how I feel, I always wake up at this time.  I decided to stop fighting it.  I’m outside on the patio of my house in the valley feeling the cool morning air caressmy woozy head. I don’t know why everyone hates the valley.  It’s beautiful in the early morning.  And in the late evening.  Just ignore the daytime July through September.

Looking at my kids’ play structure makes me want to cry. Thinking of Team Melton, what we all call our family, makes me sad beyond words. Pretending that we are a happy little family that can spend time together as though nothing has changed since we split up makes me cringe, as it is a recipe for disaster.

And disaster it was. After being plied with too many triggers (food, junk everywhere, wine, no one listening – the list seems endless!) I cried because of how painful it is to pretend. How trapped I felt, how disingenuous. The pressure was more than I could bear, and things were said and done under that pressure that wouldn’t normally be said or done.

Today, now, I accept full responsibility for it all. For being an emotional wreck. For being human. For being imperfect.  For surviving a failed marriage.  I will no longer pretend. To myself. To my ex-husband. To my friends. To the world. And finally to my kids.

Happily ever after isn’t, always. Happy. But it can be manageable. After having pretty much exploded under the pressure of pretense and caused an unknown number of future therapy sessions for my kids, I realize that there is a better way to handle this situation. With grace. And honesty. And compassion for all involved.

The first thing that I am going to do is alter one environment at a time. My home environment first. I am removing all triggers – and finding a better way to deal with them – for at this point exposing myself to messy piles of junk, his stuff still in the house, baked goods, booze, and/or dog poop that hasn’t been picked up in a week, can only be likened to dropping a match on the wick of a firecracker. Once done, it’s best to step back and watch the spectacle.

Second, I will alter my relationship with Keith, my ex-husband. After apologizing to everyone (even myself), I sat on the front porch with him and told him that we need to stop acting like it is anything other than what it is…us, divorced. God that is an ugly word. Never did I ever think I, or my kids, would have to experience the knowledge, the feeling the, the, the what? Shame, disappointment, loneliness of divorce? Of them having two homes, two rooms, a split up life?

Moving forward, we will do our best to handle this situation and each other with kindness and respect. He agreed. We sat on the front porch for a bit. And then I got up. And felt sad. And all of a sudden exhausted from too little sleep. But I also felt lighter and peaceful knowing that some of the pressure had been removed. That we are on the same page. That he and kids and I will still be a team – a team that will find a way to operate and function and still win – even with two home fields.

For Kelsie – Happy Birthday – Wear Those New Jeans! Today!

“You can’t wear that dress,” my mother used to tell me, “you have to save it for good.” “Don’t use those dishes/glasses/pens/ whatever, save them for good.” And finally, “No, you can’t borrow that, I’m saving it for good.” Well, by the time ‘good’ rolled around, nothing ever fit and/or it was out of style, or worse yet, lost in the bastion of piles of ‘good’ things that crowded every closet. Every drawer. Every cupboard. And why wasn’t today good enough? Why isn’t this moment, now, good enough? What am I saving it for? What was she saving it all for? As though some moment in the future is going to be that much more precious than this one? Evidently. And I am still waiting for it, so that I can wear my new dress. And shoes. And coat. And sign my checks with my fancy pen.

This is a belief, a meme, that I fight and literally have internal conversations (battles) with myself over nearly everyday. I know where it comes from – my childhood. Specifically, my mother. Always being told to save things for good, for special occasions. And yes, as a child and even as an adult when I visited, pulling out my parents wedding china once a year and setting a beautiful table for Thanksgiving was a special occasion. It was also the only day of the year that a complete meal was ever cooked in our household, so yes, it was momentous, indeed. It also led to over eating, and an intense avoidance of all the dishes that all had to be hand washed because ‘they’ don’t make ‘good’ dishes that can go in the dishwasher. And even though it was an event, a ‘special’ day, no ‘good’ clothes were worn, because we were just at the house cooking, and eating and cleaning. And you wouldn’t want to waste your ‘good’ clothes or shoes on that. Would you?

As an adult, I’ve become accustomed to fine things. I like designer clothes. And shoes. And furnishings. And technology. I find stuff I like everywhere – from estate sales to department stores, from small boutiques on Ventura Boulevard to Target, from EBay to Craigslist. It doesn’t matter to me where I shop, as I like to mix it up. I discriminate only on the basis of quality, craftsmanship, fabric, and ultimately, usage. But there are always those clothes, usually the ones I am drawn to the most, that I like the most, that invariably hang in my wardrobe, tags still on, week after week, waiting until the day comes that is good enough for me to wear them. It is so frustrating! I have friends that buy something new and immediately rip the tags off and wear it the next day, or even the same evening. I am envious of this behavior – of this abandon. For only if an item is purchased specifically for a significant occasion, like my wedding dress for instance, (sigh, how sad is that…that was 14 year ago) do I ever wear something immediately. And then, in the instances such as this, never again.

Recently, I bought three fabulous Hale Bob dresses to wear during the summer. They were moderately expensive dresses – three to four hundred a piece. I didn’t pay that, of course, but that is another article. They are beautiful and colorful and made of silk with beautiful detailing. So why haven’t I worn them?  How much better does it get than a warm day or evening in Southern California to wear a beautiful dress? It doesn’t get any better. But for some reason that just isn’t ‘good’ enough. Again, I ask, “What am I saving them for?”

I present my problem to my dear friend, Jessica, who wears what she wants when she wants and tries her hardest to knock the lid off my jar of possibilities. Her take on my dilemmas always inspires me. “Just put it on…wear it grocery shopping if that is where you are headed! You love it, wear it! That’s enough!” This is the retort I now hear in my mind every time I choose not to wear the dresses. The thought of ‘dressing up’ to wander through the produce isles with my kids is so ridiculous it always brings a smile to my face. And one day, I will actually do it….

Today, I dressed up for work. True, I work out of my home in a home office, but, today is a good day (not a sweats and/or pajama day), and I’m wearing new shoes and one of my new dresses. And later, I will be going to the grocery store in the same clothes – if for no other reason than someone needs to see me in it because I actually took off the tags and put it on.

‘Saving it for good’ puts off for tomorrow joy that I could be experiencing today. This day is ‘good.’ This moment is ‘special.’ And from this minute forward, I will strive to live in the present, with the awareness that what (and whom) we adorn ourselves with, surround ourselves with, and populate our lives with, ultimately creates our mindset, our experience, our life. And dammit, mine will be in fabulous clothes, sipping from my china and writing with my special pen – this is the moment I’ve been saving it all for and I will live it fully now, no longer putting it on hold, no longer ‘saving it for good.’