thoughts from the deep recesses

And when she said she planned to blog in the new year... she probably didn't realize that she would be working 50 hour work weeks for the first two weeks of 2012...

2012-01-17T16:21:00.000-08:00

Officially the longest blog title. Ever in the history of Thoughts from the Deep Recesses.

Yes. Work has been insane.

You see, Weight Watchers is opening new stores all over the country. And my store - the store I am the Location Coordinator of opened January 2nd. After being told it would open January 9th. And then January 4th. And then a wedding on New Year's Day in Portland when my nephew married his beautiful bride, Annie.

And then our computers weren't working at the new store. And that was a crazy experience, processing the crowds and crowds of new year's resolutions join-ers... without the convenience and speed of our computer system.

And of course, I volunteered to oversee our Housewarming event. Which was last Saturday.

And now, this week is what I think is actually going to be a 'normal' work week.

And now, I can blog.

Twenty-twelve.

For the first time in four years, I don't have a MAJOR goal for the new year.

I have lots of goals... like eating five servings of fruits and vegetables every day... and running another half marathon... and continuing to be very purposeful about giving things away and saving for another trip to Sierra Leone in 2013...

But no hard and fast "I've got to accomplish this this year or I'll consider myself a failure."

I did those, you know, the past three years...

2009 - walk every day
2010 - not buy any new clothes all year long
2011 - walk/run/bike/log at least 500 miles of activity

This year I'm taking a more relaxed approach. More of an 'I'm going to strive for these things... but I'm also going to be flexible this year' approach.

Last year was awesome... what with the trip... and the running... and the accomplishing those two huge goals.

But it was also pretty rigid.

We didn't travel at all - except for the 3 1/2 weeks we were gone. While the trip was amazing, not getting out of town for anything besides that was hard... we didn't see our family as much as we like. I didn't get to do any 'girlfriend' trips.

And the running thing - I was so afraid to fail my first attempt at running that I was completely anal about my training regime... and got really burnt out in the weeks before the half marathon... to the point where I just couldn't wait to get it over with.

So this year, I'm all about flexibility.

Sure, I hope to run another half... but this time I will be sure to incorporate some cross training.

And yes - Asia and I are planning another trip to Sierra Leone next year - which means we need to continue to be very intentional with our money and careful not to spend too much on other travel... but we've got some things up our sleeves and are looking forward to several trips this year.

I'm ready for this new year. I love January - with it's fresh start and it's crisp blue skies and it's shivery newness.

What are you hoping for in 2012? I'd love to hear about it...

Oh my goodness... look what's become of me...

2011-12-29T09:41:00.000-08:00

Today I happened upon a lovely little blog whilst wasting time on my newest, latest internet time waster, Pinterest. And that lovely little blog inspired me to come on over here to my own very sad, neglected blog.

So here I am, wishing I had some lovely photos of something interesting to post.

But I don't.

I do have some words to share. So we'll go with that.

I remember when the kids were little I used to be jealous of Asia and his meetings. He would complain about how many he had to go to and how boring they were. I remember thinking how nice it would be to have someone think I was important enough to invite me to participate in a meeting. I was up to my ears in laundry and diapers and bored stiff by housework. Don't get me wrong. I loved staying home with my babies - but let's be honest. It's not rocket science. And it's not overly stimulating or rewarding on a day-to-day-to-day basis. Frankly, it's boring. And repetitive. And lovely in it's own mind-numbing way.

The other night as I was getting ready for bed, I remembered that young mom who wanted to feel important to someone besides sticky toddlers.

And I realized I've become this busy, depended-upon-outside-the-home woman who has meetings and trainings and huge responsibilities in her work...

Interesting how I've ended up here - it what has essentially become what looks like a career. (Which I never aspired to... but is my current reality.)

We are hoping Asia will be able to quit his job in the next year to be able to pursue a private practice in Marriage and Family Therapy. Which means we lose benefits. Insurance. Paid vacation. Retirement.

I've been blessed with a job I absolutely adore and an opportunity to go 'full time' so I can get benefits and provide in a new way for our family while Asia branches out and follows a god-given gifting he's wanted to use for years.

And so I work. A lot. More than I ever have - or frankly, ever wanted to.

Which means I don't cook a lot of meals... or clean very well, or keep the house running very smoothly... I'm learning to manage a household and a job (and not doing a very good job of it at the moment...)

Creative pursuits are limited right now for me.

And down time is rare.

But I continue to strive for some quiet... some soul-feeding activities... some peace in the chaos.

My introverted self still really revels in home.

I've got some plans for the new year to continue to grow and thrive in my new reality... which is so very different from my past.

So stay tuned.

It's going to be an interesting ride, this next year.

I can't wait to share it with you.

(And yes - I plan to share it with you. That's part of the plan... the 2012 Cathy will blog.)

Hemicrania Continua

2011-12-08T08:14:00.000-08:00

Or, to translate, 'Half of my head hurts all of the time.'

I have had a headache on the right side of my head for over five years.

Never debilitating.

But always there. Annoying. Aching. Nagging.

Relieved easily with ibuprofin, but always returning as soon as the medicine wore off.

Every.single.day.for.more.than.five.years.

I've seen my primary care doctor, my dentist, two ear nose and throat specialists and one neurologist. Had CT scans and MRIs. And until two weeks ago, no one could find a cause.

But two weeks ago, a sweet neurologist spent 45 minutes with me... asking me question after question after question. Reading my MRI results. Doing neurological tests.

At first, he joined the others in telling me there really isn't a diagnosis for my symptoms. The MRI was clear. My symptoms were too non-specific... no real causes... no patterns. Apparently chronic, daily, all the time pain isn't enough to diagnose much.

Except Hemicrania Continua.

Which really does mean 'half of my head hurts all of the time' in latin.

And really does fit my symptoms.

The trouble with that diagnosis, is that there is no known cause and no cure. The neurologist told me the simple name means it's a known, medically acknowledged condition, but that they really don't know enough about it to call it anything else. Just like they used to call tuberculosis consumption because they could see it was something that 'consumed' the body... but they didn't really understand it beyond what it did. Maybe someday they'll have a better understanding of Hemicrania Continua. And a better name.

The good news? There is a totally effective treatment.

It means I have to take a pill every 12 hours. But it provides complete relief.

As in: no headache.

That's a GOOD thing.

Because after five years, I can take a little pill before bed and not wake up with a headache any more.

For five years, I woke up with a headache. Went straight from bed to the ibuprofin bottle.

Now I wake up headache free. And I start my day. And when it's time for my vitamins, I take my Indomethacin. And the headache doesn't show up later in the day like it used to when the ibuprofin wore off.

The Indomethacin doesn't seem to wear off. It just keeps the headache away. All of the time.

Now - would I like a cure? Would I like to find a non-medicinal treatment? Do I wish there were some sort of alternative to a twice-a-day med?

Sure.

But until we find that, I'm SUPER thankful that half of my head does NOT hurt all of the time.

So I'm thankful for Dr. Bender. And modern medicine. And finally, a diagnosis and a treatment.

Being pain free after years of chronic pain is really, really nice.

Ten on Wednesday because I ran out of Tuesday...

2011-11-23T06:13:00.000-08:00

Kyler has a girlfriend. She is a senior at his highschool - a cross country runner - and is VERY, VERY pretty. It's very new - as in today is their one week anniversary.
Savannah turned 15 on 11-11-11. She continues to be a huge blessing in my life...
Trader Joe's has finally opened in Spokane. It's very close to me - which is a huge treat in a city where almost all the 'good' shopping is on the other end of town. Love popping in there whenever I need something but I'm still trying to figure out what they do and don't carry. Last night I needed cream cheese. Trader Joe's doesn't have cream cheese.
We celebrated the one year anniversary of Julie's heart attack last weekend. I'm calling it her heartiversary. A sweet day to celebrate her good health and our little community of folks doing life together.
Putting together a package for our three boys in Sierra Leone... and a few other kids we simply have to send letters to. Our family there grew so much... it's SO sweet to have such a connection across the globe.
Worship time at church on Sunday is the one consistent time I find myself REALLY missing T... and Sierra Leone. I'm sure it's because life is busy and I'm distracted most of the time... but when I quiet myself on Sunday mornings I'm always hit with the longing for the other side of the world... it's a great picture of how we long for heaven - and the struggle to always keep the kingdom of GOD on our minds as we walk about our lives. Almost every Sunday morning I'm wiping tears from my eyes as I sing. It's a palpable, thick, tangible longing... sweet and sorrowful. How lovely it will be in heaven when we can all be together to worship.
E's upright bass lessons are going really well. He practices almost daily - I LOVE hearing him in his room playing his songs. It's fun to have a child finally really LOVE playing an instrument. The other two played, but never voluntarily. I think we'll probably be lugging a HUGE bass around for many years. I'm okay with that. What a cool instrument...
I don't have to cook Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow... I almost always do, so it's a huge treat to only have to make a pie and a couple of other things. Excited to spend the day with friends and family. I.am.blessed.
Work is nutso and amazing right now. I got an email last night from a former member who moved awhile back that totally reinforces my love for my job. Impacting people toward better health is an amazing privilege. There's a TON going on right now with Weight Watchers - it's super exciting.
Trying to decide if I want to do two half marathons next year... who is this crazy chick?

Happy Wednesday, friends. Smooch you all.

1000.

2011-11-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

Amazingly, this is my 1000th post on thoughts from the deep recesses...

I can hardly believe I've done anything 1000 times... but especially this silly little blog.

I started this blog in March of 2005 - very reluctantly. I wasn't sure what I would ever post about... or even why I would bother... but I did it.

I only wrote two posts a month for the first two months... and then slowly my posts picked up speed.

Certainly, my posting has ebbed and flowed over the years.

Facebook gives blogging a run for it's money - and often things that I may have written about here became status updates instead... I prefer blog posts but realistically, find time for Facebook much more easily than I find time for blogging.

So there have been months when the blog has been neglected.

But it's still a big part of how I record life.

To keep with tradition, I'm going to do a Tuesday Ten of some of my favorite random blog posts over the years...

And that only takes us to 2007...

And that's why I like blogging.

Thanks for sharing the journey with me.

Tuesday Ten

2011-10-18T20:51:00.000-07:00

Ah, October. There is a tree I see every day on my way up the hill from downtown. Every year I say to myself how fun it would be to take a picture of it daily as it transforms from fully green to aflame in autumnal oranges, yellows and reds... and yet I never do it. Every year when I notice the leaves beginning to fall from it, I am sad that I missed the opportunity another year.
I watch the local evening news every night. I tivo it and fast forward through all the boring stuff. But I always look at the seven day weather forecast. Every.single.night.
Fall sports are winding down... Savannah has her last volleyball game on Thursday - Kyler has his last league meet tomorrow. He will have districts and potentially State still...
I was achy in the strangest places the day after the half marathon... specifically, my left shoulder and my right ankle. My left knee really hurt me from mile 10 to about mile 12 while I was running... I wonder if I was compensating for the pain in a way that impacted those two areas of my body. The shoulder seemed especially weird. But it was definitely sore... almost like a kink in my neck...
I've been struggling to find stillness in my life... was reminded by an old and dear friend recently how important it is to find that quiet... and am still not managing it very well. Part of it is added work responsibilities that are done from home... eating up a lot of my time and keeping me busy on days when I might have had time for peaceful pursuits in the past. I've got to figure it out... and in fact feel like perhaps this post-marathon time might be meant for just that... for stillness. Quiet... it's harder to pursue than more tangible goals. Have you found it?
I'm excited about a major blog-milestone coming up very soon... stay tuned.
The last time I went in for a haircut I was there before I was really desperate... which I thought was this cool pre-emptive strike, but actually ended up backfiring. My hairdresser thought everything looked great - the shape was still nice and it wasn't too 'bulky' (a major grow-out problem for my thick hair) so all she did was just the most minimal of trims. And now - here I am, three weeks later with 'bulky' shapeless hair... the hair that usually makes me call desperately for the first available slot. Lesson learned. Pre-booking is a waste. It's better to wait until it's awful. Because now I'm stuck with the awful for awhile. My hairdresser is amazing, but she's ridiculously expensive and I only budget for her three times a year. Bummer.
Parenting is simply the single most interesting and challenging thing ever, isn't it? I never cease to be amazed at how it continues to stretch and teach and push me to prayer, even after all these years. I have three of the most incredible kids ever and still there are days when I'm driven to my knees in utter humility... begging for wisdom. It's quite the refining experience...
Next year Asia and I celebrate 20 years of marriage. He's surprised me with pretty amazing vacations on our tenth and fifteenth anniversaries... not sure what to expect with twenty... but secretly hoping for something lovely. He's still my favorite person in the world and travelling with him is one of my greatest pleasures.
Our long-awaited Trader Joe's store opens in Spokane (only a couple miles from my house!) on October 28th. I'm sure the crowds will be ridiculous the first few weeks... hoping I can find a quiet-ish morning when they're less busy to go begin to fill my pantry with favorites I've only been able to buy when we've travelled somewhere with a store. So happy they're opening here!!!

Happy Tuesday, friends!

Half Marathon? Check...

2011-10-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

Before the race with Julie, one of my biggest
cheerleaders on this journey

Sometimes I wonder how I get myself into things... I've discovered that I am ridiculously goal oriented in the past couple of years... which can be a really good thing. But it can also create these weird situations where I find myself doing things I never would have imagined doing.

This past Saturday was a classic example. Because I ran a half marathon. And I NEVER thought that was something I'd ever do.

And the craziest thing about it - was that it wasn't really that hard. It just took the goal... and the training plan... and the determination to not completely embarrass myself... because once I told people I was planning to do it, suddenly I had friends signing up to do it with me... which meant I actually needed to be able to do it.

And so I did it. And I actually enjoyed it a teeny tiny bit.

Kevin, another Spokane friend who came
to Leavenworth to run the half

There's a pretty remarkable sense of accomplishment that goes along with it...

Wade, Julie's husband and
my 'coach' (who finished
the half marathon in 27th place!)

Still fresh - around mile 3.5

Focused... around mile 5.5

Julie gets a high-five from her son

Going in for the mile 7 kiss from Asia...
still feeling strong - more than halfway!!!

The autumn colors were SO beautiful on the course

Coming in for the finish...

DONE!!! 2 hours, 18 minutes!

So now I can say I've run a half marathon. (And no - you won't hear me saying I'm planning a full marathon...!)

Ten on Tuesday - a return

2011-10-04T22:25:00.000-07:00

Kyler is running varsity cross country this year. The varsity team is comprised of the seven fastest runners on the team. Never more, never less. I love the boys on his team so much - they have become a tight knit crew - working together to encourage each other through miles and miles of workouts, weekend trips, practices twice a day and often two meets a week. They spend a LOT of time together. And they're great kids. Two of the other boys have been running with Kyler since seventh grade... One of my girlfriends posted on Facebook the other day "Going to cross country meets does a lot to restore one's hope in the next generation. Way to go to all those teenagers who inspire others through their fitness, hard work and sportsmanship." I couldn't agree more. I'm so proud of how hard Kyler works - along with all his teammates. I will be VERY sad when he graduates and I no longer have a reason to go to meets...
The Lewis and Clark Tiger Cross Country team is having a mixed year, in terms of results. They're coming off last year's unprecedented performance - when they took second at State, went to Nike Cross Nationals and placed 17th in the nation. That's a lot to live up to. They had 5 varsity seniors who graduated last year - so they're a young team. They're learning a lot and are ALL improving with every race. Kyler has gotten his PR for the three mile down to 16:52... down from 17:26 last season... really proud of him. (That's running 5:37 miles, for those of you who don't want to bother doing the math.)
I run about a 10:00 minute mile on a good day. So yeah, he's almost twice as fast as me. Of course, I'm more than twice his age too.
My half marathon is less than two weeks away. Eek!
Savannah has been playing volleyball. More on that soon. It's really a post of it's own.
Asia is doing well. Stuff at work has been crazy - which unfortunately I can't elaborate on at the moment. But he continues to be an amazing provider in the midst of some pretty crazy work-related stress. I'm so thankful for his commitment to our family and his faithfulness. I'm so blessed.
Ethan is enjoying sixth grade - where he 'rules the school.' Having been at the same elementary school since kindergarten means he knows the ropes... all the staff knows him... and he is soaking in all the privileges that go along with being on the top of the heap in terms of the student population.
I let go of doing the school newsletter at the elementary school at the end of last year after doing it for five years. It was a hard decision, but one I knew was best for our family as we are spread more apart than ever in terms of schools... I knew I would need the freedom to invest myself elsewhere... so I'm not at E's school much at all this year. It makes me sad, but it's a gentle, gradual transition away from our very successful time there. We'll finish out E's last year there and move on with so many happy memories. Plus, this way, I ended my commitment there on a high note, having loved the time I served there instead of doing one last year out of guilt or obligation and not finishing well. (Which I KNOW would have happened had I continued with the newsletter...)
Fall is definitely in the air... with leaves just beginning to be tinged with the faintest oranges and reds... it's so lovely. We had one of the warmest Septembers I remember here - so I won't complain about the sudden turn to cool days and even a bit of rain in the forecast.
Work is going extremely well for me lately - I've added two new job responsibilities in recent weeks - both of which can be done from home. It's about 7 extra hours of work a week - but I enjoy both roles so much. I am continually thankful for a job I love so much - and am SO passionate about.

Happy Tuesday, friends. Smooches!

Running. Still.

2011-09-28T21:21:00.000-07:00

So, here's this crazy thing: I run.

On Monday I ran 12 miles. Twelve.

It's a fascinating process, this running thing.

It's doing the most interesting things to my body. Some good, some not so good.

For the first time in my life, I have a waist. An actual curve there where my body has always been straight.

My half marathon is in two and a half weeks.

And I'm not dreading it. At all.

I'll be honest with you, I'm eager for it to be over. But mostly because my training schedule has consumed a LOT of time. The poor dog hasn't been walked much at all lately because I'm always running and she can't run any distance with her bad leg. I'm really ready to go to the gym and partake in some other forms of activity. Running four days a week (over 20 miles a week) is about all the activity I care to do... and after a while... well, it gets a leetle-bit boring.

But I can do it.

I can run.

I can run long distances, even.

Asia rode his bike alongside me on my 12 mile run on Monday.

About mile 5 he said "I can't believe you have run all this way."
Mile 6: "You're killing me!" (as he pushed his bike up the hill I had just crested...)
Mile 7: "Do we get to be done now?"
Mile 9: "My butt hurts."
Mile 11: "I have you tell you, you make it look easy."

I'm not fast. I run about a 10 minute mile. Some days faster, some days slower.

Right now I don't really care about speed. It's all about doing it right now.

Meeting the goal.

Completing the race.

Sometimes it's really hard. But mostly I get this amazing feeling of accomplishment.

I never would have dreamed that I'd be running a half marathon at 42.

And here I am.

Sometimes I turn off the music and take out my earphones and just listen to the phump, phump, phump of my feet and the amazing rhythm of my breath... and I say to myself "I'm doing this."

It sort of reminds me of the crochet-binge I went on when Tejan left... furiously working my needle in a cathartic rhythm that kept me from going crazy with grief.

Perhaps it's my way of focusing my energy after the long process of planning our amazingly monumental trip... and going on said trip... and coming home to our americanized life after the deeply life-changing things we experienced...

Yeah... I think that has a lot to do with this drive. This urge to run.

I don't think I'm running away from anything... rather, it's a running TOWARD.

Toward belief in myself. Toward strength and amazing health. Toward the courage to put myself WAY out of my comfort zone. Toward some pretty amazingly stretching steps of faith I see on the horizon...

So yes. I run.

I run.

The official end of the longest blog break ever...

2011-09-23T07:14:00.000-07:00

Not sure how it happened, but I guess I just took a hiatus from the blog.

It wasn't my intention...

But it's been awhile, eh?

I really like blogging. And it's something I can't imagine ever giving it up permanently... it's too fun to look back at... so here I am.

Life has been nothing short of crazy since we got back from the trip... the kids dove into sports practices almost right away... so our summer seemed extrememly short.

With the exception of Kyler - who just started classes this week and had a little too much summer, I think.

We're in the middle of LOTS of change around here... with me picking up a lot more hours at work, Savannah and Kyler both at new schools this year, Asia working toward opening a private practice... it's a lot... and we're sort of re-defining normal as we go. I keep waiting for that 'fall routine' to set in... haven't gotten there yet.

I've got lots to write about... lots I've been processing... thinking about... doing...

So welcome back to my blog.

It's good to be here.

Paris...

2011-08-15T14:12:00.000-07:00

The door to our apartment building

When we began working with the travel agent who arranged our tickets for our trip to Sierra Leone, we were originally hoping to be able to go through London. We have dear friends who live in Northern Ireland, and we were hoping to either pop over to visit them or that they would come to London to spend a few days with us. As we planned, though, we discovered that our friends were actually going to be in the States at the same time... so we told the travel agent to look at flights going through other European cities and just try to find us the best deal.

When he came back with an itinerary flying through Paris, I got a wild hair... maybe we could save up enough money to be able to spend a few days in Paris with the kids. Knowing this would be the only trip like this we would ever get to take as a family, it seemed silly to get to Paris, only to spend a few hours in the airport and then fly on to Sierra Leone. I posed my idea to Asia and he agreed... so we asked the agent to arrange our layover to be a few days instead of a few hours.

The five flights of stairs we climbed to
get to our apartment

Asia and I went to Paris for our tenth anniversary, so we had a good idea what we would want to do with the kids. We found an apartment to rent online, booked it, and began making plans... as the trip got closer though, we were extremely focused on all the things necessary for our time in Sierra Leone... while we knew the Paris portion was happening, we really sort of made a conscious decision to not over-plan our time there and instead decided to follow our noses... and see where we ended up. We knew where we were staying and a few of the major highlights we wanted to take in, but we didn't create any sort of strict itinerary for our time.

Figuring out the metro - it took the kids about two trips
and they were experts...

It ended up working out just fine. We arrived in Paris at 8:00 am after a direct flight from Seattle. We hit the ground running, and after a ridiculous journey on RER and metro trains and stations and a short walk (all with nine huge suitcases and five backpacks) we found our apartment. It was in a quaint and lovely neighborhood in the 11th arrondissement, just a few blocks from the Bastille. Up five flights of spiral stairs we found a sweet (tiny!) one bedroom apartment freshly cleaned with a bottle of wine on the table welcoming us to Paris.

The Bastille - this was the major landmark
near our apartment...

Our three days were full of amazing sights and experiences. We managed to see the Louvre, Musee D'Orsay, Notre Dame, The Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, Montmartre, The Arc de Triopmhe, Palias Royale, and Ste. Chapelle... we also managed to find time for quiet picnics, nice long walks and Kyler and I even managed a run at dawn one morning. Our apartment was lovely and quaint with a tiny kitchen that made it easy to save money by shopping at the grocery store instead of dining out all the time.

Waiting outside the Louvre

Our bodies settled in quite well to the time change, but there were still some wide awake hours in the middle of the night and some afternoons when we all could barely keep our eyes open. One night when Asia and I were both bright eyed and bushy tailed in the dead of the night, he turned to me and said "We aren't this family..." I think both of us were simply overwhelmed by the blessing it was to be able to give our kids this amazing experience. It was so far out of our norm to even think about spending time in Europe with the kids... it honestly had never even crossed our minds as a possibility in any of our hopes and dreams for our family. But here we were. Amazing. We were both so grateful. And we enjoyed it so much...

It was a great time... and such an unexpected treat for us to be able to make it happen. The Goins in Paris... whodathunk?

Making art interactive...

Loved hearing the kids' perspectives on what they saw in the Louvre

Inside Ste. Chapelle - my favorite church in Paris

Awestruck...

Outside Notre Dame

Inside Notre Dame

E. feeding the birds outside Notre Dame

Ah - the lovely Tour Eiffel...

Hanging out on the tower... of course we went to the top!

We were amazed to see the distance to Freetown notated inside the Eiffel Tower...

Jumping at the Arc de Triomphe... I had to get at least one jumping shot...

I loved this sign at Sacre Coeur...

Getting some lunch in Montmartre

Baguette sandwich, anyone?

E. chose a beret for his souvenir... so cute...

Love the Parisien way of shopping... buying just what you need for the day... no Costco here...

Goodbye, Paris... until next time...

On my soapbox...

2011-08-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

Reading this book right now... wish I could give a copy to everyone I know. 18 million people die each year because of extreme poverty... what are you doing to prevent that? We all shudder when we remember tragedies like the holocaust... but every day 27,000 children under the age of five die from PREVENTABLE causes...

You can read the first chapter by clicking here. FIRST CHAPTER

Then go to your local library and check it out instead of buying it. With the $14 you saved, why not make a donation to a charity that is working to alleviate world poverty?

I know of a good one... Children of the Nations!

Sorry - I can't help myself. I will never spend my money the same way again... and I'm determined to challenge people to consider how our unnecessary spending could be reigned in and how that money could make a difference...

Unstuffing.

2011-08-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

I rode Violet (my bike) to the library one sunny morning last week... after 3 1/2 weeks with the same reading material on the trip I was excited to look through the shelves and bring home some new inspiration. My first stop (as always) was the New Nonfiction shelf...

There I found a book called Unstuff: Making Room in Your Life for What Really Matters. I turned it over to read the back and the author photo caught my eye... turns out I went to college with the guy from this husband/wife writing team. Intrigued, I threw the book in my basket.

I read the book in a couple of days... it's a good read - perhaps a bit more for the Christian who's being introduced to the idea of over consumption as sin - but still full of good principles.

I came away from the book with a challenge for my family: Every day for the month of August, each member of the family has to find ten things to get rid of. There are boxes set up in the kitchen labeled 'Trash', 'Sell' and 'Give Away' to receive the cast offs. In September, we'll have a garage sale to get rid of all the 'Sell' stuff - the money raised will go toward a special project we're excited about with COTN - construction of a new on-site guest house for teams like ours... and we'll make one huge donation to our favorite thrift store of the leftovers when it's all said and done.

Now, if you haven't already done the math, there are five people in my family... 31 days in August. That's 1550 things we're going to get rid of. I'm ashamed to say that I imagine it probably won't begin to make a dent in the excess we've brought into this house. I know for certain I could probably go the whole month at ten things a day and not even begin to get into the things that would be 'hard' for me to part with. I have that much junk stored in my basement storage room... sad, but true. I think the kids have some concerns that they may end up having to part with 'favorite' stuff... I'd actually welcome the challenge of really struggling with what to give away... perhaps it will take another month of the challenge for me to reach that point, but I'm up for it.

It's a start. A good way to focus our energy upon our return from our trip... a totally do-able approach to cleaning out stuff that's been sitting un-used for an embarrassingly long time - and using the opportunity to bless others in the process... Frankly, after seeing how little most people live on in Sierra Leone, I know we can eliminate a TON.

Maybe you'd like to join us... I know you won't regret it. The truth is, with our consumeristic mentality, most of us have SO much much more than we need. Join us in paring back, clearing out... and in the process, maybe you'll find some extra space in your heart for those less fortunate than you are...

Ironman Coeur D'Alene

2011-06-28T06:31:00.000-07:00

Sunday we were all up at 4:30... piled into the car and leaving the house by 5:15 to drive over to Coeur D'Alene...

There has been an Ironman Triathalon in Coeur D'Alene for the past nine years... athletes from all over the world come to do a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride and a 26.2 mile run.

CRAZY.

For the last two years, we've gone over to volunteer. Kyler's cross country team runs an aid station out on the bike ride... at mile 40 and mile 90. (The bikers loop through the 56 mile course twice.)

It's a SUPER inspiring way to spend a day... I never cease to be amazed at the people who put their bodies through months and months of training to compete in an Ironman. All the way from the top professional who will complete the entire thing in around 8 hours to folks who will barely make it to the cut off time at midnight.

We worked the aid station from 6:00 am (preparing for the arrival of the athletes around 8:00... cutting bananas in half, opening gatorade bottles...) until about 2:00, then we went downtown to watch and wait for our friend Wade who was competing.

There's a LOT of waiting for the Ironman spectators... it was a beautiful day, and Coeur D'Alene is a beautiful city with lots of lovely park space... so we sat and visited and people watched... and continued to be amazed at the thousands of athletes passing by us all afternoon.

My favorite thing about volunteering at Ironman are the interactions you can have with the athletes... I was on sunscreen duty, so I got to talk to everyone who needed more sunscreen... as I slathered them up I would ask how they were feeling... get little tidbits of who they are... encourage them... it's such a cool experience.

My favorite part of working this year: the gentleman who was part of a team that trains together all year long and who got off his bike and waited at our aid station until every one of his teammates made it that far - and then got on and rode off with the slowest one. He waited nearly two hours for her. She had a really rough swim, apparently, but made it to the mile 40 mark on the ride. I left the aid station before I saw them come through the second time... so I don't know if they made the cut off time to be able to continue onto the marathon portion of the event. I suspect they didn't. But I admired this man so much for being willing to sacrifice his own time and ability to finish for the good of another team mate.

This was Wade's first Ironman.

He finished in 11:55.

And we were all there cheering and yelling him across the finish line...

I think he's crazy. Who chooses to do that to their body?

But he's a good kind of crazy. And a great friend. It was a privilege to be there for him...

We were all exhausted at the end of the day... up early, on our feet all day, in the hot sun, busy scanning the crowds for Wade's black and red outfit... but not one of us complained. How could we when we compared our tiredness with the tiredness of the people who had just completed such a rigorous event?

I'll take my achy back and my tired feet...

And I'll leave the complaining to the amazing people who pushed their bodies to the edge.

Crazy people...

Another school year over...

2011-06-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

These three little boys have been friends since they were four... when they used to hang out and play while their sisters played together on Savannah's soccer team.

They're not so little anymore.

They're now officially sixth graders.

Ready to 'rule the school.'

Big, little man-children.

Great friends.

Love these long, lasting friendships for my kids... as a parent who consciously chose to stay in one place and keep the kids in the same school, this is the fruit of that decision.

And then there's this one...

Who is now in high school.

Who attended an event last week that the school calls the "Eighth Grade Social" and all the girls call the "Eighth Grade Formal."

I surprised her and made arrangements for our friend Monica to come over to curl her hair before school... the 'formal' took place in the afternoon instead of classes.

We bought her dress months ago - off a clearance rack at Macy's... it fit her perfectly and was SO cute.

Thankful for her successful journey through junior high - drama free for the most part and full of great friends. It's a big jump for our kids when they move from elementary to junior high... going from a class of about 60 kids to about 350... lots of potential for conflict and of course, the ever present option of choosing the 'wrong' friends.

She did good, though. Expanded her group of friends with some pretty amazing kids.

So happy for her. And proud.

Blog? What blog?

2011-06-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

My life is such a crazy list of to-do's that I've hardly given blogging a thought lately...

Life continues to bring us an amazing array of opportunities to be thankful... from things like successful school years for all three kids to work going extremely well to God's provision for our trip... it's all good.

One more short morning of school for the kids and I will be the parent of a sixth grader, a freshman and a junior. Honestly? I can't believe it.

And in two weeks and two days, we leave for our trip.

I have so many things that have gone by the wayside in our preparations... from blogging to creative pursuits, to (unfortunately, lately) running... I'm still getting in my ten miles a week, but I've not really been 'training' at all.

So my list of things I'm hoping to pursue on our return is long.

Long - but definitely set aside for now.

As I've worked toward all the crazy details of taking a family of five to Africa, I've struggled with feeling overwhelmed... it's my tendency to get caught up in details and often I lost sight of the big picutre.

Asia (God bless him for his patience with me) said the other day "It doesn't seem like you're enjoying any of this. This is a dream come true for you and you're making it a nightmare."

Ouch. Oh how the truth hurts sometimes.

So I've taken a step back... and vow to live in each moment. To cherish all the details. To not stress out about things.

Heck, I never even got my luggage last time I went and I survived just fine.

I think probably manage if I forget to bring something.

We had a good long 'family meeting' last night to talk through the trip. We gave the kids a chance to express what they're most excited about and what they might have anxiety about or be nervous about.

Good stuff. It gave Asia and I just the tiniest glimpse of what an amazing opportunity this is to impact their world view...

Already they were asking things like "Why is Africa so far behind the Unites States in things like technology and medicine? They're just like us... why don't they have the same things we do? Their civilization is older than ours..." which gave us the opportunity to talk about why we tend to think our way is better... and challenge them to consider whether we're any happier with all our technology etc... What a great chance we should have to dialogue as we embark on this journey together.

So yeah - lots of stuff on my brain lately... lots of details and ideas and hopes and concerns and a little teeny bit of anxiety...

And not so much blogging.

But I'm still here.

And I'll be back.

Liberty Creek Hike

2011-05-31T06:56:00.000-07:00

Hiking is one of my favorite past times... so I was clamoring all weekend for a family hike since we had three whole days off together...

However, when Monday rolled around, it turned out our kids were tired from sleepovers and scrambling to finish up procratinated homework and no one was interested in going on a family hike. Except me and Asia.

So we went. We commented several times how strange it was to be hiking alone - relating more to the empty-nesters we saw on the trail than the families... but we didn't let it spoil our afternoon.

The Spokesman Review on Sunday had an article listed some local-ish hikes to waterfalls... we picked the one closest to us and went for it.

And it was an amazing hike.

My phone camera has some distortion
going on here I think... our heads aren't really
that elongated...

For my local friends, it's in Liberty Lake County Park... you drive to the campground and the trailhead sits at the far end. It's a beautiful hike - almost completely flat for the first two miles, then it rises in elevation about 500 feet and goes for about another mile and a half before you get to these lovely falls... the trail follows the creek almost the whole way, and because we've had such a wet spring, the creek and falls were roaring. (And the woods were mossy and cool and more like the beautiful forests of the west side... it wasn't one of those Eastern Washington hikes where I had to convince myself our side of the state has it's 'own sort of beauty...')
We did exactly seven miles in and back.

I'm truly at my happiest when you combine my favorite person, amazingly beautiful nature, exercise and fresh air.

Some thoughts on Ninevah

2011-05-19T06:33:00.000-07:00

We began a new series of sermons at church on Sunday.
Sermons from the minor prophets.

Beginning with Jonah.

And in the first three verses, I'm already blown away:

Jonah Flees From the LORD
¹ The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: ² “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
³ But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.

Russ, our dear friend and the person who gave the sermon, simply asked, "What is your Ninevah?"

And at first, of course, because I think I'm pretty cool and together most of the time, I thought "Oh, I don't have a Ninevah. I always do whatever God asks of me... After all, I am going to Africa in a few weeks."

(Oh, how pride goes before the fall...)

And then, over the course of the rest of the sermon, there was this nagging little thought. This revealing little annoyance reminding me that there is this one thing I've always been terrified of. This thing that's lingered in my life that I've always said no to. This place I've never wanted to go. My Ninevah.

Asia has been a VERY faithful provider. God has blessed him with a job that comes with amazing benefits, job security, a lot of satisfaction and more than enough money. But he's never wanted to become that state worker who is at the state for 40 years and retires from a job he lost his passion for decades before...

I, on the other hand, think that sounds like a FABULOUS idea. See - I grew up with a Dad who held the same very secure job for my entire life. And retired with amazing retirement benefits. And gave me a very safe and secure feeling childhood. So in my mind - that's just what you do. It's a good thing... a secure, safe, comfortable, stable job. Why in the world would you ever want to leave that?

But I didn't marry my Dad. I married Asia, who is a bit of a dreamer. And who thinks anything is possible and trusts God in deep ways I've never had to because his childhood was one of chaos and total lack of security.

Asia doesn't want to work for the State forever.

He has some pretty specific dreams about what he'd like to do instead.

And all of them terrify me.

Because they feel uncertain. Unstable. Scary.

Up until now, I've sort of (okay - completely) squashed any discussion about Asia following his dream.

And now, I believe it's my Ninevah.

And I have a choice.

Do I try to run away from God?

Because that's sort of ridiculous. Look where it got Jonah...

Oh dear.

It's just terribly scary for me.

But I did marry this man. And I love him. And I want him to be happy and fulfilled.

And, of course, there's the whole thing about him always supporting me in whatever... pushing me to follow my passions and dreams and whatever God has placed on my heart... being the perfect husband...

So without going into too much detail (baby steps) I will tell you that I suspect there might be some change in our future.

And that God is growing my trust... very slowly and painfully stretching me and teaching me to say yes.

Yes, I'll go to Ninevah.

Tuesday

2011-05-10T06:27:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 1st was Bloomsday. In Spokane, that means that over 50,000 people take to the streets for the world's largest road race. And for me, this year, it meant running. This is my fourth Bloomsday - but I've always walked the whole thing. It's a 12K - which is 7.46 miles. Having run my first 5K race just two weeks before, I was more than a little doubtful that I'd be able to run the whole thing, especially when I considered that the Bloomsday course it MUCH more challenging, with several long hills. Just before mile 5, the course climbs what's lovingly referred to as "Doomsday Hill". That doesn't exactly inspire confidence, now does it? But I decided to run as much as I could... do my best. My longest training run was 6 miles, and when I did that, I felt like I had lots of energy left... so I should be able to pull out another mile and half, right? Well, I DID! Savannah ran with me for the first two miles, then had to fall back, having only relied on her youth (and NO training) to keep up with me that far... I ran alone for the rest of the race (as alone as one can be with 50,611 other people!) I ended up finishing in 1:16:29 - taking 10,068th place. Not too shabby for an old broad who just started running this year... You can see the rest of the family's results here... Kyler came in 611th... crazy boy.
I came home from work to find 15 pink plastic flamingos in my yard the other day. It's a fundraiser for Young Life... you can pay $25 to 'flock' someone... and then they can pay to 'flock' someone else. So you'll see this flock of birds traveling all over the south hill. Silly.
Kyler's had a bit of a rough go this track season... he's fighting a fallen arch in his right foot - which means lots of icing and physical therapy and rest... while still trying to train and compete. I worry about him every day, that he's doing more damage to the injury. Even so, he finished last week with a PR in the 1600 - finishing in 4:51. One more meet on Saturday and he can get off it and maybe give it a real chance to heal. This injury has the potential to give him a lifetime of problems, but we're working with an amazing group of PTs and I'm hoping it gets better before cross country season.
I have been carrying the same little LG flip phone for years... I used my upgrade two years ago to get a phone for Savannah and really resisted going into anything more technologically advanced. When I qualified for an upgrade, I went in to look at phones... and guess what? If you're looking for a simple phone that just calls and texts, you have about two to choose from. And they're ugly. So I decided to take the plunge into the world of data plans and smart phones. I had the nicest employee at the Verizon store who was exceedingly patient with me as he walked me through all the features of all the phones and held my hand as I took the plunge. I am now the proud owner of an iphone. Ridiculous. (And I'll even admit that I like it... but reluctantly.) I'm trying SO hard not to become a person who's always fiddling with her phone... but wow, you sure can do a lot on that little thing...
I've got Paris guidebooks all over the house as I begin to refamiliarize myself with the city of lights and decide what we're going to try to show the kids on our three day layover there... We've rented an apartment for the duration - which is in a completely different part of town from when Asia and I went. I'm so excited to get to discover another section of my favorite city in the world. We're for sure going to the Louvre, and of course the Eiffel Tower... but beyond that, we're still deciding. Really? I'm just excited to eat crepes and wander the streets with my favorite people... picnics by the Seine, wandering the markets... Oh, Paris, you have my heart...
Kyler has been going through the process of enrolling in Running Start - which is an amazing program in Washington state where he'll be double enrolled in high school and college at the same time. He'll be able to graduate from high school with his AA and transfer directly into his junior year of college once he's done - and it's ALL TUITION FREE! We'll have to buy books and pay lab fees - but wow - what a great opportunity. It's a huge transition for me as a mom... but we're thrilled that he has the opportunity to do it. Savannah already has her sights set on it as well.
Speaking of Savannah... she's become my little baking girl... making cookies and scones and granola bars and whatever else... LOVE having help in that department. She's learning a lot and becoming quite the little pastry chef. I really began to love baking at around that same age so it's been fun for me to see her enjoying it. Gosh, I love having a girl.
I'm finding that now that Bloomsday has come and gone and I'm not working toward any particular goal/race, I've lost a little of my motivation to run. Asia is encouraging me to sign up for a half marathon - but I'm a little nervous about losing 3 1/2 weeks of training time while we're on our trip. I need to do some research to see what the training program looks like for that long of a race. There's one in Leavenworth in October that sounds just lovely...
We've had trouble with our kitchen faucet for awhile... it's been dripping unless the hot handle sits in just the right place... Asia decided to fix it over the weekend and of course, we ended up with a new faucet altogether. He had a friend helping and they went to the hardware store together to pick it out - which made me more than just a little nervous. Most of you know Asia is extremely frugal and I was afraid he'd come home with something like THIS. He did good though and I have a lovely new faucet... good on him!
Occasionally I'll go to upload pictures from my camera and discover that someone's been taking pictures without my knowledge. This is happening a LOT with my new phone, too, as the kids like to play with some of the camera apps. This morning when I went to get track pictures from my memory card, I found these gems... I'm assuming Savannah took them, but I'm not sure. Fun to see the artist in my kids developing before my eyes...

Girlfriends. The Mini-Series. Part Four.

2011-04-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

My sister-in-law Lorraine was here awhile back.
And we got onto the topic of girlfriends while we were visiting.

It was a great conversation - I came away from it really relieved that I'm not alone in my struggles and also encouraged that this particular season in my life is a time to forgive my shortcomings with other women as I really build into my kids for the remaining years they're under my roof.

Something Lorraine said really stuck with me though, and it's changed the way I view my relationships with other women hugely in the few weeks I've had to ponder it and pray over it.

She said "Don't you think people just want to know someone cares about them?"

See, I feel a tremendous amount of pressure to be someone for other women - particularly younger women. Since Asia is so gifted at this with the men he mentors, I feel like I'm always trying to play catch up - showing my care and concern for young women - to be the wise, older women to them. Usually I come away from these encounters confused and frustrated, feeling like I have nothing to offer them... or that they don't need me... (young women these days seem terribly self-sufficient.)

But this simple sentence has freed me up in so many ways. Because I think I was trying to make all these interactions about me... "How can I possibly meet their needs?" "I don't know how to serve them" or "I'm an introvert and this is hard for ME!"

When instead, if I can simply show I care by asking about their lives and then listening... or giving a hug... or sending a happy text message occasionally...

I don't really have to BE anything special.

I just have to show I care.

I had the opportunity yesterday to meet with a young woman I'd never met... and had the MOST amazing afternoon with her.

I think forgetting the idea that I have to try hard to BE the older, wiser woman and just letting her tell her story and ask her questions made all the difference.

I don't know... maybe I'm just slow. But it was a huge revelation that I can just care.

It's been interesting to me how much this little series has stuck a chord with other readers... seems friendship for women is a struggle across the board.

I continue to ponder it and pray over it and seek God's plan for my heart in all of it.

It's fascinating stuff to me that we all desire relationships with others but we struggle in the implementation of them... whether it's due to past hurts or busyness or personalities... it's hard.

For now I'm focusing on keeping it simple.

On caring more and worrying about it less.

And it's working for me so far.

Any reminder to stop being so self-focued is always good, I think.

As I focus on others more, I've been amazed at how beautiful these other women are.

Women made lovely by resiliance and strong convictions and amazing relationships with Jesus. It makes me love being a woman. And it makes me want to know more women. (Imagine that!)

So thanks, Lorraine, for your simple words of wisdom.I'm changed because of them.

I.am.a.runner.

2011-04-18T15:21:00.000-07:00

In January, I set a New Year's resolution to log 500 miles in 2011.

I quickly discovered that I am an impatient person... and that getting 10 miles a week (which is necessary to reach my goal by the end of the year) can be accomplished much more quickly when one runs.

So I began to run.

Intervals at first. Walk a minute, run a minute. Walk a minute, run two.

Eventually, I pushed myself to run a whole mile.

And I didn't die.

And then, because I'm a goal-setting type, I decided I needed something to work toward.

So I signed up for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. April 17th. That gave me a few months to train...

And yesterday, I ran it.

And I didn't die.

In fact, I beat my goal of 33:00 minutes by more than three minutes, finishing the race at 29:50.

I never, ever, in a million years would have told you that I was going to become a runner when I was forty two years old.

But I have done that very thing.

I love running.

Not necessarily while I'm doing it. Although there is a certain degree of pride that I'm pushing myself when I feel like quitting and I'm doing something with my body that I never felt capable of doing...

But afterwards, I feel crazy good. Like, invigorated. For hours. Whodathunk?

And now I've decided to try to run Bloomsday.

Last night when we were getting ready for bed, Asia looked at me and said "You've become a person who runs. I never imagined you would become that person when I married you..."

Me neither.

Tuesday Ten

2011-04-12T07:15:00.000-07:00

I saw my first daffodils blooming yesterday on my way to work. Spring is such a gift every year when you live through long, dreary, snowy, cold winters. Truly, I can't think of a nicer thing than spring.
I had an epiphany last night that God will redeem some of Asia's food issues in heaven and he will LOVE vegetables. And fruit. And food. One of my greatest sadnesses is that he doesn't really derive any pleasure from food. Food is one of my favorite things in the world... (hence, my need for accountability in the form of my job! Thank you, Weight Watchers for teaching me how to love good food and still stay at a healthy weight.) I look forward to sharing delicious food with Asia someday in heaven. Won't that be lovely?
Speaking of good food, we went out last night with some great friends - we were just going to meet them for dessert, but since I had to come straight from work I ended up ordering a hummus plate. Wow. Best.hummus.plate.ever. YUM. The flat bread was straight out of the oven and there was a huge pile of hummus, olives, feta, marinated cucumbers and tomatoes... oh my goodness, me-oh-my. It was good!
We listed the car that was donated to our trip on Craigslist on Saturday... now, you should know, this was an ugly, seventeen year old Saturn. U.G.L.Y. We had nine people call for it in the first half hour it was up... Asia's phone just kept ringing... we sold it to the first person who showed up with the cash. Amazing. I guess there are people that just sit there stalking Craigslist for cheap cars. Weird. Who knew?
Kyler got his driver's permit a few weeks ago... and still seems not very interested in driving... he asks occasionally if he can drive. But he's not one of these kids who's naturally good at driving, so he's a little nervous - and I don't always feel like we have time when we're running from place to place. There's not a lot of time for driving during the week. We need to make a point of getting him out on the weekends to get more experience. I enjoy teaching him, to some degree. It's for sure a new adventure in parenthood...
Poor Gracie girl has been having a bit of a rough patch - her bad leg has been acting up again and I'm afraid she's put weight back on, which only exacerbates the problem. Add to that the fact that she's got her seasonal baldness again (a condition where she literally goes bald on her sides in the winter from lack of sunlight) and she's a wreck. Poor baby. She really is the sweetest dog...
Made homemade granola for our fundraising bake sale last week... my sister-in-law visited us a week or so ago and we got to talking about homemade granola. I've made it in the past but didn't have a go-to recipe so I went online looking for one to use for the bake sale. I hit the mother lode - found a recipe that's not only delicious, but is SUPER easy to make and actually ends up with nice big chunks of granola instead of loose, oat-y granola. Yum. You can find the recipe here. (The key is NOT stirring it while it's baking. Just so you know...)
Kyler's tendinitis seems to be healed... it still gives him a little bit of pain, but he's planning to compete at the track meet on Thursday. I'll be curious to see how these weeks of rest will impact his competitiveness. Hoping he can still run well. He'd had such a great start to his season, it's been tough to see him struggle with this injury.
Ethan is playing upright bass this year... and I think he's really good. I mean, who really knows, since I haven't gone in to watch the other fifth graders play. Maybe they're all playing at his level. But geez... he's really good. I love listening to him practice. I think I was secretly hoping he wouldn't like it so I wouldn't have to commit to packing around this HUMONGOUS instrument for years, but I think perhaps we're in it for the long haul. His teacher took him aside after class the other day and gave him the sixth grader's music because he said E. needed a challenge. You've never seen a prouder little boy come home and practice than I saw that day...
I run my first 5K race on Sunday. I'm SO excited. I'm ready. Yay for goal setting. (I'm a goal-nerd, for sure...) Really - I'm giddy with excitement. I'm doing the Race for the Cure in downtown Spokane... hoping to complete it in under 35 minutes... my best run time so far in my training is 32:15... but I imagine it may be harder to run in a crowd so I'm setting my goal a little higher. We shall see. Truly - it's a thrill to just be able to finish. I never EVER would have imagined myself running 5K a year ago. Good.for.me.

Happy Tuesday, dear ones. Smooches.

Bullet list...

2011-04-07T10:03:00.000-07:00

The buds on my lilacs are getting big. Never mind that it was snowing yesterday. Spring is declaring it's arrival!
I've been on the phone nonstop the past few days trying to find alternative ways of getting our immunizations for the trip... if we go to the regional health district, it's going to cost us over $1000. Partly because they charge an office visit fee of $45 per person. That's $225 just to walk in the door. We're finding some pharmacies have access to travel vaccines and only charge for the cost of the immunization... problem is, we can't find anyone who can get the yellow fever vaccine. If we have to go to the health district for that one shot, we might as well get them all there. But UGH! I hate being on the phone. But especially when it feels futile.
Kyler has been fighting tendonitis in his right leg... he hasn't been training much at all, allowing it to rest and heal. He wasn't able to compete in the first league track meet, but is hoping this spring break week of rest will heal it enough that he'll be able to run next week. It's frustrating, especially because he had such a great start to the season, running his PR time his first time out. He's taken two short runs the past couple of days and it hasn't bothered him, so we're hoping it's better.
We have a friend who donated a car to us to sell for the trip... it needed a little work - a new battery and alternator... so he came over last weekend to work on it, and managed to get Kyler out there with him. Asia's NOT the 'work on your car' type of dad, so it was comical and heartwarming to see Kyler out there with Stephan crawling around under the car, getting greasy and being all manly. We'll be listing the car on Craigslist over the weekend.
I can hardly believe that we get to see Tejan in three months. Sometimes I get all caught up in the finances and the planning and forget that he's at the other end of all this hard work. It's all worth it to be able to sit with him and love on him again.
Being in a place of complete dependence on God is hard - but so good. Our plane tickets have gone up in price three times since we started looking at purchasing. We are looking at $5000 more than we were expecting to pay. But in the last week we have gotten $1000 in support we weren't expecting... it's ALL God. Amazing how he meets needs... anxious to see how the rest of it comes together. It's a daily exercise in faith, for sure.

Happy Spring, friends. Smooches.

Lessons from wrestling.

2011-03-28T08:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you have to deal with stuff much larger than you think you're capable of dealing with

Sometimes you start from the bottom of the heap. You just have to work harder to get to the top.

Use the skills you've been taught.

Sometimes you're gonna look a little silly doing what you know is right.

Keep on keepin' on.

Always look 'em right in the eye...

You can do it. Even when you really feel like quitting.

If you're on top, you still need to work hard so you can stay on top.

People are always watching you.
(E's had the same coach for five years. He's been watching and encouraging him the WHOLE time. If nothing changes, he will have this same coach when he gets to high school. Cool.)

Somtimes you get hurt.
(And you mom will always wish she could rescue you. But she won't, because you have to figure out how to get out of painful situations by yourself sometimes.)

Sometimes you have to dig really deep to find the strength you need to face challenges.

Know the rules ahead of time.
(E. actually pinned himself with this move. Crazy, huh? We had no idea you could even do that!)

Thoughts on creativity...

2011-03-22T06:20:00.000-07:00

So I find myself getting to the end of every Monday and dreading the fact that I'm supposed to have a "Creativity Monday" post.

That most certainly was not my intent when I began the series... and definitely doesn't inspire much in the way of the soul-feeding I was aiming for when I declared Mondays a day for creative pursuits.

As I was thinking this through in the midst of insomnia in the wee hours this morning, I've decided to suspend (or postpone, or cancel, or quit - OUCH!) Creativity Mondays for now.

There's a big part of me that suffers embarrassment over that... I hate to be seen as a quitter. I take a lot of pride in being a goal-setter/achiever. But the older I get, the more I also strive to be good at taking care of myself. And if something has become a strain or drudgery that is completely within my control to stop, I feel an obligation to myself to end the misery.

This forces me to ponder a bit why I've changed so much in the last two years in regard to creative pursuits... there was a time when arts/crafts/creating something from nothing was a passion for me... it energized me. Now I feel more drained by it than anything else.

Perhaps it's a season... my priorities have shifted so much over the past couple of years as I watch the kids growing up (and away.) I just cannot imagine taking time away from my children to sit in my studio and play with paper. There's a sense of urgency sitting on my shoulder whispering in my ear constantly "They're almost grown... "

Combine that shift in priorities with the devotion to and fulfillment I get from my job and I feel like the needs that were met by creative pursuits in the past are now being met in other ways. I gain so much satisfaction from doing my job well... I don't feel the need to create pretty things. I'm not gratified by creative efforts much at all right now. So my desire to put my energy into is has completely waned.

A lot of this is simply thinking out loud - so I apologize if I seem a little disjointed or flaky.

I just know that I don't have time to push myself to fulfill some sort of bloggy obligation I created for myself when it's not satisfying any sort of personal need and is instead a chore I've come to regret taking on.

I encourage a lot of reflection in my job with Weight Watchers... asking my members to consider what they can take away from a 'bad' weigh-in. "What have you learned about yourself this week?" I ask.

I can say that I've learned something here. So it's not a failure.

It's a journey.

And I'll embrace the journey.

Happy Tuesday, friends.

Weekend Update.

2011-03-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

Don't those crocus just make you exceedingly happy? They sure do me... there's some color outside my door!!!
St. Patricks day dinner: Pumpkin bread french toast, sausages and green apple sodas for the kiddos. Weird. But yummy. Love the action in the bottom left corner of this picture... Asia grabbing his french toast.
Kyler had his first timed run for track on Wednesday - they call them the Tiger Relays - and it serves as a sort of qualifying/placement run. He's running the 1600 meter (1 mile) race again. He finished on Wednesday with a time of 4:54, which was his PR (personal record) at the end of last year's track season. REALLY, really proud of him.
The Variety Show for Ethan's school is next week... he and his little friend Bridger put together a choreographed light saber fight/dance that is hilarious. I've been involved in the variety show since Kyler was in second grade... it's one of my VERY favorite parental involvements. Sad that next year will be the end of our time at elementary school and I will have to say goodbye to this tradition.
My new work schedule is a DREAM. I absolutely LOVE the change from 7 meetings working six days a week to 8 meetings working five instead. Plus - because of the timing of my weekend meetings, I feel like I have WAY more time off. I used to work Sunday afternoons, which I didn't realize at the time totally broke up my weekend. Now I work Saturday mornings, but I'm done by 10:00 am - and then I don't have to work again until Monday night. It's almost like having three whole days off. I'm REALLY happy with it. No one misses me on Saturday mornings... they're all just barely out of bed by the time I'm done!
My running continues to go really well. I did my first five mile run last weekend... it felt great. I'm actually really amazed that I'm actually doing it. So crazy. And I really like it. Who knew? I've always sort of prided myself on being a walker, so the running thing has really caught me off guard. I've logged 114 miles so far in 2011. Some of those are walking miles - but the majority have been run. My goal is 500 by the end of the year. I'm right on track.
Fundraising is plugging right along. We'll have another bake sale on April 10th... and I'll have my card classes next month too. We almost have enough to buy our tickets - which should be happening by the end of the month.
Spent last weekend on the Oregon coast with my mom at a scrapbooking retreat... we ended up having to evacuate for a tsunami warning, as you may have heard. Thankfully nothing happened. I finished a project that's been sitting half done for over a year... will be sharing it soon for a Creativity Monday.
Found out a couple of days ago that Tejan will be having another surgery on his jaw in May. It continues to cause him problems as he is growing... apparently his lower (broken) jaw is not growing like the rest of his head. The crazy thing is that his surgery will be on Mercy Ship - where our dear friend Jay is serving right there in Freetown, Sierra Leone. I can't begin to tell you how much peace it gives me to know that Jay will be right there - able to check in on T... and tell me firsthand how he is doing. We may even be able to do some live chatting. Can you imagine? SO thankful that his medical needs are being met and that we can be connected to him while that is happening.
Happy weekend, friends!

Creativity Monday - posted on Tuesday because I was too tired last night!

2011-03-15T16:58:00.000-07:00

I'm a sucker for a dollar bin... whether it's at Target, or JoAnn's, or a whole pickin' store of dollar buys like Dollar Tree - I love seeing what I can find.

These sweet felt shamrocks were in the dollar bin at JoAnn's awhile back.

I love seasonal decorations - I grew up with a mom who always changed decorations according to the upcoming holiday... including a candy dish full of pretty seasonal candy with a lid that she would tape shut so we couldn't eat the candy!

I have lots of Easter decor... but have never had anything to decorate with for St. Patrick's Day.

Now I do.

This was a SUPER quick, easy project. I simply punched some holes in the shamrocks, made some pleated rosettes and strung it all together with some brads and ribbon.

It makes me happy.

Two years, four months and three days later...

2011-03-08T19:30:00.000-08:00

This girl needed braces.

And this girl does not...

(Congrats, beautiful girl... your teeth are lovely.)

Creativity Monday

2011-03-07T12:15:00.000-08:00

They're done! I finally had time today to sit down and finish the first of two sets of class samples for my fundraising card classes.

Come join me on Tuesday, April 5th, or Thursday, April 7th at 6:00 pm to make these ten cards - suggested donation for the class is $25.00 - and ALL proceeds go towards our trip to Sierra Leone.

I only have ten kits (meaning ten spots!) available for this class. Space reserved on a first come, first served basis. You may purchase a kit only if you are unable to attend the class - just let me know that you will just be buying the kit.

Classes will be at my home.

I'm so excited to teach a class again - it's been almost two years since Apropos closed - and I haven't taught anything since then... and I'm excited to be able to use this arena to raise money for our trip.

I'll be scheduling another class for early May with a whole different set of papers and embellishments - watch for those cards to be posted soon!

Let me know in the comments here or on my Facebook page if you want one of the ten spots for the April classes.

Ten on Tuesday

2011-03-01T07:10:00.000-08:00

No Creativity Monday this week... it was laundry and cleaning Monday instead and I just didn't have the energy at the end of the day to be creative. Sorry! I'll pick it up next week!
Savannah had her 8th grade visit to the high school last week... yikes! I can't possibly be old enough to have two high schoolers, can I? Ready or not, here we are... she's all registered for her freshman classes. Crazy.
She's counting down the days... only one more week and then her braces come off after two and a half years. She's already had almost all of them removed - only the front four teeth still have anything one them... next Tuesday they'll remove the rest and give her her retainer. She's beside herself.
I led my first Saturday meetings last weekend. I LOVE doing two back-to-back meetings... if I have to drive there, I'd just as soon get two meetings done. Had over 130 people attend the two meetings and sold over $1500 in product. Yay!
Kyler started track practice officially yesterday. There's still about 4 inches of snow on the ground. Silly. He's been running all winter, so it's not really anything he's not used to. But brrr.... right?
Fundraising for our trip continues... got a report yesterday of $$$ that's come in and continue to be amazed by people's generosity. We are officially at just over $7000 between money raised and money saved - a little less than halfway to what we need. We're scheduling another bake sale and I've got a couple of other fundraising ideas up my sleeve... We need to get to about $12,000 sooner rather than later so we can purchase our plane tickets...
Need a cute calendar? I think THIS is just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. I've got mine printed and plan to assemble it as soon as I have a free minute...
March 30th will be my six year anniversary of blogging. What a crazy ride it's been. One of my favorite self-indulgent time wasters is to go back and pick a random month and just read... what was going on in March of 2009? Go read it! November 2006? Go read it! So cool. So glad I've kept it up. It's a wonderful record of our lives.
I am officially tired of my winter wardrobe... particularly for work. Should I wear the black slacks or the brown slacks? Black tights or brown tights? Black boots or brown boots? Ugh. Really ready for some spring weather so I can bust out some color.
I took on a new job responsibility - I am now a Location Coordinator for our North Nevada location... which means I'm responsible for all the ordering and inventory. It's a challenging new position and I'm thrilled with the opportunity to learn it. Gosh, I love my job.

Happy Tuesday, friends! Have a lovely day. Smooch you all.

Creativity Monday - Week #8

2011-02-21T09:46:00.000-08:00

Today, as I'm sure you're aware, is President's Day. Which means the whole family is home. Which means I'm compelled to take advantage of our lazy-don't-have-to-be-anywhere-morning... and make a yummy breakfast.

I had blackberries in the fridge... I've been buying them from Costco lots lately to eat in the morning with my Greek yogurt... but this batch was starting to get a little soft, so I decided to try them out in one of my favorite recipes: scones.

I've used this scone recipe for years. It's my go-to guest breakfast... I've thrown everything in them: chocolate chips, walnuts, dried cranberries, even cinnamon chips... and I vary the toppings, from simple glazes to sprinklings of coarse sugar, white chocolate drizzles to homemade apple butter.

But I've never made them with blackberries.

So today I did. And I topped them with a simple Lemon Vanilla glaze.

Making blackberry scones is a messy proposition, I learned. Kneading dough full of berries results in a juicy, gooey mess. But it's worth it... because these babies are delish.

Here's my standard recipe... truly - you can add just about anything to this recipe and always have moist, flaky, delicious scones. Enjoy!

Cathy's Scones

2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. powdered sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
6 Tbsp. butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg
About 1/2 c. milk
1/2 to 3/4 c. desired add-ins (mini chocolate chips, dried cranberries, cinnamon chips, berries, nuts... yum!)

Combine the flour, powdered sugar and baking powder. Cut in butter with a pastry blender. Put egg into a liquid measuring cup and add enough milk to reach 2/3 c. measurement. Add to other ingredients and stir just until moisture is absorbed. Turn onto lightly floured surface and knead until dough holds it's shape, about 4 or 5 times. Shape into a circle about 8 inches across and 1 inch thick. Cut into 8 wedges and bake at 450 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes. (I sprinkle dry toppings like cinnamon sugar or coarse sugar on before I bake...)

These are truly REALLY good scones. You know Starbuck's scones that are so dry you can barely choke them down? These are NOT those. These are moist, delicious, fluffy, wonderful scones. If you think you don't like scones, you should try these... they'll change your mind.

My favorite combinations?

Walnuts with maple glaze
Dried cranberries and white chocolate chips
Cinnamon chips topped with fresh homemade apple butter
Mini chocolate chips with coarse sugar topping

For my Weight Watchers peeps, I put the blackberry recipe into the recipe builder and came out with 7 Points Plus apiece. (Well worth it, my friends. These are GOOD!)

Girlfriends. The Mini-Series. Part Three.

2011-02-18T06:50:00.000-08:00

In November, my friend Julie had a heart attack.
Julie is 37.

The day it happened, Asia texted me at work to tell me she was in the hospital... text by text (as he was receiving them from her husband) he would tell me what was happening... "Julie is on her way to the hospital in an ambulance... heart palpitations", "In the ER... looks like it's for sure cardiac", "Massive heart attack - in surgery now..." It was a series of information so upsetting, each one more unbelievable than the next.

On my way home from work, still unsure of her status, I sobbed out prayers for Julie. For her family. For the doctors.

Julie is my friend.

We went into help mode immediately - figuring out what we could do for them... and ended up keeping their two boys at the house for a couple of days... and then the next week preparing and sharing Thanksgiving dinner with them and their extended family... 19 people in all.

I realized through that time - that I cherish Julie - and friends like her - more than I thought.

Sad that it took a potential death for me to recognize the importance of my friends...

That event is what really stirred up the inspiration for this series of posts.

Because while I do not consider myself a traditional friend - and I struggle with friendship with other women - I realized the value of being, and having friends.

When Corey's father had a heart attack several years ago, my initial reaction was to jump into action... to do whatever it took to be there for Corey. I was prepared to move to Canada for a couple of weeks and run her bed and breakfast so she could take care of her parents. I would do anything for her.

When Julie was recovering, I was prepared to do whatever it took for her to feel that her family was cared for in her absence.

When Tejan was here, I had friends who would call just to see if I wanted a Starbucks while I was sitting for hours on end at the hospital. Friends who would come sit with T. so I could run home and take a shower... friends that cried with me when he left and who would put their arms around me as the tears flowed freely...

I do have friends.

They just look different than what I sometimes think they ought to.

I have this vision of friendship that includes lots of time together... where you can work together in another woman's kitchen and instinctively know where things go and what to do next and where the conversation flows freely from time spent together. Where shared experiences lead into comfortable conversations and a desire for more shared experiences...

I don't exactly have that... although I do know where Julie's silverware is... and our families have spent lots of time together over the past year... and it becomes more and more comfortable for me...

So while our friendship (and many of my friendships) doesn't exactly look like my vision, it's getting closer. I'm a slow learner... and I'm not exactly good at the female friend thing... I'm a little awkward... and I've been told I'm 'hard to read'... but I really do value friendship.

I value being a friend. Being there for someone in their moment of need is such a huge privilege... and I cherish the opportunity to do that for someone.

I value having friends... having someone who hears my heart and who notices things about me and encourages me... and who can be there for me when I desperately need help.

So I guess it all means that I'm really good at the the big friendship skills... the 'oh my gosh she needs me' response is deeply ingrained in me. It's the little things I still need to work on... the 'I'm going to take a walk and it would be nicer to take it with a friend than go alone' stuff... the 'let's go shopping together' and 'we should bake cookies together' stuff that just just doesn't come very naturally to me. I'm not even sure if I value those little things... but I do acknowledge that without the little things, it's tough to become trustworthy enough to be allowed the privilege of the big things.

Shortly after Julie and her family moved to town, Corey was here visiting. One evening as we were taking a walk together I told her "I think God put Julie in my life for a reason. I think He wants me to be and have a friend... to stretch me back into that somehow..." There was a pretty remarkable set of circumstances that brought Julie and her family into our lives... and I had a sense that it was going to be more than just a casual thing. Somehow I knew I wasn't going to be able to avoid a friendship. (Because truthfully, I think for years I had been avoiding friendships with women...)

And gently, probably without even knowing it, Julie has been teaching me how to be, and have, a friend.

A friend that I want to do things with.

A friend that I can text when I'm excited about something. A recent example? "I just ran a 5K in 34:54!"

A friend that I spend an hour with each week, praying for our kids.

A friend that bought me a gorgeous paper flower stem for my birthday after I mentioned how much I liked hers one day at her house.

It's not just about Julie, though. It's also about learning from Asia how to care for others - and reaching out to younger women who (remarkably) look up to me as an older, wiser women.

It's about making an effort to maintain friendships from my past and continue to be a friend to those amazing women God has blessed me with over the years.

It's about letting go of past hurts and trusting the good in friendship.

It's about getting outside of myself - and my comfort zone - in the interest of being able to be there for someone else.

So it's a huge learning process.

And it's good.

If I have failed to be your friend over the years, forgive me. I think I've spent quite a bit of time choosing to be a bit of a hermit. Choosing to protect myself. Choosing to be selfish with my time because awkward isn't my favorite feeling.

I'm happy to say that God is faithful to bring out the best in us... even when it's a little uncomfortable... and when it doesn't come naturally. Somehow, He continues His patient, gentle molding of our selves into better pictures of His heart.

My name is Cathy. And I want to be your friend.

Creativity Monday - Week #7

2011-02-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

I'm designing cards for a fundraising card class/kit sale... so I spent yesterday working with this lovely Crate Paper line...

I'm going to make as many cards as I can from the supplies I have kitted... yesterday I only had time for these six cards, but I've got LOTS of supplies leftover so I'm hoping I can come up with at least 15 cards for each kit. Then I'll create instructions for all the cards and have a class here for local people... and sell kits to anyone from far away who wants them.

I only have enough supplies for ten kits total...

Hopefully I can sell them all.

This is one of two card classes I'm planning - the next one will be cards from three different Scenic Route lines.

I'll be sure to post when I have all the cards finished and give information about signing up for a class/kit!

Monday Musings

2011-02-14T10:50:00.000-08:00

Tuesday Tens just aren't happening lately. I've added a second Tuesday meeting and Kyler is back to leaving by 6:30 for morning runs... somehow those two things eat up my typical blogging times and I can't ever seem to get a Tuesday post in. So I think Monday will be the day from now on for my random, numbered posts...

I just signed up for my first 5K race. I'm excited to be participating in the Eastern Washington Race for the Cure on April 17th. I've been training and have run several 5K training runs already... with my best time so far being 34:02. I'm loving running with my Nike Plus shoes and ipod... it tracks all my distances and times and personal bests. So fun!
Work has been insane... Weight Watchers has been overwhelmed with the response to our new Points Plus program. My meetings are bigger than ever. I love being able to introduce so many people to this healthy way of life. It's such a privilege to walk alongside people as they make the necessary changes for healthy weight loss and maintenance. I LOVE my job!
I've got some schedule changes coming up with work, which will include taking on two Saturday morning meetings. Excited for the challenge of working these - they're back-to-back meetings that are typically large, high-energy meetings.
Yes - Saturday morning meetings. Which will mean no early morning garage sales for me on Saturdays. I've consoled myself with the fact that I can still garage sale on Fridays and that I'll be done working by 10:00 - so I can still hit some sales late in the morning.
Ethan is a busy little boy these days, with wrestling practice starting up this week, variety show rehearsals every Thursday morning, Math is Cool competition practice on Friday mornings and school chorus rehearsals starting soon. Why does everything he likes to do fall into the same two month period? Good thing it's a quiet time for the other two kids... it's great to only have one kid super busy at once!
Savannah registers for her high school courses next week. She gets to take an accelerated 2nd/3rd year Spanish course her freshman year because she's been taking Spanish 1 this year... it'll be so cool for her to be able to finish 4 years of language by the end of her sophomore year. She LOVES Spanish and is saying right now that she wants to major in it in college and be a high school Spanish teacher.
Can I just say that I can't believe I'm going to have two high schoolers next year?
Things are going well for our plans for our trip. We will apply for the kids' passports on Friday and have a team of 11 people total taking the trip. The next big step will be buying our plane tickets - which should happen in the next month or so. We've had some people donate airline miles, which hopefully will help cut down on the biggest expense of the trip.
Asia took me to the Davenport Hotel overnight last weekend for my birthday. Part of our package deal included $100 worth of dining credit in any of the hotel eateries. We had dinner Friday night in one of the restaurants, but because we're typically pretty frugal eater-outers, we had loads of money left on our credit after our dinner. What else could we do, but order $66 worth of room service for breakfast? Can you believe that? It was insane for this coupon-cutting frugal chick. Insane, but really fun, and a huge treat.
No, I haven't forgotten about Creativity Monday. Watch for that post later!

Happy Monday, friends! Smooch you all...

Creativity Monday - Week #6

2011-02-07T23:03:00.000-08:00

Eve of 42

There is a clothesline of grace I see

And hanging on it are names.

Precious souls who have given me love.

Kindred spirits who have believed.

There are stories hanging there.

Wispy, time worn and comfortable strips of cloth woven into a lifetime.

Worn thin in places.

And bright, shiny new in others

Further down the line are memories.

Sunsets over water.

Make believe and dragonflies.

Dreams of a life yet to be

that became so much more.

I could never have fashioned this...

in all my wisdom I would have left off many

of the most beautiful things...

The moments where each breath was an act of mercy

the goodbyes

the forever broken heart

or the struggle to find light in darkness...

the pain of loving deeply

and losing much

and yet, looking at it,

there is perfect symmetry.

An artistry that goes far beyond my best attempts to be.

I would not change a thing.

I walk the distance

and I see that Time has been my friend.

I recognize myself in the pieces hanging there.

I find shelter and meaning and honesty there.

There hangs my story.

Pages read aloud for those who come behind me to hear.

Above me the skies are blue and full of promise

and below is fragrant green

and all around me there is a song.

A song of grace.

There are no promises on this clothesline for the future

except that the Hands that have held it there

will continue

strong in their resolve

to always hold the line taut.

This clothesline of grace.

Girlfriends. The Mini-Series. Part Two.

2011-02-03T05:52:00.000-08:00

I am an introvert.

Which, in and of itself, is an interesting fact. Because as I described in my first Girlfriend post, as a child, I was OUT there. My self-confidence displayed itself in boisterous behavior. I liked being with people.

Now, as an adult, I'm quite shy. Large group settings exhaust me. Home is my very favorite place to be, especially if I'm there alone and it's quiet.

Silence is my favorite sound. Even more than music (which I also love.)

So, as you can imagine, those are some issues that make friendship challenging for me.

I've found myself, over the years, trying to reach out to other women. Making lunch dates. And then, as soon as the date is set, dreading the actual date. The struggle between having time alone and giving it up to spend time with another person is a very real struggle for me. I have to consciously push through that, understanding the value of relationship to force myself to leave myself to be with another.

I've spent some time pondering if that means I'm just extremely selfish. Who likes themselves so much that they'd just rather be alone? Freak.

Another interesting fact in this whole struggle - is of course, that I am married to the world's most out-there extrovert. Asia LOVES people. He thrives on relationship. It brings an interesting dynamic into my life... one that is displayed every Sunday morning as I stand waiting for him after church... having gotten my fill of interaction in the time before service, I wait for him to touch base with the dozens of people he wants to see each week. Sometimes I get lucky and find a friend I can talk to, but mostly, I can be found leaning on the wall near the door, trying to catch his eye to give him the silent "I'm done".

And then there's this: I'm extremely comfortable being in front of large groups of people. In my work, I speak to about 500 people each week. Which again makes me feel like an awful person - uncomfortable in large groups unless I'm the center of attention. Oh dear...

But back to the girlfriend thing.

How does a person like me nurture relationships? 'Cause I haven't figured it out.

I look at friends of mine who have close girlfriends. And I'm so happy for them. I can tell it is something that is very satisfying. I observe women who have adult sisters - who know them inside and out and share secrets and laughter and years of togetherness - and I think it's a beautiful thing. I am not jealous of those relationships, but I see how well they seem to fill up a special place in those women's lives.

But (and here I go again with thinking this makes me sound like an awful person) it seems to me like more work than it's worth. Because for me, it is SO much work. And I am pretty stinkin' content with the way things have been.

Did I just say that out loud?

Wow.

I know God is working. Stretching me. Recently showing me the value of friendship. I will describe some of those gentle proddings (He's always SO gentle...) in my next post.

Thanks for being patient with me as I process and ponder and pray through these posts. I value honesty so much and I want to be real in my struggle. It's a little hard for me to admit many of these things - so I'll just take it one truth at a time, if you don't mind. Smooches to you, my bloggy friends.

Creativity Monday - Week #5

2011-01-31T12:09:00.000-08:00

I desperately wish I could give you a link for this project... at some point I printed a template for these cut-out birds from the lovely shop Fawn & Forest... but now I can't for the life of me find it on their website.

Be that as it may, I decided to use the template to cut some book-page birds this morning.

While I love end end result, it definitely falls into the "Gosh that's cute, but what do you do with it?" category.

Right now I have it hanging above one of my kitchen windows because it makes me smile. But it's fragile and cannot support it's own weight - so draping it anywhere, bunting style, is out of the question.

A nice idea... little birdies cut out folded-paper-gingerbread-man style... but it leaves me a little perlexed and I'm not sure it will stay up for long. It feels a little out of place just resting there atop the window moulding.

So, you win some and you lose some. I'm not ready to call it a Creativity Monday failure... I think it definitely has potential... I'm just not feeling it right now...

Any suggestions, clever, creative friends?

Girlfriends. The Mini-Series. Part One.

2011-01-29T08:31:00.000-08:00

This is a hard post for me to write because I have to admit a few shortcomings and struggle to put words to one of the hardest things I've struggled with as an adult. So bear with me... I don't think I'm going to cry. But it's an ongoing issue. And it seems to have struck a chord with a few readers because there were several comments about it when I just barely mentioned it awhile back... so here we go.

Thank goodness we're all works-in-progress. Because I've changed in so many ways over the years, hopefully most of them good.

As a child, there were probably two things that stand out the most as distinctive, character issues for me. One - I had an inordinate amount of self-confidence. Not sure where that came from - but I believed I was the smartest, funniest, coolest chick around. I knew I was good at stuff. And I believed I could accomplish anything I wanted. Even through junior high, I held myself high on my own personal pedestal and never struggled with the self-doubt and uncertainty many kids notoriously suffer. And secondly, I had a best friend. A friend who appeared in my Sunday School class when I was five and became my soul mate. We were loyal to each other in ways fickle little girls usually are not and I hardly remember any blips on the radar of our friendship. Sure, we fought occasionally. But I never doubted that she was (and would be) my best friend always.

Those two things came together in my formative years to create a young woman who did not perceive a need for very many people - particularly for girl friends. I grew up with two brothers in a neighborhood full of boys. There were three other girls on our LONG country road - one several years older and two many years younger. In my age group, there was me, Phil, Monte, Troy, and Eric. I knew how to be friends with boys. Boys were easy. Girls, on the other hand, fought about silly things. I had very little tolerance for silly things.

I did have other friends who were girls. Corey (the best friend) and I attended different schools until we got to high school, so of course, I had other friends at school. But even there, I was privileged to go to a K-8, small country school where most of us had simply known each other since forever. I didn't have to make friends. They were just there.

Fast forward. College was fine... I took a fairly non-traditional route and didn't do the four-years-in-a-row-live-in-the-dorms thing. In fact, I only went to school full time for a year and a half, never living on campus and changing schools after one year. I have no real friends from college, to speak of.

I moved to California when I was twenty to go into full time ministry. Again, I was still full of confidence, thinking I was going to single-handedly save the inner-city of San Jose. I became the rock star of the ministry I worked for, developing a cutting edge reading readiness program for preschoolers in one of the worst school districts in the state. I did have good friends during this phase of my life - dear co-workers that I co-labored with in the ghetto - bonding over break-ins and sharing meals. We lived in community before I even knew what that meant. It was cool. I had a few good girlfriends during this time... so I guess this was a stage when I managed to get out there and meet people and make the most of a BIG change. Corey was newly married at this point - and our friendship was going through probably one of the most difficult periods we ever faced. We pushed through it. But it was awkward at best.

Then I met Asia. And we got married. And I moved back 'home.' And we struggled through those first few years of marriage when you're trying to discover how in the world to navigate friendships as a married couple. Again - awkward. But we were young and in love and it was all okay.

Then I got pregnant. And I was suddenly thrust into this club... this maternal 'I have something in common with anyone who's ever had a baby' society. And I had friends who were also having babies and trying to figure out the whole motherhood thing. And we bonded. And we were good friends. We were so desperate for adult interaction that we clung to each other fervently, revelling so much in the few hours of freedom we might find once or twice a month that we were content to do our grocery shopping together... just talking, laughing, being friends.

We moved to Spokane somewhere in the middle of that phase. I had an almost four and almost two-year-old. I would soon become pregnant with my third. Moving here, I interrupted the flow of those friendships and tried frantically to re-create them here. Which began a serious struggle with friendship.

Without going into too much detail, I will say that I was hurt. I lost all the self-confidence I used to feel. I went through a period where I felt unwanted, unworthy and unnecessary.

I don't point fingers. It was just a really hard time for me. I am beginning to be able to identify things I could have done differently. Faults in myself I didn't see or acknowledge at the time.

I came out of that experience about six years ago. And frankly, I was tired. Hurt. Overwhelmed by being in the crazy everyone-going-ten-different-directions-school-years with the kids. It was easy to be content just being busy.

And so basically, I quit trying.

The phase where I was conveniently in control of all the hours of the day and could sit with other women in McDonald's playlands were over. We were all running all over with kids and activities and the river of woman/motherhood began to trickle too many different directions to make friendships easy.

So I just didn't make time to try.

And now, while I have some women I would definitely call friends, I can honestly say that in the twelve-plus years we've lived in Spokane, I have not been, or had, a dear friend.

This has become really long. And I have so much more I want to say. I'm going to make this a multi-post topic for now. Because I want to do it justice. And because it deserves a lot more.

Stay tuned.

Creativity Monday - Week #4

2011-01-25T06:53:00.000-08:00

I've been trying lately to frequent the occasional thrift store... most of you know I'm religious about my summer Saturday morning garage sales, but in the winter, my bargain hunting seems to fade. So this year I've been making the effort to stop by a local store to keep the bargains flowing... and it's been worthwhile - I found a 'tags-on' , never worn pair of jeans for myself the other day that fit perfectly - for $12.

I also found a really ugly metal "I-Do"-on-the-cover wedding flip photo album. Silly me - I forgot to take a before picture of it... but I knew it could be repurposed... so I snatched it up for $1..99.

I am the least organized person when it comes to recipes... I wish I could say I had a fabulous system of keeping track of them, but I don't. I have a mess of a cupboard where I throw in all the magazine pages I've ripped out, the recipes I've printed off the internet and a handful of handwritten notes to myself about meals... oh - it's such a mess. There are a few binders with some of my favorite recipes, but even those are in ill-repair and need some revamping.

Enter the ugly flip album. I pulled out some of my favorite Cosmo Cricket paper, from the "Early Bird" line - and recovered that bad boy. It was easy to do, because the pages come completely off the easel - so the heavy metal front and back got a makeover with these lovely retro prints wrapped around them, reviving the album into something I'm proud to have sitting on my kitchen counter. I added a few tags, some fun embellishments (how about that old school Making Memories leather flower? I think I've had that in my stash unused since about 2004...) and now I'm ready to start putting my favorite go-to recipes inside. The pages are typical slip-in photo pages, which will be perfect because they'll protect my recipes from the inevitable splashes and splatters. And there are LOTS of pages, which is good, because in 19 years of homemaking, I've accumulated quite a few favorite recipes.

And there you have it. A fun splash of color for my kitchen that actually helps solve an organizational quandry - it's a win-win!!!

Thursday morning thoughts...

2011-01-20T09:38:00.000-08:00

Haven't been blogging lots lately... winter seems a quiet season. Not a lot of interesting or exciting things happening - each week feels so similar to the last.
I've modified my walking resolution for this year and instead have decided to log at least 500 miles of activity this year. That means I can take a day off here and there, but that on the days I DO move, I have to move considerably more than I did when I was simply walking every day with no distance requirements. I have to log about 9.5 miles a week to get my 500 miles in. Not a ton, but certainly something I have to stay on top of. I don't want to get to July and only have 100 miles done... then I'd be in big trouble.
I'm pushing myself and actually starting to run. I want to run a 5K this year. I've always hated running, but for some reason feel compelled to do it this year. I ran a full 3 miles without stopping earlier this week. And I didn't die! Who knew?
Kyler turned 16 last month, which has lots of people asking if he's driving yet. The short answer would be no. The long answer is that he has very little interest in driving... hasn't even asked if he can go take his learner's permit test. Add to that the fact that he can't get his license without taking driver's ed and that our paying for driver's ed is linked to his grades, and, well, yeah... I don't see it happening very soon. That darn pre-AP biology class...
Savannah, on the other hand, cannot wait to drive and is already counting down the days until she's fifteen and can go get her permit.
Looks like I may actually be adding a second day off to my week soon. I've been working six days a week since early October. My Thursday At Work meeting will most likely not be renewing - which would give me an actual whole day in the middle of the week when I don't have to work. The nice thing is that I'll be adding a new At Work meeting on Tuesdays, which is a day I'm already working so I'll have the same number of meetings with one less work day. Seven meetings in five days is so much nicer than seven in six days. Having only Saturdays off has been a killer for me.
Speaking of meetings, this January has been AMAZING for Weight Watchers. My meetings are huge right now - WAY bigger than last January. The new Points Plus program is really bringing lots of people in. I have two meetings that are running over 50 people every week. I get paid more for high attendance so my paychecks have been nice and fat... makes saving for the trip even easier!
I'm taking the kids down Monday to apply for their passports.
I've been pondering friendship a lot lately. Specifically, my lack of friendships with women. I've really spent the majority of my adult life with very few deep, consistant woman friends. I expect I'll be writing a post about this soon... it's a topic that's hard for me, but one I'm willing to wrestle with and write about because it's a tension I live with a lot. I don't think I'm a very good friend... and have felt compelled to pray through that and be stretched a bit in that area. Scary.
I'm sick and tired of fighting my grey hair but totally not ready to go au naturel... Grrrr. It's so wiry and ugly and defiant. I refuse to let it win. Must get to the store for another box of dye...

Creativity Monday - Week #3

2011-01-17T14:55:00.000-08:00

I've recently discovered a new inspiring blog called Under the Table and Dreaming... love Stephanie Lynn's clever and do-able projects.

This is where I saw her darling Recycled Sweater Vases... I really thought they were lovely, but I've been wanting to do something with a bright pink wool sweater I picked up at a garage sale last summer... I had already felted it, so all I had to do was cut off a sleeve, slide it over a dollar store vase, fold over the top and add some sparkly trim. It looks lovely with my other valentine decor and makes me quite happy.

I love how it snugglies up the cold, sleek vase.

Now I'm dying to get to the thrift store to find some other sweaters to use!

Creativity Monday - Week #2

2011-01-11T06:56:00.000-08:00

Inspired by the lovely Jessica at How About Orange, I set about cutting snowflakes sometime in December... and hanging them on my sliding glass doors.

And now I have a confession... I am completely obsessed with cutting snowflakes.

If I have a spare minute here or there, all I want to do is grab a piece of paper, fold and snip, snip, snip.

There's something magical about unfolding them and seeing what you've got after all that snipping.

Trees, holly, butterflies and tulips... I LOVE cutting snowflakes!

And in the process, I learned that antlers belong on the inside of a deers ears... but I couldn't throw these cute little fellas away just because I didn't know that when I cut them...

Snowflake cutting is addictive. I highly recommend trying it. (And if you have time to come over and help me sweep up all the teeny-tiny white paper pieces, I'd make you a cup of coffee. But then we'd probably cut more and need to sweep again. Wouldn't it be fun?)

He loves me.

2011-01-05T16:59:00.000-08:00

Lately Asia and I have been working with a lot of people who are struggling.

Marriages that are failing... long term relationships coming to an end... husbands and wives that are tired of the work and disenchanted with the dream of happily-ever-after.

In looking through this lens of hurt, disappointment and brokenness, I cannot help but be forced to take a good hard look at my own marriage.

I'm so blessed to have been married to Asia for the past eighteen and a half years.

I'm not sure how we've managed to keep it all intact.

We're no better than those folks we know who are watching it all come crashing down around them...

Perhaps I can attribute it to the prayers of my mother and grandmother... years of asking God to provide me with a husband who would love me. (No small request there, as I can be quite a stinker.)

However we've managed to stay together, I will never take it for granted.

This man, who nightly rests his hand on my hip as we drift off to sleep, has loved me deeply, completely, and with unbelievable patience.

He gives himself away to people all day, every day, and often even in the wee hours of the morning will make himself available to someone who needs a listening ear... and then he comes home and somehow still manages to give me his very best.

He parents with wisdom and laughter, showing our kids a shining example of a man whose eyes are solely for his wife... and never hesitating to demonstrate his priority of always placing me first.

I know, with full confidence, that I am more important to him than his job. His friends. His hobbies. His own life.

He strives to try to make me happy, even though my definition of that changes with the breeze... he tries his darndest to stay on top of it... sometimes pushing me to reach for stars I never even saw. He knows me well. He often identifies and labels struggles I may just be beginning to comprehend... suggesting solutions and encouraging growth.

He seldom asks me to hold back my passions... and instead, encourages me to follow my dreams and even praying with me that God would define His vision for me in ways I cannot yet imagine.

He dreams with me, hopes with me, holds me when I fail, tells me I'm beautiful and believes in me even when I am stuck in the mire of my lifelong struggle with negativity.

I am blessed.

So very, very blessed.

Creativity Monday - Week #1

2011-01-03T21:39:00.000-08:00

I've been looking forward to today ever since I decided to challenge myself to do something creative each Monday in 2011...

Of course, because my studio also serves as a dumping ground for anything I can't find a place for elsewhere in the house and because I did a fair amount of last minute crafting for two sales I did in November and December, I spent the better part of my morning putting things away and finding space to actually work in... So by the time I actually began creating, I really should have been moving on to other things on my to-do list.

The nice thing, is that I don't have any sort of requirement for Creativity Mondays. I just want to be creative. And so today, it meant that I made this happy little wall hanging out of goodies I've had stashed in my supplies for ages. A little cardboard wrapped in vintage sheet music, some velvet ric-rac and some paper flowers... add a breezy beaded butterfly, a vintage milk bottle cap and some scalloped details for good measure and I'm happy with the result.

Perhaps I'll pop it into a padded envelope and make some far off friend happy this week.

Or perhaps I'll keep it.

Time shall tell.

It feels good to have gotten my hands moving again in my poor neglected studio.

A little creativity is good for my soul.

A view of my wintry world...

2011-01-01T09:15:00.000-08:00

We enjoyed a lovely little snowstorm on Wednesday this past week that dropped about a foot of fresh snow. Then on Thursday, the temperature plummeted and we've had nothing but really cold, beautiful blue skies since then. I'm blown away by the beauty of these crisp, sparkly days and wanted to share their beauty with you...

Happy New Year from snow covered Spokane!

16 years old.

2010-12-23T21:58:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Kyler's 16th birthday...

My first surprise party was for my sweet sixteen, so last week I got a wild hair and decided we should throw a party for him...

With a Christmas Eve birthday, I assumed most people would have plans on his actual birthday... so we planned it for tonight... the night before... Thank goodness for Facebook, which makes it really easy to invite people to a semi-last-minute event... and thank goodness for all the people who showed up... we had 39 people here celebrating Kyler.

He was COMPLETELY surprised.

It was a great party.

Thinking about 2011

2010-12-22T07:24:00.000-08:00

I recent years I've been big into setting goals... pushing myself in each new year in some way...

So as I've been looking ahead to the new year, here are a few things I've been thinking.

I'm reading a book called New Monasticism: What it Has to Say to Today's Church. There's a chapter in it that's totally challenged me in regards to giving... basically taking the story of the feeding of the 5000 and encouraging us as Christians to see giving the way Jesus did... that with God there is always enough - and my giving should reflect that. I'm pondering what that might look like for 2011. Of course, I always go to the radical extreme and had the thought the other night "What if I said yes to everyone who asked me to give next year?"
Creativity Mondays: I've gotten SO out of the habit of nurturing my creativity. I've decided to push myself to do something creative every Monday and post it here. This is a huge part of what makes me tick as a person and I've neglected it this year. Really excited about this one.
I'll be back to walking every day in 2011. I thought I would be consistant in my walking in 2010, but without the formal commitment to do it every day, I fell off the wagon. I've already bought my date book for recording my daily walks for the year. The silly date book is what makes it happen for me... writing down my walk and not leaving a blank space is enough to push me through the days I don't feel like it.
I'm almost to the end of my no-new-clothes year. It's been surprisingly easy. I really need a new pair of jeans. My favorite pair is completely threadbare. I'll be picking up a few new things in the new year just to replenish and fill in the spots that have seemed lacking this year. But I don't think I'll ever become a regular new-clothes shopper again. I was amazed at how easy it was to fill in my wardrobe with garage sale finds... and I really do have tons of clothes.

Do you have any hopes or plans for 2011? I'd love to hear about them...

Tuesday. Ten.

2010-12-14T05:40:00.000-08:00

Oh, how I sometimes feel like life has taken such crazy turns... I really dislike the notion that the word busy equals valid in today's American culture. In my world, busy equals crazy... and I don't do crazy well. Everyone suffers. I am such an introverted soul that without my down time, I struggle to maintain balance. And down time just hasn't been on the agenda. I hate to whine, but the older I get, the more I realize that solitude and silence and sabbath are VERY important to me. None of those three things have been maintained in the past two or three months. So yeah. I'm feeling a little crazy.
And yeah... I haven't been blogging.
I blog best when I've have solitude. And silence. And sabbath.
Moving on... we get to go to a wedding this weekend. Can you imagine? A wedding one week before Christmas! Asia is actually in the wedding - a groomsman for a young man he's been mentoring for several years. So glad it's him and not me. I can't imagine being a bridesmaid at my advanced age. It's going to be a great wedding... they're such dear friends and we have lots of great relationships with this family. Love a good celebration of lifelong love...
Gearing up to make sugar cookies this afternoon, I think. Sugar cookies are just about the only thing I still make religiously every Christmas. No more fudge. No more almond brittle. Just buttery, delicious sugar cookies. I'm thinking I'm going to try to decorate a batch all by myself with royal icing and the flooding technique...we'll see how that turns out. (You can find my recipe here, where I'm just a teensy-tiny bit famous for them, I like to think.)
I really really love my church. Mostly because it's so un-church-y. Asia and I are currently involved in a monthly gathering of folks who are exploring the spiritual disciplines... so we'll try out a discipline the month before, come together and talk about it, then explore a new discipline then next month. We'll end the series with a retreat in April. I love the spiritual disciplines and find myself particularly drawn to prayer... which I got to teach on at our last gathering... I imagine myself someday being that little old lady who prays for lots and lots of people in her little prayer closet. Anyway, I love that my church strives to push the envelope a little bit in terms of tradition, but that they also encourage and embrace liturgy and disciplines and new monasticism... great stuff.
Speaking of cool churches, you really should read this... I think it's SO awesome.
Christmas is being kept pretty simple around here... one present apiece under the tree for the Goins family. In light of our trip and knowing the circumstances of the people we're going to serve in Sierra Leone, it's hard to get caught up in the commercialism of Christmas. So we're focusing on time together... making experiences and moments more important than stuff. We've made the decision with extended family to not buy gifts for each other anymore as well, so I really have next to no shopping to do. It's glorious. In fact, this afternoon when I push the 'confirm purchase' button on Amazon, I will be done. No crowds. No overextending ourselves. No crazy overindulging our kids... it's all good. There's a LOT of freedom in choosing to acknowledge (and be grateful for) how much we already have instead of focusing on what we wish we could have.
Gearing up to send out support letters this week for our trip... I have a love/hate relationship with formal support raising techniques and sort of see the support letter as a necessary evil... how can people give if they don't know about the need? Frankly, it's a little embarrassing to ask. Humbling for sure. And so old school. I'm inspired by George Muller - who never once asked for money to operate his orphanages... wish I had that kind of faith...
Ethan ended up being home for three days last week (including on his birthday) with strep throat. That meant we had to hold off planning his birthday party... but ended up calling his friends on Thursday night asking if they could come over for dinner and a party after school on Friday. So we had seven little ten and eleven year old boys here for three hours... I made a huge pot of spaghetti (little boys, it turns out, LOVE spaghetti) and they partied it up. I'll admit to having had a little anxiety beforehand about what they would do for all that time, but they didn't need me to plan out their agenda. Give 'em a few nerf guns and some candy and cupcakes and they're good.

It's also evident that when you combine lots of squirrelly boys with low light you end up with quite a few blurry pictures...

Happy Tuesday, friends. Nice to see you again.

Eleven.

2010-12-07T07:11:00.000-08:00

Ethan turned eleven yesterday.

How is it possible that it's been eleven years since I had my last baby? (And what a happy baby he was...)

Unfortunately, he had to stay home from school because he'd had a fever Sunday night... but it worked out well for him because Asia was home from work and got to take him to a movie (Megamind 3D) midday... E. is the only one of our kids who normally has to attend school on his birthday... so it was fun for him (and he was feeling so much better) to have the 'day off.'

We had a sweet little family party after I got home from work... I asked him if he wanted to invite a friend over to share the cake and he said "I just want it to be our family..."

He scored a new Kendama from his brother and sister, a new Wii game, a new nutcracker for his collection, and a couple of movies. The big daddy of all his presents was a treasure hunt that sent him all over, finding 12 different Lego sets I'd bought last summer at a garage sale...

Asia and I spent a few minutes looking up all the sets he got on Amazon and discovered that I had gotten $1118 worth of Legos for $27. Wow. That's a good present.

Happy birthday to my sweet baby boy.

Gracie wants some turkey too...

2010-11-27T07:51:00.001-08:00

5:22 am

2010-11-23T05:41:00.000-08:00

Life has been happening at such a breakneck pace here lately. I've wanted the time to sit and blog and barely am managing to get the bare necessities done... but this morning I woke up earlier than I'd planned to and figured it was a chance to enjoy some time for quiet reflection and a little blog action.

Asia and I have been experiencing a fairly high level of stress... lots going on in the lives of the people we love - and it's weighing heavily on us. We have several friends whose marriages are at a crisis point. Family members who are struggling to make good choices. Potential lay-offs for Asia at work (not for him, but for employees on his team that he would have to let go.) Forced fulough days for Asia - reducing his income. It's felt like a lot. We're both pretty exhausted.

And then, last Friday, a dear friend suffered a major heart attack. And we jumped into 'help' mode, doing everything we could to make sure her family was taken care of and they had what they needed. God is sovereign - and what could have been a tragic event was instead a series of God-orchestrated timing and response and our friend is going to be fine. But still, the stress level around here was off the charts for a bit.

So here's the deal. Life is just hard sometimes. And sometimes it's more bitter than sweet. But then it's not - because even in all the hard - there's this underlying Peace. And a knowledge that there's something more. And that the opportunity to hold someone - whether it's in prayer - or physically in an embrace - or in your heart as you carry the weight of their situations - is a HUGE privilege.

So while I'm exhausted this week and a little stressed about cooking Thanksgiving for 18 people (because we added our friends and their extended family so she wouldn't be tempted to host less than a week after having a heart attack) - I'm revelling in the mystery that is life. Loving God in his infinite wisdom. Praising Him for his protection. Cherishing the precious people God has placed in my life.

There have been lots of tears around here lately. Tears that flow when I realize what could have happened. Tears for people who are hurting. Tears when the heaviness of it all just needs to overflow so I don't explode. But I love tears. They are God's grace. I learned that awhile ago and I cherish their cleansing flow.

So there's where my mind sits these days.

Love you all.
Thanks for continuing to visit what has become a farily inactive blog.
I appreciate that you listen when I write. I think I have the best blog audience anyone could ask for.

Smooches.

Icicle Ridge

2010-11-15T08:54:00.000-08:00

We spent the weekend in Leavenworth... it was our (almost) annual trip to the Burke Cabin for Savannah's birthday... we're fortunate that her birthday is on Veteran's Day - so it's always a holiday. We've been blessed to be able to use our dear friends' cabin every year since 2005 to hang out for the long weekend.

We decided to hike Icicle Ridge on Saturday... we love hiking and find it a great way to get out and move without spending money! It was a pretty rigorous hike - full of long switchbacks that led to a spectacular view of Leavenworth.

Oh - how I love the Pacific Northwest... and this family.

We discovered this little friend poking out of one of the trees at the top... isn't he creepy?

Fourteen.

2010-11-11T07:45:00.000-08:00

Today I celebrate this lovely young lady.

Miss Savannah Inez.

She is truly more than I could have hoped for...

...kind

...helpful

...outgoing

...caring

...confident.

She gives of herself in ways that are WAY beyond her years... noticing when someone needs help and stepping in without being asked.

She brings me laughter every day and makes me so proud.

The world is a better place with you in it, sweet girl.

I love you.

Goins to Sierra Leone

2010-11-07T20:53:00.000-08:00

Today is the official launch of Goins to Sierra Leone... our blog about our trip.

Come on over and read about what God did for us today!

Ten on Tuesday - Monday evening edition

2010-11-01T21:17:00.000-07:00

Things seem to be settling down here a bit... Kyler is officially done competing for the year but continues to travel and train with the varsity runners who are headed to state this weekend... coach picked his top five JV runners to do this, since they will be running varsity next year. Last weekend they were in Wenatchee for regionals and this weekend they head to Tri-Cities for the state competition.
Kyler finished the season with an amazing 17:28 5K finish at the All-City competition. He took 28 seconds off his previous PR for that distance... it was a great finish for him. It was crazy wet and gloomy that day... in fact, he slipped in the mud and fell at the finish line. He was covered in it - but he didn't seem to mind.
Savannah has started volleyball. End one season - start another!
Speaking of Savannah - last week in P.E. class, she managed to smash her thumb between a 12 pound medicine ball that had just been thrown to her and a concrete wall... her whole thumbnail is black and her poor thumb is still swollen a week later. I didn't know it, but apparently we should have taken her in and had the blood drained from under her nail... oops. Now I guess it's too late. Poor thing. She'll be losing the nail for sure.
Ethan dressed up in my old cheerleading uniform for halloween... gotta love a fifth grade boy who thinks that's fun!
I was in charge of an event for Weight Watchers a couple of weeks ago that ended up being a screaming success... it was a holiday open house - and it was standing room only. I was so thrilled with the response.
I'm baking up a storm this week to get ready for a bake sale at church this Sunday to kick off our fundraising for our trip to Sierra Leone next summer. We'll be sharing about our story - about why we're going - inviting people to join us - and selling yummy food to (hopefully) hungry college students!
I'll be launching the official 'Goins to Sierra Leone" blog on Sunday as well - watch for it!
(How lucky is it that our last name is Goins? Pretty catchy, eh?)
Time to go get my ballot out and vote. My father in law is running for State Senate in California... can't wait to hear the results of his race. He's so brave (and a little crazy) but for sure passionate about change... I wonder if he'll ever slow down...

Happy Tuesday, friends. Smooches!

Enough.

2010-10-21T07:09:00.000-07:00

This is the most current read on my nightstand...

And wow. It's knocking me for a loop.

Granted - I'm reading it coming off of two of the busiest weeks in my life, when I was literally running from one thing to the next with barely time to breathe... so I may be a little vulnerable in this area. That kind of busy-ness sucks the life out of me. After two weeks of it, I needed some down time.

And this book is about allowing yourself some down time.

I've always been purposeful about choosing wisely how we spend our time... careful not to overschedule the kids or get sucked into the pressure to have them involved in every possible extra curricular activity known to man in order to raise the most well-rounded people... I never bought into the notion that my kids would be more successful adults if they knew how to dance and play instruments and excel at three sports and discuss good literature and cook and have good manners because they'd learned it in formal lessons... Not that there's anything wrong with any of those things. I just didn't want to be that parent who runs from one activity to the next just in case we might be missing something...

I think so many parents feel an urgency about enrichment activities that is near-frenzied. And Asia and I chose not to play that game. Does that make us better parents? No. It was just a value we held that our kids would have free time... and be able to choose activities that they were interested in without any pressure from us.

But now that they're older, and they're choosing those activities - and now that I'm older and have more interests of my own - and a job that requires me to work six days a week currently - I feel like all my efforts to keep our lives simple have left my control - and we're crazy people - running all the time with nary a moment to just be.

I know it's a season...

But I'm evaluating my part in it.

I do feel like we're in the final countdown with our kids - before we know it they're going to be making their way out our doors and into the world. Every moment counts with them. More than ever, that keeps running through my mind. I'm not afraid of letting them go... that's what we've been working toward their whole lives... but I do know that I LOVE everything about them and I have to savor the privilege of having them in my life while they're still in my home... if we're so busy that we never see each other, that's just ridiculous.

And then there's this: About six weeks ago I had the chance to eat lunch with a couple of homeless kids. I saw them on my way home from work and was compelled by the holy spirit to feed them. I resisted momentarily, and tried to drive past them... but found myself turning around and buying them a meal at Jack in the Box, with the stipulation that they had to sit with me and tell me their stories.

Evan and Jeff were 20 and 21 years old. Both had been 'riding the rails' for three years. (Who knew anyone actually still did that in this day and age? There's a huge sub-sub-culture out there still doing it...) The first question I asked (I couldn't help myself) was "How often do you call your mom?" We had an amazing conversation and they were so grateful for a warm meal... it changed the course of my day to sit quietly with those boys and let them tell me about their lives... to acknowledge their stories and validate them as fellow human beings on the journey touched me deeply.

I don't share this for any other reason than to tell you how it impacted me to have the time to sit with those boys that day. It was a rare afternoon when I didn't have anywhere to be and I could temporarily step out of my life and into theirs... Most days I don't have that luxury. I'm too busy.

But because on that particular day, I got to meet Evan and Jeff, now, every time I think of them I pray. I pray for their safety. For their parents, who must worry sick about them. I pray for God to put other friendly people in their path who can provide a warm meal and a kind word. I pray for Evan and Jeff every time I drive by that Jack in the Box.

What if I had time to respond to the holy spirit like that every day?

Sad that I even have to ask that question, isn't it?

Now, I don't think God is going to ask me to feed homeless kids every day... but I do know that I am to be the hands and feet and mouth of Jesus every day. And if I'm too busy rushing from one thing to the next and I don't have the luxury of noticing the people around me... something's wrong.

So I'm praying. And pondering. And discussing with my wonderful husband the implications for my life.

Maybe I need to work less.

Maybe I need to volunteer less.

Maybe I need to give up evening commitments so we can have more consistant family dinners.

It's hard to consider these things... because I LOVE my job. I LOVE volunteering. I LOVE taking classes at church that challenge me.

And let's face it: being busy makes us feel validated. Needed. Necessary.

But maybe what's needed beyond my personal validation needs to become more important.

Maybe being free to be in the moment is more important than feeling validated because somebody thinks I'm good at my job, or a reliable volunteer, or the best muffin maker, or a creative blah blah blah...

So I'm trying to figure out what that looks like for my life.

Trying to determine how much is enough.

How much time. How much income. How much energy.

It's a journey, this life thing... fascinating that we never really get it figured out...

Homecoming.

2010-10-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

I had one very nervous boy on my hands yesterday afternoon. On the drive down the hill to pick Emma up, there was much discussion about how and when to give her the corsage... "Do I hand it to her immediately when she opens the door? Do I wait until she comes out? Will she invite me in?" So many questions...

And then she wasn't quite ready... so the anticipation grew...

But eventually she came out (beautiful!) and he managed to fumble and get the box open... all was good.

At first they were a little akward...

But then they started to relax and remember what good friends they are...

It was an 'epic-ly epic' night, according to Kyler's Facebook status.

I'm so glad he had so much fun...

They went to a friend's house before the dance where there were some kids who weren't going to the dance and a few that were... the moms worked together to make them all dinner - pulled pork sandwiches with homemade onion rings... salads and fruit and chips and soda... Kyler managed to eat it all without spilling on his clothes.

Then I took them to the dance.

Then they all came here and watched High School Musical.

Asia and I were in the kitchen laughing... how many teenagers sit in a living room singing Disney movies at the top of their lungs after homecoming? So cute. It was quite the chorus with Kyler, Emma, their double dates, Savannah and Ethan all singing away...

Parenting is such a pleasure sometimes... last night was for sure one of those nights.

His First First Place!!!

2010-10-14T06:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Kyler's second-to-the-last Greater Spokane League cross country meet. After running varsity on Saturday, he was back to running JV since the seniors who'd been out taking the SAT were back.This JV team runs in a very tight pack. In this picture below you can see (from left to right in the orange and black) Connor, Scott, Davis, mysterious boy whose name I don't know, Kyler, another mystery boy and Grafton. Connor, Davis, Kyler and Grafton are the top four runners on the JV team.Kyler and Grafton (who are VERY good friends) have been battling it out all year for 3rd and 4th place on the team... going into this race, they were 4-4.Connor (on the left above) has been dominating all of their races. He's taken first place for the team every race this year. In this picture below, he's already pulled ahead of the pack... Conner had already passed when I took this picture. Lewis and Clark was hosting yesterday's race at their 'home' course. It's held at beautiful Manito Park. You can see the course map here... The course takes the runners up the famous Manito sledding hill twice - once at the very beginning of the race and again near the end. This is an interesting course, because once they go up the hill, you don't see them for awhile... they run up the hill, run around for awhile at the top and then come back down the hill. Yesterday, the second time up the hill, Connor was nicely ahead of Davis, Kyler and Grafton. When the runners started coming down the hill, we saw Conner first, then about 20 yards behind was Kyler - who had pulled WAY ahead of the other two boys. You can see here he's running his own race... little did anyone know, he had his sights set on Connor. (I've never seen him run as strong as he ran down this hill... he was a complete powerhouse.)
This picture above is of Kyler and Connor coming around the final corner into the chute. By now, Kyler had closed the 20 yard gap to about a 3 yard gap. It was going to be a race to the finish...See the determination on his face? And Connor's effort written all over his? This is what makes Cross Country such a fun sport to watch...And that's the last picture I got of the race because I had to put my camera down to see the finish... I knew it would be neck-and-neck. Kyler literally leaned into the finish line and won the race. An incredible finish for him... I'm thrilled that he got to experience it. Grafton told me afterwards that as he started coming down the hill and looked ahead to see Kyler catching Connor "I knew there was no way I was going to catch Kyler so I started praying that Kyler would win the race and that I could beat Davis."

God answered both prayers.

And for those of you who might have been wondering about Kyler's girl/friend - she was at the meet and Savannah managed to sneak this picture... (her name's Emma - isn't she cute?)

Spaghetti Feed!

2010-10-13T21:33:00.000-07:00

Every night before a race, the parents of the cross country runners at Kyler's high school host a spaghetti feed...

I had helped at one last year, and decided this year to take the plunge and host one.

So I recruited helpers, cooked up 10 pounds of spaghetti, borrowed LOTS of tables and chairs and made a big pot of sauce. My friends Julie and Michelle were my helpers and they both brought food as well.

And then they started showing up... two boys at first, then a few girls, then a larger group of boys... and before long I had 60 teenagers in my backyard. They are all supposed to bring food to contribute... we had lots of bread, some veggies, fruits, and salads, desserts, drinks, and plates and plates full of spaghetti. They ate. And ate. And ate.They were so kind and appreciative. What a great group of kids. Even the little brothers got in on the action...

I can't wait to host again next year.

Oh, I'm a very bad blogger. But it's Tuesday!

2010-10-12T06:25:00.000-07:00

The darkness is beginning to creep in... the other night when I left work at 6:30 it was completely dark. Oh no! And now Kyler leaves for his morning run (6:30!) in the dark. Less than 12 hours of light. And it's only going to get shorter... time for walking in the dark again.
Kyler ran his first varsity race on Saturday... several seniors on the team were taking their SAT and couldn't be there so the three top JV runners got to run varisty... He had a decent race - it's tough to go from the front of the pack to the middle - the race feels really different from back there, I guess. But he finished 39th out of 85 runners, which doesn't seem too shabby to me... not for his very first time out of the gates in that varsity uniform!
Ethan had a spectator snafu at the race... he saw his friend from a distance and wanted to go stand with him to watch, but didn't realize that his friend was on the other side of the course... so he ran across the path, somehow slipped on the wet grass and landed right in front of a runner as he was racing. Miraculously, the runner didn't step on Ethan (with his spikes!) and somehow managed to stay upright. He tripped, for sure, but it wasn't the complete disaster it could have been. I'm thankful Ethan didn't fall in front of a group of runners and get completely trampled and fallen on. He could have been seriously hurt and caused a big mess...
Every Tuesday and Friday night the cross country runners (both boys and girls teams) enjoy a spaghetti feed before race day... they're hosted by the XC Parent Groups... and today is my turn. So I'll have 60 teenagers at my house tonight. Crazy. Fun.
I'm pondering organizing a series of workshops... getting my other 'older' women friends together and putting together workshops for the younger women at our church to teach life-skills we've acquired over the years... sort of like the cooking classes my friends and I had over the summer. I'd love to do one on couponing/bargain shopping, one on organizing, one on how to manage summer with kiddos... still brainstorming, but excited about the possibilities.
My flower beds are completely out of control. Somehow after our vacation to the beach, I stopped caring. The weeds are ridiculous. I really wish I had a free afternoon to get out there and clean things up. Maybe the weather will hold out and I can do it next week... hoping so. It would be nice to put them to bed for the winter a little tidier than they are now...
I'll be selling stuff at a Fall Market this weekend - it's the same one I did last year. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to make nearly as much as I did last year. Hopefully I can make a couple hundred dollars... I'll be satisfied with that. It's been hanging over my head for weeks and frankly I'll be glad when it's over. Somehow creative time is sadly lacking for me at this stage in life. I'm okay with it personally, but it's going to make my selection for the sale sort of slim-pickins... Ugh.
I'm really struggling with busy-ness lately... I hate that every fall my life feels so out of control. I've added a seventh meeting to my work schedule which unfortunately, has me working 6 days a week. Granted, it's only for a couple of hours, but it's a noon meeting, which somehow eats away at the whole day. I don't feel like I can start anything in the morning because I know I've got to be ready to go by 11:15 and then I get home at 1:00 which is just a couple of hours before the kids get home. I took the meeting to help with $$$ for our trip, but it's not my ideal schedule by any stretch of the imagination.
Kyler's girl/friend came with us on Sunday afternoon to shop for his homecoming outfit. We had fun finding just the right thing together... she came home with us afterwards and ate dinner and played games for family night... they are not officially boyfriend and girlfriend. But wow - they sure really like each other. It's pretty stinkin' cute. She came over the weekend before to do homework and watch a movie... They watched the movie in the living room, both lying on the floor (under my watchful eyes from the couch.) Funny thing - Kyler was lying facing the tv and she was lying facing him the entire time. Oh dear.
The dance is Saturday. I'm giving up going to a fabulous wedding in Coeur D'Alene to stay home and play chaffeur/photographer. I wouldn't miss it for the world.
(Eleven!) Savannah's been on a photography kick, stealing away with my camera and shooting everything in sight. Here are a couple of her recent shots... it's so fun to see what she comes up with.
This is her best friend, MacKenzie. Isn't she a pretty little thing?

I remember taking lots of shoe shots when I took photography class in high school...

Happy Tuesday, friends!

Tuesday seven

2010-09-28T06:37:00.000-07:00

Heat wave! I've been holding out for one last summer hurrah and it finally arrived! We had weather in the upper 70's over the weekend and it's supposed to be 82 today... I had to dig some summer clothes out of the basement... I'd already done the summer/winter wardrobe switch!
Kyler placed fifth in his invitational race last Saturday... His team had 7 runners in the top ten... they're ROCKIN' it this year! Go Tigers!!! There were over 200 runners in the JV race, so I'm pretty stinkin' proud of a fifth place finish.
Sometimes when I go to take pictures off my memory card, I find weird stuff that the kids have done... case in point:
See that hat E. is wearing above? He's been wearing it non-stop for about three years. It's currently missing in action... and I have one devastated ten-year-old. Hope we can find it... makes me sad to lose it too - it's been such a big part of his life for so long, it's like losing an old friend.
Last week was the culmination of every back-to-school, fall start-up event... I was out every single night doing something. This week I finally feel like I've figured out my fall schedule and am settling into a groove... took me awhile, but I think I'm there.
Kyler has a Girl. Friend. He's completely enamored. And it appears that she's likin' on him too. Amazing. And scary. And fun. He's SO cute - totally overthinking the whole thing, asking for lots of guidance and advice and being VERY cautious and thoughtful. He asked her to his homecoming dance yesterday (rose in hand) and she said yes! Enter a new phase of parenting as we walk through his first real 'relationship'... They're 'just friends' for now... but he's got it bad.
I had been sitting five to seven pounds above my goal weight all summer and finally got back down to where I feel best... amazing how much of a difference it makes. Everything fits just right... thankful for the tools to be where I feel my best.

Seven's going to have do be it today... it's time to get the kids out the door and leave for work!

Happy Tuesday, friends!

Where I've been

2010-09-26T11:49:00.001-07:00

Working hard lately on a new blog... eager to share it with you. It's a blog just for our trip... a place for people to connect to our story.

It's taking more time than I expected, but it's going to be so cool.

And so I haven't been here much.

Watch for it soon.

Thursday. Random.

2010-09-16T06:37:00.000-07:00

I actually read a fiction book over the past week. I hated it. I mean - I loved it for the first half and then it just kept getting more and more ridiculous. The author left about a million questions unanswered in the most smarmy 'love conquers all' way. THIS is why I don't waste my time with fiction. Argh. For those of you who are wondering it was called "Sundays at Tiffanys". I highly don't recommend it.
I have about three million things to do today.
Asia's been gone this week... he's on a review team (like his old job) for a federal review of Washington. It's what he did when he flew to Kentucky last year. It means LONG days for him. He comes home tonight.
I got my manual for being the team leader for our trip to Sierra Leone in the mail on Monday. I'm SO at peace about the whole thing. If feels VERY good to actually have it on the calendar. Instead of saying "Someday we want to take the kids to see Tejan" I get to say "We're going to see him next July." Awesome.
People keep asking us about $$$ for the trip. We estimate it will cost us around $15,000. Yikes!!! We've been saving, but we don't have anywhere near that dollar amount. We'll begin fundraising in November with a bake sale at church. Our church LOVES bakes sales... lots of hungry college students! I'm actually really excited to see how God provides. It will be such a good experience for the kids. I'm praying about what kind of radical things we can do as a family (think: simple Christmas) to teach them about sacrificially giving to something you believe in.
I'm doing another sale this fall - the Palouse Trading Co. fall market... SO many projects in my mind that I haven't had time to dive into. Saturday is blocked out to work all day in my studio... excited to see what comes of that! Hoping to make some good $$$ selling lots of little lovelies.
Our grass is dead. D.E.A.D. We made a conscious decision not to water this year. Mostly because I think it's ridiculous to spray gallons and gallons of water on my grass just so it's green. After being in Sierra Leone and watching people carry their water for miles, I just can't do it. It's amazing how much this bothers other people. I can't tell you how many people just cannot fathom that we consciously choose not to water our lawn. It's like we have two heads when we explain ourselves. Really? Is it that important to have green grass? Sorry. I can't do it. (I think the straw color is kind of pretty, but I'm weird that way.)
Cool and rainy today after a lovely warm start to the week. I love fall weather.

Happy Thursday... thanks for stopping by.

The Meadlander Invitational - LCXC

2010-09-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

Kyler had his first invitational meet on Saturday.They split the boys up into grade level races - so he ran the sophmore race.

He had a great race. Finished 12th out of 98 sophmores who ran.

It was a 2.5 mile course and his time was 14:33.

This picture was taken when he came around the last (super sharp) corner into the chute... I LOVE the look of determination on his face.

He's got an amazing kick at the end of his races... he turned it on and passed this guy and another one in the chute... such an exciting finish.

His team took first place of all the school's sophmore teams... they had four runners in the top twelve.

That's how you win cross country meets. Having one or two fast guys is great... but having four or five who can consistantly perform like that wins meets. I'm so excited to see how these boys shape up over the next few years... it's going to be a fun ride.

You can see his race results here: Meadlander Invitational Results

On my nightstand...

2010-09-07T16:26:00.000-07:00

I love to read non-fiction. One of my favorite ways to spend an afternoon is perusing the new non-fiction shelves at the library, then bringing home a nice big stack... I usually read two or three at a time, leaving them on my nightstand so I can grab whichever one I'm in the mood for at the time.

So here's what's there right now:
This autobiography of George Muller was a gift from the pastor who oversaw my internship at church last year. He handpicked a book for each intern, based on what he learned about us over the course of our time together... he chose this book for me because George Muller believed great things from God in terms of provision... Russ (my pastor) knew that our trip to Sierra Leone is a huge step of faith in that arena... I'm reading it slowly - a chapter here and a chapter there... but loving the faith of this amazing man of god.

Green Like God: I'm so excited about the church becoming more aware and active in the environmental movement... if God reveals himself to us through creation, and we're destroying creation, perhaps we're going to miss something God would have us see... love the premise of this book...

The New Good Life: Written by the son of the Baskin-Robbins co-founder, this is a challenging book about choosing to define success and 'the good life' differently. I read this one cover to cover in a couple of days without picking up any other books in between. I don't do that very often. Lots of good stuff in this one...

My dear 'son'/friend Jay gave me this book on Sunday... literally hours before he left to drive to Texas to begin staff training with Mercy Ships. He wrote me the loveliest inscription in the front, thanking me for all the input into his life over the years and we spent the whole Sunday service at church crying next to each other... I'm so sad to see him go but thrilled that we will be able to visit him next year because the ship he'll be on is moving to Sierra Leone in January or February! I'm eager to read about the history of this amazing ministry (which consequently performed Tejan's first surgery on his jaw back in 2005!)

Radical: I am usually resistant to jumping on 'christian book bandwagons'. I never read "The Purpose Driven Life" or "The Prayer of Jabez" or even more recently "Crazy Love" because everyone else is reading them and I'm a bit of a rebel that way. But this one really caught my eye because it's basically the christian version of "The New Good Life." And because a few close friends are reading it and we've already had some good discussions around it.

I have one word for this book: Fascinating. Especially because I choose not to get air conditioning in my home... so I feel like I've taken the high road and this book validates my choice. But it's really not a value judgement on air conditioning as much as it's a realistic assessment of the fact that human beings are taxing resources and destroying ecosystems that weren't designed to support human inhabitants because of air conditioning. Really. I love this stuff. I haven't gotten to the chapters dealing with how we can make changes... very curious about that since I can't imagine he's going to recommend that everyone get rid of their AC...

This is one of the books we had to read last year for the internship. I hated it at the time but have grown to appreciate it. I'm re-reading a few chapters to get ready for an in-depth missional training I'm going to participate in beginning next week.

Sacred Marriage: Asia and I are slowly making our way through this one. Asia won't read non-fiction, so if there's a book I really want him to read, I have to read it out loud to him. Ugh. But it's worth it sometimes. This is a good one for us to have under our belts as we mentor couples... good stuff.

And there you have it.

What are you reading right now? (I'd love to know!!!)

First day of school 2010

2010-09-03T07:38:00.000-07:00

Off they go...

Our second year with one in highschool, one in junior high and one in elementary school...

Love these kids.

It's been a long time since there's been a Tuesday Ten...

2010-08-31T15:15:00.001-07:00

The last day of August feels more like the first day of October. Cold. Rainy. Icky. I'm still holding out for some warm weather in September... but this weather makes me melancholy... I'm not ready for cold yet - I haven't soaked up enough warm!!!
Kyler started two-a-day practices last Monday... they do a single on Saturdays and don't run on Sundays... but in the last nine days he's gone on fifteen runs. Sheesh. He's pretty worn out. Those long practice runs make the 3 mile races seem easy and short... so I guess it's all worth it.
I can't wait for his meets... last year his best three mile time was 17:50-something... eager to see what he's able to accomplish this year. His best mile in the spring was a 4:54 mile... if he can keep even a 5:45 mile pace he could finish three miles in 17:15... we shall see...
Summer is way too short. The kids start school in two days. I'd gladly keep them home for a couple more weeks. We just never get around to doing all the fun things I wish we could do...
I'm going to have a sophmore, an eighth grader and a fifth grader this year. Oh.my.stars.
Our less-than-five-year-old fridge decided to quit working last Thursday. I got home from work and went to get some ice for my tea and the ice cube tray was full of water. I called a repairman and found out the compressor went kaput. Fortunately, the less-than-five-year-old status is key: the compressor is still under warranty (but only until the end of November... thank you Jesus!) Of course, the part the repairman needed had to be ordered... and then they didn't have an open appointment until tomorrow, so I've been a week without my main refrigerator. I have an extra fridge in the basement (which, consequently cost a third as much as my 'new' fridge and is fifteen years old and has never had a problem) so we didn't lose any food... but I'm so tired of going up and down the stairs every time I need something. I feel blessed that it all worked out and that tomorrow it will be fixed. I really cannot complain. I keep thinking about Tejan, who has no refrigeration at all in his house...
Speaking of Tejan, I'm in the process of applying to be a team leader to take our family and whoever wants to join us to Sierra Leone next summer. I'm beside myself with anticipation and excitement... THRILLED that we're stepping out in faith and taking this big risk together as a family. And SO excited to see T. again. You cannot imagine how much...
I get WAY too many magazines. Martha Stewart Living. Woman's Day. Family Fun. Scrapbooks etc. Real Simple. All You. Shape. Weight Watchers. Cooking Light. Healthy Cooking. Better Homes and Gardens. Sheesh. How did that happen? I can honestly say that I've never paid more than $10 for a subscription, but still. Crazy.
Just took these out of the oven... topping them with this... YUM!
We've had lots of goodbyes lately... a couple that we've been mentoring for four years is moving to Northern Ireland... so sad to see them go (especially because she is pregnant with their first baby!) and a dear young man who has been an especially good friend to the kids is moving to go work on Mercy Ships for two years... it's so hard to say goodbye... makes me thankful for friendship and how precious it is. We're going to miss you, David, Brynn and Jay. We love you so much.

Happy Tuesday, friends.

31 days of fun - a failed experiment

2010-08-30T14:25:00.001-07:00

Ugh.

So I quit posting. And then I forgot all the fun I was having... and I could make things up, saying that day twenty was the day we went to the Spokane Indians game for fun, when I really don't remember.

Or I could just admit that I didn't finish the month out.

Didn't follow through.

I failed.

But it's okay.

Because I learned a lot about myself in my little experiment.

Even if I didn't manage to tell you all about each of my daily efforts, I was able to refine my own definition of fun... and I challenged myself to step out of my comfort zone.

And - I had fun.

And now I'm ready to move forward and get this nagging feeling off my back for not being a good blogger.

So I'm moving on.

On to September.

Routine.

Cool mornings.

Cross country meets and school lunches.

It'll be fun.

Thanks for your encouragement as I shared my little journey - even if I didn't exactly do it perfectly.

Smooch you all.

31 days of fun - days sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen

2010-08-20T07:09:00.000-07:00

Day Sixteen
You may positvely think I'm a freak, but on Monday my fun was working the Safeway and Albertsons deals to get all this food for pennies on the dollar...
It required multiple trips to the store and about 8 different transactions, but in the end it was totally worth it.
I'm totally stocked up for school lunches...

Here's the breakdown: I got 31 boxes of granola bars, 2 boxes of bisquick, 2 boxes of cereal, 2 bags of chex mix, 5 frozen pizzas, 15 boxes of fruit snackies, 2 bags of granola nut clusters (so yummy!) and 1 microwave dessert for $32.60. If you figure an average normal price of $2.50 for each one of these (and that's being extremely conservative) this would normally have cost around $150. Not too shabby.

And yes - that counts as fun.

Day Seventeen
I got together that evening with two girlfriends from church for the last installment of a three part series of cooking classes. We named it "Slice, Dice, Thrice" and invited young people who wanted to learn some techniques for cooking and enjoy a meal with us.
The first month, we did italian food. In July, it was grilled food. And this month was mediterranean. Yum.

We had tzatziki, hummus, mediterranean stew, tabbouleh, lemon phyllo tarts, pita, rosemary skewers... oh - it was a feast of garlicky, olive-y goodness.

I'm so proud of us for pulling off these classes... it could easily have been something we talked about doing and never actually pulled together. Instead, we got together, made a plan, organized our menus and took the risk of nobody showing up. And wow - did we have some amazing food.

That's REALLY fun in my book.

Day Eighteen

Okay - I'll admit it. This one is kind of embarrassing to admit. Because it's really self indulgent and lazy.

My kids are gone this week, staying at my parents house on the coast. So while I've been extrememly busy with work, on Wednesday, I had a good four hour stretch in the afternoon between meetings. I was tempted to make my fun for the day a trip to the new Farm Chicks store downtown.

But I'd had a really lousy night's sleep the night before and all I wanted to do was rest. So I came home from my morning meeting, ate some lunch and laid down. I got in a good hour long nap, then got up and spent the majority of the rest of the afternoon in my chair by the window with my laptop. I can't remember a time when I've sat for HOURS, perusing blogs and recipes and etsy and facebook totally guilt free. There were no kids who needed me, no chores to be done (my housekeeper came that morning while I was at work so the house was spotless...). It was really lazy. And self-indulgent. And fun.

Day Nineteen

We got a new Hobby Lobby store in town recently. I've only once been to a Hobby Lobby, when we were in Colorado Springs in 2004...

So my fun on day nineteen was a trip to this mecca of crafting and home decor goodness...

Lots to see... lots to buy (although I spent less than $25), lots of fun.

31 days of fun - days thirteen, fourteen and fifteen

2010-08-16T08:59:00.000-07:00

Day thirteen - the day we left the beach... we were packing up and getting ready to drop the kids off with my parents for a week at Grandma and Grandpa's house... but before we left I had to get the 'cousin picture.'

We've been meeting my brother Steve and his family at this beach house since 2001... this year was our tenth year in Manzanita with them. And every year, we've taken a picture of the cousins at this beach marker - beach access #12. They begrudgingly came down to the beach so I could take the picture... I heard "But we already got some good cousin pictures this week..." on the walk down. But I was not swayed. I LOVE tradition - and I know I would really regret it if we let it slide one year.

Traditions are fun. And taking the cousin picture at post #12 is fun.

Day fourteen - I got up early (after driving 8 hours the day before back to Spokane from the beach) and met my girlfriend Paige for a road trip to Whitefish, Montana to attend our dear friend Rob's wedding. Paige, Rob and I were all interns together at the church last year. The road trip was a blast, the wedding was AMAZING, and the conversation with Paige was awesome. It was a fun day. Chalk up another 8 hours in the car... but it was worth it. Yay for Rob and Shelby and beautiful weddings!

Day fifteen - Asia and I drove to Coeur D'Alene for a late afternoon walk along the boardwalk and through the park and dinner at our favorite restaurant, Bardenay. It was a HOT day... which Asia loves... and I tolerate. But the nice quiet time together was great. I sure love him. Spending time with my favorite person in the world is always fun.

31 days of fun - days eleven and twelve

2010-08-16T08:45:00.001-07:00

Day eleven - we all piled into our cars and drove out to this lovely little meandering river a little bit inland from the beach... my nephew Spencer's girlfriend grew up going to this spot where you can jump off some VERY high cliffs into the river.You need to know that I'm a scardey-mom... I always think of the worst possible scenario for my kids and assume it's going to happen... so when I think of jumping off of cliffs into water, of course I'm expecting someone to end up paralyzed from hitting an underwater rock. Fun? Not really...But I took a deep breath and let my boys jump. This jump Kyler is taking here is about a 30 foot drop.No one ended up paralyzed. And I ended up having fun because it was so cool to watch my boys being boys. Their screams of pleasure were enough to make anyone smile. Crazy kids.And then we picked blackberries. Lots and lots and lots of blackberries along the railroad tracks that led to the swimming hole. I'm a berry picking machine... picking berries is fun.

Day twelve - we went to Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach... which in and of itself is fun. Exploring the tide pools, seeing the birds in their nests in this wonderful sanctuary... but the real fun came when I jumped on Asia's back and went for a piggyback ride. When's the last time you had a piggyback ride?

Piggyback rides are fun.

31 days of fun - days nine and ten

2010-08-10T22:01:00.000-07:00

So day nine... no pictures. There are pictures out there, but I didn't take any on my camera. And here's why: I was the creator and administrator of the second Carson/Goins family Amazing Manzanita Race.

Basically, I created a scavenger hunt in and around town for our families to do together, which included some video making and photo opportunities like singing the Star Spangled Banner on the beach and finding lots of little landmarks around town. My brother created one a couple of years ago so I thought I'd revive the tradition. It was lots of fun to come up with clues and then see the results. Scavenger hunts are FUN.

Today, Day Ten - we all drove down to Pacific City to hike the dune at Cape Kiwanda... this HUMUNGOUS sand dune is an incredible hike... straight up. The only way to get to the top is by taking rest breaks along the way - otherwise you feel like your heart is going to pump right out of your chest.Even Kyler, who's in the best physical condition of everyone it the family needed to rest. It's just STRAIGHT up.Here are a couple of pictures at the top... what a sense of accomplishment to make it up there!And then back at the bottom again... I'm finding that having fun on vacation is pretty easy... my challenge is going to be next week when the kids are staying at Grandma's and I'm back home again... but for now - I'm having lots of fun and not really having to work too terribly hard at it!

31 days of fun - days seven and eight

2010-08-09T10:07:00.000-07:00

Saturday was day seven. It was a dreary, rainy day.

So Lorraine (my sister-in-law) and I talked Steve (my brother) into taking us to some garage sales and down the coast a ways to some antique stores.

This is my favorite store along the coast, in Wheeler. It's a huge store that goes on and on. I didn't buy anything this year... but I sure like looking for treasure. It's FUN. Yesterday - day eight - we piled everyone into the cars and drove to the base of Neahkahnie mountain. We've climbed the mountain oodles of times and decided to take the trail the other direction this year... hiking toward the beach and Oswald State Park instead of up the mountain.
I adore hiking these trails... the old growth forest reminds me of the woods behind the house I grew up in... mossy trees, ferns, huge evergreens... I really did have the world's best playground right outside my door as a child.The bonus here was the end of the trail. We hiked to Cape Falcon - a beautiful spot that juts out over sharp cliffs that plummet down to the ocean below. I'm telling you - if you've never been to the Oregon Coast, you're missing one of the most beautiful places in the world. I love hiking here. It's fun.

31 days of fun - days five and six

2010-08-06T20:35:00.000-07:00

Traveling isn't super condusive to posting... and vacation makes it hard to want to blog, so here's a quick recap of the last two days of fun.

Yesterday was spent packing and driving from Spokane to Vancouver, Washington.

Not really fun, by most standards, except that road trips really are fun. I LOVE the uninterrupted time in the car with Asia. We always have great conversations. And good music. And laughter. The kids are old enough that they keep themselves occupied... and they've gotten so used to LONG hours in the car... pretty much anytime we go anywhere from Spokane it's at least three hours - (and that feels like a super short trip.) Our normal trip is six hours, and it's not unusual to do eight.

So day five's fun was our road trip. It works for me.

Today is day six.

We spent last night with some old friends and had a leisurely breakfast with them... good to see them, good to visit, good to eat yummy food with them. The kids slept outside in tents and were asleep for a long time so we had a nice long visit.

Then we drove to Manzanita... went to the beach, hung out on the front patio together with my brother and his wife and family, walked to the farmer's market, ate a wonderful dinner and played a game together. What about that day wasn't fun?

(Having fun on vacation is going to be a breeze.)

31 days of fun - day four

2010-08-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

Today's fun was a no-brainer.

I read an article in the Food section of our local newspaper that highlighted a new frozen yogurt store in town.

I haven't had frozen yogurt in years... seems like it's gone by the wayside as far as a business in the last decade... in fact I don't think Spokane even has a store dedicated solely to frozen yogurt - until now. Add the fact that this store was self serve (meaning YOU decide how much yogurt you want and exactly which toppings you want. You make it yourself, and then pay by weight: $.39 an ounce.)

So we went to Froyo Earth.

I got Strawberry, Pineapple and Coconut yogurts and topped them off with mini chocolate chips, fresh strawberries, a teeny bit of coconut, some roasted almonds for crunch and colorful sprinkles because sprinkles are FUN!

We drove to a park (one from my list!) to eat our yogurt.

Using the self timer with the camera on the hood of the car... love how the car caught our reflections.

This staircase called out to us "Climb me! Climb me!" Of course, we had to obey.

Here we are at the top.

And then on our way back down again. Savannah left her belt at her friend's house so she had to keep pulling her pants up. It was cracking me up. (No pun intended.)

Savannah would kill me if she knew this picture was on here. I just thought her saggy pants were so funny. (I guess sometimes it doesn't take much to entertain me...)

I loved this little balcony and made Ethan climb up to the top with me to pose for a love scene. He was thrilled to oblige, of course. (All ten year old boys love to perform love scenes with their moms, didn't you know?)

The whole garden is planted on a steep hill, but if you persevere and make it to the top, this is your reward: a pretty little pergola and a lovely waterfall. It was very peaceful there and the view of the city was phenomenal.

Cute boy. I love how he gets a dimple in the top of his right cheek when he makes this grin.

It was a fun afternoon.

31 days of fun - day three

2010-08-03T22:14:00.000-07:00

No photos today... I need to start having fun before it gets dark so I can get better (or any) pictures of my adventures.

I am interested and sort of sad at how hard it is for me to think of things that qualify as fun... Asia thinks my standards of fun are too high... that if I enjoy something, it should count as fun. But for me, fun needs to produce some laughter... so I'm still defining and thinking through what actually counts.

Suffice it to say - already I'm discovered that what I suspected is true... I'm not really very fun. It's VERY easy for me to go through my entire day without having any fun by my current definition.

Tonight Asia is out of town and I looked at the clock at 8:00 pm and said to the kids "I need to have fun..."

Now apparently they aren't faithful Thoughts From the Deep Recesses readers, because they looked at me like I was crazy.

So I explained "31 days of fun" to them - and then Savannah offered her idea:

"Go outside and do cartwheels."

Except I can't, so that was out.

I got my flip-flops on, grabbed the dog leash and headed out the door in search of fun. The two youngest kids tagged along, intrigued by the idea of mom being fun.

We walked for a few blocks, let the dog off her leash in our neighborhood playing fields, and ended up by the high school track. I was struggling to come up with anything when I noticed that the sprinklers were on, watering the football field.

So in we went. I marched across the track, slipped out of my flip-flops, released Gracie from her leash and ran.

Right through the giant sprinklers - barefoot in my skirt - chasing and being chased by the dog and Ethan...

I went and grabbed Savannah and pulled her into the water.

We got soaked.

And we had fun.

I don't think I've gotten fully wet in my clothes for YEARS.

And guess what? I didn't melt. My hair got wet and my clothes were soggy and my glasses were covered with water spots. But it was fun.

(I kind of like having fun...)

31 days of fun - day two

2010-08-02T21:19:00.001-07:00

I'll be honest.

I didn't feel like having fun today.

I was buried in tasks to clean up from our weekend away and to prepare for our upcoming vacation which starts on Friday.

The kids were bored.

I was cranky.

And I had to work tonight.

At nine this evening I said to Asia "I didn't do anything fun today. Some days I just don't want to have fun."

He replied with "But didn't you make a commitment?"

And then "Go jump on the trampoline. I'll take your picture."

You need to know that Asia is a horrible photographer.

And that it was obviously dark and that I have blue eyes that always turn red when they're photographed with a flash.

So I look a little demonic.

But I jumped. And laughed. And pulled out a few old cheerleading moves.

Here's the evidence:

Did I have fun?

Yes. Yes I did.

31 days of fun

2010-08-01T21:17:00.000-07:00

The other day Asia kept texting me from work, giving me ideas for my FUN experiment... and one of his texts said "What about photography? You think that's fun..."

And I had to pause... "Oh yeah. Photography." I thought to myself.

I texted him back "I don't think I've taken a picture all summer long..."

So this weekend I got the camera out... we were in Leavenworth with our dear friends David and Brynn, spending one last extended chunk of time with them before they move to Northern Ireland...

We took a walk together and I asked David first of all to take some pictures of our family... it's been ages since we had some good ones taken.

Then I got the camera back and took a few shots while we were talking on the deck...

My fifteen year old boy/man...

My soul mate/partner/best friend/love.

And then when we got home and I was puttering in the back yard I decided to take some shots of my cherry tomatoes (yellow ones this year!)

I like taking pictures.

It's fun.

My fun list

2010-07-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

We're heading out of town today and I won't have my computer so I wanted to post my list of fun ideas for August...

One a day.

No schedule or plan... I want to be spontaneous if I can, but also know having a list of ideas will help...

So here are some of my ideas:

Go antiquing on Monroe street
Swim in the ocean
Go to water aerobics class with some of the sweet little old ladies from my Wednesday WW meeting
Cook salmon on the grill
Take the kids to Donut Parade
Go to Lake Coeur D'Alene for the day
Pick peaches at Green Bluff
Design an "Amazing Race" style scavenger hunt for the family while we're in Manzanita
Go to the sand dollar beach at Ft. Stevens
Have a dance party with the kids
Make some really good coleslaw and eat it on the back deck
Do a milkshake tasting event with the kids, similar to our Cheeseburgerpalooza
Play tennis with Asia at the little city park in Manzanita
Take a sunrise bike ride
Go to Turnbull Wildlife Preserve at dusk or dawn
Build a dam
Play the piano
Go to Hilyard and check out the antique stores
Have coffee (and maybe a teeny-tiny pastry) at Petit Chat Village Bakery
Go hiking on Mt. Spokane
Give away $20
Buy yarn to make a granny square afghan
Make a granny square afghan
Design cards for a fall card class in my home
Hike in the Dishman Hills
Take the kids to the river
Paint one or two of the four little tables I've bought at garage sales (planning to paint and resell them...)
Ride the electric scooters at Riverfront Park
Go to Moore Turner Heritage Garden for a picnic
Take the kids out for a end of summer photo shoot
Go for a drive through parts of Spokane I've never been to

So there's a good working list... I may or may not do all of them... like I said, I want to be spontaneous too, so if something presents itself, I can respond.

Part of my goal in August is to step out of my comfort zone just a bit... be willing to get a little dirty... so while this is a good list, most of it isn't really very stretching...

So I'll be on the lookout for fun things that I would normally say no to... and more eager to respond to some of the kids crazy suggestions that I would normally blow off because I've become old and boring.

So off we go! A whole month of fun!

Bring it on, August!

Fun.

2010-07-28T06:38:00.000-07:00

So after my little rant last week, I have been pondering F.U.N.

I was so despondent after our failed lake adventure... and it sort of freaked me - this fear that we don't know how to have fun as a family anymore.

But the more I thought about it, the more I began to feel that it's more about me...

I - somewhere along the way - have become a bit of a fuddy duddy when it comes to fun. I've come to value my own comfort so much that I let it get in the way of fun.

Some examples:

I never swim in the ocean when we go to the beach. It's gritty. And REALLY cold on the Oregon coast.
I don't participate in sport-ish things because I really dislike being sweaty - and I've always felt like I look stupid when I attempt anything athletic...
I hate being tickled... I'm always afraid I'm going to pee my pants. (I did, after all, push out an 11 lb 4 oz. baby...) I pretty much have a CONCRETE no tickling rule. (How's that for NOT fun?)
I don't dance in front of ANYONE except my family. I've always felt like I was a horrible dancer.
It's like pulling teeth to get me to play a board game - although once I do it, I always enjoy it.
The hobbies that used to bring me so much pleasure (scrapbooking and photography) have gathered dust on the shelf for the past year...

I don't want to be a stick-in-the-mud at age forty one.

So I've decided to do something about it.

August, 2010, is going to be my MONTH OF FUN.

I began last night making my fun list.

Every single day of August, I'm going to do something fun.

And I'm going to document it here. With pictures.

Every.single.day.

Are you as excited about it as I am?

('Cause I think it's going to change my life in all the right ways... which is always exciting for me...)

Fighting my demons.

2010-07-26T07:48:00.000-07:00

Today is going to be whiny.

I'm just warning you.

I've been in a funk.

And it really helps me to type it out... put words to it.

I've always been a person who processes things by writing... try to get me to talk things out before I'm ready and I get nowhere... but let me write and I'll figure something out almost every time.

So I'll write.

This is the second summer in a row that has been really hard for me. As my kids get older, (and need me less and less to have fun) I find myself home alone many afternoons, wondering what happened to the sidewalk chalk and the kiddie pool and the endless slathering of sunscreen. Now it looks more like kids sleeping in until 10:00 or 11:00, waking up to their phones ringing with invitations and each one riding away on a bike or a scooter to hang out with a friend... or going to the movies or the pool without me.

I wrack my brain to come up with ideas for ways we can spend time together... and have fun.

Ah - there's the word that's causing me so much grief.

F.U.N.

We took the kids to the lake on Saturday... a family day. And it was a total disaster. (In my pessimistic ugly little heart...)

It began with Asia deciding to unpack everything we'd brought at the picnic table... out comes the blanket. The umbrella. The chairs.

Don't ask me why - but this drove me crazy. The picnic table was nowhere near where we were going to settle in at the lake front... we were supposed to just eat lunch there. When I asked him what he was doing, he replied "I just want to sit and enjoy the view..."

(Here is the place where you can call me petty and ridiculous - but sometimes the man drives me crazy. We proceeded to eat lunch, and when we had finished eating, he took his book out of his backpack and sat in one of the chairs and read while the rest of us sat there looking at him, wondering why we weren't down at the lakefront dipping our toes in the water. He read about a page, then got up and started packing up the blanket, the chairs, the umbrella... )

That silly little episode set the tone for me. I'm not proud of it, but sometimes all it takes is one little thing to set my mood... and this did it. Stupid. But true.

When we finally got down to the lake, we ended up picking a spot, setting up, and then proceeded to spend the next hour in the blazing sun not having fun.

Savannah swam with Ethan for about ten minutes then laid on her towel with her MP3 player.
Kyler laid on the blanket with his socks and shoes on and never even touched the water.
Ethan swam alone, coming up to complain that he was swimming alone about every five minutes.
Asia read his book.
I sat there thinking about how stupid we are.

Thinking.
Stewing.
Fussing in the most un-Jesus-like way...

"We don't even know how to have fun together anymore..." kept going through my mind.

And then it kept going through my mind for the next two days.

So much so that I didn't even go to church on Sunday... couldn't face the crowds pretending to be okay... because by the time we were driving to church, I had blown the whole thing into this epic, disastrous analysis of our family and all it's shortcomings... and in particular, all my shortcomings as a mother and wife.

Geez. I can be such a loser.

I spent the morning down by the river while my family was at church. I found a rock and sat there feeling sorry for myself. Listing off how un-fun I am. How I've failed my kids. How we'll never be able to afford our trip to Africa (that always comes into the mix when I'm upset...)

I know. Pathetic.

I don't write this all out to have you comment and try to remind me of all the fun things we've done as a family. I don't want you to try to help me see how blessed I am. I know.

I know.

The truth is, I have an amazing family. Wonderful, healthy, smart, engaging, interesting kids. A faithful and patient husband. A wonderful home. A heritage of faith.

I know.

But I'm walking through this transition where my definition of myself needs to change - and I'm pretty sure I have no idea how to do it. And where what used to work doesn't work any more.

And so I'm falling on my knees again.

'Cause I can't do it alone.

I'm so desperate to suck every little good thing out of my time with my kids while they're still home with me (we're down to three years left with Kyler... THREE YEARS!) that I think I'm overthinking and stressing and ruining it.

So that's where I'm at.

A couple of good nights' sleep and some time to process and pray and talk a bit about it has given me some perspective... but not really any answers.

So I'll continue to strive to be a blessing to my family and pray that God grants us some fun together this summer.

It never fails that just when I think I've got things figured out some other ugly part of me rears it's head and challenges me...

I'm thankful for a patient and longsuffering God and a patient and longsuffering husband and kids who only seem to remember the good...

So thankful.

Now if I could just find a way to stop the pathetic, sinful cycle of my ugly heart -
Jesus, forgive me...

It's been awhile...

2010-07-22T07:16:00.000-07:00

Life just sort of tumbles along here... I occasionally think of things I want to post but then when I sit down to write, my mind goes blank and I can't think of a thing to tell you. So here's a bullet list of the short thoughts going through my mind...
Summer is going WAY too quickly.
I'm still pondering my list of cravings...
Fresh raspberries. Yum.
Kyler is away at running camp this week. Miss him.
Planning a trip to Silverdale in the fall to go talk to COTN about a family trip to Sierra Leone next summer. Yikes!
Starting to plan for some sales in the fall... selling some wares to raise money for said trip to Sierra Leone... craft-y sales, bake sales, yadda yadda... what else can I sell?
We need LOTS of money to go to Sierra Leone.
Love that the days have been hot and the nights cool... the perfect summer combination in my opinion... I can enjoy the sun but keep the house cool. Love it.
Ethan is the child who is gone the most this summer. He gets at least an invitation a day to do something with someone... the pool, the lake, a playdate... it's crazy. Literally.every.single.day. I guess he's a good date!
I sure love my teenagers... I'd like to ask all those people who warned us "Just wait 'til they're teenagers"... what they meant. Whatever ominous things they were warning us against haven't happened, I guess. They're both so amazing and fun and interesting... I think it's a blast watching them stretch their wings and grow...
Our dear friends Bryan and Heidi have moved back to town!!! We're SO happy to have them back. Bryan is actually working with Asia now, so they get to see each other every day.
I made grilled pizza the other night. We were all in HEAVEN!!! Wow - SO yummy. And really, really easy. (I used the dough recipe in the link but we topped ours with bbq sauce, red onion, chicken and mozzarella.)
No, the dough does not sink through the grate on the grill.
Savannah and Ethan are going to VBS this week... it's Savannah's last year as an attendee... next year she'll volunteer and lead her own group.

And now my brain is more empty. Feels good to get all that off my chest... have a great weekend, friends! Smooch you all!

The Long Awaited Peony

2010-07-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

My Grandpa Young died in 2001, just over a year after his lovely wife Inez passed away.

When I was at their home after he passed away, helping to sort through 65 years of accumulated memories and possessions, I asked if maybe I could have the peony plant that had been in their front flower bed...

No one else wanted it, so I dug it up, stuck it in a bucket and drove it all the way across the state.

When we got home, I dug up a spot in my own flower bed, and planted it.

Transplanted peony... check.

The next spring, I watched eagerly as it's tender branches grew.

It unfurled into a bush that was about a foot high, but no buds formed.

Each year, I watched the same thing happen. Lots of foliage, no buds.

I remember hearing our local lawn and garden radio show host (I listen to it while I garage sale on Saturday mornings) say once that peonies really dislike being moved - and may take as long as five years to recover from being transplanted. So I waited.

Then, in the spring of 2006, the peony got buds. Not a lot... I think I counted three or four. But I was thrilled to see them forming and could hardly wait until they opened. It had been so long that I didn't even really remember what color the flowers were. Each day as I walked out to the garage to get in my car, I would check their progress...

Until one morning when I went to let the dog out and I looked toward the flower bed... and the peony was gone.

Not smashed by an accidental ball kicked by one of the kids...

Not bent by a misplaced foot...

G.O.N.E.

I went outside, literally rubbing my eyes in disbelief.

On further investigation, I found tiny little stubs, about a half inch long, where branches used to be.

My peony had been mowed.

I burst into tears.

Don't ask me why anyone would think that a bush (that by now had developed into a beautiful, lush green shrub about 18 inches in height) would be something you should chew up with a lawn mower... to this day I cannot imagine what the unnamed mower pusher was thinking... why on earth would you mow the flower beds?

And so began my waiting again.

2007. No buds.

2008. No buds.

2009. No buds. Apparently mowing a peony is akin to transplanting it...

2010. BUDS!!!

And finally, after eight and a half years of waiting, I was rewarded with four gorgeous, hot pink peonies.

I wish I could tell my Grandma the story... she would get such a kick out of it... and I know she would love and appreciate how precious those four peonies were to me.

It was worth the wait.

Cravings Part One

2010-07-06T21:11:00.000-07:00

We might think we ‘can’t help’ gaining weight because we’re cravers. We crave food, but if we give ourselves a chance we’ll find that we crave other things too; food is just the easiest target. I found that I also craved being able to give. I craved being active, doing something I loved. I craved beautiful clothes I looked good in. … And not only that, I wanted to be a blonde."

~Jean Nidetch

Founder of Weight Watchers

We had this quote as part of our meeting curriculum last week at Weight Watchers.

And it rocked my world.

The longer I strive after this healthy lifestyle - this daily decision to choose to control my eating so I can stay at a healthy weight - the more I realize it is not something I will ever 'figure out'. As much as I'd like to say I've got it licked - that it's easy for me now, that would not be the truth.

Because almost every single day, it's a struggle.

But this quote has been so good for me to ponder.

Because food is most definitely my 'easy target.'

And because there are so many other things I crave - that get lost because my tendency is always to satisfy the craving that is most easily fed. The food one. So it gets all my attention and the things I REALLY long for get ignored... or forgotten...

The meeting topic last week was on vacation - how to stay on plan and focused on your weight goals in the midst of all the challenges that come along with holidays and road trips and living out of a suitcase and being on the road for hours on end.

But in light of this quote, I asked the members "What is it you really crave when you're on vacation?"

Relaxation.

Rest.

Quality time with family and friends.

New experiences.

So why do I let all my excuses for being able to eat whatever I want foreshadow the quality of all those admirable expectations? It goes so far beyond vacation... it goes to the whole of life... the things I know I'm called to... the hopes and dreams that make me who I am...

I don't know if I'm explaining myself very well.

But I do know that I've been compelled since I finished my last meeting of the week on Thursday - to write out my own list of things I crave... things besides food.

So watch for it.

I'm pondering it. Praying over it. Dreaming big and asking for Vision.

I know this: I don't want to cheapen the beauty of life by settling for food when what I really crave is SO much more satisfying and meaningful and lasting.

Tuesday Ten-ish

2010-06-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

Today my husband is 45 years old. He's more handsome and well-rounded than he was when I met him... truly, he just gets better with age. Happy birthday, hon!
We volunteered last Sunday at the Coeur D'Alene Ironman. Wow. What an inspiration to see all those athletes working so hard... pushing their bodies. We worked at a bike aid station with Kyler's cross country team, giving out water and Gatorade, Power Bars, Power Gel and bananas. We were at mile 40 of the bike ride... which is apparently when lots of athletes needed to go to the bathroom, because there were TONS of them stopping to use the porta-potties at our station. We will for sure do this again next year. It was really fun.
We got rid of the kids overnight for our anniversary on Sunday and had such a lovely, quiet time together. We took a nice long walk together on a new trail, went out to dinner at one of our favorite south hill patio restaurants, watched a movie with some Ben & Jerry's, got up in the morning and took a walk through Manito Park to go to our favorite bakery for breakfast... it was so nice. He's still my best friend.
We've been enjoying lots of good friends - feeding people summer-y meals on the back deck. Truly, making and sharing delicious food with dear people is my favorite past time... besides maybe walking... I love taking walks with friends too. Dinner on the deck followed by a nice long evening walk is my favorite, most perfect thing to do at the end of the day.
Signed up and tried Bountiful Baskets last Saturday. I was really pleased with what we got... we ended up with 4 zucchinis, a bunch of grapes, some peaches, apples, lettuce, green beans, a melon, bananas, 4 avocados, and probably a few other things I'm not remembering. It was a TON of produce - in great shape - really fresh and super tasty. I love that it is such an easy way to get produce for less - and that it encourages us to eat more fresh fruit and veggies.
I've been outside working on my flower beds a ton this year... I'm an on-again-off-again gardener for sure. Some years I just don't do a thing out there. But this year I'm really motivated to have pretty beds. They're shaping up really nicely and I've been able to add in quite a few perennials. Costco had Delphinium last week, which are some of my favorite flowers so I bought up a couple of nice big plants... it was the perfect addition.
Fourth of July on Sunday... we fail at this holiday as a family. We've never established a tradition for it - so every year we sort of flail around trying to decide what to do... and it usually ends up being pretty lame. I hate that, since I'm a tradition-lover. And because I always want to make one of those pretty Fourth of July cakes with berries looking like a flag... but never have anywhere to take one. Grrr.
Thought I could make it to ten but I've got to get ready for work... smooches, friends. Have a lovely day!

Appreciating 50 years of faithfulness

2010-06-24T07:50:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday my family and I were in Astoria… we were there to celebrate my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. A few nights before we left I was on the internet and discovered that the annual Scandinavian Festival was taking place while we were there. Now - I grew up in Astoria and only remember going to this festival once or twice… it wasn’t huge on my radar, since I am not of Scandinavian heritage. I had lots of friends who were, though, and I knew it was a big event in their lives, so I spent some time online looking at the offerings of the fesitval. On the website, I saw that they now do a race/walk on the Saturday morning of the festival called the Running of the Trolls. And since I have a son who is a runner, and because I like to walk, I went ahead and signed Kyler and I up to do it. Kyler needed to be running anyway, since he was going to miss several practices while we were out of town.

The Scandinavian Festival (and the Running of the Trolls) is held at the Clatsop Country Fairgrounds, which has moved from it’s downtown location where I used to know it to a lovely country setting not far from town. It’s out on Walluski Loop for anyone who’s familiar with the area.

As we drove there Saturday morning, I found myself marveling at the beauty of the region… the watery marshes, the verdant greens, the smooth glassy surface of the bay. I lived there for the first 18 years of my life, and yet it’s only in returning as an adult that I could appreciate how lovely it really is there. This revelation made me realize that the same can be said for my parent’s marriage. As a child, of course, I took it for granted. Just as I never noticed the amazing beauty of the area I claimed as my childhood home, I didn't recognize the gift of my parent's faithfulness to each other. Of course my parents were married. What else would they be? Divorce was fairly uncommon then, so the possibility of anything different never entered my mind.

Now, many years later, I understand that no marriage stays together by default.

It takes effort.

Commitment.

Love.

Faithfulness.

Honesty.

Selflessness.

50 years is a really long time to be any one of those things with one person.

But my parents have done it. And because of their faithfulness to each other, my brothers and I have been blessed.

Blessed with a really clear knowledge of what God intended marriage to be.

And blessed with 8 beautiful children who also can see a clear picture of faithfulness in their grandparents.

We come from a heritage of successful marriages, which in today’s world is no small thing.

In the three generations that include my grandparents, my parents, my brothers and I, there are over 215 years of faithful marriage represented. Add my aunts and uncles to that mix and you can add well over 100 more years... and that's with just two uncles and one aunt!

That’s a pretty strong heritage - one I’m proud to pass on to my nephews and nieces and my own children. So thanks, mom and dad. Thanks for sticking it out. For staying true to an institution that is losing ground in our today’s disposable, easy fix society. For loving each other through all the years of child rearing and rebellious teenagers, middle age, empty nesting, retirement, and beyond.

I will never take your faithfulness or your commitment to each other for granted. I thank God for the rich heritage I have and the clear understanding of why it’s worth it to work it out… to push through the rough seasons with my own husband and to cherish this thing called marriage.

Your marriage is a marvel in today’s society and I am so proud to tell people about your accomplishment of sticking together for 50 years.

I love you. (And just in case you were wondering, Kyler won the Running of the Trolls! First place in the youth division - second place overall! Here he is with his Troll Trophy!)

Letter. Finally.

2010-06-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

"Dear my mom and dad, Kyler, Savannah and Ethan (the Goins family),

How are you all? I hope you are all doing well. Thank you all for the letters you wrote to me and the book you guys sent for me. One of my favorites was the album. It was such a lovely designed album. And I also love all the pictures in it.

I am praying for you all always for God to guide and protect you all.

Savannah, Kyler and Ethan, how is school going on for you all over there? I hope you are doing well in your work.

How is Gracie? I missed her so much and can't wait until the time I will see her again and I really love her.

Aunty Cathy, Mama Josephine and Aunty Margaret say hello to you. They cannot wait to see you and your family here in Sierra Leone Banta Mokelleh and they are praying for all of you.

I am doing well in school. On the 5th to the 14th of July I am going to take my Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). That is the examination that will allow me to go to the tenth grade. It is a national examination and I am really studying very hard for it. So please, Aunty Cathy, Uncle Asia, Kyler, Savannah and Ethan, I really need a prayer from all of you so that I can pass this exam.

Please greet for me all my friends and their families. I really loved them all. Please also say a sweet hello to the Swobodas, the Arguinchonas, the Tesariks and all of my friends at Jefferson Elementary School.

My brothers in my home all say hello to all of you. They too are praying for you always. They can't wait to see you all here in Banta Mokelleh.

Please greet for me all my friends at church (Kids Community) and also my friend Noah. I really do hope that he is coming to visit me. And not only him but everybody else.

I really love you all once more.

Your son and brother,
Tejan Joshua Margay"

Five 'cause it's late...

2010-06-08T22:41:00.000-07:00

Wow. Where has the time gone? Sorry... I thought I'd gotten back on the bandwagon with blogging and then I sort of fell off the face of the earth again.
Two and a half more days of school for the kids.
Kyler has finals tomorrow and Thursday... hope he's all studied up. He's really applied himself these past couple of months - after struggling to find his groove in high school. School has always come really easily to him - and having to actually study and work for his grades sort of caught him off guard, I'm afraid. But he's managing really well now. I'm proud to see this maturing process in him. He's such a great kid.
Looking ahead to next year, I'll have Kyler in 10th grade, Savannah in 8th and Ethan in 5th... Kyler is taking honors classes again, along with his first AP class. Savannah will be in an accelerated math (9th grade level) class as well as a 9th grade level Spanish class and a special science program called MESA - which is designed to make math, engineering and science interesting and appealing to minorities and females... she's very excited about it, since they take lots of field trips and do special, fun projects.
I've added another Weight Watchers meeting to my schedule... I had gone back to five after my last At Work meeting didn't renew, but now I've got another At Work so I'm back up to six... It's a great schedule. I can't believe how fortunate I am to have had jobs I love so much for the past 7 years... I am so blessed - especially because I've never really wanted to work - how many people are able to find jobs that don't feel like work? I've totally got that with Weight Watchers.

Happy Tuesday, friends.

Family Night

2010-05-23T20:04:00.000-07:00

Sunday night is typically family night here... it's often a game night, or a movie night, or in warmer weather, a chance to go for a hike or a bike ride. Asia and I were both lacking motivation to come up with anything too high energy tonight... ...so we brainstormed and each came up with half of tonight's plan.

For my part, I gave each of the kids one dollar to cleverly and randomly give away and a post-it note to write a note to whoever would find their dollar. We then wandered around Riverfront Park until they found a good spot.

Kyler taped his to the inside rim of a garbage can. We all thought it was a bad idea - that people wouldn't notice it... but we hung around long enough to see a group of three girls find it... First one noticed it, bent down to read the note, pointed to it, but was reluctant to reach in and take it. Another noticed it and snatched it, then they all gathered around it and took a picture of their treasure. You should have seen Kyler's grin while he watched it all play out...

(Asia and I waiting on a bench for the garbage can treasure to be discovered...)

Savannah taped hers to a statue of Michael Anderson, a local astronaut who died in the space shuttle Columbia accident.

Ethan tried a bench first, then moved it to a tree when he got impatient waiting for someone to notice it.

Asia wanted a dollar too... his went on a Bloomsday runner statue.

What we discovered on this little adventure is two things:

People aren't very observant. We watched lots of people walk right past dollar bills with bright green post-it notes attached in broad daylight.
Giving a little random gift feels really good.

Then came Asia's brainstorm. We all went to the downtown mall and he led us to the food court. There he gave us each $2 and told us that's how much money we got for dinner. After some squawks from the kids that it would be impossible to find dinner for $2, we encouraged them to consider different ways to make it work...

Asia and Savannah ended up pooling their money and getting a single serving of orange chicken from Panda Express with water. They gave their change to Kyler, who used his $2 plus their change for a $1.99 +tax kids serving of nachos. Ethan and I went together and bought a $3.25 six-inch meatball sub from Subway. We even had enough change leftover for a chocolate dipped banana from Ben and Jerry's to share.

I'm pretty sure these unusual family nights are the ones the kids will remember...

It ended up being so much more fun that when we just take them out for dinner... a little creativity and challenge goes a long way... and makes for way more memorable times together.

(Gotta hang onto those times before they're all gone...)

Tuesday Ten

2010-05-18T19:01:00.000-07:00

Kyler had his final track meet last Saturday. It was a crazy hot day. He ran the 1600m. It's become his favorite event, for sure, and he's focused all his energy this season on perfecting his splits. He didn't PR on Saturday - it was too hot, really. But he finished ninth out of all ninth grade boys in the city. Not too shabby in one of most competitive high school running cities in the nation... We're so proud of him. He gets a couple of weeks off before the cross country team starts training for the fall. He'll be running all summer.
I've got so many books on my nightstand right now it's just silly. I'm really hungry for books right now. And yet it's one of the busiest months of the year and Asia is no longer traveling, which ruins my reading time I used to enjoy when he was gone... I'll never get everything read. But I have really good intentions.
Savannah bought a guitar last weekend from a friend of ours who is selling everything he owns to go work on Mercy Ships in Togo, Africa... he gave her a pretty good deal on it and is even throwing in some free lessons for her. She's working so hard at in on her own - practicing EVERY night and printing free chord charts off of the internet. She's already managed to learn a whole song with more than just D, G and A chords! (I'm even sneaking into her room occasionally to fiddle with it... I've always wanted to learn to play well...)
Ethan is in the full throes of ten-year-old-boyhood right now. His legs are literally covered in bruises. He's in that akward, clumsy stage where he's just hurting himself all the time. Combine that with typical pre-adolescent misjudgement and lack of common sense and he's just an accident waiting to happen. We're going through the band-aids like crazy. But it's so great to have him enjoying the tail end of his boyhood, I simply can't ask him to slow down. Soon enough he'll be all teen-ager-y and he won't want to play outside with sticks all day. It's worth a few bruises and bumps to watch my baby still be a little boy. It'll end soon enough.
We officially made the decision to get rid of Dish Network and go back to over-the-air channels. We'll save tons of money doing that... and we just really don't watch tv much at all anymore. Silly to pay for it when we really don't need it. We've got 28 days to watch everything on our DVR before we have to send it back. We've got about 8 Glee's and 10 Survivors and a dozen What Not To Wears... See? We just never watch anymore!
I'm really struggling lately with the whole Weight Watchers thing. It's so frustrating that it never gets easier for me... that I really, every day of my life, want to eat more than I need. I'm brutally honest with my members - which helps - because it helps keep me accountable... but I'm just tired. Some days I just wish I could eat cookies and cake and brownies and candy and not have to think about it. It never goes away... unless I want to gain weight - which is just silly. Because of course, I don't want to do that. I LOVE being at this weight. So I continue to make the choice - every day - to fight my natural tendencies. Truth be told, I think about food all day long. Honestly. Really? Isn't that crazy? Maybe this needs to be a post of it's own, because I'm feeling like I could just go on and on about this one... better stop now.
I simply cannot believe that another school year is almost over. How can that be? Can we just stop time? My babies are growing up and I'd just like to stop it now and keep them right where they are...
Asia and I have been doing lots of dreaming and pondering and envisioning what fall might look like for us... the small group that we've been a part of the past year is sort of disbanding as the ones who are going with a church plant begin to focus on that... so we're in a position to decide whether we start a group, join a new group, join an existing group or take a break altogether... we're dreaming together with another couple about different (unconventional) ideas. I'm eager to see where we end up and how it all plays out.
Asia and I went to see Natalie Cole with the Spokane Symphony while my parents were in town a couple of weeks ago. I can't get over what an amazing concert it was... Asia totally made me laugh afterwards when he leaned over and said "I don't know if this means I'm getting old, but that's the kind of concert I want to pay money for from now on." It was tremendous. And we got to sit the whole time, which is a bonus when you're as old as we are...
New favorite artist? Madeleine Peyroux. Can't get enough of her music.

Happy Tuesday, friends.

Spring. Good.

2010-05-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

Loving the colors and activities of this time of year...

Lilacs and tulips and my pup who waits patiently in the driveway while I putter around in the front yard.

Track meets and garage sales and sunshine.

Life is good.

Bloomsday 2010

2010-05-02T18:00:00.000-07:00

We ran/walked Bloomsday today.

There were over 55,000 participants registered... almost 50,000 finished the race.

Kyler ran near the front of the pack. Asia and the younger kids and I walked.

I'm so thankful that I ran into my friend Brynn at the start... she and I stuck together the whole time. We got ditched by everyone else because they all decided to run the majority of the race. We both ran the first mile and a half, and then wherever there was a downhill... but walked a lot of the course. We finished with an appromimate time of 1 hour 43 minutes. It's a 12K race (7.46 miles) We don't know Kyler's finishing time - we should know by Tuesday... I think he finished in just about an hour.

Here's the whole fam with our race t-shirts... bright green this year!

Yay, Bloomies!

Update: Here are Kyler's results... he did awesome, finishing 7th out of 479 fifteen year old males and 782 out of 49,674 total runners. I'm so proud of him.