thoughts from the deep recesses

I have been big on new year's resolutions since 2009. I have no idea what I want to do for 2013. Any suggestions? Every once in a teeny-tiny while I say yes to something I wish I'd said no to. I'm pretty good at saying no. But darn it, I'm not perfect at it yet. I've got something on the agenda next month I really wish I didn't have to do. Oh well. Live and learn, right? The Christmas thing might be sort of ruined permanently for me, I'm afraid. After two trips to Africa it's just really hard for me to get excited about the excesses so prevalent here in the States this time of year. Honestly, no one I know here NEEDS anything. We are rich. And so I try my darndest to stay focused on the people and the memories and not get caught up in the spending.  There is a fine line between choosing not to spend a lot on Christmas and appearing to be a scrooge, it turns out. Particularly when you have teenagers who are apt to forget all the meaningful lessons the...

There is budding romance in my house. I've hesitated to write about it, since I feel like it's sort of not my story to tell. But I watch. And I have observations that I know can be best processed with the written word... it's always a great way for me to work out my thoughts. And so I write. Delicately and carefully, out of respect. But I write. I guess by now they know that I write about them. So it should come as no surprise. What surprises me most as I witness the unfolding of the affair, is how much joy it brings me. The smile that spreads across her face at every text... her shyly divulging his little whispered sweet nothings to me... the grin he cannot contain when he sees her. I had no idea how sweet it would be to behold. I was blessed to have a rare and lovely first boyfriend whose affections were respectful and sweet... he was a boy who made it clear I was his favorite by doting on me in innocent and proper ways that made me feel both treasured a...

It's been a crazy busy month...  Here are some highlights... First: We haven't heard the results yet from Asia's board exam. Any.day.now.  Kyler finished off his cross country season with a team trip to the State Championships on Nov. 3rd. He tragically fell in his race, placing 42nd out of 151 of the top runners in the state. If he hadn't fallen, he would probably have been in the top 15. Ouch. We spent a couple of days really lamenting what could have been . And then we moved on. His team placed fourth in the state, which placed them on the podium and sent them home with a nice big trophy... and he qualified to go to the Footlocker West Regional Championships in Southern California this weekend. He still has track season to continue improving his times and work toward potential college scholarships... I now have a 16 year old daughter. We celebrated by hosting a party for 20 of her closest friends, which included tacos, a game of Bigger and Better, pr...

This morning Asia is taking his board exam to be licensed as a marriage and family therapist... There have been months of discussion, classes, studying, dreaming, praying and planning leading up to this day... There have been LOTS of opportunities to let go and trust. There has been lots of change, particularly for me... There's been lots of anxiety... particularly this week... tension has been running high as all this energy comes together into this one four hour test that will determine our future. And yet, last night, we were blessed with a moment of calm. A change to reflect on the gift of living in a country where a person can pursue their dreams. An opportunity to thank God for his provision. A moment to pause - and revel in the culmination of months and months of prayer. A quiet whisper in bed "Whatever happens, I will always love you... God is in control... so we'll be okay..." For this four hours I am suspended between what has been an...

 I've watched a multitude of Kyler's races over the four years of his high school cross country career...  And I think in all that time I've seen him be passed in the chute less than five times...  When this boy sees the finish line something switches in his head and he is more determined than ever...  Kicking it into high gear...  Pouring on the steam...  Stretching out his stride...  Maneuvering his elbows...  Twisting his body just so... And somehow managing to be in front at the line... This one was cutting it close, for sure. The thrill is worth the risk... he's given me more exhilarating race experiences than I ever could have hoped for. Watching him race has been the highlight of his high school years for me. One more race to go... on to State 2012. Go get 'em, Kyler. Eastern Washington Regionals - October 27, 2012

It's just after three o'clock in the morning and already I've been awake for an hour and a half. Midlife/perimenopause does funny things with my sleep patterns. It does funny things with a lot of me... Mostly - it pushes me to question and define and re-define my priorities. While I don't actually love some of the hormonal fluctuations and the not sleeping, there are parts of this phase of life I DO love. I love knowing what's important to me. I spent a lot of years in my twenties and thirties trying to define myself when compared to others. Specifically, other women. I cannot tell you the amount of energy I wasted trying to meet others' expectations... striving after some impossible standard I had created in my head. I never felt good enough. Being in my 40's has afforded me the luxury of owning my own priorities... defining myself in a way that makes it easy for me to say no to certain things and embrace others. Part of this self awareness exhi...

Tuesday morning alarms were going off all over the house... signalling the return to routine and kids with new found purpose... it's music to my ears after a summer of poking and prodding... fighting the teenage urge to melt into the couch, ipods in hand and earphones alienating my little darlings from their surroundings. It was a hard summer... one where I found myself longing for little ones who used to play at parks and who would jump at the chance to go on a mom-led outing. Tuesday morning... the blessed day after Labor Day... school started. Savannah is now a sophomore... looking forward to coursework including Fourth Year Spanish, Advanced Drama and Photography as well as her core curriculum of Honors English, Advanced Algebra and Biology. She is driven... motivated by a desire to excel academically and to come out of her high school experience with a well rounded set of coursework. Ethan started his first of two years at his junior high. So far he LOVES the variety o...

I think this is officially my favorite time of year... cooler nights but still hot days, sharpened pencils all ready for school, pulling cardigans out of the closet... ah, fall, you have my heart... that first school bus sighting always makes my heart go pitter-patter... Vegan-ism, I find, illicits strong reactions from people. It's interesting how confounding it is to others... people ask me all the time "What do you eat?" It's so fun to list off my healthy list... fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds... SO many yummy choices on that list. Last night I had fresh corn cut off the cob with avocado and sweet peppers for dinner along with sourdough bread and homemade pesto. Believe me, I'm not deprived. That plate full of color and flavor made me SO happy. And I feel SO much better ALL.THE.TIME. I saw a dandelion in our new front yard the other day. AGH!  Crazy how much that one yellow flower disturbed me when compared to the plot full of wee...

I approach the blank page with a little uncertainty today... mostly because I feel I have something to say but have no idea where I'll end up. I just know I need to write. Process. Take a moment... It's been a rough summer for me. I work a lot now - more than I ever have since I had kids. And so summer looks very different for my kiddos... with mom gone a lot and them defining their days on their own. I haven't heard many complaints from them... occasionally one will groan when I remind them I'll be working... but in general, I think they're managing just fine. My struggle lies more in what happens when I'm not working... because more often than not, when I get home, they leave. This is my reality. I work - and then I come home to an empty house. Not that different from the school year routine - but somehow it feels so wrong. And sad. I miss my kids. And so I have spent much of the summer fighting a melancholy... a lost-ness... a lack of direction....

We bought our house in 1999... and when we did, the front lawn was lush and lovely. The flower beds were full of 50 year old shubberies. And the previous owner left us a nicely designed array of hoses and sprinklers that we could turn on and off as needed to maintain the landscape. We immediately had the shrubbery taken out, replacing them with some newer, more modern plantings. However, over the years, Asia and I have discovered that neither of us enjoys/wants to do yard work. At all. I certainly don't want to do it if he's not going to do it. He started making the boys do the lawn mowing when they were barely tall enough to reach the handle of the lawnmower just so he wouldn't have to. This led to quite a few years of barely doing anything to the yard. We would water haphazardly... and I would complain that the grass was getting brown. We tried to reseed in places with no success. The two big pine trees out there suck up a tremendous amount of water and gradually...

My laptop quit working several weeks ago. Evidently, I'm not a fan of composing blog posts at our desktop computer. Because I haven't blogged since the laptop died. Add to that the fact that I almost never take pictures anymore with my standard camera (which is misbehaving recently as well) and I'm just not much of a blogger anymore. Add Instagram to the mix, which gives me the ability to cash in on the 'picture worth a 1000 words' adage and I've obviously been wooed away from traditional writing/posting/documenting life via blogging. However, this venue has been such a fun way to archive our journey that I'm still committed to it. Even if I'm just committed to the idea/value of it, it's still there, eh? I guess it's pretty bad when almost every blog post starts with why I haven't been blogging... perhaps I should just get over that and let it be. Post when I'm inspired and stop apologizing/rationalizing not posting... So - in t...

Thursdays are my weekday off... I strive to stay home on Thursdays. I found when I gave up Fridays off that if I don't commit to just being home on Thursdays, my mental/emotional health suffers. And then my family suffers. So I decided that errands and schtuff could all happen on the other days of the week. Thursdays it's just me and my house. This is how I recharge. I need Thursdays. A favorite feature of my favorite day: I barely get dressed. Having to dress for work every other day of the week (with the exception of Sundays - but that requires dressing for church) makes the one day I can wear my ugly jeans and favorite cardigan and simply throw my hair into a big messy bun a delicious luxury... Thursday I can fiddle around my house and get those nagging little jobs done... the stuff that drives me crazy during my busy work week... For instance: the baseboards in the kitchen that get splattered when the dishwasher is loaded got wiped down this morning. This requires ly...

Lots going on for our little family - May is always crazy - and this month is no exception Savannah has finished up a spring golf season at her high school. She really loved playing (her first time ever.) We borrowed clubs from a friend of ours who played golf for WSU - then I managed to find her a complete set that was the perfect size for $2 50 . Yes . Two dollars and fifty cents. As soon as golf ended, Driver's Ed started. So now I have two teenagers driving. At least finally now when she asks "Can I drive?" (which she's been doing for about two years...) we can legally say yes. Ethan is finishing up his final year at the elementary school and prepping to start junior high in the fall. Lots of 'lasts' happening for us there... our last variety show a couple months ago, our last walk-a-thon next week, our last parent/teacher conference, our last Band and Strings Spectacular. Can't believe that after being at this school since the fall of 2000, our ti...

I often find myself wanting to post... but talking myself out of it because my thoughts are so full I cannot honestly imagine being able to constrict them with words or tame them with grammar. I want to write about anti-consumerism. Being vegan. My kids growing up. The mystery of twenty years of marriage. Africa. Jesus. Aging well. The struggle to grow a career vs. the desire to be home with my family. Tithing. Community. Potential. Weight loss/maintenance. In the past I've been able to write things out and find some personal clarity on tough topics. Lately, writing has begun to start feeling too committal... like I'm hesitant to declare too much for fear that the declarations made will need to be altered with the passage of time. I guess I feel like the older I get the stronger my conviction that the only sure thing is the gospel. How the gospel impacts my life has changed so much over the years... my response to Jesus' love for me looks radically different than it d...

She told people she didn't like change, when actually no change at all was one of her biggest fears. In response to that, she did her best to push back against expectations and settling. Leaning into tension and uncertainty and questions felt safer than a cocoon of sameness. And yet - she confused even herself because while her surroundings seldom changed, her heart was forever pulled this way and that... As she got older, she found her salvation didn't center on who she was or what she did but instead, it was all about Grace. And so she was able to stop performing/striving/being and simply exhale who she was created to be. Listener. Encourager. Lover. Nurturer. As she stopped pursuing the things she used to think would bring her happiness, she found everything she'd ever longed for. Validation. Confidence. Success. Wholeness. Contentment. Blessing. Often, she found herself marveling at the sheer beauty of the messy, broken people He brought to her. What...

So - being vegan has been easier than I thought. I'm most interested in how easy it has been to live with what seems like a very limited diet based on a 'religious commitment' compared to how hard it is to feel limited in just my every day life... For instance - with Weight Watchers, one of the biggest tenants of the program is that you should not deprive yourself - because deprivation tends to backfire... causing binging or quitting altogether. And I agree that this is usually true... that learning to manage foods is much more sustainable than simply trying to cut them out. But somehow - with the vegan thing - I've been able to deprive myself of a huge number of things with little to no struggle. I haven't been tempted to eat chocolate, cheese, dairy, meat... it just isn't an option. Why such a difference? Because on a normal, non-lent day, if you tell me I can't have chocolate, all I can think about is chocolate... and then eventually I go and consume...

Asia and I went to bed last night overwhelmed and thankful and completely dependant on God for His strength and support. We have found ourselves in a place of what feels like almost constant demand for the past several weeks: We are working with three pre-marital couples right now - doing their pre-marriage counseling, building into them as young couples and investing time in their relationships on a regular basis. One week recently, that meant we had a couple in our home every other day... we try not to schedule like that but occasionally it happens that way. We recently re-defined our boundaries in taking on additional couples but are always stretched in this as we support our church as the overseers of the pre-marital ministry. We find ourselves in high demand and constantly have to wisely delegate and carefully consider our limitations. We had the opportunity this week to support/love on a young man who has entered our lives recently who is walking through the birth of his ...

I did not grow up in a church that intentionally celebrated Lent. In fact, I didn't even know that Mardi Gras had any religious implications or that it was connected to the Lenten season. However, as an adult, specifically in the past 5 years or so, taking time during lent to focus my heart has become a cherished tradition for me. I find it a refreshing way to consider my faith anew... and to recognize God's ultimate sacrifice. The question each year is always: what? This year, Savannah and I have decided to become vegan. Which, yes, means that not only are we not eating meat, we aren't consuming any animal products, including dairy and eggs. Recently we watched a fascinating and compelling documentary called Forks Over Knives . The movie examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting animal-based and processed foods. Bold statements. Boldly presented. We weren't t...

I am a person mired deep in a need for security... and I am easily fooled into believing I have it when my circumstances appear stable. I am learning this about myself as Asia and I walk through the process of transitioning our source of income from one that's been easy and secure to one (two) that is variable and uncertain. Having lived in the same house for the first 18 years of my life with parents who avoided change, I have little experience with this sort of evolution... in the 20 years we've been married Asia and I have only moved five times. I like constancy. Security. Comfort. Stability. Now I'm being asked to trust. Trust that God will continue to provide in light of risk and instability and uncertainty. Now I know - the only reason we have had what felt like security all these years is because God has provided. Jehovah Jireh and all that. I know it intellectually. But it's darn easy to be fairly convinced that a good, secure job excludes the need for ...

This week I had a birthday. Forty three years old, I am. For some reason in my mind I have skipped a year and keep thinking I'm 44... and then I have to subtract and remind myself. It's been quite a year - my 43rd year held not only a trip to Africa with my family, but a huge milestone in personal fitness in my half marathon... two things I never would have imagined myself doing ten years ago. This year promises to be another crazy ride... The older I get, the more I study myself... striving toward growth... pushing myself into being stretched. I now find myself an 'older mom'... with the distinct privilege of encouraging and loving on younger women... sharing life on life how God has brought me through the challenges of many years of parenting. My marriage has lasted almost 20 years... and I find myself blessed to be more in love with my husband today than I ever imagined. He continues to be my best friend, greatest supporter, biggest encourager, most fav...