19 years and counting...

My Dear Husband,

Today we celebrate 19 years of marriage.  19 years of marriage and 26½ years of being together.  There were so many of those early days before we were married when we were far apart - separate schedules, separate cities, and sometimes separate countries. But through it all, there was truly never a day (even when I was making stupid choices and thought I didn’t need you) that I pictured my life without you in it.  

September 1992
(just a couple weekends before we got engaged!) 

I love growing old together - side by side - hand in hand - laughing and crying and yelling and smiling together.  The added creases around our eyes and smiles reminds me of all the fun and silliness and inside jokes we share.  The grey in our hair shows me all the trials and stresses that have only brought us closer and make me so thankful for all the goodness. 

I love the way you love me. I love when you tell me I look pretty.  I love the way you love and care and provide for our crazy, beautiful family.  I love the music you create and I love sharing that music together.  I love how crazy smart you are. I love how you pursue excellence in everything you put your mind too.  I love how focused you can be when something gets into your brain.  I love holding your hand; it makes me feel safe.   I am thankful for the hard days because they make the good ones even better.  I am so very thankful to be your partner in this life. 

    

June 2012

Today, I thank God for making you and me into “us”.  

ily.

in which I try to explain my absence

let me count the ways...

...multiple 22 mile roundtrip drives each day.
...multiple 14 mile roundtrip drives each day. 
...an active 8 yr old begging for playdates and attention 
...the usual laundry, dishes and feeding hungry children.
...Attempting to prepare for the journey of teaching my 11 yr old/6th grade twin gymnastics crazy girls at home via an on-line school. 
...car repairs x2. 
...a broken dishwasher. 
...the Olympics.  ahem. 
...not having learned the lesson of saying "no" more often ~ I am seriously in over my head. 


Days gone by too fast...too busy.

Even more than missing writing the occasional blog, I have missed the chance to sit on a friend's back deck with coffee. She has a beautiful back yard sanctuary.  I have missed the chance to read more than one book.  (Does the one on CD I listened to each day in my van count as reading?)  I have missed garage-saleing.  We have missed opportunities to spend time with friends.  We kinda sorta owe at least three friends dinner out.  We have made it to the pool, but missed out on campfires.   And there have been too few naps in the shade.  My flowers are all dying because I forget to water.  Our 1st attempt garden produced exactly 4 tomatoes and 2 zucchini.   

  
So much to do and so little gets done...how is that possible?   

Let me count the ways.  

ps...We head out for vacation next week, which will be fabulous, but takes me away from home.  My comfort.  Away from the friends we want to spend time with. Away from our kitty.   Away from the list of projects that were waiting for summer to be completed.    

Happy Independence Day

Here's a FB post from our good friend James that expresses some pretty concrete feelings I share about the current state of entitlement in the US...and what that means for us today on this 4th of July.  


I learned the most about what it means to be an American during my time as an exchange student in Beijing. It was 1987, China was different then, but seeing how the freedoms I had always taken for granted were nowhere to be found in a Communist country was truly eye opening. And if that wasn't enough, the number of Chinese who would ask us to take them home to the US certainly was. We are in no way a perfect union. But once you realize just how free we are here, harsh and unrealistic criticisms become the foolish whining of the woefully ignorant.  Warts on our face and all - God bless the USA."

(The view from my front door)

~ Happy Independence Day ~ 

where we are truly the land of the free because of the most brave.

I wonder, as I wander...

while sitting at Caribou coffee (instead of grocery shopping like I should be) I wonder... 

what is it that makes a coffee shop so magical - how it is that simply walking thru the door can make all the chaos of your day simply fade away. Even if it's just for a moment.
  

while hitting the road for the third time today to deliver/pick up one of my children from some activity....I wonder how it is that a mom can be so willing to do and sacrifice so much.  And how can it be that it seems they appreciate so little.   

while sitting at my computer having a short FB message chat with an old friend, I wonder... how can I possibly answer his question "how's your heart?"  truthfully,  knowing I have so little time.   Right now, that kind of question would require hours over coffee...and he and his lovely wife and family live 20 hours away in Utah. I pray for the opportunity to sit over coffee (or beer) together with them someday soon. (in case you're wondering...I told him my heart is good.  But really my heart is weary and my head is filled with schedules and logistics and I wonder how I can possibly sustain this for the rest of the summer when I am already tired 6 days in?)

and I wonder, while praying for my son and his fellow "missionaries" serving the hungriest and homeless in our nations's capital (how can that be?? another blog post all it's own perhaps)...I wonder, how can I do right by him, help him understand what it means to truly follow Jesus, be like Jesus....when often times I look and act like *I* don't? 

I wonder about the power of friendships, the impact of relationships, why they are are so hard, require so much to foster and develop, how crummy of a job I do sometimes.  But I am trying.  I am grateful. 

And right now, as I sit here and edit and re-read, and tweak this post at 6:30pm on a Monday, I wonder, what on earth am I making for dinner?  That's the $100,000 question here in the Hinterland most days, esp in the summer when the mere thought of turning on the oven on a 90 degree day makes me break out in a sweat.   I wonder how we could work it to afford to just eat out most nights...or hire a cook? 

I wander.

I wonder.

And then I seem to wander some more. 

What do you wander and wonder about?