Mani/Pedi My Way to Heaven

I've just decided that the perfect window into my soul, or my insanity, is my nail polish, or lack there of. Actually lack there of would be good, right now, my nails are a tattered mess of peeling lacquer. I seriously look as if my nails have been bleeding, the red nail polish is peeling and shredded, and remnants of my decals look like squished bugs permanently fossilized in a blood red mess.

They were pretty a week ago.

I'm doing this new thing with Madi, every week we're doing our nails together. Yup, I wanna be "that mom". I want her to feel pretty, I want her to know how to sit still while they dry and I want people to comment on how cute her little nails are, which they do regularly. *pat self on back*.

On the first day we do our nails, we feel beautiful, David looks at our nails and comments on how great they look, we dress better, we do our hair, we feel and look pretty. But as the days go on, and the dishes need to be washed, diapers need to be changed, and well for Madi, lizards need to be caught and mud pies need to be made, our polish starts wearing off, our beautifully filed nails start to snag, and pretty soon they just look, well horrible. I really should just take the polish off, but I suppose in a way I leave it there for a day or two to learn something about myself?

Okay maybe I'm just lazy.

I guess this is the point; it's nice to have our nails all pretty and done up, it feels great and elegant, but well, that's just not us. We do our nails knowing perfectly well that in a day they will be scraped, or bitten off, they will be scrubbed after a diaper explosion. We could never make it without doing these things, we would go insane. We need the activities that ruin our polish, for survival, for fun. And maybe that's why I leave the scraped nasty polish on for a few days too long. It's a record, a history. When I feel lazy, or I feel as though I haven't gotten anything accomplished being a stay at home mom- I can look at my nails and think "wow I've done a lot of stuff to mess up my nails!" and that feels good. You have to be working (or playing) pretty hard to accomplish our level of nail ugliness, and that is something for me to be proud of. I never want Madi to be one of "those girls"... "I can't do that! I'll mess up my manicure!" I want her to look at her torn up hands and think, "I've been busy!"

At the beginning of the post I wrote that my nails could be a representation of my soul, and well that's just it: when my soul feels like crap, worn out, scraped up, nasty, with fossilized bugs on it, I can count on God to let me feel it for as long as I need to, in order to grow, then He'll wipe it clean and put on a fresh coat...which I'll eventually screw up again, and He'll eventually fix up again. I know it sounds silly, elementary, and probably a little apathetic, but seriously God is that parent. The one who wants us to learn, to mess up, to have reality discipline. He's there watching, allowing us free will even though He knows we'll get hurt, and learn (hopefully), and every time we do it brings us closer to His understanding.

I know, "nail polish and God" how did she get there??? Sometimes the voices in my head get confused, what can I say?!

But seriously, I pray that I'll be more inclined to show people my tattered nails, be it, my actual manicure, my tired soul or my failures, please Lord help me to never allow my appearance to get in the way of your work.

DUCKS VS BEAVERS

Ducks vs. Beavers

On a day like today I thought it only appropriate to write about the pending civil war game between the University of Oregon Ducks and the Oregon State Beavers.

It is amazing to me how as fans we are so excited and so proud of our teams, on the way to dropping my daughter off at preschool, I was surrounded by cars with flags, stickers, even license plates showing allegiance to one team or another and it got me thinking…

There is nothing in this world that people brag or support as much as sports teams. They indeed unite us but they also divide us. I suppose this is a wonderful thing, bringing people together, supporting our economy and giving people plenty to talk about and of course argue about.

As I saw the multitudes of black and orange and yellow and green I also thought…how sad. How sad that this is what we choose to honor, this is what we vote with our dollars as the most important aspect of our day, week, month, year and for some people - their lives.

Imagine if the people in this nation supported other causes the way we support our sports teams. Imagine if we all decided to support feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless or even our elementary school children and their education and future success the way we support our sports teams. What an amazing culture we would live in. I just wonder what it would be like to see 15,000 cars on the road with stickers that shouted out “Stop hunger.” Or “support our troops”, even if we are totally against the real war going on in this world. All of the dollars going to supporting causes that really matter, that change lives, that give life… it’s almost unfathomable to think of the change that could occur.

I of course am not saying we should give up our allegiances, I’m saying, let’s put it into perspective. I’m saying maybe just maybe we should support something that will matter 50-100-1,000 years down the road.

So do we have backward morals? Are we so obsessed that we seriously spend millions a year on watching a simple game? What would happen if we as Americans and fans decided to support something more important? Would we lose out on the bonding and camaraderie that sports give us? Would we gain something so much more valuable, that could affect so many more lives in a positive way?

I know, I know, why am I worried and actually spending time writing this? It’s just a game, it’s important to support our teams… I’m probably over thinking it… why can’t I just have fun and let loose and root for my team?

I guess it’s because to me, it is just a game. I know that the money spent per ticket to this event could feed a family for at least a week. I know that a soldier overseas could use a gift from home; I know that hundreds of thousands of people in this nation don’t have homes, let alone TVs to watch this simple game on. I know that if we used all the money from ticket sales, advertising, stadiums, even beer purchases we could build literally thousands of orphanages around the world.

Sounds a bit dramatic to some, I’m sure, and maybe the benign nature of sports is something good to keep us enthusiastic about life, but maybe if we were using our resources to support causes that make a difference we wouldn’t need sports to fill that void.

It’s just a thought; don’t let it offend you if you are a die-hard fan. Just maybe when you’re watching the game tonight think about all those people in the stands and all the people around the state who are united by a simple game… and ask yourself, “why can’t we get this excited about supporting causes that create change? Why are we choosing to ignore all the horrible things that we could change in just one day if we were dedicated to doing so?”

I know it’s easier to drink our beer, wave our foam fingers and paint our faces, I know it’s fulfilling to watch our team make it to the end zone…and I also know that something has to be missing, deep down, that allows us to choose supporting our sports teams more than we support other human beings around the world.

What Happened To Yogi?

After posting my last blog about our dog Indiana, I received quite a few questions as to the whereabouts of our dog Yogi.

I should start at the beginning so I make more sense, this is quite an emotional topic for me, filled with both laughter and so many tears, but ultimately it is a story worth sharing.

We adopted Yogi when I was 19; I had just had the majority of my right ovary removed, due to a large cyst. Due to all the scar tissue my doctor wasn’t confident in my ability to have children. Hearing this news was devastating for me, I had always dreamed of having children, and thus went into a deep depression. Part of my healing was adopting a pet, to fill the void left from the potential of not being able to have my own children.

Yogi was a German Sheppard- Chow Mix; he looked just like a dingo. In his kennel at the shelter he was the only dog who wasn’t barking, he was huddled in the back of the kennel, leaning against the cement wall, and looked as though he had lost all hope. He had tufts of hair missing, from a bad case of mange. His paws were blistered and hairless, due to being left in his own feces for far too long, indeed any amount of time in one’s faces is too long! His nose was scabbed over, and scars dotted his golden face. This dog had been through the wringer; even with his thick coat we could see his ribs. I instantly fell in love with this abused and beaten being.

We took him home, and quickly realized that he had major issues. For one he was terrified of all men, brooms, fishing poles, anything long and slender seemed to instantly create panic in him, clearly his past was filled with torture from some sort of stick or rod. When our first visitor came to meet him, we realized that he was a submissive wetter; as soon as someone would reach down to pet him he would wet everywhere. He couldn’t tell the difference between a loving hand and a hand being used to hurt. He was a biter, never an attacker but when he was afraid he would snap, when he did this you could tell he felt bad, but his fears were obviously overbearing and controlling his actions.

With all of these negatives one might think that we would hate him. It was a lot of work keeping him inline, and a lot of times he got out of line, but for David and me every time one of his flaws would shine through we would instead place that hatred to the owner who had abused him. Yogi deserved nothing but our love, his previous owner was the one we would curse beneath our breath.

Yogi eventually became part of the family, soon Indiana joined us and they were best friends, constantly wrestling and playing, we took them everywhere, they were our children. They were the perfect team also, I recall several occasions where one would stand watch and distract David and I while the other ate something off the counter. Yogi was a chewer too, everything from my friends mouth guard to my underwear (still don’t know what was up with that!)

Six years and a lot of surgeries later I became pregnant. We were both shocked, what a wonderful miracle. I know most people think, “Oh once kids arrive the dogs don’t matter.” That wasn’t true for us, we included the dogs in everything still and it was wonderful, until Madi started crawling. Yogi had nipped at her once and so I began separating them whenever she was on the floor, this worked well for a long time, until one day when she had first learned to walk, she chased him with the remote, in a panic he turned on her and grabbed a hold of her cheek, leaving a huge gash. Yogi immediately cowered, knowing he had messed up, just not realizing how badly.

At the doctor’s office we were informed that since he bit her on the face we would need to get rid of him. However this task was made more challenging by the fact that he was now “un-adoptable.” We quarantined him for the required two weeks and made arrangements to have him put to sleep. He was twelve years old, had a few health issues and the thought of him biting someone else’s child, or worse freaked us out. The entire time I still felt as though it was his abuser that deserved this death sentence. Due to him being a “fear biter” we were told by many trainers that we couldn’t train it out of him, nothing would stop him when he was terrified.

I made arrangements for him to be cremated; I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing his lifeless body. David took him and held his paw as the injection was done, he watched him drift off. I can’t even fathom the pain he still feels over that moment. My only reassurance was that he was in a better place now. A place where he couldn’t hurt anyone, a place where no one could hurt him.

We thought this was the worst part of the experience, we were wrong.

A few days after David took Yogi to the vet the vet’s office called me and asked when I was going to pick up Yogi’s body. I was confused and frustrated, because the mortuary was supposed to pick up his body to cremate him. The vet’s office had no record of this (even though the same person who was calling me was the person I had made the arrangements with several days earlier). She said she would call the mortuary and get it taken care of.

A half hour later I received another call from the vets office, this time the girl asks me “where is Yogi?”

“What? What do you mean? You have him; you just called me and told me that I hadn’t picked his body up!” I yelled and cried into the phone.

“Oh, well my check list says he hasn’t been picked up, but I went into the cooler and I can’t find his body.”

“WHAT?!” I growl. A string of curse words flew out of my mouth so quickly I couldn’t catch them between the tears.

“Let me check with the vet.” She hangs up on me.

Five minutes later she calls me back again.

“Shauna we figured out what happened, the vet thought Yogi was abandoned and decided since no one had picked him up that he would give him a proper burial. He has a small graveyard on his property and buried him there.”

“WHAT?! Why would the vet think he was abandoned if you have a checklist saying he was to be cremated? Why wouldn’t the vet call us, as you did this morning to tell us to come pick him up?” By this time I was so angry, so upset and emotionally exhausted from the loss of my dear friend and now the loss of his physical body that I was giving up. She calmed me down and finally I just accepted that he was buried in a wonderful small graveyard, somewhere on the vet’s property. I was feeling better, I called David and told him what had happened, to which he replied,

“That’s strange the mortuary just called me and wants their $100.00 for cremating him.”

David contacted the vet and told him to get his shovel; we wanted our dog’s body back! After some quick side stepping on their part he called the mortuary, after a royal lashing to both (and after the vet spoke with the mortuary) he was told that Yogi’s name tag must have fallen off his body in the cooler, that the mortuary did pick him up, he was cremated, and this was all just a confusing mix up. Whatever.

Trying to appease me, David came home with what we are told are Yogi’s ashes. It is strange that a 40 pound dog’s ashes would be triple the weight of my grandmother’s, but whatever, we were just wanting closure. I still have the box, haven’t had the heart to bury it yet, I’m half tempted to open it and see if it’s just burnt up newspapers, not that I could really tell.

I do know this though, as much as I feel guilty for not being able to keep Yogi, I’m confident in this: He had a lot of good years with us, never once was he beaten or whipped. He didn’t go hungry, his skin and scars were physically healed. We couldn’t heal him from his emotional scars, as much as we wanted to, that wasn’t our purpose, our purpose was to show him that humans could be loving, gentle and trusted. I know his rational side trusted us; it was his terrified side that felt the need to lash out.

I continue to pray to this day that he is in Heaven and that Jesus is healing those emotional scars, perhaps Yogi has forgiven us and his previous owners, I still don’t know which was worse, putting him through misery as they did or taking him out of it? This question will haunt me forever, but perhaps it's that haunting that provides my answer.

Our Bucket List

I don’t know if it’s because I’m turning 30 this year, or if it’s just that now that I’m done having my babies maybe I want to know that there is something more out there, besides laundry and diapers. It’s not that I don’t enjoy my kids, or that I’m not grateful for them, it’s just that I still want to know that there is an adventure waiting for me, that my identity isn’t totally illustrated by the word mother. Wow, I so don’t want to sound like I am ungrateful for my kids, I know how blessed I am, so let me get to the point….

Dave and I have made a bucket list over the last twelve years. It isn’t in any particular order, just a list of things we would like to do before we kick the bucket. I know it seems silly to have made a list at our young age, but really we aren’t guaranteed 24 hours, knowing me I could close my computer, stand up, trip on the laptop cord and impale myself on one of my kids’ toys. Death is always waiting, just right around the corner, the question is what corner and when will I turn it?

I understand that I probably sound a little morbid here, or at the very minimum extremely crazy, but really there is so much I haven’t done, and haven’t seen. So Dave and I figured, why wait until we’re old, let’s get started now when we can still physically enjoy what this world has to offer.

So here’s our list, some are silly, some are hugely important and others just are- well they are what they are, just things to do because for some reason or another they provide us with a sense of fulfillment in who we are.

So here goes:

Explore the Mayan Ruins

Explore Australia

Read the Entire Bible

Dog Sled in Alaska

Go to the Indi 500

Swim with Dolphins

Watch Grizzly Bears feed in Alaska

Salmon fishing in Alaska

Release endangered baby sea turtles at the Plananitos Sea Turtle Camp in Mexico

Visit Mt. Rushmore

Geocache in every state in the U.S.

See the Egyptian Pyramids

See the Coliseum in Greece

Go sport fishing on Islamorada in the Florida Keys

See Brett Farv play in the NFL

Hike the Grand Canyon

Do a guided Elk hunt in Arizona

Raft the Colorado River

Rent a house boat and explore Lake Mead

Hike the Garden of the Gods in Southern Utah

Do a 2 week backpacking trip in the Sky Lakes Wilderness

Hunt for diamonds at the Diamond National Park in Arkansas

Explore Glacier National Park

Explore Scotland

Drive the Alaskan Hwy, and then buy a bumper sticker bragging about it.

Build an orphanage in Haiti

See the world’s largest ball of yarn

Take a cross country road trip

Do an African Safari

See the Great Wall of China

Watch a Civil War reenactment, visit Gettysburg

See Niagara Falls

Throw a dart once a year at a huge wall map of the earth and travel to wherever the dart lands

Visit Normandy

See Tunisia in Africa (where Grandpa Schober was during the war)

Renew our vows on a beach somewhere

Drink beer from real steins in Germany

Visit every State Park along HWY 101

Kayak the San Juan Islands

Ski Vale, Colorado

Visit Loveland, Colorado (Dave’s birthplace)

Zip line in Sequoia National Park

Sky dive

Catch fire flies in a jar

Visit Pearl Harbor

So this is just a start, and well, it’s plenty to keep us busy for the rest of our lives. It isn’t just about crossing things off this list, it’s about living everyday like it’s our last, it’s about showing up 100%, not taking anything for granted, and realizing that the feeling I get when spending a sick day with my girls, cuddled on the couch together, is just as important as the feeling I’ll get when I zip line through the canopy of the Sequoias…these are the fibers that we weave together to form our lives, our legacy. I want my girls to know that I valued every moment, because in the end the moments are all we have. They may be woven into 100 years, or 30 years. They may be messy and ragged, they may not make sense, and they don’t have to. Most of our lives don’t make sense until that final moment when our eyes are truly opened. As a very wise person once said, “Life should not be measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”

I hope that we will hit everything on our list; I hope that our journey is filled with everything we hope for, and a lot that we don’t…just to keep us on our toes. After all I bet the list God has written for us is much better than our own, He always plans so much BIGGER than we can ever dream.

May your list take your breath away…before your breath is taken away.

Messes Clean-Up, Memories Don't

There was a time in my life that I wanted everything perfect in my house. From no water drops on the facet in the bathroom, to the perfect tri-folded hand towel hanging off my oven, my vacuum tracks had to be parallel, my pantry in alphabetical order. To enter our home our company had to remove their shoes, and heaven forbid someone forget to use a coaster, I mean of all the atrocities!

Then I had kids…

I tried for a while to maintain my level of organization and cleanliness. But somewhere between colic, and brightly colored plastic toys strewn all over the living room I realized it didn’t matter. No matter how much I cleaned, the house would still look like a toddler lived in it, there was no hiding that, and I’ve actually come to embrace it.

Before I had kids there was no excuse to have a messy home, but now, while I still have the urge to have things spotless I understand that it just isn’t gonna happen, and with a 3 year old and 6 week old even if by the grace of God I did have the energy to get it done, well it would be destroyed in minutes, if not seconds. And so I’ve decided to not worry about it, well that’s a lie, I still worry about it, but I guess I don’t allow it to consume me as much I used to.

It isn’t just a surrender though, I haven’t given up a perfect home just because I’m exhausted, I’m also doing it for my kids. I know that sounds funny, but seriously I don’t ever want my kid’s only memories of me to be cleaning or yelling about someone making a mess. Recently when I asked a very good friend of mine how she got so much fun stuff done; along with all the work she said something to the effect of… “I view life like a great big pie fight, a big mess but so worth the clean-up.” And that is how she lives, involved in everything, exhausted not just from the work but from the fun. I want to be like that. And I want my girls to see me that way.

I want my girls to know that if they accidentally splatter cake batter on the ceiling because they raised the beaters before turning the mixer off, that it’s okay! I’m thankful they were making a cake! I want them to remember that nothing is more fun than getting covered in sand at the beach, even if that sand stays on my kitchen floor for a week. I want them to remember the perfect recipe for making a piñata, and that recipe includes getting the batter EVERYWHERE, it also includes adding a week to whatever drying time you had planned on.

Most importantly I want them to remember that they are so much more important than how our house looks. Their lives, their goals, their experiences will always trump a spotless counter top. Sure I’ll keep the house clean, it will be tidy, but will I say “no” to my daughter wanting to finger paint her next masterpiece? Absolutely not, because long after I’ve mopped up the paint and used stain stick on her clothes, I’ll have the image of her smiling face in my head as she sheepishly brings me her masterpiece and says,

“I made it for you, mom.”

Red Skittles

We all have our favorites, mine are red, red candies, usually indicating cherry or strawberry, I love them and will avoid all other colors unless absolutely desperate for a sugar fix. Purple are always a safe bet, but there is just something about the reds.

My friend Lacey knows this about me and for 12 years she has been giving me the reds. Red “Mike & Ikes,” Red “Skittles,” red everything. She sorts through the package during poker night and slides them my way with a huge smile on her face. She knows I love the reds, I assumed she didn’t like the reds; why else would someone sort through and get rid of them?

This has gone on for 12 years; it started at Ray’s Food Place. We were both in high school and I recall sitting at the break room table, talking about everything and nothing, and getting handed “reds.” She would even leave them on a post-it note at the video counter with my name on it. We lived together for a short time in Eugene, Oregon, after graduation, and once again I remember that even though I was a horrible roommate she would always hand over the reds. After a four year “break up” of our friendship we reunited, and once again I was being handed reds at every gathering. It wasn’t just that she would give me the reds it was also that she would always have the candy of my choice when I came for a visit, or when she came for a visit.

In my self-centered life I never thought anything of this for over 12 years. Wow… what did I do to deserve this?

I especially wonder this now, what did I do to deserve this? See for 12 years I assumed that Lacey didn’t like the reds. I found out just a few weeks ago that she indeed does, she actually loves the reds too, although her favorite are green, reds are a quick second. So what would make a person give up one of their favorite types of candies? I don’t do that, I’m too selfish; in fact I will dig through the candy jar at my house and pick out the reds before anyone else can get to them! My own husband and daughter… yes that’s right I will take candy away from a little girl… if it’s red! I think I have even told my daughter that the reds are yucky? Wow, I might just be a terribly horrible person!

Not Lacey though. She has selflessly given me the reds for over a decade, and when I asked her why, her response was simply, “because I want you to have the best.” Wow… yeah make a pregnant lady cry why don’t you!

To me this is incredible; this small, but HUGE gesture is just an amazing act of love. Could someone really think enough of me to do something like this? I know my husband loves me, my mom, my sisters, my friends, I know they love me, but to have someone say “because I want you to have the best,” well that’s just amazing. More importantly, to have them silently prove it for over 12 years, receiving no gratitude, or even acknowledgement…priceless.

I can only pray that my daughter will one day be blessed with a friend who will make her want to be a better person. But even if that never happens, I can guarantee that I will aim to teach her how to be that friend to someone else.

Thank you Lacey for being that friend, and for showing me how to be one in return, I don’t deserve you and I certainly don’t deserve the reds.