Ten Years

10 Years…

My husband and I have actually been together for over 12 years, but married “only” 10 years. I’m actually not amazed, just grateful that I found my soul mate at such a young age.

I feel so blessed that we beat the odds, most couples who marry so young don’t make it ten years. There is good reason for this, it isn’t easy becoming an adult while you’re tied to another person who’s becoming an adult also, there are a lot of changes that take place in between high school, college, first careers, pregnancy, and parenthood, but hopefully the changes while feeling scary and uncertain can strengthen a relationship if they are handled with care.

What is really surprising to me is what love means to me now as an adult. See when I was in grade school “love” was the cutest boy in class, who hopefully wasn’t too mean. In junior high it was the cute boy who let me wear his jacket, and whose name was most likely scrawled all over my binder. In high school I mistakenly thought it was the guy who brought me a beer at a party. I did meet Dave at a party, but I soon found out that he wasn’t like any of the other guys.

I could go on and on about my husband and how wonderful he is, I could tell you the story of how we met, but instead I want to share with you a glimpse of how life after 10 years of marriage is for Dave and me.

It’s stressful and wonderful, it’s exhausting and exciting, it’s everything and nothing like I thought it would be.

This morning I woke up to the sound of a crying baby and a four year old tapping me on the shoulder as she danced her “I have to go potty” dance. I grudgingly roll out of bed, accidently kicking my dog in the face, the mean “morning” Shauna groans, “That’ll teach him for sleeping under the covers on my feet all night!” I take Madi potty, while shushing Indiana who is now growling at me, (our dog is 10 and very cranky in his old age.)

Needless to say, by the time I actually get to go to the bathroom, brush my teeth or even look in the mirror it’s close to 8:00 am. Between feeding the crying baby, hot chocolate for Madi, taking Indi out and of course figuring out a method of getting caffeine into my body, well it’s just a little crazy around here.

By lunch I’m awake and happy, Dave is on his way home, I haven’t made anything yet, but he doesn’t seem to care as he walks into the crazy messy house and begins his usual conversation with Madi on how her morning was.

By the time Madi and I are done with school work, crafts, playing, and housework I’m beat, but it’s time for dinner, on a lot of nights Dave will cook, he is by far a better chef than I, and he loves it, so I gladly relinquish that duty.

After putting the kids to bed, Dave and I both collapse on the couch, exhausted from our busy day. We talk and laugh and plan what we’ll do the next few hours of freedom we have. Most nights (when it’s not raining) we’ll go out on the deck and watch the sun set. I’ll notice he’s drinking my water and ask for it back, he’ll inform me it’s HIS water(I left mine inside)…but then hand it to me anyway.

This probably sounds insanely boring to most people, in fact a lot of nights Dave and I reminisce about the college days when our biggest dilemma was a term paper or exam we hadn’t studied for. But to me, this routine, this daily progression of life is wonderful. It’s consistent, it’s routine, it’s peaceful, and I love it.

So at night when Dave and I finally make our way up stairs, we look in on the girls and suddenly all the stress of the day melts away, although we are both silently whispering “don’t wake up, don’t wake up.” And as we close our eyes for the night and lift the covers trying to coax Indiana to come on the bed to warm our feet I think of the irony and how confused my dog must be. In the morning I’m kicking him (on accident) growling at him, in the evening I’m begging for him to warm my feet, he doesn’t seem to mind though, because that’s how it is when you love unconditionally, you forgive without even knowing you did, and you do whatever makes the other person happy ultimately knowing that when they are happy you’ll be happy too. So Indiana jumps under the covers and curls up on top our feet.

Tonight is different though, Lilly starts crying and wakes Madi up, somehow they both end up in our bed, and Dave and I are squished to the sides, hanging on as to not roll off. Indiana is now comatose and WON’T move a muscle, he’s sprawled across the bottom half of the bed on his back with his feet standing straight in the air. Dave and I take note of the situation; the dog, the kids (who for reason sleep diagonally, brilliantly dominating their territory in our bed) and us, each hanging on to our side, uncomfortably grasping the top of the mattress so we won’t fall and wake everyone up and have to start all over again. We silently giggle at one another; he blows me a kiss as he shakes his head at the ridiculousness of our situation. And I sigh (quietly of course) because I know even with the bruises I’ll have tomorrow from Madi kicking me, my chronic back ache, and the knowledge that now I have to pee but am too scared to get up and wake everyone…

Yes, this is my life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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.

Friends.

Isn’t it funny how sometimes someone will come into your life, under strange, random circumstances, and at first you don’t really know why God has brought them to you, until you don’t have them around anymore?

A few years ago I had just graduated from the University of Oregon, I had my degree under my belt and I was gonna change the world. I was going to be a social worker, with an emphasis on working with foster children, everything from placement, to drug and alcohol counseling. It was my duty, and it may sound silly, but it was my “attainable dream.” My real dream was to write for National Geographic, but I soon found that I relied way too much on spell check to pass the introductory grammar class for the journalism major. I can’t spell to save my life, oh how grateful I am to live in the day of spell and grammar check!

Anyhow once I realized that social workers didn’t make enough money to pay the mortgage, I decided maybe I would put my dream off and get a job as a customer service rep at a landscaping company. I do love landscaping, after all. And so I started working and met one of the most wonderful, amazing people in my life.

I only worked there for 5 months, hardly enough time to learn computer systems, regional maps, or even how to transfer calls appropriately, but I did learn about love and true friendship. Catherine was from Australia, she’s funky, crazy and oh so wonderful, even in her procrastination at work I admired her so. But unfortunately I moved back to my hometown to start a new life, and then she moved back to her hometown in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia.

What is so strange about our relationship is that we have hardly spent time together, I mean physically, we’ve always had a distance between us, but it is only physical, in our hearts we are as close as close can be. True soul mates, if you will. Not in a sexual way, of course, but in a sisterly way. She’s the type of person who could come in and go to the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth. She’s the type that I would never feel uncomfortable changing my clothes in front of, or talking about my biggest, deepest, even darkest secrets of my life.

And so I wonder, why on earth are we on opposite sides of the earth? Well, life has just taken us in different directions, it’s not an easily answered question, I ponder it most days, well okay, I ponder it every day.

We may not be positive about the future, or even the present, but I know that we will always be best friends. I know that I can call on her any time of day (which is wonderful because for the life I me I still can’t seem to get the time difference) and I know that if I needed to see her immediately she would do anything in her power to get to me. I hope she knows that I would do the same for her.

Our country codes are different, and there is a 15 hour plane ride that separates us, but what is 15 hours and thousands of miles amongst best friends…not enough to keep them apart. And so as I write this I know the answer to my original question, God brought us together because I had a Catherine shaped hole in my heart, only she can fill it.

And so on today, her 31^st birthday I want to first thank her mother Liz for bringing her into this world, second, thank God for bringing her into my world, and third thank her for staying there.

Happy Birthday my dear, sweet Catherine, I pray we will get the opportunity to share the next 31 years of our lives together, and hopefully one day we can celebrate special days together, in the same country, state, city, town, home, room, and on the same couch…watching “The Village” even though I can’t really stand that movie, but well, that’s just how much I love you.

Fall Down Nine Times.

“Shake it off.” I say as I grip Madi’s arm.

“You’re doing great!” Lacey calls out behind her, she knows that once again Madison, my three year old, has fallen. And so, because we haven’t made a big deal of her repeated falling, Madison stands up, and once again starts hiking behind Lacey, happily continuing her monologue, knowing that with Lacey she has an eager audience who is truly interested in everything she has to say.

We might sound totally insane, indeed the response we got from other hikers along the 7.5 mile Paulina Lake Loop trail, was a mixture of awe and concern for the filthy three year old. (She wasn’t filthy when we started, but seriously…she’s three and we were camping…ok, Shauna’s version of camping, we rented a cabin, but it was “rustic”).

Madi did awesome though, we didn’t have to carry her once, she fell nine times, but got up ten, and to Lacey and I, that was all that mattered. That is one of the things I love about hiking, for a brief, (or long) period of time all one has to think about is putting one foot in front of the other. No phones ringing, no traffic, just the dust under your feet, the good ache in your thighs and knees and the occasional curious creature running across the path ahead of you.

I sometimes wonder if the life we’ve created is easier, or less taxing on our bodies. I think as Americans we have this view that all of the third world countries have no idea what “real life” is about. We have all of our luxuries, our cabins for camping, our computers for networking, and our cell phones that we never speak on since texting has become so popular. I think of this often when I’m paying bills. Recently Dave and I have decided to see exactly how many hours of work are required to purchase everything, for example we found out that Dave has to work 63 hours to pay our mortgage payment, about an hour to pay our power bill, and sadly wayyyyy too many hours to cover expenses like Wal-Mart and Costco. As I write the checks to pay the bills I think, “Wow Dave has to work a lot of hours to keep this family running.” I look around at the flat screen TV, the laptops that rest on our beautiful dining table, the granite countertops and I think… “Wow if we didn’t have all this, he might be able to be with us right now.” But instead he’s at work, happily footing the bill for our “life.”

It is a wonderful life, don’t get me wrong, I’m so grateful for all he does…please don’t send me comments saying I don’t know how lucky I am…believe I know how blessed I am! What I am saying is that when I’m hiking, when I’m watching my daughter and enjoying nature, I often imagine how life would be different if we didn’t have all the luxuries that actually create more stress, or work in our lives. How would life be if our only concern was catching our dinner, sitting around a camp fire, looking at stars, and having conversations that can exceed 160 characters?

I think we all crave this, or at least the people who I like to surround myself with do. We’re all outdoorsy, we understand the value of dirty feet, fish scales on our jeans and oh the joy of a hot shower after a long hike. Maybe that’s the part that is the best, the appreciation I feel for all of my blessings when I’m camping. Maybe it is the breaking down of the elements of daily life into simple tasks that allows me to shut down my mind enough to value the smell of my shampoo and the hot water that pours down my back. Maybe as much as I love my luxurious life I really long for more simplicity. More time to put my hands in the soil as I plant a hydrangea, the joy of plucking fresh basil off one of Dave’s basil plants in the window when I cook, the burn of being so out of breath after climbing a steep hiking trail… only to gasp in delight as I see the view of the lake from the peak beneath my feet.

See it’s not being ungrateful for the luxuries in life, it about being grateful for EVERYTHING! The good and the bad. It’s about being able to honestly tell my daughter that it doesn’t matter how many times you fall, as long as you get back up. It is all those falls, all those scratched knees and bruised egos that make us who we are, no matter the history or your excuse of the day for why you do things a certain way, we have to enjoy what IS. Because ultimately the WHY doesn’t matter. Ultimately it doesn’t matter how our childhoods were, or what our boss said to us the other day, we choose if we will allow those negative ingredients into our life lasagna. Or, as Morgan Freeman said in Bruce Almighty…”Sometimes it takes DARK COLORS to paint a masterpiece.”

So I’ll say it again to Madi, and I’ll say it to Lilly also; fall down nine times, get up ten. One foot in front of the other, and try to do it with a smile on your face...when you scrunch your eyes with a huge smile, you see the world differently.

HOME

I have always been passionate about adoption, always dreamt that one day I would be able to provide a home to a child that someone else for whatever reason didn’t feel they could raise themselves. I imagined picking that child up in my arms and giving them all of my love, giving them a sense of security, a sense of freedom. A freedom from the fears that plagued their little hearts, minds and souls. I wanted to give them a sense of place, oh how important that feeling is, to know, absolutely 100% that they belong.

I guess this dream formed when I was a child. My parents loved me very much, I was blessed with parents that stayed together, parents that tried their hardest to provide for us, even though it didn’t always work out the way they thought it would or should. But one thing that brought fear into my life was being in an uncertain world, one that sometimes seemed scary and unorganized. I don’t blame this on my parents, although in the past I’m sure I punished them for it.

See as a child I had an unrealistic expectation of HOME. To my inexperienced mind it was a beautiful house, decorated, and spotless. It was a place where the mom met you at the door with freshly baked cookies and a big glass of milk. It was a place that was filled with laughter, good food, and no anxiety. I always wanted that in my own life and vowed to provide that place for someone who didn’t have it, even if they were just a weekend guest.

But as life molds us, I’ve realized that HOME isn’t an address. I’ve had a lot of different addresses throughout my life, 23 as of today and probably soon 24. Oh I hope the number 24 will be my lucky number and I’ll finally, after 29 years, be able to put down roots. But what about all those millions of children all over the world that just wait… will they ever be able to put down roots? Will they ever feel as though they are HOME?

I guess that’s why adoption always meant so much to me. These children deserve to be in wonderful homes, they deserve to feel secure, and I always thought that I might be able to provide that for at least one of them.

But after our second daughter was born I realized that with the current adoption laws I wouldn’t be able to adopt in the near future, mainly because of a certain medicine I take to ease my anxiety. Ironically since I got help for my anxiety I am now deemed unsuitable to love children who are sitting, just waiting for someone, anyone, to love them. How ironic the system we’ve created is.

But for now I’m considering that a sign, that maybe I can create a sense of home for these children, even if it isn’t in my home. Maybe by supporting them in other ways I can create a HOME in their heart, and potentially ease their fears, comfort them and show them that they do in fact belong. That somewhere, someone thinks enough of them to provide them with shelter, food, security and hopefully love, even if it is from another continent.

And so I’ve decided that I want to build an orphanage, I know it seems like a huge task, but I’m feeling up to it. A nonprofit group called “The Global Orphan Project” helps people build orphanages all over the world. The initial cost is $5,000.00 to build an orphanage in Haiti that can house 10 children, amazing how far the dollar goes and how many lives can be altered by our giving. My goal now is to earn enough money off this blog to build that orphanage by 2012. I know that seems like a long time to raise $5,000.00 but I want it to all come from my writing and right now this blog is how I make money from writing. It’s not a lot but it’s a start.

I just pray that since I can’t physically take any of these children into my home, that I will be able to create a HOME for them, after all home is where the heart is, and from my life so far I know that my heart can be in multiple places at once.

Please check out “The global Orphan Project” at http://theglobalorphanproject.org

Twilight Anyone??

I’m a reader, I love books, and I love the places various tales take me. I usually stick with political thrillers or drama with just enough action to keep it a page turner. Authors like Vince Flynn and John Grisham are always safe bets for me. I do have an addiction though, when I start a good book it is hard for me to put it down, even to sleep. There are a lot of people out there like me, we’re readers. Then there are people who aren’t like me, they don’t enjoy being engrossed in a book, my husband is one of those. He always says, “Why read about something, when you can do it?” to which I reply,

“I doubt I’ll be a Navy Seal anytime soon, so I’ll let Mitch Rapp handle it.”

But lately a phenomenon has occurred, not only amongst teens but in adults and tweens, the “non readers” are reading, and they are finding that they LOVE the Twilight series. So after so many of my friends told me I HAD to read them, I started and wow was I amazed. I usually hate romance; ugh...gag me with a spoon! I don’t want to hear about other people’s sex lives or how true and deep they’re love is, and all the girly drama, no thanks. I’m a tom boy at heart.

But Twilight is different, and I can’t really explain it. Maybe it’s the fact that the main character is so plain, or believes that she is, maybe it’s that you begin to question everything about yourself and what you might do in her situation, or maybe it’s that the author seems to have a time portal and can take the reader back to their high school days.

I didn’t enjoy high school very much, and so in a lot of ways can relate to Bella, it helps that she is a total klutz, is extremely pale, hates the rain, doesn’t know a thing about fashion and would rather be in torn up sweat pants than a prom dress. That is just so me. But the more I talk with my friends about these books the more I see that we all can relate to Bella, and that’s nice because she is the girl you HAVE to love.

Another wonderful aspect of these books is what I like to call “the butterfly effect.” No, not the movie, but the fact that after 10 years of marriage, kids, diapers, lack of sleep, pure exhaustion, and well falling into the “comfort zone” of life, it takes a lot to give me butterflies in my tummy. You know how it is, you don’t have the questions and the excitement that you did in high school with your first kiss, “is he gonna hold my hand,” “should I ask this person to the dance?” all of those high school anxieties that at the time were so obnoxious are now just memories. Twilight brought me back though and gave me butterflies, and it was wonderful. It helps too that while I relate to Bella my husband is the perfect Edward, athletic, hot and well my soul mate.

So thank you Stephanie Meyer, for writing the first romance series that I love, for giving me butterflies, and for showing me that the comfort zone doesn’t have to be boring or a bad thing, especially if “your Edward” is willing to play along.

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.”