Anniversary

Eight years ago today, we had a vision for how the wedding would go.  All of our plans came to fruition-- the bouquets were held, our friends and family played music, our pastor spoke, we exchanged rings and shared communion and lit a candle, there was cake, there was dancing, the bar was open (and restocked, several times), the food was eaten-- it was by all accounts a beautiful and celebratory wedding. Our hopes for the future were there, too, but I don't think either of us ever dreamed about where the next eight years would take us.

In the last eight years, we've painted every wall in three different houses together.  We have taken new jobs and quit old jobs, left churches and joined churches.  We have made new friends and sustained old friendships.  We've bought cars, sold cars, leased cars (oops), traded in cars, and fixed cars.  We've learned the hard way that you need to replace the air filter on your furnace if you don't want your A/C unit to freeze up.  We have brought three children into the world and miscarried four.  We've attended dozens of concerts and eaten at Japanese steakhouses for many a special occasion.  We've slammed doors and cried and held back and let go.  We've forgiven each other and loved each other more deeply.  We continue to become better versions of ourselves in Christ.

I can hardly remember the girl in the wedding dress eight years ago, jumping around in a circle waiting to go down the aisle.  She's a happy, two dimensional shadow of who I am now.  I am so blessed to be yoked with my husband who has helped shape me, who supports me, and who partners with me in the great task of raising our family, running our home, and growing closer to God.  I am so proud of you, Brandon, and always grateful.  Happy anniversary to us!

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

It's been a while since I made a casserole.

My default meals involve lots of dairy.  I am the queen of stuffing and cheese.  Chicken, stuffing, and cheese.  Broccoli, stuffing, and cheese.  Rice, chicken, and cheese.  Beef, sour cream, and noodles.  Chicken, sour cream, and noodles.  Bottom line: what can we mix together with sour cream and/or cheese that will bake in an hour or less?

This would be just fine if my husband wasn't lactose intolerant and if my son would eat combination foods (i.e., anything mixed with anything else... broccoli? fine. cheese? fine. broccoli and cheese and stuffing? not fine).  And, believe it or not, eating all that dairy isn't the healthiest way to go.  I have to admit boredom with these recipes, too.  Mostly, I want to be able to feed my family things that won't make them sick (husband) and things that they might eat (son).  Lydia and I, well, we'll eat anything.

I grew up meat and potatoes, all-American, spaghetti and marinara sauce, pizza on Fridays.  It isn't a bad way to eat.  I've always been intimidated by cooking outside of this box-- there's too many unknowns!  How do you cook this?  How do you saute?  How do you broil?  What's a julienned carrot?  Help! 

Allrecipes.com has changed the way I cook.  It has added variety to our evening meals.  It has lessened the amount of produce I throw out.  It has significantly decreased the number of frozen and packaged foods I buy.  Stuffing-based casseroles have fallen off the Wells menu, and in its place-- honey-glazed carrots, steamed broccoli, garlic butter pasta.  Did you know there are more ways to cook pork chops than in a frying pan?

One of the best features of the website is the ingredient search.  I grew a whole row of cilantro this summer, and I love cilantro, but there's only so much corn salsa one can make.  So I punched in "cilantro" and, wham -- cilantro lime chicken. Black beans a la Olla (mmmm).  Cilantro lime rice (mmmm).  Variety! 

Time is always of the essence.  I get off of work at 5 p.m., and we need to eat between 6 and 6:30 in order to be ready for baths by 7 and bedtime routine by 7:30, bed by 8 p.m.  There's no time for lengthy food prep.  However, there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of fresh and healthy food combinations that can be prepared in an hour or less.  All it takes is a little multi-tasking, and you can have a pot of rice steaming, broccoli steaming, and salmon baking, timed out so that everything is ready almost simultaneously. 

The other thing I've learned is the value and beauty of herbs and spices.  There's so much more to life than salt and pepper!  Nothing satisfies like a fresh, healthy meal that tastes good AND didn't take forever to cook.  Yay food!

Pedal through the Bumps

My kids wanted to ride their bikes to school this morning, so we headed out at 8 a.m. on the drop-off circuit.  I put Henry in the Baby Bjorn, our new dog Jelly Beans (Beans for short) on his leash, and my travel mug of tea in my right hand, and the Parade of Wells headed down Phillips Avenue.

For the most part, sidewalks in this city are level and smooth, but I think it is up to the homeowner to maintain them, so there are a few sections that are less-than-perfect.  Tree roots and frost have driven the concrete up in sharp angles, and driveways worn down past their gravel cause detours and slow-downs in our commute.  Over and over again, I tell the kids to pedal through the bumps.  Lydia understands better than Elvis, for the most part, and she's able to buckle down. When adversity comes, she stands up and pedals harder. 

I think I'm a lot like Lydia.  Out on my morning jog, I like when I make the turn from Budd to Katherine Avenue. I like the slight incline, the tangible strain in my calves and thighs, the sense that I am working hard, and when I turn again from Katherine to Mifflin, I can see the crest of the hill and push for it even as sweat starts to drip down the side of my face, because I know after the uphill is a steady slope downward, a chance to breathe, an opportunity to let my legs coast without a whole lot of effort.  There is a reward for battling through the trial.

But if Elvis's tire hits the crack, he stops, looks up at me with a perfect pout on his face and waits for me to nudge him out of it.  He might sit there all day waiting for someone to give him a shove.  For Elvis, this walk is one he'll claim was uphill both ways.

You can't stop on an incline and expect to keep rolling forward.  When you see a slant in the sidewalk ahead, do not slow down.  Do not panic.  Push harder, hang on tight, and pedal through the bumps.  Pedal through the bumps! Elvis seems to get stuck at every one of these cracks.  On the bike and off, he needs a push to get through.  At lunch today it took all of the coaxing, threatening, and encouraging I could muster to get him through half a ham and cheese sandwich before rest time. 

Sometimes he's lazy and just doesn't want to try harder.  But sometimes, he's just plain tired, and the effort to chew seems too much because he's struggling to keep his eyelids from falling down.  And so sometimes I'm like Elvis.  Sometimes I hit my limit, and it just isn't possible for me to pedal through the bumps.  Sometimes, I need a good shove from a friend, my husband, my pastor, my parents, my family, my God.

The beauty of our walk is that it just might be uphill both ways, but that means it is also downhill both ways.  There's a climb, a struggle, a challenge, a strain, but there's also a chance to coast, to catch your breath, to appreciate the crisp fall air on your face.  Sometimes this walk feels more like uphill all the way, and every struggle stops you in your tracks. And then someone with a little more strength comes along to give you a push over the bump, and that someone will be there again at the next bump, and the next bump, and the next bump.

Yes, persevere through the trials.  And yes, ask for help when the trials seem like too much.  One way or the other, you can get beyond the cracks in the sidewalk.

Kindergarten and Everything After

Lydia just wrapped up her second full week of school, and of course she loves it and seems like an old pro at this going to school thing.  It is hard to tell exactly how well things are going though.  I can't be on the playground to see if she is making friends.  Are the kids nice to her?  Does she talk to the teacher?  Who does she sit with at lunch? 

On the mornings when I drop her off, she walks up the sidewalk, the gigantic lilac colored Disney fairy backpack bouncing.  She pins her hair back with barrettes bought by her granny, and she doesn't want me to adjust it at all because she likes it that way, and it is perfect that way - her curls loose in ringlets pulled back from her face and layered past her shoulders.  She wears pink leggings under the blue-jean jumper she picked out for her first-day outfit and Hello Kitty ballerina slippers.  She doesn't just dress herself, she accessorizes herself, prepares herself, gives me a hug and I say I love her, and she strides toward the door without looking back. 

I have nothing to worry about, except that her beautiful little soul might be damaged by some mean-spirited kid. Isn't that what we all fear when we send our courageous children out into the world? 

What I do know is that Lydia came home the other day and said that she got a Tootsie Roll for helping Ella.  She said that Ella is made different than we are and that she crawls instead of walks, and then she showed me how she crawls.  She said she sat with Ella at lunch along with another girl who comes to visit her class sometimes. 

Lord, wrap her beautiful little soul in bubble wrap for me.  Keep her heart soft, even while mine cracks open.

The Ninth Psalm as Rendered by Laurance Wieder

I stumbled upon this tonight in a book called The Poets' Book of Psalms, and I really liked it, so I thought I'd share it.  That's all :)

The Ninth Psalm



If I could tell it all,
I would say thank you
for the toppled statues,
for the dusk of gods sung
only in dead languages,
for wild grape vines tangled
in the timbers of a century
that frame our little picture
of eternity. And I remember
there was justice, maybe, since
I hope the dead might be
remembered, though their names,
outnumbered by the sontes
once used to mark the exit spot,
are worn down, in an alphabet
that can't be read aloud.


Not always and not ever, maybe
masters will stick in the mud
of what they most admired,
boasting how their acts
engraved in stone erased
accounts of people sacrificed
to feed the maw, the pointless
grim machinery of nations:
If there is something other
than our selves, they will not win
forever, will some time remember
they are human, and may even
know themselves, and feel afraid.

Soccer Mom Fail

I know I dress like an adult, go to work like an adult, and pay bills like an adult.  I've got a mortgage and a car payment.  I make decisions about budgets, buy groceries, compare health insurance benefits.  Stuff breaks--dish washers, power steering lines, toilets--and we have to get it fixed.  Us--the adults of this household.

But this week, I feel like I'm back playing house again, and doing it poorly.  I'm not adult enough to have a kindergartner who is also starting soccer, and clearly I can't keep kindergarten, preschool, infant care, work, after-school activities, and meals together.  Monday, even though I had 5:30 on the calendar, we showed up at 5:50, and I thought I was ten minutes early.  Nope... twenty minutes late.  And I forgot her soccer ball.  And her water bottle.  Of course, she didn't care, except that she was surprised practice was so short.

Today was the first try at preschool-child-care-infant-care-soccer-dinner, and it was also a flop, since, well, I forgot about practice.  We pulled into the driveway at 5:27 after picking up Lydia and Elvis from their babysitter's and Henry from a friend, and by some miracle the phrase "soccer practice" floated through my brain as we started to get out of the car. 

"Ah!  Lydia!  We have soccer practice tonight!"  We ran around finding cleats and shin guards and socks and appropriate practice attire and got back into the car, ten minutes late.  Meh, at least I remembered her soccer ball.  Arriving at the practice field, I told Lyd I would just drop her off and then park, but as I pulled away I saw her standing where we had practice last time, apparently not with the same team.  With Henry and Elvis still in the car, I parked behind a few other cars and ran out, the heels of my dress shoes sinking into the turf, to try to figure out where Lydia's team was.  Thank God for some church friends who knew our coach and could point us in the right direction, to a different field.  I ran back to the boys in the car and found a more appropriate parking spot.

I fed Henry in the SUV and then watched the practice, realizing at water break that I forgot her water, again.  The coach let me know that, next time, I should put the shin guards inside her socks.  Oh.  I didn't play soccer, obviously.  Okay.  I didn't play any sports after seventh grade volleyball when I got hit in the face with the ball and my braces stuck to the inside of my lips.  I don't know what I'm doing, clearly, so someone please rescue my poor child.

Then it was Dairy Queen for dinner, Henry sucking and drooling all over my bicep while the kids took for-ev-er to eat grilled cheese.  And heck, yes, I will have a chocoholic blizzard made with chocolate ice cream, thankyouverymuch.

I know it's just one of those weeks, and there's hope, especially since tomorrow I have the day off.  I might be able to fool the people at work and church into believing I am a responsible adult with leadership potential, but my kids and husband know me better than that.  I'm just a really good pretender.

End of the Residency

Another MFA residency is behind us, another group of students have begun their writing journey at Ashland, and another class has graduated.  What a great two weeks!  Everyone is off to their hometowns, and today, I enjoyed a nap, a movie with my kids, a walk, and grilling some burgers and vegetables.  It was quiet, relaxed, and without agenda.  Ahhhh.  Now, the husband and I are in our respective positions - on the couch watching ESPN and behind the computer typing away. I love normalcy.

Tomorrow, we're celebrating Elvis's fourth birthday with family.  Four years old already.  Yeesh.  It feels like a lot longer than that since we were in the hospital with him at Children's.  What a blessing he is - even when he's whiny and cranky ;)

Henry will be three months already this week, and as anyone who has seen him the last two weeks knows, he just keeps getting chunkier.  He is such a cooperative baby - he cries when he's hungry, stinky, or tired, and that's about it.  I can't imagine how the residency would have gone if he had been a much more difficult baby.  This is the first year that all of the kids and Brandon have stayed in town the full two weeks, which was nice.  I'm glad that we were able to make it work without too many hiccups. 

And as always, the residency was inspiring.  I always leave the two weeks with new ideas and projects in mind.  Now to find the time to explore them.

It's no alarm clock Sunday tomorrow!  Yay!