Remembering and Memories

Today is Caroline's birthday. She is 14 years old. Caroline was the last of our kids to be born in Kansas. We moved to Kearney when she was about 8 months old. She doesn't remember much about Kansas other than it was a long way to drive to visit grandparents and cousins. I think she considers herself a Nebraskan.

It was a year ago today that Jeff arrived in Oregon. It is strange to think it has already been a year. 12 months! When I look ahead to events knowing that it won't arrive for a year it seems like such a long time to wait. Yet when I look back on a year that has past it seems to have gone by so fast. Why is that?

I know there were a lot of things that happened last spring as I was single parenting and getting the house ready to sell that I wanted to commit to memory. Things that I wanted to always hold in my heart. There were feelings shared with friends and family that I swore I would never forget. Yet the memories are fading or at least blending in with all the other years past. I hate that.

But life continues on. Life is constantly filled with new things to remember, to experience, to hold onto.

This morning the phone rang... early! My heart jumped when I saw it was my dad calling. I was afraid that something was wrong, someone was sick or hurt.

But he was calling to sing Happy Birthday to Caroline, a tradition dad has lived out since I was a kid. It just doesn't seem like your birthday until you get sung to by my dad.

Then the news alerted us to a 2 hour delay to the school day, a true birthday gift in Caroline's eyes! A ridiculous decision in Jeff and my eyes.

But the school delay allowed us some time to laugh and cry this morning that we wouldn't have had otherwise. The crying came with the realization that Spike passed away sometime in the night.

Spike was a good fish. Spike could perhaps be the only Beta fish to ever travel from Nebraska all the way to Oregon in water jug in the back of a Jetta. Spike was Laura's fish, a birthday gift from the oldest sister to the youngest sister nearly two years ago.

We took some time and talked about Spike and his travels and adventures. We talked about how she wanted to 'dispose' of Spike. After Laura made a decision and dried her tears she went to find her journal and a pen. She asked me what the date was and she began writing.

I am guessing that a part of her wanted to always remember this morning. She wanted to remember Spike, so she was writing it down.

I suppose that is what I should do more of.... write things down.

So today I am thankful for the snow flurries and a late school start that turned out to be great blessing.

February 26, 2006 - February 26, 2007

It was one year ago today that Jeff, along with all the possessions he anticipated needing for four months, could be found somewhere between Kearney Nebraska and Salem Oregon.




Today Mike and Aimee are in the same bug somewhere between Salem Oregon and Kearney Nebraska heading to Omaha.

And Jeff is driving a new Honda Civic HyBrid.



Maybe next year I will have a new car.
Maybe a red hot convertable!
Maybe a truck with a decent towing capacity.
Or maybe it will be Alex with a vehicle and me still in the Jetta.

The only thing I am certain of any more is that things are in constant motion and always changing.

It a good day when...

It is a good day for me when things get real.
When things get 'down and dirty', or 'down to the nitty gritty'.
When life is honest and raw.

Today was a day like that for me.

You never know what will be asked of you on a Habitat build site.
And I never go with expectations. It just is what it is.
My morning consisted of digging, shoveling,
wheeling and moving dirt. Then leveling and spreading out
topsoil. All done in pouring rain.
It was wet, messy, muddy and difficult.
And tonight my muscles are reminding me of the work that was accomplished. But that is okay because today was a good day.

I suppose what I consider a good day is different than what others might expect.
And what made today a good day wasn't so much the labor involved as much as it was the people that I labored with.

The conversation was just as real, just as honest, just as 'down to the nitty gritty' as was the work.

I need that.
I need that at work and I need that at home.
And today I had both.

One of my adult daughters is here for just a short couple of days and we had a chance to talk. Just a good ole mother / daughter conversation. No interruptions, no sports in the background, just a real, honest, raw conversation about life and the current issues we are facing.

I feel so lucky, so blessed, so graced by moments like these.

Today was a good day.

If life is like a River, I must be in the rapids!

Life has been so busy and it feels like I am body surfing my way through just barely keeping my head above the surface. Sometimes it is fun, sometimes exhilarating, and sometimes frightening.
And then there are times like this morning that I look back up river and don't see anything familiar. I don't recognize where I am or where I have been and have no clue where I am going. I am just on this fast flowing river and I can't seem to get out of it. I am not sure I should get out of it.
Maybe the river is taking me someplace I will be glad to arrive at.
But right now, this morning, I feel scared, and confused.
I would run if I knew which direction to run.
But I don't, So I stay.
I stay because this is where Jeff is.
I stay because this is where the kids are.
But even with that said, life with the kids isn't the same any more.

Lindsey is moving out this week.
Mike and Aimee are preparing to move to Kansas City.
Melissa is having Cale baptized when we go back to Kearney in March, in the Methodist church.

So much is happening and I haven't had time to get a handle on things,
I haven't had time to process all this change.
I need some quiet time to pray.

But Life is busy and I am being swept downstream and it is taking all I have to concentrate,keep my head up, and stay afloat until I reach calmer waters.

February Flowers

It is February here in Oregon. Actually it is February everywhere. But it feels like I am experiencing February in a different way than most everyone else I know. I suppose because it is my first February here and most people I know live in Nebraska or Kansas.


The past six months or so I seem to approach most everything in my life from a place of explanation. I explain to people I am new and need directions, I explain to new people about my eight kids (see previous blog), I explain to people about my accent (which I didn't know I had), and I explain to native Oregonians what winter weather really is.

But I am getting off track.... I wanted to talk about flowers....

It is February here and there are flowers everywhere. The grocery stores, the garden centers, the hardware stores, even the gas station has flowers to sell. I was walking along the storefront shops downtown and found a cart of flowers for sale.

Pansies seem to be the flower to plant in February and they can be found everywhere.

This is vastly different than life in Nebraska or Kansas at this time of the year.

Back home you would be challenged to get through the snow to even consider planting right now. And no one would plant flowers this time of year.
Potatos perhaps, but not pansies.

So life here is different. But this is a difference that I embrace!

Fitting in.

In this new life in Oregon I have been trying to fit in, trying to make friends, trying to find a place where I belong. Some times I feel comfortable, sometimes okay, but awkward, and other times I feel utterly displaced.

But I guess if I am to be honest with myself finding my place in this world has been a search of mine all my life. In my family, in school, in junior high, high school, young adulthood, in Kansas, in Nebraska, and now as a middle age mother of 8, grandmother of 1 in the middle of Salem, Oregon. My search continues.

Maybe I am never meant to fit in comfortably anywhere. Maybe it is in the searching that I am drawn to different places and different people. Maybe the search is the adventure I am meant to live.

Last night my adventure continued as I joined 7 other women whom I had never met. I was invited to attend a cooking class at an upscale restaurant with a group of ladies who were all friends. I was invited to fill an open spot. The invitation came my way from a mom of one of my daughter's friends. When she called with the invitation she said, "I heard you are a mom of 8 and I've never met anyone with that many kids. I think it would be fun to get to know you."

I usually prefer someone get to know me before I share how many children I have, but that is not always possible.

I was nervous about going. How to you go somewhere already knowing that you are the outsider, the novelty new person? But I braved the unknown and ventured out.
The evening was more than just interesting.
I'm not sure how to tell it in a blog so I will try to sum it up...

I arrived at my 'new friend's' home to find she had completely forgotten her invitation to me. And...
She was drunk as a skunk!
She asked if I minded driving... "absolutely not", I said.
When she landed on the floor trying to sit, I helped her back onto her stool pretending not to notice her intoxication.
I endured the stares and sideways glances from the prim and proper group. I can only imagine what they thought of me, this stange newcomer, who they never bothered to ask my name or how I came to be here with the drunken friend.
I tolerated the gasps and questions that came as I was introduced with, "She is new to town and oh, can you believe she has 8 kids!"
Then they proceeded to talk about me as if I wasn't there, all of them wondering aloud what it must be like to have eight kids.
I politely thanked them and left, taking my drunken host with me.

And I wonder why I don't fit in.
I am simply not meant to fit in and after last night I am glad I don't fit in, at least not with this group of ladies.