- I want them to have goals without fear
- I want them to love and respect their family
- I want them to have college educations and experiences
- I want them to have social expertise
- I want them to master the basics of music
- I want them to master the basics of a 2nd language
- I want them to live a full life knowing I'm ok and happy
- I want them to feel my support to jump out of the nest
- I want them to develop their own opinions and learn how to back them up
- I want them to WANT to come home and be with their mama
- I want them to LOVE their brothers and sisters without competition or jealousy
- I want them to know we sacrificed for them but they don't owe us a thing
- I want our conversations to be full of logic and intelligent debate
- I want there to be no drama or throwing darts
- I want them to respect the opinions of others
- I want them to try to understand before they are understood
- I want them to be TRUE to their beliefs
- I want them to be open to change if they need to
- I want them to know that there's always more to learn
- I want them to LISTEN when other people talk
- I want them to be kind
- I want them to be funny
- I want them to make their life's choices because they wanted to, not because they didn't feel they had any other choice.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
What I want....
END RESULTS THAT I WANT FOR MY CHILDREN:
Sunday, February 13, 2011
I'm Surrounded!!
...by little people. You'd think there was giant magnets attached to both of my shoulders. And magnets in their heads.
Because both of their heads are attached firmly to both of my shoulders.
2 of them, at least.
The other little hooligan is playing at my feet on the floor, the big hooligan is in the shower, the 12yo hooligan is not here this weekend.
The largest hooligan - the Head Honcho of all Hooligans, is sitting to my left watching the AT&T Pro-Am golf tournament. He's bragging about being there day before yesterday :) Glad he was able to go, slightly jelly I wasn't able to attend with him. We're not talking about it.
M would like to say she is so glad that there is no school tomorrow. I would like to agree with her.
She is very, wiggly excited that she has her ballet class tomorrow night. Buns are the best. So are pink tights and black leotards. And pink ballet shoes. And beautiful music. And strict teachers, and pliès. And pointy toes.
Have a restful, peaceful Sunday, everyone.
I'm going to see if we can start rototilling our garden spot today...
Because both of their heads are attached firmly to both of my shoulders.
2 of them, at least.
The other little hooligan is playing at my feet on the floor, the big hooligan is in the shower, the 12yo hooligan is not here this weekend.
The largest hooligan - the Head Honcho of all Hooligans, is sitting to my left watching the AT&T Pro-Am golf tournament. He's bragging about being there day before yesterday :) Glad he was able to go, slightly jelly I wasn't able to attend with him. We're not talking about it.
M would like to say she is so glad that there is no school tomorrow. I would like to agree with her.
She is very, wiggly excited that she has her ballet class tomorrow night. Buns are the best. So are pink tights and black leotards. And pink ballet shoes. And beautiful music. And strict teachers, and pliès. And pointy toes.
Have a restful, peaceful Sunday, everyone.
I'm going to see if we can start rototilling our garden spot today...
...and get lots of these
and do a little of this...
and this
...and see lots of this
and this...
:)
Sunday, February 6, 2011
I wish
I wish I didn't have to see all the people I love.
I wish I didn't hang out with my favorite neighbor or give her a big hug.
I wish I didn't have to talk about him.
I wish I didn't see everyone together, showing such intense love and devotion.
I wish I didn't see so many tears.
I wish I didn't have to see AJ cry.
I wish we weren't missing him.
I wish his daughter didn't find the best pictures of him and put them out for all to see.
I wish we didn't play his favorite songs.
I wish we didn't stand on the flat bed trailer he so painstakingly made by hand with his son.
I wish his peanut wasn't sad.
I wish he wasn't proud of all of us.
I wish he was here.
Attended the memorial/celebration of life for our good friend today. It was everything he would've wanted.
We miss him so much already.
I wish I didn't hang out with my favorite neighbor or give her a big hug.
I wish I didn't have to talk about him.
I wish I didn't see everyone together, showing such intense love and devotion.
I wish I didn't see so many tears.
I wish I didn't have to see AJ cry.
I wish we weren't missing him.
I wish his daughter didn't find the best pictures of him and put them out for all to see.
I wish we didn't play his favorite songs.
I wish we didn't stand on the flat bed trailer he so painstakingly made by hand with his son.
I wish his peanut wasn't sad.
I wish he wasn't proud of all of us.
I wish he was here.
Attended the memorial/celebration of life for our good friend today. It was everything he would've wanted.
We miss him so much already.
Looking towards his property from our place
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Seven on Ten - a quick explanation
There are seven people in our family. We live on ten acres.
Oh, elaborate??
Almost exactly a year and a half ago, we found the place where we wanted to die. (eventually) We spent about five years genuinely searching for a place where we didn't have to be friendly to our neighbors. (I honestly hate saying "good morning" and "how are you?" and "how's the family?", like, EVERY. DAY. I'm good for that about once a week - even better at it if I only have to do it once a month).
We were living on the outskirts of the city - in a housing development. Nice, by most standards, "the place to be" by others. But it wasn't meeting my needs. Our needs. Their needs.
I have a NEED to be alone for long stretches of time. Not entirely alone, (that would just never happen, given the litter that I birthed) just... alone.
I was born in Big Sur, CA. In a cabin on Partington Ridge. My parents had lived there for about 12 years with two of my brothers, before I came into the world. Bringing it to a total of around 15 years when they moved from there to the city when I was around 3 (little bro came 6 years later). Schooling options were among their main reasons, they say. Who needs school?!, I say!
But WHO KNOWS where my life would be now if they had stayed. I'd be a famous musician with incredible depth and broad perspective? I'd be drugged out and living in a hollow tree? A toss up, I'm sure.
But I do know, that after having children, all I wanted to do was to get a trailer, find a piece of land somewhere and squat on it till my legs were tired. I mean.... squat on it until it was ours.
I was going to move my kids somewhere where dirt wasn't just something that shouldn't be tracked into the house.
Where getting up early was not just an exercise in self-discipline, but a life (or death) reality.
Where responsibility for other living things wasn't something we read about in books and try to teach with a "please go clean out the fish bowl, your fish looks sad".
Where we became a CREW, not fragments of a family - one going this way, the other that.
Where we learned to depend on each other.
Where there was true suffering and learning
...and on and on...
Not that any of these things couldn't happen anywhere.
I just needed a template. A reason.
And, remember, I didn't want neighbors.
My parents and one of my brothers, looking back towards their roots as well, had purchased a 'fixer upper' on the top of a mountain overlooking a beautiful valley, about an hour south of the city where we were all living. Rugged surroundings and the lure of a remodel (dad and bros are all accomplished finish carpenters) drew them there. Not to live full time, but to have a place to go to for respite and recreation. They knew it would take years for them to bring the standards to livable, but that didn't seem to deter them one bit.
I had visited a few times, loving watching them work, watching mom dream about knocking down walls, watching little bro show the other boys 'how it's done'.
I also watched my kids - watched them make rock soup and paint a board that they had found outside over and over, finding palettes of colors only found in sunrises. I watched my then one and a half year old paint the concrete slab with just water, finding pleasure in watching it dry and starting all over again. I observed the then nine-year old wander past a stack of books on French architecture, pick one, and with a serious face, browse the pages - for a longer amount of time than I'd seen her do anything.
I felt the pace slow, I felt the tightness of my neck relax. I wanted to hide here, with them.
But back to town we'd go. Back to our beautiful house and clean car. Back to practices and play-dates and wishes for puppies and watching you tube videos of hilarious animals. Back to our oldest (then 12) explaining the reasons she wanted an incubator for Christmas and back to this empty feeling in the pit of my stomach.
For a while I thought it might be that I wasn't exploring any hobbies or trying new things. So I branched out, trying exercise classes (new thing), signing up for a race, acting again in local theatre.
I realized that the pit grew larger when I was AWAY from my crew, creating more struggle for them and more stress for me. More to catch up on, that many more unresolved issues with a school project, more that I seemed to be missing.
Then AJ had an accident. A real one. One of those 'stop and think' ones. He was playing baseball on an adult league in a neighboring town. He loved it. One rainy Saturday afternoon in November, 2008, he was playing a game. I received a phone call from one of his friends saying that there had been a problem on the field and the ambulance was coming for AJ. I remember scooping the crew into the car, driving the 30 minutes through the rain to meet them at the hospital. I remember feeling cold and trying to calm crying children. I remember praying. Seeing him strapped to a board in the ER was not an image I will soon forget. He had been in the outfield, they said, ran for a fly ball and dove to catch it, but was almost horizontal and way too close to the fence on the outside of the warning track. He slammed almost head-on into it. After confirming he had indeed caught the ball (MEN!), they realized something was wrong and called 911. He was conscious, but in pain and didn't want to move. In all honesty, after hearing the story and confirming that he could move, I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it couldn't be worse than a concussion, a broken rib, maybe. But MRI's showed differently and his fears were confirmed. He had broken his neck. The C7 vertebrae had been badly broken. He would need surgery. Dr. Carver (God bless him), cancelled his vacation and operated on AJ the next week. He cleared out the broken pieces, put in a cadaver bone and a steel plate and screwed it all together.
The obvious good news is that it was fixable. The gravity of the "could have's" had us spending most of the three month long recovery in shock mode. All those underlying questions of 'what are we doing?!' rose to the surface. I'm sure much of the discussions took place because we had something that we rarely have had - time. He was at home for all of those three months. A hospital bed in his downstaris office. Family and friends surrounded us and were incredible. Dinners, visits, we were so blessed. He was home and so was able to see the inter-workings of the household, I was able to tell him about the 'pit in my stomach' - only to find out that we were on exactly the same page.
We had been 'looking', but now we were LOOKING - for a place that would fit OUR family's style.
By the summer of '09, we had cancelled an escrow on a place we thought was perfect (it came with a cow AND a donkey!) but thought that the 300+ acres would prove too much. We had also put offers in on others, but to no end. We were looking within a 30 minute radius of our city, not wanting to move away from friends and family.
In June of 2009, I was visiting my parents' House on the Mountain with the crew. Just me and them. I felt the need to 'get away' and AJ needed to work, so I took the hour drive to the House on the Mountain. It was everything I remembered. Beautiful. Sunny. Quiet. We had books and a cot and blow up mattresses. There was a little 13"VCR. We watched videos. The kids caught lizards, I caught some rays. They played with the hose. I read.
That same week, mom met a lady who came in to her shop in Carmel. She told her she was selling her property in.....wait for it... the same little valley I was currently overlooking!!!! As much as those exclamation points signify the excitement that I now feel, I didn't feel it then. I felt annoyed. One more place to go and see. BLECK. I was tired of looking, tired of hoping that the next one might be it. But my mom is a Force of Nature. She came down to her House on the Mountain and told me we should just go see it. I called AJ. He was coming down first thing in the morning, but sure, he said, go take a look at it and see what you think.
After laughing hysterically because NONE of the gate numbers made sense to us with the directions we had been given, we called the owner back to verify. She finally got us to where we were supposed to be. We punched the gate code in and drove down a dirt road. "Take a right at the white water tower" the directions read. "Pass one house on the right". Ok, done. "Keep going down dirt road and you'll see the property - can't miss it - the road ends there".
omg. I just teared up when I wrote that. "The road ends there".
I got out of the car and stood, feeling the place. I walked in a circle, then up the stairs to the top of the barn. I looked out over the apple and pear orchard, down to the white fence and bluish-green house, I looked up and out over the mountains, I counted (then stopped counting) oak trees. I saw gates and fences and a chicken coup. I saw a tiny vineyard and the remnants of a garden. I saw a huge yard and no neighbors. I saw 10 acres of potential.
We couldn't go in the house because it was being rented, but it just didn't matter. Tears. Right then and there.
I kept thinking, "could this even be possible?! Have I been good enough in my life to deserve this? To be able to raise my children HERE?!' I prayed silently.
My eyes and soul didn't register the amount of work that needed to be done, the chipping paint, the leaning fences. Something told me that all that would work itself out.
As we drove away that evening, the incredible moon illuminated the dirt road. I remember looking out the window of my mom's car, staring up at it, tears streaming down my face and longing. Please. Please. Please. It felt so right. I called AJ and tried to describe to him what I felt, but not wanting to overdo it, just in case he didn't feel the same way.
He did.
Then, of course, the startling reality of logistics, of paperwork, of waiting. It seemed never-ending, but looking back, it was fairly smooooooooth.
After talking to the kids in generalities (didn't want to get their hopes up), we knew we had them on board.
We put in an offer and the ball picked up speed. A renter for our house in town - check. You need to be in by August 7th?? oh boy.
Nothing was finalized on the new house - yikes.
But we knew our time in the city was done. We had planned to go to Oregon on vacation with AJ's family in August anyway. We looked at each other and said "Let's DOOO It". ("Do it."~one of the best movie lines).
We packed up our house in one week. We moved it ALL (except the suitcases for the vacation) into 3 moving trucks and away they went. Hilariously crazy.
The crew, AJ and I packed the car and drove to Oregon.
I'm exhausted just thinking about this again.
We were virtually homeless. Crrraaazy!!
Renters moving into our 'city house' the next day and nothing finalized on our 'country house'.
Oregon was fabulous. Great time with family - bike riding, fishing, dinners together. Loved it. AJ needed to get back to work after a week, though. BUT it was Summer - kids had no school, I had no job, and no house. What to do?? I called my cousin (whom I've yet to forgive for not being my sister). She and her husband had moved to Oregon from Los Angeles a couple of years before. "Can we come stay with you??" She was an incredibly gracious host and we had sooooooo much fun. Swimming, talking, margarita'ing...
AJ and I were in constant contact, of course, and he let it be known that he was NOT comfortable with my driving the 13+ hours back home "alone". So, he flew to Oregon, on his white airplane (well, not his, mind you), and drove back with me. Back where, you might ask? Well, back to lean on more family during this time of transition. This time, his dad. We're actually great house-guests and I'm pretty sure we all had a great time. (well, there was the one time I forgot to put more paper towels on the holder, but I'm pretty sure we'll get past that).
All of a sudden, school was upon us! Believing that all would work out according to plan and the house would indeed be ours, we wanted to start the kids at the school that they would be (hopefully) attending that year. So, back to the House on the Mountain we went!
We were able to negotiate a 'rent back from the owner' deal and on September 6th, 2009, we "moved in" to our new house!!!!
Quotation marks are due to the fact that we had nothing, so 'moving in' was the equivalent of getting our suitcases out of the car and walking in the front door.
Please do not forget (because I doubt I EVER will) that everything we owned was on 3 huge moving trucks on a lot somewhere.
We couldn't schedule the movers to bring our things to us, of course, because the house was not officially ours, nor were the appraisals done, nor was the house up to our move-in standards. Carpets needed replacing, walls needed painting, ETC.
But something really cool happened over the next few months. A soft blanket of peace fell on this house and on us. The kids started school. We made a few trips to Walmart, 30 minutes away. We got backpacks for school and all the school supplies we would normally buy at the beginning of the school year.
We also purchased the following 'survival' items:
Those 3 months were some of the best of my entire life.
I met friends. A family of 4. They're our neighbors.{smile}And I love saying "good morning" and "how are you?" and "how's the family?" I'd say it every day to them if I could. But we'd have to yell it really loudly because they're 10 acres away. We've laughed and talked and sat by fires and been taught SO many things. The 3 S's, for one (giggle).
I played with the baby during the day, walking the perimeter of the fences. Listening to her make up songs and jump in puddles with her tiny muckers that almost reached her knees. We would pick up the kids from school. I helped them with their homework and they helped me with dinner. We sat on the floor. We ate at our card table. We borrowed that 13"VCR player from the House on the Mountain, propped it on a chair and watched "Singing In The Rain" a zillion times.
We just were.
It was so crazy, so unusual to not be able to DO anything around the house and property. We were still waiting for appraisers to do their thing and we were still just renters...
it was oddly liberating
Our baby turned 2 (gasp) on October 24th and we celebrated here. It was difficult not to feel it was 'ours' but we still had a great time.
A bit later, AJ and I attended a business retreat a few hours away - mom stayed here with the crew. While there, we received the call we had been waiting for. Our offer was accepted - we were accepted - all was in motion - FINALLY! We signed some time in November.
I must say that the familiar stress of life came creeping in right about then. Just thinking of carpet colors and wall paint.. and...and... omg!! It was ours! The responsibility of fixing it up - all that potential!
Every time I feel this (because I still do) I just breathe. And look outside. It does wonders.
We ordered carpets for the bedrooms, I bought paint for the walls. We called the movers. They were super duper busy. Only date available that didn't conflict with carpet guys?
December 24th.
Laugh. Its ok.
So, we improvised. Just like we'd been doing for months.
We brought in all the bedroom furniture on our nice clean carpets or were the carpets put in the next week? I've blocked it out - it was traumatic.
We had purchased a small tree and a box of ornaments at Walmart. I developed a new respect for that inexpensive superstore.
We had a fantastic Christmas. The kids were oh so excited to sleep on their 'real' beds. As a matter of fact, (and I lie) we didn't get them anything else for Christmas.
This past year has been spent starting a kitchen remodel, figuring out how to care for (prune,pick,sell) the 280 trees in the orchard, learning to tend chickens, getting puppies, getting lambs, selling lambs. Too much to mention!!
I'm looking forward to documenting more consistently. I want my kids to be able to look back and read what they did - how they thought - the adventures we experienced...
...and what happened when we picked up and moved from the city to the country.
When we became Seven on Ten.
~Sarah
Oh, elaborate??
Almost exactly a year and a half ago, we found the place where we wanted to die. (eventually) We spent about five years genuinely searching for a place where we didn't have to be friendly to our neighbors. (I honestly hate saying "good morning" and "how are you?" and "how's the family?", like, EVERY. DAY. I'm good for that about once a week - even better at it if I only have to do it once a month).
We were living on the outskirts of the city - in a housing development. Nice, by most standards, "the place to be" by others. But it wasn't meeting my needs. Our needs. Their needs.
I have a NEED to be alone for long stretches of time. Not entirely alone, (that would just never happen, given the litter that I birthed) just... alone.
I was born in Big Sur, CA. In a cabin on Partington Ridge. My parents had lived there for about 12 years with two of my brothers, before I came into the world. Bringing it to a total of around 15 years when they moved from there to the city when I was around 3 (little bro came 6 years later). Schooling options were among their main reasons, they say. Who needs school?!, I say!
But WHO KNOWS where my life would be now if they had stayed. I'd be a famous musician with incredible depth and broad perspective? I'd be drugged out and living in a hollow tree? A toss up, I'm sure.
But I do know, that after having children, all I wanted to do was to get a trailer, find a piece of land somewhere and squat on it till my legs were tired. I mean.... squat on it until it was ours.
I was going to move my kids somewhere where dirt wasn't just something that shouldn't be tracked into the house.
Where getting up early was not just an exercise in self-discipline, but a life (or death) reality.
Where responsibility for other living things wasn't something we read about in books and try to teach with a "please go clean out the fish bowl, your fish looks sad".
Where we became a CREW, not fragments of a family - one going this way, the other that.
Where we learned to depend on each other.
Where there was true suffering and learning
...and on and on...
Not that any of these things couldn't happen anywhere.
I just needed a template. A reason.
And, remember, I didn't want neighbors.
My parents and one of my brothers, looking back towards their roots as well, had purchased a 'fixer upper' on the top of a mountain overlooking a beautiful valley, about an hour south of the city where we were all living. Rugged surroundings and the lure of a remodel (dad and bros are all accomplished finish carpenters) drew them there. Not to live full time, but to have a place to go to for respite and recreation. They knew it would take years for them to bring the standards to livable, but that didn't seem to deter them one bit.
I had visited a few times, loving watching them work, watching mom dream about knocking down walls, watching little bro show the other boys 'how it's done'.
I also watched my kids - watched them make rock soup and paint a board that they had found outside over and over, finding palettes of colors only found in sunrises. I watched my then one and a half year old paint the concrete slab with just water, finding pleasure in watching it dry and starting all over again. I observed the then nine-year old wander past a stack of books on French architecture, pick one, and with a serious face, browse the pages - for a longer amount of time than I'd seen her do anything.
I felt the pace slow, I felt the tightness of my neck relax. I wanted to hide here, with them.
But back to town we'd go. Back to our beautiful house and clean car. Back to practices and play-dates and wishes for puppies and watching you tube videos of hilarious animals. Back to our oldest (then 12) explaining the reasons she wanted an incubator for Christmas and back to this empty feeling in the pit of my stomach.
For a while I thought it might be that I wasn't exploring any hobbies or trying new things. So I branched out, trying exercise classes (new thing), signing up for a race, acting again in local theatre.
I realized that the pit grew larger when I was AWAY from my crew, creating more struggle for them and more stress for me. More to catch up on, that many more unresolved issues with a school project, more that I seemed to be missing.
Then AJ had an accident. A real one. One of those 'stop and think' ones. He was playing baseball on an adult league in a neighboring town. He loved it. One rainy Saturday afternoon in November, 2008, he was playing a game. I received a phone call from one of his friends saying that there had been a problem on the field and the ambulance was coming for AJ. I remember scooping the crew into the car, driving the 30 minutes through the rain to meet them at the hospital. I remember feeling cold and trying to calm crying children. I remember praying. Seeing him strapped to a board in the ER was not an image I will soon forget. He had been in the outfield, they said, ran for a fly ball and dove to catch it, but was almost horizontal and way too close to the fence on the outside of the warning track. He slammed almost head-on into it. After confirming he had indeed caught the ball (MEN!), they realized something was wrong and called 911. He was conscious, but in pain and didn't want to move. In all honesty, after hearing the story and confirming that he could move, I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it couldn't be worse than a concussion, a broken rib, maybe. But MRI's showed differently and his fears were confirmed. He had broken his neck. The C7 vertebrae had been badly broken. He would need surgery. Dr. Carver (God bless him), cancelled his vacation and operated on AJ the next week. He cleared out the broken pieces, put in a cadaver bone and a steel plate and screwed it all together.
The obvious good news is that it was fixable. The gravity of the "could have's" had us spending most of the three month long recovery in shock mode. All those underlying questions of 'what are we doing?!' rose to the surface. I'm sure much of the discussions took place because we had something that we rarely have had - time. He was at home for all of those three months. A hospital bed in his downstaris office. Family and friends surrounded us and were incredible. Dinners, visits, we were so blessed. He was home and so was able to see the inter-workings of the household, I was able to tell him about the 'pit in my stomach' - only to find out that we were on exactly the same page.
We had been 'looking', but now we were LOOKING - for a place that would fit OUR family's style.
By the summer of '09, we had cancelled an escrow on a place we thought was perfect (it came with a cow AND a donkey!) but thought that the 300+ acres would prove too much. We had also put offers in on others, but to no end. We were looking within a 30 minute radius of our city, not wanting to move away from friends and family.
In June of 2009, I was visiting my parents' House on the Mountain with the crew. Just me and them. I felt the need to 'get away' and AJ needed to work, so I took the hour drive to the House on the Mountain. It was everything I remembered. Beautiful. Sunny. Quiet. We had books and a cot and blow up mattresses. There was a little 13"VCR. We watched videos. The kids caught lizards, I caught some rays. They played with the hose. I read.
That same week, mom met a lady who came in to her shop in Carmel. She told her she was selling her property in.....wait for it... the same little valley I was currently overlooking!!!! As much as those exclamation points signify the excitement that I now feel, I didn't feel it then. I felt annoyed. One more place to go and see. BLECK. I was tired of looking, tired of hoping that the next one might be it. But my mom is a Force of Nature. She came down to her House on the Mountain and told me we should just go see it. I called AJ. He was coming down first thing in the morning, but sure, he said, go take a look at it and see what you think.
After laughing hysterically because NONE of the gate numbers made sense to us with the directions we had been given, we called the owner back to verify. She finally got us to where we were supposed to be. We punched the gate code in and drove down a dirt road. "Take a right at the white water tower" the directions read. "Pass one house on the right". Ok, done. "Keep going down dirt road and you'll see the property - can't miss it - the road ends there".
omg. I just teared up when I wrote that. "The road ends there".
I got out of the car and stood, feeling the place. I walked in a circle, then up the stairs to the top of the barn. I looked out over the apple and pear orchard, down to the white fence and bluish-green house, I looked up and out over the mountains, I counted (then stopped counting) oak trees. I saw gates and fences and a chicken coup. I saw a tiny vineyard and the remnants of a garden. I saw a huge yard and no neighbors. I saw 10 acres of potential.
We couldn't go in the house because it was being rented, but it just didn't matter. Tears. Right then and there.
I kept thinking, "could this even be possible?! Have I been good enough in my life to deserve this? To be able to raise my children HERE?!' I prayed silently.
My eyes and soul didn't register the amount of work that needed to be done, the chipping paint, the leaning fences. Something told me that all that would work itself out.
As we drove away that evening, the incredible moon illuminated the dirt road. I remember looking out the window of my mom's car, staring up at it, tears streaming down my face and longing. Please. Please. Please. It felt so right. I called AJ and tried to describe to him what I felt, but not wanting to overdo it, just in case he didn't feel the same way.
He did.
Then, of course, the startling reality of logistics, of paperwork, of waiting. It seemed never-ending, but looking back, it was fairly smooooooooth.
After talking to the kids in generalities (didn't want to get their hopes up), we knew we had them on board.
We put in an offer and the ball picked up speed. A renter for our house in town - check. You need to be in by August 7th?? oh boy.
Nothing was finalized on the new house - yikes.
But we knew our time in the city was done. We had planned to go to Oregon on vacation with AJ's family in August anyway. We looked at each other and said "Let's DOOO It". ("Do it."~one of the best movie lines).
We packed up our house in one week. We moved it ALL (except the suitcases for the vacation) into 3 moving trucks and away they went. Hilariously crazy.
The crew, AJ and I packed the car and drove to Oregon.
I'm exhausted just thinking about this again.
We were virtually homeless. Crrraaazy!!
Renters moving into our 'city house' the next day and nothing finalized on our 'country house'.
Oregon was fabulous. Great time with family - bike riding, fishing, dinners together. Loved it. AJ needed to get back to work after a week, though. BUT it was Summer - kids had no school, I had no job, and no house. What to do?? I called my cousin (whom I've yet to forgive for not being my sister). She and her husband had moved to Oregon from Los Angeles a couple of years before. "Can we come stay with you??" She was an incredibly gracious host and we had sooooooo much fun. Swimming, talking, margarita'ing...
AJ and I were in constant contact, of course, and he let it be known that he was NOT comfortable with my driving the 13+ hours back home "alone". So, he flew to Oregon, on his white airplane (well, not his, mind you), and drove back with me. Back where, you might ask? Well, back to lean on more family during this time of transition. This time, his dad. We're actually great house-guests and I'm pretty sure we all had a great time. (well, there was the one time I forgot to put more paper towels on the holder, but I'm pretty sure we'll get past that).
All of a sudden, school was upon us! Believing that all would work out according to plan and the house would indeed be ours, we wanted to start the kids at the school that they would be (hopefully) attending that year. So, back to the House on the Mountain we went!
We were able to negotiate a 'rent back from the owner' deal and on September 6th, 2009, we "moved in" to our new house!!!!
Quotation marks are due to the fact that we had nothing, so 'moving in' was the equivalent of getting our suitcases out of the car and walking in the front door.
Please do not forget (because I doubt I EVER will) that everything we owned was on 3 huge moving trucks on a lot somewhere.
We couldn't schedule the movers to bring our things to us, of course, because the house was not officially ours, nor were the appraisals done, nor was the house up to our move-in standards. Carpets needed replacing, walls needed painting, ETC.
But something really cool happened over the next few months. A soft blanket of peace fell on this house and on us. The kids started school. We made a few trips to Walmart, 30 minutes away. We got backpacks for school and all the school supplies we would normally buy at the beginning of the school year.
We also purchased the following 'survival' items:
- card table and folding chairs
- air mattresses (no beds)
- tp
- set of 'cheap' frying pans
- set of 'cheap' eating utensils
- spatula/serving spoon
- paper plates/cups
- dish soap
- towels
- a few more items of clothing
- starter logs for wood burning stove (I don't need them anymore, by the way)
- pots and pans
- sheets
- blankets
- pillowcases
Those 3 months were some of the best of my entire life.
I met friends. A family of 4. They're our neighbors.{smile}And I love saying "good morning" and "how are you?" and "how's the family?" I'd say it every day to them if I could. But we'd have to yell it really loudly because they're 10 acres away. We've laughed and talked and sat by fires and been taught SO many things. The 3 S's, for one (giggle).
I played with the baby during the day, walking the perimeter of the fences. Listening to her make up songs and jump in puddles with her tiny muckers that almost reached her knees. We would pick up the kids from school. I helped them with their homework and they helped me with dinner. We sat on the floor. We ate at our card table. We borrowed that 13"VCR player from the House on the Mountain, propped it on a chair and watched "Singing In The Rain" a zillion times.
We just were.
It was so crazy, so unusual to not be able to DO anything around the house and property. We were still waiting for appraisers to do their thing and we were still just renters...
it was oddly liberating
Our baby turned 2 (gasp) on October 24th and we celebrated here. It was difficult not to feel it was 'ours' but we still had a great time.
A bit later, AJ and I attended a business retreat a few hours away - mom stayed here with the crew. While there, we received the call we had been waiting for. Our offer was accepted - we were accepted - all was in motion - FINALLY! We signed some time in November.
I must say that the familiar stress of life came creeping in right about then. Just thinking of carpet colors and wall paint.. and...and... omg!! It was ours! The responsibility of fixing it up - all that potential!
Every time I feel this (because I still do) I just breathe. And look outside. It does wonders.
We ordered carpets for the bedrooms, I bought paint for the walls. We called the movers. They were super duper busy. Only date available that didn't conflict with carpet guys?
December 24th.
Laugh. Its ok.
So, we improvised. Just like we'd been doing for months.
We brought in all the bedroom furniture on our nice clean carpets or were the carpets put in the next week? I've blocked it out - it was traumatic.
We had purchased a small tree and a box of ornaments at Walmart. I developed a new respect for that inexpensive superstore.
We had a fantastic Christmas. The kids were oh so excited to sleep on their 'real' beds. As a matter of fact, (and I lie) we didn't get them anything else for Christmas.
This past year has been spent starting a kitchen remodel, figuring out how to care for (prune,pick,sell) the 280 trees in the orchard, learning to tend chickens, getting puppies, getting lambs, selling lambs. Too much to mention!!
I'm looking forward to documenting more consistently. I want my kids to be able to look back and read what they did - how they thought - the adventures we experienced...
...and what happened when we picked up and moved from the city to the country.
When we became Seven on Ten.
~Sarah
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
If I hate it, why do I want to do it??
Hate is obviously too strong a word. Which would make sense because that's what I tend to do on an everyday basis. Make things more difficult than they should be.
What I 'hate' is exposing myself. Some would call it pride, maybe? I would call it embarrassment.
That I'm not as clever as I'd like to be.
not as funny as I'd like to be.
not as efficient.....
blah.
So. My goal is to write. And hopefully, the drive I feel to do so, will fade.
And spare all of us.
I have been pushed in good ways by girls I've 'met' through twitter and the #hellomornings group.
Being up early every single morning is starting to worm its way into my psyche (did I really just spell that correctly?? hmmm.. nice one ;)).
Its becoming (dare I say?) part of me.
I still haven't figured out the whole 'specific' devotional thing but I've been open. And since He knows my history and the challenges I've faced, I think it'll be fine.
I need patience to pull back that first papery thin layer that surrounds who I am. It might get messy, but then again, I'm one day closer to death, so really? who cares?
So, heart pounding, I'm going to publish this and then close my computer, go do the 'routine' and pretend I never did.
Also, I have to go to ChuckECheese today, so pray for me.
Sarah
What I 'hate' is exposing myself. Some would call it pride, maybe? I would call it embarrassment.
That I'm not as clever as I'd like to be.
not as funny as I'd like to be.
not as efficient.....
blah.
So. My goal is to write. And hopefully, the drive I feel to do so, will fade.
And spare all of us.
I have been pushed in good ways by girls I've 'met' through twitter and the #hellomornings group.
Being up early every single morning is starting to worm its way into my psyche (did I really just spell that correctly?? hmmm.. nice one ;)).
Its becoming (dare I say?) part of me.
I still haven't figured out the whole 'specific' devotional thing but I've been open. And since He knows my history and the challenges I've faced, I think it'll be fine.
I need patience to pull back that first papery thin layer that surrounds who I am. It might get messy, but then again, I'm one day closer to death, so really? who cares?
So, heart pounding, I'm going to publish this and then close my computer, go do the 'routine' and pretend I never did.
Also, I have to go to ChuckECheese today, so pray for me.
Sarah
Saturday, January 1, 2011
1-1-11
So, the whole 'New Year's Resolutions' thing.... What should I do about that? Part of me says "nothing. And let that be your resolution." Perhaps the resolution to be open to what comes and learn to enjoy the moments that I consistently let pass me by or let occur while I busy myself with something else is the best resolution I should be coming up with.
The first day of this brand spankin' new year has been spent:
eating
sleeping
laughing
cooking
driving in the rain
visiting family
running inside
sloshing in a bit of mud
researching diy home improvement projects
fighting off my husband
snuggling with my babies one at a time
cooking again
setting timers and forgetting to turn off pots of bubbling sauce
saying "I love you too" quite a bit
taming tempers
laughing again
feeding cats
checking on chickens
watching baby cows nurse
looking at my daughter's face peek through the cut-out in her cardboard box house
tearing apart said box because 3 year old's head got stuck.
I'm tired. But only exhaustingly so.
Don't worry about me.
I think I'm going to listen to that part of me that's screaming "NOTHING!" No resolutions, no stress. Just enjoy, just be, just listen, just hug, just say "I love you too".
~scj
The first day of this brand spankin' new year has been spent:
eating
sleeping
laughing
cooking
driving in the rain
visiting family
running inside
sloshing in a bit of mud
researching diy home improvement projects
fighting off my husband
snuggling with my babies one at a time
cooking again
setting timers and forgetting to turn off pots of bubbling sauce
saying "I love you too" quite a bit
taming tempers
laughing again
feeding cats
checking on chickens
watching baby cows nurse
looking at my daughter's face peek through the cut-out in her cardboard box house
tearing apart said box because 3 year old's head got stuck.
I'm tired. But only exhaustingly so.
Don't worry about me.
I think I'm going to listen to that part of me that's screaming "NOTHING!" No resolutions, no stress. Just enjoy, just be, just listen, just hug, just say "I love you too".
~scj
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Dear Me,
Dear Future Me,
Do you remember this day?
You woke up at 5am, you snuggled with AJ as long as you could - before your sneezing fit started. AJ groaned and held tight to your wrist…willing you to stay in bed with him. You rubbed his sore back for a while, played with his hair until he fell back to sleep.
Then you grabbed your lap top and snuck out to the living room. You were thrilled that the living room was still quite toasty from the fire you had going all day yesterday. You stoked the hot coals and realized that they weren’t quite hot enough to get itself going again. After some newspaper and kindling additions, it sprung back to life. You sat there looking at the wood burning stove, reveling in the glow. After turning on the coffee pot and grabbing the laptop (hmm…wonder if you still have the same one…), you sat down to check email and your favorite sites… You cried while reading the NieNie Dialogues. Her story touches you to your core. You felt a surge of thankfulness for your life. For that moment. For the health and safety of your family. For your eyes and cheeks and butt. For the ability to run and bend and juggle and wrestle.
Your beautiful daughter Bailey (13), still fuzzy from sleep, walked into the living room with a “hi mommy” and a “why are you crying??”. After explaining the gist of the story to her, she said (always so empathetic) “I’m so sorry”.
The coffee wasn’t as good to you this morning, for some reason. It just felt strange going down.
Your other babies were still all in their beds. You woke them up, one by one. Except for the baby – she was already calling from her bed – “Mommy, I awake. I get out.”
From then on, you sort of wandered around with your mug of coffee, giving orders and reminders. Finding AJ’s white undershirt, putting braids in Kenzie’s hair, finding Z’s socks, getting breakfast for the baby.
You happened to look up and out the window (something you’ve been reminding yourself to do more often). You grabbed the camera, shoved the battery in that had been charging overnight, slipped on AJ’s uggs and walked outside. As was getting to be the norm, you got butterflies when the thought flitted across your brain that this place was YOURS.
After throwing on a baseball cap and a jacket, you texted the bus driver (we’re tight like that) to tell her that you’d be taking the kiddos to school today. Bailey had an ortho appointment and was going to school late. It made sense to drop the other kids off on the way to Paso…
The appointment went much more quickly than you had anticipated and before the baby was even settled and playing with the toys in the office, Bailey was walking out with an “I’m done!” You wrapped the baby back up in a blanket for the walk back to the car. She can walk, mind you, but do you remember that you forgot both the baby’s pants and socks AND shoes on your way out of the house this morning??
Bailey then begged (BEGGED) for donuts. It really had been forever since you’d let any of them have donuts. Since you’d had a donut either. A quick stop at a nearby Donut Shoppe cleared that up.
You chatted with your incredible daughter all the way home. Told stories back and forth, told the baby to be quiet. Told Bailey to wait till 30 to have kids.
You let her go home before taking her to school to finish a page of homework that was due and she had forgotten to do…. what a wonderful mother you are 
You talked to a new girlfriend sometime that morning and she wasn’t feeling well at all. She has 2 little ones and you felt her pain. You asked if there was anything that you could do. She needed Crisco. On the way to B’s school, you stopped at the LWood store, bought some Crisco (for the first time, maybe??). After dropping an “excited to see her friends” B off, you went to aforementioned friend’s house and dropped off the Crisco. You stayed a little longer than you had intended, but the kids enjoyed playing and you really did enjoy the visit. You really like her. She’s genuine.
You came home, fed the baby lunch, switched the laundry, talked to a friend on the phone that you forgot to call back yesterday… She’s having a tough time too. Your heart broke for her.
You thought for a while about motivation and wishing you had more of it. You wish you had more IDEAS, more “OOMPH”. You have ‘get up and go’ but you just wish you had more DIRECTION. You wish you ACTED on your creative impulses more frequently. You wish you just DID what you thought about and BELIEVED in it. TRUSTED yourself more.
Then the buzzer on the washing machine sounded and you scurried back to the garage.
The baby kept SQUEEZING your face today, looking intensely into your eyes, saying things like “I LOOOOVE you” and “You a bad girl, I gonna ‘pank you butt”. I know, she’s random and she’s yours. I hope its not too obvious 
You then let her rot her brain on Sprout tv. You thought about writing them a love letter.
You took the 4 kids you had with you today and went to Lauren Grant’s volleyball game. It was good for you to be there – good for you to support her and her family.
“Not right now, we’ve got 30 seconds left in the half”. Were words you really never thought you’d hear spoken in your living room. And yet they just were – by your husband to your son who just asked if he could pause the football game they were playing to go get a drink…
And now, future me, you had great ideas about writing all of this down for you. But now your eyes are closing all by themselves.
You are exhausted.
I sure wish you could tell me I’m doing a good job.
Sarah
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