Simple Life

Parenting brings obstacles and challenges like none that we've ever dealt with before.  My first was when my son was born.  He was the most difficult baby I'd ever come across, and I got to be with him all the time .  I remember how defeated and discouraged I was, and how I thought to myself, "I can't do this.  I can't parent this child, make him happy, stay sane.  I don't even want to".  I didn't know how I was going to get through his infancy and this obstacle felt like the greatest obstacle of my life. We got through it, I got through it.  Time passed and allowed me to forget the depth of the struggle so that when the next challenge arose, that one felt like a new biggest and worst.  The new challenge was now the thing that was going to end all civilized thought in my head.  Again, we got through.  Time and again, challenges, the biggest and worst, have arisen.  Each time I have thought, "How? What am I supposed to do with this...

Many of you already know that Jason and I decided to buy a house in the Tri Cities.  This goes against everything we've been saying since we got here.  Our plan was 2 years, 3 at the most.  The desire to leave the Tri Cities is still very strong, but, it won't be happening.  We had a couple life events that told us that we needed to stay put for a while.  We may still leave, but it won't be for the next few years - probably not until the kids graduate high school. The home we bought is great for several reasons.  It gives us just enough space to live and not be on top of each other all the time, it is located 3 minutes from the middle school so the Lily can just walk to school and home, and, it was cheap!  Another benefit of this house is that it has 1,000 little projects and fixes I'd like to do, so I'll stay busy (and drive Jason crazy).  It is not our dream home, but it is a good "for now" home.  Can you believe this is the 6th house we'...

I think I'm starting to like my kids... It is Friday night and I've just attended a 3 day writing workshop intended to help some of us teacher types wade through the scary, wordy, commandments known as Common Core.  (Fearless leader, if you are reading this, fabulous job!  I am only a fraction as scared as I was before the workshop!  Only problem I'm seeing is that before the learning, I didn't know how little I knew.  Now I am fully aware of my ignorance and potential incapabilities…) One of the activities that we did in the room paired us up in groups of two and had us introduce our partner, answering these three questions: best job you've ever had, best place you've ever lived, and riskiest thing you've ever done.  I fretted over that first question.  Best job I've ever had?  Two jobs came to mind before I started to answer.  The first thought was…which one?  Then, it dawned on me, neither job was my current one, or being a teacher at al...

It's been a while; a little more than 6 months to be inexact.  I was looking for a word to describe why I haven't written - a single word that could sum up my state of being in a succinct way that would leave you to say, "Oh, I get it.  No further explanation needed."  That word may be out there, but it is beyond  my reach at the moment.  Here is what I came up with: NEUTRAL.  Weird, until I really started thinking about it.  Neutral means  having no strongly marked or positive characteristics or features .  The synonyms for neutral are:   inoffensive ,  bland ,  unobjectionable ,  unexceptionable ,  anodyne , unremarkable ,  ordinary ,  commonplace .   In other words, my attitude for the last 6 months.  I have a couple really good excuses that totally make sense, but really?  Who cares.   I am back, possibly in limited release, we'll see.  (I have missed this blog dearly.)  ...

I was really fortunate to face the school year with two job offers.  Living in the area that I live where there seems to be more teachers than jobs and everyone knows everyone, I was concerned that I would not find a position for myself.  The first job I was offered was to teach Math and Science with what I could tell was a great team of women at a really low income school.  The job was only .6, so not full time, but it was supposed to go full time before the year started.  I accepted.  I love science.  Not so much math.  I can do it but it bores me...I didn't care.  I was excited.  Then I got the offer to teach full time, language arts.  The team was less inviting but the day in, day out seemed better.  English over math? Yes please!  So I switched.  I have wondered since then if I made the right choice and I am often left in the corner thinking...no. Here are the blessings: first, two job offers in a pretty competitive...

I started my period when I was 11 years old.  I remember going to the nurses office at school that day because my lower back hurt so badly.  It felt like nothing I had ever felt before, but was a feeling I would become quite familiar with.  Imagine there being a bowling ball inside your body, resting on your tail bone.  It causes pressure just sitting there.  That was a good day.  The bad days were when that bowling ball was being ground into my back - from the inside trying to find a way out.  Later, when laboring with Lily, that same feeling was there.  Lily was upside down and her head was resting on my tailbone.  The contractions that drove it deeper into the bone were killers.  So all those years of imagining my inner bowling ball were not that far off! In those first few years of cycling I would often seek out the hardest surface I could find and just lay on it, trying to flatten my back into it.  Our living room floor usual...

Now that summer is (almost) over for us I asked the kids what their favorite memories were.  We really didn't do much this year, but here are the highlights: 1) Camp Sealth Jason grew up going to Camp Sealth on Vashon Island every summer, first as a camper and later as a staff member.  This summer our two kids were able to go for their first time.  They loved it!  The camp was about a week long and they got to swim, tie dye, hike, sleep outside, ride a ferry, do archery, etc.  Both were nervous to go and be away from us for so long, but neither one was really ready to come home when it was over.  Both were already talking abut going next year before I had their suitcases in the trunk.  A good sign! The man with the kids is Paul Dudley, a Seattle area photographer that drove the ferry when Jason went to camp and is still doing it now.  Jason asked him to look out for the kids on drop off morning.  When Paul saw Lily he called out ...