Life as it should be

This is our life now. Tom and I cannot believe our luck.

So much of my husband had disappeared, and all of a sudden it's back. Everything's different and like it should be. The good ol' days are back and better than ever.

Yes.

We're back

We're back and everything is wonderful... except the state of the apartment but I'm sort of working on that.

By the way, isn't Scarlet the cutest? Looks like she got a new outfit.

Tom's been home most of the day, well-rested and happy. Wha?!
Suzanne is coming tomorrow for one night.
I think it's too darn hot around here but I think I'm in the minority (as usual).
There are some pictures from Seattle, but very few. I was just not in the mood for photography.
I'm so happy to be home: watching our shows, sleeping in our bed and drinking our tea (at all hours). I'm such an oldster already; but it's the simple things in life, my friend.

I'm getting back to my good-looking, funny, sweet and currently cooking husband. Yes.

Life is never normal

It's like he's moved back in or something - I don't know where I'm going to put all the stuff formerly kept in his "office". 

I kept thinking yesterday was Sunday because he was here. I didn't get anything done. We watched Moon, Lincoln Lawyer, Source Code and went to the theater to see Thor. This isn't what life is going to be like all the time... I don't think. 

Today felt more normal, he left for Portland early and will get home late. He has to get in as much work as he can before our six day trip to Seattle (starting tomorrow!). Our honeymoon was only three days. We're really excited about this. 

I hope we get along. We've had so little practice the past three years. 

... This is all too weird.

Getting Tom back

Niece and Uncle

They melt my heart. 

They vaporize it.

Uncle! Uncle. I can't take anymore.

We're going to have to get one of these for keeps.

My greatest love, my greatest weakness

My phone rang in the other room and, hallelujah! It was Tom calling. My world brightened. I instantly shrugged off every saturnine feeling. It occurred to me that it wasn't the over-sized sweatshirt that hung so heavily around my shoulders, making me feel listless on a sunny afternoon; It had been his absence that was weighing me down. I would experience wholeness for a few seconds, maybe minutes. He was calling me.
And his message was: "Come outside." He was here.

A 24-foot truck was idling across the street. He was leaving soon; this was only a momentary lapse in reality. But I would hang on to it, hang on to him as I would an exquisite feeling in the dissolution of a good dream. I would defy logic and evidence and history. I would try. He would leave, but not for my lack of trying. He would literally slip through my fingers again but I would hold on to the memory. Until that memory faded and became just an idea. And then, though I'd think better of it, that idea would consume a part of me.

Now I'm sitting here eating dry cereal one flake at a time. There is no milk. My energy and attention are gone, I guess that they have retreated to that part of me that meditates on impossibilities. Maybe I can get them out or maybe that part of me has expanded into something like a blackhole and my allotted usefulness for now has become irretrievable.

I watched Tom climb into his truck and drive away. I savored the moment. In a little over a week he will do this for the last time and I will most likely not be there to see it. I liked seeing him do this. He looked powerful and capable, and he is. He doesn't show the lack of rest or lack of life. He retains his poise while I fall apart. "You poor girl," he said as he held me last night, as I sobbed into his chest for missing him.
When everything is emotion joy and sorrow are right beside one another and sometimes I don't know which it is I'm feeling, and both are searing and overwhelming. And then there is now, when I've laid aside Tom's sweatshirt and the weight is still there and I know that I am languishing but I keep eating one flake at a time, typing one word at a time, counting down the seconds.

my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved

I love this headshot of Tom's.

Ever a lady killer this one.

He comes home to me from a night apart this evening. I am dying to see him. I can't wait until he's done with this job... So close.

Papa's got a brand new bag

It's finally happening: Tom has a new job. 
And while the new is so thrilling, it's really leaving the old that is such a miracle.

It makes so much sense now that it would happen this way but still I cannot believe it has happened.

Everything's going to change. I'm so ready.

A little bit of everything, all at once

There is so much changing around here, so fast. It's amazing. Tom and I could feel a change coming. We said we could just feel God moving, we could feel something about to happen, about to change. And now it has. Multiple things have changed and are changing, just like we thought.

I don't want to jump the gun, because not everything is nailed down. So for now I am praying; I am reading through Matthew, slowly and deliberately; I am making cookie brittle to try to express a sliver of the gratitude I feel for the men that kill themselves for my husband every day (really, every day); I am enjoying my husband, so much;

and I am looking forward to seeing this angel and her first first birthday gift: Cheeto. Scarlet turns one on Sunday and I cannot believe it. But despite only having seen her a handful of times in her rapidly lengthening life her face already looks so familiar to me, like I've known her for 23 years. And this is my new favorite picture.

Aaah... life is so good, so sweet. I am so well taken care of it's ridiculous. Which makes me wonder what all I should be doing. With all of these provisions I'm surely not meant to be holed up in my apartment watching the clock. Life beckons.

"Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." (Matt. 11:29)
"Freely you have received, freely give." (Matt. 10:8)

Facing off

"IT ALL ENDS"?

Isn't that sad? Isn't that insane? Isn't it an end of an era? Yes. Yes! Emphatically, yes!

But,

today, yesterday, days before then, it has failed to move me.

I just want my husband!

The blur in my kitchen; the pile of clothes on the chair; the source of texts that tell me how much I'm loved and how much longer (and longer) I'll be alone; the thing that makes me smile in my sleep but leaves me without a memory of kisses and touches: this is what he too often is to me these days.

And we have no plans to celebrate the day we can't believe has finally come: we don't make plans.

And I've gotten used to it all and I'm fine and I don't mean to wallow.

But I can't get excited about Harry Potter. Not while Tom is out there. Not until we celebrate what is far more important, more exciting and more epic, to us.

And I'll wait in my solitary queue as long as I have to.

The Fourth of July

I had a great day today. I woke up 8... then at 8:30, then at 9 then at 9:30. Tom didn't have to be to work until noon and I cannot tell you how amazing it was to lay in bed pushing snooze wrapped up in everything I've ever wanted with the sweet smell of my lily-dotted white iris bouquet coming from the other room.

We eventually got out of bed when my bladder was about to burst but returned with coffee in hand to watch an episode of Dr. Katz - our favorite cartoon.

Around 11 Lane arrived to pick me up for our trip to the river and we sat around for awhile drinking coffee and inhaling that wonderful lily aroma while Tom joked with us from the other room as he got ready for work.

Lane and I found a beautiful spot full of friendly people, and dogs, and what looked to be a crawdad (really?) and dragonflies, and what looked to be swallows, and a few hawks and a bald eagle (which was really pretty incredible).

We swam a little, but mostly we sat on the shore talking about things we needed to talk about and getting burnt by the sun and marveling at the birds.

Afterward we considered a movie at the Bijou but were too worried about being depressed and late for fireworks and settled on a donut instead.

It was a great choice, I've wanted another one all night.

We also went grocery shopping for what was for me the first time in way too long. I have missed being home and doing laundry and taking care of things and filling my basket painfully full with vegetables and bread and (oh darn! I forgot more coffee) meat made me feel like I was back on the right track. And it made me really excited to eat!

In the interim before fireworks we spent our time in Lane's garden eating strawberries and picking fava beans (which were too small but still delicious).

Then I changed into my soft new sweater and powdered my sun-burnt cheeks but couldn't resist going back out into the garden and trimming the rose bushes while Lane took a shower.

I cannot wait to have a yard.

We met up with our friends at 8:30 on a church lawn with great views of a fireworks show and some private illegals. Everyone set off their own firecrackers in the parking lot before it got dark enough for the rodeo to set off theirs. Baby Callen held his first sparkler tonight but he had much more fun shoving his snack cup on my face and giggling through the resultant Darth Vader voice that I would have repeated a million times just to make him happy.

After the show Lane and I went back to her house and toasted our freedom with a tiny bottle of Prosecco.

Then I kicked her butt at Rummy.

Tom has been working all night. I'm about to jump in the shower. He will be here soon for an hour or so before going back off to work until sometime tomorrow.

We miss each other so much.

Today was a good day, and more special than I think I realized while I was living it. Though, I was happy living it.

The moon is beautiful tonight.

Happy fifth of July.

The plan

I recently read the 10-year plan of a blogger I keep up with who’s now taking a little break from her paying job to get her life in order. As I’m on a break as well it got me thinking about my 10-year plan. As much as Tom and I have no idea what we’ll be doing a year from now there are some goals we have in mind and I thought writing them down might give me a more directed and hopeful outlook, at least for today. Then I thought, hmmm… this list is pretty boring and obvious: Have children, have a house, Tom having a fulfilling career, investment in our church and family… See what I mean? These are already on our mind all the time. Though I’m plenty directed and hopeful I’m not more directed, nor hopeful.

So let’s look at a 1-year plan. Eeps! I just got chills as I wrote that, and now I have a funny feeling in my stomach not helped by my coffee for breakfast. Wow! This list is already a lot more exciting. And I haven’t even started it yet. OK, here goes.

Between now and July 2012 I plan to…

Begin writing to my missionary friends regularly, and to my grandpa and grandma. That is only four people and my plan is a letter once a month with extra letters as necessary. This plan is so doable it’s ridiculous and I concocted it months ago and yet… no letters. I have some block about it, the same kind of block I get when I plan to read my bible daily. I need to get past the block: to push off from the shore and start swimming (that’s how it feels). Maybe I could excuse not wanting to read and write before because of school but I am well on from those days now – nearly a month away – and my desire to write has, obviously, returned.

Read my bible everyday. Everything, everything is better when I do this. There is no reason not to. Push off. Swim.

Start and make successful an Etsy store with Becky, the expectant mother. A woman (I am always thrown when I use that word for someone younger than I am) from my church is expecting her first, unexpected, baby. She needs an income due to her husband’s career situation and we want to keep her at home. This is a cause I really believe in, and it could be so fun, educational and profitable. I will be selling vintage clothing (a dream of mine) alongside her hand-made from vintage-material blouses. It could be so great and help so much. I want to work hard at this.

Make moves in the house-buying direction. Sound vague? It is. I don’t want to set my sights too high, especially since I love it here in my little apartment with our gorgeous, huge tree, our nearly floor-to-ceiling windows, our convenient location, our landlord fixing plumbing problems and the memories we’ve made in the year + we’ve lived here. But Tom and I long to have household projects and a yard to work on and work in and no amount of cleanliness and ease can substitute the good, hard work of owning a little dump that all our own. Once we get our ducks in a row, round up paperwork, etc. I am going to talk to a loan officer about what we can afford, if anything and then we’ll see what comes to us in the area. I have my eye on a tiny, tiny house several blocks away. But I always have my eye on something. That’s just how I like to daydream.

Become pregnant. I don’t know if I can put this down. It seems very out of our control. But I cannot deny that I will be planning for this, and have been already. Though, I am taking a few steps back. I don’t want to get ahead of God’s plan for us. I’m gradually giving away things I’ve saved that aren’t too sentimental knowing that when it does happen 9 months will be plenty of time to plan for a family that has been planning all their lives and plans not to plan much anyway. We won’t have to find a new apartment; I won’t have a job I can’t leave; the child will be clothed, fed, changed and loved on to its heart’s content. It will never cry. At least, this is how it seems now. There isn’t much to plan. We only need to grow ever closer to God and to each other and patiently wait, and we will be ready.

See all of the family that we can. I recently realized we have a genius system for this:

Christmas with Tom’s mom, stepfather and sister, as we’ve been doing since before we were married.

Late Spring/Early Summer with my mom and some sisters. There has always been some cause for this: Brooke’s wedding, our wedding (though that was September), Suzanne’s wedding, Scarlet’s birth, my graduation and next year? Another birth? We’ll have to think of something.

Late Summer: Seattle with Tom’s father’s side of the family. They all live up there and we went (for my first time) last year for cousin Audrey’s wedding. I now adore Seattle and can’t wait for August when we’ll be going for cousin Han’s nuptials. There are three more unmarried cousins but despite what they may decide to do I think we should go up there every summer for the rest of our lives. We’re the type of geese that fly north. Give me those grey skies and salty air!

Finally, we have Thanksgiving with my dad and sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews, and grandpa, if he’s willing (and he’d better be!).

Isn’t that the best plan you’ve ever heard of? It makes me love my life even more.

Reconnect with The Pearl Buck Center. I don’t know what this means. I don’t know if I’ll volunteer regularly or sporadically or apply for a job but I miss it and not only the people. I miss the regularity of it. I miss waking up and having a schedule and doing purposeful work from this time until that time and heading home on the bus wondering how it is that the time goes by faster every day. I would like a job there, I would like more control, but I am not ready just yet, I’m really not. Tom has encouraged me and I have considered it and in ways longed for it but I’m not ready yet. I need more time. I have a sense of having unfinished business in my personal life. But I need to make good use of this time as a free agent so that I don’t wait forever.

Paint the bathroom and re-caulk the shower. I’ve decided that even if we buy a house next month I want to invest in some little things around the apartment. I want that sense of accomplishment, and I want the work. Its good work and it will benefit us and possibly others. I’ve started the painstaking re-caulking and will do more today. Then it’s off to the hardware store for all the fixin’s. I’m excited.

Finish refurbishing the furniture I started on last summer. Yeah. Time, hard work, you get the idea...

Cook and bake a lot more. This fell off with the busy-ness of last term and I miss it. I don't even enjoy eating out as much because it's less of a special event. I'm tired of feeding Tom spaghetti and eggs and other cop-out meals (although they are awesome) every night. I also am tired of sending him off to work with no food and imagining what he must be eating and what it must be costing us to poison his hard-working body. I want to improve my talent, my knowledge and my efficiency in the kitchen. I think it is so worthwhile, and honestly, dreamy. I love sitting and imagining a life of kitchen proficiency. Not necessarily soufflés or anything, just mounds of incredible salads and fresh-baked bread. Mmmm. Yes! Yes, please!

Convince everyone that babysitting should be done at my place and then make my place babysitting heaven. I love having kids in my life. Oh my gosh, so much! And I love picking up fun things that I think kids would love but then no one comes to play with them.

I want to help out parents who need time for this or that. But I don’t super-love running around town on foot and on the bus getting to such-and-such place at such-and-such time and leaving all my home projects abandoned, and I don’t super-love being in someone else’s space. Sometimes its fun, but I get bored of being away from home. I loved watching Baby E regularly at my old apartment, even though that place was a hole.

It would be incredible to do daycare for a living, but I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew. This would be good for now. Just drop off your baby in a basket at my doorstep, they’ll be well looked after.

Love my husband and my best friend better. I want to do this with everyone. But they are the two people I am closest with in my life and a good place to start. I want them to have complete confidence in my love for them and my devotion to them. I want them to feel that they can tell me anything (though, guys, you don’t have to tell me everything). I want to help them to be the people that God wants them to be and encourage them in every good thing. I don’t want to worry about them or cause them to worry. I want to make them good food and tell them good stories and to make them know that they are beautiful, hilarious, sweet and endlessly interesting hard-workers – but that even if they weren’t I would still love them. I want them to know without me putting words to it how much I appreciate them.

Hopefully I will achieve this by July 2012 and then, like I said, you’re next.

There are 12 things for twelve months, reaching well into 2012; a list of things I feel I can and should accomplish and a list that doesn’t make me panic when reading over it.

In fact, it’s a list that gives me a thrill.

Happy Mornings

He amazes me.

Despite his chronic lack of sleep Tom would love to wake up this way every morning before heading off to work.