It's all about the fun drinks

Before you think I'm talking about something I'm not, when I say "fun drink" I'm talking about Zevia.  The Cream Soda and Black cherry, to be specific.  

When the kids were little, we didn't do soda unless we went to eat with Granddad.  The choices were root beer or Sprite (I wasn't about to have 8 kids 11 and under also overly caffeinated).  At home it was water.  Lemonade if it was a birthday.  Fun drinks only happened on special occasions.

I had similar rules about chips.  I bought tortilla chips - you need them for taco nights and other meals.  But I usually didn't find a kid sitting with an open bag of tortilla chips, finishing them off.  If you wanted "fun chips" (potato chips, Cheetos, etc.)?  Those were for special occasions, only.  Sometimes on Saturday hamburger nights, but more often for July 4th or a holiday.  If I brought a bag of fun chips into this house on other occasions it wouldn't have lasted 2 hours... and you can see how frustrating that would be for the person who buys the groceries. 

Our Summer Colorado trips brought even more treats.  I'd get the Sam's size box of blow pops, mini cans of soda, fruit snacks... all kinds of things that we never had in the house.  It was kid heaven - cousins, mountains AND a blow pop.  Doesn't get any better.

We called other things different names, too.  I think I was just tired of explaining things a hundred times.  "Square cereal" made more sense to them then frosted mini-wheats (I still miss that cereal). I didn't buy the actual Frosted Mini Wheats anyway, we ate the generic kind, of course.  Raisin cereal, cinnamon cereal - Grape Nuts were still Grape Nuts - because that doesn't have anything to do with what they actually are, anyway.  Mexican casserole was a creation of ours.  Rice, chili beans, black beans, ground beef, corn, enchilada sauce... with cheese on top.  We ate it almost every week.  So much so that some of the kids refuse to eat it to this day.  It's still a great dinner, though.  "Chicken stuff" was chicken cooked in salsa with black beans and corn - we ate that in tortillas.  And was very similar to BBQ chicken - also cooked in the crock pot and eaten on buns.  But not with fun chips.

One of the best things I did with a house full of littles was to have several nights a week that we always had the same thing.  Spaghetti on Wednesdays (which was also bath night, conveniently), pizza on Friday nights if Dad was coaching - and we watched a movie.  I even put beach towels down and let them eat on the living room floor, sometimes.  Hamburgers on Saturday nights (also bath night) and tacos on Sunday.  Mostly because it didn't take much time to make tacos and Sundays were crazy.  The other nights we changed it up.  But it helped a lot that at least some nights I didn't have to think about what to make.  One less decision - moms are always making so many decisions.  

So here we are, with all adult kids and sometimes... they still ask me to get fun chips for dinner.  Have you tried those Simple Cheetos without artificial colors?  Yum.  Anyway, we've relaxed a bit about the fun drinks - since we only have 5-6 here, now.  Feels so luxurious, doesn't it?  Fun drinks every night! 

Lots of things have changed since our house was full of little ones and noise and chaos.  It's quieter now.  We watch more Netflix, for sure, which is a big change from our trips to M&M for free kids movies.  We don't eat many casseroles these days.  We've traded our Wednesday spaghetti nights for spaghetti squash with tomatoes and feta.  We've transitioned to a fully gluten free household, we adapt a lot of recipes, and our favorite treats are made in the Ninja Creamy.  

But most nights?  You'll still find us sitting down to dinner as the kids call out to each other, "who wants a fun drink?" And they'll grab a Zevia for you, if you want to come join us!

Comfort Cracker

One of our grand babies went through a phase where they carried around a teething cracker.  Not to eat.  Just to hold.  We called it their comfort cracker.  Since then, the kids sometimes need a comfort fruit snack.  Or comfort water cup... you get the idea.  They feel more relaxed holding it.

Maybe my 30 oz Hyrdroflask is my comfort cup - I take it with me almost everywhere I go.  I definitely need my comfort pack of gum and comfort chapstick to make it through the day, don't you?

The other day a friend and I were discussing our favorite movies and I've decided I have comfort movies, too.  They have happy endings, they are sweet, and they make me laugh!  I watch them over and over again.  I even have a comfort show.  I watch all of seven seasons every Fall.

We have a bad habit at our house of stacking books in front of the full bookshelves when there isn't any more room.  Now and then, we have to clean out a few to make the new books fit.  Last week it was two Trader Joe's sacks full - but now all of the books are IN the bookcase.  Whew.  I found myself trying to explain to the Coach why I needed to keep some of them.  They are my comfort books - I read them over and over again.  I go back to them when I'm tired of reading things that are supposed to help me learn or grow -  when I just want to read something predictable and sweet, where I know what's going to happen.  I have a shelf full and I know I'll keep reaching for them.  

I'm currently reading one of my comfort books, "The Beloved Invader."  Pretty sure it really belongs to my mom - don't tell her I have it.  I've read it so many times, I know what's coming next.  Very comforting.  It's also "historical" fiction, so it feels like it has some redeeming value.

One of the greatest comforts we have in this life is the comfort of others.  We experience hard things, suffering, trials, heartache, and God allows us to comfort others with the comfort He's given us.  We often don't see it in the moment - the hard - the heart break.  But later on, when we cross paths with someone else who is in the midst of a similar hard?  God often brings comfort to others through us.  It's a beautiful thing, isn't it?

What comforts you?  Is it a food (mine is Hershey kisses), a favorite movie (Pride and Prejudice), a worn book (The Rosary)?  It is sunshine, a walk, or a nap?  Whatever it is, I hope you have some time for something comforting today.  Those little comforting things make life's harder moments more bearable.

And most of all, I pray we go to the Comforter, Himself.  He's always there - and He has felt it all, been through it all, knows it all, and can comfort us in our weakness.

Take me back...

I love so many things about social media...

but I hate so many more.

I love that I can get meal ideas, training inspiration for the gym, spiritual inspiration for the soul, and see cute pics of all of my people.

I hate that it makes me feel like I have to do more, be more, and add more things to my ever growing list.

I love that it allows me to keep up with friends from the different decades of life.

I hate that so often if makes me feel like a failure.

I love the beautiful homes and designs and styles.

But...

You don't stay up at night so you can listen to your teens talk?  Failure.

You don't go to bed early and get a good solid 8 hours?  Failure.

You don't spend quality time with all of your kids every week?  Failure.

You don't have a budget and an extensive skin care routine?  Failure.

The perfect travel outfit?

The secret to having energy in you 50's?

The most healthy snacks for your kids?

YOU STILL USE BLEACH?

(Just as a side note, never ever tell a former cancer mom who felt responsible to keep her child ALIVE that they can't bleach things.  Just don't.)

We see the best of everyone else.  And feel the worst of ourselves.

We contrast and compare and come up short.

It's added so much noise to my tendency to overthink things.  That noise in my head often ends up winning out over the TRUTH that I know.  I don't spend enough time balancing that outside noise with the inside Holy Spirit.  

 

I often find myself longing for those more simple days when I had to make a phone call to a sister-in-law or friend or write on this little ole blog to process things - instead of scrolling through reels to distract myself from the things in life that need to be talked through.

Yeah yeah, I know.  I'm just OLD.

I hear you.  

Christmas Cards

Getting Christmas Cards is one of my most favorite things in December.  Actually, one of my most favorite things all year!  I love seeing your smiling faces, how much the babies (and kids!) have grown, hearing updates on your people.  It brings me so much JOY.  And if you send me your new address before I mail one to your old address and get it returned?  You've made my day.

We'll be sending a New Year's card this year - since we had a chance to take an updated family pic at Christmas.  I just ordered them and will hopefully get them out to you soon!  Our crew hadn't all been together in almost a year and a half and we've changed a bit.  Added two babies, a new fiance' and there's another baby on the way!  And I feel like the Coach and I have aged even more than 17 months worth.  

As beautiful as you all are and as lovely as your Christmas cards are and as much happiness as they bring me...  I am tempted... I think every year... to write a REAL Christmas letter.  With all of the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I won't do it, of course, but it's always so tempting.

You want to know how our year REALLY went?  No, you don't.  Ha!

But just in case you worry that your life is a wreck and everyone else has it together, let me remind you that I'm your girl.  Always lowering the bar so that you can feel like you do, in fact, have it all together.  If you want to hear details, that will have to happen over a cup of coffee.  Because as much as I'd love to just hang all of our dirty laundry out to dry on the internets, that doesn't seem appropriate.  For today, at least.  

Thankfully, Jesus's sacrifice, God's mercies (new every morning) and the Lord's goodness aren't dependent on me having it all together.  In fact, it's quite the opposite.  The greater my need, the greater His grace.  Wow.  That truly astounds me.  I have a hard time loving people who don't do what I'd like or make me feel better about myself.  But Christ died for us WHEN WE WERE YET SINNERS.  We hated Him and He willingly gave His life for us. 

So I don't have to get it all together this year, or any year.  My card won't be a diatribe on all of the hard things this year held... although I know that would be super entertaining for all of us.  I'll send the pretty picture with the best looking kids and sweetest babies you've ever seen.  And my extra wrinkles, too.  And take another opportunity to be thankful that God promises to bring good from it all.  Every bit of it.  Even the hard.  No... I think especially the hard.  

Happy New Year!

New Year's for the rest of us...

If you're starting this New Year discouraged, I'm here to say you aren't alone.

If last year wasn't your favorite, wasn't your best, or is a year you never want to see again?  I'm with you.

If you can't imagine setting goals for another year after this last one pulled the rug out from under you?  That's OK.  It really is.

I've never faced a New Year with less enthusiasm.  Beginning a new year lends itself to looking back over the past year and it's definitely been a hard thing for me to do. The Coach and I are big goal setters.  We have always wanted to learn and grow and be challenged (hence the 8 kids - ha!). But last year challenged us in new and unusual (and painful) ways, so I'm not about to ask for THAT, again.  How about we all just pray for a year of coasting, maintaining and REST?  How about we try not having any goals at all?  I kid.  Sort of.

I told someone last week that I wasn't super excited about a new year after what last year held for us... not a year I want to see again.  He said, I feel like your family has had more than your share of those years, haven't you?  Hmmmm.  It does seem that way.  

But no matter what this year holds (good or bad - and it will be a combination of the two), we still know some things to be true.  

God is good.  He is always good.  Not everything that happens to us IS good.  For SURE.  But God is.  I can rest on that truth this year.

God has good plans for my life.  He promises to finish the work He has begun in me.  It's a promise.  He won't leave me alone, where I am, or without hope.  Ever.

God has good plans for the people I love.  I may not always see it.  Or believe it.  But it's true.  He LOVES them so much more than I ever could.  He is good, He has good plans for their lives, and He promises to complete His work in their lives and mine.

In the meantime, I may struggle to find my Anchor some days.  Or every day.  I may forget that it's for my good and HIS glory.  But it's still true.

If you've forgotten all of this at the beginning of this New Year, as I seem to have?  There is space for that, too.  I think it's OK to begin this year slowly with a bit of hesitation.  I think it's OK to not set any big goals or feel the need to grow or change this year.  As long as we keep moving forward.  And trust God for the rest of it.

Time Trials...

For the most part, the Coach and I have gotten along fairly well these 29 plus years.  We've had our ups and downs, but being married to someone who is not particular about most things, is humble enough to keep learning, and wants to love me well?  It's been amazing.

However, we may have reached the end of that bliss.

You see, the end of January sometime (the days have run together, you'll soon see why), our radio alarm clock died.  The clock that's woken us both every morning for 20 something years.  Now, it wasn't our FIRST alarm clock together.  THAT one actually had a cassette player that turned on to wake you.  It was incredible.  We had this tape of an IMAX movie (remember those?) soundtrack from a movie on Africa that we saw on our honeymoon.  That cassette woke us for many happy years.

Enter our last alarm clock - the one that just gave up on us.  It was just a radio alarm, but it did the trick. His alarm on the left side, mine on the right.  BIG snooze bar - very important.  It even had battery back up and it wasn't too too bright.  You know, just right.  It was comfortable.  It did the job well and we were used to which buttons to use to set it at night and which buttons turned it off in the morning and it was just bright enough to see the time when we woke too early (which happens more often these days).

I should have known the end was in sight, because sometimes when you would try to set the alarm, the time went backwards when you pushed the forwards button and vice versa.  I should have seen it coming, but I guess I was in denial.  Then one night, the Coach went to set his alarm for the next day and the button just didn't work.  Nothing happened.  It still had power, it still showed the accurate time, but we knew having a perpetual 4:45AM alarm wasn't ideal.  For either one of us (me, especially). 

So with a heavy heart, completely unsure of what the future would hold, we unplugged it for the last time.

Now, to tell the whole, whole story (which I'm sure you're dying to hear), you have to also know that the Coach and I have been really committed to following a budget since sometime last Fall.  October, maybe?  And WOW it's been tough.  I won't say a lot about that, but just... the Coach is the bread winner in our home and I'm the bread LOSER.  Big time.  So it was extremely unfortunate that the alarm clock died at the end of the month.  Because I'm not one to leave much in that "miscellaneous" category, if you know what I mean?  Cough... cough... Amazon.

So here we are, our old faithful has passed on to the next radio alarm clock life.  I needed to wait a week or so to order a new one.  And the Coach?  He has hard and fast rules about phones being in the bedroom.  Just to clarify... we have 8 kids... or 12 kids... and 4 grandbabies.  So SOMEONE has to have their phone in the bedroom.  But it's not going to be him.  Just saying.  

But desperate times call for desperate measures and there we were ready to go to bed setting alarms on our phones for the next morning.  Except his phone isn't in the room, so I'm setting alarms for BOTH of us for the next morning, knowing full well that I will be waking up both times and also have the priviledge of waking him.  Yay.

No worries, though.  We survived the interim, he relaxed on the phone rules and used his for the other nights and we survived.  There was that one night he actually didn't set his, and woke up in a frenzy when MY alarm went off, but it is what it is.  Here were are sometime later (February... new budget month) and the new clock has arrived.  Never mind that I spent way too much time looking at the options and trying to make a decision... the decision was made and the delivery received and there we were.

With a completely different clock that has completely different features and the buttons are all in different places and suddenly I felt very... very... OLD.

Before you say (like my kids have a thousand times) that it's so much easier just to set an alarm on your phone?  I know.  You're right.  It is.

But also, the Coach likes swimming upstream and honestly, he's usually right.  We are too dependent on our phones and really even though I keep mine handy in case we are needed by one of our kids, I too like being able to look up and see the time on the clock.  And getting out of bed to turn it off is a good thing for both of us.  So he's not wrong.  He's probably smarter than all of us.  

However, learning a new electronic appliance with the added stress that if it doesn't work our whole routine will be off... has been a little annoying.  At first I said, "You read the thing and figure out the stuff and then tell me how it works."  I'm smart like that.  But that only went so far, when he left me to set my own alarm and I realized I did actually need to know how to turn it off.  Because he's already been up an hour before my alarm even goes off.  Sigh.

But we're two nights in and so far so good.  I even figured out how to make it NOT SO BRIGHT because that first night it kept me awake.  Stupid clock.  But we'll persevere though this trial - hopefully - and come out the other side better and stronger.

Yes... this is way too much about a tiny thing and this has all been ridiculous.  We really have laughed our way through it.  For the most part (I may have been a teeny tiny bit frustrated that first night when he didn't want to go get his own phone...).  But we've been talking the last few months about comfort and discomfort and how we don't really learn much when we're just doing the things we're comfortable doing (blah blah blah marathon training)... and this silly clock as been a good illustration of how we easily get stuck in a rut, comfortable in our routine, just doing the same thing day in and day out and not really even seeing the things around us or taking time to be grateful or doing the hard thing or purposefully moving out of our comfort zones.

We'll make it with our new clock.  I'm sure of it.  Or at least more sure today than I was a couple of nights ago.  Might take some time, but I'll get used to it.  And I'm going to keep finding other small ways to step out of my comfort zone... go to that crossfit class where I don't know anyone... try a lift I don't really know how to do... find out if I can run a faster mile... go sit by that new person at that event... introduce myself to someone I haven't met... all things I'm SUPER uncomfortable with.  All things that move me out of the familiar and hopefully into growth.  And maybe the more I do these little things, the more confident I will become in the bigger uncomfortable things... having that hard conversation... choosing to be vulnerable, even though I might get hurt...heading into conflict instead of running from it... being willing to bear someone else's burden, even though I want to turn my eyes away from their pain.

So trying new things and getting out of my comfort zone?  Bring it on.  Just wait until March when my "miscellaneous" budget category resets, if you don't mind, please and thank you.

Happy Monday!

Life at *almost* 50

(From Feburary 2023)

The other day, as I was reading in bed (side note - the Anne of Green Gables series is just so good - I've loved going back to it) and our youngest came in to ask me a question.  I didn't hear him coming.  Not a sound.  Just all of a sudden there was a 6'1" MAN standing in my room.  Had a little heart attack, to be honest.  And then I started laughing.  He was just as silent as a toddler.  You'd think all of the growing he's done and all of the size he's added... that he'd make SOME sort of sound coming down the hall.  Nope.

We recently moved Daughter (#2) and her little family to their first house - about 35 minutes away.  The house needed some work and it's been a bit of a rough start - but it will be a great house.  Just solidified in me that I'm not moving, again.  Ever.  In fact, don't even bother with a funeral home - just bury me in the backyard.

Last Fall when the Coach and I moved the girls back to college, we counted that we've moved kids in and out of college housing 17 times in the last 8 years.  And that's including the fact that son #1 did his own moving several times. Also not including the married kid's houses and apartments - again, Son #1 has been on his own there, too.  Hopefully one day we can help them.  Ha!

The kids got me a digital picture frame for Christmas and I love it. I think it's what REALLY makes you a grandma.  I love that new pictures pop up when the kids add them and I love that the grandbaby watches for his aunts and uncles to show up.  So sweet.

About three months ago (maybe 2?) the Coach and I started talking about the possibility of running another longer race.  He's always ready for a challenge - but this time it's been a big one.  His running pace had been getting faster and faster and I had all but quit running completely... poor guy.  But we're tackling one run at a time and honestly, it's felt great.  I just keep telling myself - don't quit moving.  I remind myself that my mom ran her first marathon at 55.  She ended up running 6 of them.  I've completed 8 half marathons so far, but it's been about 3 years since the last one!  Thankful the Coach is still happy to jog along beside me.

One week ago, today, marked six years since Son #3's cancer diagnosis.  As the Coach and I talked about it that night, we agreed that it feels like there was no life before that - in so many ways.  It changed us so dramatically.  Changed our lives and our family and our kids' lives.  But also, SIX YEARS.  There aren't really words for that.  I remember when they told us 3 years of chemo and we both said that's not even possible! And now it's been 2 1/2 years since those 3 1/2 years ended.  Pretty amazing.

God is amazing.