Baby boys!

It's been a busy few months for my friends--six of them had baby boys since summer started and it's awesome. Welcome to the world James Laurence, Oliver Alexander, Lucas Q, Royce Gregory, Alexander Daniel & Robert Kimball :) I have no idea where are all the girl babies are!

I'm loving all of the classic names coming back these days--if you've known me long you know I've always been a name freak, er, onomastic enthusiast so I tend to notice things like naming trends. I never thought I'd choose names that were considered classic for my kids, but I married a man who likes a good, solid name so the compromising happened. I am happy with my children's names, but I spent a lot of years with other ideas in mind and while my fantasy naming preferences are still along the lines of Galileo & Horatio or Kelena and Khrysanthya I tend to think more conservatively overall. Have your tastes in names changed from those teenage lists with your high school sweetheart's last name tacked on the end of each combination? Do you still harbor secret favorites you'll never have the guts to use?

We have a new church ladies book group! I have started reading our first book, The Alchemist: A Fable about Following Your Dream by Paulo Coelho. I've only read the introduction and the prologue and already am enjoying the truth there. I adore self help books written as stories--I have several on my shelf already--and was excited to try this one out. From what I have read so far it will be an easy read, but one I will go through more than once and mark up like crazy.

Yesterday we had a fun 4th of July. Aside from visiting with my friend Julie's and the neighbors' families a few times over the years, this is the first time in my married life we've really done something other than staying home and watching the big Seattle fireworks on television. It's also the first time my husband and I have initiated a get together for the 4th. I entertain a lot, just not around Independence Day I guess. We called up a few people we thought might be without company and told them we were going to to the big park on the bay for dinner and to watch the fireworks show. We ended up with just us and four other people but it was fine--we had a great evening! The fireworks were gorgeous and the weather was absolutely perfect.

This weekend we are watching a 2-year-old daughter of a woman from church who is in dire straits. 7-4 yesterday, today and tomorrow. Since we don't have a car big enough for three little kids, I'll be walking to church tomorrow with them all in tow! Princess has loved having someone else to play with and it hasn't really complicated life (except for the transportation bit). The little girl is pretty easygoing--a definite two, but well-behaved.

The garden is happy! We picked another dozen strawberries for lunch today and a few peas. We have more pumpkins, yellow squash and zucchinis and the wax beans and growing well. The corn just keeps getting taller and we have open blossoms on the pepper plants! Lots of tomato blossoms but only 2 actual toms. I have got to figure out what to do about the cabbage! Something is eating the heck out of it and it won't last 'til the first frost at this rate. The celery amazes me. I am amazed that I can grow real celery that looks like celery! Now, I don't LIKE celery, but the rest of my family does (as do the Wonderpets who come and play at our house occasionally) so it's good we'll have a nice supply.

I'm finally telling people that I have a blog. Like, people other than the people who randomly found it because they have a blog too. I figured, I've been doing this a year almost and I should fess up :)

Thanks

Thank you to those who sent me nice notes in response to the last post. This week has been one of the most difficult I have had in a long time (and it is only Thursday), coming on the tail of another challenging week. I am hoping to finish up with some lightness. I meant to respond personally, and I will as I get myself together here, but I wanted to say thanks.

Yesterday was the worst and last night I after Night Writers I fell apart at the feet of two very wise women and I am so grateful for their willingness to sacrifice their sleep and comfort to let me talk myself through some of the things I have been struggling with and share with me some of their own life lessons. Today of course, I am trying not to regret it.

I have a hard time trusting people with my weak moments. I talked to a friend about this once, and I think it comes down to me believing I am a pretty strong, happy, person and worrying that if people see me in a moment of weakness or frustration that they'll forever after that see me as this needy person. Gratefully, my moments of complete and utter overwhelmance (new word?) are few and so I generally find it safer to just get through them by closing my eyes and hanging on until it's over instead of asking for support. I am afraid that if others see me as incapable of dealing with my life, even for short periods of time, I might be judged (by myself and them) by that moment instead of who I feel like I truly am--the person I am the rest of the time. The majority of the time. While I believe I am shaped by my struggles to a certain extent, I don't believe that I am my struggles and I hate the idea of giving people that impression.

I have truly worked on overcoming this phobia and opening up in the past few years, but apparently it's time for me to kick this dish up a notch (bam-bam-bam). I am a believer in the idea that if a challenge comes to you, it's time to deal with it and you are ready to do it and have the tools even if you don't realize it. I suppose that is sort of encouraging when I think about it. I can do this. I can get through this. I am meant to get through it.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

- Anais Nin

Thursday = Red (on Tuesday)

So here you have red day, late. Princess has been so cute, she keeps asking me what color today is, and since we ran out, I've been letting her choose :)
This is the bag we packed for Princess when we went to the hospital to have Bear.
Another new cook book from the Boise Public Library sale.
Little red leather box my mom gave to Princess for Valentine's Day.

Red chair my dad gave the kids for Christmas and a little Rageddy Ann & Andy pillow from Rosena.
Red tulip from the yard--planted by the neighbors in secret a few years ago and still coming up each Spring.
Bushes on the way home from our walk.
Have you ever seen strawberries screaming to be filled more than these? Cheesecake? Whipped cream? Nutella?

~~~

It has been a sad seven days. The death of a friend's husband in a tragic, horrific accident and the death of another friend's precious baby girl, soon to be adopted, in a poor foreign country far away from this family that adores her. I believe in life after death, I believe that families will be together in that life as they were in this one, and yet the suffocating pain of loss is so real and so heartbreaking. It is comforting to know they live on, but crushing that they are missing from our circles of family and friendship for who knows how long. No hugging, no birthday parties, no weddings. That's hard and it's lonely.

I've struggled the last few days, wondering how to support and comfort Keeley and now Michelle because I desperately want to do something. I'm not as close to either of them as I'd like to be--life is busy for everyone and it is a constant struggle to make time for the most important things, like friendships. I have a great fear (as many do) of making it worse. Of offending or hurting them, of making it all more unbearable than it already is. I've pondered what I would want, and come up with nothing I feel is useful because everyone grieves differently. What I would want may not be what they would want. I have heard that the worst thing is to do nothing, to stay away . . . so I'm mostly resolved not to, if I can figure out what shape my not staying away should take. It's hard to think of what comes next, though. How do they go on? How do we walk beside them through the valley?

There is a beautiful blog by the wife of Todd Smith (from the group Selah), about the birth and loss of their daughter Audrey and it's a place I've gone on and off the past month. Angela Smith is a woman of great faith, and in her honesty about grief and belief she has brought me a lot of comfort. The strange thing is that when I first stumbled on her blog, I wasn't grieving for anyone. This week, I've been grateful for a place to go that helps me remember that the Creator has a purpose for each of us and though it isn't always what we think it will be or what feels right to us, but if we keep on believing and holding on, we're going to be alright.

Writing and dreaming

"Self trust is the essence of heroism"
-Ralph Waldo Emerson



Last night I dreamed about a dancing, and a friend I had when I was a teenager whose given name was Molly Shenandoah. I always loved her name and it seemed to fit her. Being a child of the 70's in a small Washington self-proclaimed hippy town, I had lots of friends with unusual names - in my 2nd grade class their were girls named Butterfly & Cinnamon and boy named Reefer (no joke). But Molly's name wasn't just unusual, it was lovely.


Molly was tall and pretty and smart. She was a great dancer and she had a boyfriend I wanted (and eventually got a half dozen years later). She was a year or two older than me, thrillingly Californian and very kind.


After she moved, we kept in touch on and off... the odd phone call and Christmas card, meeting up occasionally when she came to town. She was someone I called when I heard at 20 the devastating pronouncement from a doctor that I would never carry a child. Since proved wrong... but at the time as a young newly-wed, very much wanting a baby, I was crushed.


What she said to me was one of the most comforting things anyone said during the following 8 years of childlessness. "Some people are just meant to be mothers, and you are one of them. Somehow you'll find a way. You'll be a wonderful mother."


I dreamed we were taking a modern dance class in the gorgeous room on the top floor of the local YMCA that I taught in for a number of years. She was married and expecting a baby. We were so excited because we were again in a place where our lives matched enough that we could keep up with one another again.

Being one who believes in the power of dreams, got out of bed and Googled her :) She is married, is living in Ohio and had a baby about a year ago! Weird. She and her husband run a spicy pickle company and she works with a local group whose mission is "to educate, support and empower women as they journey through pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period". I think I'll write her this week. Who knows. Maybe it's our time again.


~


I've joined NaNoWriMo. I'm nuts. But Allie offered home made chocolate truffles. What was I supposed to do? I have NO IDEA what to write. The quote at the beginning of this post was to remind me that I can do this and I need to trust that I can.



BTW, that old boyfriend of Molly's? The one I went out with years later? He introduced me to Allie and after a dozen years she and I are still great friends.