A New Year, A New Theme

A wise woman once shared with me that instead of making New Year's Resolutions every year, she chooses to create a personal Theme of the Year to follow. As someone who has always considered the New Year sacred ground, I was inspired by the idea. I had christened the year of 2012, The Year of Revelation and Revolution, which sounded as bold and courageous as I was sure I was going to need to be in 2012. The title felt so heroic; so Joan of Arc; so Harry Potter meets Vodemort.  Funny thing about life....it often rises up to meet you.

Looking back on 2012, there were plenty of monsters to slay and plenty of times that I found myself in the tall grass without much of a working compass. In those moments, I often found myself contemplating who I wanted to be in the world. Beyond the obvious (I want to be a present, loving mother. I want to grow as an artist. I want Ryan Gosling to fall madly in love with me......) I found other words creeping into my consciousness as I sat struggling with the Rubik's cube of life. Bold words. Words that made me stop in my tracks. I found myself facing situations saying things like, I choose to be courage. I choose to be integrity. I choose to be love. I choose to be grace. Somewhere along the way, it dawned on me that Life had it's own take on what Revelation and Revolution might mean and that Revelation and Revolution weren't necessarily going to be the huge external events that I had imagined (although there have been those too) but soul-level insights into how to approach everyday moments. I find some strange sense of power in that knowledge. As I came to embrace this understanding in the last weeks of 2012, I found something else entirely unexpected; a feeling of contentment that I've never know existed. I have always been restless and anxious by nature. Contentment is a country that I have rarely, if ever, visited. So far, I'd have to say that I think that contentment becomes me. And I think I've earned it.

Now we're into the opening act of 2013. I've decided that I need a theme a lot less heavy than last year's, mostly because dealing in Revelation and Revolution is kind of exhausting work, and who wants to rock the boat unnecessarily when you're so new to the whole contentment thing? I gave my theme some real thought, and decided to deem 2013 the Year of Creativity and Prosperity for myself. It seems both playful and healthy. Full of the possibility for wonder and miracles. (And if the Universe wants to throw some extra money my way, I won't object.)

So here's to the New Year! May it be one of prosperity and wonder for you as well.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I had a fun pre-Christmas blog post all ready to send out into the world well over a week ago, but before I could press 'send' there was a shooting at a mall in Portland...the very mall that my husband was supposed to be in, but wasn't, simply because he decided to stop and get a haircut along the way....followed a few days latter by the soul-searing shootings in Connecticut. A gun-related community tragedy and a gun-related national tragedy in a week's time can really suck the festiveness right out of a room. I didn't see the point of putting up a blog post about the joys of the holiday season when I was sitting squarely in the camp of the sincerely pissed and fed up.

But I'm starting to do some holiday bounce-back. At one of our holiday parties this year I found myself at a table full of Republican NRA-supporting gun lovers (none of which I am), and had the opportunity to engage in a spirited discussion about gun violence in our country while simultaneously and knowingly making my husband squirm. (Go ahead and bring up politics or religion in mixed company with Tim around. See how fast he leaves the room....). I particularly enjoyed watching him come back to our table only to quickly veer away from it when he heard me say...."Do you think the NRA could be considered a terrorist organization....?" THAT little moment brought a spring back to my step. Because I really am that ornery.

Plus, we've all just lived through what may be considered the most disappointing apocalypse on record. Seriously. The. Worst. But, where there's no apocalypse, there's hope. For our families. For our communities. And that we might have the courage to do best by both.

So, from that spirit of hope sprinkled with some holiday cheer, I give you our pre-Christmas festivities, in photos:

Reindeer Games

Santa Weenie! (God, what we put that dog through.)

Tim's Driving a Reindeer

A tender moment before the shenanigans ensued.

Whatever she's doing, she dances....

...which leads to a dance party....

Tim's getting his groove on... 

....and although he's singing a Christmas carol....

.....he's giving it the spirit of Bohemian Rhapsody...

...If only my camera took video.....

Thanksgiving Adventures

According to the calendar, Thanksgiving was less than two weeks ago and yet it feels like I'm writing about something that happened so far in the past, I can hardly remember it. Maybe it's because we're well into the decorating and gift phase of Christmas. Plus, I'm starting to suspect that my job is really a cover for alien abduction because I don't seem to remember anything that's happened since August. Thanksgiving was less than two weeks ago. That's such a mind screw for me right now that I clearly need a vacation.

I do remember being incredibly grateful this Thanksgiving. My brother and his girlfriend visited for several days from Colorado which meant we got to show off our beautiful city and had (another) great reason to go to Voodoo Donuts and the Shanghai Tunnels. Tim spent 12 hours in the kitchen making his annual Thanksgiving Opus. I napped my face off. The kids didn't kill each other, and when the group of us volunteered at The Grotto's Festival of the Lights, only Alex was attacked by goats at the petting zoo.

Family, food, rest, laughter. Ahhhh, the little things.

Here are some Thanksgiving cliff notes in pictures:

There was a whole lot of this....

....with a sprinkling of this.....

....Weegee wears his Thanksgiving best.....

....I like this photo because it looks like I was actually helping in the kitchen....

 ....Thanksgiving table.....

...The Festival of Lights. Beautiful, non?...

....the Goat Whisperer....

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Oh, where to begin. Alex. Alex has been kind enough to inform us that he is in "The Puberty." Frankly, I appreciate the heads up because if I'm in the path of a tidal wave, I tend to like to see it coming. Plus, we already live with one person who's mood swings rival the Incredible Hulk's, so it's awfully nice that he let us know in advance that he's about to join the Big Leagues of bat-shit crazy.

Alex is completely mesmerized with the idea of going through puberty. He's seriously discussed his disappointments (more than once) in not having braces or crutches, glasses or hearing aides; Puberty is an oddity that he won't be cheated out of. And he's stoked.

We decided to support Alex's new self-appointed phase by buying him his very own deodorant which quickly became a most prized possession. The first time he put it on, we cheered him on like he was taking his first steps and he beamed in pride. He's oddly mesmerized by the little stick and he's been known to declare, Well, I think I'll go put on my deodorant now, and then come back giving us the play-by-play and asking us to smell him for good measure.There are excited displays of invisible hair on still baby-soft skin that he's sure he'll need to shave soon,and proclamations that his Adam's apple has grown slightly bigger overnight, and he's right..... all-too-soon this beautiful boyish wonder will morph into the next phase of things and it breaks my heart a little.I delight in the boyhood of this eccentric little soul and I'm suddenly very grateful that these things happen incrementally.

For now, Alex still scolds Tim when he catches him sitting slack-jawed and unresponsive during Victoria's Secret commercials. OK. So we're not in the big leagues quite yet.

Frighttown

Ahhh, Halloween; the season for spooks, scares, and things that go bump in the night.  Staying true to the spirit of the season, Sydney declared that it was high time that she experience Frighttown, touted as one of the Northwest's premier haunted attractions. She also declared it to be the perfect mother-daughter activity. Sometimes I wonder where she gets these strange ideas?

When I think of haunted houses, I immediately flash back to my very first haunted house experience. It's an awkward tale, really. The 'haunted house' was put on by our church and erected on the stage/gym of the school associated with it. In my naivety, I decided I needed to explore this whole haunted house phenomena and skipped right up into the line of doom. As I remember it, I was only there for a few sorry minutes when a vampire came out of holy friggin' nowhere and, suddenly recognizing the score, I decided I was having exactly none of it. In a split second, I turned from a sweet, costumed princess to pure wild-eyed adrenaline, and proceeded to bust straight through the cardboard walls of the haunted house just like in the cartoons and then blindly dove headfirst through the heavy curtain separating the haunted house from the gym....subsequently pummeling a man who with microphone in hand, was talking to the attentive crowd about God and what-not. (Couldn't make this up if I tried.)

 Looking back, I'm not sure who was more traumatized after that experience: me, the stunned presenter, who I'm relatively sure didn't expect to be attacked at a church function by a princess-turned-wildcat in front of part of his congregation, or my poor mother who had to claim me after the whole scene.

So, flash-forward thirty years and you understand how nothing but pure, blind love and devotion could've gotten me into a haunted house of this magnitude as I found myself reluctantly agreeing to Sydney's grand plan. We stood in line for an hour and a half, and when we finally got to the doors, there was not one haunted house to live through. There were three. Three separate attractions and three separate opportunities to pee myself. I admit that I stood there sulking like a moody teenager in a cloud of four letter words for the rest of the wait.

Frighttown boasts that they've created a nightmare scene for every psyche and they aren't messin' around. I imagine we would've found the finer details impressive if we weren't too busy screaming our faces off, running through nightmare after nightmare and trying not to be left behind. (I lost count of the times Sydney whispered, Mom...let go of the stranger...., as I clutched the back of the shirt of the person in front of me.) I'll hand it to the makers of Frighttown, by the end of the first haunted house, my legs were jello, my nerves were shot, and I was pretty sure I was deaf in my left ear from Sydney's blood-curdling screams. I would've paid Sydney in that moment to let us call it a day, but she wasn't having it.I have no idea how she got me into that second line. I haven't smoked a cigarette in over 15 years, but by the end of the night, I swear to God, if someone had handed me one, it's entirely possible that I would've laid right there in the middle of the floor and silently smoked away. How it didn't end up looking like this, I will never know....

....but we made it. And, yes. I'm betting we'll go again next year.

Back to the Races

Over the last three weeks Sydney started high school, Alex started 5th grade, I started working full time, my parents came from Wyoming for several days, our friends came for a whirlwind visit from Seattle, and we've been harvesting and canning the crap out of our unbelievably lush garden and the 120 lbs of peaches we collected from a nearby orchard.

 I did the dead-and-drooling-sleep thing until noon over the weekend. Such a beautiful thing.

Lights! Camera! Action!

Ooooooh, fancy! Alex and Tim ended up being extras in a commercial for the video game Fifa Soccer 13. Alex is easy to spot (left side, tan shorts) while finding Tim is a little like playing 'Where's Waldo,' but he's there if you look reeeeeallll close. As a side note, when they freeze the action at 33 seconds, the look on Alex's face cracks me up every time.

When asked what was his favorite part of being in a commercial, Alex announced that it was "pretty cool to meet Timber Joey" (the Timber's mascot) which is somewhat hilarious given the fact that he was hanging out with two well known soccer players all day long.

So, without further ado, I present the men of my house in: Fifa Soccer 13.