Building a home...

The past two weeks has been filled with making plans for our new home. We signed a contract to build a new track home in a housing development right next to the elementary school the girls have been attending. Making this decision was a tedious process. Brian and I couldn't help but reflect on how much we have abandoned our former impulsive ways. We are living our lives with greater intention than ever before. So we have thoughtfully chosen where we will finally begin to truly make a home for ourselves. It is not a "forever home." I'm not sure we will ever ben "forever home" kind of folks. Instead we will call this a "seasonal home." It will be our home for an extended season of our lives. We hope that this season includes the advancement and development of both of our careers, an investment in our surrounding community and the establishment of a sense of rootedness for our girls (who have journeyed with us as we've been wanderers for the past several years).

So as the next few weeks of my life will be consumed with making initial design decisions, I will be attempting to hold on to the deeper meaning of this new chapter for our lives. But...it's no secret that I absolutely love interior design. It was a passion I didn't really discover until I took my first trip to Cost Plus World Market about a month after Brian and I got married. I came home with $300 worth of decor for our quaint 3rd floor condo. Poor Brian. My love for interior decorating and design (better categorized as a love for homemaking) created quite a bit of tension in our early years of marriage. I think he has since grown rather fond of my desire to make a space truly ours...or perhaps he just learned that no amount of disputing over how much money I chose to spend on homemaking would ever result in much change.

I'm sure I'll be posting plenty of pictures as we venture into this new season of our lives. But for now, here are a few of the things currently inspiring my design choices.

Celebrating Broken Hearts

Bri & I celebrated Valentine's Day in a different way this year. I got to play a small part in hosting a benefit dinner and concert on behalf of this organization. Check them out.

The Broken Heart Club from LOVE146 on Vimeo.

Sacred moments

Considering I got married a year out of high school and began having babies shortly thereafter, I have never really experienced a significant amount of "aloneness." I am often surrounded by people. It wasn't until I began graduate school that I started to question if I could ever stand being alone for an extended period of time. A few short months into the counseling program, my practicum leader challenged me to spend time with myself each day during the holiday break when I would be visiting family in Colorado. During that season of life, being with myself meant being with my own sadness. It was as if there were years worth of heartache that had piled up and it was all right there, waiting to be entered into. This did not make the idea of "being with myself" all that appealing. But over the course of the past few years I have grown in my capacity to be with myself.

One of my favorite times of the day is the 20 minute drive back to my mom's house (our current living quarters) after I've dropped the girls off at school. Sometimes I listen to music that fosters a connection to the inner me. Other times I sit in silence with my own thoughts. Today, while listening to music and feeling overwhelmed by the beauty all around me - the blanket of snow that has literally rested upon everything in sight contrasted by the wide open blue sky - three small deer decided to cross the street right in front of me. I struggled to slow my car down quickly enough and eventually stopped within a few feet from one of them. The deer sat in their in the middle of the street staring at me for what seemed like minutes before it decided to move on. I am struggling to put words to the experience. My encounter with this deer somehow opened my mind and soul up to the realization that when we make space to "be with ourselves" we actually grow in our awareness of our connection to every living thing in this mysterious creation. 

That's just the way I roll...

I guess. I've been thinking a lot lately about how serious I seem in these blog posts of mine. It's strange how only a certain part of me is able to bleed onto these virtual pages filled with somber-toned words. For whatever reason, the freakishly weird and goofy parts of me rarely reveal themselves in this space. Why is that? I'm not sure.

Perhaps it is because this is one of few outlets I allow for the brooding side of me to emerge (the side that is always going up against my own shame of intensity).

Perhaps it is because I have not yet learned how to truly bring the deep-feeling parts of me into relationship and somehow using this blog as a medium of expression is a step in that direction.

Perhaps I know far too much of my own and the world's suffering and not nearly enough of the beauty, freedom and delight of life in abundance.

Being the transformation-addict I am, I'd like to attempt to move in a direction that feels more balanced (at least in this space). So here's a list of some of the freakishly weird and goofy parts of myself that the brooding, emotionally intense, intellectual junkie in me has to learn how to embrace:

I tend to trip over my own feet at least once a day.
I make funny faces at myself in the mirror on a regular basis.
I have a ritual of passing gas first thing each day, rolling over and whispering, "Good morning!" to Brian.
Dancing alone in my bedroom is one of my favorite things to do.
99% of the time I listen to depressing music, but when I'm in the mood for something different I listen to the girls' Taylor Swift Album and belt out the lyrics as loud as I can.
I become a different person when I play sports or do anything athletic - I am strong, determined and downright beastly.
I still recite cheers from HS in my head (oh...and sometimes I do the moves...yes, in front of the mirror).

There, that should do for now. I think that's a step in the right direction.

High desert

High desert
snowcapped arrows
break the surface
of the cold crisp
blue blanket
suffocating me

Chapped skin
dry tongue
quenched only
by memory
of dew drops
discovered anew
each morning
near the sea

Must acclimate
for survival
slowly i am
learning to live
with less
breath
trees
water

High desert
challenge me
I will survive
hope will sustain
enduring hope
from the taste
of life known
near the sea

I needed some inspiration today...

So I caught up on reading this blog. It is the story of an MHGS Alumnus that was in a motorcycle accident in June of 2010. He broke his back in the accident and had less than a 10% chance of ever having significant movement below the middle of his chest. My faith in miracles has been renewed after reading his story and watching this video this morning.

awakening...

We were in a minor fender-bender on New Year's Eve. We probably shouldn't have even gone out that day, we knew the roads would be slick after the 8 inches of snow we welcomed the day before. But considering the five of us are all still living in a single bedroom, the need to venture out after being snowed in for a day was too significant to resist. We were about to turn into a parking lot when I heard a blaring horn coming from behind. Before I could completely turn around to see what the fuss was all about, I felt the jostling as a jeep slid right into the back of our vehicle. There is little damage and the whole ordeal was rather minor.  But with each passing day I've discovered new aches spread throughout my back and my neck. Today is the worst of it so far.

It's funny to think that the body takes a little while to wake up from the trauma. If it takes a number of days for the damage to the body to be registered by the brain after an incredibly minor incident which lasted less than 2 seconds time...I'm left to wonder how long it takes the body to awaken from trauma that lasted for years.