A Good Day Is When...

1. You get your hands in the dirt. Now that spring has sprung in Washington, the toddler and I have been outside nearly every day this past week weeding out the garden beds in the back to get them ready for planting. It’s the one-year-old’s first time getting her hands in the soil and although she has a miniature garden hand shovel and hoe of her own, she, of course, prefers using all her strength to poke and prod the earth with the adult-sized versions. Uncovering the richer, darker soil beneath the surface is beautiful and therapeutic, clearing the mind. Now that the beds are cleared of weeds, I dug, watered and planted the first produce of the season: cilantro, garlic and red cabbage. Here’s hoping the bunnies leave my tender little leaves alone!

2. You get to walk in the sunshine. Take a break. Let your mind wonder and your legs stretch. Enjoy the blossoms on the trees, and the sights and sounds around you after being cooped up in the house all winter. Enough said. 

3. You clear out your closets or your cupboards and donate your items, hopefully to a good cause. Clothes that you don’t fit into or just don’t wear anymore, give away! Children’s items that you never used and never plan to use because you have better ones, donate to the local pregnancy aid center’s baby boutique and help other first-time moms. Leave the bags behind and go away feeling lighter, because in the end, less is more.

4. On the other hand, when there is something you need, a good day is when you can shop for just about anything on the amazing Amazon phenomenon online and have it delivered for free and straight to your doorstep within 2 days! You never even need to leave the house or drive from store to store and search through numerous store aisles to compare and select the best quality or the best deal but can do so from the comfort of your couch. Needless to say, as a new mom, I fell in love with Amazon when shopping meant packing up a diaper bag and baby formula and bottles and getting the infant in the car seat and lugging everything into a store and back to the car again. Thank you, Amazon.

5. A mediocre day can turn into a glorious one when a stranger stops to offer you help or to say a kind word. Today a friendly passerby in the Fred Meyer parking lot saw pregnant me holding a toddler and unloading bags into the back of the car. His smiling face appeared suddenly out of nowhere beside me and offered me a hand loading my bags and boxes of starter plants I’d just purchased into the trunk. I thanked him from the bottom of my heart for being so kind. Or the other day, as I was going about my business filling the gas tank, not thinking anything inspiring of note, the customer lady behind me shouted out, “You look beautiful!” She was commenting on my final trimester pregnancy glow – of all places, at an ugly gas station– and so out of the blue we shared a lovely little chat about babies and kids, and she sent me on my way saying, “Many blessings to you!” 

Many blessings to you...yes, when I start to count the ways a person can be blessed in one day, I feel happier and lighter. A plain old day that may seem as insignificant as a one-cent penny in your coin purse suddenly takes on worth because that one-cent is gleaming so newly minted, shiny, coppery bright.

An Island Vacation Taken on a Whim

Orcas Island in the last days of March is as breathtakingly beautiful as it is in the summertime. A one-hour ferry ride off of the coast of western Washington, this lovely and rustic island is one that we find ourselves never boring to return to year after year since honeymooning there. This month, when the forecast predicted a sudden upward turn of temperatures into the 70s, my husband and I decided on the spur of the moment to make a getaway for the island. After a few fast and furious text messages back and forth, we booked a room for two nights at The Blue Heron Bed and Breakfast, a place we’d never been to before, and were thrilled to get a very reasonable price because it’s the off-season. Less than 48 hours later, the two of us plus the toddler were buckled into the car and driving north past the snowcapped mountains to catch the ferry. To this unplanned vacation taken on a whim, the people we met there, and the place we stayed in, I owe the following not-short-of-amazing, I think, life changes in the week after we returned home:

·     Stirrings of the spirit to write again after a 15-month lapse of time away from my blog

·     The purchase of a new, bigger and better bed for our master bedroom 

·     Resolutions about writing, risk-taking and the state of my personal life

Everyone should have a place like this, a haven to fly to and be restored in, where the pace of life slows down, slows way down. There are no traffic lights on the island and no hurrying through intersections. There are long, winding roads through peaceful pastures where sheep, cows and goats, along with their young, graze lazily under the sun. Deer linger at the side of the road and stare as you drive by. Rabbits hop across the way. Birds sing. In the farm houses and the cottages that dot the countryside, you see antiques like old boats, a carousel, old tractors and farm equipment, rusting and falling apart in people’s yards, and rusty old tools. This contrast between rotting structures and green wild growth and the abundance of animals is a paradoxical scene of the slow passing of time and of death and life all at once. Even while we age, new life is forming.

Yes, the island is teaming with life, hemmed in on all sides by a vast body of water filled with living creatures hidden under the deep. Sometimes they make their appearances, like the orca whales it’s named after. Meanwhile, my belly is filled with life too as we expect our second child, but it holds this like a secret just as this island is a secret to so many. Those who find the island, like the fellow companions at our bed and breakfast who came all the way from Germany, are startled by its beauty, but many will never discover it. Nevertheless, it is constantly giving life to all who abide here.

Including the peacock. When we spotted a sign for a Peacock Crossing, I looked all around but only saw sheds and fences in the nearby yard where they must live. Lucky and happy the man who actually sees the peacock cross the road. We were not so lucky. 

The island folk are such open and friendly people that you do not feel alone. They live in community with each other and tied to the nature that surrounds them. They run the natural foods co-op, the shellfish farm, the bookstore and boutique shops, the resorts and restaurants, or many are simply retired. It is a young artist and her author husband and two sons who run this bed and breakfast. She paints the colorful nautical animals from the island that decorate the walls of the house. Talking with them and sharing our stories, listening to the waves lapping against the shoreline, swaying the toddler to sleep on the outdoor patio under the night sky, my own writerly soul begins to stir, to cry and yearn for something more.

It’s been 15 months since I last blogged. That time has been filled to the brim with happiness and tears, learning the art of mothering in our daughter’s first year of life. Caring for and nurturing our daughter, cooking meals, cleaning up messes, doing laundry, and working a part-time job from home have zapped my personal writing energies but have blessed and filled my cup in other ways. I feel I am only now beginning to find myself again, just when we are expecting our second baby this spring.

As it is a time of new beginnings, the island scenery and change in temperature has filled me with a spirit of whimsy, joy and new energy. Why not start up a little writing again and let some light shine into my barns that have been storing up so many memories over the past seasons of mothering? Why not indulge ourselves that a bigger and more comfy bed is the change we need to sleep better and be happier? Why not risk it all and make a few sudden decisions on a whim that will change our lives for the better, instead of being stagnant or settling for what has always been? 

The island teaches me to live boldly. Open the doors and let the breezes in. Turn the rusty handle of my mind and pen and let in the light. Come, reader, come, and revel in spring and island time with me. 

Letter to Our Baby

Click, clack, "So my story begins..."

Dear Baby,

As the clock ticks out the last hours of 2017, your Daddy and I are more excited than we’ve ever been for the turn of a new year. Why? Because this is the year and the expected month that YOU will be born, and we will become parents for the first time!

We’ve been patiently waiting to meet you, and now that the day draws close at hand, my heart is overflowing with love, and I want to tell you how it all came to be.

When your father and I went unto the Altar of God and exchanged vows before the priest and family and friends, we hoped it would only be a matter of time before God would ask of us this special favor: to be your parents.

Nine months later, in the spring, we found out I was pregnant with you, and were amazed. In fact, we could hardly believe the good news! I took the pregnancy twice just to be absolutely sure, and at noon, after the second test, I texted Daddy at work:

“The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary…”

And he texted back, finishing the opening line of the Angelus prayer:

“…and she conceived by the Holy Spirit.”

I told him that test #2 was unmistakably obvious: POSITIVE!

It took hours, days and weeks for the news to sink in, because the miracle of your life, which we have so desired and prayed for, we’ve been told will change everything!

The joyous news of our pregnancy, however, came on the heels of very sad news. On May 10^th, 2017, your great granddaddy, my maternal grandpa, Ralph, breathed his last in the nursing home. As our whole family went into grieving for Grandpa and the loving, gentle, faithful man he was, it was less than a week later that I learned that a new life had been conceived and given us. So, before we even told anyone else, I felt that Grandpa was already “in on the secret” and that perhaps, in some mysterious way, his passing had made room for a new member on our family tree, someone he’ll not know here on earth but who shares his blood line.

While our hearts were heavy, our tears budded into hope. For the same God who takes life, gives life, and calls us to be with Him for eternity. He holds the world in His hands; He created the stars in the firmament of the heavens, and He counts every one of the hairs on our heads (Luke 12:7).

Therefore, we announced the news of you to all our parents when we were home for the funeral. Daddy dropped clues like “Here’s an extra hamburger for Christina now that she’s eating for two!” which elicited a look of astonishment from the grandparents. And “Stay healthy, Dad, because you’re going to be a grandpa again!” … “The family tree is growing!” Seeing our parents’ faces light up with surprise and the laughter that followed, I found comfort in knowing that “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to give birth, and a time to die…A time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Eccl. 3:1-4).

As you grew little by little each day, Mommy’s body began to change, and she began to experience a real care and concern for you, wanting to protect you. We began to imagine what you will look like and who you will be. Mommy read books and tracked your size as you grew from the size of a pea to a blueberry, a walnut, a lemon, an avocado, a cantaloupe…

The first trimester was challenging. Mommy felt queasy and tired by day’s end, due to your rapid growth the first weeks. There were some close calls on hot summer days when I nearly fainted in public and had to remember to carry a fan with me when leaving the house. The second trimester though brought bliss. I felt a rebound of energy and motivation and good enough to do just about everything, including flying home to the Midwest and having a family baby shower for you, going on adventures with Daddy, nesting and preparing our house for a little child.

Family and friends have been sending gifts for you, such as clothes and diapers and toys, so much so that it has felt like a very long Christmas at our house! So many boxes have arrived that our U.S. Postal Service lady is aware of your upcoming birth!

Then came the third trimester, the final haul, with sleepless nights and diabetic monitoring. My belly bump has grown quite firm and full, with you squirming and stretching your fingers and toes, and swimming around like a little beluga whale. All your moving around tells me that you are healthy and strong! And the challenges of these final weeks are preparing me with the incentive to push you out into the world! For that is what by God’s grace was meant to happen all along: to birth you, my little image, into the world to be a sign of the faithful, fruitful love between Daddy and Mommy. You will be your own unique individual who the Lord loves and has a beautiful plan for your future. I am just privileged to nurture and carry you inside of me for a brief time of your life. After nine months of you being inside of Mommy, coming and going with us everywhere we go, Daddy talks to you and says he can’t wait to have “his turn” to hold you and feel your skin, and smell you, and carry you around!

We have felt the honor of parenting already when choosing your name, one for if you are a girl and another if you are a boy. This name, by which you can be known and loved, is a name whose meaning is significant to us and expresses our hopes for you! We love you so much already and always will! Your arrival will be one of the most joyous days of our lives.

With full and hopeful hearts,

Mommy and Daddy

End of the Chicken Era, Beginning of a New Era

Snow is falling outside the window on this Christmas Eve as I sit here typing. I remember back one year ago to December, when I was stuck in the chicken coop with our two Rhode Island Red hens (that story here). Looking back, urban, backyard chicken keeping has been a wonderful, learning adventure, but we’re taking a break from that now. As of this month, we said bittersweet adieus to Winnie and Indy and sold them to a new owner. We are letting go of some things in order to prepare our nest for a new little human – our firstborn child is due in just four weeks.

I am grateful for the past year’s supply of fresh, brown eggs with rich, golden yolks. I hope that someday we can keep chickens again. It has been a rewarding venture and feels right and just to be able to feed them our compost scraps and to receive fresh eggs daily in return. Their quirky, friendly, social demeanor has entertained me too.

One day last summer, Robert and I were out greeting the new neighbors next door, and soon our free-ranging chickens that had been happily scratching in our garden beds, took off across the driveway after us and wobbled over, which greatly delighted the neighbors’ children. The young boy began to chase the chickens but they escaped his capture with agility, scurrying this way and that, their necks jerking back and forth, enjoying it like it was a game of tag. How funny they looked as they stretched out their necks and eyed the boy, and he ran this way and that, falling down and getting back up, constant machine of energy and motion. His little sister began to giggle and squeal with a combination of both delight and fear, staying close to the safety of her mother’s arms who had crouched down beside her.

When we went back home, the scene shone brightly in my memory, and I cherished the priceless looks of the children’s faces when they encountered the animals. How can man-made toys ever inspire the same passion that burns when we encounter the wild and free, uninhibited cycle of life in the natural world?

My mind turns this scene over like a coin. I envision this coming year, being a mother, raising my own child, and introducing our child to the beautiful, wild world around them. I remember that Our Savior Jesus was born so vulnerably into an imperfect world, in a stable with wild animals and hay. As Christmas Eve 2017 draws to a close, I gaze at the sky and wonder, like the Blessed Mother Mary, what my unborn child’s destiny will be. Like Mary on the verge of a new era for humanity, I ponder my role in bringing this new life into the world we live in.