The Countdown has Begun!

As I sat writing all the family birthdays in my new Greece calendar, filled with cerulean seas, cobalt domes and whitewashed walls, I realized that the countdown to nights away from home has begun!  It’s 15!  I know some people have to travel for work, and they don’t love it, but I work/live/breathe/sleep/teach in the same four walls day in and day out.  No mistaking it, I love it… but time away from home brings joy to my globetrotting soul.  I have imagined that the perfect job for me would be to travel the world and write reviews of far off lands for future vacationers.

There is a night coming this month… only one night.. but still, I look forward to it with my hubby.  The first of March there are four glorious days marked on the calendar for Scrapping in the Pines with my girlfriends.  It is supposedly a scrapbooking retreat… but less and less scrapbooking is accomplished as the years go by.  It should probably be renamed Being Lazy in the Pines….   THAT is a true holiday….. no kids, no cooking, no bedtime, no cleaning, no agenda (other than posted mealtimes)… no wonder it calls my name every six months!  Last September we watched 8 or 9 movies!  Couch Potatoes unite!  It was sublime.

Rick and I endured one of those time-share sales pitches to “win” a free cruise… with some strings attached, of course.  But the strings are cheap cheap cheap for the eight-day trip.  I like bunk beds!  We are awaiting to see if it will be the Western Caribbean in March or Alaska in June.  I’m REALLY hoping for white beaches and not white whales…. but alas, it is also my husband’s 25th wedding anniversary… so I was the nice wife (not the crabby wife) and let him choose one destination.  He’s a true Canadian with ice in his veins.

Our annual trip to Lake Tahoe has moved to August this year…. which is fantastic for us living in Phoenix, right next door to hell in the summer.  And our son, who is cycling again after the broken arm the week before Christmas, has a couple of races that may require over-night stays… can you see how high my hand is raised to volunteer to escort him???  I feel some mother-son bonding around the corner.  I’ll wear whatever t-shirt they want me to!

So, school drudgery is laid to rest each time I peer at the highlighted days in my purse daytimer.  By the end of February the kids will be wondering why I keep taking the daytimer into the bathroom so often.  It’s my own version of Calgon.

Perspective – Year after Year

As 2009 draws to a close, I find my perspective of the past two years to be quite an image of opposites… without appearing so at first glance.  I remember sitting on New Year’s Eve 2007 with great expectations and excitement for the coming 2008.  I was absolutely giddy for all that was to follow…. and it did not disappoint.  We were booked on a cruise for my parent’s 50th anniversary with my siblings and their spouses.  Our first trip without kids….. as adults.  We were overjoyed. 

Early 2008 I was in the throngs of getting our first book published, my website up and book signings arranged.  It was a whirlwind of activity…. and it did not disappoint.  I still love my website, even though it desperately needs to be updated.  The motherhood book was cuter than I could have imagined and the book signings were so much more than I hoped they could be.  I was overjoyed.

Looking at 2009, you would think my anticipation and responses would be nearly similar, as our second book was published and Rick and I again escaped to a cruise ship for five days… alone this time.  There were plenty of book signing opportunities and speaking engagements to fill my calendar.  But my summaries of the two years are not at all alike. 

2008: thrilling, awesome, love to relive it all. 

2009: emotionally draining, glad it’s over, can’t wait to start a new year. 

WOW!  It makes me feel better just knowing that today is the last day of my most frustrating year ever.

Why? you ask.   It seemed that all things that I hold dear to my heart took a beating this year…. my family, friends, church and homeschooling.  It was a year of trials, disappointments, changes and a realization that we were on the wrong track.  That in itself is a good thing as we begin our new year aiming in a different direction.  Sometimes I like change…. like the change from a $100 bill when I only bought a pack of gum.  I also like change when it comes to dirty socks, sheets and past season flowers in my backyard pots.  I don’t appreciate change when it comes to churches, friends, or finances. 

Typically I’m not an emotional wreck, but most of June I spent crying and hiding in my room.  I read more Christian western 1850’s romances this summer than the past five years combined.  Why? you ask.  Because I needed to escape.  I didn’t want to face the facts that were dumped upon me and our family. I didn’t want my life to change.  I relished feeling secure in how things have been for years and there was a huge rock in the road that upset the apple cart.  My apples were everywhere but in the cart for many months.  I still don’t have them all gathered back.

One thing we realized (remembered) is we are becoming who we surround ourselves with… and we needed to seek out others who were truly like minded with us in regard to our family beliefs with church and school.  We slowly, over years, came to the place where we couldn’t even talk about our calling to teach our kids at home for fear of offending those we spent the most time with.  Not that we are abandoning friendships of old, we just needed to be encouraged and prodded and slapped on the back by others who understand our calling…. our lifestyle of homeschooling.  It truly encompasses all we do as a family.

After much soul-searching and over a year of prayers, we felt the time was upon us to find a new church.  For those who know me well, this is not how I roll.  I am not a quitter, and that is how it seemed to me at the time.  We have been at the same church for ten and a half years.  Our boys don’t remember any other church.  Our dearest friends were there… scads of them.  But I can honestly say that the day we walked into a different church for the first time, it was like a breath of fresh air that I didn’t know I needed so desperately.  I haven’t exactly embraced it wholeheartedly, but I know we’re in good hands, even though I can’t quite put their sticker on my back window of the van at this time. (Are back window church stickers only the rage in Phoenix???)

I haven’t come full circle with the challenges that arose, but I do see how the Lord has provided friendships for me along the way.  Awesome women of God to come along side of me.  God allowed challenges to force us to see the error of our ways and our need to seek His face.  So, for that, and for the bumps in our 2009 road, I’m grateful.  Supremely grateful they’re over!

2010… let’s roll.

Cruisin’ Together

OK, so I was slightly spoiled last week.  Rickey gave me an early Christmas gift and took me on a five-day cruise…. see??? Spoiled!  It was relaxing and wonderfully un-chaotic.  This Fall, with my traveling and his hockey coaching, we have not spent much quality time together.  So we decided to get away for a few days, being that he’s been saving his holidays at work for our trip to Colombia to get our little Zaza…. but that hasn’t materialized at present….. and the vacation days keep piling up.  So we used four of them.  Whooo HOoo! 

One of the ports of call, TOTALLY exotic beyond belief, was Catalina Island!  (ha ha)  Rick and I haven’t been there together for 22.5 years, as our honeymoon was the last occasion.  We were able to find the hotel that we stayed in and it literally looks exactly the same.  The little town, however, has dramatically improved and is quite charming with shops and shops and more shops.  So we went in the shops since they were plentiful. 

One of my brilliant pre-cruise plans was to dig out a little bag of white and black rocks that we picked up on the beach last time we were in Catalina… and made a backgammon game on a grocery bag. No one told us to bring games or reading material on our honeymoon.  Duh!  But I forgot to take it along.  So, being incredibly sentimental and bored once again, we once again picked up 15 white rocks and 15 black rocks and made a backgammon game on a piece of paper.  It was much more advanced this time as I used a brochure to make the lines straight.  We played many games of Acey-Ducey on this trip. 

The highlight of the cruise, however, (if you can beat a homemade backgammon game!) was Rick taking the championship medal for the on-board ping-pong challenge.  He beat several people to come out victorious and he wore his medal to dinner that night.  He made sure everyone knew that you couldn’t BUY the medals on board.  You had to WIN them.  Makes me so proud.  As we were leaving the ship, he kept pointing out people whom he had decimated at the green table. “See that guy in the blue pin-striped shirt?  I beat him.”  A few minutes later, “See the tall guy with the dreadlocks?  I beat him.”  I asked him if he wanted me to stop the line to immigration, open the luggage and find his medal so he could wear it.  He said no. Party pooper.

Thank you, Rickey, for a fun-filled week on the water.  XOXOXOXO

June THIRTIETH….

Today is the half-way mark for 2008….  makes me sit and wonder how I’m doing in 2008… and WHAT I’m doing…. and what I’m NOT doing. 

A song came on the car radio this morning that talked about “It’s not who you are.  It’s not what you’ve done.  It’s how you lived.”  After a moment of contemplation, I pronounced, “I don’t agree with that.”  My daughter, always up for a good debate, said, “I do.”  We went back and forth about if what you are doing IS how you are living.  Does how YOU live only include yourself?  Does what you’re doing include others?  We both tried on each other’s side of the argument for size…  we never came to a conclusion, but I still don’t agree with the lyrics.

I was anticipating 2008 like I’ve never anticipated any year previously.  That being said, I was never pregnant over a New Years…. that I was aware of.  So babies don’t count here.  I always anticipated new children with great joy.  But this year began with a bang as my parents celebrated 50 years of matrimonial bliss and took me and my siblings (and spouses) on an eight day cruise.  We have never gone anywhere for more than four hours together without our nine children.  It was fabulous.  Words don’t describe how relaxed we were.

Next, my first solo writing project was published.  Wow.  I still can’t believe it sometimes.  I survived my first book signings…. but not without nightmares.  (For graphic nightmare details, please see: https://mysistersjar.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/pre-book-signing-nightmare/ ) Which reminds me, I need to send the next proposal for Laughing in the Midst of Marriage.  Truck loads of material for this book are stored in my memory banks.  You may have read several of the stories on this blog already…. so you know what I mean.  (golf carts, acupuncture, photo radar tickets….)

And our adoption of Zaza…. is still pending.  We started the journey in Nov. 2006 and so I’ve passed through two new years with the anticipation of gathering our new girl in our arms.  But it seemed closer as 2008 arrived.  We pray every night that God’s will be done in the timing of bringing her home, but I always add…. “and please make it soon!” 

Never would I have imagined sewing bags and bags and bags to help bring Zaza home.  Thanks again, Jennie, for this amazing idea as well as the fortitude to execute it brilliantly!  I’m rather enjoying the sewing journey.  With every bag I make, I have a new favorite.  Tonight’s bag almost didn’t hit the auction block.  I love it.  But I can always make another like it… or different to become my new favorite.  Here it is “Ten Thousand Charms”: (the green is lime… not sage.)

Five new bags go up for auction each Monday… for five days at www.bagsforzaza.blogspot.com. Please help bring Zaza home and check it out.  Tell others.  Link the site.  Make posters and put them up at work.  Buy one and show it to every stranger you meet.  :o)  Thanks, from the bottom of my heart.

And not to forget blogging.  I didn’t know what it was in 2007, so I’ve come a long way, baby.

www.LindaCrosby.com