Family Meals - Week 1

 Breakfast

Pancakes*

Waffles*

Cinnamon Buns*

Muffins*

Bagels*/Cream Cheese

Bacon, Eggs, Breakfast Potatoes*

Cereal/Oatmeal

Lunch

Pesto*

Chicken Caesar Salad*

Fajitas

Grilled Cheese

Leftovers x 2

Dinner

Garlic Butter Steak, Asparagus, White Potatoes, Salad

Shredded Chicken Sandwiches, Mac and Cheese*, Green Beans

Spaghetti, Sauce*, Meatballs*, Bread*, Salad

Tacos

Pizza*

Notes:

* = made from scratch 

We are going glamping this weekend in Ohio with extended family, and therefore will not need 7 lunches and dinners.

2022: The Before and After - A New Beginning

 I don't normally put too much stock in the start of a new year. I think it adds unnecessary pressure to my life and makes me feel entirely disappointed if I don't perfectly live up to my expectations. I don't like to set myself up for failure and, for me, having new year's resolutions is like trying to create perfection where perfection cannot be had - mainly in my life. 

Last year was such a train wreck though that I began to take a different approach to this annual marker of time as it approached. I needed a specific and clear date to mentally define the before and after. I needed a date to stamp in my mind where my healing would begin; some demarcation of time to look back on and to show myself how much I have grown when times get tough in the upcoming year. And so, January 1, 2022 began to become a beacon in my life as 2021 came to a close. 

I do not expect 2022 immediately heal my heart. I do not expect it to make all of my problems go away. But I do expect it to help give me the tools to slowly heal my brokenness. I expect this year to be a year of answers. (I read  a blurb of something somewhere that basically said that some years are years of questions and some years are years of answers. I feel like I have been in a year of questions for a while - 2021 was an absolute year of questions with limited answers that only produced an infinite number of more questions.)

 I expect it to be better than this year because it has to be. It just has to be. I cannot be spit out and chewed up anymore than I was in 2021. 2021 broke me. It broke my spirit. It broke my heart. It broke my will. It shattered my dreams. It crushed my Hope. It left me spiritually, emotionally, and physically at the worst I have ever been. 

This year is about giving myself the tools to cope and learn new ways of handling life's bitter disappointments because clearly I don't handle those very well. The current state of my being is evidence of that.  

2022 is a year of promise. It is a year of learning how to get back up and not be paralyzed when life knocks me on my ass. It is a year of prioritizing. It is a year of making hard choices. It is a year of finding my voice and finding new audiences to hear me if need be. 

Every year for the last several years I have tried to come up with a focus word for me. Last year my word of the year was 'transform'. (I definitely transformed - just not in the ways that I ever would have expected.) I thought a bit about my word for this year, but didn't want to over think it. I knew that my word would just come to me if I was willing to pay attention. 

Late last night as I was lying in bed thinking that I would have to start 2022 without a word, a word came to me clear as a Caribbean sea. I immediately hated it. I tried to push the word out of my mind; I wanted another word, a different word. Anything, but this word. But I knew in the deepest, most true, parts of myself that this word was meant just for me. I knew that this word came to me from outside of myself. From where, I couldn't tell you right now, but maybe as the year unfolds I will be able to answer that question. 

My word of 2022 is: surrender. 

I hate this word because, to me, it has the connotation of failure. The losing side of a battle surrenders. To surrender is to admit defeat. It means someone or something else wins. It means you were wrong - you overestimated yourself and your abilities. To surrender is to give up. 

And yet, I know that this word is meant for me. I know that it was chosen for me. I know that right in my life I am weary, weak, and feel defeated in almost all aspects of my life. Surrendering doesn't seem like such a terrible idea some of the time, but I have a gut feeling that this isn't the kind of surrender I am being asked to do.

But what I am I surrendering? What can I give up or lay down in my life? 2021 kicked my ass - it stripped me of pretty much everything - what do I possibly have to surrender? 

I have a feeling as 2022 unfolds I am going to find out the answer to all of those questions. 

So, here's to a new year. Here's to a clear line in the sand of the before and after.  Here's to growing and forgiving. Here's to laying down bitterness and resentment. Here's to finding my strength and living my truth - day in and day out. Here's to finding meaning and what matters. Here's to health and relationships and healing. 

Here's to surrender. 

2021: A Year In Review

 I am not going to sugar coat it - 2021 was a really hard, really awful year for me. I am sure that COVID added an extra layer to all that hardness making it seem at times that life was an impossible, never-ending uphill battle. 

I feel like not one area of my left was left unaffected by all of the hardness. Towards the end of this year I felt unanchored and adrift in every area of my life. While certainly I have felt that way in certain parts of my life before I don't ever recall a time when I felt that way in all areas of my life.

 If you have never felt this way in your own life before - my wish is that you never do. It is so disorienting and traumatic to truly not know which way is up anymore. To have all of your dreams and beliefs and visions for your future self and life destroyed is crazy hard. I can only describe it as feeling like you are living life in a floating bubble - with nothing to hold on to and nothing to keep you steady. 

After all that has happened in 2021 I cannot look towards to future - for anything. I can only take things day by day and, sometimes, even just minute by minute. 

I do not know if it will always be this way, or if it is just this way right now. All I know is that I am thankful to be rid of 2021. It was one of the three hardest years of my life. Maybe once I am removed from it I will be able to look back and see some glimmers of goodness - for now though I am still too close to it and the wounds are too open and too raw to see anything good at all. 

Good riddance, 2021. I am glad that I don't have to deal with you ever again. 

December Books Read

 Not a lot of reading done this month - or at least not a lot of books read. As I have mentioned before, some books are easy reads for me and I can get through them in a couple of days; there are other books that take me a while to get through primarily because they are just harder reads. 

All of the books I read this month were books I have already read before, but I love the history in them and find the books fascinating. I have about a dozen books or so (if I had to guess) that I could see reading over and over once a year for the rest of my life. These three books are included in that dozen. 

I ended up reading 59 books this year. I surpassed my reading goal by 7 books. I do not think that I will increase my goal for next year. I like the idea of reading 52 books a year anything above and beyond that is just bonus. 

January: 5

Feb/March: 8

April/May: 6

June: 5

July: 9

August: 7

September: 9

October: 3

November: 4

December: 3

Total: 59

Homeschooling Weeks 9 & 10

 I don't have too much to report. The girls and I finished up our first quarter and began our second one prior to our taking a two week break from school to celebrate Christmas and the new year. Once this break is over we will begin the meat and potatoes of our school year. 

Sarah and I briefly talked about altering our school year (after we finish this one, of course) so that we school through the summer next year and take off November and December (and an additional month scattered throughout the school year) since we have so many starts and stops during those two months and it can be quite disruptive to the mental mojo of our school year. Summer here is pretty gross for us because of the humidity, so it would make more sense for us to school during those months and then enjoy the fall when it is gorgeous and we can still enjoy the out-of-doors while everyone else is in school. We'll see. 

The girls ended all of their subjects on a good stopping point by the end of week 10 which meant lots of tests the last two weeks. Both girls tested well and are in a good spot grade wise. 

Sarah is in the middle of writing a term paper, so that is not yet quite done, but she is doing a great job on it. She is writing about the ancient Egyptians - more specifically about mummification. I am impressed with her writing ability and am looking forward to having the final draft in my hands which should be shortly after we return back to school. 

Upcoming for us is getting Sarah signed up to take the ACT. We have reached out to our first colleges asking them to send Sarah information on their schools. So far Sarah has reached out to: Oregon State University, University of Denver, Vassar College, and New Mexico State University. She is looking to get a bachelors degree in Equine Assisted Therapy. She is hoping to work with battered women and children or war veterans.

It is crazy to me that I am in a place where I am looking at colleges with my third child. How in the world did I get to this place so quickly? 

17

Sarah turned 17 on December 1. We spent the day at the Atlantic Ocean in 65 degree weather that felt amazing. There were very few people on the beach and often it felt as if we had the whole coastline to ourselves. 

Josh was not with us as he was finishing up his semester at school. We felt his absence and hope that next year he can be with us. Sarah decided to postpone her annual blind olympics until Josh could be with us and so the kids are planning on participating in those this weekend at some point. 

Because we had just arrived back in NC after visiting OH for Thanksgiving it felt like Sarah's birthday was a little rushed and that we were unprepared for the day - at least more so than normal. I am hoping to change that next year as we do not plan on traveling back to Ohio for Thanksgiving and can dedicate more time to preparing for this special girl's special day. 

I cannot believe that Sarah is now 17. Because of her medical condition I am always so cognizant of how lucky we are to have her in our lives and what a blessing she truly is, but this rings especially true on her birthdays. 

Reading a birthday note. 

Sarah's annual birthday shirt made by her dad. It says, "#17 Baby!"

Best friends.

The birthday girl's dinner choice. (There weren't many options.)

Promises Kept

A little over seven years ago our family began a journey that has not left one of the six of us unchanged. We were on an adventure, yes, but we were on that adventure because we were seeking out a specific promotion through Bobby's employer. We followed all of the steps and did all of the things that we thought were supposed to be done in order to get this financial dream job. We built up in the kids' minds a sort of promised land of the perfect life replete with fancy family vacations and no longer having to carefully plan all funds coming in - that this job opportunity would create a land of plenty. We did so, because that is was we were lead to believe would be the case.  In hindsight, I can see that our lives slowly became consumed by this all but promised job opportunity.  I felt like our family had done "all of the right things", but this job remained just out of reach. Always, it was right around the corner. Feedback was constantly given that it was only a matter of time, that soon it would be him sitting in this chair our family so coveted. 

And then unexpectedly all of the rules changed. The path that we had been on was now null and void. None of it mattered. The sacrifice, leaving places we loved, uprooting ourselves time and again, learning new positions and different office dynamics - it mattered not one bit.  When that reality hit me - it shattered me. We have spent the last 7 years of our family's life moving them and moving them and moving them for nothing more than the experiences of living in different parts of this country, and while those things have been incredible I am not sure that those experiences alone have outweighed all we have sacrificed. To put all of your eggs in one basket - to believe in something so much - to be loyal to something, and then to find that it was all for nothing it earth shattering for me. We gambled and we lost. We gambled with our family's dynamics and we gambled with our lives. The hardest part about all of this for me is that I didn't even know we were gambling. I believed that this process was a sure thing. Do x, y, and z and the payoff is guaranteed 100%.  I mean, how can you lose when your supposed success rate is guaranteed? What a soul crushing realization that it was all for nothing. 

A bitterness that was once a slow moving vessel has, in the last 6 months, accelerated to the point that I thought I was going to combust from the red hot fury of a dream shattered. Even writing about it brings stinging tears to my eyes because I was made a fool and was humiliated. I hate feeling both of those emotions. 

I have spent a lot of the last few months living with such regret and feeling so awful that a good portion of the kids' lives were spent chasing a dream that was most likely never going to happen (unbeknownst to us). I have regret that I bought into this dream and that I sold this dream to them. I packaged it up to them in the truisms of life: if you work hard you can achieve your goals, if you are a good person then good things will happen to you, if you follow the rules the rewards will be great. I had my kids believe in a crock of shit. I now know that not every person who works hard achieves his goals and that good people sometimes get the short end of the stick and sometimes rule following gets you not a single reward at all. 

It has been an excruciatingly hard few months for me to say the least; it has been an almost equally hard few years waiting for something that was/is always just out of reach. I knew that I had to, I still have to, allow my emotions and thoughts to just do their thing. I knew I had to feel all of the feelings about this situation and think all of the thoughts about it too. I have been living in this state of flux - of always hoping, but never knowing when it was going to be our turn for the financial bounty we had been told was coming. This situation alone has been life altering (some days I think life wrecking) in its own ways beyond moving around the country. 

But then...

Just when I think I am going to break under the weight of the sadness, heartache, bitterness, anger, humiliation, and rage I stop and gather up the deepest breath I can muster and I breathe in and breathe out. The quiet voice within find me as she always does in my deepest darkest hours. She whispers in my ears all the truths in my life. All of the things that are most real and most important. She gives me hope that I will be able to find my life again - my truest most real life -  under the buried rubble of the remains of a false narrative I have been building my life on these last seven years - that this job was the end all be all. That this job promotion was going to make life great. That it was going to ease worries and offer all of the commercial fruits of success, That this job was going to be our savior. 

The quiet voice within is a godsend. She comes and saves me at my worst, weakest, and lowest moments. She finds me and she brings me back to myself. She whispers to me that it will be okay. That even though I have spent the past seven years chasing a false idol that I can still recreate what is real and true in my life. More importantly, she reminds me that I can still recreate the realest, truest sense of family life that is the foundation of who we are as the six of us. She reminds me that I can build on that foundation and create a life that is good and pure and true and relies on no outside influences. No false narratives. 

So, it is her voice that I have been listening to lately. Trying to regain my footing on the life that I know to be truest for not only myself, but also of the kind of life I want to build my family on again. It will take me a while to put the pieces back together and to remember what it is that I value and what feels right for our family, but I know that I can do it. 

And right now, it is that promise that I know I can count on.  It this promise to myself that will not let me down.