Be Bold, and Beautiful, and Humble, and Healthy

I'm sitting at my desk.  The last business day of the year.  Accounting hell, normally.  But today was slow and steady and nearly done by 3:30.  Before I rush out the door to the busy that awaits me at home, the busy that does not expect me until 6pm, I decided to pause.  

I lingered through my Facebook feed during lunch today and so many posts about out with the old in with the new.  We all look forward to tearing off the page and looking at the hopeful blank canvas of the new one.  

The last few years, I chose a little motto and said it in my head when things got cloudy, out of focus.  

I am overwhelmed with the swirling thoughts of all I can do with my own blank canvas.  And when I become overwhelmed, I go back to things I've said to myself in years past, things that get me to good.  

Never wear your blessings like burdens
Do not let perfect be the enemy of good
Be where you are

Reminders that the things that haunt me are really of such little importance when I line them up against a simple sentence.  I find myself longing for another simple sentence to add to the list of wisdom.  

I saw some things that worked well for me this year

Bible Study
Early Rising 
Eating Well
Simplifying
Writing
Saving  
Running
Setting Goals
Creating 
Nature
Documenting
Connecting
Giving
Seek Beauty
Serve

You might read those words and thing they look like a pile of cliches, things people commit to doing, but to me, I see a loving list of works that make my heart sing, so I know they are MY things.  Hard things that I can do.  Things that will give me joy

Things I want to leave behind

Fear
Worry
Perfection
Waste

I want to pay attention to what is ruling me.

I want to be bold, and beautiful, and humble, and healthy.  I know what those words mean to me.

The stillness of this moment washes over me, and I am reminded beyond the shadow of a doubt that I am loved and blessed and cared for.  When moments are frenzied, if I can remember to be bold, and beautiful, and humble, and healthy, I can love better, both myself and my others.  

Thank you for beautiful lessons 2013, thank you for a beautiful life.  Joy awaits, I only need to be still and know.  My heart is open and ready for all the good as I turn my page and look at my blank canvas.    

Addie is osum!

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You know, I knew it had been a while since I'd blogged.  And darn it, I think about blogging so often that i't hard to believe that almost a month and a half have passed.  Anyway, I'm here now, might as well make the most of it.

Our kindergarten teacher is THE.BEST.  I mean I know there are parents of kindergarten students everywhere you think that, it goes without saying that really FABULOUS people get hired to teach this grade, to do this job.  But ours, is, without a doubt, THE.BEST.

She sent me this text today: And her writing is "osum" too

Weekend News~

In case you can't see the picture, it says: 

I went snow showeng.  Lily ned a caof.  There was a step hel.  I wrk hrod.  I was osum.  

In case you need interpretation: I went snowshoeing.  Lily knitted a scarf.  There was a steep hill.  I worked hard.  I was awesome.  

She's telling the truth about all of it.  

Lily got the grand idea back in October to knit each of us a scarf for this event, so we could all be matching.  She made that happen too.  She got her Grandma to help and her cousin Jayme too.  She even taught me to knit and I produced one of these!  We looked great and she was SO SO proud of the scarves we each wore.  Bryson didn't want to wear a pink scarf but I put it on him backwards while we were strapping on his snowshoes and he didn't even notice.  

Steep hill ahead

We did our Romp to Stomp Out Breast Cancer snowshoe event on Mt Hood this weekend.  All the kids snowshoed.  Lawr pulled a sled with Bryson in for part of it.  It was hard.  It was partially steep. And our kids powered through.  We did too.  This wasn't the hardest year we've done this, but it was difficult to get everyone up and around the course, staying warm and happy, all at the same time.  We have grand schemes and we get tired and frustrated but we have a lot of fun.  Then we get back in the car and we say, wow, we just did that.

With 3 little kids.  Little.  Kids.

Finish line, that's Lawr with the sled and Lily and Bryson.  Addie finished first in the family and you better believe she didn't let ANYONE forget that! 

And we feel proud, and happy, and alive, and we are osum.

Sweaty Stinky Suessical Sensational Mother's Day Weekend

 Does anyone else have a dirty house and loads of stinky laundry and an empty fridge and sunscreen residue on the kiddos and bags under your eyes and sore feet that desperately need a pedicure?  Anyone?  Just me?  Proof that you didn't do any of the things that you *should* have done and instead only the things you *wanted* to do.  I seemed to have done none of the weekend chores and only busied myself with the fun stuff of this life!   Relaxation was not on the menu for this Mother's Day weekend, but that is totally okay with me.  I did get a nap on Saturday and Sunday, and that made all the running and stinking worth it.  


Friday night the girls took me to Suessical performed by Tigard High School.  It was awesome, amazing that this was a high school production, there was a lot of talent, and the show was great.  My friend's daughter was in the cast, so it was fun to watch her and I got a picture of Lily with her after the show.  My friend wasn't at the performance so she was thrilled to get a cute picture of our girls.  Several people commented on how well behaved my daughters were during the show (any mama knows this is a Mother's Day gift in and of itself! Who? My kids? Angels?  Obviously an indication of the kind of mother I am? Oh, go ON!).  And they were.  Lily even kept the talking and questions to a minimum.  It didn't get out until around 9:30, so they were beat.  Addie was too tired to get pictures with the cast, but Lily could have stayed an extra hour if I would have let her! 

Horton and Gertrude

Kangaroo and Monkeys

Lily and Blondie

Lily and the Who's

Proof that it wasn't the Lily show

Cat in the hat signing her program

Happy tired girls

  The next morning I was up bright and early to get everything ready for the AIM walk for Melanoma with my friend ShanRae, who drove into town from Bend.  Lily had a baseball game, so I took the two little ones and Lawrence and Lily went to her game.  We had to be out the door at 7:30am (or so I thought, turns out we were about an hour early).  So after water bottles and sunscreen and sun hats and stoller and booster seat and Ergo Carrier were loaded into the car, we woke up Addie and she was ready to go.  I thought she might need to get carried part of the 5K but not only did she walk the entire 3.14 miles, she ran most of it.  It was a great course through some beautiful SE Portland neighborhoods, and we had a great time.  ShanRae's mom and sister came from Joseph, so the 6 of us walked together and got to talk and catch up.  It was a small walk.  Which shows the need for more Melanoma awareness and fundraising, but it raised $12K, pretty good, especially for the size.  I'll do another post on Melanoma.  I was shocked as I learned even more about this terrible and fast growing disease, and how early prevention really is the ONLY remedy.  Either you get it at the source, or you die from it, essentially.  Once it spreads it is basically untreatable.  Which is why education is so important.  Why annual screenings and self checks are so important.   I was proud to walk next to my childhood best friend in her lavender survivor shirt.  I was proud of how she is turning this crappy experience into a positive, and I am so grateful that our path's and friendships have strengthened again through this so she was able to be such a support for me and the cancer that I had.  Listening to the Melanoma stories, I was so grateful that it was not the kind of skin cancer I had, and I realized once again, just how lucky I was.  I am.  After the race we had a nice lunch, the complimented my kids (who we playing with knives by the end of the meal - buying me a few more talking minutes with my friend) behavior.  Ha!  Again, go ON! :)   

Lily did great at her game on Saturday, then she and Lawrence went for a bike ride down to the water feature near New Seasons at the bottom of our hill.  I got home, and put all three of my crew promptly down for a nap.  Including myself.  Awwww yeah.  Addie didn't nap though, crazy girl who just ran 3 miles!  Lawrence ran out to get some steak for grilling, while I had a water balloon fight with my kids.  At the store, he saw our friends the Powers, who were also getting some grilling goods.  He came back with the whole crowd and we had an impromptu dinner with some of our favorite friends.  Yay.  Addie's meltdown came fast and furious an hour after bedtime, so that lead to the split of our dinner.  We were expecting it much earlier, late night last night, early morning today, no nap.  In true tired Addie form I laid down with her and she went from screaming bloodie murder to wimper to asleep in about 5 minutes.  I hate to see her like that, but when she is so tired, I love how it feels to easy that little sweetie to sleep in my arms.  


Sunday - HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
Not only do I get to be a mom to three wonderful kids, I got to learn how to be a loving mom from the very best!  Thanks Mom!!

Family photo

Addie and Daddy

Addie on the left

Lily (and my friend's son, Stuart) finishing strong

Addie at the finish

This was after 3 miles in the sun and my little people were cheering SO hard for me. So hard not to smile SO big!

Up and at 'em even earlier today.  The sun was shining, and we'd mostly planned ahead so getting out the door by 7 went by with out much frazzle on my part.  True accomplishment, I'll admit!  Lily's tummy was hurting so she was complaining a little, but we got down with only 15 minutes until her race, so she seemed to forget about it.  Lawrence ran with the girls for their one mile run, toward the back.  Lily started with them, but weaved her way closer to the front.  Overall she finished 8th and Addie finished 26th out of 64 total in the race.  They ran so fast and didn't walk at all, I was so proud of them.  Lily was 1st in her age division out of 14 and she was 2nd overall out of 36 girls.  Her time was 9:52.  Faster than I can do a mile! :)  Addie was 6/20 in her age division that went up to 6 year olds.  She ran her mile in 12:09, that's more my pace.  She was a little disappointed not to get a medal after getting one last year, but I reminded her that she ran FOUR miles this weekend, and that was farther than any FOUR year old I know. :)  I got my personal worst time for running a 5K but I could care less about that.  I got like 226th place or something awesome like that.  I didn't get a medal.  :)  I felt good (unlike my last 5K), ran the whole thing in the sunshine with beautiful music blasting in my headphones, I wasn't in it for the speed (says she who was not speedy).  

One tired Addie

One HAPPY Lily

I got some great Mother's Day gifts from the kids, including a World's Best Mom mug, a new camping chair, a frilly cute polka dot apron, a song written and performed by Lily, back up by Addie, a cook book from Addie made at school, a plate Lily made at school.  100 pieces of riff raff crafts with Lightning McQueen stamps and crayons and projects obviously colored by my nanny and popsicle sticks with balloon stickers on them and scribbles and so.much.love.  I also bought myself a new sun hat for the summer.  We took another awesome nap after a really yummy lunch, and then played outside, BBQed again, and just soaked in more time together.  The day ended, in true Mother (of-small-children)'s day form, 2/3 kids pooped their pants swimsuits while playing outside, and in even truer Mother's day form, daddy cleaned it up while I quickly bathed 3/3 kids.

Last night I was sweaty and stinky with dirty feet and dirty fingernails, my face and arms were sun-kissed - and I was layered with many applications of greasy sunscreen, my eyes and feet were so tired.  I did a quick surface level clean up, after all my parents-in-law were to arrive late night and there was STUFF everywhere, but it was no where near what it would have been if we didn't thoroughly enjoy every minute of the weekend.
  
I showered and fell into bed on the sheets that I meant to change today.  I was asleep in just a few minutes, but the mess and the long to do list left untouched reminded me that without a shadow of a doubt, we did this Mother's day riiii....


(fell asleep before I could finish the though, even further proof that is was true)

We needed some mountain air, so we got it.

Can you tell which person in this picture wanted it taken?

We went up to Mount Hood today and planned on Snowshoeing to sled, but once we got up there, we decided not to get snow shoes and to just sled, make mini snowmen, and, in Bryson's case, eat a lot of snow, all in all we had a really great day.  I've been working a lot this week, and we needed to get out of the house, together and have fun, and that we did.

MCT - Take one

Me and Lily - Oct 2010

A month ago you VOTED for me writing this blog, I started on November 7 and am finally posting now - backlog unload - SCORE one for me!

If you follow my facebook feed, you would know that a few weeks ago, Lily was cast in the Missoula Children's Theater's local production of Alice in Wonderland at her school. Since MCT was a real life changing organization for me as a kid and a young adult, I was both excited and nervous for her to audition. I didn't want to be a bossy stage mom, but at the same time, I REALLY wanted her to get a part, and I knew how the audition process would go. What if I got her all excited about this show that I so wanted her to be a part of and then she didn't get a part? What if she never got to experience the wonderfulness that is the MCT tour? I had butterflies the entire day at work and then held my breath the entire audition, as they lined up tallest to smallest, in true Jim Caron fashion and said their names with loud and clear voices, big and expressive bodies, all the while - and most importantly - following directions and paying attention. She was the second smallest.Lily is 3rd from the right

Before I get ahead of myself I should probably go back a little and talk a little about my own MCT experiences. This could probably be a whole series of blogs on it's own, and maybe over the years it will be. Memories flooded me the last few weeks. FLOODED me. My love and admiration for Jim, Michael, and Melanie - three important people in the organization - as well as for my little community growing up and the Wallowa Valley Arts Counsel for bringing tour actors to my little home county year after year.

I was seven years old, it was March and I was in the second grade. I had big glasses and short awkward choppy hair. I'd started to experience the rejection that comes with looking the way I did and dressing the way I did and ACTING the way I did from some of the kids at school. I was nearly a year younger than many of the kids in my class, in those early years it made a big difference in maturity- but I was more advanced than most academically, plus what with the big glasses (the next year I'd get tri-focals-to call them coke bottles would be an understatement), the lack of any sort of fashion or style, the non stop talking, and the pestering of those who pestered me...I was quite lonely. I had a few good friends, but I definitely knew at that young age that I was different from most of the kids at school. I was aware that there were birthday parties I wasn't invited to, I got left out of 4 square games, didn't get to jump rope with the "cool" girls, and the year before some of the kids had been in a play that I knew nothing about. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The auditions for this year's play, were today. But my (very pregnant) mom had to work, deadline day at her newspaper was tomorrow and she couldn't come get me after school to take me to the audition in our neighboring town - 6 miles away. So after school I called her at work and pleaded one more time. She finally agreed (enter mom guilt) but it would take her 15 minutes to get to Joseph and back to Enterprise where the auditions were being held, so I'd be a half an hour late. That sounded okay to me. She came and got me, I was SO happy. I still remember pacing circles in the small road by out house as I waited for her car to appear. It was a chilly March or April in Wallowa County - but it wasn't freezing as it sometimes was that time of year. It's it funny the specifics you remember when things really matter to you.

When we got to the audition, I was more than a half an hour late, Val M, the local person in charge of setting the whole thing up, putting me in a line of kids who were already chosen for a part, so they took down my name and got in, I didn't really have to do anything to audition. I LOVED it. I was a Pleasure Isle Kid in Pinocchio. I can never thank my mom enough for getting me to that audition. Late even, so that I didn't even have to chance the rejection there.

Growing up in Wallowa County, there wasn't much as far as extra curricular activities other than sports, and I wasn't very good at those. So MCT showed me that I had talent and there was a place for a hard working, memorization expert, loud talking, kid like me. The louder the better? AWESOME. Big expressive bodies? Loud and clear voices? Following dir....well, two out of three weren't bad. And as it turns out, I COULD listen and sit still when my most important one week a year depended on it! At that young age, acting gave me value.

Me in my first "lead" as a brat in Johnny Appleseed, I'm the one sitting with glasses

Years later, I would be invited to go to an exclusive camp outside of Missoula, Montana on Flathead lake that I could audition for after the recommendation of the tour actors only. 1-2 kids per town were referred, if any, and then there was a lengthy audition process. I will NEVER EVER forget the day that I got the phone call to let me know I got in. In fact, I'm friends on FaceBook now with the camp director and I emailed her the story recently. What I wouldn't do to get my hands on that audition tape. I sang "That's what friends are for", sitting on the floor of my bedroom with a tape deck. (Okay must remember to copy and paste that email for another blog for sure!) I went to that camp for six years for two weeks every summer. Some of my dearest friends to this day I met at MCT camp.Me in MCT PAC show 'Growing Pains; Rockin' a Hard Place' circa summer 1990 (front & center)

Ultimately I ended up going to college at University of Montana in Missoula because the place held such amazing memories from my youth. And then Missoula was filled with college memories and friends, and many of my camp friends who I reconnected with there, became my college friends instead of my camp friends. And, well, I sort of forgot the deep impact that Missoula Children's Theater had. Or I hadn't stopped to think about it for a while.

Until this year when the flier camp home for volunteers needed at Lily's school in the fall with MCT on the list for the last week of October. Until Lily's audition. Until she was cast. Until I watched her run out on stage during dress rehearsal and I burst into tears at the sight of it. She was a little Lobster who teaches Alice a Lobster Quadrille. I was so excited and PROUD of her and so was she.

She's center among the five on the first row, silly faces

During the week of auditions, the tour actors were selling copies of The Little Red Truck, and I bought one, not believing that I hadn't watched it yet after wanting to for so long. The next day I mentioned to Kaitlyn, our tour actor, that I cried as I watched it, thinking how lucky I am to have been directed by Jim Caron (founder of MCT) and Michael McGill. The other actor, stopped what he was doing and said, "You've been directed by Jim and Michael?!". It's a pretty big honor that's for sure, though it's hard to explain (to people who don't know them) that such a big theatrical mecca could really be located in unlikely Montana. Unless you've been to Missoula, then you probably get it.

We found our Little Red Truck in the parking lot upon leaving the audition and I had Lily get a picture next to it.

 

If you aren't familiar with what MCT does, you MUST click here. But the jist of it is 2 tour actors come to a school on a Monday, cast a show in 2 hrs, and then start rehearsals on Monday night, and have 6 days to put on a full scale production with 60 or so kids. They do a 2 shows on Saturday, then pack up their Little Red Truck and head on to the next town and change more lives of more little kids.

Lily will never understand how and why MCT meant so much to me. She lives in a city filled with opportunities and arts (plus she seems to be pretty good at sports and her vision is 20/20!) But that doesn't matter, it matters to me that I got to see her take part in something so special to me. I wouldn't say I'm living vicariously, just seeing her have fun doing something that I loved so much, means more to me that I can describe. The flood of memories that came back to me that week over a month ago, they mean so very much to me, as do all of my valuable experience with Missoula and it's Children's Theatre. Thanks Jim, Michael, and Melanie. You changed little Jenny and gave big Jenny the gift of watching her daughter sing "Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?"Lily has on the brown shoes and is 4th from the right...

Dress rehearsal


Performance one


Performance two


I'll close with this quote from Jim just says so much:

JIM CARON: To this day, I don't exactly understand how it works. But, I mean, Mom and Dad are cheering for them, and so are all the friends, and, you know, the kid that made fun of them on the playground last week, they're all cheering for them. And you can see the light bulbs going over their heads. And they relate this experience and the elements of this experience to other things in their lives.