Life Looks Like…

I feel like life is going to keep getting busier in the coming weeks, and I will feel infinitely better if I can bring my blog up to speed. :-) Here’s what life has looked like for us over the past few months:

Back in March, I took on a copywriting job that I can do from home in the evenings and on weekends. I love it, as it gives me valuable technical writing experience, keeps my bank of adjectives at the ready, and brings in extra, needed income.  Plus, it’s very interesting…I write product descriptions for home items, like lamps, curtains, vases, wind chimes, and candles. What I don’t like is the time it eats up from my daily life. I put in about 15 hours a week, and Ryan and I joke that it’s my fourth job. Any time I don’t want to cook or do laundry, I complain that I do enough around here already, and you know, I work four jobs, and with batted eyelashes, I can usually get out of almost anything. Until Monday morning rolls around, and there really isn’t any laundry done, and Ryley’s freaking out about what she’s going to wear. Ryan’s job is extremely stressful right now, so between the two of us, and also by giving more and more responsibility to Ryley, we just do the best we can.

Here’s my usual Saturday morning writing spot:

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In April, as the snow melted and the ground thawed, we became very unhappy with the state of our home. Many things had sat rotting on our property over the long winter, and now it was time to deal with them.

There was carpet from the flooding, a broken playhouse, a broken grill, a dead fallen tree, an old couch, random trampoline parts, rusted patio chairs, massive closet doors that I hated, etc. Our home seemed to be the place where unwanted items came to die. And once they did die, they were things that the garbage service wouldn’t take and that we couldn’t donate either. As a result, the side of our garage had become its own eco-system. So I called my friend Victoria, and she gave us a good deal on a roll-off dumpster:

A couple of days and sweat and manpower and three snakes and a Black Widow spider later, this was the side of our garage:

It felt so good to get everything out of there. We also made a lot of headway on the inside of our garage (which we treat as a storage unit), but there are no pictures of that because we’re not done. 

The dumpster looked like this:

Halfway through the week, some scary-looking metal scrappers came by and sifted through the dumpster and took everything they wanted, creating extra room.  So I decided to start going through the boxes in our guest room, which had been packed by the asbestos abatement team.

“I’ve found that asbestos abatement is a great time to sort and purge and decide what you really need to keep,” the abatement contractor said, as we stood in our messy guestroom in December, in the aftermath of flood damage. I know he looked down on me. All he saw was a disorganized mess. He couldn’t picture what a clean and cheerful place our home had been before water had ravaged everything. I just nodded and agreed with him, having lost all my pride.

But now, months later, it seemed like a good idea. So box by mildewy box, I tackled the guestroom, a project that took weeks, long after the dumpster had been hauled away. And once you get into it, purging is addictive. My goal was two boxes a day.

Eventually, we could walk in there again, and over Memorial Day weekend, we finally finished.

“Two boxes a day brings the guests to stay,” Ryley chimed.

 

I’m so happy with the way it turned out. When the weather gets a little cooler, I plan to keep working on the garage, one box at a time. It’s a strategy that seems to work for me.

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School ended in May, and it was a refreshing change, as it always is. Ryley’s school is expanding into a second campus closer to our house, just as she starts middle school. We are really excited about it. We love her classical school curriculum, and I personally believe that classical education best accomplishes its goals when a child has been immersed in it through the high school grades too. So we are happy that her new school will be K-12.

Here she is at her school orchestra concert:

Cheering for the last day of 5th grade…

Dancing (in costume) to “Let It Go”…

Spring cleaning….

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In June, Ryley and I took a mommy/daughter field trip to the Denver Mint.

KidSpree

ComicCon:

We watched a family of robins grow up on our patio. Very sweet. :-)

The big thing that happened in June was that, due to a car accident, my dad had some complications with his leg. He ended up having surgery and then had to spend the next six weeks in a hospital in Dallas with a staph infection. It was a very stressful time for him and for my mom, who was in the middle of selling their house in Oklahoma and preparing to move to Dallas.

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In July, we traveled to Nebraska for a big family reunion. It was a delightful weekend with so much family, though we really missed my dad.

My beautiful mommy!

A couple weeks later, despite some car issues, Ryley and I drove to Tulsa to help my mom pack and hold a garage sale:

A highly unsuccessful lemonade stand:

After the garage sale, my mom drove us down to Dallas to see my dad in the hospital.

We all cried when we left. Through her tears, Ryley said, “I wish Pappaw could escape that place!” :-(

We headed back to Tulsa, and then the next morning, drove home to Denver.

A few days later was Ryley’s birthday (see my previous post)!

Mammaw and Pappaw bought her a beautiful bike, so we rode it to the park on her birthday night. We think it looks like her! :-)

My dad was released from the hospital the last week of July and headed home to Tulsa. We praise God for his continued healing!

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August…

Another trip to the library…

The first Broncos game of the year…

And some puppy love this morning on the patio…

Matching freckles…

And that’s been our spring and summer thus far.

My parents moved to Texas today, leaving behind their beautiful home of 15 years. Everything they own is in two U-Hauls and their two vehicles. My heart has been with them all day, and I am excited for their adventure and for the good things in store for them in the months and years to come! They are such amazing, brave people, trusting that they are in God’s will, taking everything one step at a time. I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds! ;-)

The Year We Didn’t Go Horseback Riding

The hardest part about taking a break from blogging is knowing how to start back up again. A lot has happened in the last four months, and maybe, as time allows, I can eventually go back and do some debriefing and reflecting. As always, life offers continual opportunities for our trust in God to grow. Why can’t it just be easy?? That is a question that continues to confound me. :-)

Our beautiful Ryley turned 11 on Wednesday. Ryan and I took the day off work, and the three of us spent a family day together. Because, like her mommy and daddy, Ryley loves food, her one request was to eat at Zio’s in Colorado Springs. So we drove down there and also spent some time at the Focus on the Family Visitors Center (free fun!) and at Garden of the Gods. I let Ryley sit up in the front seat next to Ryan for a lot of the drive, and several times I noticed her cheeks curled up in a big, goofy grin. That girl loves her birthday.

Since July 24 of last year, Ryley has been planning her birthday party for this year. Her big desire was to go horseback riding, so a few weeks ago, we called the stables and found out how very expensive it is. So Ryley had to narrow down her list of invitees, unfortunately, and limit it to one church friend, one school friend, and her best friend that lives an hour away. Everybody was so excited, and yesterday they all arrived at our house in long pants and tennis shoes, and Ryley let them each choose a bandana for their dusty excursion.

But it wasn’t meant to be.

We arrived at the stable and bounced on up to the office and handed the man our signed parental waivers.

“Uh, yeah, I can’t accept these waivers. They’re not signed properly,” he said.

“Oh, yes, they are, if you will just look—”

“Nope. They’re all signed on the wrong line.”

“Oh, well, that’s ok. We can just write in ‘parent/guardian’ next to where they signed—”

“No. That would be forgery.”

“Can we sign on the parents’ behalf?”

“Nope.”

“Well, we can have each parent e-mail a signed statement—”

“No. It has to be this form.”

“This is ridiculous. There has to be something you can do. Are you the manager?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you know what? You need to revise your waiver then. Because it is extremely unclear,” I spat out, tears filling my eyes.

I may have said some other things too. The conversation went on for 10 minutes, and I was pretty angry. The manager certainly wasn’t willing to work with us at all. I mean, he could have offered to e-mail each parent the waiver in hopes that they could sign it, scan it, and e-mail it back. But I’m not even sure they had a computer in that place, actually. He didn’t care about our birthday party; he didn’t care about four disappointed little girls. And the longer the conversation went on, the more I felt that he was digging his spurs in.

“Okay, thank you, sir,” Ryan was saying, guiding me away from the office.

How could our daughter’s birthday party be ruined over something so stupid?

“Well, girls, I’m sorry, but we’re not going to be able to go horseback riding today,” Ryan said loud enough so the man could hear. I loved him for it.

Disappointment was written all over our daughter’s face. But to her credit, she didn’t cry. Only her mom cried.

What do we do with them now?

We piled back into the van, and the girls discussed alternatives. Since we had already planned and saved a small fortune for the horseback riding adventure, money wasn’t really an object, for once in our lives. Almost anything would be cheaper. And within 10 minutes, they had decided on Lakeside Amusement Park.  Ryley had not ever been there before, and it’s been on our list to do for a few summers now.

I called Lakeside to verify that they didn’t require waivers.

“What? A waiver?” the Lakeside lady replied, obviously confused.

“We’re on on our way!”

We stopped at the house so the girls could all change into shorts (they each borrowed a pair of Ryley’s) and so that we could have cake and ice cream. And then off we went!

And you know what? I think they had more fun than they would have if they’d gone horseback riding!

Just look at those grins!

“Best. Birthday. Ever!” Ryley whispered to us over and over, as the afternoon progressed. It really was a lot of fun!  The girls all got along really well, and four was the perfect number for pairing up on rides, keeping track of everybody, etc. In addition, Ryley bowed to peer pressure and faced her fear of rollercoasters, only to discover that she loves them!

I’m finding that the birthday parties get easier as Ryley gets older. The parties basically run themselves. She and her friend did all the decorating and house set-up on their own. The girls are great at entertaining themselves and are pretty self-reliant and resilient. They each went through the concession stand line on their own and didn’t break our budget.  Ryan and I didn’t have to ride any rides and thoroughly enjoyed the plethora of shade trees and benches for seating throughout the park. And this particular group of girls was extremely flexible with our change of plans….much more than the birthday girl’s mom. ;-)

Last night, before bed, I logged in to view the Sunday School lesson that Ryan and I were scheduled to teach this morning at church. The lesson was all about controlling our anger and not letting it spill out onto others. As if I, with my temper tantrum at the horse stable, am a model for gracious behavior! Ha! It did make for a riveting story for the kids this morning, and they listened intently (and probably with some judgment!). This is not the first time that the lesson I teach is exactly what I’m going through that week. It’s funny how that seems  to work out. ;-)

In the end, Ryley’s 11th birthday party was better than we had even planned. And the plans for #12, next year? At this point, Lakeside is at the top of the list.