Frazzled Reflections

There are some moments in a relationship that you don't forget. I especially remember one fight that my husband and I had four months before our wedding. I had just returned to Nebraska for my last semester of college and student teaching. I was several weeks into my first eight-week assignment and eagerly waiting to hear where I would be sent. The plan had always been to try to get an assignment close to home in Michigan so I could be near home as I finished the last of our wedding planning and we would be married a few weeks after I returned home. That was proving to be more difficult than imagined. "So, the last proposal has been sending me to Las Vegas." "But you're supposed to be coming closer to home, not farther away." "I don't know what you want me to do. I don't have much control over this. Apparently all of the spots close to Michigan have been taken by schools in the area." "Tell them that you are getting married and...

Spring break of 2006 we decided to take a trip down to Kentucky to see Mammoth Cave National Park. It was our first trip to the national park and we chose to stay at the lodge instead of camping because we weren't sure what we would find. What we found was a fantastic series of cave tours, a knowledgeable staff, and that sealed it. We were sold on the National Park Service. I may have a variety of other issues with many other departments of the federal government, but I have a great deal of respect for the underfunded NPS. At that time we decided to finally cave and do the truly nerdy thing by purchasing a passport book which would allow us to track every visit to every national park we ever visited. We started kicking ourselves because of the number of stamps we missed on our trip out west two years before, but we figured we would be making that trip again. We collected stamp after stamp in the summer of 2006 when we made our first trip together to Washington D.C. (my first ever)....

My early experiences with camping were ok, at best. As a Brownie in Detroit and then later as a Cadet in Wyoming, I had a couple experiences camping with my troops. In Detroit our "camping" consisted of cabins, in Wyoming we actually slept in tents. Church camp brought on more primitive cabins, and then there was the camping trip with my mom's side of the family when I was in middle school. I really don't remember much about the experience except my grandmother cooking outside and walking around the Michigan state campground with the only cousin I have who is my age. Then there was the trip back out east when I was in high school. Our family was visiting several places and my parents decided that we should go camping on our own for the first time ever. To my knowledge, my parents had never really camped in their whole marriage, unless you counted the time with my mom's family in Michigan. That particular trip included an awesome (and I mean that in the original se...

On Sunday my husband took our little girl on a date to see Monsters University . I was sure to talk up the event and he accused me of being as excited about their upcoming outing as she was. I can't say that I was more excited than our daughter. After all, we had a nearly impossible time keeping her focused on anything through church. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have reminded my slowly awakening daughter what she was going to be doing after church, but yes, I was excited for them. It wasn't like I was going to be getting "me" time during their date. I would be spending time at home with our son, but I was excited for my daughter. She not only got to see a movie, she got to spend quality time being treated like a princess by her daddy. While it was rare, I vividly remember "dates" with my dad: going to the Home-a-Rama in the Detroit area when I was only a little older than my daughter is now and going to see both Back To the Future 2 and 3. They ...

When you move into a house that is a disgusting mess on the inside, the outside kind of gets forgotten. After all, you need a place where you can safely live on the inside, right? At least that was our primary concern when we moved into our house. The first summer the outside was primarily ignored, except for my husband's proud purchase of a tractor mower which actually gets a significant amount of use. You see, we have a HUGE front and backyard. It was a selling point, and still is when we think about all the space our kids have for playing, except neither of us are great at yard work. But that is for another blog and another time. In addition to the interior of the house which has rather large things that bug me, the exterior has had several small things that bug me. While I was working diligently on the living room ( Part 1 and Part 2 ), I decided to tackle some of those smaller projects. First came the front door, which had a faded, poorly painted green color that did not ma...

Every new parent has heard the warning: "Enjoy these years; they go by so fast." Yes, yes they do, but after spending a delightful morning and afternoon with my four-year-old and two-year-old I have to say that I do not miss the baby years. My beautiful children were beautiful babies: chubby, blond, and the spitting image of...their father. I love my husband very much, but hearing over and over again that there was no mistaking the paternity of our children, especially with our little girl, got a little old. I really wanted a baby that looked like me, but apparently the genes run strong on my husband's side, and there was no escape for our children. I loved both children long before for they were born, from the moment we knew we were pregnant the love grew with each stage: the first ultrasound, the first kick, and the first time I held both of them in my arms. But each newborn experience brought its challenges. Our daughter was a terrible nurser, and at six weeks looked...

Well, not quite. When most people say they are at high school weight, it indicates a certain skinniness. I've never been that skinny. Slender yes, skinny no. And as the older sister of three sisters who have always appeared skinnier than me, I've had lifelong body issues. Even when I was in the best shape of my life (high school) I didn't see myself as skinny. My body issues were never enough to driving me to eating disorders. I like food too much to be anorexic and I hate the stomach flu too much to be bulimic. And that is not to downplay those very serious eating disorders. I could have very easily have been one of those girls (or boys) who succumbed to an eating disorder. I am a control freak, I don't share my deepest feelings very easily, I moved in 6th grade and the summer before my junior year which seriously disrupted my support system of friends twice, and like most teenage girls, I hated the way I looked. The reality is that my love for food and disdane for puk...