Extraordinary Life

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I have a confession to make, one that the "date your spouse" people might judge me for: Eric and I don't really go on dates anymore.

When we were freshly married we didn't make it a priority because, after all, every day is like a date when it's just the two of you. 🙂 Then when the first baby came along, I hated to leave him anywhere, plus it just plain involved more planning, plus we weren't already in the dating groove. And when the second baby came along, not much had changed. I still hated to leave the boys anywhere, and it still involved more planning, and we were even less in the dating groove.

So the few times we find ourselves out and about alone are usually out of necessity, and out of necessity usually has unpleasant connotations in our case. Cleaning church. Going to the dentist. Things you can't exactly have two little people along for.

Today it was going to the dentist. Eric got us both in for cleanings at the same time, so we left the boys with his mom and headed off to Canby. ...continue reading →

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Maybe I'm extra fearful, but ever since I was young, there's always been that Scary Next Thing. The first one I remember is baptism. I just couldn't imagine being at the front of the church where everyone could see me. It would be the first time I'd be in the limelight so to speak in public, and it seemed like something I could never actually do.

When I was twelve, I did it.

Then there was the Next Scary Thing: taking my driver's test. I couldn't imagine getting into a car with a complete stranger and driving a car well enough to suit them. Shucks, the very first time I tried to turn a corner in our big, old van, I almost went in the ditch. It seemed absurd that I would ever actually take the driving test. I thought I would probably literally die before I'd do something like that.

But when I was seventeen, I did it. ...continue reading →

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Once upon a time, I liked to write. So I started a blog. And I wrote for a while. Then I had babies. And I quit writing.

"I wish I still blogged," I told Eric a few nights ago. "I'd love to read it in five years. Or fifty."

So here’s a post about nothing really . . . nothing but the little boys who aren’t quite my everything, but just about. 🙂

Alec Daniel. Sebastian James. ...continue reading →

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We sold our house on Mahan Loop yesterday. The first house we ever owned. I still remember how blessed we felt to get that house. We’d been looking at either junkers or very small houses because that’s all that was in our price range, and no matter how badly we wanted to get out of Newberg, we didn’t want it badly enough to put our money down on just anything.

Then 983 Mahan Loop came on the market. We looked at it for all of twenty minutes and made an offer. It was above and beyond anything we’d seen yet, in size and quality, and we just loved it. It needed a lot of work, but with the help of Eric’s family and mine, we got it painted and cleaned, and from then on it was just turning a blind eye to the unpaintable caulk and the nasty trim. The pretty blue walls and the wide-open floor plan made that easy to do, for me at least. Eric commented about the trim probably at least once a month. 🙂

We lived there for just over three years. That house saw us go to Australia and back, the trip of a lifetime. It saw me surprising Eric with not one, but two, positive pregnancy tests. It wrapped around us, cozy and dark, as first one boy and then the other burst into this world. We moved into that house as a couple; we moved out as a family. That house saw Eric grow his business, so much so that the lack of parking was one of the biggest reasons we decided to move on. It saw baby showers and Sunday lunches and late-night conversations. It hosted various of our out-of-state siblings and their families. It listened as we learned how to be parents. (It heard a lot of late-night crying.) It became our home, a safe place, a place to always return to. For a while every time we walked in the door, Alec would say excitedly, “We’re home!” ...continue reading →

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I read Psalm 90 this morning. It was a little hard to concentrate with “There’s a Hole in the Bucket” droning on and on in the background, but verse 12 made me pause.

“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

That verse is so familiar. It’s been underlined in my Bible for who knows how long. But it caught me this morning.

These days I’m in feel endless, sometimes in good ways, sometimes in bad. They are overwhelming and frustrating, and at the same time they are so full of laughter and joy. Surely there will always be a naughty toddler saying so sweetly, “I yike it,” when he has something he’s not supposed to have. Surely there will always be a fat, little boy giggling every time I let water from a cup touch his lips. Surely there will never come a night that a little voice doesn’t call for me. Surely there will never come a day that I don’t write down a memory or snap a quick picture of these darling boys.

For some reason, numbering my days feels so foreign right now. ...continue reading →