Humbled

Today I had the honor of attending an Anniversary party for a couple who has been married for 68 years. First I joke, wondering if I should be making them a sympathy card or a congratulations card! However I do not think there is a card that reflects the deep amount of respect a couple should earn not only after so many years together, but also so many years of service to God, their families, and their communities. I think of all the joys, hardships, achievements, etc. that Brice and I have been through in just 5 years, and multiply that, its just amazing. And I think all the 'luxeries' we have now as compared to then. Bigger vehicles, access to education, bigger houses, computers, TV's, indoor plumbing, cell phones, heat/air conditioning, any toy a child could as for, clothes, we definetly have more than we could ever possibly need.

Some days I'm jealous-I think of when people took time to talk to each other instead of e-mail or cell phone texting and it seems nice, more friendly, less ways for incorrect rumors to fly like wildfire, less ways to incorrectly interpret a person's tone or mood. Of course now we are able to communicate easily with many friends and family, share pictures, send a quick message- but at the same time I think that has made us a selfish people in a sense, making us think we are so busy that we can't send a snail mail letter, make a phone call, and causing us to be so absorbed in our own world that we do not see other's worlds, or even the bigger picture. Of course "everythings perfect, but nobody's happy"-I have to listen to that on u-tube sometimes to remind myself to quit whining, things really are pretty good :-)

I have been thinking a lot about aging lately for a couple of reasons. One, as we have been making some improvements to the therapy room where I work we have taken all of our pictures down to prepare for painting. I have been there for over 3 years now. As I put the pictures in order I see myself aging; the loss of a parent, the birth of a child, trying to find a balance with all the 'stuff' in life, I seem to be able to see in all the pictures where in my own life I was at at the time, sometimes I can tell I was not in a place I was proud of, othertimes I can tell I was happy with who I was and how I was treating others. Second, I was on a home visit with an elderly woman a few weeks ago. I had to bring Gabbie with as it was a Saturday. I listened to her as she sat in her glider chair watching Gabbie, telling me stories of her own babies, her labor and delivery stories, how each of her children were different. I realized that my concern with having all of Gabbie's scrapbook caught up really will not matter. If I live in the moment and absorb as much as I can I too, God willing, will be able to sit in a chair and tell someone else our story. So far it has been a pretty darn good story when I really think about it.

I am also humbled by the quickness at which life can be over. Today a high school classmate of mine lost her husband in an accident. I can not even imagine the pain of such a loss. Of course its sparks deep conversation on our way home tonight. I ask Brice what I would do without him and he says "well, you'd have to learn to do a lot more chores". Some days it feels like he lives on a totally different planet than I do. However I sure don't know what I would do without the person who shares a 12 cup pot of coffee with me, refuses to put his clothes in his dresser, has the poorest muscle flexibility of any man I've ever known, and deep down has the best heart of anyone I have ever met. For no other man would I allow a deer head to remain in my freezer to give me a jump every time I open it, or deal with him wearing his socks 2 times sometimes before washing them, or would I be caught buying 2-30 packs of the cheapest beer in town to show him a small token of my appreciation when he's just coming in the house from working at 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. (of course with instructions that they better last through the summer ;-)) Tonight I'm hoping to someday experience the joy of 68 years of compatible weirdness...

I was looking for a picture of Brice and I as a couple. Turns out that once you have a kid there really aren't as many of those pictures....so here is a picture of the best thing that's happened to us as a 'couple'. 2 pretty high strung people makes for one crazy child...

My Pride and Joy

Nope, its not Gabbie, its my garden! I should say 'our garden' to be more accurate, as Brice works the ground for me in the Spring and Gabbie has become quite good at picking weeds (although a few plants have suffered as a result). This year due to great weather I was able to get things started pretty early in the garden. We've already been through a round of radishes, lettuce, and spinach. More are planted so we can enjoy again soon! I started most of the plants indoors this year; however I did manage to bring more plants home everytime I went to town until finally last week the garden was declared "full". Here's the final tally (and the reason my husband thinks I need to be examined)

1. Minus 2 that Gabbie stepped on last week, there are a total of 95 tomato and pepper plants-I think there are about 70 tomato and 25 pepper. New this year-orange peppers, sweet!
2. 8 eggplant, up from the token 1 plant we've enjoyed in years past
3. 12 brocolli, which we have already started to enjoy!
4. 5 cabbage

5. 5 hills of cucumber, which I think amounted to 20 plants.

6. 5 rows of beets, you can never have too many
7. 2 rows of onions, which no one here really likes except Brice (we'll call that his Fathers Day gift)

8. 8 cauliflower

9. 2 rows of carrots

10. 5 okra plants-love that stuff!
11. 4 rows of beans
12. 'quite a few' watermelon (I haven't revealed this number to Brice yet...everytime we have watermelon he complains about how rough it is on his "system" and I hate to tell him he'll be eating it for a month later this summer)
13. 4 hills of squash
14. Pumpkins, which hopefully will be planted today...somewhere...
I think I may be missing something...but if any of it sounds good to anyone reading this you will have to let me know! We can only eat so much and I can only can and freeze so fast, and I hate to let things go to waste if I can help it. I am proud of myself that I have been keeping on top of the weeds (mostly) despite the rain. It helps that its light out until 9:30!
I'm so grateful that Gabbie loves being outdoors. We seem to be outside for all the available hours in the evening working on the garden, the yard, or playing with her plastic golf clubs :) I'm calling this my summer strategy for keeping the house clean-just plain staying out of it!
Today we are happy to celebrate Fathers Day. Gabbie drew a couple pictures for Brice-he loves when she does that! Otherwise his 'gift' is the recent purchase of a boat. I asked if we could take it out tonight, but was told it does not run....I decided I will wait to ask too many questions about that. I'm celebrating by skipping church to clean the house and obviously brag my garden up on this blog~hopefully God won't mind too much that I just needed a 'regroup' morning to get my house back under control...
I will say a prayer though that everyone has a great week!

I love catching pictures of these 2. This was fishing at the lake, Gabbie loved it!

Another round of rain coming in

Working on the boat...Gabbie had the right idea!

A view of the garden

First head of brocolli of the year

Carrots

More of the garden

The artist working on her Fathers Day pictures, looks like that day she was a "righty"

Expanding vocabulary

We can finally say Gabbie has some vocabulary after the past week! Here are the favorite words: Harper, Abby, and apple. Here are the things she refuses to say: Mom, Dad. Harper is the baby at daycare, Abby is the daycare providers daughter, and apple is just one of her favorite foods. We know she goes to an excellent daycare. I guess we just thought she'd start with the words we say the most at home!! Stubbornness, who knows where she would have inherited that from?
She is so well behaved lately (for a 19 month old!) She puts things back where she got them when instructed, helps in the garden, and is even sitting still a little longer in church. She's also frequently found sitting with a book and blabbing to herself as she turns the pages.

It is good that she is behaving well lately, as she has had to be a flexible child! My home health caseload tripled, so she is in and out of other people's houses with me in the evenings and tolerates it well. We spent Friday night packaging meat and she was able to entertain herself for 2 hours by playing in the garage and outside within our line of sight.

I have been utilizing her naptimes lately to catch up on the photo albums. I'm up to September of 2009, so getting closer! It has been fun to watch Gabbie grow in fast-forward as I put the pictures together. Everytime I advance another month I think to myself "and I thought we were busy then!"

A recent picture of Gabbie (a little 'greasy' looking as Brice would say, but that's what happens when we spend the day outside!)

Dam to Dam 2010

Well, I am alive to tell about it, though I am not sure I'll be able to get off the chair I am sitting on! Things were questionable Friday...several 'bowel' issues (yes, I'm sure you want to hear about that) made me think I was just nervous for some reason. Its not typical of me to feel nervous so early. Then as we were getting ready to walk out the door to head to Des Moines I puked in the kitchen sink. Brice thought that was a great choice-I told him it was so he did not have to bend over to far to clean it up :-) I was sick the rest of the evening, finding it difficult just to carry the suitcase up to the hotel room. Saturday morning I found myself up at 4:00 a.m. wondering if my stomach would hold out. I wish my concern hadn't been so focused on being sick...maybe then I would have realized it was raining and the poncho in my car may have come in handy! The common sense in me told me that if I did have the flu bug it was ridiculous for me to even try this. But the part of me I decided to listen to was the part that said "hey, you paid for this race, a hotel room, your husband and child are here, you've trained, suck it up"! Thankfully the support of some local friends, plus 7500 other crazy distance runners, helped me feel better with each mile-although having kept some nutrition down on Friday may have helped me feel even more strong! I have not seen my "official" time yet. I really do not care what it was. All I know was it was a little better than I had planned, which meant Brice and Gabrielle missed the finish-which was insanely crowded anyway! I am thankful to the friends I ran with along the way, as well as my I-pod friends Heart, REO Speedwagon, Michael Jackson, and Journey :-) And especially to the big guy above for a safe trip and the ability to run.

Afterwards Brice says to me "Its so funny, all the runners look about the same. What makes you want to do these things?" I believe the question was sparked by him hearing my knees crack as I sat on the edge of the bed. Its so hard to explain...I used to do marathons, so honestly I feel like I am being more reasonable and sane now than I was then. I can not say its because I am great at it-its not like I'm winning the race and getting a big prize (though the finisher medal is always great!) It just feels good, like for many brief moments in time both of my feet are off the ground, and for a couple of hours all I have to do is listen to my music or book on tape and look at all of the beautiful things God has provided to us. Its time I don't have to worry about my job, cleaning the house, cooking, helping with farm work, keeping Gabbie safe, paying bills, or any of the other shoes we all wear everyday. I just have to put my running shoes on and keep moving forward and enjoy the things around me. I think about a lot of 'life' things, but while I'm running all I can do about any of them is say a prayer. I'm still not sure Brice gets it, but I don't get sitting out in below zero weather to hunt deer either...
The rest of the day was fun as well. We picked up a couple of things for Brice at Northern Tool, did some searching for eggplant and brussel sprouts for the garden with no success, and went out to lunch with an ice cream stop on the way home.
Here are some pictures of the day. None from the finish line, but had to get some with our future sumo wrestler runner at the hotel room.

Me with my finisher medal :)

 I think this is how we all felt after the day!