I heart Ellen…

Check this post out from Carolyn McCulley. Good recap of the Time magazine special report.

A friend emailed me this today…I can so relate and thought it was a beautiful perspective…Enjoy.

(From a very cool blog)

I hope this doesn’t sound too poetic, but sometimes I feel like I want to transcend.

It seems like so much of life is cleaning out my car and throwing away string cheese wrappers.  Or making sure the ill-designed juice box doesn’t squirt out as soon as my three-year-old holds it in her little hands.  So much my hours are spent looking at myself in the full-length mirror and walking away disappointed, enduring I-don’t-want-to-brush-my-teeth episodes from a second grader and scrubbing clean the crock pot the morning after a tri-tip has cooked all afternoon the day before.

I combat goldfish crackers between sofa cushions, voicemail messages I’ll never retrieve, the never-walked neighbor dog barking, toilet “requests” from a preschooler, and the always-messy downstairs playroom.

My life is normal.

But sometimes I want to clean a room of my house so it’s spotless, lock the door from the inside, light a candle and turn on the music and transcend the baseness of normal life.  I want to live above the grunge and the dusty corners of my world.  I don’t want to think about my crumpled-up to-do list on a wide-ruled piece of notebook paper that makes a circuit between my jeans pocket, my purse and the console in my car. I want to just forget.

But that isn’t realistic.  Or right, even.

Because I have responsibilities.  And promises I’ve made.  And things I’ve chosen.  Blessings I’ve been given.

And they require me to live at the base level of life where I’m putting three-year-olds in time out and sitting with seven-year-olds during homework time.  In order to have the privilege of climbing into the same bed as my husband each night, I pick up dirty socks and iron crisp cotton shirts.

I’ve chosen to live as a wife.

I’ve chosen to give birth to two daughters.

I’ve chosen to love the art of writing and I’ve chosen to spend my spare time doing it.

I can also choose to focus on the good and the sweet in it all.  On the blessing.  On the beauty, even in the dusty, grimy corners.  I can try to hear the pain through my daughter’s angry words and see her blue eyes wide with fear instead of defiance. I notice them.  I try not to notice the un-vacuumed carpet.

And then I fall in love.  With my girls and my husband all over again. With the whole chaotic mess of it all.

This is where I can transcend.  This is where I can live above the goldfish.  The music and the candles, those are just extra.

How do you “live above the goldfish”?

My brother, Seth, froze this frame from the previous video and thought for sure that he looked our distinguished former President.  Pretty close…

This is Jac telling me what he learned at chapel today…some of the details of the story may have been changed to protect the innocent.

Click here for pictures and pricing!

My husband thinks I’m a chronic season jumper.  Like in June I start wishing it would just hurry up and be cold outside so we could warm up some cider and go to the pumpkin patch.  Then the cold weather comes and I’m all “I can’t wait for sunshine and tiki torches and kids smelling like sunscreen”.  Sometimes it drives him nuts.  But this year I’ve been pretty good.  Trying to enjoy the season I’m in.  Well…except for that little Christmas in July party I threw for a few girlfriends.

That says 99 days til Christmas…its as high as it would go.

So last weekend when John wanted to have one last hoorah on the lake, I was all about it.  It would give me one more chance to get the kids smelling like sunscreen and have some sort of fun in the water…then I would feel the freedom to move on to Fall.

John’s Uncle Johnny was so gracious to let us come out to his houseboat and take us skiing, tubing, and jet skiing.  The kids had a ball in the boat and Jac LOVED riding on the inner tube!  Of course my camera died before he got on the tube, but here are a few pics from the last day of summer…

So now I feel full freedom to jump head first into FALL!!!  MY FAVORITE!

Here are just a few little reasons why Fall is my absolute favorite season of the year…

PUMPKIN CANDLES!!!

And this one is incredible.  It’s from Target.  It’s Pumpkin Cheesecake.  And it has a wooden wick that CRACKLES while it burns.  It smells unbelievable.  It seriously makes my day.

PUMPKIN BREAD!

Are we noticing a theme yet?  This stuff made my house smell twice as pumpkiny good yesterday.  And it tastes even better than it smells.  The even better news?  The boxed mix takes like 5 minutes to stir and tastes just as good as the homemade stuff to me.

CANDY CORN!

I really shouldn’t leave this stuff out like this.  It’s a cavity calling my name.  And what is in this stuff?  Sugar and wax?  Who knows, but it’s de-lish.  And it’s everywhere this time of year.  And according to Elf – one of the 4 major food groups.

PUMPKIN SPICE LATTES!!!!

And last but CERTAINLY not least – the pumpkin spice latte.  These people at the Starbucks company who came up with this thing should get raises.  Halloween bonuses.  This thing is like crack.  Enough said.  (Thanks Jen for bringing me one yesterday!  You know a way to a girls heart…pumpkin coffee.)

So what’s the point?  Tune in to Seasons, Part 2.  Your’re hooked now aren’t you.  Go get a pumpkin latte and some candy corn and light a pumpkin candle.  You’ll smile.

Time with daddy outside…

I have some sweet friends who are sharing all about their process of adoption through a blog.  They just put up a great post with summaries of some things they are learning about openness, birthparents, loss, etc.  It’s actually all from a few books they are reading as they go through the process with their agency.  Definitely worth checking out if you are interested at all in adoption!