See You at the Cinnabon Suckers

Usually I am thoroughly pleased to see the end of a year and the beginning of a new one, but this year it just seems as though I have unfinished business.  I did a little more than survive Christmas this year; I think I actually had a lot of fun and tried to enjoy my time off with the kids instead of thinking about all the stuff I couldn't buy or the fact that my Christmas decorations looked less like LL Bean and more like Goodwill.  We had our cherished friends and family for Christmas Eve and spent the next morning watching the kids tear through Christmas morning-hoping they would find some treasures and surprises under the tree.  We spent three wonderful days catching up with parents and siblings and lots of nieces and nephews.  And by some true Christmas miracle, John and I managed to get along through this holiday season and were even still chummy by Christmas eve (maybe because there were no big toys to put together this year)!
 And still, I'm just not ready to let go.  I've run around my house today dusting and changing sheets and making all things clean and new, trying in vain to finish any leftover projects from 2013. But there they all are staring me in the face: the half painted stairs leading up to the attic, the pictures I haven't hung, the bedroom curtains I'd planned to replace still hanging with their stains.  And the biggest dagger of all, this blog with its last entry reading, January 2013. Ugh!! Just stick a knife in me. How sad, one lousy entry.  What insight into the rush and push and pull that was 2013.  I'm not just ready for it to end; I need two more months, two more weeks, two more days.  Surely, I would be able to finish one of those projects, or find the time to write down a few of the meaningful thoughts I'm thinking.
But it's time to lean forward to all that 2014 has to offer. There are new friends to make, new recipes to try, many projects started that could finally come to fruition. What opportunities!  I was reminded most painfully yesterday that life has a crazy way of stopping you in your tracks and reminding you that you get few chances to connect, to love others, to parent your children, to honor your parents and to reach even a small number of your goals.  So this year, starting tomorrow, starting tonight, tell someone you love them, really connect with those people in your life, think of something important that you really want to see happen this year and just take one little step in that direction.  Then another, and then another.

A Dressing Year in Review

The Christmas season brings a lot of family letters about how wonderful everything has been throughout the year and how happy everyone is to be celebrating the holidays.  I would love to say that 2012 has been amazing, but if there was a way to rhyme 12 with sucky, then I’d be writing a poem instead of a post. I'm glad its a new year. Hello, 2013!
We've had some ups and downs in the past year, there is no doubt.  But what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, right?  And we’re all still standing.  The house, on the other hand, is leaning slightly further (to the left, of course).
In March, John got a new job that he really loves working for a craft beer distributor. It is a growing company, and John has become quite knowledgeable about pale ales, porters and lagers, as well as all the necessary safety standards to keep the company and workers safe and productive.  I think our house could use a few OSHA standards.... 
Our summer at the lake was definitely one of the highlights of the year.  We spent many weeks and weekends at the lake starting with Memorial Day.  We had record temperatures throughout the month of July and spent days floating in the lake watching our crazy dog Maisy chase geese across the water. We re-connected with family and friends, and Julia and Ian spent a week at Camp Crosley along with their cousins. 
August brought changes with three kids and three different schools. Julia started middle
school, Ian went to 4^th grade, and Norah began her 2^nd year of pre-school.  Our lazy summer mornings came to an abrupt end as we all have to be out the door by 7:30a.m. We’ve got crazy hair and odd lunches, but we’re there if not on time, then peeling in on two wheels while the bells still ringing! Some days it feels like we do enough juggling and logistics planning to pull off a UN resolution, but we do manage to gather around our own table every night to share the best and worst of our days.
I’ve been embracing semesters as my college made the transition from quarters this fall. I feel extremely lucky to have a career that I love, working with students who often teach me more about life and learning that I could ever share with them.

In October John and Julia were in a pretty bad wreck which totaled the older of two our old cars and finally got us motivated to buy a new vehicle.  So we traveled in style to Thanksgiving dinner in our new Nissan Quest mini-van (though there is nothing mini about it--especially the monthly payment!)

John and I made a new acquaintance this year who pointed out the obvious to us a we were both commiserating about the chaos of raising three kids, having two demanding careers, and a falling down house with a laundry list of repairs.  In a few years we won't have all this mayhem. There won't be little kids who are spilling their cereal and milk at breakfast, and lunch bags that can't be found or permission slips that end of buried at the bottom of a backpack. The days of rushing kids to programs and meetings and remembering last minute that we were supposed to bring a dessert will wane and things will get quieter and calmer. But we are in the thick of it now and we can fight that "out of control" feeling or we can recognize it for what it is: the reality of family life, the joys, the frustrations, the chaos, the exhaustion, the financial stress, the excitement, the support we can give each other for our accomplishments and our failures.

So my wish for 2013 is that we go a little gentler on ourselves. We remind each other as my mother would quote,"this too shall pass."  My wish is that we embrace the simple things in life, create positive memories, yell less often and laugh more.  Happy New Year.

Birthday Blog

Okay, so it isn't officially my birthday anymore since it is now July 26th at 12:54 AM, but since I drove all day from Northern Indiana, unpacked my entire nasty, stinky car, washed all the lakey clothes we've been wearing for the past three weeks, and put all three kids to bed, I'm just now getting around to writing about my birthday.  Where you ask was my husband who has virtually spent every day alone for the past three weeks minus his weekends?  He was watching Jimmy Fallon do impersonations of Bob Dylan and getting his pj's on. This is at 10pm mind you.  On my birthday, mind you. At 11:30 when our daughter is still yelling from her bedroom that she now wants a banana (after the glass of water, the two books, and the wack-a-mole game I had to remove from her) I realize that he is now fast asleep. So Happy Birthday to me!!
After spending the better part of July with my sister and family on the lake, totally relaxing and being on lake time, it is a strange feeling to be back in my own home officially a 42 year old.  I keep expecting to walk out my door and see the lake. I am surprised that I recognize all the towels in my bathroom and that I don't see bathing suits hanging everywhere or the remains of barrel drinks and soda cans scattered randomly around my backyard.  Our return is bittersweet as the turn from mid to late July always is...inching that much closer to the next school year.  All those new changes that we know will happen as we leave one phase of our lives (even if it is just summer) behind us.
Change is good. Change is necessary for growth, right?  I am 42, dammit. I have got to get over being paralyzed by change. Hell, I can't even change my cell phone plan without having an anxiety attack about it.
So I am declaring this the year of 42 to be the year of change.  I am going to embrace change. I am not going to fear change or worry that I have made the wrong decision or be afraid of possible outcomes. I am going to assume the best from change; new opportunities, new challenges, a new outlook.   No regrets.

Right Wing Insanity

How is it that someone can be against abortion and against birth control? I'm very confused by this position. And why, in 2012 are we still talking about contraception as though it were a social issue and not a women's health issue. Why can't one of these very privileged white men just get some balls and remind everyone that we have some pretty serious issues going on in our country that might just be a little more important to talk about than whether your wife, mother, girl friend, sister, aunt, friend, is protecting herself from an unwanted pregnancy. How can you criticize our current president for being a "food stamp" president if you think that no one should have reproductive rights. Don't they see the connection? I wasn't sure that we could get worse than W, but if one of these jokers gets in to office, they might just prove me wrong.

New Year

I am definitely one of those people who believes in "signs" and lives life by gut feelings so when I saw a double rainbow on my first morning run of the new year I was immediately convinced that 2012 will be an excellent year. After all, it is also a leap year which has to be a good sign as well. Every four years we get this opportunity to have one extra day to make a difference.
So here's to a good year, an election year, a leap year, a year of change and beauty and growth and surprises.

New Years Eve 2011

I was looking back at my "new year's resolutions" for 2011 and realized that I mostly failed miserably. Maybe this is why people shouldn't make resolutions. Are they the same thing as goals? Clearly not enough action steps going on if so. I did manage to stay fairly active in 2011 in spite of a shoulder and neck issue that have nearly made it impossible for me to sit in front of a computer for more than an hour without locking up. But my writing, oh my writing, has been a source of avoidance for me. So many ideas, so many things to say...so little time. But if I'm honest, there are just a lot of reasons I avoid writing.
Not to be overly analytical about 2011, but it really was sucky in many ways. I think the tendency to wallow in self pity was pretty strong over the past year. Talk about an unproductive way to spend time. It really gets you no where. At the end of day there is a lot more to be positive about than negative. We are able to give our kids a tremendous amount of love, time and attention even if that doesn't come in the form of a beach vacation. And we have a loving and supportive family that has for the most part been blessed with incredibly good health (knock on wood). We have not joined the dark side of Republicanism which is always something to put on the plus side. And though there were a lot of things that I didn't do there are a few things worth mentioning that did happen:

• we hosted an exchange student from Ecuador who I'm pretty sure nearly froze to death in our 100 year old house
• we went ice skating at least three times
• we celebrated Ian's First Holy Communion
• we spent a long fabulous weekend visiting Dawn and family in Virginia
• we sent our daughter to Ecuador for two weeks in June
• we spent incredible summer days at the lake soaking in the Indiana sun and the freedom from obligations, cell phones, email and video games
• we spent long days and evenings at our pool making new friends and watching our kids three year old become a swimmer
• we watched each of our children get another year older, smarter and more challenging in their own ways
• we threw all caution to the wind and got a dog (we'll see if she's still around for the final 2012 post---the jury is still out)
• we cheered our "lake kids" to their first victory in the annual Cardboard Boat Regatta
• we defeated Senate Bill 5 in Ohio
• we had what always turns out to be the most beautiful Christmas ever

So I won't make any resolutions this year except to try to have faith, focus less on myself (always a good idea), and be truly grateful. And at this very moment I need to also try for patience because the two weeks I've spent with my kids over the break has just about sent me over the edge.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Summer on Lake Tippy

July

Hot summer days. The lake so warm it felt like bath water; we soaked and swam for hours. We watched the Harry Potter flotillas pass by laughing at the Leaky Cauldron and being impressed by the Quiddich players aboard their decked out pontoon boats. Norah learned to swim this summer, fearless in the lake, jumping off the end of the pier and the big blue foam square. She swam out to the floating pier and laughed as she jumped in again and again yelling for us to watch. We ate ice scream at Peytona Bay and waited for the kids to come home from Camp Crosley, first the day campers then the all weekers. Ian and Nick got their feet wet with day camp while Norah and Mallory played all day. We caught up with Julia during the week hearing all about her days in Ecuador. We did a lot of nothing most of the time which is blissful.

It's weird how time at the lake slows down and speeds up simultaneously. The days are long, the sun shining bright at 6am and going strong until well after 9pm and yet the days still seem to fly by in a way that never happens in February. It always seems impossible that it could be dinner time, and bedtime is just an idea, one that we might get around to only after we've got as much out of the day as possible. There's so much fun to soak in- the talks around the deck, the cocktail cruises, the lake baths, the last daylight hour tube ride, the late night card games- that you never want to stop for meals or any kind of schedule. Everything and nothing is happening; children are growing, bodies and souls are re-energizing. An entire afternoon can be frittered away reading a good book or playing Lego's or adjusting the old ski rope to suit 3 year olds to 13 year olds. And yet it all seems so important, so necessary. It's as though we need to store these long hours of freedom for the fall and winter months that are so full of commitments. There are no obligations at the lake except laughter and kindness, picking cherries, chopping up the freshness of summer for a delicious meal or stopping to push a kid on the rope swing. These days of nothing and everything become the marrow we need to survive long after the summer's gone. And July is really when it happens. We've left behind the month of June with all the loose ends of a school year firmly tied. In July we are fully relaxed, we are not thinking about the months to come only about the day at hand; when to eat ice cream, what amazing meal we'll create out of fresh tomatoes and herbs, what boats are speeding by. These days help sustain us through those longer winter months that we know we can't stop from coming, but we don't need to think about now.

August

Birthday weekends, summer golf, food that never tastes better: roasted corn, lake linguine, Bitsy's rice and Judith's assorted pickled veggies. The annex has become the hub for corn hole, euchre games and late night dancing. Long into the muggy nights laughter reaches across the lake as we tell old stories about childhood and new stories about our children growing up on the lake. We sip wine that goes warm quickly and grab our glasses as kids blast by playing kick the can. Daddy Good Shoes has us in stitches with his stories and one liners, "whatever suits your fantasy." August brought surprisingly cooler temperatures and a long weekend filled with preparations for the cardboard boat regatta. We watched in wonder as the Dressing-Read Killer Bees boat defeated the two time champions, the Ace Torpedo to take home the big prize, $200, 2 seafood dinners and two foot tall trophy. The kids on the bay cleaned up winning the three of the top 4 prizes. It was a day we will never forget and will live on in their childhood memories as an unbelievable victory. Later we watched volunteers break the Guinness book record for the Worlds Longest Ice Cream Sundae. We all got spoons and took a big dent out of the over 200 foot long ice cream extravaganza. We rode the newly remodeled Dixie surprised at how much we enjoyed the hour long trek around tiny Lake Webster. August brought a new little being to Tippy in the form of a puppy named Maisey who seems to love the lake as much as her human counterparts. In August we squeezed the last bit out of those precious days before school started; visits to the Fort Wayne Zoo, swimming and soaking up the sun, potluck meals eaten at dusk, last Sunday nights on the lake.

September

Labor Day, festival Friday, early morning departure on Saturday. The biggest monster truck bouncer ever. Papa giving Evan a pie in the face for his birthday, lakeside football games, fishing expeditions, news from our departed away at college. Big front yard shaving cream battles and afternoon s'mores. We've decided the neighbor may never sell his lake house. Bundled up on Sunday as unusually cool weather made it feel more like fall than the end of summer. The smell of dying leaves already fills the air. There were tears as we packed up the fridge and cleaned the rooms, knowing it might be awhile before we all get back again. So we'll remember:

"dancing in September

never was a cloudy day...

say do you remember, dancing in September

golden dreams were shiny days"