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I could write a book about the last month of my life, but now is not the time. Forgive the quirky slide show instead 
And then listen to good music.
(And yes, I am embarrassed by this. I am not an exception to the rule that no one likes to see themselves on camera… But Lil’ E is such a doll )
Whew! The weather firefox add-on at the bottom of my browser is reporting “Now: Sunny, 76 F”, but I just don’t believe it. When the back of your knees are sweating, you know its hotter than hades.
Lil’ E is at nanny Anna’s today, having a ball, no doubt! The chicks are the backyard about to pass out. I am safely tucked away in the house at the moment, where the cool night temps linger. It seems like just last week I was worried about freezing out my newly planted tomato starters- and now the record high temps threaten to burn them up! Tomorrow it is supposed to reach nearly 100 degrees!
All of this is so full-circle, it really is. This time last year, I was selling the last of my belongings that weren’t already packed up. I was preparing to send Hubby off with our car on a 3,000 mile road trip while I finished up the house cleaning before Lil’ E and I flew not far behind him to our new home, Portland, on May 21st. Everything about Portland this time of year was captured by my senses because it was so new and exciting. I familiarized myself with all of the smells, like the lavender, rosemary and sage growing along the sidewalks, as if they were the encapsulated in and only in Portland. The summer heat was familiar, since in many ways the last 23 years of my life was one big summer in Florida. And the evenings were pure bliss, when the skin on my shoulders would tingle as the temperatures dropped off, giving me an excuse to grab a cute shaw and relishing the strange feeling of having stolen extra time by enjoying sunlight until at least 9 pm.
Then I made it through Portland’s grey, drizzly winter. I even made it through the up and down days of early Spring that can play mean tricks on you. I thought that the shift towards Summer would be mighty welcoming, but instead — I must admit — it is bittersweet. This time last year I was saying goodbye and hello so much that my soul was just buzzing from it all. Now the cycle of one year brings all the sights and smells and sounds back again, and all I can think about is that its been 12 months since I have been able to hug my dad, to share a good cry with Steph, or laugh a loud, tipsy laugh with my sister Rachel. And perhaps more depressing- I have no idea if it will be another year, or two, or five, before I will be able to do those things again. This economy and life have left us all pretty darn broke and busy, making the seven hour plane ride seem more like a trek on the “Oregon Trail”, where one will inevitably die of dysentery, or in the very least, lose twelve oxen along the way.
There is nothing to look forward to this time around. While I’ll enjoy the different aspects of Fall, Winter and Spring again, it just won’t be the first time. It won’t be the honeymoon- it will be the marriage. And we all know what marriage is like
Of course, there’s more to it than all of this. There’s a new presidency, (maybe a boost to the economy will create a new job for Hubby), or perhaps we will decide to do something wild and crazy together, (like have another human being with our DNA combination enter the world). Even the low-key, hum drum days of life will no doubt gift me with a nugget of satisfaction or drama, if I keep my eyes open.
Anyway, I’m waiting for June to settle in. Something tells me the grass will look greener in June.
Okay, I debated a little about sharing the following story with you all, I really did. In the end, I have to just get it off my chest.
So after leaving my purse on the Trimet bus last Friday, I found myself goofing up again not two days later on the MAX light rail. Hubby, Lil’ E and I were on our way home from William’s birthday party on Sunday when it happened.
Lil’ E had begun to snooze on my lap, and I wasn’t far behind. Sure enough, another passenger thinks I look like the ideal Chatty Cathy to strike up a conversation with. With all the politeness I could muster, I responded to the man’s questions.
“Oh, he is two and a half”, I replied with a weary smile.
“Oh, that’s a lovely picture of your daughter,” I went on.
The passenger had a heavy set build, a business casual outfit and a OHSU badge (Oregon hospital), along with a bike helmet. That’s about as much as I can remember. He went on to tell me the heights of EVERY MAN in his daughter’s family tree because I was dumb enough to comment that she looks older than 8 in her school photo. Enough, I was thinking, how can I back out of this conversation. Why can’t I be like Hubby and be fine with just completely ignoring people!?
“Wow”, I continued to remark, gradually getting more and more obvious (I THOUGHT!) that I wanted to do just about anything but talk at the moment.
And then it happened.
“That’s crazy”, I said, with a complete lack of enthusiasm. Then I heard myself say, “And how tall is her mother?”
…
First, Hubby jerks his head sideways at me in horror.
Second, the marathon conversationalist takes on a whole new tone.
“Excuse me?!
-I’m a girl!”
…
OHMYGOD. Oh.my.gggaaaaawwwddddd.
It doesn’t even stop there. Had I retained any brain cells, I might have covered up my faux paux with something like, “Oh, sorry, I meant to say her father… heh heh… whew, it’s been a long day!”
But no. No, that’s not what I said.
“Oh, I’m sorry… I — I couldn’t tell…. your…er… hat…er”
(I still contest that there was not one defining feminine trait to this character. NOT ONE!)
I felt like I was melting. I wanted to get off at the next stop and wait for the next train, but I was frozen in my seat.
The man woman ended up shrugging it off and continued to go on and on about his her tall daughter, which only made the whole thing more awkward. I was like three feet off the bus already when he she was still calling out to me the name of the preschool his her daughter attended. I MEAN - HOLY CRAP!
I have no idea how I could have avoided this run in with the anonymously gendered passenger, but sometimes I need to keep MY BIG FAT MOUTH SHUT and let the weirdos talk to themselves.
EDIT: Thanks to the folks at www.trimetiquette.com for agreeing on just how embarrassing that was. 
“In its most profound sense, beauty may engender a salient experience of positive reflection about the meaning of one’s own existence.” -Wikipedia
“Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it” -Confucius
“Beauty is not caused. It is.” -Emily Dickinson
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” - Used by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inaugural speech
Yep, one Gold Sex-Link, one Maran, and one Rhode Island Red. I got them at two weeks old so they won’t be in the brooder (a box with heat lamp) in our kitchen for more than about 4 weeks. Yay! What should I name them???
Here’s what I’ve designed for a portable coop and run so far. It’s using the old rabbit hutch as a coop for them to lay, and then building a predator proof run from 2×4’s and wire mesh walls against it. Exciting stuff, huh?
We’ve got a great little backyard, as you can see from these photos of Lil’ E and his new bud from the “child-swap” situation, Finn. All it needs is a few chickens!
Why raise chickens in your backyard? BackyardChickens offer these reasons:
For more information about raising backyard chickens, check out the following links!
BackyardChickens.com
MadCityChickens.com
Livingscape Nursery; Chicken Fest (where we got our chicks!)
Urban Agrarian blog
wiki-How; Keeping Chickens in the City
The City Chicken
My Pet Chicken
This week held some surprises for me, some struggles and uprooting too. I enjoy having family and friends into our home, but as we all know, it invariably can bring with it the added history, dynamics, habits, and so on. Having company or living in close proximity with family or friends is one of the hardest ways I have had to “learn” community. It can unveil covered up resentment, bitterness and grudges in ways that only a close community can. You can find yourself, as I did a lot in the last few weeks, spouting off things you never thought about first, surprising yourself at your own subconsious (?) level of downright ugliness.
If I had a dollar for all of the unforgiveness that goes on in me and in my home, let me tell you, that tax refund would pale in comparison!
The discussion at Evergreen today was on this idea of peace, both with God and with others. Forgiveness and reconciliation were facets to peace that resonated with me in a “holy crap, you’ve tapped my prayers” kinda way. I had been learning some major junk lately about having more grace and mercy with others, and seeing how many things I thought I had forgiven that I truly had not (and all the countless things I need forgiveness for, 99% of which I am grossly oblivious too, which I also suppose needs forgiving.) It was just last night that I sat on the floor in my dark room asking for peace, and experienced a few moments, maybe whole minutes, where the room inside my mind went quiet and what I heard was this:
There is an eternity.
I didn’t expect that. It certainly wasn’t what I was praying about, on first glance. But the more that sentence sunk in (and it had to, because there were literally no other words or thoughts in my head but this, despite my best effort!), the more I realized that the pain or chaos I feel is universal, recycled, shared- and that the fact that there is an eternity some how makes this one moment where I am pleading for God to calm the storm of anger or hurt in me a little bit, well, okay. I mean, think about it. There is an eternity. An eternity to feel, to heal, to grow, to love. And- there is a God of that eternity, a God of me, who can fill all of my deepest emptiness with everything that is full.
Whether this is true to you or not, this is going on in my life.
What followed church this morning was a lovely day, a chilly but “bright, bright, bright, sunshiny day”. Even included my first Voodoo doughnut (YUM-OH!) (… and NO, if you happen to look at the menu… I did not order a cock-n-balls. That’s just nahs-tey.)
P.S. Have I mentioned lately just how much I love my family? Cause I really, really do.
Of course, watching the eclipse from the rooftop last night made Lil’ E want to sing about twinklin’ stars… on about the third round (he went on and on) I grabbed it on the camera’s video (sorry about the sideways thing!)
It’s been awhile since I’ve shared some photos!
Check us out, doin this or that around town. Snapped some shots of what my last post described- the opened tulips, the many Spring shoots and early blooming flowers! Check out Peter Rabbit runnin around, as well as the melted crayola “stain glass” butterflies we made today! Can anyone say “Spring Has ALMOST Sprung?!”
We’ve been going to a new church for a couple of weeks, (I’ll be sure to blog about this another time in more detail). This church happens to meet at a pub house, and after service a good bit of the church stays around to order lunch and hang out with each other. Due to our increasing need to save money, we split a lunch last week and snacked on a bowl of salted in-shell peanuts. Yum!
When we saw how much Lil’ E enjoyed them, we bought a big bag at Whole Foods. Today our downstairs neighbors and friends were out on the back porch and told us that this bird has been eating peanuts out of their hand! I quickly joined the fiasco (anything to avoid work, I tell ya!) by opening up the window and handing the bird peanuts we bought this week. We’ve been feeding this Western Scrub-Jay all afternoon, he is very friendly and comes right up to our windowsill for a snack (see video). Apparently they are known for hoarding brightly colored objects (I had to fend Hubby off of my few pieces of jewelry when he read that!)
Just had to give “Scrub” an honorary mention in my blog!
