Honor wants to be an aquarist (aka a fishkeeper).

Eden wants to be a veterinarian.

College fund, let’s be friends…

I’m starting to think that the ways I’ve changed are pretty apparent, that they show on my face, in my skin. I try not to talk too much about my personal life to my customers, but sometimes it just comes tumbling out… with the safe ones. The ones who also share some vulnerability with me. Today I was talking with a customer who knows a little bit about what happened to me, telling her how I am so much like a man (traditionally) that I need something to conquer or I’m bored. And she said, Well, you conquered the last year.

Yes I did. And this last year, year 30, has been the very best and happiest of my life.

My lessons right now are about living in community and loving exactly where I am. I’ve seen growth in some of my friends lately, that gradual kind, like most growth is, that changes so slowly that you don’t see it at first until suddenly you are looking at a completely different version of the person you once knew. It’s been amazing to watch and walk through. It almost feels like those milestones and changes are happening to me. I imagine it’s kind of how they feel about me, especially looking back at all those months and months where they sat with me, a hollow shell of myself, waiting for the growth to creep into my life.

I had never really learned how to live in community… it wasn’t modeled to me, and I’ve always lived my life so privately, quietly, almost in secret. It’s amazing the freedom that comes from saying things out loud, admitting your fears and your failures and your heart breaks. It’s really easier than keeping it all locked up where it gnaws and claws it’s way to the light.

I can’t help but feel these lessons, and these changes, are some of the most important I’ll ever learn. I’ve come so far… so, so far from where I was. I came from total abandonment and feeling orphaned to a place where I belong. To people who love me and accept me and can argue with me and I don’t have to worry that they will leave because of it. I get the honor and pleasure of walking with them through their journeys, the happiness and heartache. I get to see God be God in their lives, working miracles tiny and large, gradual and fast.

I see redemption happening, the redemption that I’ve longed for so deeply for these past almost four years. Redemption, redemption, redemption… a word that I wrote over and over, a silent prayer that I begged for every day. It doesn’t look anything like I wanted it to or what I pictured it to be, but it is exactly what it should be, exactly what I needed it to be.

We’re still new to some of these holidays and I’m still not really sure about celebrating them, but since we are in a participating phase and it’s important to our family that we join in, we celebrated Easter. ish.

I didn’t do Easter baskets for the kids, but they did get to go on their first Easter Egg hunt and my aunt helped them dye eggs. We spent the day at my Aunt and Uncle’s house (as we do most holidays) and it was wonderful. The weather was perfect, which is so hit and miss around Western Colorado these days.

Carrie didn’t want to miss out on the kids first Easter.

My Aunt’s chickens.

My cousin was real excited about Easter.

The kids with a family friend.

Carrie, wearing my glasses, pretending to be a hipster.

Gunnison scooting backwards

I asked Siri to remind me to go get Honor…

This was my very first cell phone. My mom has it at her house for the kids to play with.

Just, you know, hiking on a Tuesday night. What a place we live in…

I got a cool letter from our Senator about the helmet liner project we do at Tangle. We’ve sent out almost 800 so far.

Experimenting with roasting Peeps. I burned myself pretty badly on the melted sugar, but roasted Peeps are amazing. The sugar coating gets all crispy and delicious.

Eden in the hospital waiting to get staples in her head. She and Honor got in a fight involving Honor getting kicked in the eye and Eden getting a metal water bottle thrown at her head. The wound was really, really gushy so Carrie drove us to the ER while I applied pressure to Eden’s head. 3 hours later, she got two staples and we got to go home.

I had the brilliant idea of baking Cadbury Eggs into cupcakes. I froze them solid before dropping them into the batter, but they still melted too much. Maybe next year I’ll just hollow out the middle of an already baked cupcake and drop one in.

Yesterday we found this ginormous Black Widow spider hanging out in the back yard.

Me at my second Fly Fishing lesson. I now know how to cast and roll cast!

Monday
Pasta with shrimp and radishes

Tuesday
Takeout from Pollo Azado (mmmmm)

Wednesday
Grilled chicken sausages and veggie salad

Thursday
Fend for yourself

Friday
Brazilian black beans with rice and grilled chicken

Saturday
Breaded tilapia pan fried in olive oil, spinach salad

Sunday
Roasted free range chicken and garlic, fingerling potatoes, steamed veggies

I’ve been living my life in phases. Currently I’m in the experiences and participating phase. I feel like I’ve been living my life so backwards. First I was married and had kids, now I’m dating and living with roommates. I’m just soaking up every experience I can. I feel like so much of my past life was lived asleep and now that I’m awake to the world, feeling so alive, I want to gobble it all up… everything I can. So I’m learning about sports and learning to fly fish and reminding myself that I CAN do things when before I didn’t think I could. I’m deciding if I like shrimp and ribs and colorful skinny jeans and long hair. And when experiences turn out not as good as I want (dudes, if you invite a girl out to coffee, ALWAYS PAY FOR IT) I remind myself that I still had the experience. I now know what that feels like, for a little while I got to live it. Carrie always reminds me that each experience is just material for my (someday) book.

I don’t say NO very much (participating) because now is the time to try things and saying NO takes away people’s chance to welcome us into their hearts. So we celebrate holidays we’ve never celebrated. The kids went on their first-ever Easter egg hunt last weekend because I wanted them to try it and see what they thought. (They are having a little bit of hard time wrapping their head around this new phase of life.) And we go hiking and we light campfires in the back yard even though the dudes aren’t around and we clean up the yard by ourselves (because we CAN) and I sit in church all by myself (and find out that it’s one of my favorite things to do alone). And I learn to live in community, to let people lift me and the kids up when I can’t do it all.

I feel proud of myself for being a little bit brave. For wanting to try new things and not fearing the inevitable failure that might come. I feel so thankful that I am so awake, so alive. That I SEE the world around me and that I’ve found a way to be SO content in the life I live RIGHT NOW. That I’m not really wishing for much because what I have is pretty great. That I am whole and enough and loved. And that there is so much more out there to experience!

On Sunday Carrie and I threw a baby shower for our dear friend Danielle who is expecting her first baby, a boy. We hosted the shower at Tangle (which is a great place to have parties!) and it was so much fun!

Mama Danielle looking beautiful.

the goodies lined up on the counter

We served everything on stacks of old china. My collection is ever-growing.

Our color theme was aqua and orange.

Everyone, young and old, is always impressed with chocolate covered marshmallows.

Fruit filled waffle cones are one of my most favorite things in the world.

The straws are from Shop Sweet Lulu.

mason jar’s are my favorite

I didn’t get to take pictures of Danielle opening her presents from me so she was kind enough to send these to me. A camo baby sweater with my signature orange stripe.

And a super soft blanket made from a plush yarn.

There’s a sign in the gym, above the weights, that says:

You’re getting stronger.

I usually don’t pay much attention to the signs at the gym as I think they are really cheesy, but I can’t count how many times I’ve been struggling to do my last bicep curl and my eyes focused on that sign and I believed it. I can’t count how many times I’ve been at the gym, with a hurting heart, and my gaze wandered over to that sign.

You’re getting stronger.

and I believed it.

I’ve spent a lot of time in my life being unkind to myself.  Wishing my thighs were smaller or my stomach was flatter or my eyelashes were longer… that I was a nicer person, more friendly or that I could be outgoing and charming in a room full of strangers.  I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but somewhere in the midst of accepting that my husband was leaving me, I learned to give myself a little bit of a break. I started appreciating my body for the curves that it has and I started really believing in my creative abilities, that they were something special.  I started liking the person that I was, seeing what other people saw, that I was fun to be around and actually pretty amazing. It’s amazing how much easier life is when we treat ourselves with kindness.

So I continue this practice of believing. When somebody pays me a compliment, I believe them.  When a friend admires a strength that I possess, I believe them. And when the sign at the gym tells me I’m getting stronger, I believe it.  Because, after all, it’s true.