Little did she know...

WHAM. I was hit with the smell of the juniper bush I had parked by. It instantly took me back to 1998 and my grandparent's driveway and hot summer afternoons at the pool and early morning walks to the cafe for breakfast and popsicles on the back porch and the peculiar smell of the garage and games of Aggravation and UNO and mandatory nap time and driving the golf cart and always choosing the same movie from the library and binge reading Hank the Cow Dog and always having dessert after dinner and the magic of being a kid and the magic of having those wonderful grandparents to invest in my life and shoot do I miss them. 

I think as kids we don't really grasp hardship and hurting. We certainly don't fully grasp the finality of death.  It's also assumed that hard things happen to other people and not us and certainly not regularly. I guess maybe we carry some of that into adulthood, the idea that hardship is a fleeting, foreign thing. Reality, however, has proven that hardship in one form or another is a constant. We carry hurt with us. We love, therefore we are vulnerable, therefore we can be broken. I can't resist a Coldplay quote here:  "Nobody said it was easy.  No one ever said it would be this hard." Also, as Jack Johnson so aptly summed up my childhood:  "We used to laugh a lot, But only because we thought That everything good Always would Remain." I realize it is naive and straight up false to say that every child lives a blissful, hurt-free life. There is SO MUCH hurt and darkness that children face every day all around us. And certainly I faced my...

My little town faced fire a few weeks ago. Homes and lives were in danger.  It's a little surreal when you get the orders to grab the essentials and leave your home.  My life and home were never in imminent danger, but I had friends who could stand at their door and see flames headed straight to their home. Scary.  I don't like hard situations when I'm in them, but this reinforced to me again how great my community is here. As several of us rushed around to get out the door, we had a whole army of people offering help and beds and food. We had an influx of texts and calls to make sure we knew we needed to leave.  And the very next day? God's grace fell on our town. Rain to wash away the smoke, to put out the smolders, to bring sweet relief.  "...For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." Matthew 5:45

How do you sum up a decade of same-town, growing pains, laughter and tears friendship?  We knew each other fresh out of high school and watched each other find jobs and fall in love and mature and grow our families and we blinked and here we are: packing boxes and sweating and wiping down counters and laughing about memories and giving ourselves crying headaches because how do you say goodbye after all of that?  I don’t know.  But I do know that that sort of friendship looks an awful lot like this #glamorshot  It’s familiar. It’s comfortable. It’s my kid and your kids and toys all over the floor and our bellies too full of good food. And I can’t wait to do it again so get that guest room ready.  #thetrampcasa

Who knew that  The sight of a crumpled up sock Could make me cry Who knew that A few weeks would turn into a few months Would turn into a forever love Who knew that  Little humans who have seen so much loss Could be so brave Who knew that  Sometimes it is the hardest thing to trust God's hand Should we choose to believe his love Who knew that  Saying goodbye when nothing makes sense Could still foster peace Who knew that  The sight of a crumpled up sock Would make me cry

Just a little shout out to the man I call my husband (well, he is literally my husband, I don't just call him that ;) ). Here is to my hard-working husband who is willing to go above and beyond to do his best and be the best LEO that he can be. Sometimes this means that I get annoyed at him for working extra hours he doesn't technically have to work, but he does it because it's the right thing to do -and that integrity is part of the reason I married him in the first place. Here is to the countless times that he has resolved situations with homicidal/suicidal people so that everyone was able to leave alive. I have just a tiny handful of times that I remember him telling me "I almost had to shoot someone today". I know there's more times that he has never shared with me. Here's to the times he has gone to buy food/diapers/formula, the times he has gotten off shift and gone to wait with kids who have to be put in the foster system because he has a ...

Does it go without saying that I miss you? Because I do. Not every second of every day. But usually at an unexpected time, some sound or smell or song or movie or whatever will remind me of you. Lots of times it brings a smile to my face. Other times, it makes me want to cry.  Over the past couple of years I kept wanting to tell you about everything you are missing out on.  You were right. I had a baby boy. He's two now. He likes cheese and dancing (among many other things). We have taken him camping and hiking, and I have you to thank for teaching me to love the outdoors and the joys of camping (even in all the extreme weather conditions we seemed to attract). We have had weddings. And sibling reunions. And the cutest little Brasilian Johnson you have ever seen. We have had graduations and growth. Lots of mundane changes. Lots of extreme changes. A lot of crying and a lot of laughing. And you are missing it. That makes me deeply sad. But the more I th...

I think this was the year 2013. And here is a smattering of my summer.  I'll see how well my memory serves me to tell you what is happening. Remnants from a weekend at Hills Alive. My brother and I bought matching Honey Badger shirts #NoRegurts My niece gave me this picture from Choir Tour 2010. I love it. New TOMS. Too big. Still.  "Ask Salesperson for Mate" I think this is the floor to Custer Ambulance Service. But, don't quote me on that. Harney Peak. All the heart eyes. Sturgis Rally: best part is the snacks in the Emergency Department. A snake in the ambulance service parking lot. A Dew Drop Inn date (come back, Phil). My B.I.L in his space.   Harney Peak with some Texas Friends. Santa in the Summer. This brings back so many great (and not so great) work memories! Jarrett W in all his blonde hair glory. Phil in all his drummer dreams. I don't know, but I think...

Incase you were wondering, I still am not a huge fan of that ol' change business. I don't care if it's a life-direction change or a friend-moving change or a person-I-love-died change. It's not my favorite thing.  " With any change comes loss and all loss needs to be grieved ."  Grief is such a weird and hard and (sometimes) beautiful place to be in. While you are the one walking through your grief, it can be dark and hopeless and such a rollercoaster of emotions. If you are the one walking with someone else in their grief, it can be weird and awkward and uncomfortable.  I was listening to a podcast about walking with students during grief. It really pinpointed my inclination to put clarifiers or permissions on other people's ability to grieve in whatever situations. I want to look at other people grieving what I deem a trivial loss and scoff. "You don't know what real loss is."  I think we see this exacerbated in social media. There...

I remember when my class and I were getting ready to graduate from Bible school. We were a tight group of students, and the thought of impending, "permanent" separation was causing a little bit of anxiety and sadness. I remember writing something in my journal about a couple of classmates to the effect of wishing I could keep them in my back pocket because of their ability to make me die laughing, take me outside my comfort zone, and generally cause life to be much more enjoyable. One of those people was Dustin DeFord.  Today, June 30, marks four years since the fire in Arizona that took his life.  I remember the last time I saw him as he drove to his new hotshot job with the Granite Mountain Hotshots. He showed up unexpectedly with an incredible amount of belongings both inside and outside of his Jeep. He explained his bald head and bushy facial hair, "I have to be clean shaven for my job". #classic  We only got to visit for a short time before he he...

If you have been reading this blog for longer than two seconds, you most likely have been with me for some pretty painful blogging years (let's be real: they probably aren't over). Those early days -yikes. I have long held to the personal principal that I started this blog for fun, and that's how I want to keep it -however weird it may get at times. I don't want to feel like I have to produce content to keep up the page views or to sell a product or to get some Pinterest pins.  I think (ok KNOW) part of that is due to pride. In other words, if I am not feeling like I have anything to publish here that will be The Best, and get a lot of shares or comments or ... whatever... then I don't want to do it. A lot of what Amelia wrote recently resonated with me in that regard. I read a lot of blogs. I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who blog. I am guilty of condescendingly rolling my internal eye-balls at people I feel like are just blogging to get the page c...

(an open letter, or,  Why I Am Not Broken Hearted to have a New Baby in This Crazy, Messed-Up World.) I saw you this election year. You were on fire. You were using your time in the public spotlight to stand for and promote what you so strongly believe in. You stood alongside your choice for the presidential race, and you campaigned right through voting day.  I'm with you (kinda). I think that women are strong, capable, powerful, and wise world-shakers. It's astounding to think that just a "few" years ago, women were not even allowed to vote in this country, yet here we are and women are holding political offices and running for president. Then, like you, I watched in disbelief as Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.  However, unlike you, I wasn't devastated. I was not hopeless. I did not spend that night or the next few days in mourning.  And I most certainly am not broken hearted to have given birth to my son the same year that ...

I did a bit more "cheating" for this week of pictures. I prefer to call it "borrowing" from other days. ;)  11. create my sister is really great at creating teachable experiences that are woven into every day moments. 12. night life technically, this was sunrise. but in my mind, same same. 13. musical the baby cousins. also, my focusing skills are lacking. 14. happy day Uncle Jon is the best. 15. cuddle 16. discover 17. the boss good thing he's cute. 18. oops don't worry, I helped her up. 19. special all of my plant babies come from special people in my life and from special times in my life.  20. silliness singing songs during missionary conference brings out the silliness in the adults, as these kids soon discovered. 21. favorite photo this is not a picture of my favorite photo (how would I ever choose?), but it is my favorite photo that I took that day.