Our Olympic Bests

In my earliest Olympic memory my sister and I are running around in identical, star-spangeled, Mary Lou Retton leotards. I am doing my best 3 year old tricks, somersaulting, jumping off our couches, throwing my arms up in the air like I’ve just landed a perfect 10, and arguing with my sister about who gets the gold medal. 
That was just the first of many good, Olympic, times. 


I hear the trumpets of the Olympics theme song and I start to salivate.  I basically love all things Olympics. I’ll eat terrible food at McDonalds just to play their ‘Olympic Monopoloy.’ I totally dig the faces of athletes that show up on random cereal boxes and TV advertisements. I relish staying up late at night to watch sports I don’t give a rip about . . . well, until the Olympics. I love the sappy backround stories that make you feel, in some small way, connected with champions.  I love the camaraderie forged with family, friends, and complete strangers from the shared experience of cheering, holding your breath, and celebrating your favorite victories.  



Some of these games have been, I’d even say, life changing. I will never forget the surge of energy that burst into my life when the Shannon Miller, Keri Strug, and the U.S. women beat Russia and won the Gymnastics All-Around gold in ’96. I was 12 years old and on cloud-9 for weeks.


I was already enamored with soccer when Mia Hamm and team U.S.A. won the soccer Gold in 2000. As a junior in high school, in my soccering hay-day, those women inspired me to practice harder. They made me  proud to be a woman athlete.  I bought a poster of them that I hung by my bed,  later I brought them (via wall hanging)with me to college.


I treasure the memories of being a new mom holding my little baby Liam and watching Michael Phelps win medal, after medal, after medal, after medal . . .


The Olympics brings out the happier, more motivated self in all of us.  I’d like to think, no matter the age, we all have that 3 year old in us that wants to do tricks and prove themselves to the world.  I think we all have an untapped potential we know we can harness- if we can just reach down a little deeper. There is a spark within us that is waiting to be lit, a great ‘Mary Lou Retton self' waiting to take a leap. 

       This week lawns in the city of DeWitt, Michigan (our former Michigan home) are decorated with signs saying “Go Jordyn, Team USA!” as they encourage their hometown girl, and gold all-around hopeful, Jordyn Weiber.  I worked with her mom at the DeWitt YMCA (she is an exercise physiologist) and have met Jordyn a few times before.  They are amazing people and well deserving of any good thing, gold medlas included, that come their way. It’s always fun to have an extra reason to cheer and I wish them the best of luck.

Liam's art show

Liam is a creative soul. His imagination runs wild and he can be in a pretend world for days. It seeps out in his drawings. Some of these are a few months old and some of these are hot off the press. He likes to draw boy-ish things like sharks, and surfers and dinosaurs eating other dinosaurs and dedicate them to his mom or dad. Every parent needs a kid like Liam.

a jig for grandma

Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of my Grandma Marilyn’s death .  My grandma was always there for me, and I undeniably feel her absence.  

 I wanted to play something on my violin as a tribute to her. I planned on playing something by a great classical composer, with movements that expressed weighty things like love, dying, and resurrection.  These are things I’ve thought a lot about the past year. But instead, these days whenever I picked up my violin, and thought about my grandma, I just wanted to play something fun . . so I went with it.

It seems authentic to my feelings about grandma to play music that makes me want to get up and dance.  My relationship with her was easy, undiluted joy. It was uncomplicated, full of good times, and instant gratification. It was a jig.

Unlike classical, when you fiddle, it doesn’t have to be perfect. You can take it for what it is- unpolished, a little spunky, a little off pitch at times, and still love it.  That’s exactly what my grandma did for me.

 (Our kids had stolen our camera and were yelling at us to be quiet.  It's the first of many jam sessions, and they're bound to get better. )

My Summer Book Shelf

In the summer time when the kids are running through the sprinklers, I try to sneak away for a few minutes and melt into a good book. I've been on a spree of engaging, well written books, most of them memoirs. Here's what's on my summer book shelf.

If I could give this 6/5 stars, I would. It's brilliant. This memoir is charming, funny, and introspective. The author's style is enjoyable and the book reads much more like fiction than a biography. It's the tale of a terribly normal girl born into a family of hill billies and is even better than it sounds, or the first few chapters lead you to believe. The characters are endearing and the end left me cheering and wishing I hadn't read so fast.
This book is well written, reflective, cheeky, and a fun summer read. I heard the authors interview on NPR about her upcoming novel- about a stressed corporate gal turned laid-back, middle-of-nowhere Midwestern pie maker, and was enchanted.

I love stories where people ditch their prudent plans in exchange for a more satisfying, but irresponsibly uncertain, route. People that are simultaneously intelligent and reckless sometimes make the world go round. 

I also dig her spartan, minimalist lifestyle (the author ditched her belongings now currently lives in a historic home and pays $200/month rent.) I covet the lifestyle of people completely unoccupied with stuff- acquiring stuff, worrying about other peoples stuff, fixating on their stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff.

Just a few blocks from our old home, in the charming DeWitt, Michigan community, there is a sinfully tasty pie shop I fell in love with. It's the work of a baker who baked her way out of depression. She created a place to make memories and comfort food that was nostalgic. I visited her shop both on sad rainy days and blissfully happy days and her food was instant sunshine to my soul. When I read this book, I couldn't help but want to eat more pie, and be happy.
  
I'd rate it a 4/5, just because the excitement tapers off by the end.
 
4/5 stars- I love memoirs because they have soul. These days that's all I seem to want to read.  A memoir allows the author to tell about themselves while pointedly narrating an experience, teaching a complicated lesson, and asking big picture questions. 

 I saw this title on a recommended book list and checked it out not knowing what it was about. I read it and it generated more thoughts than I was expecting.  Since my grandmas passing last year I have spent time objectively thinking about grieving, and contemplating the meaning of relationship and their loss.

The award winning author talks about death, trying to grasp reality, and directing emotions. She tells a story of struggling with her husbands abrupt death and her daughters sudden life threatening illness. This book is NOT motivating but it IS profound. It's one of those books that seems so wise that you dog-ear the pages, even of the library's copy, (sorry librarians!) and promise you'll go back and write down quotes (which I didn't).

I wanted to love this book, I really did.

A few years ago when I first heard about Stephanie Nielsons story of her tragic plane accident, and her emotional and physical rebirth, I was absolutely stunned and inspired.

I camped out in front of my computer and read everything I could on her courageous story- I read her blog, I saw her mormon.org video, I watched news interviews, and even checked out a design book from our library of which she had contributed.

I am absolutely fascinated with Stephanie's story and very much motivated by her the grateful way she lives her life, her deliberate way of parenting, and her ability to overcome.

That said, her book was poorly written.
I can't seem to figure out how she can be so engaging on her blog, have such a heartening story to tell, and then produce a book that is well, . . .boring. Her writing style, tone and voice, reads much less like a cute mommy/design blogger and more like my great- grandmas family history account. Great story, but I just couldn't stomach the book.  Rating of 2.5/5 stars


3/5 stars-  Jodi Picoult is an amazing writer. Her books are always fast-paced and her characters are endearing. Her narrative skills still shine through here but this book lacks the engaging, amicable plot of her other best sellers.

 5/5 stars-
What's more exciting than spies? When it comes to action books this novel is as good as it comes, I devoured it. Great, meaty plot with a handsome CIA hero, just watch out for

fireworks

July 4th, Hapers Ferry, WV

West Virginia is so under-rated. 

Our July 4th  felt very American.  We took a spontaneous road trip to the quaint and charming town of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. There we took a dip in the Shenandoah river, strolled the brick streets and visited the civil war history museums.

 

adjusting my timeline and re-gifting advice

 

               This week I woke up to a full-grown german cockroach stuck to my foot, I'm still gagging about it.

 On a day of 100 degree heat, right before we were about to go to sleep, we found the mother-ship roach nest. It was nestled under the crusty, ancient, layers of linoleum under our fridge. I moved the fridge and was bombarded by streams of roaches, some dead, some alive.  I spent the next few hours traumatized, frantically pulling up old flooring, and getting all sticky with adhesive and grout. Ugg.

The next day Liam looks behind the couch pumps his fist in the air and yells “Two mice down, One hundred to go!” We had caught yet another mouse via our Snickers baited mouse traps.  I couldn't help but roll my eyes. These pests seem to show up cyclically and so while they’re nothing new, they’re getting old.  I’m becoming less tolerant of ghetto shenanigans. I guess it’s the price of affordable D.C. rent, and living within our budget.   

You see, this was supposed to be the summer we ‘made it big.’  It was supposed to be the year we finished up with grad school, Brady got a cush job, we moved into a legit house, I got geared up for grad school, and we surged right on to the next phase of our lives. But opportunities came our way.  Plans changed.

 We jumped ship into a business school (which was a fantastic and potentially lucrative decision!) Also, a few papers, and a masters degree, took longer than we bargained for. So . . . we’ve added 2 more years  to our grad school timeline.

It’s really not a big deal, ‘cause we’re enjoying the ride. Brady is working really hard, with lots to show. I love living here in D.C.. I relish the simple life with my adorable family.  There is no possibility of me getting bored.  But there's something about the passing of that original, outgrown, grad school “due date” that makes me impetuous. I makes me want to jump the gun and throw out my budget.  It makes me want to beg Brady to irresponsibly ditch school for road trips. I’m starting to crave things that I have long deemed off limits- luxuries like new furniture and central A/C.  

Recently a YMCA intern in one of my classes told me her saga about getting rejected from physical therapy schools and consequentially being thrown for a loop.  With surprising ease, I busted out the line “Just because something isn’t happening right now, doesn’t mean it’s never going to happen. Give it time.”

 It felt good, in fact great, to re-gift advice. Especially advice I’m still currently using and haven’t quite made my own.  Hearing my own words made me think that maybe I have actually learned something about patience.  It also made me realize that I need to just cool my jets and roll with it the punches.  

So that’s what I’ll do.

Slip n' slides are endlessly fun.



 We spent the day at the coast playing spies and making a spy training obstacle course. Liam was "Mitch Rapp," the CIA operative. We also collected a lot of sand and a few sunburns. 
Liam had me take this last picture "so dad could see how far I can go."