Day Three: Like a Good Neighbor

Well, there are good ways to meet the neighbors and then there are…somewhat more exciting ways to meet the neighbors. One option, of course, is to have your carbon monoxide detectors go off right as you're bathing the twins before bedtime so that you have to call the fire department and evacuate the whole family to the front porch. This is effective. But maybe not quite the first impression you want to make.

The other option is to bake a batch of your aunt's spice cake, write your name on the mini-loaf tin, and take it to them in person. Apologies for disrupting the entire neighborhood as the fire truck drove around and around (siren blaring) trying to find your home are optional.

I like knowing my neighbors. The first Saturday we were here, one of our back door neighbors threw a huge party. With lots of loud music and raucous laughter. That lasted until 4 in the morning. If I had known them, I would've taken the twins over and left them to party on down together while I got some sleep. Needless to say, we did not make it to church the next morning.

At one point during the night, I realized that shutting the window might (possibly) help keep out some of the revelry, so I went to close it, but the Man thought I was going to the window to yell at them. The fact that he thought that was a remote possibility makes me laugh even now (can we say, "hello, doormat!"), but I did consider taking spice cake to them today to heap coals of fire on their head. I didn't. Mostly because I selfishly wanted to save some of said spice cake for our family.

But really, party city aside, I think we have some awesome neighbors (one of them brought welcome flowers and another one gave us fish which I now need to figure out how to cook). And next time our back door neighbors decide to get their party on, I think I'm just going to grab the twins and go down and join them. It's not like we're not up anyway!

And meeting the neighbors means friends, and friends mean a support group, and a support group means sanity. I mean, as much as that's possible for me.

Also (PS), as the kids and I were walking to the playground after making the rounds on our street, someone waved at me while driving by, and lo and behold, it was a woman from the Bible study I dragged myself to on Tuesday. So disrupting the twins' morning nap and enduring an entire day of over-tired, screaming babies may have been worth it after all because I'm making friends and doggone it, people like me.

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Day Two: Bookish Roots

Let me start off by confessing that it seems I can't recite Goodnight Moon from memory after all. I tried to give Bruiser his literary moment before bed tonight, but the sun had already set and the lamp in his room has not been "all there" since the move and turning on the overhead light when reading to a supposedly drowsy baby would be a travesty. And anyway, I flubbed a few lines. It happens. Confession over.

That aside was less off topic than you would suppose. Today, the kids and I tackled yet another milestone of moving. We went and got library cards. Because when you haven't made friends yet, you need a few books to fill the silence.

Our haul for the day.

I'm keeping today short and simple, just about books in this time of life. I thought I'd tell you that I have officially reached the goal I set for myself with every move: there are books in every room.

There's a basket of recipe books in the kitchen (is it cheating to count that?) and at least a handful in every bathroom, including the half bath--so if you take a really long time in there when you come visit, you have the less embarrassing excuse of "I really got sucked into your Indonesian Bible!" Of course there are books in each bedroom and a couple decorative piles in the spare room to entertain our guests.

Really, books are the best form of decoration. Other people know how to hang curtains or layer throw pillows. I know how to stack books.

The stacking part is extra important these days because one of our bookshelves died in the move. Could I expect anything else from a Walmart bookshelf? They always desert you in your hour of need.

Unfortunately, it seems that Bee has a strong aversion to libraries.
She starts crying the second we walk through the door.
Every time.
But this picture is proof that the dislike is not rooted in bibliophobia.

Anyway, what does this have to do with transition, you ask?

Putting down roots takes time. Making friends that are not ink and paper requires multiple encounters and a lot of effort. Making a home is more than unpacking boxes and spreading your stuff around a house; the house must be filled with memories and laughter and the smell of coffee and fresh baked bread. Finding your place in community, whether that be your city, your neighborhood, or your church, takes risk and adventure and vulnerability.

So going to the library for a library card was putting down one tiny wavering root to hold me in place over the next few months. Making plans with the kids to go back to the playground by the lagoon next week: another root. Finding places in my home for the things that matter (in my case, books) is rooting me here too.

And yes, sometimes I've wondered if it wouldn't be easier to be unrooted these next fifteen months, to enjoy the Man and the kids and the ocean and not worry so much about friends and library cards. But you know what doesn't happen without roots? Growth.

So I'm putting down roots by putting in for a library card, putting out books to enjoy, and putting together plans for the future.

Find the rest of the series here!

Day One: In the Between

I grew up in the city where people came for language school. Friends cycled in, their parents learned the language, and then they cycled back out. My sisters left for boarding school, and then college. I left for boarding school, and then college. I married the Man, and the military trotted us from one end of the country to the other. I'm still holding out hope that at some point, they'll ship us back overseas. Regardless, if there's one thing I know and know well, it's transition.

In fact, I'm currently going through yet another life change as we adjust to a new house, try to find new friends, and figure out a new city. So I thought for the next 31 Days, you could come to this space, grab a cup of coffee (or tea, it's your preference), and we could talk some about transition, the fun things and the not so fun.

I'll write about adjusting, making friends, getting involved, and what it's like to drag kids along. I'll share plenty of stories and hopefully a few books to inspire and encourage. And you feel free to chime in with suggestions, deep thoughts, and your own tales of trauma and triumph because remember, I'm going through this right now and even though I should be a pro by now, I still need all the help I can get.

This page will be the jumping off point for the whole series, and I will link each post at the bottom in the order they are written. We'll spend the next month here talking about life in the between, when home is neither here nor there and you're still figuring out where everything is at the new grocery store.

Consider this your introduction. And to kickstart our month, I'm going to send you over to my sister's blog where she wrote so eloquently about experiencing home around the world. It's long but it's funny and there are lots of pictures, so man up and read it! Then come back tomorrow as we start unpacking (haha, that pun had to be made) this subject together.

Day Two: Bookish Roots
Day Three: Like a Good Neighbor
Day Four: Blurbs for Between
Day Five: Questions by Blondes (and Other People)
Day Six: Nostalgia
Day Seven: Finding Friendships
Day Eight: Picking My View
Day Nine: Let the Little Children
Day Ten: Rolling Change
Day Eleven: A Taste of Memory
Day Twelve: Mind Games and Missing
Day Thirteen: The Next Box
Day Fourteen: Leaving Space
Day Fifteen: Come for a Tour?
Day Sixteen: The Nesting Place
Day Seventeen: Leaving or Left
Day Eighteen: Home
Day Nineteen: Some Sunday Silliness
Day Twenty: On Repeat
Day Twenty-One: Bee Stings
Day Twenty-Two: Tired
Day Twenty-Three: Sibling Support
Day Twenty-Four: The Straw and the Camel's Back
Day Twenty-Five: Orang Asing
Day Twenty-Six: Defense Mechanisms
Day Twenty-Seven: Choose Your Own Adventure
Day Twenty-Eight: Bee Stings, Hummingbirds, and Foot-in-Mouth Disease
Day Twenty-Nine: Joy Stabilizes
Day Thirty: The House Plant
Day Thirty-One: Reality

Feminism, Theology, and Amish Cowboys

Several weeks ago, my older sister asked me to look into a couple different authors for her, read some of their stuff, and give her my response to them. She also asked me to figure out why Christian romance writers are so obsessed with cowboys, pioneers, and the Amish. In my last blog post before I start my 31 Day series, I'd like to give a succinct answer to both of these requests. I'll keep it short because it's late and I've spent the day juggling small children, walking up and down big hills, and eating an ungodly amount of sea salt and almond dark chocolate.

So. I just finished reading Rachel Held Evans' The Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband Master. I mean, literally "just finished" because I was scrambling to get to the end before October started and 31 Days writing takes over my life.

When Amanda asked me to look into Rachel Held Evans' writing, I told her that I'd read some of Evan's blog posts before and that while I liked some of her stuff, I didn't always agree with her theology. At the end of her book, I would probably still say that, but with the accompanying statement: if we read books (and engage in conversation and listen to speakers…) only for the goal of achieving "right" theology, we miss out. I am guilty of this more than I care to say. I want to be right. I want the correct answers. I want to "win" debates, theological and otherwise. But that is not the most important thing.

The most important thing is whether or not we are being drawn closer to Jesus. So when I read books (or engage in conversations or listen to speakers…) it would be more appropriate for my goal to be a closer walk with Christ than a better grasp of abstract theological tenants. That is not to say that good theology will not draw me closer to Christ. My hope is, of course, that it does. But theology without a heart for Jesus is just words and ideas without any heart.

Evans spends a year trying out various aspects of womanhood as gleaned from the Bible (and yes, some of them are more out there than others). There were times that I found myself bristling emotionally as well as moments I felt encouraged and empowered, but I agree with what Evans' concludes at the end of her year of experimentation: "the Bible does not present us with a single model for womanhood, and the notion that it contains a sort of one-size-fits-all formula for how to be a woman of faith is a myth…. As much as we may long for the simplicity of a single definition of 'biblical womanhood', there is no one right way to be a woman, no mold into which we must each cram ourselves…."

This brings us directly to the other topic of tonight's post. Why is it that so many Christian novelists set their fiction in either the past or Amish country? And I think the answer is that a lot of us don't know what to do with the way womanhood has been addressed by both the Bible and the Church. It is easier for us to take the stereotypical "Christian woman virtues" and fit them into another time and place because it simplifies things for us. We don't have to grapple with what it looks like to be a woman of God in the real world.

The truth is that most of us would be happy with a check list of virtues to achieve so that we can feel good about ourselves (even if our check list of virtues has us getting back in touch with our own Laura Ingalls Wilder and not really engaging with who we really are). We want to read the Bible and know exactly what it is we need to do. If we can interpret Scripture in such a way that it tells us exactly who we need to be then we can have the right answers and live the right life and move on with things.

The problem with this is that it leaves us without Jesus.

Christ's teachings are both complex and challenging. Sometimes they seem to make better sense if we put a little distance between us and them (like setting them back in the 1800s). But I think the challenge of what it means to be a woman following after Christ in this day and age is a worthwhile one. So while I may not agree with all of Evans' conclusions, at the end of her book I found myself wanting to dig deeper into the Bible to find out more, to pray more fervently for the issues that she raised, and more than anything to draw closer to Christ as I grapple with what His desire is for me, as a woman.

At the end of the day, I'd just like to say this. Church, let's enter into conversation with each other about the hard issues (yes, I'm talking about feminism and theology and Jesus). Let's stop posting our ideologies on Facebook as dogma, and instead sit down over a cup of coffee and the Bible with someone who sees things differently than we do. Let's pick up books that we wouldn't normally read and engage with them, holding them next to the Truth of the Bible and learning something. Let's develop friendships with people who may not always agree with us but might just make us think.

Christ told us to the love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. Let's use those minds to draw closer to him. He also told us to love our neighbor as ourselves. That means opening our hearts to others, even people we don't necessarily agree with or understand. That means listening. That means worrying less about being right and more about being Christ to others.

And at the end of the day, we may not get to ride off into a pioneer sunset with an Amish cowboy, but we will experience the fullness of joy that only following Jesus brings.

PS Somebody remind me in November (maybe) to write about that word "liberated"… I just
might have a few things to say.

PPS I lied. This wasn't short at all.

A Quick Frenzy

I'm sitting on the couch having just finished watching the sun set into the Pacific Ocean. From this you can deduce a few things. 1. We are moved in! 2. We unpacked the couch! 3. We have a freaking awesome view!

Tiny is very happy to be home.
Or is he just happy about the chocolate ice cream he just downed?

Actually, we've unpacked a lot more than the couch. We even have pictures on the walls! Sure, the twins' room is still in boxes, but since they're the only ones incapable of whining about it…no one really cares! We're getting to them tomorrow, promise. Mostly because they both hit growth spurts over the last month, and I've got to dig through the boxes and find them clothes that actually fit. Bruiser had an inch of tummy showing with the shirt he was wearing today--and matching bare wrists. That kid knows how to rock a belly shirt.

Bruiser makes the Man's hat look good.

With all that said, it's been a busy few days. Compounded by the fact that the twins decided to add over half a dozen teeth between the two of them over the last few weeks. I may be behind on phone calls and emails and blogs and running and stuff like that, but we've found new playgrounds and taken sunset walks to look for elusive deer and spent time at the beach and checked out the aquarium in town and reinstated Pizza-Smoothie-and-a-Movie night…and moved into a house. So, on the whole, I think we're doing pretty well over here.

Bee has loved every moment of unpacking.
Here she is pretending this box is a rocket ship.
I know. She told me.

With all that said, I mostly wanted to just check in and show you guys a few pictures of the kids before you think we've all fallen off the face of the earth. And also to give you a heads up that there are only a few more days of September left, and do you know what happens in October?

The big boys wish they could drive in real life.
The Man and I are relieved this is still several years away.
Judging by the look on Littles' face here,
speeding tickets are in his future.

My parents come to visit! But that's not that important to you (unless you're my parents, in which case it is an epoch in your life).

Bruiser is so happy in these pictures.
Unfortunately, the happiness doesn't always translate at 2am
when the teething has kicked into full gear.

But for real: October means the start of another 31 Days series, and I do have a plan geared up and ready to go. So get prepared to spend an inordinate amount of time reading scatter brained blogs written in between the chaos as I try to get back in the swing of things over here. And then, if I survive October, maybe I'll just decide to stay on the crazy train and write the next great American novel for NaNoWriMo. Kidding. Even I'm not that insane.

Swinging is Bee's favourite.
Everything is Bee's favourite.
But especially the Man.
So much so that her first word is now officially "Dada".
Closely followed by "yay!"
What happened to "Mama"? Huh?!

And on that note, I'll post this and go get something to eat because all the calories I consumed earlier were already burned up by shoving food in the twins' faces at dinner. Did I mention growth spurt? And teeth? And unpacking? And sun setting into the Pacific? Okay, good. Let's move on.

A Bunch of Beach Blurbs

I think there must be something about PCSing that dictates that the moment all the kids' clothes are organized, sorted, and packed, everyone will immediately hit growth spurts. We've spent most of this trip looking at strips of bare belly and exposed ankle, but no more. Yesterday we ran by the store and picked up some clothes for the kids so they will no longer look homeless, even if technically they are.

I stole this picture from the Man's phone
so you can see Oswald and Trigger bonding in their time of need.
Oh the love brought about from the mutual trauma of PCSing.

I say "technically" because while we are currently in lodging, rumor has it that there is a house with our name on it (a yellow house on top of a hill facing the ocean, no less). It is hard to not be annoyingly excited, but I am doing my best, while making copious notes regarding how I plan to arrange the furniture for the floor plan that we may or may not get.

Trigger wasn't quite sure what he thought of the ocean.

In the meantime, there is the ocean and sanity and fresh air and cool weather and hills to run and did I mention that it is so hard to not be excited?

Tiny was at his sand throwing best yesterday.

The most fun thing about this PCS, though, has been seeing how the boys respond to everything. I forget that they have spent most of their life in a small town in Oklahoma. Every white van MUST be maintenance. The Grand Canyon, according to Tiny, was made up of sand castles. And, this is my favourite, every time they see any amount of water there must be exclamations of surprise and ecstasy. "Look! Water! Water! Look, Mom!" A drainage ditch is just as exciting to them as the Pacific Ocean.

Bruiser was too cool to gaze off into the distance with me.
His face says it all: "Mom, why are you so weird?"

I know I should write more about this transition, but I think mostly I wanted to share our first pictures with you. I realize that there are several stops worth of pictures that also deserve their day in the sun, but that may or may not happen. Our time right now is taken up with maintaining a regular schedule for the kids, getting back into good exercise habits, exploring Monterey, figuring out which restaurants are way outside of our budget, and waiting. As much as an extended stay in lodging isn't anyone's cup of tea, it's nice to have the extent of my housework be making beds and washing dishes. It leaves lots of time for playground exploration.

Littles preferred the "hot sand" farther from the surf.

Okay, just finishing out this blog...

Endless happiness.
The Man: what are you doing? Just taking a bunch of pictures
and hoping one of them turns out?
Me: pretty much

See all the pretty pictures? Yay.

Living here is not going to get old fast.
Also, I got the seagull in the frame in one shot.
Eat that, Mom.

Alright, then, hurray, we're here! And hopefully getting settled soon. More to come later. Maybe.

Travelling Circus: a PCS in Progress

Well, we're one leg of the trip down, and wow. Some experiences leave you speechless, but not this one. No, not this one. But let's bullet point it, because while this time zone says it's an hour plus until bed time, my other time zone does not.

• No matter how much you congratulate yourself for getting out the door on time, there will come a moment, about two hours in, when you have someone else's poop on you and your husband has someone else's pee on him, and you wish that you'd delayed your departure just long enough to tie all four kids to the roof of the car.
• Not throwing into the cooler what was left of the bag of chocolate chips was a mistake I may never live down.
• At some point during a PCS (permanent change of station) it is perfectly acceptable to reach the point where you're all funned out and you'd like to stop the ride and get off. At least, that's what I tell myself. I hit that point yesterday when Trigs escaped twice in a 24 hour period and Littles accidentally locked us out of TLF during the 100+ degree afternoon heat.
• Going anywhere with four kids four and under requires well thought through logistics. Travelling  1500 miles with said four kids and two pets is capable of logistically breaking even the best minds. Let's just say that sharing a tube of toothpaste with my husband is no longer (logistically) the best option when fire safety rules dictate that we split up two kids and one adult per room. 
• The Man is doing some serious heavy lifting this trip pulling the trailer and wrangling the pets. I got the easier job of driving the van, but my ear drums are being systematically shattered by our lovely children.
• Tiny is about to experience the conundrum of the true TCK (third culture kid). The last two hours of today's drive he declared emphatically (and repetitively) that he wanted to go home. Define home, buddy, define home…
• The great thing about this move is that if I screw everything up, we're just moving again in 15 months, so I can get it right that time!
• New Mexico is a cruel, cruel land with wide open spaces and closed down rest areas and the promise of a Dairy Queen (with a much needed bathroom) that turned out to be completely and totally burnt down.
• I forgot what true hills looked like. I forgot what real green looked like. I forgot what actual mountains looked like. Stunning. Seriously.
• Driving across the U.S. is helping me learn my American geography the hard way. It would seem that Manhattan Transfer led me sadly astray with their song "Route 66". Amarillo is in Texas, not New Mexico. Evidently, as a child when I thought learning geography from American jazz singers was a good idea, I missed the "Gallup" inserted between "Amarillo" and "New Mexico". Yes, I recognize that this is not their fault. I'm still blaming them.
• Full confession (and I'm hiding this low on the list in hopes that most people will miss it): the movers may or may not have packed up a bag of onions that I accidentally left in the pantry. No comment.
• While my kids may have access to DVDs while traveling, they still indulged in classic road trip entertainment: playing trains, coloring, making paper airplanes, and picking on each other.
• There will come a day when getting back on the road is worth more than getting a blizzard at Dairy Queen. Check for signs of insanity and resign yourself to the inevitable damages caused to your psyche by PCSing.

Let's close with a couple pilfered photos (thanks, Holly!) of the Defender Mobile and it's Very Owen Travelling Circus as we peeled out of TLF this morning. Oklahoma, you made us look good.