Dear Dad,

I felt like I heard you talking the other day. I didn't hear your voice or anything, but I knew exactly what you'd have said if you came over and saw me trying to fix that weed eater. You'll be happy to know that even when I was very sure I would never turn it on, I unplugged it anyway. It was what I'm sure you would have said to do. (I'm sorry, but I still sometimes unplug the vacuum by pulling on the cord. No one's perfect, I guess.)

Jonah and I laid on his bed and listened to Clair de Lune today. It's just about the only thing I remember of Eric, and even then I'm not sure if I really remember him playing it or if I'm just thinking of the recording we have of him playing it. I like to think I really remember it, because the other songs (The Music Box Dancer, for example) don't hit me quite like that one does.

I've been thinking about him a lot today, but I don't talk to him like I do to you. So if you're together, or if you can be, will you tell him I miss him? 

Thanks, Dad.

everything in North Carolina (as dictated by Jonah)

A week ago today, Mommy and Daddy went to Alabama and Grandma came to stay here with us. It rained a lot and we had lots of walks to our landlord's house just a little bit less than a mile from here. We saw the house they were building, and everyone there laughed when they saw me and Caroline go to the ant piles. The ants went crazy when I stepped on their homes. If you jump back, all the way over to today, it has been very cold and we had another walk down there. And now, they have some sort of paper or plastic around the house and they have the roof on.


P.S. (as dictated by Caroline) When you're mad, you think it's so really mad, and the ant pile was destroyed by us and we pretend to play and we went over to Jack's house and Scotty hit me with Legos and we ate some cookies. That was my surprise and I loved it so much and that is what we do. And she went over to Jack's friend's house and she did not look over and Miriam is not even bad but sometimes she's bad but she's very cute but she looks over my room and I don't want her in my room and I really like Powerpuff girls and Jonah loves to play the magic baby game and Jonah is a very nice boy. Sometimes he cries. My cry is a very, very loud cry but it does not seem very smart but I need something and we have a purple water bottle. My house looks pretty, pretty. My American flag is not green. So I went over to my fruit stand game and it looks pretty cool. I also have a Star Wars toothbrush but I don't have it anymore. Maybe I will at my next birthday. I have a red and white bike that is very pretty and I sent it to Kiera Ruth Mays a card that I sent to her.

ten years

At our wedding, we each read lists of the top 10 things we loved about each other.* I distinctly recall putting the lists in a safe place, but they were never seen again. On our first anniversary, I wrote a second list. I was going to say "and I know exactly where that one is," but I just checked and I don't. Turns out "she's great at keeping track of love letters" shouldn't be on the list. I thought about posting another list of the 10 things I love about Josh here in honor of our tenth anniversary tomorrow, but I won't. Honestly, they're personal and I also have a weird complex about re-reading things I've written years later, especially things that were heartfelt.

I have been pondering all day, however, about the things I've learned in 10 happy years of marriage. If I had any loved ones getting married tomorrow, this is what I might share as a seasoned marriage veteran of 10 years.

1. Forgive and don't bring it up again will do. My Dad told us that when we got married. As always, he was right. Sometimes, especially at first, forgive and forget is impossible. But forgive and don't trot it out every argument? That can do a world of good while time does the rest of the healing.
2. "How can I help?" is a better question than anything that starts with, "Why can't you..." 
3. People change. I'm different than the girl he married. He's not the same boy I married either. We have different interests and talents. Some of our personality traits have gotten more pronounced and others have receded. And yet, we still fit.

4. Home is where you keep your honey. So reads the board my aunt gave us for our wedding. We had no idea at the time that we'd move so often. In fact, we imagined moving once or twice more and never again. We are on move number 8 since then (and counting), but I've never felt completely adrift because we're in this together.
5. Trust is priceless. If I trust him (his priorities, his motivations, his goals) completely, a lot of little things work themselves out. If he can trust me (with his feelings, with our money, with the children, with confidences), we're not in fight mode when difficult matters arise. In this area, I feel like we got a head start. I think we work at 10 years like some people work at 15 or 20, only because I learned I could trust him long before we were in a relationship or talking about marriage. Maybe the saying shouldn't be "marry your best friend" but "marry the person you trust completely".
6. Things look better in the morning.
7. He can't read my mind, and I can't read his. We were talking the other night about something he wish he would have done even though at the time he was sure I wouldn't have liked it. I said, "If you'd brought it up and said, 'This is important to me. What can we do to make this an acceptable arrangement for you?' then I'm sure I would have been okay with it." At least, I hope I would have. Either way, we have both had to learn to articulate what things are important. It's much more satisfying than waiting for the other person to guess.

8. A queen-sized bed is big enough. (But a dual-control electric blanket is wonderful.) I know there are plenty of people who will disagree. Someday I might even disagree. But after having all sorts of mattresses and sleeping arrangements in our homes or on vacation, we've settled on the perfect bed size for us. Notice that I said us, not us and all the children. Usually in the morning, I wonder why we don't have a California King to accommodate all the knees and elbows climbing up the side of the bed.
9. We're on the same team. I'll never forget the night Josh said this to me. I think I might have been yelling at the time. He's on my side. If I'm frustrated, taking it out on him just makes things worse.
10. It just gets better. I wouldn't have believed it 10 years ago. Now, I can't imagine how it could get better, but I think it probably will. For starters, sometime in the next decade I imagine we'll go to a football game that Alabama wins instead.

*#1 on my list at the time: That he can make a roux. (The guests at our wedding were underwhelmed, but let me explain.) Josh spent many hours watching The Food Network while I was in Spain and he was missing me. He learned to make a roux, which is a valuable life skill, in the process. Making gravy from scratch is one of my talents I am most proud of, and one that he knew nothing about before we got engaged. It's not the roux that matters (though it really is a good thing to know, especially if you make a lot of gumbo). It's the desire to learn more about what's important to the other person and the affection you feel when seeing something your sweetheart likes when you're apart.

reading books

I always assumed that one of my great delights as a mother would be reading childhood favorites to my children. I eagerly anticipated introducing them to favorite characters and places at bedtime. So imagine my surprise when I discovered (at least so far) that our best reading happens in the morning. We do read books at night, but the girls are still young enough that it's not quite the picture of domestic bliss that I had envisioned. In the morning, though, we can lay in my bed or cuddle up on the couch and read a few chapters before we start the day. Or like today, we can read during a breakfast picnic while Miriam runs rampant stealing all our toast.

I've also been surprised (but happy) to find that some of my favorites are new books we've discovered together. These are either books that have been written since I was in elementary school or ones that I never read for whatever reason. This morning we started The Silver Chair, one of only two of the Chronicles of Narnia books that I've never read. It's all I can do not to read ahead tonight while the kids are asleep.

our little zoo

Remember Jonah feeding crickets to the bearded dragons at Josh's lab in Alabama? Well today, wearing the very same shirt, Caroline befriended a lizard named Santa (her name choice).

Santa was a very patient friend, especially when Miriam tried to decapitate him a few times (with love, of course):

A giant beetle flew in our open window, so (of course) we caught it in a jar and looked it up. It turned out to be a dung beetle! We very desperately wanted to keep it in a terrarium and find it some dung (apparently they prefer the dung of ruminates like cows and deer). Alas, we ended up letting him run free. Come back again, little beetle!

answers to Grandma's questions

Hi, Mom! Here is a video of the storm that blew over part of the tree in the back:

And here is a shot of the tree limb, though you can't see the whole tree.

One giant branch split from the trunk and crashed down onto Dixie's dog run (don't worry; she wasn't in the run at the time). Our landlord came down the next morning to clear off the driveway and check out any damage. With the help of a tractor (actually what I think of as a tractor this time, not just a John Deere vehicle, which is also called a tractor apparently), he and Josh removed the limb from the tree. That said, Jerry is going to call a tree crew out to work on another large limb that partially split from the trunk but is suspended in the tree still. Jerry's opinion is that they will need to take out the whole tree (since once they remove the limb, it will be very lopsided). If the tree were to fall the wrong way, it would crash into the living room. Anyway, that was quite a long answer to the question about the tree, but there you have it. It was quite a storm!

the stories of the week (as dictated by Jonah)

Last night, we had quite a big thunderstorm. It knocked down a tree on Dixie's dog run. We went to our landlord's house to pick up a tree, and I thought that was a little adventure. We were watching a movie when the power went out.

The Gibsons, our landlords, came over to our house for dinner on Monday. We had hamburgers, which I was pretty happy about.

We went out for ice cream on Tuesday. I had cotton candy. It was sweeter than most ice cream I've gotten, but I was not surprised. And we also went to the church.

There's not much to say, so this might be the end of our story.

tractor races

Sometimes, I forget that this is our life. That we really do go outside with a bag of trash and get sidetracked by bugs. I had such a frustrating morning, but somehow it's all better now. I credit the turn around with getting to talk to my mom, my sister, and my brother and spending a bit of time chasing bugs with Caroline.

"Where is our spider?" Caroline wanted to know. We have a ton of spiders around the back porch. Most of them are Daddy Longlegs (but gross, they are bigger than the ones in AZ and striped. Blech.), but there was one funky looking spider that hung out by the back door last week.

"Maybe it crawled away," I said, knowing full well that it was dead last week when we spotted it. More likely, its body blew away. Why didn't I just explain that to her? Because when I told her that it was dead last week, she absolutely did not believe me. Anyway, it just wasn't worth a fight.

"Oh! Here he is! He's a grass popper now!" Sure enough, a grasshopper (but isn't "grass popper" a better name?) had taken up residence where the dead spider used to be. So Caroline and I chased him around watching him hop around for a minute or two before we went back inside to make dinner.

Yesterday morning, our neighbor/landlord drove his tractor down to say hello. The kids were out front riding their bikes, so they all raced up and down the lane. It's hard to say who had a better time, but my money is on Uncle Jerry.

Plus, college football started up again this weekend, so Roll Tide Roll.

I'm not pregnant. I'm also not crying through dinner.

Tonight, right before guests came over for dinner, I burnt an entire bag of hamburger buns when I put them under the broiler and then forgot about them.

Something very similar happened when I was 6+ months pregnant with Caroline. That time, I burnt two loaves of french bread minutes before we were supposed to take bread over to a friend's house for dinner.

Tonight, I hopped in the car and bought a new bag of buns (and lettuce, which I was out of as well). Four years ago, I buried my head in my pillow and sobbed. Then I sent Josh to dinner with Jonah while I stayed home and took a nap. I am so glad that it just wasn't a big deal tonight.

Also, Josh fell asleep on the couch and left me with specific instructions to wake him up if something exciting happens in this football game. I'm so tired! Someone call me if something happens (not really.) so I can wake up and tell Josh about it. Good night.

fun days of the weeks (as dictated by Jonah)

Last week we washed our car. There was a little brush that shot soap out of it. The soap smelled a lot like when I would get a slushie, so I just wanted to go eat it. Then, I sent a letter to my friends we had in Arizona: the Hills. There were pictures in the letter. And Mommy sent a little note too.

We also went to a very fun park with a big castle. It was very fun because there were lots of things to do. We found lots of hiding places under the floors on dirt with little stumps that we used as chairs. The only thing that mostly interrupted our fun was the heat.

Today, Saturday, the week after that, I bought some Skittles. There are a lot of big games of football today--finally! The last thing I am going to say is that it is very fun to find things to say on the blog.

and she walks!

(So this was last week. YouTube and I had a fight, but I won. The videos can now be seen! Huzzah! Also, good work Miriam.) 

(And for kicks, a blooper. This is what happens when the baby does not want to walk anymore for the camera.)

In just the few days since we took this video, she has decided that walking is actually a pretty great thing to do. It helps that she spends almost all of her time pushing Caroline's stroller around the house.

Walking also makes it easier to wear long necklaces, which she seems to love. Baby Caroline (and current Caroline, too) loved shoes. She was always wearing and pointing out and carrying around shoes. Baby Miriam loves necklaces, and we love Baby Miriam.

Dear Dad,

I miss you. That's nothing new, of course, but it's been a constant sort of presence this last month. Maybe it's because I haven't sat down and written to you recently, or maybe it's because I'm so far from home. I love it here. It's so beautiful. I find myself thinking of you a lot, even though you've never been here (that I know of, anyway). It's little things, like the shoes our landlord wears, or the man stopped next to me at the stoplight a few days ago. That I would miss you, that it would make me sad, that things that remind me of you would make me happy: none of this is surprising to me. What I did find surprising was how swiftly I felt our loss when Josh and I were working with one of your tools. It was an old drill, the kind where you manually adjust the piece that fits the various drill bits. The small tool needed was taped (with electrical tape, of course) to the cord. Josh told me that many people attached them like that somehow, because those tools had a tendency to get lost. "Not everyone used electrical tape, though." He said that affectionately. And somehow that took me back to all of your electrical tape and all of your tools and the sights and smells of your office on V.I.P., and I missed you so much. Thank you for being my Dad. I'll try to make you proud and take good care of your tools. And maybe someday my kids will make lightsabers with all my electrical tape, and I'll bite my tongue and let them do it just like you let me and Quintin get away with it, too.