Category: Posts
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Where Everybody Knows Your Name
So many loved ones to visit, so little time. It’s a wonderful problem, really. We spent most of the weekend in our hometown. Actually, Salem is no town— it’s a Big Little City. It seemed each place we visited to meet up with friends, we unintentionally ran into others. I forgot what it was like to literally bump…
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Peaceful Easy Feeling
I’ve found my happy place, my tranquil reprieve from the stress and sterility of medical offices. It’s a 1970’s folk-rock playing, back porch swingin’ kind of place. An oasis of glistening aspens; of earthen, piney aroma, where entire families of quail scurry underfoot and hummingbirds dart just overhead. Husband’s parents have settled in the mountains of Central Oregon,…
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Modern Romance
Yesterday, Handsome Hubs and I celebrated thirteen years of wedded bliss. We are parents, so this is how we spent the day… Little Man met a lot of extended family for the first time. At one point, at the trampoline place, he stopped in his tracks and cocked his head, observing my sister and I…
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Father’s Day/Anniversary/Pre-Op Eve
13 years, 11 jobs, 10 cars, 8 foreign countries, 14 states, 4 houses, 3 children, 5 cats, 1 dog, 2 guinea pigs, four chickens and a day ago I married this guy… … and I’m certain on those stats because we counted today. In the car. As we drove from Montana to Oregon. Father’s Day was spent with…
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Cocooning in Oregon
Our pilgrimage to our home state, for Little Man’s surgery, is this weekend. As it will be his first overnight stay away from home, we wanted to gently remind well-meaning loved ones of the Rules of Engagement for interacting with our precious son. Please do not pick him up. Though it will seem an impossibility, do not…
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June Bug
I can’t believe it’s June already. June is always a busy month in our house. The busiest of the year, now that we quietly celebrate Christmas far from our hometown, each December. In addition to our wedding anniversary and Father’s day, we also celebrate a marathon of birthdays. Our second daughter and I share the birth-month with…
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Homesteading
Sometimes, I wish I could go back in time. To live on a farm, live off the land. Raise animals, grow vegetables and cook from scratch. Have a whole mess of kids and let them run wild. I suppose I don’t really need a time-machine to do those things– to varying degrees my family is already doing them in…
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Metamorphosis
Cocooning Survival Tactic #7: Gradually emerge from the Cocoon. Do not overstay your welcome. Still, do not jump back into the real world all at once. We have unceremoniously begun our own re-entry, venturing out more and more, at a calculated pace. My cousin recently asked, tongue-in-cheek, how we would know our Little Man was ready… Would he sprout…
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Young Americans
Little Man is acclimating to our culture with apparent ease, continuing to achieve several “firsts” each day. He no longer rejects all but scalding hot bottles, like those he was accustomed to in the orphanage. In China, he barely consumed any liquid during his first 48 hours with us– until we finally realized that due to…
