I met Justin in January 1998.

I had a bright yellow cast on my right foot, fake nails and a badly-highlighted “Rachel from Friends” haircut.

He had skinny legs sticking out from his ever-present shorts, a military-style buzz cut, bright, blue eyes, and a red Five Iron Frenzy shirt.

The only empty seat in the classroom was the one in front of him.

I flopped down, sweaty from negotiating the winter ground of a community college campus on crutches. I like your shirt, I said. I saw them at TOMfest last summer.

We talked about our love of live music, realized that we knew the same Young Life people, and ended up working together on a class project.

I was glad to get the cast off and arrive in class without sweat dripping down my back.

He watched me walk out to my car one Friday morning, skipping class so I could tuck my newly-healed foot in to ski boots and fly down the mountain with Jason on a great day of spring skiing.

We ran in to each other at the I Kissed Dating Goodbye conference. He with his passel of youth group kids, I with my Young Life girls. We exchanged email addresses.

We included each other in the mass emails that were all the rage in those days.

I sent him a package when he worked at a Young Life camp that summer. To this day he denies getting the package. I want to know who the hell ate all that good candy.

On a hot, August day in 1999 he came in to Family Christian Store. I was working that day, looking much more like myself with my own nails and a ponytail, not sweaty at all.

He thought I looked cute.

He was taking a group of youth group kids hiking that weekend and the female leader who was supposed to go with him had backed out. (Her name was Rebecca. Justin liked Rebecca. A lot.)

He asked me if I would go - just to fill in, of course.

I said I would love to, especially since I loved hiking so much and went all the time.

I bought hiking boots after work that night.

After the hike we stayed up and watched SNL. He started to teach me how to play guitar.

He kept coming in to the store.

We exchanged emails that didn’t include the prefix Fwd:.

We went to a bunch of concerts.

We spent hours talking about Jason and Rebecca.

We ended up carpooling to a college Bible study that both Jason and Rebecca attended.

We were, of course, there for the important time of worship and teaching.

We went to some more concerts.

In November of 1999 we drove to Portland to see Burlap to Cashmere at the Aladdin Theater. We talked about Jason and Rebecca in the car. Somewhere around Chehalis we grew quiet. We didn’t really talk for the rest of the drive.

We came home and went to Denny’s at 2am to get milkshakes. He slept on my parent’s couch.

I spent Thanksgiving with his family. He spent Thanksgiving with mine.

I broke every rule of good, Christian girlhood and sent him a “where do we stand” email. Immediately followed by a PLEASE DELETE THE PREVIOUS EMAIL WITHOUT READING IT email. I had to leave work early that day because I was sick with the thought of what I had done.

He showed up at my house after stopping by the store and not finding me there.

He told me he had not read his email. (But it turned out that he had.)

But he needed to talk to me.

About something really important.

Because, you know, we have been friends for a long time.

And maybe we had something.

And, um, I mean, if I wanted to, he was wondering if we should, like, date?

Or something.

It was December 1, 1999.

We got engaged on January 1, 2000.

We got married on August 26, 2000.

Our engagement was far too long.

Getting married in 2000 makes it easy to remember how long we have been married.

In the last seven years we have grown together and apart. We have fought and made-up. We have struggled and we have triumphed. We have attempted to recover from all the damage that the Christian Youth Culture inflicted and, in recovering, have discovered a deeper faith.

We fight more these days, about things that matter less. We are still finding our place as parents. Our relationship has changed since Andrew arrived and we have not settled in to the same sort of groove we had before he came - maybe we never will and we need to learn to deal with that. We are struggling with the issues that continue to come when you share your life with someone. But the fundamental truth of our relationship has not changed - we are each other’s best friend.

And as long as we remember that, everything else will fall in to place.

when you ask a boy to get a fork so he can eat his watermelon.

Yikes.

Since most people use a feed-reader in these technologically advanced times, I wanted to point out the changes to my sidebar.

Instead of the normal, all-encompassing, ubiquitous blogroll, I have divided my links up to reflect the people that I know in real life, I Heart These Folks, and the other fun things I do to waste time (ahem, participate in the growing online community), Various and Sundry. The latter is a veritable hodge-podge of blogs I read, sites I visit, things I am interested in - it’s really quite a collection. I am in the midst of updating my soundtrack section and will let you know when I finish that, and have, for the moment at least, removed the Now Reading and Who I Read sections. I foresee some serious geek time with Shelfari when winter comes.

So poke around, if you see something you like - or don’t - tell me in the comments!

I have a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my head after our vacation, thoughts of rest and regrouping, thoughts of order and chaos, thoughts of family and purpose. But I’ve been sitting here for almost two hours and I can’t seem to get any of them written down.

So while you look at the pictures and the little boy sleeps, I’m going out to weed my planter beds.

We were on vacation last week. I packed up my snappy, pink computer bag and looked forward to a week of having more time to Get Stuff Done. (Because, in my crazy head, that is what vacation is all about.)

But it was not to be. We couldn’t get the network set up and I stared at my computer with a sad heart. I worried about the emails I wasn’t getting (78), I worried about how many days were passing without a blog post (6), I thought about finding a cafe with wi-fi so I could post something or at least let people know what had happened. I was disconnected and, like it or not, I have become accustomed to being connected.

Then I went outside with my boys.

And I didn’t waste any more time trying to fix the network.

I love this part of gardening.

Friday morning was another long run, 2.5 miles in 25 minutes (or, for those of you who are mathematically challenged, a 10-minute mile). I hadn’t been paying too much attention to my pace because I was focusing on running for a given time and figured I could increase speed once I got comfortable at any given time. After my 20-minute run last week, I felt my pace fall off at the end and I wondered how far off I was.

I decided to find out.

I drove my route on Thursday and marked when the odometer reached 2.5 miles (conveniently located at a lamp post on a corner). I set off for my run Friday morning determined to run to that lamp post or until my 25-minute timer beeped. I expected to hear the beep before the lamp post came in to view because I was sure that I was running too slowly.

My suspicions were correct, I was slightly off the pace. By approximately six feet. (Insert primal yell of joy here.)

A day later, I am still euphoric over the results of my little experiment. I know that other people run faster, or further, or better. But I’m running. I am proving all those voices - coaches, friends, PE teachers - who said that I was not built to be a runner wrong.

yay. (!)

Andrew could not be more proud of his ability to turn apples in to stop signs.

(Because the ends look like stop signs once you have eaten all the meat off. It took me a while to get it too.)

(This photo taken shortly before the stupid Take Off card sent my happy, purple plane back to Hanoi.)

We shared a meal with our friends Nick and Beth during their recent vacation from Hong Kong and, in an ironic twist, ended up playing Take Off because Nick had never played before. It is a fun game! Even for adults.

I remember my first reaction when I heard that Nick and Beth were moving halfway around the world; I was insanely jealous. I had no thoughts of how hard it would be to start over in a new country, learning new customs, new cultural norms, new language. I had no thoughts of how lonely it could be, separated from family and community or how the reality of moving from the suburbs of a moderately-sized city to the core of a monstrously-huge city would differ from the expectations. I was just jealous. I knew that I would probably never live in downtown Seattle, much less Hong Kong, and the injustice of that fact rankled. I blamed Justin for his safe, stable, suburban ways. I blamed myself for my conveniently forgotten fear of change that, on more than one occasion, has kept us here when opportunities knocked elsewhere. I resented my dependence on the family and community I have here and I beat myself up for believing that I could not function without the safety net they create.

And then I came to my senses and realized that the grass is always greener, but that is because there is a whole bunch of crap just under the surface and it acts as fertilizer. (Shamelessly copied that phrase from the aforementioned Beth. She’s funny.)

Every few years I have a serious urge to reinvent myself. Seasons of serial introspection have taught me that this urge is my knee-jerk reaction to vulnerability and brutal truth. I lay myself bare, desiring transparency and openness and then I panic, realizing all that is exposed. So I run and hide. Or, as in recent years, I read Kerouac and fight the desire to run.

I’m fighting it right now - the desire to cut my losses and take off, the hope of reinvention as the easy way out. The physical recoil that comes with the phrase, “continue to press in, to press through”. But I have enough clarity to see the truth in the oft-quoted axiom “where ever you go, there you are”. I know, at some deep level, that all the things I am running from would follow me.

I love the song Motor Cars by Aaron Sprinkle

All this ringing in my ears / Made me numb over the years / Lately I can feel a little more of You in me / I’ve given up unto myself / Drinking from the weakest well / All I want is just some peace of mind / Tonight / But I’m fine without it / I’m beginning now to understand that its nothing I can say / When motor cars with racing stripes keep getting in my way / But this time I can see / The very one thing that I need / This time You could be the very one thing / This time I believe the very one thing that I need

I search and search for something to make me feel better, the Next Big Thing to fill the gaping hole in my heart, but all the things I find pass me by like cars on the freeway. My beliefs provide the answer I say I am looking for, but I continue to search for something easier, something that I can do myself, something that I can control, all the while fighting to urge to admit that my way isn’t working and surrender. I feel like C.S. Lewis, dragged kicking and screaming in to the kingdom of God. And as I fight, the restlessness remains. I fantasize about moving to Bellingham, to Portland, to New York, to Boulder, to Vancouver, to Sydney, to Hong Kong.

I am slowing accepting the fact that any change needing to occur can, and will, happen here, if I allow it.

I’m beginning now to understand…

“…and from the dull roar outside I could tell the crowd must number in the hundreds of thousands. I could not believe my eyes when they finally hoisted me up. People extended out in all directions, filling the whole terminal area of the airport and reaching far beyond, down the long boulevard that leads into the city. … Only this time, you could see from the mass of head scarves that women composed the majority of the crowd. Some wore the black chador, but most bright veils, and the gladioluses and white roses they waved in the air flashed in the dark of the night. “They walked here,” my brother whispered in my ear. ‘They drove until the roads were jammed, left their cars, and walked. The flights have all been canceled because all the roads to the airport are blocked with people.’
In the distance, a group of university students stood together, singing “Yar-e Dabestani,” a bittersweet folk song that has become the anthem of young pro-democracy organizers. … The melody is sorrowful but galvanizing, and for the first time in longer than I cared to remember I felt hopeful when they reached the line ‘Whose hands but mine and yours can pull back these curtains?’ … the crowds parted to let us ahead, and through the window I watched the faces slide by, hopeful, serious, proud, but, most of all, so alive. Near the arched monument built by the shah in south Tehran now renamed Freedom Square, I caught sight of a woman with a child in one hand, a makeshift poster in the other, and the sight made my breath catch, for her sigh read, ‘This is Iran.’”

Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope by Shirin Ebadi

I am a sucker for books like this. Triumph of the human spirit, the idea that one person can make a difference, the hope for a better tomorrow, these are the stories that captivate me, these are the stories that keep me from despair.

Reviews for this and other books are up on the Book List. I find myself inundated with good books that I want to read, so prepare yourself for the onslaught.

I checked my Couch to 5k plan to see what was on the docket for next week and realized that I ran the wrong intervals today. I ran two eight minute intervals, but I found out that today was the first long run - twenty minutes with no walking.

“Oh crap!” I said, “I should have checked this earlier.” This statement was immediately followed by Andrew pushing his truck saying, “Oh crap, Patrick. You should have checked this earlier.”

I wanted to get the long run under my belt before going on to the next week so I decided to do it tonight so as to still have two days off before Monday’s intervals. I thought that my legs were fine but as I started they felt like lead. I first looked at my watch with thirteen minutes to go and the temptation to stop at ten minutes was almost overwhelming. But my mind rebelled. I thought, “If you just keep running you will reach 20 minutes.” And I did. I saw black spots with four minutes to go and I certainly slowed my 10-minute mile pace toward the end, but Jay-Z and I finished that bad boy.

I am so high on the endorphins right now I feel like I could fly. I love sports.

So Jen tagged me for this chain-letter thing (I know they have a fancy name now, but they’re still chain-letters to me). I suppose I could say that my enjoyment of these is one of the eight things people might not know about me, but I’ll put that one in for free.

1. I had blond hair until I was 23. That winter I dyed my hair with a 24-wash dye and it has been dark ever since.
2. I love pop music. I know I am supposed to have this hip/indie/KEXP/Seattle thing going on (and sometimes I do) but, on the whole, I prefer music that doesn’t make me feel like death. I’m holding on to Rolling Stone’s review of Justin Timberlake as “the thinking hipsters pop star” to legitimize my mild obsession.
3. The only major broken bone I have ever had occurred when I tripped after falling asleep in a chair with a blanket wrapped around my legs. I broke three bones in my foot and was in a cast for six weeks. (I met Justin with that cast on, but that’s another story).
4. I am a horrible procrastinator and easiest-way-out-taker. These are not good qualities to have as a stay-at-home-mom, as there is very little supervision and virtually no real deadlines.
5. Sometimes I think about homeschooling Andrew. (It you’ve ever heard me on my public school soapbox, you will understand why this is significant.)
6. I hate talking on the phone. I feel inarticulate and unable to read the person that I am talking to. I often fail to return phone calls, even from friends.
7. I could be very happy as a vegetarian. This is a problem as Justin’s vegetable intake is limited to the contents of a dinner salad.
8. In my About Me page, when I said I have read each of the Harry Potter books more than 10 times, I might have underestimated by 5 or 6 readings - each. I don’t realize how fundamentally weird that is until I really think about it.

Wow. That was harder than I thought. So now I have to choose more people? Okay, Megan and Nick, you guys are it, neither of you post enough as it is.

Andrew sat and watched the concrete mixer for almost 90 minutes at my parents house. It’s good to be easily entertained.

Running is all in your head.

I heard this from a number of runner-types over the years and my initial reaction was something along the lines of - Yeah, right. It’s running, not rocket science.

Then I actually made the effort to become a runner and found that my mind often needs the most recovery time.

I am up to week eight of my Couch to 5k running plan. I am running two eight minute intervals with a five minute walk in between. I would be farther, but I got stuck on week seven. There was a five minute stretch in week seven that tried to kill me. I just couldn’t beat it. I would do all the normal tricks - run until the end of this song, run to that post, keep going just a little longer - before looking at my watch. But, no matter how hard I pushed my watch seemed stuck at 2:47, meaning that I wasn’t even half-way done yet. I would see those numbers and wilt. I tried to keep going but I couldn’t find the rhythm again, and then my knee would hurt, and then I couldn’t breathe, and then I would stop. For a whole week I played this game. In my head, I couldn’t run for five minutes without stopping and, as perception is 99% of reality, I stopped.

So I repeated the week and I finally broke through. On the last day of my second week seven, I ran for five minutes and it hurt.

As I thought about week eight, with its eight minute runs, I was daunted. I didn’t want to camp on week seven anymore, but I thought there was no way I could jump from five minutes to eight minutes. One part of my brain said - Just see what you can do and if you have to do the week over again its okay. But that is the part of my brain that was beaten down by week seven, so I ignored it. Instead, I chose to play dirty.

On Sunday, I asked Justin to go out with me. I just wanted to do one eight minute stretch (as Sunday is normally a rest day) because I knew that if I could do that one, I could do week eight. I also knew that there was no way in hell I was going to stop and walk as long as Justin was running with me. And I didn’t. The two eight minute stretches on Monday actually seemed easier in comparison.

The mind is a funny thing. It’s ability to outsmart itself is, well, mind-boggling, and that is a good thing, I’m planning on running a 5k this fall!

Andrew is essentially done with his sickness. We finally figured out that he had the Herpes 6 virus, also known as Infant Measles. It’s a very common, very annoying little bug that has almost no serious side effects for an otherwise healthy little boy. But, between the fever and the itchy rash, it still knocked us out for the better part of six days.

The only other time Andrew has been this sort of whiny-clingy-not-happy-unless-he-is-laying-on-someone sick, I was sick at the same time. So I missed the all-consuming intensity of being the primary caregiver for a sick kid. I feel like I need to recover as much as he does. He slept through the night for the first time since last Wednesday and I almost cried with joy when my alarm woke me up this morning.

I missed my normal writing time today because he is probably still contagious, thus confining us to the house for one more day. As I try to sneak in a few minutes this afternoon while he watches a video with Grandma, I am overwhelmed by all the other things I could be doing. (Should be doing?) Laundry, ironing, piles of things strewn around the house, don’t even get me started on my kitchen, not to mention the errands that were abandoned in favor of a recliner and the television.

But none of those things would restore my sanity in the same way that holing up with my laptop does, so even though I’m cloistered in my bedroom instead of at the library, I feel like a human being again.

Now that’s what I call recovery.

I have been putting off updating the weight loss thing until I had really amazing news to report - but a little voice reminded me that waiting until I have amazing news to report isn’t really the point so here’s an update.

I threw the gauntlet. I picked the gauntlet up again, trying to pretend I didn’t throw it. I threw it again, harder. Now I’m standing here, half-heartedly holding the gauntlet, sheepishly wishing that no one saw me throw it.

But you saw me throw it. I don’t know who I think I’m kidding.

The weight loss program I am doing is divided in to 10-week sessions, the first of which just ended. Let’s review what my first session goals were:

My short term goals:

I want to get up at least three mornings a week and workout before Andrew wakes up.

I want to stay active throughout the day by working around the house or playing with Andrew.

I want to eat at least two servings of fruits AND vegetables every day.

I want to write down everything that goes in to my mouth.

Okay. That’s not so bad.

I am continuing with my running program and running three mornings a week, I am also trying to do strength training the other two mornings of the week so I feel like that is going pretty well. Check.

The summer weather makes it easy to be up and about more during the day with walks to the park, playing at the lake or working in the garden. This is a goal that will be harder as the weather changes. Check.

Two fruits and two vegetables? The fruit I have, and then some. The veggies are more of a problem but I am working on it, eating a spinach salad almost every day and munching on carrots fairly often. Half-check.

Writing down everything I eat. Oh dear. I know how important this is. I know what a difference it makes. I continually fail to do it. I usually plan my meals for the day and write them down in the morning but I fail to write down the bites and snacks that find their way in to my mouth throughout the day. A few crackers here, the rest of Andrew’s sandwich there, some toast here, blueberries there. It doesn’t seem like such a big deal, but I am convinced that it made a huge difference in my results this session. No check.

So what were my results? They were not great (notice how I am procrastinating even writing them down). I lost 6.2 lbs and gained 2.3. So I ended up 3.9 lbs lighter than I started. Which is good, in the sense that it’s better to end up lighter than heavier, but bad, in the sense that I really feel like I could be losing 1-2 lbs per week.

So, what happened?

I didn’t write everything down. I estimated instead of measuring. I counted on the exercise to cover up my snacking. In short, I didn’t do what I was supposed to be doing. In my pride, I thought that I could cheat the system. I thought that my half-hearted efforts would be good enough.

I’m pissed about these results. But, really, I’m pissed that my plan didn’t work. The rebellion that leads me to believe that my way is better than any prescribed plan is rooted deep in my heart. It is comfortable and it doesn’t want to leave.

I really feel as though I am standing on the precipice with this. My mediocrity this session taught me a good lesson in humility. I was reminded, once again, that this is not only a calorie:exercise issue, it is a heart issue. Is my heart willing to give up the things I want, to break the habits that need breaking, in order to embark on a life that is unlike any I have known? Or do I continue in slavery to these things, these habits? Am I willing to humble myself and admit that my way may not be best, or will I continue in the insanity of doing the same thing while expecting different results? Am I willing to get my sticky fingers off the steering wheel and let someone else do the driving?

These are the questions that need to be answered in the next session.

It starts tonight.

Let’s go.

As Andrew walks away from me clutching his truck named Patrick.

(mumbling to himself) “Want to play Patrick with Daddy. Because Daddy plays Patrick better than Mommy. Because Daddy plays better than Mommy. Better than Mommy.”

Andrew woke up from his nap yesterday with a horrible attitude. He was clingy and grumpy and, although we convinced him to run through the sprinkler for a while, he remained in a bad mood until bedtime last night. This morning he woke up, grumpy and clingy, at 5:20.

I was not happy to see him.

All morning he was whiny and rude and just plain annoying, at least that’s how I perceived it as I bustled around the house trying to straighten up before our guests came over. I realized that something might be wrong when I finally sat down at 9:30am and he climbed in to my lap and promptly fell asleep.

He slept through the visit of our friends, through the family swim time I had planned on attending today, through the arrival of Grandma. Then he woke up, cried, climbed in to my lap and laid there, silent, staring at the wall for the next hour.

It occurred to me that something might be legitimately wrong with the boy.

I don’t know why I always assume that he is trying to ruin my day instead of giving him the benefit of the doubt and working to figure out what is wrong, I guess it shows how self-centered my mind really is. But I finally clued in to the fact that he might not feel very well and a thermometer reading of 103 confirmed my suspicions. He slept on my lap for most of the afternoon and is now sleeping in bed.

I’m hoping this bug leaves as quickly as it came.

ps - Although I now realize that his attitude is not a conspiracy to send me over the edge, the question remains - how many Thomas the Tank Engine videos can one adult watch before her head explodes? I logged eight today but I wouldn’t recommend it without some serious training beforehand.

Tomorrow we are watching feature films. I’m in the mood for Disney’s Robin Hood and Alice in Wonderland - they always made me feel better when I was sick.

I forgot to tell you, I took Andrew to the dentist last week after his crash, and his teeth are fine. All four top front teeth are a little bit loose, but the dentist doesn’t think he will lose any of them prematurely.

The visit itself was a battle. They had to call in two other adults to hold him down so that the dentist could examine his mouth and he scrambled out of the chair as though he had been launched when the assistant pulled out the polisher. However, after running the polisher on my hand, Winnie-The-Pooh’s mouth and a dragon’s teeth, Andrew became more interested. He didn’t want it to touch him (which was fine) but he did lean in for a closer look, commenting, “That’s a neat polisher tractor!”

I guess when you have tractors to polish your teeth, the dentist isn’t so bad.

I am in the middle of reading The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela and I came across this great passage:

“‘How beautiful the revolution! Even in its most barbarous aspect it is beautiful,’ Solis said with deep feeling. Then a vague melancholy seized him, and speaking low:
‘A pity what remains to do won’t be as beautiful! We must wait a while, until there are no men left to fight on either side, until no sound of shot rings through the air save from the mob as carrion-like it falls upon the booty; we must wait until the psychology of our race, condensed in to two words, shines clear and luminous as a drop of water: Robbery! Murder! what a colossal failure we would make of it, friend, if we, who offer our enthusiasm and lives to crush a wretched tyrant, became the builders of a monstrous edifice holding one hundred or two hundred thousand monsters of exactly the same sort. People without ideals! A tyrant folk! Vain bloodshed!’”

And then I turned on the news to hear that we, our country, right now, are selling arms to Saudi Arabia in hopes of stabilizing the Middle East. I listened for a moment, nonplussed, wondering if anyone else remembers the Taliban, those folks we supported to protect us from the Russians, or Saddam Hussein, who we supported to protect us from the Iranians, or later, when we sold arms to a known enemy, Iran, to secure the release of hostages and then used the money from those arms sales to support South American rebels.

I’m not even trying to be revolutionary in this commentary, I’m just saying that this particular strategy has been tried, with lackluster results, and it should worry thinking citizens on either side of the political aisle to hear that we are trying it again.