happy life – Peaceful Reader

It's a crazy time of year…

Work is crazy-good-but crazy. I have a new library assistant and it has been amazingly fun to work with her, train her, and watch her work and develop relationships with our students. I have 4 boxes of new books from Follett and several boxes from Scholastic to process and add to the collection. We’ve had several big school events that our group of leadership ambassadors have been part of and that just takes work from me to organize. It’s inspiring to work with them and pushes me in new directions but it’s challenging to add that to my already busy library tasks.

{Groovy Girl – 9th grade formal ready}

Home is crazy because dance is on extreme mode as we approach the end of May recital. We have costumes to attend to, tickets, pictures, makeup, pasties to buy. We also shopped for a 9th grade formal dress/shoes and that was a whole fun shopping night. We found beautiful shoes and an on-sale dress that matched and were perfect. Groovy Girl is going with a group of free-spirited girls and a few boys are tagging along with them. One (girl)friend will wear a suit of some sort, another a pair of sparkly Chucks with her dress, a few have dates, but most are just going to be together, dance, and have fun.

Home is also crazy because my husband has three different plays going on and is working with 1st graders at a local school. Plus he’s building a structure in our backyard to house a special new family pet. This enclosure has been time-consuming but it looks so beautiful. He had to take out our garden plot to build this so this year I will try gardening in the front yard plot plus some containers on the patio.

{Beauty uncovered}

We will soon celebrate Teenage Boy’s birthday-he’ll be 22 on Friday. No longer a teenage boy anymore but that lives on in my mind. We are celebrating together at an Italian restaurant in Marion. We will come bearing gifts fit for a 22 -year-old college student. He and his girlfriend took a quick trip, for a family wedding, to one of our favorite states-Colorado.

Anton is doing really well and has worked with a local organization that helps at-risk young adults return to school. He’s put in an application for Hawkeye Community College. That was a happy day. There is still a long uphill journey to go but at least we started out.

{Colorado Trip}

Joys

{made-with-love oatmeal}

Much of being a parent is really difficult. I’ve always said the good, the true joy of being a parent, outweighs all the negative that can and often does happen. This applies to my family completely. We’ve had struggles (key the amen choir) and some times it can be days before true JOY shows it’s pretty head.

My son turns 22 at the end of this month. Shocking-YES. My stepdaughter turned 25 a few days ago. It’s a big birthday month. I received my son’s birthday wish list yesterday and low and behold (cue the choir again) THIS meatless cookbook is on his list. If any of you reading have been following along for years this is the kid who insisted we put meat on his plate at the end of middle school. He was working out a lot, playing hard, and felt like our mostly plant-based diet was not filling him up. He was sick and tired of being raised vegetarian.

This outburst from him prompted me to look into sustainable meat which created a whole new food journey for our family. I started buying meat from local farmers and listened to one of my food heroes Barbara Kingsolver. In Animal, Vegetable, Miracle she says that at one time the only option was to abstain from meat if you were conscientious about your food choices; now there are options so promoting and purchasing farmer-raised meat is good for us and good for the farmer and ultimately good for the environment. So I’m gently patting myself on the back that my son, even though I know he still enjoys meat once in while, is aware of other eating options. Bravo.

Groovy Girl, who really wishes I could come up with a new blog nickname for her, makes me feel joy often but in particular the other day when her braces-covered-teeth were sore she made the request for me to make my special oatmeal for her breakfast. It was the way she said it like she was 7 again and not 14. I rewarded her with a delicious bowl full and mini ones for my husband and I. Truth be told I don’t do anything that special but I do stir it as it cooks which makes it creamy and at the end I add what ever fruit we have and sprinkles of brown sugar and cinnamon. Made with love.

Groovy Girl (the name is too perfect and she’ll be G.G. until the day the blog ends-sorry babe) and I did FaceTime with oldest daughter on her birthday and that was a highlight of my week. She had been at the musical Groundhog Day in NYC so we talked to her as she walked to the train. NY looked magical with twinkling lights and all the activity around her. I can’t wait to be there this summer with her.

Anton, my former student, living with us as an adopted son now is doing really well. He has a job, has his IA driver’s license, and has made a friend. Right now he is outside helping Greg with some chores. Teaching him to be part of the family is probably the hardest hurdle as that’s not something he’s experienced in the same way many of us think about family dynamics; how we work together and communicate. It is a thrill still to have him here.

It's my birthday (well, yesterday) and I celebrated!

Beautiful hotel pool

I turned 50 yesterday. I know. It feels weird to me as well. I remember when my parents were 50 and it seemed so dang old-seriously ancient-that I never contemplated reaching the age myself. It’s here. When in doubt, celebrate or run away and celebrate. Groovy Girl attended church camp for 3 days near Des Moines and my husband came up with the idea to “whisk” me away for those few days. We stayed in a nice hotel with a very comfy white bed. This photo doesn’t even convey how soft yet crisp the bed felt.

I had a white bed like this years ago when I was single and lived in St. Paul, MN. I didn’t have kids or a husband or two big hairy dogs; just me and a simple bed with white sheets and a white down comforter. I missed it just a tiny bit as I enjoyed this one but not enough to trade the kids, the dogs, or the husband! It’s just a bed after all. Those other things make up my life.

Here’s my birthday photos to share…

Sushi at Hoshi’s

Jasper Winery

The full moon graced my birthday days

Cupcakes with our friends Rocky and Mary Kay

Love this platter from Mary Kay

Husband’s homemade monster card

Want to know what gifts I was lucky enough to receive?

My amazing in-laws (and I felt this way before yesterday) sent me a Kindle Fire!! I played with it until 2:00 in the morning. Our oldest daughter is doing an intern in NYC and she sent me a cool book bag from The Strand bookstore. Our youngest made me a very colorful collage. I gonna frame it. Teenage Boy had a jingle writer write and sing me a Happy Birthday ditty. Aren’t they creative!

Beyond the wonderful trip my husband put together for me, with lots of gifts along the way, he still had gifts at home; the new Gillian Flynn book, Gone Girl and a CD of Michael Kiwanuka (Home Again) because he heard Michael on NPR and loved his sound.

I ordered myself Planting Dandelions by Kyran Pittman because I’ve wanted it for awhile.

Groovy Girl’s “Mama” collage

My little feet dragging at check-out time