Stock-The-Garden Party

This Saturday we hosted a garden party in hopes of planting a few flower beds and inspiring our front yard to be a little more welcoming and attractive. Depending on who you talk to some participants may call it a garden party, others might say the "party" was really just a masquerade for mini labor camp. Friends and family dutifully showed up with foliage in hand and together, with the smell of fertilizer in the air, we dug, planted, ate, and gave our front porch area a general face lift.

Often we San Diegans garden under the impression that we live in a lush rainforest. The reality is that we live in a coastal desert. It doesn't take a geologist to know that the conglomerate soil is anything but fertile delta silt. It took a post digger and a few very large men with very large biceps to dig through the layers of packed, sandy dirt, cobblestone sized rock, boulder sized rock, and sea shells in our flower bed to plant moderate little salvia, morning glory, and lavender plants. (The post digger and diggers survived but suffered minor wounds and warping.) Hopefully nothing a little Miracle Grow gardening soil won't conquer.

Which leads me to what really boggles my mind. Is it not incredible that we pay for dirt? And poo for that matter. Why do we pay such a premium for things that really should be on our plethora and free list? Because we live in a desert area masking as a luscious, water-abundant community and if I want more than sand castles, rock labyrinths, and cacti in my yard then I'm going to have to offer the ground a few little helpful nutrients. I was thinking of beginning potty training with Ms. Little Little soon. Maybe I'll just teach her a few tricks and cut down on the cost of "nutrients".

Thank you friends and family for giving us a new walk home. It is such a blast of breath to the soul to walk towards our door, see the transformation of what was once weeds, and know that a lot of love and community went into it. So thanks community for jolting your shoulders against the ping of rock and for allowing our little family to receive what it means to be in a community.

"Just" A Mom

When people ask me what I do its easy for the automatic response to bubble up, "I'm just a mom." I try not to say that though out of respect for all the stay-at-home-moms out there. When I was pregnant and trying to reconcile the title of Stay-At-Home-Mom I had a friend who gently corrected me whenever I said that I wasn't going to work anymore. She reminded me that I wasn't going to be working outside the home.

I'm sure some of you envision stay-at-home-moms sleeping in until noon and lounging in the backyard sun reading People magazine. I thought I might be doing a little of that too before I knew better.

The reality is that I do a hodge-podge of things, have a calendar that is no stranger to my fine-tip sharpie, juggle the budget and the bills, and try to remember to put on mascara before I head out the door (which didn't happen two days this week).

I've always heard people say that you couldn't afford to pay a stay-at-home-mom. To see if this is true and to give all you curious and slightly incredulous people out there a glimpse into my world, I kept track of my past week's activities and found the average cost for said activity in San Diego.

With a 15month old, my main responsibility is childcare. That alone is enough to take up my entire day and wipe me out. This week I also spent an average of 3 hrs a day cleaning the kitchen alone. I didn't dare count the actual number of dishes washed. I also prepared 20 meals for an assortment of 12 people, washed 12 loads of laundry, rinsed out many poopy (cloth) diapers, took my baby to a pediatrician appointment, baby-proofed the pantry so my Little Miss Independent couldn't help herself to her Daddy's honey-nut Cheerios anymore, diligently checked craigslist for the perfect porch bench, planned a garden party, trimmed a hedge, raked 7 bags of leaves, washed the car, met to discuss the new curriculum of our marrieds community group, met to discuss the needs of set-up team for a mom's group at church, paid the bills, got the run-around from our cell-phone company about getting my phone fixed, went to Costco, went to Henry's, went to Target, went to Wal-Mart.

The days get busy, but the best part of being a stay-at-home-mom is that I get to make time for my baby and I try to make time for my friends. This week I watched Super Why with my toddler in our jammies. I played blocks and had my favorite companion, my daughter, go on "adventures" with me to the stores, library, and plant nursery. I went to a writing/art workshop with a friend (thanks Hillary!), saw a movie with girlfriends, and taught my daughter how to go down the slide. We had a picnic with friends in Balboa Park and had other friends over for dinner. I read a book during Selah's nap and unsuccessfully eradicated ants from our family room.

According to average San Diego rates this is what I would have been paid if stay-at-home-moms got a salary.

Childcare: (We'll just count a 5 day work week) 5 days = $500
Housekeeping: (We'll just count cleaning the kitchen) 21 hrs at $10/hr = $210
Landscaping: 5 hrs at $10/hr = $50
Cloth Diaper Service: $20/week = $20
Essentials Shopping: 5 hrs at :$30/hr for personal shoppers= $150
TOTAL = $900 for the hours we counted.

Being there to watch Sesame Street reruns with my daughters soft blonde curls against my chest and fuzzy footy pajamas on my lap....PRICELESS!

The One

It's probably one of the most widely asked questions. I call it The Quintessential Relationship Question. "How did you know he was the one?" We've been asked this multiple times since we've been married. My unsatisfactory answer is, "I just knew." Deep. In my gut. In the marrow of my bones knew.

Nate and I have played the what if game. We've asked ourselves what if I hadn't gone to USD? Would we have met later in life through another set of circumstances and fallen in love? Maybe. Would we have lived two completely different lives? Fallen in love with other people? Married them instead? Maybe. Is there really only The One that God predestined for us? Or when we say that love is a verb, are we really meaning that love is the verb of choice?

Now, I am a very sentimental person by nature. I'm always rooting for Love and Truth to win. I think Enchanted is an inspired movie and yes, I have been known to whelm up in tears 30 seconds into a Martina McBride video. But the longer I'm married the less I believe that there is a One and Only. The reality is that there are a number of people out there that you could fall in love with and make a life together. But with marriage you choose one to become your only. Maybe they were farther down the list of God's preferred people for you to marry, but when you say "I do" they jump up to number one out of one.

So how did we know? I knew intuitively because my life is guided by intuition. Nate knew in a more rational revelation because he is a logical person, ruled by reason. It's my personal opinion that part of Spirit speaking to spirit means that we'll all be given this answer in ways we understand. Nate and I made our decision to wed and now each day we choose to love and make our marriage a blessing.

But I want to hear from you so I have some more examples when my single friends ask this timeless question. How did you know that your spouse was the one?

And I leave you with a word of wisdom I heard recently. The grass is greener where you water it.

For all you marrieds out there. Enjoy your spouse today and remember to throw a little water on your marriage!

Birthday Presents

I am now 27 and this birthday got me thinking. Mainly I am convinced that it is so much better to be 27 than 17. What a difference a decade makes! Picture yourself at 17. Yikes, huh? Now forgive yourself. You couldn't help it. You were 17.
By far the most treasured and inspirational change in my life has come through my introduction, friendship, courtship, and marriage with Nate. He is better than anything I knew to ask for.
I remember being 17, standing in the kitchen at work, my teenage female heart palpitating in anticipation of someone to love. But who? None of these jokers. My boss (who was always very kind and moderately protective of me) asked me what kind of guy I was looking for. I answered something along the lines of, "someone attractive, athletic, and who loves God and loves me." In my head I was picturing someone ruggedly swarthy, but with good hygiene. A Jesus loving Jeff Corwin type who could carry me through a jungle unscathed.
The only thing I knew for sure is that I wasn't looking for any of the guys I went to school or church with. Dating in highschool should be studied as an anthropological phenomenon. I'm sure just about every girl could write a comic tragedy fully fed by her own true-life experiences! My ribbon winners would probably have to go to Mr. Uncomfortable Silence All Evening Long, only barely beaten out by Mr. Stealth Dater who poses as a platonic friend then takes your hand hostage while he holds it without warning. Girls, you know those guys.
No, none of those guys would do. They couldn't help it. They were only 17 themselves.
Fortunately God knew enough to have a guy that could be my man, one that I couldn't imagine or articulate in a prayer. God also knew enough to not let me meet this man until he had grown passed his teenage pupa stage! Now at 27 I am fully convinced that life is so much better than it was at 17. Ten years have been a gift of learning to do life better. I'm anticipating that I'll be saying the same ten years from now.
Best gifts of the decade? Perspective. Nate.

Go With the Flow

If you didn't get to the dining area by 6:30, you didn't get breakfast. The elephant herd cut through the brush on the edge of the safari lodge's manicured lawn and followed toward the river on the other side, cutting right through the lobby. It was their mango trail. Their path was formed centuries before with the lodge imposing a new inconevience, but nothing large enough to detour the elephants from their path.

The same phenomenon is occurring at our house, only the stage and players are much less majestic. Instead of a safari lodge in the Great Rift Valley, a home in a San Diego canyon. Instead of a line of elephants, a flow of ants. One millionth the size and every bit as insurmountable as a whole family of elephants along a mango trail.

My mom waged war against the ants with a battery of talc and orange oil as they emerged from impossibly microscopic holes between the grout of our kitchen tile and paraded through our house along the baseboards of our new hardwood floors.

Nature is an awesome thing to behold. We rage and wrestle against it while it tacitly and tenaciously reminds us that it was here first. Our buildings accidentally constructed in the middle of their trails are not their problem, but ours. As I watch the ants stream down our halls I remember those elephants and try to internalize the lesson that sometimes it truly is saner to just "go with the flow".