Backward

Today's topic: Backward



GO.

In two weeks our family of five is driving backward. We shove things as tight as we can, pack up all that will fit, and drive cross country from Boston to San Diego. We are backward of just one year, when we shoved and packed our lives and three little boys into two cars and a teeny 5x8 trailer.

Driving backward floods backward emotions. I toss out all the things I would not otherwise toss: refrigerator art, crafts, and toys. We pick up what matters. We pick up limbs, hearts, and our family bond. I can't toss those.

I pick up, I pack up. I can't toss what we gained this year. The tightness between my husband and me, our children learning that family stability is more important than our house in San Diego. More importantly, we grew this year in faith, in the ways we have trusted God about where we live, and how he provides.

STOP.

Go ahead, you try. Here are the rules:
1. Write for 5 minutes flat for pure unedited love of the written word.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Get a little crazy with encouragement for the five minuter who linked up before you.

On Forgetting: Niagra Falls

Today I am linking up with The Gypsy Mama for Five Minute Fridays. Today's topic is:

On Forgetting

Got five minutes? Here’s a great way to spend them.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat without editing your voice.
2. Link back to the Gypsy Mama and invite others to join in.
3. Pony up the comment love for the five minuter who linked up before you.

GO.

 They give me the blank stare. I cannot convince them they DO remember that one time when....

And I dream that today will not be one of those times. I spun those very thoughts around in my mind when I pulled the billowing plastic rain coats over their heads and over their clothes. I was sharply aware that this dressing might slip their memories one day.

Will they remember that I grabbed the Middle Man by the wrist and charged him down the twisting path, across and over the foot bridge, and through the trees to the ticket booth, with Grandma huffing behind? She was clutching the Big Guy's wrist, as I breathlessly bought the very last tickets to the very last boat that day just minutes ahead.

Will they remember the way the birds dotted the shore and the rainbow bent in reverence in front of Niagra Falls? Will they remember the way our shoes were soaked past our socks, and the way that we arched backward to stare quietly at the cascading water? Will they remember the broken silence by happy screams, showering under heart dropping sprays from the plunging white throttles?

STOP.
Pictures from the day:

Deep Breaths

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The Gypsy Mama is hosting Five Minute Friday.

Here are the rules:

Write your heart out for 5 minutes flat.

Today’s topic is Deep Breaths.


GO.

I have been a swimmer nearly all my life. I have no fear of pools or the ocean. I was raised in San Diego, with a pool in my backyard and the ocean minutes away. My parents claim the YMCA taught me to dive for rings at 14 months in three feet of water. They even have pictures.

I drew deep breaths. The air filled my lungs. The deeper I inhaled, the deeper I swam, and the longer I swam. Swimming lengths underwater was a welcome challenge in my childhood.

As a newlywed I was a certified Advanced Diver. Plunging to depths of 120 feet I relied on my regulator, all the while drawing deep calming breaths.

This all should transfer to every day life. It does not. I just ate two cookies after I realized Blogger swallowed comments from yesterday's vlog. So, if you have less than two minutes, encourage me to take more deep breaths and eat less cookies.

STOP.

***I am really upset over the deletion of some of the comments on yesterday's vlog. One was from my sister, and she never comments. A few others were from close friends that live far away. Deep breaths. Less cookies. Enjoy my vlog from yesterday. Comment if you are so led.

Motherhood Should Come With Matches

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The Gypsy Mama is hosting Five Minute Friday.

Here are the rules:

Write your heart out for 5 minutes flat.

Today’s topic is Motherhood Should Come With....



Write your heart out for five minutes flat.  

Go.

Motherhood should come with matches that ignite flames in your heart.

Some flames flicker like birthday candles, gently, side to side, with a sense of reverence. I know these flames when I hear my children learn to pray.

Some flames are lit like a beach bonfire, a warmth that beckons laughing and friendship. Those are the moments of night time tickles and sharing desserts and riding roller coasters together.

Some flames glow like the romance of an irresistible candlelight dinner. Those are the days that I held my sleeping newborns ever long, long after I could have laid them in their cribs.

Some flames of motherhood burn with a roar of a house fire, even if they are deep within my heart, held tightly inside the pit of my stomach by pursed lips. That fire is the roar in my heart when anyone comments on the "problem with boys" and overtly apologizes for my "situation" with THREE boys. Really, I could consume them like a fire rather than listen to their rambles. They do not understand how much I love my all boy world.

STOP.

Distance

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The Gypsy Mama is hosting Five Minute Friday.

Here are the rules:

Write for 5 minutes flat for pure unedited love of the written word.

Today’s topic is Distance.



GO.

A couple of weeks ago I unfolded the huge map of the United States and spread it across the floor of my 1928 craftsman in Massachussetts, just as I had spread it across 2005 cold tiles in my California home almost a year ago.

I cannot measure distance the same way as my hubs, on an iPad or laptop. I need to feel the map between my fingers and see the cross sections of states in one whole picture. I cannot solely rely on the GPS in my car. This is odd to my man, but still he allows me to generally plan the route.

This summer we will once again travel three thousand miles across the country with 3 small children in tow. We will speak volumes across distance, we will grow our family ties across distance, and we will see a whole new route than when we left last July.

The distance will grow us. I don't know how, but I know it. The journey will mark part of our summer, of wild stories, adventures, and probably mishaps. We will see more than the stretches of highways.


STOP.

That was 5 minutes, except for formatting and uploading the photo!

If You Met Me

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The Gypsy Mama is hosting Five Minute Friday.

Here are the rules:
We just write. For five minutes flat.

Today’s topic is “If You Met Me”







GO.

If you met me, you would know I have a wildly crazy side. I REALLY met this guy in an elevator in 1996, and I REALLY married him 21 months later on the Fourth of July, just so we could have our own fireworks for every anniversary. REALLY.

 You might probably ask me if we tried for a girl when you saw my tribe of boys. And I would sit you down and tell you all of the reasons I wanted three kids. It never occurred to me whether I might want a boy or a girl when I saw two lines on a pregnancy test.

 

You would know how much I love the beach. I grew up in San Diego, left for college to Los Angeles, where I roller bladed on Santa Monica and Venice Beaches on the weekends. After Dr. Romance and I were married, we eventually moved to Hawaii for 4 years, and back to San Diego for 18 months, with a stop in Virginia and Massachusetts on either side.

You would know that I love to play cards...Hearts, Pinochle, and Spades. And yes, I am wildly competitive.

I love moments. I love experiences. I love people. They matter to me more than all of the money in the world.

STOP.

That was five minutes flat, except for uploading photos and formatting.

No Rain, No Rainbows

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The Gypsy Mama is hosting Five Minute Friday.

Here are the rules:
We just write. For five minutes flat.

Today’s topic is “A Few of my Favorite Things”



GO.
A few of my favorite things are Diet Coke over large ice cubes, warm triple chocolate brownies, and living within minutes of the ocean. I don't anymore, but I have for 29 years of my life.

I also love words that tingle my senses.

I have vivid childhood memories of staring curiously at the little girl on the Morton's salt can. I read the slogan over and over, "When it rans, it pours." I loved reading the rounded cursive letters long before I ever learned to write my own loopy letters.

I marveled at those overlong raindrops. I believed that somewhere rain like that existed. Of course, rain like that existed somewhere other than my hometown of San Diego. I dreamt of living someplace where it poured. When it rains in San Diego, it does nor pour. And if it does rain a bit, the raindrops never look like those. But I itched to have a great big umbrella like hers and skip through puddles in galoshes.

What a joke. I am the girl on the Morton's can. I only carry a king sized umbrella when it rains. I don't like to be wet and feel my clothes stick to my skin.

I do not like rain. When we lived in Hawaii I found a new slogan I loved.

"No rain, no rainbows."

It is so much more beautiful a saying than anything about pouring rain.

For St. Patrick's Day I made these muffins. They did not turn out like the ones on the recipe. They were not supposed to look like tie dyed muffins.

But then I topped them off with vanilla icing for "fluffy clouds" and split them down the middle.

I remembered, "No rain, no rainbows."

STOP

Other than the time it took me to upload pictures and format, the writing was five minutes flat!

He Speaks Superhero

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The Gypsy Mama is hosting Five Minute Friday.

Here are the rules:
We just write. For five minutes flat.

Today’s topic is “I feel the most loved when…”



I hung up the phone rather curtly after I said I love you. I whipped my minivan around the corner, my heart racing, for the last spot in the entire parking lot. Pulling in between those two white lines my soul felt I had just crossed a finish line, outsmarting the luxury vehicle in front of me. I pulled the keys from the ignition, grabbed the stroller already set up, and pounced it on the pavement. It is hard to move three active boys in snow gear, each hauling a backpack, up a long side walk to the front doors.

I was questioned at the front desk about our final destination. Frustrating to be stopped in a hurry. Why couldn't she be efficient as me? Did she not see my son in a swimming cap? Fast and furious we sped past her, sprinting for an elevator that was stuck. So I threw the door open to the stairs, and sent the older two corraling down the flight. I urged the eldest to undress his brother at the pool deck, while I dragged the stroller backward down an entire flight of stairs.

In the lobby of the pool  deck, I finished flying the clothes off my son, down to his swim trunks. Swim lessons in Massachusetts at night with three kids in the dead of Winter? What was I thinking?

Finally. He was in the pool just as the lessons began. I relaxed. I wasn't running anymore. Now, just to manage the wriggling toddler and the chatty first grader, and hold a conversation with the interested mother next to me.

And then I saw him. My heart stopped, and then it sung. Straight from the airport, straight from his delayed flight, in just an oxford shirt, sans winter coat. I announced to the entire pool lobby, "I have just been rescued!!"

I feel most loved when he speaks his love language to me, not mine. Forgetting my sharp goodbye in the parking lot, he came straight to the poolside to lend me his hands. He said not a word, and lifted the wriggling baby from my lap and held him in his arms as he watched the swimming son through the window. Despite my frazzled, broken communication, he showed up.

STOP.