Dear Teresa ~ Jen

Happy 21^st birthday, sweet girl.

I could get all misty eyed about the four year old you, screaming out my name when I walked into church every Sunday; or the seven year old you, in my mom’s apron, standing over the sink cleaning the silver a few days before Thanksgiving; or the eleven year old you walking down the aisle at my wedding.

But here you are, standing in the doorway of your childhood, so this is it. Time to leave those things behind. The rubber meets the road, and not just for you. For all of us who participated in your growing up, now we see if we did it “right”. If we gave you all the love and tools and advice that you need to move on to the next part.

You can’t go back. What’s done—great, good, bad, ugly—is done. We can’t any of us do it over. Some adults your age get stuck in the place of what might have been. Those folks, they never grow up. They stay angry little children inside, always throwing tantrums and blaming others for what goes wrong in their lives.

Their moms never taught them “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit”. But yours did. And we did. So if you think you are missing parts and pieces—and maybe you are—it’s not an excuse. You’re resourceful. If you need something, find it. If a space is empty, fill it. Don’t walk around hollow in your heart and your spirit and blame that on someone else.

You’re an adult now. You make your own way. Which is good news and bad news.

You make your own choices.

You face their consequences on your own.

So before you cross that threshold from childhood to adulthood, let me offer some last gifts of wisdom.

Life is much easier if you are patient, kind and truthful. Society doesn’t seem to value these traits, but society is wrong. It’s only a dog eat dog world if you agree to be a dog. You are a child of God. And no one earns points in life for being a jerk.

Speak up for what is right. Stand up for those who are weaker. Always give a part of your time, talent or treasure to someone who needs it more. These things keep us connected and humble.

Remember that God is inside you and everyone else, too. Always be nice to God.

If the people in your life are not nice to the God in you, move on. Give them space and pray for their healing. There is too much love out there to spend time with those who won’t or can’t give it.

I hope you travel around this country. I hope you travel around other countries. I hope you spend most of your twenties getting your wiggle out, physically, culturally, spiritually, before you settle down for marriage and motherhood.

I hope you form your own Committee and go on Sunday Benders with them. A smart person knows they don’t make it through life alone.

Grow your life with Jesus, too. You’ll need Him.

In England, when young adults come of age, it’s tradition to give them a key. It hearkens back to the time when it was an accomplishment to reach this age, and as a mark of maturity and responsibility, 21 year olds were given the key to the home.

Shea and I like the symbolism of this gift. You hold the key to your life in your hand and in your heart. You can make your life what you want, no matter the trials and tribulations that come along. You have a lot of support. You can ask for help.

But you can never be a child again. St. Paul reminds us “When I was a child, I used to talk like a child, and see things as a child does, and think like a child; but now that I have become an adult, I have finished with all childish ways” (1 Cor 13:11).

It’s time. Step out into the light and wide open space of the rest of your life. You’re ready.

We love you!

Shea, Jen, Gabe, Kate, Annie, Sugar and Lizzie

Homemade Summer Fruit Yogurt Pops

It’s AUGUST!

In our part of the world, that means the kids are headed back to school soon and NFL players are reporting to training camp. As a bonus, the Dodgers are leading the NL West and the Giants suck.

All is well.

We thought we’d share a fun summer recipe we use with our kids. It’s a great go-to when the late summer fruit ripens a wee bit too quickly and is in danger of going in the trash.

Like these cherries I bought the other day. My kids won’t eat squishy and these got squishy fast.

I would hate to throw $6 of cherries away so I repurposed them into cherry yogurt pops.

I bought the pop maker at Vons for $1.99.

I use plain Greek yogurt, pure vanilla, honey and the cherries. I pitted the cherries with my handy dandy cherry pitter from Target. If you’ve never used one, I can tell you they are very useful but messy. Wear an apron and prepare for your sink to look like you killed something in it.

A cup of yogurt, a teaspoon of vanilla, a tablespoon of honey and about a cup of cherries (the fruit amount can be very loose—more or less, depending on how you like it to taste).

Hit the blender. Pour into the pop maker and freeze. Viola! Cheap and healthy summer treat. No squishy cherries, no wasted fruit.

Recipe:

1 cup(ish) pitted fresh cherries (or any squishy fruit or combination of squishy fruits on your counter)

1 cup plain, nonfat Greek yogurt

1 tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix together in blender until ingredients reach smoothie texture. Pour into ice pop maker and freeze.

Nutritional Information:

Calories: 89/pop; .2 grams of fat; 15.7 grams of carbs; 6.8 grams of protein; 8% RDA calcium; 6% RDA Vitamin C

Tree Climbers and Raw Chicken ~ Jen

This is Door County Kona blend with hazelnut creamer. Good coffee helps me keep my tree climbing feet on the ground!

As you know, I’ve been working on letting go of my fears. This is the non-medicinal part of my recovery from postpartum anxiety. Turns out popping a Zoloft every night is not the work.

My friend Lara and I were talking about being more fearless, since we are both very worried about what might happen. And I said “We just have to rub the raw chicken on the kitchen counter! And trust that when we clean it up, we’ll get it all. And if we don’t, what’s the worst that can happen?”

This was met with silence. I know, because I have been friends with her for almost 20 years, that she was resisting the urge to curl into a fetal position at just the thought of raw chicken on the kitchen counter. That’s her THING. And even though I know that she knew that I wanted her to laugh and say “That’s right!” she couldn’t. Could not.

What she said was “Well, you might die.”

Which made me immediately obsess over the state of my kitchen counters.

In my defense, I come by this genetically. The women in my family go from zero to end of the world in five easy steps: “Where are the dinner rolls? We forgot the dinner rolls! No one set the timer!! They almost caught on fire!!! WE ALMOST BURNED TO DEATH ON CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

We call it tree climbing. Like monkeys, who climb to the top of their trees and screech (or do worse) when agitated.

When I was pregnant with my son, I had contractions at 26 weeks, three days before Christmas. I called my mom on the way to the hospital. Two minutes after hanging up with her, both my sisters-in-law and my cousin called to see if I was ok. By the time my dad called, I answered the phone and said “I’m sure I’m fine. Everybody needs to relax.”

My dad said “Relax? Are you kidding me? Your mother is so far up her tree, she has a STAR on her head!”

Yes, that’s how we roll. You remember Swine Flu? I just knew that if I didn’t get my kids vaccinated, I was inviting death and destruction into my home. I checked the CDC website daily for an update on the spread of the flu and the availability of the vaccine. I called the people at the county vaccination clinic so often that they knew me by name. Shea will tell you he was out of work at the time, but that’s not true. It was his job to GET THOSE KIDS VACCINATED. I didn’t just climb the tree, I built a tree house and strung lights.

In the words of Truvy Jones, I now know that I was suffering from a case of postpartum anxiety. Nevertheless.

I want to argue that tree climbers make life easier, because we see things coming and we get out in front of them, but it’s not true. The truth is we invent stuff to see at the top of our trees because we’re so shocked by the fact that when we get to the top, there’s nothing there.

Like the Christmas rolls. I am sure somewhere in history a family has burned to death on Christmas day from an oven fire, but probably not since ovens were made of adobe. And don’t get me started on what I found when I looked up the facts from the swine flu pandemic in 2009. More dangerous to drive a dang car down the street.

So listen up anxiety sisters and fellow tree climbers: cut down the blessed tree. Don’t bark at shadows. Don’t kill your chickens before they’re hatched. Or whatever other messed up metaphor you want to use for maybe being the biggest source of your own stress and anxiety.

Oh yeah—mom laying on the beach on a perfectly beautiful day when the sun is shining and the kids are playing, and instead of relaxing, you find something to worry about? I’m talking to YOU.

What if, instead of the creepy dark belief that evil is lurking around every corner, the truth is that real life is mostly less stressful than most of us make it out to be? I’m not saying there are not horrible times in life, but what if we make it worse by constantly imagining the worst?

In my life, tree climbing is both chemical and emotional. Nature and nurture, baby. So I medicate and meditate: Do not be the source of your own stress. Do not be the source of your own stress.

There’s no shame in being more peaceful.

And no one gets any awards for being out in front of nothing. Just saying.

The Royal Baby ~ Dana

What I’m about to tell you might surprise you, especially in light of our last post in which we proclaimed ourselves beasts. Beasts that, perhaps, have been in hibernation, but beasts nonetheless.

I’ll work you into it… Jen and I are both English teachers. You knew that. We both love Shakespeare. You aren’t surprised at that. We both have what can borderline as obsession for Downton Abbey. Are you sensing a theme? And here it comes… we are STOKED about the Royal Baby. STOKED! And we were excited about the Royal Wedding a few years ago, too. I watched it live. I used the excuse that I was up feeding my newborn baby at that ungodly hour of the night, but I watched all of the coverage from start to finish. No baby nurses for THAT long.

And my husband makes fun of me. He scoffs at the royals. He says that they ride on the backs of the taxpayers, that the modern world has no need of a royal family. “What do you care? We don’t live there,” I say. “What do you care? We don’t live there,” he answers. Well played, Hansel. Well played.

And why do we care? Here we are, a country that is in existence as a result of hating the monarchy, and yet there are lots and lots of Americans that go bonkers for this stuff. I enjoyed hearing about the Royal Wedding and the Royal Baby because for just a few mornings, reality is suspended. The television was inundated with video footage of London, and pictures of palaces, and memories of Princess Diana, and that was a lovely break from hearing about another shooting, another kidnapping, and rising gas prices.

A friend of mine on Facebook wrote that it’s also a break from our trashy celebrities. It’s all a bit Camelot thinking of the birth of a future king, isn’t it? And you know I love me some Camelot. Oh, to be Vanessa Redgrave… the dress, the crown… Richard Harris!

And here at Full of Graces we love dressing like the Royals, too. We love tiaras and long dresses. We love princess parties.

So it is with open arms we welcome you, Prince George Alexander Louis! Thank you for being a bright little spot in our day.

We’re Coming for You, Ladies

It’s time to tell some truth about Dana and me. I know we come across as level-headed, educated former English teachers. I know we seem calm, cool and collected. Rational. Reflective.

These things are true about us. But not all the way true. Underneath, there’s something else.

Underneath, we are beasts.

It’s a huge part of who we used to be, years and years ago. Before this week, I would have said that we’ve moved on to be kinder, gentler wives and moms. But this week has proved me wrong.

We’ve joined a bootcamp together. And the beasts are back.

Dana says she hasn’t worked out in ten years. I’ve been a bit better than that, but not bootcamp better. This last week we got our butts kicked all over the gym. Lunges across the entire parking lot? Check. Four minute plank? Check. Four sets of one minute suicides? Check and oxygen, please.

It’s ok, though. Because Dana and I used to play some volleyball. The Division I college athlete kind. Our lives for years and years were all about winning or losing. It was our job. We trained every day to beat someone, driven by coaches whose job it was to win, at schools where athletics was the biggest money maker. And she and I are fiercely competitive. We don’t talk about those days in terms of “We beat Notre Dame at home” or “USC had a weaker team that year”. Oh no.

We wiped the floor with Notre Dame in front of their own folks. And USC sucked. I’m leaving out the expletives because we’d like this to be a G-rated blog, but there were lots. And most of them started with an F.

For us, there was no second place. There wasn’t even any second team. Dana played in an NCAA Final Four and knows this better than I do.

There were the winners. And then there was everyone else.

Right now, at the gym, we’re everyone else. The winners are shorter, younger and in better shape than we are. They never played sports in their lives. They whine and complain and crack jokes while they sprint faster and lift heavier weights. They don’t know what we used to be.

They don’t care.

I wish I could say that Dana and I are past all that now. That we’ve grown and are humble and happy to accept tips on form from a woman who put make-up on for a 6 am workout.

But we’re not past it. And we’re going to get them.

Just as soon as we can sit on the toilet without wincing in pain. Raise our arms to blow our hair dry. Lift our babies.

Then we’re coming for you, ladies. You may be faster and stronger now, but not for long. Not. For. Long.

Jen playing for Hofstra University, 1990

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