Called to Less

Last weekend we met the coolest family camping.

The kids met first, as kids will do in a campground. Kate and Ezra were a perfect match, two cuties in glasses laid out on a blanket playing with their dolls. Her younger brother Phoenix, and Annie, just a year apart, took to each other like fish and water. There was a dump truck involved, and lots of giggling. At one point they were just laying on their backs in the sunshine, laughing up into the clouds.

Even the older ones, Micah and Gabriel, found kinship in their reading habits. As I listened to them talk about books, I felt the sweetness of a conversation between a boy and girl just on the edge of being too embarrassed to talk to each other.

Mom and Dad—Amber and Sundance—made the most amazing decision a year ago.

It’s not for everyone. But it confronted Shea and me, in a good reflective way. So I’m going to share it.

They sold their house and bought a trailer.

Sundance has a job that travels for weeks at a time, and Amber and the kids got to missing him. So Amber did a little research on homeschool and talked Sundance into making their lives mobile.

Usually they go where he goes, but Amber wanted to spend the summer among the redwood trees, which is how they ended up in Klamath, camping across the row from us.

All of the questions that may be popping into your head can be answered over at Amber’s blog, www.notsopermanentpillow.com.

I will tell you that when I asked if it was forever, she shrugged and said that was the beauty of it. If they are done, they’ll just go back home. In the meantime, they are together, having adventures and learning how to function as a family in a 28 ft trailer.

That was the part that confronted me. They down-sized their quantity of life to up-size their quality of life.

No big house where everyone has their own room, tons of toys and three TVs. Just one shower, one toilet and one closet.

It made me think What would it take to get my family down to one closet? The answer is a lot. It would take a lot. And that made me sad.

It’s been on my heart for a while now. Our home in Oregon is everything we thought we wanted in a home, brand new and beautiful. Our So Cal money went far in Oregon, but the truth is, we could have chosen something smaller. Something less. That would have allowed us room to travel more, tithe more, share more of what we have.

But when we bought this house last year, we let our egos make the decision. That’s a hard and humbling thing to admit. And now too much of what we have is tied up in the house.

I don’t think it was by chance that Amber and her family were camped across from us at the mouth of the Klamath River. I think God was saying Look. Listen. See what life can be when you stop trying to keep up. You already know that keeping up is not what I want. But you have to find the courage to let it go.

I’m not packing up my kids and heading off into the sunset, because homeschooling is not my gift. No, no, no.

But Shea and I have some praying and listening to do over the next year.

Summer 2015: Camp Happy Update

Clear water swimming is a lot less stressful than ocean water swimming. (Except when your son yells “Mom, I found an underwater cave!” and you tell him not to swim through it and he already did. That’s stressful, maybe even more than the thought of a shark lurking in the surf.) We have enjoyed swimming holes and rainbow trout nibbling our toes and water so clear we can see forty feet down. And we learned that lake hair is much better for our hair than beach hair. But not as cute.

The summer pool membership was a good call. Mostly because they serve booze there.

I came out large against camps and our kids only did a few. For the most part, it was a good call. We really got into a summer rhythm of going to bed late and sleeping later. There were lots of activities up my sleeve that we never even had to try, like the $2 summer movies or the local kid’s museum. However, I was really ready for school to start yesterday. Really, really ready. I need a break from refereeing Every. Waking. Moment.

There were lots of playdates. I enjoyed getting to know the moms better. We bonded over muffins and floaties and even a camping trip. There are some rock star moms here in our valley.

This was a playdate. At a swimming hole! Oregon rocks!

In August, there will be smoke in the valley. And when I say smoke, I’m talking 31 days straight. Not like in So Cal, when the smoke can hang out for three or four days and then the wind shifts and blows it all back to Arizona. It just sat there for weeks and weeks. Can’t see across the valley bad. Can’t go outside bad. Shouldn’t be having football practice but the season starts in two weeks so what are you gonna do bad. Bad.

We did a lot of reading. I am three books into the Clan of the Cave Bear series and have three Alice Hoffman books waiting on the bench. I love me some Alice Hoffman. Gabriel highly recommends the Wings of Fire series for boys his age (9-12). He’s read it twice this summer, he loved it so much. Kate continues to believe that reading is over-rated, but she liked her Frannie K. Stein required reading book well enough.

Once Upon a Time is a really good show. Not really, but it’s been my summer TV binge and I’m Hook’d.

The garden. The garden is a whole other post which I don’t have time to write because I have one million tomatoes to turn into sauce. And I’m nervous about that because there have been two canning fails over the last few weeks. I’m shook.

The seals blew on these red hots apples. They aren't supposed to float. And they surely are not supposed to be up side down. — The seals blew on these red hots apples. They aren’t supposed to float. And they surely are not supposed to be up side down.

The bottom of the jar blew out of this one. What??? — The bottom of the jar blew out of this one. I don’t even know…

We have one last camping trip this weekend, and then we say goodbye to summer 2015, one of our best yet! Next up: 100 Days of Holidays!

Only 115 days until Christmas!

The Dog Who Cried Monster

We have these two dogs.

Sugar is 12 and the greatest dog in the history of dogs. Seriously.

Lizzie is almost 3. She is not the greatest dog. She is not even the greatest basset hound. She has a very pure heart, but she’s 70 lbs of ready, fire, aim.

She and Sugar rarely see eye to eye and as Sugar gets older and more arthritic, Lizzie has begun to assert her place in the pack.

Shea is not having this. Sugar is his dog and he will fight to preserve her place. Even though I have told him that dogs do this. The leadership naturally passes to the younger dog. It’s useless for us to interfere. There’s nothing we can say or do.

This does not stop him from trying.

So when Lizzie started barking at Sugar constantly last weekend, Shea had no patience.

Lizzie barked at Sugar to get up from her bed. Shea yelled at Lizzie to stop.

Lizzie barked from the top of the stairs at Sugar down at the bottom. Sugar whined back and Shea chased Lizzie down the stairs and out the doggie door.

Lizzie howled from downstairs at Sugar asleep in her bed. Over and over and over. “She needs to leave Sugar alone” Shea said. But I wasn’t sure that was it.

I did a once over on the floors. Sugar has been known to have accidents and Lizzie has been known to tattle on her.

I checked their food and water. I fed them. We have to separate them and this resulted in Lizzie barking frantically at the closed door where Sugar was eating.

I told Shea “She’s not barking at Sugar. She’s trying to tell us something.”

So Shea checked the backyard for signs of critters, invaders, space aliens. Nothing.

This went on for four days.

Yesterday afternoon, Lizzie set up a giant fuss in the girls’ room. I finally called her up the stairs and she came. But then she whined at Sugar in her bed for five minutes until I made Gabriel take her for a walk.

Last night she did it again. And let me just say again, she’s a basset hound. She only has one volume: full-throated. It reverberates through the body.

I’d had enough. Off I stomped down the stairs.

Lizzie was on pointe in the doorway of the girls’ room. That gave me pause.

When I stepped into the room, she gave one last bark and bolted.

Holy moly, I thought. What’s in here?

Then I saw it.

When Lizzie was barking at Sugar to get out of her bed, what she was really saying was “DUDE! There’s something down there!!! Get up!! I don’t know what it is!! Get up! Get up! Get up!”

Then “It’s right there. Right there. RIGHT. THERE. Be careful. But get it! Get it! Get it!”

And “PEOPLE. I don’t want food. There is a thing in the house that is going to eat the children if you don’t get it right now!!!!

She was right.

Beware the sheepskin.

My inlaws gave it to the kids on Sunday. Since then it has been spread out and folded up in different places all over the house. At one point Gabe put it on and chased his sisters around.

To a dopey dog with a small brain, I’m sure it looked like a monster. A monster that moved, curled up on the couch and slept on the floor in the girls room.

DANGER.

Poor thing. Just trying to keep us all safe.

Shea has apologized.

And I’m pretty sure that Sugar laughed herself to sleep.

Sugar is not scared of the sheepskin monster.

Surviving a Mixed Marriage

I knew it going in.

And I knew what a big deal it was. Marriages have broken up over less. But Shea is such a good man.

So I did what women do: I told myself he would change. For me. Or when the kids came. And if he didn’t, I resolved to stick it out no matter what. I put on a brave face for my concerned family and friends.

When my hair dresser took me by the hands and said “Jen, you cannot yoke with a non-believer” I laughed it off.

“Darlene. It’s not like he doesn’t believe in God. He’s just an Angels fan. We’ll make it work.”

I come from a family that bleeds Dodger Blue, so far back that my grandparents watched them play in the Coliseum when they first came to LA from Brooklyn. All through my twenties, I was the queen of the last minute $8 ticket.

I know how to get out of Chavez Ravine ten different ways. Only real Dodger fans will understand the value of that. They also know that we don’t need no stinking tail-gating, not when there’s Dodger dogs and cold beer walking up and down the aisles. Plus, there’s nothing like a late September sunset over the hills of Griffith Park.

And Vin. Let’s don’t forget about Vin.

Shea became an Angels fan during his college years. He and his two best men were season ticket holders. They have tail-gating under the A down to a science. He was at that World Series game in 2002—you know the one, Game Six when the Angels were trailing 5-0 to the Giants going into the 7^th inning. They rallied to win, forcing a Game 7. Which they won.

I don’t mind telling that story since, it’s about the Giants. I’m sad to say that we have Giants fans in the family. Every family has a burden to carry and this is ours. We married into them, but still. Shameful.

Before I would agree to Shea’s proposal, I protected myself. Our pre-nuptial agreement concerned one issue—team loyalty. We agreed that our male children could be Angels fans and the females would wear Dodger Blue. That technically puts me up 5-2, if we count the four-legged females (and we do).

After a few years, we amended the agreement to include the rule that there could be no quoting of statistics over breakfast. No late night discussions on the strength of the NL West vs the AL West. No usurping of football games for baseball games unless it was a playoff situation. We do not rush home from anywhere for a baseball game and HGTV trumps baseball every time.

If either team ever made the World Series again, we would go.

If both teams made the World Series at the same time, we would legally separate for the duration of the Series and only reunite after a renegotiation of the terms of the agreement.

Every year at this time, we revisit the rules of our mixed marriage. Because almost every year, both teams hover on the edge of the playoff picture, forcing us to consider our options.

We also have a football conflict. I am a NY Jets fan. Shea is a Buffalo Bills fan. These teams play in the Same. Dang. Division. So two Sundays a year, we invoke the pre-nup for football.

This is a less stressful situation because neither of our teams have been any good for a long time.

I am sharing our story so that others know it can be done. Marriages can survive rivalries. Children of these marriages can grow up to be normal, functioning sports fans. It is even possible to sit in a rival team’s stadium and enjoy a game for the sake of your spouse. I always wear my Dodger Blue when I go to Angels stadium.

Once, a guy bought Shea beer out of sympathy.

Sometimes, you have to take one for the team.

Road Trip!

We just got home from a family road trip where we drove this many miles:

The kids were rock stars. I mean…rock solid rock stars. We drove in 12 hour increments and they stood it. No tears, no whining, no fights.

Before you think we are raising angels, please. We have a 3^rd row seat. Separation is the key to happiness, folks.

We stopped first in Temecula, near where we used to live. JFK Amy met us there with her family and pizza. We stayed at a SpringHill Suites and I have to give them huge props here because when Gabriel hurled his dinner and half the pool water all over our room at 11 pm, they very quickly moved us to a new room. File it away, Mama Network, it’s always good to know the hotel chains that can handle a family of five and a puking child without breaking a sweat.

The next day we hit the mall in Temecula, because Disney Store. And Williams-Sonoma. Then we went to Front Street in Old Town for dinner. We love Old Town Temecula and if you are ever in the area, it’s worth a visit. Craft breweries, antique stores and restaurants with locally sourced food and wine.

We made a point to stop by the old house and dig up the St. Joseph statue that helped us sell it. Then we had dinner with our old neighbors and the kids got to play with their friends. It was pretty awesome. And weird to see our house that’s not our house anymore.

Our time at Grandma’s and Papa’s can be summed up in one word: Water.

My parent’s pool is probably 40 years old. They don’t make them like that anymore. It’s huge and it’s deep, almost ten feet under where the diving board used to be.

The kids were in it early and late and they got to do that most magnificent summertime So Cal thing—come home hot and sandy from the beach and jump in the cool pool to wash it all off.

We also hit the Long Beach Aquarium, which is such a great deal.

Shea took this picture with his cell phone! — Shea took this picture of a bioluminescent jellyfish with his cell phone!

On Sunday we had a big ol’ pool party. There are 7 August birthdays in our immediate and near family, from my niece turning 4 to my mom turning 69. There was cake. There was sangria. There was pulled pork.

And in the middle of it all, there was an army of preschool girls, long hair curly and straight, marching around my parent’s home with dollies under their arms. They were led by Faith, and she knows her way around Grammy’s, from the paints and crayons in the play room to the big bag of Otter Pops in the freezer in the garage.

They got what they wanted because they only asked the daddies. And if that didn’t work, they asked the Papa, who these days only loosely resembles the man I called “Dad”. I actually saw him stand and wait patiently while they each chose the perfect pop.

I felt better after he told the two oldest boys “Take what I give you and be happy!”

When I see this picture, I can’t really blame him. But dear God, the men in this extended family of ours have to gather their wits about them before these ladies are teenagers or we are all in trouble. Do you hear me? TROUBLE.

Annie is not here because one of the themes of our trip was puking and it was her turn.

We drove off the driveway at 9 am and after stopping to meet my friend Jo and her kids—who were driving home from Oregon while we were driving home to Oregon—we pulled into our driveway at 10:30 pm.

At 2 am, Kate hurled all over her bed and needed a shower, completing the puke trifecta. It was ok though because I got to wash her hair, something that hadn’t happened in a week. “But mom,” she told me, “it wasn’t like I didn’t have a pool bath every single day.”

My wise girl. It’s true that in summer, soap and chlorine are interchangeable.

We have four weeks til school, but many of you are sending your chickens back to school in the next ten days.

I have one thing to say about that: YOU MADE IT.

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