Dress Up, Dine In

The in-between is the worst.  Living in a home that's losing us. Losing the things that make it ours: the community cats, the white and green kitchen walls, the traces of our family tucked into drawers in the name of de-cluttering.  If I don't start distancing myself now I will bleed out onto the wood floor. The one the two of us pulled countless nails from at night after we'd gotten off work. The one that's marked by puffs clattering down hallways. What I walked over (and over and over) to get the kids to sleep when they were small. I'm hemorrhaging memories.  Eventually this will be an adventure. That Arizona house that's getting a new roof will be our new home (complete with a basement to cry in, of all things!) and I'll put on a brave face for the kids. Eventually I may even love it. But right now there's just this limbo. It's crushing me. :: listening to "june on the west coast" by bright eyes::

Utah~ We were babies when we met you. Newly married, freezing in 50 degrees, adventurous babies.  Now we're parents, well acclimated, sad to be possibly saying goodbye grown people.  There's no way to measure my adoration for your hikes or what we discovered along them. I'll never be able to relate the perfection that is picnic-ing and playing in any one of your parks. Small town parades and big fireworks will never be done better. I love the people who made us family and friends here. And Fall, well, Fall is just bliss. So I thank you for bringing me these people and places so I would stop crying in bungalow basements out of homesickness. You showed me how beautiful it could be to begin again. I'm channeling the 10th Doctor over here with an "I don't want to go!" I can't imagine Arizona ever being for me what you have been. But maybe when I'm crying in some non-basement Arizona will speak to me as you did and I will let it bec...

I was afraid to leave 2015 behind and enter a new year that would never know two of our puff friends. Snowball, When you first came into my classroom with your funky flat top 'do I had no idea what a companion you would be. You greeted countless 1st graders, kept me company on late nights and planning days, and could always be counted on to stand in as a groundhog on its special day. I will miss you popcorning around your cage and playing hide-and-seek. I will hear your weeking noise in hopes of carrots every time I open the fridge. I still have to stop myself from cutting sweet peppers for you. Thank you for your company as I was navigating a new place. I hope you have learned to love your new one though it is so very far from us. We can't wait to see you again. Maximus, It wasn't lost on me that when you put your head in my lap it was exactly a year and a day after we met you. I didn't know that was your coherent goodbye at the time.  I wasn...

Last November, in the middle of the dinosaur play area at the mall, Seth and I decided to foster our third dog. Well, it was my idea as always but Seth's a good sport.  Maximus was a thirteen year old Lhasa mix whose owner had passed away and surviving family couldn't keep him. He was an old man and the Uintah Animal Shelter knew he'd do better if he was out. We saw him in a Facebook post. We met him in the parking lot of a vet clinic at a transport rendezvous.  It's so hard to guess what adjustment will be like for dogs who are getting to know your family, or us with them, for that matter. Most of our getting-to-know-you period was peppered with vet visits to remedy allergies and lots of food and med trials.  The rescue group we foster with, Utah Animal Advocacy Foundation , is phenomenal at making sure their fosters don't stress the vet responsibilities so we can focus on making our animals feel at home.  Since Max had been someone's before he seemed to f...

I've tried to summarize last November's trip to the home-state but all I get are false starts and interrupted sentences. I can't seem to translate the vibes that bounced around castles, beaches, Spanish moss, outstretched arms, family we saw and narrowly missed seeing. I'll never be able to say what these pictures do or describe all the moments that went on out of focus. So here (some of) it is:   ::listening to "i forget where we were" by ben howard::

When Eileen turned one I remember it being bittersweet. It hurt my heart in a fresh place that she wasn't a baby anymore. We celebrated her in St. Augustine where our family officially began when Seth & I got married. It was perfection but I was sad. It was as if when that day ended, a part of us did too.  At the time, all the fun (and, let's be honest, some not so fun) d evelopments were still a mystery. I didn't know turning one meant she was on her way to singing songs, "reading" herself stories at night, or having real conversations.  Those things and so much more were on the other side of birthdays and so when it was time for Man Friend to enjoy his first birthday last week, I was a lot less sad.  We celebrated him at Wheeler Farm for Pumpkin Days (where we had been the day before he was born). We  basked in his snorting, toothless gummy grins, chubby hands, and wild curls.  Even though it was sad to blow the candles out on his baby stage, I cou...

Leave it to me to write my first post of the new year six months into it. It's impossible to recount all the adventures we've had or the wonderfully mundane events that have passed. So, instead I'll just say (because I'm feeling sappy)... 2014 has been about arrivals and departures.  The Ranch has been alive with the dearest kind of visitors from the home state. They have Sundanced, farmed, egg hunted, and filled the space between these walls with laughter. They've come to life, hopped right out of their pictures and become real to our kids. It's been amazing.  And then there was February. We said goodbye (sometimes in spirit, sometimes in person, always in heart) to Mama Zoy, Seth's Grandma, and our raspberry neighbor Charlotte. It is an isolating experience to lose someone and be so physically distant. We tend both sides of the raspberry patch and visit Charlotte's grave because we can. But when we do it's like we're doing it for our gr...