Changes are Good

I walk the gardens each morning that I am home, coffee in hand to see what is in bloom. Today, I added a camera so that I could catch the endings of my summertime gardens. The colors and plants that are growing and performing here change throughout the year. There is never a time when the garden does not have something in bloom. Continual bloom and change...kinda how life seems to go.

As my summer gardens prepare to end and the next set of plants prepare to take center stage, my year prepares to begin it's next phase. Summer is closing and with it comes the closing of many things I have enjoyed this season. I am preparing to head back to work this next week with the start up of school and with that will bring changes in schedules, meals, social time, and reading time as well as the leisurely time we have shared together as a family.

We will see the change in our home as Bryant packs and prepares to head back to his apartment and begin classes again. He has had a long summer break and has spent much time with friends and family. He has had the time to sleep all day and time to be up way into the nights hanging with friends. He has had the time to eat, sleep and restore his energy after arriving home exhausted from his first year at school. Now is the time for him to prepare for the next year as well as time to reunite with friends at school. A time for him to begin apartment life and all that comes with that new experience. It is also a time for us to end that daily contact with him and the family meals shared with him over the summer.

This is a time for Brit to prepare for her Senior year and all the fun and excitement that comes with it. ashe has had a full summer of traveling and meeting up with friends for coffee, movies, and lunches. Now will be the time to wake early and study late. For us it will mean seeing her less as her schedule is shaping up to be quite busy. We will have our morning rides together again where we try to schedule the last minute details as I drop her off at school and then head to work. This will be the year of last times..her last registration, last Homecomming...It will be the year she plans for new beginnings as we visit schools and she makes decisions as to where to start her next course of life.

This is the beginning of the busy season for Wayne. Already the almonds are being harvested and he has begun visiting growers to see just how the crop looks for this new year. Soon will be the end of the long days of sunlight where he heads to the patio, book in hand to enjoy just a bit more reading out with the plants. The days where he waits to see the new baby birds learn to fly from the rafters of our patio are coming to an end. Excitedly, he reminds me it is almost the season for football to begin and with it Fantasy Football.

As these summer plants end there time to bloom, the plants of winter...poppies, snap dragons, and pansies as well as many other bright blossoms will start to fill the nurseries. Winter means for our gardens, bright colors everywere! Color to make us forget the rainy season and the fog. Color that makes us smile each time we take the time to notice all the bright gardens surrounding our neighborhood. With these plants come the end of summer and the beginning of Fall and winter. The smell of woodburning throughout the community as the fireplaces are warming our homes, the bundling up as we head off to football games, and the changes in food at the farmers market as we head from summer into winter. Time to put away the grill and bring out the slowcooker. Time to peruse the books to find new soup recipes that will simmer all day and fill our senses as we walk in the house at the end of our work day. This is the end of summer but the beginning of times to cuddle inside in front of the fire with books and boardgames to fill the time. The time to smell the warm spices of winter foods and the time to play cards with friends way into the night.

So, as I say goodbye to summer and all it has held, I welcome the new changes and warm foods that are about to come upon us. I will soon head off to the nurseries to find just the right colors to brighten our gardens for yet another winter season. I will begin the process of soaking beans and lentils to add to all the winter veggies I hope to find at the Farmers Markets. Coffee walks through bright gardens and then off to work...Changes are good!

Home again...

Home again! I have spent much of my summer traveling. What fun to have the chance to wander...time to watch, listen, smell, taste, and live outside my usual space!!!Now I am back and ready to catch up and relive all the days that have passed so quickly.

So..I sit here ready to dreamily recount my summer as I sip on a blueberry, strawberry, pluot, soy smoothie made moments ago with all the beautiful fruit cascading from our kitchen!!! How could I ever take for granted the fact that we live in a place where such amazing food is grown. As many of you know, one of my favorite things in life while living in CA besides sand falling from our pockets as I do the laundry is the Farmers Markets. I try to hit them even while traveling so that we can eat fresh and local as well as support the farmers of the areas we are travelling through. We try to eat locally grown food in order to financially support all those beautiful families out there that have taken the time and energy to grow such wonderfully bright and healthy food for our tables. It is very important that no matter where we live, we support our local farmers by buying locally. It is financially helpful for them as well as good for your own health to eat from our own area. Tempting as it is to buy from places across the seas, it is better to concentrate on filling your baskets with food grown right at home. It is also a selfish pleasure for me to wander the aisles at the market touching, smelling and tasting the many fruits and veggies. I also love talking with the farmers and hearing their stories and when I am lucky, I get new ideas shared with me for ways of preparing these beautiful foods!

So as I sip my smoothie, I realize there are less than two weeks before I start back at work! How can this be? It seems just yesterday. I was finishing up last minute things in the office so I could head home, pack and hit the road to Monterey with Wayne and the kids! Bryant had just spent the last several weeks sleeping and recovering from his first year at UC Berkeley. What a change for a young man who homeschooled in a small town of 900 in rural IL to then move on to CA and campus life and project deadlines at CAL!!! He deserved a few weeks of continual sleep. Brit was deserving her own down time and sleep as she had just finished her Junior year at a HS of 3000 plus students having taken hard courses and walking away with amazing grades as well as awesome scores on all her school and college testing and on her ACT and SAT tests!!! It was time these two had a rest and what better place than at the ocean. If you have followed us through this blog over the last several years, you will have found that our place to energize and prepare ourselves for the world is the ocean. It is a place the four of us can just not get enough of! So, off we went to spend some time together in Monterey before summer life began and with it the craziness of travel, friends, etc.

As we were driving, Wayno suggested that one thing we do while in Monterey was join in on a whale watching expedition! How cool could that be? We all decided this must be part of our adventure but what if we saw nothing? Well, it would be cool anyway just to be out on the ocean, right?! We arrived early in the evening and wandered a bit before deciding to catch a bite to eat at a sushi place on the water. What fun we had sitting together as a family at the ocean talking and laughing over a wonderful meal of sushi which the four of us can never get enough of!!! The children ended this meal with a new dessert for them...tempura ice cream...Brit liked it but Bry devoured it!!!

Back to our room to sleep and prepare for our next day and our first time ever to board a whale watching boat. We rose the next morning and dressed in several layers...not quite enough and so I had to purchase yet another layer on the way to the boat and am I glad I did!!! Can we say freezing! Who would have known it could be that cold out at sea!!!

We were excited and a bit nervous as we boarded. We were prepped by our own marine biologist that would talk us through the whole three hours as we searched for whale. How do you spot them? What do they eat? Why are the here? You name it...we learned it during this trip. We were also warned that it is possible that we would not see any. So we waited and we shivered and we made friends with others hoping to get a peek of possibly just a burst of spray coming from a blow hole of in the distance...would they ever show themselves to us?

OK...so nobody prepares you for what happens if they show up, the whales that is!!! They showed up and then more showed up and even more showed up!!! I cannot tell you how exciting it was. You know if you are lucky enough when you are young to have a chance to go to Sea World or a place where you get to see Shamu or another whale just as cool, you are amazed and in awe because they are so cool! OK...so I would say this was like that and then times it by probably a million!!! I have told others there are no words for what I and I believe the rest of my family experienced that day. Church in a boat might be a good description but only if it was one of those really cool services that gave you goosebumps, tears, and that humbling sensation all wrapped into one! Nah...even that cannot come close to the God I experienced that day on a whale watching boat eight miles out to sea. They just don't prepare you for this when they give you directions on dock and really... how could they? Our marine biologist could not stopping telling us that we were fortunate enough to be on one of the best expeditions she had been on in the seven years that she had been doing this.

So, let me begin...the first several whales we saw were cool, and I mean heart racing cool. Look, you are in a boat in the ocean and these 40 ton whales are surfacing near you and you can't speak. How could we be so lucky! Little did we know just how lucky we were about to be...two whale, one about 40 tons and the other approximately 60 tons surfaced close by. They stayed up and played for a while and then gave us that fun tail slap and headed back down for a deep dive and then usually this is where the others would head off and we would see them in the distance again. Not so this time!!! These two became attached to our boat in that they did not want to leave. They would surface and play and then dive back down and then surface again, right by us. It came to be that they would dive under the boat and come back up on the other side...close and personal! This continued on for at least 20-30 minutes and there is just no way to explain in words what it felt like to be that close to these huge, beautiful creatures. Yes, whale breath is not quite pleasant that close up. Also, a group at the back of the boat had the unpleasant experience, or was it a really cool experience, to be covered in whale snot! At one moment the children and I were standing at the rail and the next moment I screamed as the blowhole of one of the whale was maybe 1-2 feet from my hand. Tears, goosebumps, etc. engulf you at this point and you know the universe really is huge and we are quite small in the whole scheme of things! Our marine biologist could not believe this experience! She at one point during these 20-30 minutes explained to us that these two whales had not just attached to the boat. Because of their behavior, she wanted us to understand that it was somebody on this boat that the whales were making contact with. They could feel or sense somebody on the boat that they liked and wanted to make contact with! Really! How much more amazing can life be at a moment like this? She was thrilled, we were all amazed and speechless other than the screams of pure shock and joy every few moments! How could we leave and go back to land after this? But all good things must come to an end and as wonderfully as they entered our lives, they lifted their tails one last time and slid back into the water and out to sea. And with them went many blessings from those of us that were graced by their energy.

We spent the rest of our trip listening to great music while eating wonderful foods in the park at a Blues Festival and seeing amazing sights at the aquarium. We of course walked the beach forever because well...that's just what our family does when we are at the ocean!

Needless to say, this was an amazing start to our summer!

An amazing way to spend some time together as a family before we all started what was to be a very fun yet very busy summer.

NOW IS THE TIME...

Upon our arrival home from Monterey, Brit and I had two days to do our laundry, pack and prepare for our next adventure. And what an adventure it would be! We had been preparing for this one for months and yet we had no idea really what to expect.
As a young girl and as I grew to be a teen and then even once marrying and having young children, I had often times spent a week in the summer with thousands of like minded people at a church conference. These conferences would change location each year which gave us the opportunity not just to reconnect with friends and thousands of others from our church congregations but also the chance to see new places across the nation. I grew up in The Church of the Brethren. I spent many great times at conferences learning about our beliefs and spending time with people from all over the world. It was an amazing place to learn to live simply, to love each other, and the basis for my strong belief of living in peace.

As life's changes came our way, with it came the need for Wayne and I to move our family to a new denomination. We have over the years made many great friends within the Unitarian Universalist Church and have spent much time studying the church's ideas and positions on religion, politics, and life in general. We are happy to have found a nice home within this group once we chose to move to a small UU congregation of like minded people in rural IL. We were also lucky that when we made the huge decision to leave our home in IL and travel 2000 miles to CA, there was a UU congregation waiting. Our children have taken to the ideas and principles of the church and it has been a nice place for them to find wonderful mentors. However, after all these years of being a UU, I had yet to experience a conference or, General Assembly as UUs call their annual gathering.

This was to be the year and I was to have the privilege of going with my daughter and several other youth from our home church along with a few other adults to what would be an amazing experience. We made the trek to Portland, OR in two vans and arrived late in the middle of the night. We settled in and actually got a few hours of sleep before the next day arrived and we were up preparing to grab coffee(a must) and the train and head to the conference center to see just what UUs do at a gathering this size.

What a wonderful experience it was! We spent time at worship and in sessions! We met amazing people with awesome ideas. We heard interesting speakers that would challenge our lifestyles and beliefs! It was an amazing city filled with beautiful people from a small religion with a large heart!
Portland was an amazing city as well that I had never been to and was thrilled to have our time there rain free! The city was in full bloom and beautiful. We had wonderful food and fabulous coffee! I went to a great little place for lunch one day with my brother and his family who were kind enough to make the drive from their home a couple of hours away just to see Brit and I for a few hours! His son and I spent our time at the restaurant playing with dinosaurs while we talked and ate under a large tree in the back patio of the restaurant. Then off to a park where we all spent time letting off a little energy. We headed back to the conference so they could spend some time with Brit and Jacob after they were finished with their afternoon session. Cousins reunited and Jade spent time seeing just how good a climbing device Brit has grown into. It was fun to have them together and amazing how quickly he took to her!
I spent one afternoon listening to a speaker that has very much made an impression on me and my thoughts about how I eat and live. Will Tuttle, Ph.D. has spent a lot of his life thinking about the impact we have on the world around us and the creatures living amongst us. It was moving to sit and listen to him. He has written the book World Peace Diet which is next on my reading list for this summer. We had three of our teens participate in the Bridging Ceremony which was a wonderful experience for them as well as those of us observing.

We had time away from the conference as well, touring the city, meeting up with other adults from our home congregation to have breakfast and dance a bit in a diner, and trying out fun places to eat. We were happy to have an hour or so to spend at a huge crafters market where there was a little bit of everything you could imagine for sale.

I was able to walk away with amazing smelling organic soaps made by a lovely young lady and I was happy to spend much of my time there listening to a great band. One night I even got to take a few teens to a baseball game which was fun and I actually learned a few more things about the game of baseball!


















But as all good things do, our time in Portland soon came to an end and we packed up our vans and headed back to the heat of the valley. We brought home with us memories and inspiration as well as many stories to share with others that we hope will inspire them to venture out to a General Assembly some summer and gather with thousands of UUs from around the world, lifting up their voices and hearts together to bring change to this small planet.
Blessed Be-

A New Stage in Life

Being a homeschool mom has been one of my favorite parts of life thus far! To spend endless days with my children, both learning as much as I hope I was teaching. This was to be a blessing I could not have imagined. Years ago, as our son begged to be homeschooled, we debated for months and yes years, whether this is what was best for our children as well as for our family. How would the children do? How well would we get along? Would we drive each other crazy? Would I able to teach them all they needed to learn or even more...all they would wanted to explore? How could Wayne and I take on a task that seemed all absorbing and still be Wayne and Sharon? And then there was the question, "How could we not?" When your children are begging for more, how do you say, "No...you are getting all you need?" We chose to follow our instinct and our children's wishes and began the life of a homeschool family. Yes, it was all absorbing and yes it was just what our family needed! We all learned and thrived from it.

Wayno was working for TeeLee Popcorn at the time and traveling internationally as well as domestically. How would we deal with the responsibility with him off on trips? We calmed our fears and life became exciting and challenging as we settled into our homeschool routine. I spent all my days working with the children, not just helping them with lessons but beginning the slow process of teaching them how to teach themselves and giving them the wings to seek out and find those things they wanted to learn and explore! We spent much time in the van as well, traveling to lessons, soccer, and dance! Wayne was often the one left in the kitchen at the end of the days making sure there was a meal ready to be served as we would arrive home late at night. This was the beginning of our eating dinner most nights between 7 and 9 at night. Something that has continued even after the homeschool years and something that we enjoy as the day is mostly done and we all are then able to join around the table to talk and eat and catch each other up on the daily events! Yes...there were trying times. But all in all, we would not have done it any other way. This was also the same time when our family began a new way of looking at food. We began growing and eating organic produce as well as whole grains. We spent much of our day chopping fruit and veggies and preparing grains as well as baking breads. The children grew a large part of our garden as part of the curriculum and worked hard at companion planting so to lessen the amount of weeding time, etc. We lived, ate, learned, and played as a family and life was fun!

Then came the teen years and high school...should we homeschool or maybe we should experiment with public. The children wondered if they would enjoy having the social life that comes with the public high school agenda. Bry, being the oldest, decided to try it out and Brit followed his lead two years later. Both loved the experience and excelled in all their studies.

Not much later came our decision to move to CA and the children became a part of a larger school with even more demands and a larger social outlet. Slowly, Wayne and I saw less and less of our children. Meal time stayed constant as it was late in the evening and we were often joined by other teens. We would spend endless nights around the table catching up on the day's events, discussing politics, religion, etc.

Then came the time for Bry to move on, and that he did as he headed off to UC Berkeley. What a change! One less person around our table, one empty room in our home. This transition was rocky for all of us. We had hoped to make it through gracefully but this was not to be. We had been together for so long, how could it be a smooth transition? Everybody told me it would get easier. It didn't! I love my family and my time spent with my family. This was not easy and this was not fun! Now, there were fun times. Times when he would call in the middle of the night to have me go over a project with him. The time he came home for his sister at Easter so that she would acknowledge Easter. Brit had become an upper classman and her schedule was busier and her responsibilities were greater. Now, we were losing time with her as well! How would we survive? I had started to work outside the house which helped fill my days and this was a blessing in many ways.

As the year progressed, life calmed. Wayne began to travel a bit more and that has always been good for him. I began to realize I could spend time with girlfriends and still be home in time to have family dinners with Wayne and Brit. I started back at yoga classes which I had not taken in years! We also joined the gym and I went almost daily with my girlfriend. I began taking yoga classes there as well as Pilate's classes and found it was OK to spend time giving to me and not just to my children. This was an odd feeling in the beginning as it had never been this way since we had married. We had always been parents it seemed and this was a whole new look on married life for Wayne and I. I had never left my children as they were growing up and was not sure how it would feel to do such a thing. Also, I had not left Wayne for an extended amount of time. He had always done the traveling, not me. What would it be like to go somewhere without him and leave him at home with the children? I was about to find out...

After Brit and I had a wonderful trip to Portland, I then had a day to do my laundry, pack and be ready for such an adventure. I left for the beach with two girlfriends and the son of one of them.(He is just a munchkin and cannot yet leave mama.) We had decided to all read the Barbara Kingsolver book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and then spend the week discussing it. We read, we ate, we laughed, we walked the beach and of course we shopped! We stayed in a wonderful home of some friends of ours. We rose without alarms and sipped coffee and discussed life. We ate wonderful foods made by several amazing local restaurants. We had local wine and chocolate in the evenings. We spent hours talking, laughing and discussing our designated book. Each day we spent a bit of our time at the water. Sometimes walking among rocks and tidal pools and other times we spent leisurely time walking beaches and building sandcastles. We became infatuated with some of the local shops and spent hours wandering in and out of them! Life was good and life was filled with pampering and re-energizing ourselves in order to go back to reality and be even better wives and moms than we were before.

I am finding the upside of taking yoga classes and going to the gym. I am finding that spending time with my girlfriends makes me a better mom and wife. I have entered a new stage in life and even though it is different and maybe not one I was truly prepared for, I hope that some day I will be able to look back on these changes and find that even though during the change it did not feel as though I made it with grace, that in the big picture I did succeed to transition with a bit of style. Would I ever choose to not have homeschooled and not have put my all into raising, teaching and learning from my children? No...I am glad we made the choice to homeschool and I am proud of the people my children have become because they pushed their parents to move to the edge and take the risk! I am thankful I have children that have taught me so very much about life!!! I am also thankful to all my girlfriends, nationwide that have been there for me throughout the transitions in life.

A little Down Time...Or So I Had Hoped

Home for a few days with nowhere to go and nothing to do until I catch a plane at the end of the week with Wayne and the children and head for IL to visit family and friends! Maybe I will read as the laundry is running. I could spend time in my gardens since I had had no time in them yet this summer...one look there and I begin to fume as once again I find the gardener has not understood my continued request that he Not Cut my plants! I have begun to wonder if there really is a communication barrier or if he just likes to see how angry he can make me. So...I won't walk the gardens because I am home for four days and I am going to enjoy time with the kids and sit with Wayno in the evenings and just catch up, right? Peace and Quiet...
Really, who was I fooling? Brit, after my asking and begging for months, has finally decided on a color to paint her room. Yes! "But, Mom" she says sweetly "Could we do it tomorrow because I am having all my girlfriends over this week and I would really like to have it finished before they get here." How do I say no since I have just returned from a trip with girlfriends and now I am refreshed and ready to be a better Mom and wife, right?
Off we head to the paint store and then to the next place and back home to check colors and then back out to find new colors until we have found just the right paint we think...until that night when the room gets darker and the lights do something funky to those little swatches we have hanging on all over her walls! I tell her she must decide by the time I am finished at the gym in the morning so that I can buy the paint on my way home and we can begin then. She does and I do and now we can paint! Actually, it all goes very smoothly. Jacob has agreed to help and the three of us spend the entire day painting. I send them off to the movies late in the afternoon and finish up the last minute details and touchups as I pull of the tape. I decide then that it would be nice if her room were totally back together by the time they get back from the movies and Wayno's arrival home from work is perfect timing! He helps me put the bed frame together and wishes me luck as he heads out the door to the gym. The children all arrive home soon so I work quickly and they arrive home just as the room has been put back together and the squeals from Brit have made the long day all worthwhile. Tomorrow I will rest and read that book and maybe even catch up on e-mail. Today was worth all the rush!!!
I rise and realize the house will soon be filled with teenage girls and I have had no time to prepare food since I had been painting the day before and now I rush to the grocer to find things they will eat. Let's just say that from that moment on, there really was no time to open a book or even casually sip coffee. But it was fun and the house was filled with giggles and continual conversation coming from my daughters room. Enough that Bry and Jordan decide to relocate and go off to hang out somepalce else, any place, as long as there are not a huge gathering of teenage girls close by.
The next day we rise and shine and are happy to be heading as a family off to the Interfaith Celebration. This has been an annual event for 10 years and was started by some good friends of ours. A gathering of many different denominations to celebrate the diversity in our community. What better way to start off July 4th!!! Bry will be joining our group from church to perform as well. We spend the morning enjoying amazing food and music with friends. Then it is off to Wayne and Shari's for lunch around the pool and time to catch up a bit. We leave there later just in time to head to Paul and Patty's home for dinner and fireworks then back home to climb into bed and smile as I realize what a fun day we had and to think back over the friendships we have made in just the couple of years we have lived here. Time to sleep, the next day will be filled with packing and then we catch our flight out early to go see more friends and family in IL. Wow! I didn't have time to sit and read or wander the gardens or even really catch up on any e-mail but summers really are great!!!

AHHH...Illinois Time

4AM and off we head to the airport.

Really, why do planes fly this early and why are we crazy enough to catch them? We arrive to what should be a slow, calm airport...what with the time and all but no! People are everywhere, bustling around, checking in bags, grabbing coffee, and catching flights.

We make it through quickly and head to wait for our call to board...this is the beginning of what hopes to be a very fun 10 days for the children and us. You see, this has become an annual event for us. Always a bit different mind you, some years the children and I go back for a few weeks and then Wayne joins us later and we may even have a few extra teens flying with us at times and then there was last year where sissy and I head back for a month and Bry and Wayne followed just for the last week, but we have still tried to make this trip each year since our move. As the the plane takes us through the clouds, we sleep and rest for what will be a very full visit.

Having always had more time, I wonder just how we will fit so much in!

The calendar filled weeks ago as I sent out an e-mail announcing our dates to be in IL.

The planning is all finished and now we sleep as we fly back to IL.

Illinois...the place I moved to when I was still in grade school. A small rural community where Wayne and I were both raised. This is place that Wayno has way too many stories that the children have heard which have given them way too many ideas!

A place where life is quiet and green. Can I tell you just how green it is? A place we chose to move to while we were living in DC and decided that we wanted to move Bry, who was just a baby back to the green fields and small community that we grew up in.

This is where our children were raised among corn fields and acres of soybeans.

They grew up playing in the streets of a small community tucked away between all the rolling hills with a population of 900 and really we always knew that was only when all the college kids were home. It was a town with big Grandma trees with roots that made for a perfect lap to sit and rest on when you had been working so hard to get that tricycle all the way up the block.

It was a town where you really did go next door for a cup of sugar or flour even when the neighbor wasn't there.

This was a town where the children had many adopted grandparents looking out for them and a place where they could spend hours taking "penny walks". This is where we were headed. We were leaving the hurry of the city and all it has for us to settle in for a few days and connect with family and friends to remember when and to realize just how much all the children have grown. Ten days to catch up on a year of events! AHHH...Illinois Time! As I did last year on this blog, I give you a brief glimpse of that fun gathering with those we were able to catch for a just a moment's hug and a refill to hold us over until we are back again. A tiny glimpse of our time while we were back...through pictures.

Until next time...