Many of you know of our daughter’s fascination with hair color. She’s been black, blue, red, green, blonde, multi, and her gorgeous original color, honey. But now- she has tried this one:
It’s already starting to fade, so most of you won’t see it. ‘Cept here. 
!
Caleb came from Brainerd for our Friday night last night. He was going to drive back but the couch looked too inviting. So he and our girls stayed up chirping til late. This morning, they were trying to explain to him how orchids have a face. He wasn’t seeing it:
see? there's the nose, and those are it's ears....
But he’s off home again now. And the kitties were born last night- check the garden blog. And I’m off to haul horse poo.
I was just going to check something online and my husband had a site up that had this staring at me. I thought it was amazing and exactly what I needed to hear today, and to put on my wall, and to remember, every day, so I’m sharing:
1. Make, keep, and maintain friendships with both men and women.
2. Be as honest and as real as you know how to be.
3. Find out what you need and go get it.
4. Know who you are, and go after your dreams.
5. Eliminate all passiveness.
6. Be committed to discipline.
7. Be a man and never apologize for it.
8. Do things you love.
9. Hug people (all the time).
10. Pursue encounters with God.
Nothing like having it all summed up, huh? LOVE IT. It’s from the www.puritypursuit.com website, I believe.
and ps. The “be a man and don’t apologise” part- adjust if you’re a woman.
More horse pictures – Maddie took these the other day while the horses were getting their hooves trimmed. They look “wintery and scruffy” – So – horsie pictures:
Scout not very happy....
Maddie's "Tink"
Ilsa's "Faith" out of Tink and Titan
Fanny - Ilsa's loan mare from Joel
Phil's "Scout"
Wellington
The kids have been out every day riding. It’s been crazy beautiful here! The 10 day forecast is saying 50-60′s !! Weird. We get blizzards in April here. So we’re not really sure what’s happening, but we’re enjoying it !
waiting
Wow, we’re actually experiencing SPRING in northern MN…..hmmmm…..wonder how long it will last?
It was gorgeous yesterday. 55 degress +. The greenhouse was over 80 ’til we opened it up. Phil and Ilsa and Maddie have been riding their horses almost every day, and the other day they took Eli along just for fun. I don’t think they’ll ever do that again. Because once he experienced riding a horse by himself, he will never let them leave him home again, ever.
He said to me later, “Mom! NOW I KNOW why Ilsa and Maddie do this EVERY DAY!!!!” He’s hooked. Here’s some pictures:
Maddie on Tink, front, and Ilsa on Fanny
"Mom....Mom take my picture. I loooooooove Reno."
Our big cowboy...except his legs aren't long enough to fit in stirrups
Big sister Ilsa was always right there to help if needed
Phil and Scout- Scout has gotten so BIG!!
Maddie and her beloved Tink.
Ilsa ready to grab Reno if needed....but Eli & Reno were doing pretty well!
Makes me want to ride too!
Wellington left behind....
Faith & Wellington pacing the pasture
Ilsa's filly Faith- out of Tink & Titan- she's so lovely!
Pretty girl Faith- she was wanting to play with our dog Jack
We just got back from the coast. We came here a week before the conference we’ll be attending for several reasons- a family vacation, our daughter was here, and extra time for a trip to the coast. If we hadn’t wanted to go to services at bethel tomorrow, we would have stayed a few more days. We really feel like we just dipped our toe in.
Sensory overload. Driving across the mountains the first time, I’m seriously freaking out. Woooo-hoooiing in the car. My kids don’t get it. My husband does It’s just so overwhelming- the mountains, the lakes, the trees, the vegetation. The windy road. Knowing at times if you veered left you’d be off in a canyon. Green water, rapids, glowing moss, evidences of past forest fires. Flowers and trees in flower. Elk. No deer, just elk, lots of elk. Right there on the road.
We get to the last ridge and the clouds start rolling in from the ocean. Our next few days are cloudy but no rain. It isn’t MN nice here. The locals aren’t thrilled at us tourists with California plates driving slow, pointing, and picture taking. Several times I am sworn at. Wow. So not used to that. I am sensitive, but even my husband is saying, what the heck? But there also were the super helpful, friendly people at the hotel, and the happy hippies at the hippie grocery store….sweet.
Remember that movie- I can’t remember the name- about the college graduate who gives away all his money and leaves his family and goes to Alaska to live on his own? And he starves to death? True story? I think it was called Into the Wild. It was disturbing. This kid had everything, except real relationships. So he went looking, and found himself in a place he couldn’t get out of, eating a bunch of berries that killed him. So young, so incredibly sad.
I saw a lot of young people like that here, on the coast. Walking, biking, traveling in converted vans and buses, sleeping in tents, hitchhiking. I wondered where they were all going, where their families were, if anyone was wondering where they were, missing them. There were so many. And this, I was told, isn’t even the “busy” season.
We saw great stuff too. Before we left, we prayed as a family, asked God to give us “clues” of stuff he wanted us to find on our trip. Phil got “red barn,” Grace got “orange” someone else got “woman with grey-ish hair in denim shirt.” We all got a bunch of stuff, these are just a few. So we’re driving, and BOOM- out of the blue sky, we come up on a place called the Red Barn. We pull over. Inside, there are orange walls. And a woman with grey-ish hair in a blue-denim-ish shirt comes out to greet us. (yeah, I know! crazy! but fun!)
So I tell her, uh, we have your name on this paper….I show her all this stuff. Got anything we can pray for you for? YES!!! she says. She comes out from around the counter, and our family gathers around her. We just all pray for her, blessing her. No great healing, no huge word. Just, “God is thinking about you and sent us to tell you that.” It was awesome, amazing. We exchange phone numbers & emails and hugs and off we go, after buying Eli 2 squirtguns.
Then, more scenery. A winery. (Wine a little. It will make you feel better.!!) A stop and a hike. The coast, a hippie grocery store, a nice Howard Johnson hotel that gladly takes us all in. Super duper chlorinated pool and hot tub, stinging eyes, bedtime.
We hit the road in the morning, exploring Trinidad and having to run back to the hotel for clothes. Our kids got completely soaked in the surf- who knew? We had a few random things for them to change into….and Phil and I made a dressing room with a our bodies blocking the view of kids changing. Hilarious. Screetches of “don’t look!” and “for pete’s sake, I changed your diaper a million times, I’ve seen your behind!!” hitting innocent bystanders.
Then, lunch at a little funky cafe. We all order fresh fish. Wow.
Off to the Redwoods. By the time we get there, we have two hours before dark. Not enough time to hike to the cathedral, but we make it about half way. Take a few pictures. I spend the rest of the trip trying to figure out how to explain redwood trees…
The only thing that came close was on the way home, I was listening to Revelation Song, the Kim Walker version. She sings the first part of the last verse three times: filled with wonder/awestruck wonder/at the mention of Your name. And I realized that that is the Redwood trees. Standing among them, I was filled with wonder, awestruck wonder. They were whispering His name, the name of their beloved Creator. I swear you can almost hear it if you stand there and put your hands on their trunks. Nothing compares. They are larger than whales…..in pods of dozens…..surrounding you. They made me feel small and mighty at the same time. They made me want to laugh and cry. I didn’t ever want to leave them, because I could hear their song, and it was so so so beautiful.
But we had to go. It was getting dark. And tomorrow we head back to Redding. Goodbye trees. I still have this sick feeling in my stomach knowing they are three hours away and I won’t see them again for a long long time.
The drive home was even more beautiful than the drive over. I don’t know why. It just seemed we could see more all at once. We stopped at one point to pick some willow reeds (can’t help it, it’s spring here and Grace fell asleep under a tree. Everything has that “it’s been raining for a month green” going on- and with the moss and the recent rain and sunshine, it all had an ethereal glow. I kept expecting to see the lamp post and a white stag bound across the road.
So now, I sit in bed thinking about all of this, listening to cheesy music from a movie downstairs and the rain and thunder outside. The Kings and Queens have stepped back through the wardrobe, and all is as it once was. Crazy sensory overload- it’s all out there. Crabby coastal Californians, happy hippies, someone’s wandering children, magnificent singing trees, oceans and oceans of ….ocean. Ooooohhhh I wish I could sit in it one more time
The aroma of burnt toast met us at the door. Do dead people smell burnt? No- just the pizza that was forgotten in the oven.
We met Phil’s mom, one granddaughter, Phil’s brother Charlie, and the family priest in the dining room. Then his mom took us to see his dad. The livingroom had been rearranged to be a hospice room, and Amandus was in his bed. He looked like he was sleeping. His mother was weeping, and Phil was telling her she had been a good wife for almost 60 years. She kept him home, she took care of him, slept in a bed next to him, fed him & cleaned him. Had 15 children with him. My husband is number 12. What if they had stopped at 3- 8- even 11?
I have never really been close to my in-laws. Parents, at least. I enjoy them, but there has been a wall. We are not catholic. Some catholics have a hard time with that. Some don’t. But I asked God to give me compassion for him as he was dying, to help me see. Watching him hold my children to him in his hospital bed two months previous, blessing them and crying, knowing this was his last time to hold them- gave me the love I needed.
So as I watched my husband love his mom and encourage her, I felt grief for this man that I didn’t know. Leona told us that his breathing had gotten fast and loud, and she said, “this can’t be normal!” Then it slowed. Phil’s brother Charlie laid his head on his Dad’s chest and felt his heart- stop beating. And he was gone. I wished I had known him better, heard his stories, walked his fields with him. But even my husband didn’t get that priveledge. So we take what we can, right?
My husband and his mom made their way to the dining room. I am left alone with my father in law’s body. All I can think to do is wave at him- say goodbye- and thank him for having more than 11 children. How many people do that? Hack a farm out of prairie grass and raise 15 children? Fight in WWII while they’re at it? Stay with the same woman, faithfully, for 60 years?
More and more family and near relatives come. Aunts bring food, plastic cups for the SunnyD. Gingersnaps, ham sandwiches. A few neighbors come who enjoyed morning coffee with him. Phil’s mom Leona takes them all to see him. They remember good times, they are thankful his suffering is over. They cry. There is some regret and guilt. My husband sends that packing. “No guilt- no regrets. It is what it is. He knew you loved him. You gave all you had.” He died peacefully, praying the rosary in his home with his wife and son.
We have rare opportunities to speak true words. You are loved. You are wanted. You are a good parent, a good son, a good daughter, a good wife. Mercy is greater than you think.
A granddaughter, 7-ish, flits around all day, like a butterfly. At one point I see her sprinkling purple flower blossoms on her grandpa’s body. Another granddaughter, 10-ish, takes a nap on the couch opposite him. An aunt brings a photo of my father in law when he was a boy- he had the wiry, curly ringlets that my son has. Most of the family attends Mass. Phil and I and brother Leonard, the “non-catholics” stay back with “Pops” as most of the family had come to call grandpa. We sit on the front step, under the shade of hundred year old trees, small town Minnesota. We talk of life and death and growing up on a farm. We talk of Mom hearing her sons sing of the glories of grass after Leonard left his Cheech & Chong album with his younger siblings. The album mysteriously disappeared.We talk of our own children- are we loving them well? Do we see them? Do they know that no matter what they ever do or how they dress or how they act- do they know we love them, that home is a safe place? Or do we love with an agenda?
Leonas garden is lovely, and I pick a fresh tomato, eat it like an apple. We say our goodbyes and head back to our children and friends. We watch a funny movie about doing whatever you have to do to get your family back. We field calls from siblings, can I help with flowers? Can Grace make a video? Times for this and that. Plans to get cousins together. Writing times & events of his life. Set off fireworks that our six year old son has been “waiting and waiting and WAITING for….”
It really was a beautiful day.
We are in Illinois. Actually, before we head home, we will have been in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and southern MN. We visited some great friends in Robinson, IL yesterday, and en route, we toured Belgium and Paris.
Amazing.
Phil and I visitng Belgium (Phil is like 99.9% Belguim….)
Phil and I in Paris. Always wanted to go there.
And we stopped at a little sidewalk cafe that made spectacular iced lattes…
And as we travelled home last night, it was 83 degrees at 10:30pm!! Beautiful…
Just so you know, this site is under construction! I can’t figure how to put my own photos on my header page, and I transferred everything I wanted to save from Xanga onto here. But none of my pictures transferred. So you’ll read posts that refer to pictures and don’t have any pictures, and you’ll read about Xanga and we’re not on Xanga anymore. So have patience- I will update everything and even provide links to all the stuff I talk about. I’m excited to do this; it’s just squeezing it in between a construction project, work, and mommy-ing.
Have a lovely day!
Adoption is a crazy, amazing thing. God says he adopts us, that he actually grafts us onto his branch, like in gardening. I am a birthmother, and a mother. I gave a child a family back in the day before I was married. I just didn’t think a child should grow up without a father, and there was no chance at all that I was going to marry this child’s father. So I found him a family, a wonderful family, and gave them to him.
Leaving him was really hard. I kept a journal all through my pregnancy with him and later wrote it into a book. You can read it if you want. You can get one here: if you buy from kathy’skache, I will sign it for you. You have to send me an email with the purchase and let me know
There is a lot that has changed in my thinking since I wrote the book. Not the essentials. Just some of the finer points. Like, at one place in my book I am talking to myself in my journal, chastising myself for considering an abortion, even if for an instant. I am chastising myself, not my reader. But later, upon reading it again, it felt to me that I was chastising my reader. Or anyone who has experienced an abortion.
I have to say this. I have no judgment for women who have had abortions. I have sorrow – because every woman I have talked to who has had one has pain to this day. Pain and regret. The abortion industry is like any system- it chews people up and spits them out. In the name of the almighty dollar, or self protection. There are many people who say that abortion clinics are there to help women. I don’t see any of them offering help if a woman chooses to have her baby. To help her buy food and clothing and pay rent. I don’t see them offering help if they hurt a woman during an abortion. I see them taking money and then leaving them to bleed alone. And then they have the audacity to point the finger at crisis pregnancy centers. You know, those places who have the gall to help pregnant women. Offer free services. Baby clothes, classes, formula, a listening ear.
Sorry, that’s my little soapbox, but that’s all you’ll hear about that. Because it isn’t my story. I just want women who have experienced abortions to know that I have no judgment for them, and my book is for them too. My story, our story.
If I could add that sentiment to my original manuscript, I would. Maybe I’ll get the chance yet.
But until then, I want to fill you in on some “since then” stuff. This gorgeous boy I had nineteen years ago is now in college. I still have not met him. His parents are waiting for him to ask for me. I respect that. And more than that, I know God has his hands all over this, and he will find me when he is ready, or when we are ready. Sometimes it’s hard, I won’t lie to you. My husband and I work with college students. So I see him everywhere I go, and I almost expect to run right into him one of these days. Maybe I will. Wouldn’t that be something.
So a friend of mine asked me today- she asked me this:
just wondering, samuel is 19 now…
have you two found each other?
been praying for him since this all started…
happy wednesday meeee-shell, my belle
Isn’t she cute? She is a new friend, and she is a hoot. That’s an old word for “really really fun.” Anyway, this was my reply to her:
lol
He is 19, yes. I have had communication with his mom and dad since they got him. letters, pictures, phone calls, even a visit. I love them. She is a lot like me, kind of a wild woman He’s quiet & a rock. Anyway, I have not met him since that day I left him at the agency, my last visit. He is going to college now at ————. A girl from our church is in his freshman class. Crazy.
A few years ago, some dear dear friends of ours -from way back when phil and I met- we went to their home church- and we’ve been friends ever since. They’re kind of our real family, our spiritual parents. anyway, after I had Sam, I moved to the north shore and God just put me in their family. phil too. I was grieving Sam and they took care of me. So fast forward seventeen years, a few years ago now. Our friends, Joel & Kathy, have kids, their daughter Josie is in her early thirties. She runs marathons with her cousins. Grandma’s marathon in Duluth MN- you might have heard of it. Her cousin that she runs with is killed in a plane crash- a small plane, he was a pilot. This cousin would be Joel’s sister’s son.
So the next year, Josie and some of her friends run Grandma’s as a memorial to this cousin. they have a big get together with friends and family after the race. Our friends Joel & Kathy went, of course, to see their daughter run, and be with the family at the memorial. There are lots of people there, because friends of both families are there too, so they’re meeting new people. They find themselves seated next to this lovely couple- she’s a wild woman, he’s quiet. They get talking. Find out they know some of the same people, the same places-
find out they have my Sam.
All the pieces click- and they begin to see what God did. He put Sam and me in the same family. Me in the brother Joel, he in the sister’s best friend, Kiki. How rockin crazy is that?!? All these years, we have been connected. He was raised by the best friends – the closest friends – of Joel’s sister & her husband. Josie’s cousins played with him growing up. So they spent the night talking and crying and talking and crying, about me, about Sam, about our lives up to this point. About God and what a wild man he is. Joel, who is kind of a stoic Swede cowboy artist (! seriously! -www.joellewisart.com) – cried- and kissed her hand. Josie said it was really touching.
That’s just one of my stories. Kiki tells me lots of cool stories about him. But they haven’t told him that we’re here- waiting for him. They’re waiting for him to ask, and although I do have a fear that he isn’t asking because he’s afraid of what he will find, I know God has his hand on this young man. He will ask when it is time, and then we will meet him. I do hope it is soon- it gets harder as the years go by. I really thought I would meet him at his high school graduation, but.
so there you go, a bedtime story. Oh, wait it’s only 6 in CA. An after dinner story. If I was Beatrix Potter I would draw you pictures too.
love ya, cool chick.
m
So I think that’s all right now. Later I will post more. I would really like to get a forum up and running for women in crisis pregnancy situations to chat with each other, and with me, and with some of my super-woman friends. If anyone has any suggestions as to the best way to do that, let me know.
Until then, sleep well. Have a lovely day tomorrow!
