Keeping the Spirit Alive

January 14, 2025 I am not one of those who puts away Christmas right away. The sparkling lights make me happy, and I like to prolong that feeling. And to be honest, it takes a long time to put up all the Christmas decorations, so I like to get the most out of my time investment. Here we are nearly at the mid-mark of January, however, and even I must admit it's time to carefully pack away the garland, the ornaments, the wreaths, and all other sparkly and festive reminders of the season. I started today and will slowly work towards having it all put away by the weekend.

Albert's Birthday

January 3, 2025

A couple of weeks ago, Lisa, Bree, and Danielle and I went to a friend's house to make tamales. I'm not sure how we came into the tradition of having tamales every Christmas, except that opportunities for purchasing homemade Mexican tamales are plentiful at Christmas time, particularly in the Central Valley. Because of my fondness for them and easy access, my kids always grew up knowing that we'd have tamales at Christmastime--it's one of our traditions. When I happened to mention it at Thanksgiving to a friend, she offered to have us all over for a tamale-making day. I've always heard that it was a long day, tamale-making, and it was! However, with many hands and a few steamers, we were able to make about 18 dozen chicken, pork, and vegetarian tamales among all of us. (We talked, of course, and had the requisite singable songs going, which made the process much more fun.) I can confidently say that they turned out pretty well! Rafe suggested that we take some to his dad when we celebrated his birthday, which is today. Although I admit to a little trepidation about taking my homemade tamales to someone who grew up in a traditional Mexican household and whose mom used to make him tamales, we decided we'd go to Tulare for dinner and treat him. Rafe made beans and Albert made rice, and I must say we sat down to a very tasty meal together! Both of his parents thanked us and gave us the stamp of approval for the tamales, which made me feel good. I love visiting Albert and Cyndi because they are always so welcoming to me, so it really was a great birthday visit. :)

Fresno Foam Glow Run

March 26, 2022 

Danielle pointed out to me that it's been since she was in high school the last time she and I did a Color Run together. (She has since graduated from college.) I didn't realize it had been that long! I think in the past we have done 4 Color Runs, and they have always been a lot fun--vibrant, loud, energetic, and of course, colorful. I also like that the runs (I should put 'runs' in quotation marks, since I do not run the full 5k--there is very definitely a lot of walking involved, too) give back to the community here in Fresno. The ones we have done in the past have benefitted Valley Children's Hospital, which I am all in for. So when I saw an email not long ago about an upcoming Foam Glow run, I asked Danielle if she would be back in Fresno during that time and if she'd like to do it with me. She was game, so I got us registered. Well, let me tell you, this event was definitley NOT run by the same folks who organize a good Color Run. It was out at the fairgrounds on the horse track at night. This was because, presumably, there would be glow-in-the-dark foam throughout the course. Nope. Turns out, when we go to a color run, they provide the color that they shower down on us as intervals as part of the fun. Here, they had five stations set up around the (very poorly marked, and mostly not paved) 5k path. The stations had two towers each of suds that rained down in soapy streams of pretty standard white foam that slid right off the body--no staying power. Also, it was not in the least glowy. There was nothing that glowed in the dark except for the glow sticks of the people who had purchased them on their own to bring to the event. (There was nothing indicating that we should do this on the website or in the registration. I assumed there would be something about the Foam Glow event that did, in fact glow. I didn't know I had to provide it myself!) Each of those tower stations had tiny speakers that meekly played a slightly thumping beat that faded out of earshot about 20 paces past the towers. No water stations along the way, and no humans helping to direct the zig-zagging path. The huge dance party at the finish line? It was nowhere to be found. The organizers and the DJ's hyping the event and making sure things were fun and ran smoothly? I saw literally one dude at the starting line, portioning off the runners so we didn't trample each other out the gate, like a herd of wild horses on the track. That was it. That being said, Danielle and I have a habit of snark and sass, and this provided a perfect opportunity for us to provide running commentary that at the very least amused us. As Danielle said, we make our own fun wherever we go, and this was no exception. Recently I said that sass was the love language between the two of us, and it was definitely in full force at the Foam Glow run. Not much foam, almost zero glow, but lots of good bonding time between my kiddo and me. No regrets.

Oscar Contender: Movie Night

March 25, 2022 In my quest to see as many Oscar nominated films as possible before the Academy Awards (at which I will fail miserably this year), I wanted to have a movie night tonight. I have only seen West Side Story so far, and we were limited to what was available for streaming. That left us with Don't Look Up as our option tonight. I invited Rafe over to join Danielle and me for dinner, and then we watched the show. Honestly, JenniferLawrence, Leondardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, and Jonah Hill were all very good in this film, as one would expect them to be. It was a pretty strong social satire, albeit quirky and odd. I enjoyed it, as did Danielle and Rafe, but I also suspect it was too non-traditional to take away Oscar gold on Sunday night.

My Boy Visits

March 24, 2022

In addition to getting to see both of my girls this week, Nicholas also came home on his days off. That's a trifecta!

Hanging With Danielle

March 23, 2022 Danielle's spring break is this week, so she's off from teaching and decided to come home and spend the week with me. Sadly, it is not my spring break, so I don't get quite as much time as I would like with her. Wednesdays are my long days, since I teach at night in addition to my day job, but I still told her if she didn't mind eating late I would make us dinner and we could hang out after class. I set something up in the crockpot so that I could spend less time in the kitchen, and so that a lot of it would be ready by the time I got home from class. We dished it up and curled up in front of the t.v. to watch the live-action version of Aladdin, with Will Smith, and then we watched tik toks together. I feel bad for her because she's been a little sick on this vacation, but even getting to spend quiet relaxing time together was really nice.

Meanwhile, in Vegas

February 27, 2022

My Sunday was quite mellow, but Lisa and Danielle made their way to Las Vegas to do a run.  While I was sitting on my couch grading, these two were racing through Vegas for yet another medal.

The Beach Boys

February 18, 2022

When Danielle was younger, her very favorite music was the songs of the Beach Boys.  She was all about them.  Now as a young adult, her tastes are quite varied: rap, Christian, alternative, pop, and show tunes among them.  Regardless, I think there will always be a little nostalgia associated with the Beach Boys.  This past Christmas I stumbled upon a tour date for them that had them playing about an hour away from where she lives, so I decided that would make a good Christmas gift for her.

They were playing in Rancho Mirage, and although I left home with way more than enough time to get down to Riverside to pick her up and head out to the concert, traffic was so bad that I was really afraid we weren't going to make it in time for the start of the concert.  Fortunately, we did, even though the journey down south took me at least two more hours than it should have.  

One of my favorite things about hanging out with Danielle is that that kid is just funny.  She cracks me up all the time.  The concert was good (but man, are those dudes old!), but even better was our running comedic commentary.  There was just so much to comment on!  Danielle also discovered that, oddly, almost any song will work to do the Macarena.  So naturally, we sang, danced, laughed, and created a running dialogue that only improved the performance on stage.  I'm pretty sure all the other people in the venue that saw us (average age: approximately 80) thought we were a little off-kilter, but that only heightened the amusement for us.  I'm so happy that all of my kids like to spend this kind of time hanging out with their mom.  We always find the best ways to have fun!

The Adventure Beast Rolls Again

February 6, 2022

This weekend, after visiting Nicholas, I continued up the coast to meet up with my sister and my youngest daughter in San Simeon.  We checked into the campsite (where we did 'van camping' instead of tent camping--an acceptable facsimile of camping for this bug-averse girl), and then headed into Cambria where we checked out the incredibly cool and strange Nitt Witt Ridge, pictured below. We ventured out to the ocean afterward to catch a beautiful sunset.  The next day we got up and hiked along Moonstone Drive, making sure we got our feet wet now and again along the way.  (Truth be told, I got more than just my feet wet, because I wanted to get a photo of me getting splashed by the incoming waves.) I was very impressed with how well the Adventure Beast stood up to the journey, and am looking forward to many more in our future.  It was a successful weekend--as is almost any weekend when I get to see the ocean and family members I love.

Gratitude

 January 9, 2022

There is a lot going on in the world that causes stress, anxiety, and sadness.  That's why it's important to take time frequently to think about the things for which we are grateful.  Here are five things I am grateful for today:

1.  I am grateful I am getting to spend time with Nicholas while he is staying with me, before he moves to start his new job.  Since the kids are all grown up, the extended times with them are fewer and farther between.

2.  I am grateful I get to text or talk with my kids several days each week.  I like to talk to them, and they like to talk to me!

3.  I am so grateful that although Nicholas got Covid, he is experiencing relatively mild symptoms.

4.  I am grateful for Lisa and Mo.  Man, I don't know where I'd be without those two.  They are my sounding boards, they make me laugh, and they check in on me all the time.  I do the same for them.  Having best friends makes doing life wonderful.

5.  I am grateful for a seemingly endless supply of books.  So many ideas and stories we can inhabit for a time.  It's kind of mind-blowing to think about the millions of ideas and perspectives out there that we can enjoy and learn from.  That's pretty cool!

Danielle's CBU Graduation

 May

Saying Goodbye for Awhile

January 8, 2018

I had my girl home for 3 weeks, and tonight she left again for Riverside to start up her second semester of college.  I have absolutely loved having her home, and I know she enjoyed being home, but she was so excited to get back to college, back to her new classes and her new-found CBU friends.  Even though I'll miss her terribly, it really does my heart good to see her so enthusiastic about her home-away-from-home.  It just underscores once again that we made the right decision in sending her to this school.  It's always bittersweet to see your kid leave for college, but this is the age where we only get to borrow them for a time here and there as they prepare to take flight on their own more permanently.  It's practice for both of us, really.  I miss her already.

The Last Hurrah Before We Go Back to School

January 6, 2018

This weekend my sister and my niece came up for a quick visit.  Lisa already had to head back to school last week, and most of the rest of us start up again on Monday, so it was nice to get a get-together in one more time before we hit the ground running with the new semester.  Today was a whirlwind--we had brunch with Nicholas, Danielle, and Taylor, then drove Danielle to the airport so she could spend a couple of days with her dad.  Then Lisa and I got together with Mo for a bit before heading to REI (for a couple of hours!) to pick up some much-needed gear for the trip we'll be taking in early spring.  Naturally, we ended up at Me N Ed's (a Clovis must-have) in the evening and were joined by our friends Bill and Renee.  Lisa then met up with an old friend in town while Doug, Taylor, and I hung out at home and watched a little Black Mirror.  When Lisa got home we went out walking to make sure we got our 10,000 steps on our Fitbits (especially in light of all the eating we did today!)  Lisa and Taylor will get up bright and early in the morning to head back to Fullerton, since Taylor has to work tomorrow.  I will be getting back into school mode ahead of Monday's professional development day, but today was all about family and friends!

A Letter to My Daughter

A Letter to My Daughter

September 20, 2017

My beautiful girl, you are already well into your fourth week away from home—longer than you’ve ever been away from me.  It’s quieter here now, and I’m missing the sound of your laughter and the day-to-day chatter at home, on the soccer field, at the track, on the pool deck, and in the car. So, so many hours in the car! Although I sometimes wished you could cart yourself off to practice or to youth group in these past couple of years, I almost feel that your incredible commitment to NOT getting your license while you were in school was an inadvertent gift to me, because it afforded us so much time together.  Your sister was already grown and living her life in L.A., and although your brother was still at home, he was keen to exercise the freedom that all young college men with the keys to their own cars yearn for. 

So that left you and me, Kid, with lots of things to talk about, great and small.  And I cherish those times, whether we were talking about where you wanted to go to college and whether or not we could make it work financially, or talking about your friends and all your exploits together, or talking about your passions—church, photography, sports, or even talking about which Starbucks drink you were trying to talk me into buying you on the way home from school.  And even though we spent so much time together, I still feel like there were things I should have said—things I want you to know as you are creating a new life for yourself in your home away from home at college.  You’re going to have incredible experiences in college, but you might have some pretty rotten ones, too, and it makes me sad that I won’t be there by your side to help you navigate those experiences.  That’s okay, though.  It’s the way it’s supposed to be, and I’ll probably have a harder time with it than you will, truth be told.  Still, I’ll share a couple of bits of wisdom and advice that you probably know, but that I want you to hear again anyway:

First, I am incredibly proud of you.  Your determination and perseverance have surprised and delighted me since literally before you were born (that’s a story for another day).  Those traits have propelled you to challenge yourself both physically and intellectually, and have paved the way for you to become the independent young woman you are.  You know what you want, and you are ready to climb any mountain that stands in your way.  At the same time, you have a giving and loving spirit that gives you a heart of service, which is something I dearly love about you.

That determination and perseverance goes a long way.  However, sometimes, no matter how hard we work or push ourselves, circumstances beyond our control can thwart us.  Things aren’t always going to go your way; it’s a fact of life.  Sometimes, things will be downright awful.  We can’t control everything, but we can control how we respond.  Use your creativity to look at a problem in a new light, or to reframe the situation so that you can learn and grow from it.  Failure is only failure it you choose to view it as such.

You’re going to make mistakes.  Sometimes you won’t know you’re making a mistake until it’s too late, and sometimes you’ll make a mistake knowing full well it’s the wrong choice but in the moment you let your impulse take over, instead of your brain.  Just know that when—not if—you make a poor choice as you are learning to be an adult, I will never love you less for it, and I will support you as you work to right that mistake. 

College has a wealth of new experiences, and you alone are responsible for making sure you get all you can out of it.  Get yourself to classes, make sure you take care of your business, pay attention to deadlines.  Also, meet lots of friends, get involved, be a part of the culture of the place.  Be the one, as you always have been, to reach out and include those who seem to need someone to reach out and include them.  Find balance.  This is so important.  And if you get a few Bs along the way, don’t beat yourself up about it, and know that I won’t either.  (A “C” here or there won’t kill you either—and it won’t kill me.)  Balance, balance, balance.  Sleep, study, laugh, play, learn.  They’re ALL important.

From your mama, you got a basic belief in the goodness of people, and I am incredibly thankful for that.  However, as much as I believe in the goodness of people, I know that there are a few rotten apples out there.  You know this too.  Trust your instincts on this.  Like many young women, it’s hard to face the reality that there are people who might mean you harm.  At parties, stay with people you know.  Have a buddy system where you and your friend check in on each other.  NEVER take a drink from someone you don’t know, or that you didn’t see poured.  Better yet, take your own drink.  Be vigilant about not being cornered in a place where others can’t see you.  Don’t walk out on your own after dark.  This is a hard subject, because I don’t even begin to want to think about my baby girl in a situation where she could be in danger, but colleges can be notorious for too much alcohol, uninhibited behavior, and ‘friends’ who take advantage of being unsupervised by parents, sometimes for the first time in their lives.  And yes, these things happen even at Christian colleges.  You have often joked that you are strong enough to take on someone who wants to attack you.  You are fierce, you are strong—but you are one person, and any person, given the right circumstances, can be overcome.  And there are fierce, strong, and callous human beings, much as I hate to acknowledge it, who are sick, angry, entitled.  Caution and awareness are strengths, too.  Use those strengths.  Know this, though, loud and clear—if you are ever attacked, accosted, raped, no amount of anything you did or didn’t do, before or after, will make it your fault.  Ever. 

Ugh.  That was hard to write.  I didn’t even want to write the word “rape”, because it’s so hard to wrap my brain around the concept in relation to my own children.  I thought it was important to say, however, because I don’t ever want one of my kids to be ashamed to say the word to me if they are looking to me for support and love and comfort as a result of it.

Okay—last subject.  (For now.  I am your mama, after all, and I reserve the right to disseminate mama-ly advice until you’re, say, 93.  Yes, I have spectacular ambition when it comes to my own longevity.)  As I have said before, this is an age and a time when you’ll be discovering all kinds of experiences.  You might even fall in love.  Many people do, in college.  Some people don’t, and that’s perfectly fine, too.  If the right Prince Charming doesn’t sweep you off your feet, Honey, don’t settle for Prince Churlish.  There’s no timeline but your own when it comes to love.  If you do fall in love, there’s always the possibility of heartbreak.  You might love someone who doesn’t love you back, or who does for a time, and then moves on with his life.  It will feel like the end of the world.  Your heart will be crushed.  You won’t know how to be who you are anymore.  But please listen to this: you are a beautiful, talented, wonderful gift.  If you find a man who recognizes this and treats you accordingly, well, that’s a wise and wonderful human being.  But you are not beautiful, talented, and wonderful BECAUSE a boy might love you; if his love or infatuation falters, it does not lessen who you are.  This is a terribly hard lesson to remember in the depths of despair, but if you tuck this truth deep in your heart now, it will be there when you need to find your way back to you.  This was a hard lesson for me to learn—it took me many years to recover myself when I was young—but you are wiser than I was at your age.  And just like you may one day experience heart-break, you may also cause heart-break, even when you don’t want to.  You may find that the love you thought was there simply isn’t anymore.  Or you may find someone you find dear—someone you love, but aren’t in love with. This doesn’t make you a bad person; don’t hold on to love out of guilt or sadness.  Be gentle with a heart you no longer want to share, and be kind to that person who is, like you, a beautiful, talented, wonderful gift, who may struggle awhile to find his way back to himself as he is piecing back together his heart.

These are some of the things I think about now, as I’m riding alone in my car each day to the school we both shared, and while running errands throughout my week.  I am sure there are a million more conversations I’ll have with you in my head in between the short phone calls and the text messages back and forth, just like I thought about when your sister left for school or when your brother started college.  You all grow up, and you learn to move in a much bigger world than the tiny world of our home, but I want you to know: I will always be your mom, I will always want to share in a part of your world, I will always be here for you to offer advice or support, and I will always love you.  You are always in my heart, even when you are not sitting next to me.

Mama

Graduation Day-A Different Perspective

June 13, 2017

Last week’s end of the school year was a whirlwind, and I’m just now finally having a moment to sit and reflect.  The baby girl graduated, and she did it in style.  With it came the usual senior celebration fare:  awards ceremonies, Grad Nite, Sober Grad, graduation parties, and lots of family and friends to cheer her on.  At the actual graduation ceremony, she and her classmates symbolically and publicly bid farewell to their now-alma mater and set feet firmly on the proverbial path to their futures.

I’ve always bristled at hearing folks say that the kids enter “the real world” after high school.  The real world is whatever world one inhabits, and students inhabit the very real world of high school for a time.  Once they’ve run that gauntlet, they enter a new world, but it is not one any more real than their previous four years.  It is, simply, their next new world for a time.  We all have many new real worlds that we enter throughout our lives: new schools, new jobs, new relationships, new mother- or fatherhood, new retirement.  Each step along the path becomes our new normal.  The new normal, Danielle’s next reality, is college, and all the hope, promise, excitement, and even anxiety that will bring.

In this new reality, she’ll be finding out who she is becoming as a young adult.  She’ll be leaving the relative safety net of parental dependence to begin the exhilarating and sometimes incredibly frustrating process of becoming truly independent.  While I hope that there are big decisions she’ll still bring to me for help and guidance, there are a whole host of decisions and choices that she’ll make entirely on her own—for which she and she alone will bear the fruit or the consequences.  I have faith that she has the tools to be true to herself and make good decisions, but we all stumble sometimes.  She will stumble.  I also have faith that she has the tools to pick herself up, dust herself off, and continue forward when that happens.

In thinking about Danielle’s new reality, though, I have to stop and recognize that this is not just Danielle’s new normal.  She is my last, as I have said, to graduate from high school.  For many parents, this is a cause for celebration.  (Empty nest! Time to set up that craft room or the new man-cave!)  For some parents, it’s almost a time of mourning.  (Empty nest? What will I do without my babies?)  For me, I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a little bit of both.  But it’s more than just an empty nest, isn’t it?  It’s not just about freed up space in a home.  It’s about identity.  For nearly twenty years, from Child One to Child Three, I have been the mom of a school-aged child.  While that hasn’t been the whole of my identity, it did comprise the vast majority of who I was and what I did in those years—as I felt it should.  As I wanted it to be.  I have met and even befriended many of my children’s teachers, and together we have both commiserated with each other on occasion and celebrated my children’s progress.  I have coached soccer and Destination Imagination, I have attended more choir, robotics, and sporting events that I could possibly count.  I have made late night runs to Target to purchase poster board for the project that was due tomorrow (Tomorrow?? Are you serious??), and I have hosted slumber parties and study sessions.  I have been a study partner and a proofreader; I have chaperoned field trips and logged countless miles in the mom taxi.  I have fretted with them when they were struggling in classes, and I have rejoiced with them over hard-earned grades and well-deserved accolades.  I have become ‘bonus mom’ to a number of children I did not birth, but who have become part of my family at the side of my own children through the years.  Along the way, at every turn, I tried to emulate and model positivity, good decision-making, forgiveness, flexibility, open-mindedness, balance, joy.  I didn’t always succeed in these, but I hope I did more often than I did not.  I hope with all of the lessons they learned from books in school, they also learned lessons from me that don’t come from books—the kinds of lessons that teach you how to take what you learn from all the books and use it to help those around you, to make a difference in the lives of others.

While I will always be my kids’ mom and their number one cheerleader, the role of mom will be a different one in this new normal as Danielle embarks on her new path.  I will still always be there for her, and for my older two who have already walked down the path a ways, but what they need from me will be different.  Sometimes that will mean being a shoulder to cry on, and sometimes that will mean getting out of the way so that they can spread their wings and fly—or learn to fall—on their own.  The day to day minutiae of being a school-aged parent will be in the rear-view mirror.  Some days I’ll miss it terribly—yes, even little things like having to sign parent permission slips and shopping for Back to School supplies—and some days I’ll marvel at how I was able to manage juggling all of those little things while maintaining some semblance of sanity.  Some days I’ll rise to the occasion and be exactly who I need to be for myself and my kids, and some days I’ll falter and fail them, or feel I have failed myself.  I don’t know yet how to be the person I need to be in my new ‘real world’, because I’ve never been her before.  Just like Danielle, just like Nicholas and Brianna before her, I’m stepping into new territory here, and will have to learn to find my way.  I don’t know yet how to be not the mom of school aged children anymore, but I’ll learn.  I, too, have graduated, and am ready to start my next ‘real world’.