Blessings! :)

Sitting outside this morning with my computer and coffee.  It’s the most gorgeous morning… warm but not hot yet. Bright blue sky and a soft breeze and sun sun SUN!!! The grass and the trees are so green right now, and the birds are singing everywhere.  The dogs are running around like maniacs, chasing down all the little chipmunks and whatever else is making the underbrush rustle.  Randomly there’s a frog croak from over by the pond, or a “Mooooo” from the cows next door, or a “brrrrrrrr” from a woodpecker somewhere back in the woods. The chickens are wandering around chasing down who- really-wants-to-know-what. We’ve got the rabbit hutch out back with approximately 30 new babes hopping their tiny shaky selves all over their cages and nest boxes. Our little swimming pool that I have never been able to properly maintain is finally, finally almost genuinely swimmable. (Thanks to an in-depth lesson on proper chemical use from a guy who surely has to be a chem-student at KSU.) It’s amazing out here. Right here in our own back yard. The front is probably not half bad either, but there’s no yard up there and we’re too far back for me to be properly nosey about the goings-on of our road so I have no desire to sit out front. Point of all this being, this morning I’m counting my blessings…and soon as I started they just kept popping out at me!

Being fully aware of what God has given us right here in our home and on our land is such a critical thing for me today… Forgive what is surely going to come across as materialistic and selfish, but I’ve been kind of bitter here lately about all the things we don’t have and can’t do. We have friends and family going on vacation left and right around us. We have family working on house projects and friends who go out most every weekend on family day trips and out to dinner or for ice cream or whatever.  In my selfish little brain I have felt so bitter about those simple joys in the lives of others. Not my finest personality trait as of late. The thing is, we were going on vacation this year. We were going to finish a few of the countless many things still undone in our house. At the very least when all of that went out the window I was counting on making the most of our time together.

 Ryan has worked insanely for our entire marriage…that was always our 50/50 split: he worked and I did all the kid/house/pet stuff. The times in our life together that he’s actually been here with us, able to do things and spend time with the kids and I, could be counted up on less than two hands. So when all else failed I thought surely just his being home and here with us would make life downright euphoric! Non-stop family time: movie nights and game nights and bonfires and picnics and playing at the park and the random day at Craigs Beach... I had the whole blissful summer planned out in my head, and as stellar as it is in there, it pretty much has sucked in real life.  So I’ve been growing more frustrated by the day…more bitter with each new occurrence in someone else’s life… more stuck in the suckiness of my own.

Not so today, praise God!!! This morning I’m really seeing all that we have…the abundance of our day to day life. The green trees and grass: Ryan picked this land, and this very spot to build our house, and he planted by hand-plowing and tilling and raking and spreading the seeds-every blade of grass growing. The weeds make up most of the yard, but they are green too and go nicely with the grass and we just aren’t that particular about that kind of stuff. The pond with the frogs: he dug that himself. The dogs and the chicken and the rabbits: all Ryan’s idea. The ridiculously huge garden growing over there? He did that too, with family helping this year, to alleviate our organic food costs for his new diet. The water in the swimming pool: Ryan said let it fill up all winter and spring with the snow and the rain, so we don’t have to pay for it…and that worked! Our house itself… Ryan picked this land, and cut by himself every single tree to make room for the house. He nailed every single nail in this entire home, with his own two hands. Every piece of drywall, every piece of gravel underneath the concrete floor of the slab…he bought and loaded into his truck and unloaded here and put into place by himself. The foundation and the new roof when we expanded he subbed out—but he worked right beside the men doing the job the entire time. He was in the ground placing foundation blocks and on the roof nailing down shingles right along with them.

Everywhere I look I see him. I see what he sees in his imagination because he has always had this insane ability to take his dreams right out of his head and build them. Because he has never backed down from the hard work that doing that requires of him. And I’m seeing today how rare that is. I know Ryan is incredible…sometimes I just forget exactly how incredible. Everything we have and the life we live are because of God’s blessing, and Ryan. And everything we have finally feels like so much more than an ocean vacation or a non-stop family-day-trip-marathon! Our house isn’t “done”, but honestly, has a lack of trim around the walls ever killed anyone? Does bare drywall here and there make anyone so uncomfortable they can’t stand to be inside? We lost part of the flooring up front to the flood and have yet to replace it, and I will grant you that the sub-floor is a little rough on the eyes and the feet. But I have like 10 rugs lying all over the place….the kids play hop-scotch on the way in and there’s no judgment here if a visitor feels like joining in!

I don’t know that we will ever go on a “family vacation” again. The only one we’ve ever taken might be the only one we ever take. And accepting that in the midst of watching friends all around me pack and take off has left me in a foul mood at times. I’m sorry for that. I really do want to be a bigger person and just share in your joy and be excited for you, and I’m sorry I haven’t been able to yet. But I think its coming!!!! I think I just need to spend more time in the back yard. Or the front, I guess. I need to appreciate the pond Ryan dug because the frogs wouldn’t live here if he hadn’t. I need to let myself get swept away by the scent of the grass and weeds when it gets mowed, because they all smell the same and its pure delight! I need to enjoy the rare 30 minutes when all five kids actually want to be in the living room with us to watch part of a movie or play a game. I need to look up more often and see Ryan here… in person…flesh and blood that I can hug and hold and love. I need to see everywhere that he is, even when he is not, just because he has touched everything I see here at home. I need to remember that that will always be true. That I will never ever really be without him, no matter what stupid sucky cancer says.  And I think, maybe, if I can talk myself into it, I need to pull our tent out of the garage and go camping in the back yard. J