deep down

Here’s what our weekend was like.

Friday night was the first high school football game. Jace went. With his friends. It was a proud moment for me. He has normal friends and is doing normal high school things. The schools our here are like something out of a movie. You know, the one where everyone has a role in school—athlete, cheerleader, really smart kid—and the whole city goes to football games [unless the tickets are already sold out, of course. because that actually happens here] because football is such a big deal. It’s crazy. Almost a little Stepford Wives form of perfect. But in a good way.

Saturday morning started bright and early. We fell back into our routine of Saturday cleaning. Grass mowed, cars washed, floors mopped and vacuumed, garage cleaned (okay, that chore may have been frequently skipped in our old house), the works.

In the afternoon was feeling a little ambitious, so I baked some apple pies. Actually I’m not really that ambitious. I just needed to know which recipe tasted the best. So I tried three different ones.

I really enjoy baking, but I’m a pretty obnoxious cook. I like to pretend that loud music makes my food taste better, so I have my speakers cranked up and my iPod is perpetually covered in flour. I’m also overly strict about allowing people into the kitchen while I’m baking. I hate people traipsing around in my workspace because I’m a possessive control freak. A little bit.

On the other hand, my control disorder (is that a real thing? if it is, I may be at risk..) has led to me being a pretty decent cook. I relish in having complete control, in working carefully and precisely, in watching a big pile of ingredients turn into something beautiful.

I find comfort in the rhythm of baking, the way I can steadily peel, core, and slice apples, measure flour, blend things together. The way I don’t even focus on what I’m doing, I just do it.

I love the smell of cinnamon on my fingers; it smells the way I think fall should. It brings excitement as I remember that fall is right around the corner. Normally I’m all about summer and sunshine, but living in this sweltering heat has changed that. I’m excited for my first real fall, for the weather to cool off and to wear scarves and jackets and to eagerly anticipate snowy days where apple pies will be completely appropriate.

Perhaps the rarest aspect of my affinity towards being in the kitchen is the gratification I find in cleaning up after myself. I look forward to cleaning up my mess afterwards, because I think doing dishes is as enjoyable as cooking is.

Cooking and cleaning are both therapeutic for me. I can be busy doing things but have my mind occupied elsewhere. When my hands are mindlessly occupied is when I can think the best, when my mind is most clear. I love seeing things start as a disorganized mess and slowly come together into a delicious pie or a clean stack of dishes or a freshly washed and waxed car.

I think my mom enjoys that I enjoy it. Ha.

Saturday night my mom was feeling spontaneous. We needed a few more ingredients for our Sunday feast, necessitating yet another run to Wal-Mart. We schlepped Kenyan and Aria in their pajamas, and between them and me…well…were looking pretty homely. As we passed the jewelry counter my mom saw a sign for ear piercing and decided that both Kenyan and Aria needed to have their ears pierced. Right then. It didn’t matter that it was late or that she’d been planning to have Kenyan get it done in a different state or that we were at Wal-Mart for goodness’ sake. Nope, it was going to be done. The girls were thrilled. And a little shocked. But mostly thrilled. Actually, there was quite a range of emotions:

There was joy.

There was fear.

There was drama.

There was a little bit of pain.

But mother was there to hold their hands, so it was all okay.

Then there was pure delight.

And a tiny bit of eye watering. Yep.

Interrupting the squeals of joy were frequent proclamations of “I love you momma!” and “You’re the best, momma!”Earrings aside, she is the best.

Look at those faces. Pure joy.

Sunday we had the missionaries over for dinner, crossing another task off of our list of things-that-make-home-feel-like-home. It was the second official dinner we’ve hosted here, cooked completely by yours truly. {If you ever need a boost of self esteem, whip up a three course meal for thirteen people and let the praise roll in. It’s good for the soul.}

Aside from my family, these people know my cooking best:

They and their two sons have been staying with us since we got back to Utah (and they’ve since decided to move to Lubbock. Crazies.) and have been keeping us company. They’ve been a nice distraction from things—they’re interesting, they’re entertaining, there was never a dull moment with them around. However, Sunday night they put an end to our late night runs around town and long talks and random assortment of foods and midnight movie marathons by moving into their own house.

Our house has seemed empty and quiet since then. Good thing their new house is just around the corner.

This weekend was spent in the company of so many good people. Texans are pretty friendly, and we know a lot of good people who like to just drop by. I was never really a fan of unexpected visitors until I moved here and my perspective changed. I love it. I love that people come by to say hi, to check on us, to see how our day is going. I’m always saddened when they leave, but brightened by the prospect of them coming back tomorrow.

Because they usually do.

[Okay, disclaimer. I had to draw this because I never have any pictures of them. They don’t really look anything like this in real life. And they usually have clothes on. But oh well. Please don’t be offended, Browns.]

And they always just make each day better than the last.

[Title from Heaven Can Wait by We the Kings]

the sound of sunshine

We are home. We are in our home. Our home is almost put together.

I’ve spent the last exhausting week unpacking, organizing, rearranging, screwing and nailing things into place, vacuuming, admiring my work, and feeling a huge wave of accomplishment as I watch our house come together a little more each day.

The once-bare garage floor is now littered with empty cardboard boxes, bookshelves now have books on them, the pantry is slowly acquiring food, and we even started to decorate the girls’ room.

[It’s not quite finished yet.]

There are only a few things left to do—a few pictures and mirrors to hang, a few boxes that are still serving as nightstands, and there’s a lonely corner of the living room that is waiting for our piano to arrive. *Crossing my fingers that that day comes soon*

I’ve been spending the last few days unpacking and sorting and finding new homes for things. Putting together a new house is like a big puzzle--deciding what things fit where, which closet will hold your belongings most spaciously, what wall the pictures should hang on and how high the nails should go. Unpacking is the most rewarding task, I think. You start with an empty room and some boxes and you end with a neat, organized room and some flattened pieces of cardboard.

I love being able to see progress.

I also enjoy rolling the computer chair over bubble wrap and listening to the thousands of firecracker noises (similar to a three year old), but that is irrelevant.

There’s still so much to be done in some places. But I am daily so filled with peace and gratitude knowing that my family has a home and we are all living under a roof again. It’s been a long eleven weeks of being homeless.

And of course, some things may just never get done. I doubt little brother’s room will ever be organized. He has his bed and his sound system set up, what more could a teenage boy need?

Our home is pleasant. It’s haphazard and hasn’t completely adjusted to containing my family and our wild adventures, but it’s a nice little house. Every day, every family dinner, every adventure is another step towards making it ours; we give it character with every action. And trust me, there’s a lot of action around here.

As far as the area, it is…quite different than what I’m used to, being raised in South Florida. It’s a desert. Flat. Brown. Ridiculously hot. A little bit ugly. It’s a good thing sunrises and sunsets are beautiful everywhere you go. Sunsets in Texas are no different. The sky is still blue here and the grass is still green. [In our backyard, anyway]

Behind our house {outside the fence} there is an alley where there are dumpsters that protect our garbage from coyotes and bears and fire-breathing dragons [that’s the version I got anyway]. And sometimes I like to pretend that it’s not really a garbage filled alley, and that I don’t live in a desert.

It only works half of the time.

The alley is a gravel road, and this is where my callused beach feet come in handy. I can parade around the loosely scattered rocks as though I’m treading on cotton candy. Everyone else is jealousssss.

Our backyard has freshly laid green grass. It’s currently good for playing Frisbee and staring at. It’s my personal challenge to liven it up with a trampoline or a maze made out of hedges or something. Suggestions?

Everyone under eighteen went back to school this week. As expected, they love the school and their teachers and classes and friends. Little Aria even gets her own locker—a privilege I was certainly never accustomed to in elementary school. In fact, the most poignant memory I have of being that age was my shoes. My mom bought me a new pair of shoes for the first day of school. They were those high tech ones that had blue lights on the bottom that lit up when I walked and they were my absolute favorite things in the world. I was so excited to wear them. I would take them out of the box and run my hands over the smooth, white material and then tap them on the ground and watch the blue lights flicker as my heart was filled with increasing joy. It’s a wonder I didn’t wear out the battery before the first day of school. I remember getting on the bus so early that it was still dark out. I thought it was even cooler to wear them in the dark because the blue bursts were like lightning, lighting up the whole world. Then I sat down and a sixth grader (obviously incredibly cool because he was so old) said “nice shoes”. In retrospect he may have been being sarcastic, but that made my little second-grade heart swell with joy.

In any case, the girls now have legitimate reasons to have their desk covered in books and to have markers and stickers scattered about.

I’m working on letting it stay the way it is because that is how they want it. To me it looks like one of the pictures from the I Spy books we used to have—cluttered and disorganized. I have to fight urges to throw things away and neaten things up, reminding myself that they are kids and kids can have messes. And sometimes I forget that I’m still, in many ways, just a kid myself.

And I love it.

The trip to Texas from Utah wasn’t long and was mostly uneventful. Especially compared to the last trip we took. Ha. Probably because my uncle drove us. I vote he chauffers us on every road trip from here on out.

[This is his smolder. He had to label it for me because I didn’t recognize it. Oops.]

The scenery was beautiful. The drive also doubled as a geological tour, narrated by my uncle who somehow fits more information in his head than the rest of us combined.

Kenyan and I read a lot on the trip. For the past few weeks, finishing books has disappointing because it means I have to find unique ways to acquire new books [the most recent solution involved hijacking my mom’s kindle]. But I don’t have that problem anymore because I have all my books! Muahaha. Success.

I listened to my iPod and played games with Aria and drew pictures and took pictures.

It was a calm trip and the time passed quickly. There were, of course, things that were memorable, because something always is. Like the time I rolled down the window to throw fallen grapes out the window and rolled up the window with my fingers still in it. I was in so much pain that I didn’t think to roll the window down and move my fingers; I just sat there telling everyone how much it hurt. So intelligent.

Then there was that awkward time when we stopped on the side of the road—at the two mom’s requests--to take pictures with “Texas stuff”.

Yep. This happened.

Let's be real, I'm not gonna throw any 'enjoy the moment' crap up here. The whole time the mothers insisted on more pictures I just shook my head and was silently grateful that the population of the city was probably less than 100 and I wouldn't know anyone driving by.

The upside was that I got to see more modeling by a man who’s seen way too many episodes of America’s Next Top Model.

Direct quote: “Those girls are so dumb. They can’t jump and model at the same time. I’m jumping, no—I’m modeling!”

Check. Out. That. Face.

“I wasn’t jumping. I was modeling.”

Calvin Klein/aftershave portfolio addition

It was pretty excellent. In an awful, shake-my-head-in-shame sort of way.

While it was fun, I was so relieved to finally, finally, be home. Home where we loved the people and the people loved us. The people here are unreal. They’re exceptionally outgoing, friendly, loving, and generous. Would you like to see what we came home to?

Why yes, that is a new laptop for my mother sitting on her bed. Because hers got smashed-ed. Left by our friends-that-we’ve-only-known-for-a-few-weeks. [The note also says “We’re happy to have you home.” HOME. Yes, there were tears.] That’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s safe to say we’re being very well taken care of.

Regardless, we are all here. And we have air conditioning and closets for our clothes and our very own bathrooms. It doesn’t get much better than that.

[Title from Give Up! by Sherwood]