Category: journey

Heeeere’s Johnny!

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay4 Comments

It’s raining today, in our little midwestern town. I am not complaining, I love a good rain. We are nearing having been in this house a month, (I can’t believe it) and though we aren’t quite as settled in as I’d hoped- this weeks call for rain and thunderstorms motivates me a bit. I am one who likes to jump in and get things done, so I am more than a little irritated that there are still an array of boxes in our garage. Of course, it hasn’t helped that I am on week three of a pretty severe cold/infection. All things considered, we’ve got quite a lot going accomplished. I’m waiting to post photos, until everything is done. The grand tour will come then.

Our 19th anniversary was last Tuesday and so on Saturday a friend hung out with Gen and we went on a little date. We went to dinner at a local Hibachi Japanese Steakhouse, only to realize very early on that this made us a bit homesick because we had one back home that we frequented often with dear friends. It’s bound to happen I guess. At any rate, we ended up at this enormous grill table with one other couple. They were older than us, and informed us early on that they loved to chat. It was actually really cool to spend the whole of dinner talking with complete strangers, over juggled knives and the most amazing salmon and steak ever. Our waitress (who was a brunette, but truly a blond at heart.) must have agreed that we had great social chemistry because she brought all four of our meals on one check. Could not have asked for a better evening, honestly.

My husband spent the weekend painting and I couldn’t be more thrilled. My kitchen is now the color of sunshine, and though its really brighter than our norm- considering the grey days this state has- it’s an effective choice for sure.

I am ready to feel better and get out there and meet people. An almost-month is a long time to just see a few old friends and thats it. I am not stir crazy yet, but my thoughts are referencing The Shining a bit more often than I’d like. (I Kid…) I am rejoining my old book club and am very excited about that! It ranks up there just behind the excitement I’ll have to park in my garage and never see another cardboard box again. I’m going to grow old and die in this house- I swear it. Never. Moving. Again. As my beloved Mama would say, “I’m too old for this crap.” Only she wouldn’t say crap, but whatever. It’s all poop in the end.

Kind of like this random post about nothing. It’s simply my attempt to connect with civility by any means possible.

Signed: in need of a cosmo and some banter over brunch…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay4 Comments

I have all of these amazing things I want to put here…

Like smart moving/redecorating tips we live by.

Or how I used to get to see my kids all of the time, and now the fact that I had all three of them with me (but not at the same time) within the span of 3 weeks, is the best thing to happen to me in a LONG, LONG time.

Or to share photos of our new place, and how fun it’s been to decorate and find new purposes for stuff I’ve had forever.

Instead though, I thought I’d fill you in on the goings-on as we grapple and grapple for some semblance of a routine- while none comes. Just last night, Chw and I were talking about how an evening in Idaho and an evening here are the same in length- yet it goes ridiculously fast here. He gets home from work about 15 minutes later than he did in Idaho- but in what feels like the actual bling of an eye, it’s 9 and we begin shutting down. We went without tv for a month before we left and are LUCKY enough to have Xfinity here, so in theory we’re “catching up” on stuff, while DVRing the new episodes. But that’s just the theory because, aside from watching the entire 3rd season the Walking Dead with A was home last weekend, we haven’t really watched anything. There’s no time, because the evenings are about 12 minutes long…

When I say We haven’t really watched anything, I of course mean WE. I have.

I am sick, you see. And can’t really sleep. And again, I am lucky because I have Xfinity. So, I sit up in bed, with my ipad, and I watch Xfinity. Right now I am watching S & TC from start to finish. I’ve seen a lot of it, but all in syndication. I am finding that watching it, in order, is changing very strong opinions that I had developed about characters. Too bed I’m only like 12 years too late on the S & TC bandwagon. And… It doesn’t really help a girl, when she is really just starting to miss her friends. *sigh*

Since I last posted, G has turned 14, (God help us.) I have turned 37, Chw and I had our 19th anniversary (date to follow, this weekend) and we’ve managed to avoid any major crisis. Yay us! We’ve done unpacking and settling, survived a major shock to our system (who knew car insurance could be so expensive?!?!?), and are hopefully one step closer to some kind of a solid routine. The sun is shining, so that’s pretty helpful.

This place is starting to sound more like one of those weekly family update blogs than anything remotely authentic and personal! I hang my head in blogging shame and close this post now. In the style of Carrie Bradshaw:

I was beginning to wonder, would things ever get back to normal? 

Seasonal home…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay3 Comments

I have been thinking a lot about things that change.

The way relationships ebb and flow, and sometimes simply just die out completely.

Twenty years ago I was pretty confident in my friendships. I was sixteen years old and my best friends were few, but they had known me at my most intimate of places and I knew that, say, 20 years down the line- they would be the ones who knew my children and stood by my side.

They aren’t.

While I am barely in touch with one of them, the other two are not in my life at all. {Today is actually the birthday of one of them, so I’ll send a resounding “happy birthday, J” out into the world.}

Ten years ago I was incredibly comfortable in my friendships. I lived in a place that wasn’t my favorite- but I truly loved my friends. We had dinner parties and consistent movie adventures. We shopped together, read together, played together and prayed together. I knew that was exactly how I always wanted it to be.

Of course, it wasn’t.

Here I am, at 36 years of age. Different location. Different friends. Different occupation. While I am still friends {sort of} with some of the girls i was friends with then, nothing looks the same. It isn’t worse, but it definitely isn’t better either. There are days when I miss that so much, and i think wow, I would trade one hundred todays for just one of those yesterdays… but isn’t that how it usually is? We cling to the past and look in that rear view mirror.

A little over five years ago we wanted nothing more than to move home. Then we lived in Michigan and home was, of course, Idaho. Our driving force for coming home was for our kids. Beyond that though, there were loads of amazing benefits. My husbands family, for one. My sister and her kids, for another. A gaggle of friends we had known since high school and college, that we loved and missed dearly.

Five years ago, we couldn’t believe we’d made it back. Made it home. And that feeling of home and perfection lasted for quite some time. Five years later though, we have no relationship with my husbands family, and are far better off for that. My sister and I, sadly, barely speak. The friends we knew have either moved away or we simply have little to nothing in common any longer, and new friends stand where they once stood. Things change. People change.

I’ve changed.

I no longer put up with abuses in the name of family, and sacrifice our boundaries to appease others. That’s changed, and i am glad it has. We don’t regret coming home, but today looks nothing like I thought it would those five or ten years ago. While we didn’t come back to “go backwards”, it’s starting to feel like we did.

Idaho, for us, has grown to be like our seasonal home. We aren’t alone in that notion either. A lot of celebrities have seasonal homes here, and why wouldn’t they? It’s a great seasonal state! Now, if someone would just notify our income level that it’s time to go out in search of our everyday home, I’d appreciate it.

Senile sentiments…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay15 Comments

Yesterday Genny and I decided that we wanted to while away the blustery, below zero afternoon with a little baking. I don’t know how this looks in your house, but in our house it looks a little like this-

I hate to bake, but allow her to talk me into it.

She stresses me out with flightiness and refusal to pay attention because once the process has started, she decides she wants to do forty-five other things instead, thus leaving me to do the baking alone. Which really is ok because it isn’t really that I hate to bake as much as I hate building up to the baking. It just sounds exhausting.

Ridiculous, isn’t it? Give me a complicated four course dinner party to cook for and my energy levels soar through the roof. Ask me to make a batch of cookies and I feel as though the life has been sucked out of me.

It sounds so complicated.

I’m too tired.

Blah, blah, blah…

I’m not proud.

009Once I am in the process though, I’m fine and I enjoy it. I psych myself out for all of the amazing baking adventures I am going to have now that I courageously faced my fears and realized baking isn’t so bad and scary after all. This lasts until the dishes are done.

Anyway, before all of that though, {at least “all of that” in yesterday’s episode of “hey mom, do you want to bake with me?”} I was pouring through my recipe box in search of something to make. I don’t do that often enough. In this season of life it’s all about the blog recipes and the Pinterest finds. My tried & trues sit collecting dust, and it’s sad.

A recipe box should be full of such happy things. Things like the recipe for grandma’s buttermilk cookies and my mom’s incredible egg rolls. The truth is though, that there are a lot of mixed emotion treasures in there too. Things passed down from my grandmother, whose penmanship I’ll never see again. Once merely a chicken scratched list of dumpling ingredients is now sacred. The Spanish rice bake to accompany last night’s chicken is written in my mother’s beautiful handwriting- handwriting that disappeared when she had her stroke.

And they are silly things really- handwriting, chicken scratch. But they are final things too, things that saw their end and now one visit through the recipe box becomes a breathtaking and painful reminder that things change.

One day I will walk into my kitchen and mix up a batch of muffins. I will feel a jabbing ache in my heart that there is no one there to eat them, or better yet- no one there to demand I make them and then run off to watch the Disney channel. I won’t be annoyed, like I was today- abandoned in the kitchen when I’d rather be reading. I will be sad. A normal moment will become huge and leave me gaping.

I know what I have to do.

While I still have the chance, I’m going to sucker her into baking something and then I’m going to go watch a movie and leave her with the work, the dishes and the mess. That way, when I am sixty, mixing muffins all sad and lonely- I’ll remember that, laugh and realize I am crazy for baking anything in the first place.

Wonder…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

022 It’s a pretty miraculous thing to wake up to a world that looks as lovely and perfect as I did this morning. Despite the anticipation I help for this fresh, new year, we have hurt happening in our family and it’s hard to watch- hard to handle. Dark nights lead to overcast mornings, where the emotion of fog, here at home, makes breathing and peace so difficult to grab for.

And then, then this morning kisses me hello and i see the world has gone and become bright and breathtakingly beautiful, while i sat wrapped in my worry and misery- alone. I wake to see branches wrapped in glimmer, shards of sunlight blinding me as I take it all in.

And I wake, again. More. Wake to the world, wake to the moment, wake from the fog and the sadness.

There is magic, of sorts, in this winter wonderland  shining around us. It was hard to miss, vibrant and blinding- but the beautiful magic is always going to be there really. In some way, at least. In the hummingbird outside the window- in the slow crawl to stand of a sweet little baby. Wonder surrounds us every second of every day. Obviously, these first weeks of 2013 I’ve just not been trying to notice- so today it took away my option.