Announcing....

Yeesh! I can practically hear blogger dashboard creaking and the smell of virtual dust is making me virtually sneeze. Five months later, and my big announcement is finally here and off the ground:

I've started a business!! Yes, me and my sis are partners in a grand new (ad)venture called Jabberdashery. It's where I post for sale the things I make digitally all the time anyway. Interestingly, the hardest thing has been to be OK with calling myself a graphic designer without feeling like a pretender. But I am and I love it and I'm pretty darn good and getting better all the time.

This blog will remain our family and my personal blog. But I'll also be blogging over at Jabberdashery.com about every week, too. And it won't be a lot of marketing hype. See, the artwork I'm doing is very personal and very inspirational. To be honest, I kind of hate that word "inspirational." It's something a cliche, isn't it? And "motivating" isn't much better. But the idea is for me to share some kind of story or message that helps move people up and through their day. What's a better word for that? One that means "onward and upward!!!" with the force of several exclamation points??

I have to make this blog short and to get back to my regularly scheduled Jabberdashery work time. I plan to chronicle how all this came about, the seed that was planted, the things that nourished it. But I need to go finish writing up the schedule and do a few things for a new design/product we are hopefully going to launch next month. here you can read that tells part of the story. If you've missed me, you should subscribe to it because I'll be there regularly every Wednesday from here on out! And as we get settled (did I mention we moved to Kansas??) and get into more of a routine (did I mention we are trying out homeschooling??) I hope to be back here more often. Cuz I've got some new lines to share!! Life has been....life. Hard, crazy, amazing, and awesome.
In the meantime, there is a pretty good blog post

Guess Who's Nine Months Old??

How did this happen??? Time is out of control over here!I love this picture of my little prince, and not just because it hides his massive forehead ;-) This was taken over conference weekend, he doesn't even fit into these clothes anymore...

 Sweet little sleeper. He's had his tongue like this for what seems like forever now, but it's probably just as long as he's been teething, which has been just shy of forever...

 This kid loves people, new experiences, and being the center of attention. He's in the perfect spot of the family for that!

He's growth curve is a lot like Jane's, although he's only in 12M clothing right now. I'm betting he'll grow out of his current stuff in about a month. He's got a bit more hair than Jane did at this age. He's got the big, smart head, sparkling blue eyes, and adoring smile. He's been crawling for about a month, but he's been serious about it the last few weeks. Before that, he pulled himself across the floor on his belly and rolled to get where he wanted to go. He loves to pull himself up on things, clap his feet together, and he is not deterred by obstacles. He LOVES to eat and is noisy the entire time, whether food is in his mouth or not, he's got something to say about it. He's been signing just a little bit, and mostly with Eric, on and off for about a month. He's most consistent about asking for water and milk. Screaming works better for more! He loves bananas, strawberries, pears, and yogurt best. Recently he's also enjoyed toast with lots of butter. And he's happiest when he eats whatever grown up food we are having for dinner- he really like Zucchini Lasagna the other day and anything with more complex and kicky flavors he can't get enough of.

He's got a good sense of humor and loves to play games with us. He still hates getting dressed, undressed, and diaper changes. He gets so indignant! It's both funny and exasperating. He loves to be held way too much, but then, there are too many adults around to indulge him. He's had a bit of separation anxiety lately, but only here and there the last few weeks.

He's a great night sleeper, and sometimes a good napper, sometimes a little turd. He's taking two naps these days. His morning nap is about 2-3 hours after he gets up, and his afternoon nap another 3-4 after that. Usually one of his naps is a good solid few hours. He never goes down happily and always cries for at least a minute or two before going to sleep. He still loves to nurse, but is super distractable if he hears any noise. We had a brief day or two of biting, but that's settled down (thankfully). He's got a really sensitive heart and is pretty perceptive. He cries when his sisters are sad, when Grandpa is gruff, or when I lose my patience (which NEVER happens!!!)

He is the apple of my eye! My Adam Apple! (nerrr.) I can't imagine not having him in our family right now. Man, God is smart!!

Happy Mother's Day

So my dream of  having quaint little sing-a-longs as a family is starting to come true. While tuning my ukulele, Eric made up this song. The girls thought it was a-maz-ing, and so we decided to sing it for Grammy. This one is for you!

Awesome Post Forthcoming! But first...

I need your help. I'm taking a course, which you will find more about in the Forthcoming Awesome Post, and there is a piece of homework you can help me with. It feels a bit silly and possibly embarrassing, but basically I need you to tell me what makes me Awesome, or what are my three best qualities. No joke. This isn't just me needing some validation (all though it will help), it's honestly homework for this course. If you'd like to leave a comment below, please do, you can also go here if you'd like to be anonymous.

THANKS, dear peeps! It means a lot you taking the time to help me out.

The Blizzards and Zombies of Life

There are many things I love about Minnesota. And with regards to the snow, I love how it doesn't stop anyone. It doesn't even really slow anyone down, at least not much. We'd get a whole foot dumped on us over the night and come morning, the schools would just delay things, like an hour or two. At the most. Our first winter there it was purely befuddling. For example, the 10 year old girls I taught at church would show up at my apartment in shorts and mere sweatshirts on in November when there was already feet of snow on the ground.  There is definitely something to be said about acclimatization. And expectations. And preparation.

Tonight my awesome Lil Sis took me out on a date. The Huz left town yesterday to go to a funeral in Wichita. His best friend's mom, really a second mother, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly at a young age from a pneumonia that went septic (at least, that's what I've pieced together from FB reports and stuff). The Huz, really, really, really wanted to be there in person and we looked at flights with bulging eyes and watched the driving conditions with breaths held and finally I just pulled the trigger and bought a "cheap" Southwest flight into Kansas City, an easy drive to Wichita, and he has two sisters living there. It seemed perfect, the cost, the timing, everything. The winter storm here wasn't as bad as predicted, he made it safely to SLC and his flight and everything went A-OK. And then the storm that was supposed to hit southeastern Kansas ate one of those magic mushrooms and grew to cover the state and a few next door. So during the night, the roads became impassable. And yet, pass my husband would try anyway. He got up super early and conditions didn't look to bad, so off he went. He got 10 minutes away from his sister's house and couldn't go any further. He ended up spending four hours or so in a gas station waiting for the plows to do their work.

In the meantime, I'm sending massive prayers to heaven and good thoughts his way, and so is my mother and the girls, that he'll be able to make the funeral, that something will work out or at least he'll just be safe. He made it back to the house, had a late lunch, and got to spend a little time with family. And then the storm seemed like it was clearing up, and the plows had caught up, and according to his friend the roads got really good 80 miles outside of Wichita, so off he went again. I made him keep me updated every hour so, as my Worry was in high gear. And it seemed like he might actually make it to Wichita. Sure, he'd missed the funeral, but he could still make it in time to be with all that had gathered. So, patiently and carefully, he kept on going down I-35 at no more than 20 miles an hour. It was all going to be OK.

And then he went off the road. He didn't slide far, and it looks like the car is fine, but he was high-centered and couldn't get back on the road. Some Good Kansan drove him into town and helped him find a way to try and pull it out. Although, it's another convoluted tale. And here's were the story gets sparse as I haven't talked much on the phone with him, just some texting about this part. They couldn't pull it out, he's been waiting at yet another gas station for a few hours for a tow truck and it looks like he won't be making it to Wichita after all. At all.

While this last bit of fun has been going on for the my Huz, I was sitting in the movie theater with Lil Sis watching Warm Bodies. It's a comedic take on Romeo and Juliet, only Romeo is a Zombie. While hilarious, the movie got me invested. The dialogue and story are good and it has some great, relatable characters (yep, I'm relating to a Zombie). So there I am in the dark theater checking my phone and getting text updates about my poor Husband's, terrible, awful, no good, very bad blizzard. And I think his anxiety and frustration and everything instantly traveled all those hundreds of miles and I found myself feeling very vulnerable in the theater. I needed this story to have a happy ending. I needed the Zombie Romeo not to get blown apart by Juliet's father. For a little while there, I was a little concerned about my ability to keep it together if the Undead became More Dead.

And it was all I could do to refrain from thinking about how this whole day for Eric is like what our whole almost two years of limbo has been. And to not, yet again, be angry at God like a three year old who didn't get her way.

The night before I bought the ticket, I prayed that I might please be directed on what we should do, if he should go or not. If we should spend practically nonexistent resources on this or not. When I found the ticket, it felt right. So I did it. And when, at 10:00 a.m., my mom texted me saying she was recruiting a massive prayer force "because we believe in miracles" I was hopeful he'd make it to the funeral. It did look like things could work out. And they didn't. But I'm still hopeful there was a purpose or a reason to all this. Like I said before, effort is never wasted in the eternal scheme of things.

And I guess that's what blizzards and zombies have taught me tonight.  Like snow in Minnesota, it takes a lot of preparation, and just plain hard work,  to not allow external circumstances to stop you and only sometimes slow you down. The shear number of plows in Minnesota, the amount of resources devoted to snow removal, the action plan in place, as well as the attitude of those that live there makes a blizzard no big deal. In the  case of faith, it's spiritual prep and the tenacity of just pushing through it so I can see things with a perspective broader than tonight or this year.

Eric never did make it to Wichita. Neither did one of the daughters of the deceased because of the same storm. But faith isn't faith if it's dependent on getting my own way. Or said another way, faith operates outside of results, reasons, and outcomes. It's a blessing of the heart.

And for Zombies? What did they teach me? Faith is a game changer. It's an Undead changer. And sure, being alive means you might bleed and hurt sometimes, but it's much better than the alternative:

nnnnnaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuhhhhhhhh. (Zombie Grunt)

P.S. Warm Bodies is definitely worth seeing. I enjoyed the humor and the message.

Princess Stories and Reading

Emiline asked me to tell her a princess story tonight, "one with a prince!" I unimaginatively obliged by telling her a princessified version of how my parents met. She liked hearing about Princess Julie and Prince Lloyd and their first ball.

But then, Emiline told me a princess story. This one was about Princess Marcee and Prince Daddy-Eric and how they didn't know how to get to Grandma's house (where the ball was) and then they disappeared. Into the grass. Under the tramp. And then Princess Grandma-Queen and Prince Lloyd didn't know what to think and then they were scared because of the bad guys. And then Jane and Emiline got the guns to shoot the bad guys. Here I interjected with "where did you learn about guns?" and she said "at the store! I learned them at the store."  So Jane and Emiline shot the evil queen and saved them all. Oh, and then they went to the ball.

She sat there, sprawled out on my lap, and I got to stroke her hair and face and just soak her up. She's such a character! My sister pegged it the other day just what is so cute about the way Emiline talks. She has the typical problem saying Rs that most 2 year olds have, she talks non-stop with an advanced vocabulary and pretty clearly for 2, but the thing that makes her so endearing is that when she says a word, her whole face makes the effort to pronounce it, and often her whole body. She doesn't just radiate energy, she creates it, especially when she tells me stories. I have no idea where this bad guy stuff came from.

Tonight I'm supposed to be grading essays. I have a big activity for the youth in our church tomorrow that I'm in charge of, I spent the afternoon running around for that and in the doc's office and getting prescriptions because now Adam has bronchitis, we were there just a few days ago for Emiline's bronchitis and just opening my computer tonight after putting the kids down made me totally overwhelmed. But before that, Jane, Emiline and me had cuddle time on my bed and we read stories, and they tried to hide in their blankets and I tickled them.

All while we were in town today Jane was reading signs like crazy "Mom, that says 'drop off,' 'pick up,' 'Speed Queen,' 'Smiths,' 'Headstart,' and more I can't remember. It's like she can't help herself reading words, and I remember what that feels like. I remember looking at cereal boxes and labels and being surprised that I could read them without trying and that my tongue just had to say them, like scratching an itch.

While we were at Walmart, we stopped to look at a jewelry display and there was a friendship necklace and Jane reads:"'Be Fri" all confused then "Mom, why is that heart broken?" I explained to her that it is a friendship necklace with a message on each side of the heart. It says "best friends" because a best friend is someone that makes your heart feel a little broken when you are not with them. Immediately she says: "that's like me and Emiline! We should get it for her for Valentine's day!" How could I say no to that?

I guess I just wanted to take a minute tonight to dwell on the sweetness of the day. Sure, I'm putting off things that will make me crazier tomorrow. But I'm in a "big picture" kind of mood. I read this today and it just sort of resonated with me, helped me tone down the demands and disappointments in my life right now that would otherwise take too much of my attention. And you know what? I'm the teacher, I get to say when things are due, right? I mean, seriously! So maybe I won't grade papers after all...

But to all you "Be Fri"s out there, here is one "St Ends" saying, I'm glad our hearts make us both more complete, even if that does mean a little heartache when we are apart.

Family Pictures

Another good coupon, another bunch of cute pics of my kiddos.

Happy Birthday to Me!

And what a relief!! I'm glad to be 30 and leave those tumultuous 20s behind! Seriously! I'm sure I'll have a hard time when I turn 40, but 30 just sounds so....actualized. Confident. Comfortable. Energetic. Definitely more wise and less frenetic than the 20s. It's similar to how I felt turning 20--sounds SO much older than 19. Right? Right?

And Adam gave me the best birthday present! He slept for six hours straight! And so did I! I once told a friend that she shouldn't hold herself to any kind of standard or have any self-guilt about anything or even try to do more than just the basics until her child was "sleeping through the night." I consider this more than 4 hours at a time. And, well, this was Adam's first time sleeping more than 4. He's only done 4 a half dozen or so of times since Christmas. This mamma needs her beauty sleep! I am thirty, after all.

In all seriousness, it's one of my goals in life to age gracefully. I don't ever want to look in the mirror and see a new wrinkle or white hair and be sad or upset about it. I really want to embrace getting older and all that brings.


To celebrate, Eric gave me the day to myself. As much as possible, of course. I got to spend it doing stuff by myself. And I cranked up the iTunes and pulled out my new book on digital art and went through a few lessons and just enjoyed creating and having my brain to myself. It was heavenly.

Just Sow

This post is dedicated to one Victoria. You always inspire me to write, to be me, and to be a better wife and mother. Keep it up, please.

Last year, sometime around February, I bought a seed starter kit for an herb garden. I have long had dreams of having a green thumb. in particular an herb garden. And I'm pretty sure that at some point in my life I want to be a hobby farmer--garden, fruit trees, chickens, and a cow or goats to make my own yogurt and cheese from. Problem is, despite growing up in Idaho surrounded by farm land, I have very little real experience that would qualify me to run a venture like this, ya know, besides idealism.

Jane was very excited to plant seeds. So excited, that she bought her own packet of flower seeds at the dollar store a week or so later. We planted them, and we watered them carefully until they sprouted. And then...I'm not sure what happened. They stopped growing. They got about an inch tall and then that was it. I thought maybe they needed more direct sun, so I put them on the porch one late spring morning. And then the soil was so dry it looked burnt up. And so I watered the thing, drowning it, and then, well, I think someone kicked it over and that was that for the flower sprouts.

And the starter kit? Never got planted. It sat on my table for awhile, got kicked under the table, back on the table, in the sewing room, under my bed, in my closet, back on the table, but never planted.

Now, I don't really judge myself too harshly for my lack of follow through here. I was pretty dang sick last spring. That was some nasty, nasty morning sickness I had there. And it d-r-u-g on much past 20 weeks. I had a 3 year old, a 1 year old, and an unemployed husband, while living at my parents house.  But I don't think it was all those circumstantial reasons that kept me from planting. I think I was really just waiting.

Waiting. For a job. A direction. A plan. Inspiration. A job. A home. A plan. A job. Planting those seeds wasn't an act of resigning to our situation. But something kept me back from planting them because I was just sure that we were on the verge of something. Any day now. SOMETHING was going to happen. And when that something happened, it would make sense my NOT planting them. My waiting would have a purpose and would even have been wise.

Now I have a 4 year old, 2 year old, a 5 month old, and unemployed husband, while living at my parents house. I realized in looking at last year that I spent a lot of time hesitating, simply because there are too many unknowns to make a plan. And we all know how much I LOVE to plan; how much PEACE I find in planning.

As 2013 neared, I knew I wanted to change this mental rut I had found myself in. And, as you can see from our New Year's Letter, we are focusing on Faith as a family this year. Personally, I decided I wanted to think about it in terms of planting, of sowing. Because seeds not planted can't grow, right?

My mom is a pretty excellent gardener. And she always does nearly all of it herself. My dad helps with the tilling in the beginning and the harvesting at the end, but everything else in between is my mom. Our first fall here my parents' apple trees were just loaded! We had a fantastic harvest that year, way too many to eat. My dad helped harvest that bounty and put them in the garage where they sat waiting for my mom and I to do something with them. We ate ourselves sick but didn't get any canned and no cider made because of other things that happened that fall. This bothers my dad to no end. The next spring, he barked and complained about tilling because we'd "just let the harvest rot." He tilled anyway, and my mom planted anyway, and this time it was the onions that got left to rot.

But you know what? That doesn't mean that planting was a waste. There was a lot that we did use. And even if there wasn't, that work wasn't wasted.

Why are we so afraid to "waste" effort on things? Why do we think we can "waste" hope? Someone very dear to me is struggling, as we all do, with a life that hasn't gone the way they thought or hoped. This person admitted to me that they have stopped praying entirely because it's just too painful to hope anymore for the life they want. To ask for the blessings they so deeply desire. And I completely get that. If I don't ask, and I don't get- no harm no foul. But if I do ask and nothing happens? At times in this last year, I have really questioned my ability, my strength to handle anymore. So if I ask, and nothing happens, will I crack? Will I break beyond recognition?

How many times can I break til I shatter?

That line on the radio while driving home not too long ago produced tears. And I just need to get over it and accept that life is hard. I don't know why or when I missed that memo growing up, but I think I really thought that life couldn't be that hard when you do what is right. No, I take it back. I had more faith back then. And I know that with faith, things feel easy.

Which brings us back to Sow. That's my one word theme for the year. It means faith, yes. It means action. It means planting whatever there is to plant here and now so I can harvest at some point, regardless of whether that harvest rots or not. It means preparing the soil, curling my toes up in the earth at this moment. It means trusting that if I do my part, SOMETHING will grow.

Happy New Year

 

Happy New Year,

This year, we decided to start a new tradition and send out the year’s letter and picture after Christmas. I LOVE getting Christmas cards, and I love the process of writing and reflecting on the year past, but I don’t like doing it before Christmas. For me, it gets in the way of celebrating Christ’s birth. So this letter and picture are not technically late, but are purposefully post-Christmas. And we have had a very sweet holiday season.

At the beginning of 2012, a good friend of mine shared with me how instead of setting resolutions at the New Year, she chose a one word or phrase theme for the year. I loved the idea and tried to come up with one of my own but failed to do so. I felt that I couldn’t come up with a theme until I had a better idea of how our life would be in 2012, and all of that seemed to hinge on getting a job. In addition to being knocked flat by morning sickness into the spring, I kept pulling a blank when it came to planning and imagining our life. Retrospectively, too much of our year was unintentionally themed “stalled,” “neutral,” or “stuck” because we were fixated on moving—out of my parent’s house, on to the next stage of life, and into a “real” lawyer job for Eric. We had this one very narrow definition of growth and progress and that idea eclipsed too often the blessings, joy, love, and growth we have experienced this year. And while we still really, really want to “move” and are doing everything in our power to do so, we are also trying to see the bigger picture. That view, however, only comes with an eye of faith. So our theme for 2013, which we hope is our lucky number, is simply Faith.

Another way to describe 2012 would be “The Word of God.” We spent much energy this year drawing closer to God. We made General Conference the biggest holidays of the year (next to Christmas) and effectively used it as our curriculum for Family Home Evenings. We also started reading scriptures as a family from the “big scriptures” every morning. Jane’s favorite scripture story is the Nativity and Emiline’s is when King Noah and Abinadi “get burned.” It was amazing how the spirit in our home changed so much and so sweetly and so quickly as we had opportunity to learn lessons about asking in faith, obeying immediately, and having a soft heart.

The adventures of the year include a trip to Ft. Worth the see the Ludlows in February, a few Sisters’ get-a-ways in the spring, renovating a bathroom, installing hardwood floors, time with Great Grandparents, Jane riding a lamb in the Scipio Rodeo (granted, she fell off in about a second, but she was determined to do it!), camping as a family, having a baby, filing a police report after our storage unit got broken into, Grammy and Grampy Ludlow and Great Grandma Ludlow coming for a visit for Adam’s blessing, lots of family in town for Thanksgiving, and once again producing our children’s Christmas musical and benefit. It has been a full year!

Our wiggliest bundle of joy, Lloyd Adam, was born on August 23. Named for Marcee’s Dad and Eric’s dearest mentor, he has been the happiest and most social of our babies yet. So social, in fact, that he doesn’t want to sleep long, day or night! At 4 months old, he already loves to figure things out, and we’re amazed at how he can squirm his way across the floor on his back.

Emiline is our busiest child, running or jumping almost everywhere she goes, which often leads to a fall or crash most days and her sobbing cry of, “No, that wasn’t a trick!” She loves a good joke, being silly, and teasing. She definitely has a mind of her own and likes to challenge limits. When she decided she was ready to be done wearing diapers, she just did it—that day, and no sooner. She loves playing ball, dressing up, singing, being silly, blocks, pocket dolls, coloring, painting, being silly, her puppy she got from Santa, and her big sister and baby brother.

Jane is now a full-fledged little girl. Before she started preschool this fall, she was already reading which is of particular delight to her father. She discovered princesses this year: movies, dolls, barbies, and stories. Daily she asks one adult or another to make up a princess story. She has a vast imagination and delights in all stories and spends her day making up her own, whether through dressing up, playing dolls, or drawing pictures. She loves to sing and dance and even had a speaking part in the Christmas play her mother directed. She also loves “fashion” and one day fell to pieces because Mommy threw out a stack of magazines before she got to look through them. She LOVES to pick out her outfits and loves contrast; orange is still her favorite color. She has a sweet and tender heart, her sister is her best friend, and she adores her little brother. She has quite the “mommy voice” when playing with him.

Marcee has had her best year physically since Jane was born. Her back issues are no more and she had a pretty great pregnancy and delivery. She is even more amazed by the human body and continues to study health, alignment, and nutrition. She still teaches the Beehives and even made it to Girls Camp at 37 weeks pregnant. She also started writing again this year, including an essay for the collection “Undefining Women” (release date still TBA). She again taught music and drama this year and she and Eric will be teaching at the local community college in the spring.

Eric is, according to Marcee’s mother, “the busiest unemployed person I know.”  He has worked so hard in so many ways. He continues to do all he can in the job search as well as work other odd jobs. He’s been blessed to have many opportunities to substitute teach. He continues to volunteer at Legal Aid, do some contract work and has even had some successful tax clients. He’s packed 3 years worth of Continuing Legal Education into about 8 months. He’s currently building a website to expand his virtual practice opportunities. He loves to help out (probably too much) with the children, and is the sweetest husband.

We hope your Christmas season was filled with joy and peace and your new year with hope!

Much Love,

The Ludlows