Whirlwind Wedding Weekend

Serenity NOW!

Mother’s Day weekend was a whirlwind of celebration for our family: my little sister’s wedding, family reunions, my son’s 8th birthday, Mother’s Day dinner; and ironically we left Oklahoma City less than an hour before a deadly tornado blew through town, smashing homes, overturning cars, dropping baseball-sized hail.

Thankfully my parents and visiting aunt were fine. The rode out the storm in their windowless hallway, huddled under mattresses, giggling nervously as they listened to giant hail rain down on the house.

Two skylights, including the one above the bed I slept in Sunday night, were smashed. And my sister Serenity’s car, parked in the driveway while she and her new husband honeymoon in Mexico, lost a few windows.

But other than that, the tornado passed over my parents’ house leaving mostly minor roof damage and a lot to be thankful for.

As for the whirlwind of activity -- that began Thursday night when the kids and I arrived in Oklahoma and immediately rushed off to get the boys fitted for their tuxedos. And then there was a big dinner at my parents’ house, meeting with out-of-town family members and wedding guests.

I met my Aunt Janet from Bermuda that I had only met once before. She has become very close to my mom in the past few years, and it was wonderful to finally get to know her a little bit.

Then Friday it was off to get the girls' nails done, and some shopping, and checking into the hotel near the wedding site, and then to the rehearsal and the following dinner.

Serenity married an Oklahoma boy and his family provided amazing pulled pork barbecue for the rehearsal dinner. It was awesome and we ate the leftovers for the next three days. Yum!

Friday night I stayed up too late with my sisters and brother, hanging out with the bridesmaids until way past midnight. But when I stopped by my sister’s room at 6 a.m. the next morning she was awake, happy and half way through getting her gorgeous red hair styled.

“I’m getting married today!”

The wedding was beautiful.

The pictures speak for themselves, perfect spring weather, beautiful bride. Cute cousins.

But the best part of the wedding for me and my husband was hearing our fathers speak. Kip’s dad, who is a minister, married Marc and Serenity. In his jovial way, that reminded us of our own wedding nearly 16 years ago, he encouraged them to love each other selflessly.

And my dad gave a lengthy blessing – the kind of blessing that speaks to now and the future – recognizing the beautiful weight of the present and calling into existence the beauty of the future.

My sister wanted dancing at her reception, so she hired a DJ and my parents went to dancing lessons to prepare them for their role. It was the first that I could remember that someone in our family has had dancing at wedding.

After Serenity and Marc left in a horse drawn carriage, it was only mid afternoon, and plenty of time left to recognize our son's 8th birthday.

Kip, our son and I made a quick detour to the historic Guthrie train depot in honor of National Train Day, and then headed back to Oklahoma City to my parent's house for more pulled pork barbecue, a golf course themed birthday cake and a generous pile of birthday presents.

Kip’s parents stayed with my parents as well, so Sunday morning we were able to celebrate Mother’s Day with both moms. We went to church and found our way downtown to the historic Oklahoma City stockyards and ate at a world famous little steakhouse dive Cattleman’s Café.

Afterward we drove around and found some real cowboys unloading a semi-truck of cattle into the stockyard. We watched liked tourists and had a min-van discussion of whether or not we should be vegetarians.

Then Monday it was rest up, clean up, pack up, begin remodeling my parent’s bathroom, and head back to LA – just in time to miss the real whirlwind.

Mom pulled out her wedding dress from 1972 and let our daughter try it on.

The Rehearsal

Practice makes perfect

Sunny on a sunny day

It is really difficult NOT to get a picture of Kip's dad laughing.

Cousins .... my son and my sister's twins

Two of my favorite people in the whole world.

My siblings and parents together for the first time in more than four years

Before the wedding

Because the wedding was in the morning, the preparations started before 6 a.m.

Final ceremony preparations in the bride's room.

My mom and Aunt Janet from Bermuda

The Wedding

Dad should be used to this. It was his third time giving away a daughter.

Dad praying a blessing over Marc and Serenity.

The married couple!

A Few After Wedding Pictures

Kip's parents

Kip and Me

Dad and Me

The four of us kids

And then they were gone

Lost Opportunities

I had a funny conversation with my 11-year-old daughter tonight.

I was being characteristically silly, singing, but really hamming it up.

My daughter looked at me curiously.

"Mom, if you practiced, I bet you could be a really good singer. If you were younger, you could be like a Real Singer…like a rock star."

I thought, “Oh goodie, like Hannah Montana?”

But I just said, "Really?"

Then she dashed my dreams.

"Yeah, but people in their 30s can’t be rock stars because they can’t sing cool lyrics. You know .."

That’s too bad.

She was laughing, but still trying.

"Well, if you were a teenager you could be cool."

I had to level it with her.

I wasn’t cool, when I was a teenager. I was too busy trying to be REAL to be cool.

"Oh…Then I guess you missed your chance."

The Great-And-Dreadful Day of Judgment On Mess

This past week several of our regularly scheduled classes and activities were canceled due to rain and spring break vacations, and I found myself face to face with the depressing reality of our gluttony of stuff stuffed into our two-bedroom apartment.

During the middle of a math lesson I sent one of the kids into their room for a ruler. He came back empty handed.

“We don’t have one.”

Yes we do. We have several.

I pulled apart my desk, the homeschooling box, the junk drawer.

Nada.

I offered a dollar to whoever found a ruler – metric or standard.

Math was forgotten. We went on a quest.

I had to push piles of things out of the way to slide open the closet door, only to find that the closet was crammed with labeled boxes of disorder.

The bin labeled Lego, was not all Lego, not even majority Lego. There were Barbies, dirty socks, puzzle pieces, Lincoln logs, marbles… etc. And that was just the beginning.

I opened my daughter’s drawers, still in search of the ruler. In one drawer I found every different kind of clothing she had, plus books, games, craft supplies, my long-lost, good scissors and other things that had no business taking up the drawer space and evicting the socks into the toy bins.

I was getting mad. No one got a dollar.

And that was the beginning of the Great-and-Dreadful Day of Judgment on mess at our house. When I got over being mad about the cacophony of clutter we had created through our basic neglect, I decided to make April our clean-it-up-or-clear-it-out month.

For my own sanity I set some personal ground rules.

1. I would do one job at a time. I would not start clearing out one area and start another before one was finished.

2. I would not buy any new organizational infrastructure until I had “earned it” by substantially decluttering.

3. I would bravely give away things we didn’t need anymore – like the little blue wooden table I built for our daughter when she was two and the toys that she no longer cherished but reminded me so tangibly of my little girl so rapidly fading.

4. I would not even try to do it all in one day.

5. If I needed to, I would go to IKEA and buy all the organizational stuff I wanted, after I cleared out what we didn’t need.

I also kept the kids on my side of the battle by promising not to give away anything they were not ready to part with. And they surprised me with their maturity in giving up things they had outgrown.

That first day I cleared out the box of homeschooling books and supplies in our living room. But I didn’t get through it easily.

Luckily a friend called mid afternoon and rescued me from my freefall into despair. So reluctantly I stopped daydreaming about getting a maid, putting the kids in school and getting a job where I would be “loved, appreciated, well dressed and unharassed by messy children.”

And then I found three rulers.

Then the next day the kids and I went through their clothes and bagged up enough grown-out-of things to comfortably fit the rest of their wardrobe back into the drawers. (The games, books and craft supplies were given new, more appropriate homes.)

By mid week I had taken on the kids’ room full throttle and gone through every miscellaneous box, every hiding place under the bed and every corner of the closet. I re-labeled boxes and rearranged things in a better way for my son to reach his toys and put them away.

We excavated two bags of recycling/trash and six bags of give-away stuff out of their room. It felt great. I could see their walls and carpet. They loved it. We were on a roll.

I was so happy I even finished the taxes and filed them on-line.

I still have a long way to go. It’s easy for me to get frustrated when I realize how many more places need to be organized and decluttered, but at least we have started the spring cleaning fever.

Now tomorrow -- the cabinet of forgotten projects and unrequited love – aka – the craft closet.

My Numbered Days

My freshman year in college I had a psychology professor, a seemingly ancient man, who always wore a beanie and shuffled absent-minded to the front of the class every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for a 60-minute lecture of basic human behavior.

I really can’t remember anything he said about psychology.

I can’t even remember his name.

But I remember how he began his class every day.

He opened a Bible, read a verse, said a prayer.

It seemed random at first -- a familiar one here, another one there. But there were two that he came back to frequently. And one that quietly took hold of my heart and became my life mantra.

“Lord, teach me to number my days, that I may gain a heart of wisdom.”

I have not blogged much this year as journaling has been crowded out by other activities, but I have missed it. Somehow recording life helps me to take everything in perspective. It’s not just a log of the events that I pass through – running the marathon, sailing, camping, vacations, Easter dinner, conversations with friends.

It’s about being thankful for the moments in life I get, being honest about failures and brokenness and need for healing. It’s about recognizing life now and living forward.

“ … that I may gain a heart of wisdom.”

LA Marathon Thoughts

Getting game face on at the crowded start.

I ran the LA Marathon yesterday and 4 hours and 43 minutes later I remembered why the word “marathon” demands respect.

As I was pushing through the last three miles of the marathon, ignoring the excruciating feeling of my toe nail being pounded and slowly wrenched from my toe, it occurred to me that someday a scientist could do some kind of brain test on repeat marathoners to discover if we are missing something – a brain component that registers pain and reminds us to avoid it.

Remember. Avoid. Remember. Avoid.

Listen, it sounds like the cadence of feet running a marathon … remember, avoid, remember.

A couple of months ago, when I signed up for this marathon, I had recently enjoyed the Malibu Marathon. I had read Born to Run and just about every recent issue of Runner’s World cover to cover. I was feeling like a runner. I even flirted with the idea of ultra marathoning.

Everyone was talking about LA’s fabulous new “Stadium to the Sea,” mostly-downhill route, and I just didn’t’ want to miss out on the fun. I had finished the last LA marathon in what I considered almost great time, and I wanted to shave it down to 4 and half hours.

So a couple months ago I started training -- a few moderate weekday runs and regular weekend runs. I enjoyed my training runs with Kip, my daughter and friends from Students Run LA, but I didn’t really push myself much.

Which I realize is fine, but now that I have had 24 hours to process the marathon experience, I realize it is also why this race took me 13 minutes longer than I had hoped. And why it hurt so much.

I think running for fun is much better for the body than running competitively – even if the only person you are competing with is yourself. But I think my problem was that I trained for fun and then tried to run the marathon competitively. And that made it less fun.

So … I learned something.

It was also hot and I hadn’t slept well the night before. And I was getting over a slight cold. So maybe it was a combination of things. All I know is that it was more difficult than I had expected.

But maybe that was the problem. Maybe I just set my expectations too high. Two years ago I had never run four miles together and in the last 10 months I have run three marathons -- without much recovery time in between.

So today I talked to a friend about training for a triathalon. I thought about learning how to swim better so I could use that as my main exercise, maybe try pilates again or yoga.

Funny thing is, this evening I also caught myself saying, “next year when I run the LA marathon …”

So maybe I’m missing something.

My brother was there to cheer me on during the route. He surprised me near the end and rode his bike to the finish so he could be part of the marathon end chaos. Thanks Tim!

Running with my Daughter

I ran 8 miles with my daughter this morning.

Last night I went to a fabulous little work day/dinner party, and consequently slept in, only to be awoken by my I-hate-mornings daughter standing beside my bed jubilantly singing along to my CD alarm clock.

“Take me above your lights…. Carry me through the night!”

I glanced at the clock. Owl City had been playing for 20 minutes and my daughter was fully dressed, running shorts and sneakers.

Are we still going to run?

I really didn't feel like running. But the Students Run LA team I have been training with were meeting in less than a half hour at their high school, and it was the last weekend training run before the marathon next week. So I got up and got out the door.

The sun was bright this morning, taking full advantage of a cloudless sky, and by mid run it felt more like a July afternoon.

Every few minutes I looked over at my daughter, game-faced, charging up the hills through Griffith Park, and asked, "How are you doing? Are you ok?"

And it was always the same.

"Great!"

We passed the trains at the south entrance and I told her how we rode those when we first visited LA seven years ago. When her brother was barely sitting up on his own. She didn't remember.

I pointed out the snow-capped mountains in the distance. The horses on the trails. The picnic area where we had her brother's 4th birthday party, complete with a jumpy and a pinata.

She showed me where her girl scout troop rode horses. I was not part of that trip and I had forgotten that she had done that.

I thought about how our memories converge and part and overlap. I remember some things and she remembers others. It's special to run together. It is only a few years that we parents and kids run on the same road.

By mile six she stopped saying "Great!"

We had been going uphill in the sun for the last few miles. Her cheeks were flushed. I gave her the last of our water.

It was my turn to tell her she was doing great, that I was proud of her.

Only two weeks ago, I had felt the same agony, charging up the same edge of the park, only then I had been near the end of a 20 miler. I could tell her with honesty, "We're not that far. Not that close either. But not that far. You can make it."

The road dipped into a gentle downhill and we ran under the shade of overhanging trees. She sensed the change and perked up for the last bit, but not without admitting, "this is alot harder than I thought it was going to be."

I understand that.

She was pretty wiped out at the end. Although a banana, more water, trail mix and promise of a barbecue with the students seemed to help.

I felt bad though. I was afraid I had ruined running for her. Letting her join me on a long run, a run much longer than I had ever attempted until about a year ago.

When we got home I asked her what was hard about the end of the run, what hurt.

I don't know. I can't remember. It was just hard. But I'm glad I did it!

Yeah. I understand that too. That's why I keep running marathons.

Running Along

I’m marathon training again.

With less than a month out from the LA Marathon I have stepped up the running, squeezing in two to three hour-long runs during the week and a long weekend run.

This time around I have found a few more running buddies. A few weeks ago I started running with a Students Run LA group. Several of my friends from Kairos mentor teens through this marathon training group. For years they have invited me to join them on their long weekend runs, and this time around I decided to give it a try. I loved it.

Because I just show up for the weekend runs, I don’t feel like I really know the kids yet. But I have been driving them up to Griffith Park where we run and I’m beginning to get to know them. It’s funny, but I feel like its kind of an honor to be a small part of their world.

They are great kids. They all live in the lower-income, urban neighbors near downtown LA. Some of them struggle academically. Some are experiencing serious family heartaches. Some run fast. Others really slow. But they are working hard and they keep showing up to run 12, 16, 18 miles because they believe they can make it to the finish line next month.

I have started making them marathon cookies, my own half-breed cookie/protein bar creation. It’s still a work in progress (I’m adapting a couple recipes), but it seems to be boosting my popularity among the students – which other than nutrition was my goal all along.

Running with the girls from Kairos has also been a lot of fun. There are four of us near enough to each other’s pace to run together for several miles. It has been nice for me to have an excuse to spend several hours catching up with these old friends.

I have also ran a couple times with my friend, and fellow homeschooling mom, Kathleen. She is particularly inspiring because running is fairly new to her and she is training for her first marathon. We ran today, but fell into more talking and walking than running. But that is ok. There is a time for everything.

During the week I have been splitting my running time between running with Kip and running with our daughter. I usually run 3 or 4 miles with Kip and then another 2 and a half with our daughter. And she usually outruns me.

She seems to really enjoy our morning runs. It is one of the few things that motivates her to get out of bed with a smile. She has been talking about running the marathon next year. She ran 5 miles with Kip a couple weeks ago, so she may be ready to take on longer runs. We will see.