The incredible expanding shrinking family

While my mom was dying of cancer I took all her family pictures (years and stacks of them, gathered from all over the house) and put them in scrapbooks.  What else do you give your dying mother for  Christmas, right??  I called it blitzkrieg scrapbooking, my brother and I sorted by year and decade as fast as we could (judging sometimes by clues in the picture like cabinet style or which house or even linoleum) and then put those pictures on pages.  In the end we had 3 large volumes, two of regular pictures and one of portraits throughout the years.

It was interesting for me to look at my parents' life together in this way.  Starting with the few pictures we had of them each as children, on to pictures of their wedding day and beyond.  Seeing pictures of them with me, then that picture once my sister was born when my mom had given me the world's worst haircut ever.

(She always said she thought it was darling but I cringe every time I look at the picture and am retroactively grateful each time that she let my hair grow out again.) The next pictures show three young children,  my brother Val a curly haired pink cheeked cherub. 

None of these pictures were a surprise to me: as the oldest child I had witnessed this part of my parent's life. 

 What was surprising to me were the other pictures, the ones after I married and left home.  It was a time before frequent visits were affordable and there were easy ways to take and share pictures, and many of these pictures were new to me.  I hadn't realized that just as there was a photo history of our growing family, there was a family picture of our shrinking family; first a family picture without me, then several years later a picture without Margaret as well.  

Slowly the family shrunk just as it had grown all those years before.  

In the end there was a picture of my mom with Laila and Jeremy.

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Our growing family was no surprise to me, or at least the part of it that grew in the normal way.  We, like my parents, had a series of family pictures; first with Cindy Lynn, then with Cindy Lynn and Jason, and later with Josh as well.  

Then came the big change--family pictures where is seemed everyone was holding a baby after Rachel, Jenna, and Jared were born.  

After that the only change in the pictures was their age and the amount of grey in our hair. 

I think that a part of me thought that this was how our family was always going to be.  Logically I knew that the kids would go to college, but that logical awareness must not have penetrated deeply. It caught me off guard when we began to have pictures of family activities with just the 5 younger kids, and positively startled me after Jason went to college and on his mission and we had pictures without both of the older kids. 

But that's when it really started surprising me.  Because now Cindy Lynn had married, and so sometimes we had pictures with everyone and this new family member, and then other times pictures without any of them.  In my mind I started calling it the incredible expanding contacting family.  That process has only increased in the last year with Josh at college too, leaving just the triplets at home.  And with the girls in color guard and Jared in wrestling, sometimes we have only two children at home, and sometimes only one!  Until the moment where everyone is home together again and we enjoy the expanded family once more, now expanded even more with the addition of Kate.

If I'd thought about it before, I would have anticipated the shrinking family.  But I never could have anticipated the changes in the other direction, that our family would both ebb and flow throughout the years. 

Last week was the full expansion, with Cindy Lynn and Mahon in Oregon and both boys home again on break for school.  It was wonderful to have everyone all together; loud, full house, full table.  But in a short time it will change again and within a few weeks we'll be back to our new smaller family once again, this time augmented from time to time by Cindy Lynn and her family.  

It has been interesting as I have searched through old pictures to find the ones I wanted for this post.  Because I saw something that I had forgotten in my thinking about the incredible expanding/contracting family.  What I saw was this--that as my parents' family was shrinking, a bunch of little families were forming and growing, branching off from the place that they had started.  That was us.  And now we're where they were then and it begins all over again. The endless cycle of the incredible expanding contracting family.

Coming to terms with myself: Abundance

I was just listening to a podcast by Gretchen Rubin (author of the Happiness Project) and she answered a question I've had for a while.  I hear people (including many people I love) talk about minimalism, wanting to be minimalists, etc, and I am puzzled.  I sort of understand the attraction but can tell deep in my bones it would never be the real me.  In this podcast Gretchen just asked her sister, "So are you someone who loves simplicity, or someone who loves abundance?"  That's me.  Abundance.

I'm sure there are some things in my life that I want to be simple.  I want my typical daily schedule to be simple.  I want my routines to be simple.  I want my walls and furnishings to be relatively simple.  But there are a lot more places where I want abundance.  I want an abundance of beauty around me.  I want an abundance of travel, an abundance of clothes to choose from, an abundance of fabric to sew, an abundance of flowers flowering in my yard.  An abundance of clematis plants on an abundance of trellises.  An abundance of lovely moments with people I love.

Thank you, Gretchen, for explaining me to myself!

Part 4b: Operation Survive the Portland Winter

Once I had decided to go to Miami I knew that there was no way I was going to get that close to Durham and not spend a couple of days there as well.  It was more than a little ironic that I ended up flying into a huge rainstorm in Durham while Russ & the kids were enjoying lots of sunshine in Oregon!

As the plane was descending into RDU an almost overpowering wave of homesickness swept over me.  All I could think was how beautiful it looked.

I’ve spent a lot of the last 2.5 years telling myself how grateful I am that Oregon is green like North Carolina is.  And Oregon is green.  But not, not at all, like North Carolina.  I’d forgotten that there is always the feeling that North Carolina is just about to grow right over you.  I’d forgotten the feeling of narrow roads framed by tall deciduous trees, of yards filled with enormous azalea bushes.  

I’d forgotten just how beautiful it all was. 

(I’d forgotten how gross cockroaches are too, but I wasn’t at all sad about that!)

My North Carolina plans were these: a weekend with Alisyn, Ann, and Nancy at the beach, framed on both ends by lunch with Mindy and Nancy.  (How did I live all of those years without ever eating at the Q shack??  I know the answer, but still—so sad!!)

We ended up in a little condo at the east end of Ocean Isle.  Not the best location, but we could see the ocean and it was comfortable.  Nancy had hurt her knee so rested in the condo, but Ann, Alisyn, and I had fun walking around.  Though we didn’t feel entirely comfortable with some of the decorations or rules.

The east ends of these E-W barrier islands are all eroding, and a whole row of houses has been lost or is in danger.  I’d been told by a friend that there were sandbags the size of volkswagons, but that didn’t prepare me for the reality of the situation. 

Just in case you can’t see how big those are, look again.  They were huge!

It wasn’t as green as Miami or as warm as Miami, but it was still beautiful and soothing to my soul.

Two whole days of ocean and conversation was such a treat.  We laughed like crazy and talked about all of our problems.  We ate good food and too much chocolate.  We went to church at the local small town ward which was very entertaining.  (Ethnic cleansing, anyone?  Favorite prophets?)

 
The next morning we sadly packed up and drove back to Durham. 

It was such a treat to me that the poppies were blooming along the interstate.  I always loved the flowers growing alone the roads in NC and have missed that.

My last escape from the Oregon winter (though it turned out that the Oregon winter had already ended in an unusual turn of events) was decidedly a success.  I returned home tired but so very happy.

P.S.  True love is carrying a dozen boberry biscuits across the country to your kids!

Part 4a: Operation Survive the Portland Winter

In the summer of 2013 my friend Lindsay’s husband started a one year fellowship in Miami.  They moved from Durham to an 11th floor apartment on the beach just north of Miami.  From the beginning I thought going to visit her would be amazing, and as she began to post incredible pictures on facebook and her blog I became determined.  I love Lindsay and I love the ocean, this would be a fantastic way to combat the depression of the long Oregon winter, and I was pretty sure I’d have enough Southwest miles to make it work.  I finally figured out when I could do it and put myself on her calendar. 

From the first moment I arrived it was an amazing 4 days.  Lindsay and I always have plenty to talk about and we talked until we were bleary every night.  It was fun to get to visit with Brian as well, and he was so kind and got me mother’s day treats since that’s when I was there.  (I must put in a plug for Russ & the kids who were at home cleaning the garage for me—quite possibly the best mother’s day gift ever.)  Lindsay was worried that I would be bothered because it was windy but instead I loved the waves the wind created. We had such a great time on the beach, in the water, in the Everglades, in the water, walking to the jetty, and in the water.  I often wished I’d brought my big camera, but other than that it was just about perfect. 

One night I woke up and looked outside and could see the biggest clouds I’d ever seen—filling the whole sky, just rushing by.  (Sorry—that didn’t photograph well.)  Another thing I wish I’d taken a video of was the palm trees in their picnic area blowing at night in the crazy wind, illuminated by lights from below. 

I loved their pool.  It was seriously almost as warm as a hot tub and was such fun to warm up in.  Of course when we had to get out and back into the wind we didn’t feel so warm anymore.

I had such a great time in Miami and am so glad I went!