I’ve been blogging in the same place for 8+ years…but the time has come to start fresh.

Old blog and all of its lovely nostalgia is archived on a harddrive.

New blog is here: http://happygreysky.wordpress.com/

We don’t call customer service in front of Kai anymore. She thinks the world is ending.

3×30 Photography Challenge

3 friends from 3 different countries using 30 prompts to compare perspectives. I’m representing the USA, and my friends live in Canada and Switzerland.

Follow along at www.washedwitharedsock.blogspot.com

Day 1: Graffiti

This is within walking distance of my house. I’m often rushing past it on the way to the post office to mail out PioneerAW orders. It really is perfectly placed.

I did a guest post in which I shared some stories about our Oklahoma disaster relief efforts.

Read it here.

We’ve raised almost $250 so far, thanks to so many of you!! ♥

L to R: Dad-Retired Air Force, Jeremiah-Army National Guard, Jonah-Army National Guard

Thank you for your service! Because of you, I pause for a moment today to remember the sacrifice and to be grateful for those who have died fighting for our freedom. You are part of that legacy and I am proud to call you family. 

I keep waiting for this heaviness to lift off of my soul. But it just sits there. On top of my heart. Weighing me down. Laboring my breathing. 

We typically skip town completely when there is any sign of possible tornadoes. We pack up the animals and go far, far away.  We live about 8 miles away from where the tornado hit in Moore on Monday. The Warren Theatre– we splurged once and went there for a date night to see the Hobbit in 3D not too long ago. Now its barely standing and everything around it is completely wiped out. We almost rented a cute little house just behind the Warren Theatre. A house that is no longer standing.

We watched the live coverage while sitting at my parents kitchen table. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. I told Joe it was like watching an apocalypse movie—but it was real life and buildings I’ve been inside of. When they panned across all those destroyed homes, and the two obliterated elementary schools that had indeed been in session, my heart began to ache. My face felt numb. My mind hummed with white noise. That’s when the heaviness sank in on top of me. It won’t leave. 

I keep waiting for the tears to come. When I first heard about my family’s tornado back in 2010, I remember hanging up the phone, dropping to the bed, and just wailing this mournful sound. I couldn’t have stopped it if I had tried. Joe just held me tight, and the tears poured and poured until they were gone and all I had left was to wail. It helped, too. It released a lot of that heaviness and let me breathe a little easier as time went on. The past couple of days have been so packed they feel like a week or two. I’m still processing it all and coming to terms with it. 

All the feelings I experienced when my parents & siblings survived the tornado in 2010 have been rushing back to me. Back then I was very far away (in Florida) and feeling completely helpless. Now I’m here, 8 miles away from the destruction and I still feel helpless. When people hear of a tragedy like this…the first thing they ask is “Do you know anyone in that area? Are they okay?”  and I know that’s natural, to want to connect with those we know and love. That makes sense. But what about all the people I don’t know? Me knowing them or not knowing them doesn’t change the fact that they’re in shock, in pain, or dead.

Sunday evening a tornado hit the construction site Joe’s been working at. It was a brand new hospital that was fixing to open in 2 weeks. The tornado caused millions in damage and is now set back by six months. I’m so thankful no one was at work that day. 

Monday night after the coast was clear, we headed back into town and decided to drive by @BohemianLotus house since no one had heard from her after the tornado. Joe and I pulled into her neighborhood and we were like “Should we knock on the door? Should we just make sure their cars are there? What if they don’t answer? Should we peek in the windows? Is that weird?” hahaha. Luckily we didn’t have to decide because she and Nick were just stepping out their front door as we pulled into their driveway. Perfect timing. You can read her scary account of the day here. 

Today I woke up and set to work researching ways to help. Every organization I contacted either had too many volunteers (what an amazing problem! Go Oklahoma!!) or they weren’t ready for volunteers until later in the week. I did manage to set up appointments for Joe and I to go donate blood. I don’t know if they’ll take mine due to low iron levels…but we’ll see. So we found ourselves feeling helpless and decided to just do what we know. Make art. Joe’s working on a little something out in the shop right now that we’ll be able to sell and donate proceeds to disaster relief here locally. I’ll share more details soon. 

I contacted our church to find out where we could help them out too. I was told that all of the immediate needs have been met, but to stay tuned because our church is “in it for the long haul”. It helped me put it into perspective a little bit. Right now everyone is rushing in and eager to help and they are overflowing with so many helpful, caring, hardworking, sacrificial people. It’s so needed and its beautiful how so many are banding together to support those in crisis. Somehow over time though, that urgency fades and we forget to make time to care for the long haul. I want to remember that these people whose lives have been shattered, the stories that make my heart ache, they will still be there next week, next month, next year. It has to matter to me then too. Life is busy and complicated, or at least we think it is, but you have to make time for what actually matters. Monday morning I had a list a mile long of things I needed to accomplish that day. Monday afternoon, as the weather started to gear up, I’d moved a couple of the bigger items to another day in my planner. By Monday evening, I was looking in disbelief at my trivial to do list wondering why I had even thought ANY of it mattered to begin with. I deleted it all. I figure I can write a new list someday. Someday, but not today.

This has served as the prime opportunity for some to question our decision to live in Oklahoma. I’ll admit that I’ve considered researching states with the lowest amount of natural disasters to settle down in someday. But the real hard truth is that horrible, tragic, heartbreaking things happen no matter where you live. If its not an unpredictable natural disaster, its an unpredictable mass shooting, or an unpredictable bombing. No where is safe. So we gather around those we love and trust and add life back into our community by doing what we’re made to do.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.

Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that.

Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

-Howard Thurman

I can’t live my whole life running away from all potential danger. I might try if I knew it were possible, haha, but it’s not. I won’t say I’ll stay in Oklahoma forever, because you just can’t know these things, and we have big dreams. But beauty blooms out of tragedy, and I’ve never in my life met more beautiful people than those in Oklahoma. Maybe its because they’re always there to band together in the aftermath of tornadoes. I can’t help but want to be around that kind of support. 

I have to take breaks from the pictures and videos and news stories sometimes, because it just makes that ache in my heart grow and grow and that white noise in my mind get louder and louder. I thought maybe writing this down would help alleviate my heavy heart a little. It has. I took a break from typing to go see how Joe’s art project is coming along. I laughed at something he said and it was the sweetest feeling in the world. We take light-heartedness for granted. Say a prayer for Oklahoma, will you? While you’re at it, consider throwing out your trivial to do list one day soon and spend the time you save investing in something that truly matters. Come alive! 

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Update: 

Order here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/151863582/heart-of-moore-metal-wall-hanging?ref=shop_home_feat

I know I say this almost every time…but I think this is my new favorite. Joe did all the metal work this time, and I did all the painting. It’s really cool to look back at photos from a year or two ago and see how much we’re improving.  Visit us on Facebook or Etsy. 

Sunday was a happy day. Family. Any time we get to gather as many of us together as possible, it results in the multiplication of laughter and an absurd amount of noise making and flailing. We’re like a cauldron of something contagious bubbling over onto everyone around us. Except in a good way. I wish we gathered together like this on the regular, but jobs and schedules and differing interests have us in opposite directions most of the time. How is it so easy to drift apart when so many of us even live in the same state?  I want to slow down these years because I know this season of so many of us living this close together probably won’t last forever. It’s really hard to bridge the gap that seems to creep in when we get busy with our daily lives, but I’m purposing to make an effort to do just that. 

I read a quote online recently that totally hit home with me. 

“Just because someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have.”

That sits well with me. I’m guilty of wanting to be loved in such a specific and isolated way, that I’ve completely overlooked the ways those in my life ARE showing me love. Part of it is acknowledging that we all have different love languages, but another part of it is recognizing that due to emotional wounds in various stages of healing, we don’t all have the same capacity to love. It’s kind of like the Bible story about the widow’s mite. Giving in large amounts doesn’t mean as much as giving sacrificially does. I am learning to recognize when someone is loving me with everything that they have to offer and in turn, I’m finding out just how much I really am surrounded by love.

. 

Love doesn’t look anything like what I thought it was supposed to. It’s even more beautiful (and painful). Sometimes it seems to disappear for a while and my heart deflates while its gone. But then when I least expect it, there it is again filling every crevice of my heart until it feels I’ll burst into a million pieces. Siblings. Marriage. In-laws. Friends. Maybe we’d all prefer to be loved in a steady, predictable, and abundant way. But that’s not how it works on a horizontal level because we’re all a little broken and scarred. Doesn’t that make love shine even brighter though? To know that light is breaking through darkness and someone chose to share that light with you instead of keeping it to themselves in reserve?

I love my family. We aren’t predictable or steady. We take turns falling off the face of the earth. But when we love, there’s no mistaking it. The rough & distant seasons fade away and I soak in every drop of refreshing unity and happiness.  

Mom raised us:

To let our freak flags fly. 

To take risks. 

To jump and flail and fail.

To laugh and try again.

To spill our guts.

To make eyes roll.

To follow our passions. 

To raise eyebrows. 

And you know something? We do all of those things, and we’re a freaking circus sometimes. Having a momma who supports each one of us in the midst of our chaotic and colorful lives is one of the most valuable things in my life. 

So you know that unpredictable, sacrificial kind of love I described? It kind of multiplies around my mom. What do they call it when something reflects light in a million different directions? A sparkling diamond, right? But I know that’s not her style at all…so let’s go with “Arizona sun sparkling off a rippling watering hole.” It’s a thing of beauty that I hope to carry with me the rest of my life. 

Back row: Dad (what’s he doing all the way back there? haha)

Middle row: Momma, Me, John, and Jonah’s friend Slim.

Front row: Jonah and Jeremiah

Mother’s Day 2011

Mother’s Day 2012