little black journal

Juliette and I have put In November by Cynthia Rylant into our recent reading rotation, flipping pages that speak to the quiet and coziness of this month.  In November, mice burrow into little barn nests and dogs curl up by fires and families share pies while sitting by crackling woodstoves. In November, in this book, all is well.

In reality, though, this month has been tough.  In November, the sun started setting well before 5 pm, which zapped me of my evening energy.  In November, my mom underwent her first round of chemo to treat her recent cancer diagnosis.  In November, I endured one of the busiest, most stressful seasons I’ve ever had at work while Shane struggled to find his footing in his new job.  In November, Juliette proudly presented me with a card she’d written out all by herself at school that said, “Dear Mommy, I wish you did not have to go to San Diego all the time.”  In November, all did not feel well.

So I’m self-medicating with Vitamin D capsules and lots of water.  Some nights I’m allowing myself to fall asleep in Juliette’s bed with her at 8 pm.  And I’m getting outside.

I literally headed for the hills at the end of a particularly busy week and spent a Friday morning hiking up to Mason Lake.

The terrain was so diverse, alternating from closed-in woods to panoramic views.

I sat lakeside for a bit and savored every bite of my granola bar, recuperating from the steep 3.5-mile uphill climb.

I made it.  And it was good.

 

Even on gray days, I’ve been trying to rally and do a loop down by the water.  There’s solace in fog, like the weather is saying, “I know how you feel…”

 

The ultimate solace continues to be a walk through the leaves with Shane and Juliette – we spent a Sunday at Ravenna Park strolling and crunching.  Juliette insisted on wearing this rubber finger that someone gave her while trick-or-treating.  She’s so weird.  I love her.

(Juliette does not seem to be one for November blues.)

This grove is one of my favorite Fall spots.

 

We arrived in Idaho this afternoon for a few mellow days with my parents (my mom is doing phenomenal, by the way!), so it looks like we’ll be rounding out November with pie and fireside chatter after all.  In November…there’s still plenty to be thankful for.

It’s been a solid year and a half since we caught up with our California crew, so when a Bay Area work trip popped up for Shane earlier this month, I suggested he tack on a weekend a couple of extra plane tickets – Juliette and I were comin’ along!  We arrived at Amanda’s house on a Friday evening just before bedtime, so I figured it would take until Saturday for the girls to warm up to each other.  Clearly, I underestimated the social adeptness of six year-olds…there was a 15-minute coloring session, and then they were changing into pajamas together and snuggling up in Sadie’s bunk for bedtime books.  I heard a solid hour of chatter after we’d turned out the lights.  These girls take after their mamas!

Meanwhile, little Jack found a new best buddy in Shane, who went so far as to don an A’s hat for the sake of a smile.

Saturday was wide open, full of playtime and sun and a brewpub lunch.

Amanda is killin’ it as a mom of three now and spent most of the weekend with baby D asleep on her chest.

Shane and I took a walk together in the afternoon and strolled past my old house and my old school, memories popping up at every corner.  There was the stretch of canal bank where I ran my daily miles for cross-country practice; the park where my high school’s “Senior Assassination” water gun fight kicked off; the house that hosted my neighborhood’s annual Fourth of July party; the corner ice cream shop (now a Starbucks) where a boy I liked used to hang out after school to watch golf with the owner.  Meanwhile, Juliette played kickball in the street with Sadie and the neighbor kids.  A couple of old friends joined us at Amanda’s and by dinnertime I was feeling all kinds of small-town feels.  Turlock isn’t home anymore, but when I’m there I can’t help wondering, “What if we’d stayed?  Would life be…easier?”

We snuggled up in the evening with Kelly C. for movies and popcorn and then tucked three very tired kiddos into bed.

Juliette and I were up before anyone else on Sunday morning and walked over to Starbucks (I liked it better as an ice cream shop!) for a steamer and a latte.

The kids hit the local trampoline gymnasium…

And then I hugged my girls good-bye.  It was such a brief catch up, but was also an affirmation that we can always pick up right where we left off.

We drove over to Palo Alto on Sunday afternoon to spend one night there with Shane before his training started on Monday.  We walked among the trees at Rancho San Antonio Preserve to Deer Hollow Farm Park, said hello to the chickens and the goats, and then soaked in the golden sunlight for a bit before heading out for dinner and a dip in the hotel pool.

Seriously, golden.

Juliette and I hugged Shane good-bye on Monday morning and then headed for the airport.  She was such a stellar little travel buddy and took great pride in lugging around my suitcase and her booster seat.  So helpful!  I should start bringing her on my work trips.

I was feeling a bit blue on the flight home, bummed about leaving Turlock’s quiet streets for the hustle and bustle of the work week ahead, but as we began our descent and I caught sight of West Seattle with the Sound in the foreground and Mount Rainier in the distance, I was reminded:  we belong here.  Yes, houses are expensive and our jobs can be stressful and no one in this city can reminisce with me about Friday nights at the THS football games, but good God, it’s beautiful and it’s diverse and it’s home to people and a church and a landscape that all encourage us to be our best selves.  I love a good walk down memory lane (maybe too much?), but we’re building our history here now.  Feels good to be home.

Good golly, October was full.  Birthdays and skydives and a trip to Paris (someday I’ll get those pics up on the blog!), leaves galore, and some hardcore Halloween-ing.

Our morning walk (or bike) to school has been chilly as of late, but I’m loving that crunchy sound of leaves under foot (or tire).

I headed to the Arboretum on a drizzly Friday for some me-time and wandered among the golds and browns and reds – this place is an October staple in my Fall folio.

The Japanese garden across the street was nearly empty due to the rain, so I pulled up the hood of my rain jacket and took advantage of the quiet.  I haven’t been here for years, as the parking lot is chock-full on sunny Fall weekends.

These. Colors.

It was clear from this tree that I missed “peak” foliage, but no matter.  If only it were sunny…

And the next day it was!  Shane, Juliette and I found ourselves with an open Saturday afternoon and headed right back out to the Arboretum for more leaf-peeping.

“Autumn Jules”:  I love her.

Jack and La Verne treated Shane and I to a very special meal at Archipelago in Columbia City for our birthdays at the end of the month.  We filled half the seats in this 8-person restaurant and relished every course, each of which came with a heartfelt origin story from the chef.

Ah, and Halloween!  So good this year!  Juliette loved pumpkin-carving…

And decorating the mantle with the few glittery owls and spiders that we picked up from the dollar store.

A guy down the street spent the entire week before Halloween carving pumpkins and we walked by there nearly every day to check on his progress.  107 pumpkins all-in!

Juliette found a bumble bee headband, wings and skirt at the dollar store back in September when we were buying supplies for her birthday party and asked if she could please be a bee for Halloween.  Cheers to the cheapest, easiest costume EVER!  She got all decked out for her school’s annual Monster Mash on a Friday night and had a blast fluttering down the halls and around the gym with her buddies.

And the main event!  The October 31st festivities kicked off with Juliette playing a little ditty for a small crowd of kids at the community center where she takes piano lessons.

We darted home to eat a quick bite, do a little face paint, and then snap the obligatory porch pics.

Shane busted out his Matt Cain jersey and dressed up as Giant.  In jeans.

And no shoes.  Thanks for trying, though, hon.

Juliette buzzed outside the moment she saw neighbor kids emerging from their houses, eager to get her trick-or-treat on.

Let’s do this!

Our neighborhood felt so friendly and festive, with decorations on most porches and everyone stopping to compliment each other’s costumes.

Ok, this house hardly screamed “friendly”, but hey, they had candy!

And now our pumpkins have gone squishy and been thrown in the compost bin.  Juliette’s trick-or-treating loot is gone (sweet kid donated all but 10 pieces of it to her school’s candy drive for the troops).  The owls and spiders are tucked into storage.  Happy November.  16th.  !!!

I sat down to write this post on Father’s Day, but then we went camping, and then we went camping again, and then school started and Juliette turned six and I went to Paris and now my Father’s Day Ode is a Happy Birthday Dedication to my favorite guy, who turned 40 two weeks ago.  The reality is that I thank my ever-lovin’ lucky stars for Shane daily, but it feel like he’s due for a mondo helping of gratitude.  So I’m gonna try to lay this on extra-thick.

We took Juliette to a Mariners game over the summer and as we were leaving the ballpark I saw a mom grasping the arm of her toddler as he melted into a full-on tantrum: spaghetti legs and ear-piercing wails and tears that shot out of his eyes in wide, gushing arcs.  My heart-strings tugged as she struggled to get him back on his feet and just as I was about to offer her that empathetic “hang in there, Mama” half-smile, the kid’s dad swooped in from behind, flipping the boy over his shoulders and eliciting shrieks of laughter as he twirled him in the air.  I saw the mom’s shoulders relax as she fell into step behind them.  That moment felt so akin to the dance that Shane and I have come do over the past few years of parenting Juliette.  Granted, we’ve exited the melt-down phase, but Shane’s still swooping in, holding down the fort at home when I have to travel for work, signing up for after-school programs the minute they open because I’m not so good at keeping track of those kinds of things, pulling out the Legos and calling to Juliette when I’m trying to get dinner ready and she’s rapid-firing questions at me.  He’s the Batman to my Robin, the peanut butter to my jelly, the co-parent I’d go batshit crazy without.  It feels like we’re in the midst of a particularly full season of life right now, but he makes it work.  Ok, we make it work, but there’s no we without he!

Of course, it’s not just the logistical relief and mad calendaring skills he brings to our family.  He’s exceedingly engaged, patient beyond reason. When Juliette started showing interest in sounding out words, he bought “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons” and spent a couple of evenings a week on the couch with her, plodding through each page and offering her just the right amount of guidance when she got frustrated and wanted to give up. When Juliette said she wanted to play music, Shane spent hours looking for a West Seattle piano teacher and signed her up for lessons, sitting through each lesson himself so that he could help her along. He’s intent on giving her every opportunity he can offer, often with a deep investment of his own time. I’m guessing he’d like to watch his beloved basketball games with a little peace and quiet, but instead he invites Juliette to head downstairs with him after dinner and then answers her endless questions about who has the ball and why isn’t Kevin Durant playing and where’s Lebron and why does Pops look so mad?  Juliette bawled her eyes out when the NBA season ended in June, not because she was disappointed with the outcome (girl loves Kawhi!), but because she wanted to watch more basketball with Daddy.

He’s so present, physically and emotionally, and on the rare occasion that he can’t be around, like when he had to leave for a business trip on the first day of Kindergarten, Juliette still knows he’s thinking of her:

He brings a lightness to our house with his incessant air guitar, a sweetness to our lives with his gifts of affection and affirmation, a sanity to our days with his insistence on an 8:00 bedtime for Juliette.  He’s IT.  So when a milestone birthday rolled around, I started dreaming of ways to honor my guy.  Rent a party-pad in the mountains for the weekend and invite all our friends?  Cater a fancy dinner at our house?  Go on a bender with the gang and end up a karaoke bar?  I was ready to go big, but Shane would have none of it.  He wanted a mellow morning at home, a taco dinner with our nearest and dearest, and creme brulee for dessert.  Your wish is my command, Shane Schnell:

Honestly, I wasn’t surprised by Shane’s birthday celebration request.  Dude hates karaoke.  However, I about fell out of my chair when he said that for his gift he wanted to go sky diving.  Shane, who prefers the gentle swish of cross country skis to the zip of downhill slopes, wanted to jump out of an airplane?!  He asked Jason and Jack to join him and once they recovered from their similar shock, they said they were game.  We convened in Snohomish last Sunday for the big event.  Let’s do this!  (And by “let’s”, I mean…”you”.)

The guys completed their training, suited up, channeled their inner Mavericks, and then were AIR-BORNE!

I quickly lost sight of the plane, but several minutes after take-off I saw their parachutes dot the sky.

Shane’s partner had a camera on his arm and the footage is pretty unreal.  The scenery from up there!  And Shane’s grin through it all!

I was fairly calm through the whole thing, but still felt my shoulders relax when I saw Shane’s feet touch ground again.

The guys were silly-giddy afterward, sky-high on adrenaline for the rest of the afternoon.  Total bro-fest.  I was so happy for Shane, so thankful for friends and sunshine and this guy that’s still manages to surprise me 20 years after our first date.

Happy Father’s Day, Happy Birthday, Happy Ever After to my one and only.