Fifteen Years

2005: Oh frabjous day!

2006: A great catch.

2007: Wow, we had so many trinkets!

2008: With last year's new addition.

2009: Baguette!

2010: Another excellent addition.

2011: It was shockingly hard to find a picture of just the two of us for this year!

2012: Ah, Guatemala!

2013: He's loved me through a lot of different hairstyles.

2014: Do we produce cute children or what?

2015: Under my clematis archway. *love*

2016: Finally a half dozen.

2017: We're just so adorable.

2018: I can no longer hide the horns.

2019: We loved that cherry tree.

2020: Don't go in the water or you'll get eaten by salties.

I'm so grateful for fifteen years so far. He's loved me through all my hairstyles, all the weird fashion choices, all our vacations, every time I forgot something rather important or mixed up the dates, four children (with all their ups and downs), more NaNoWriMos than I recall for certain, a whole bunch of writing conferences, at least one deeply unfortunate job, and everything in between. 

How Goes the Driving These Days? A Tale of Terror

[insert the usual self-flagellation and apologies about how long it’s been since I posted here... moving on]

Hey, remember how I’m totally driving phobic* and it took me forever to get my driver’s license?** Well, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how far I am from that time. It’s been about ten-ish years since I finally got my license (after flunking the driving test the first time, as an adult with a new baby, and feeling utterly humiliated). I drive most everywhere I need to drive these days, but I don’t drive into Baltimore. At all.*** Thanks to the GPS, I also drive a few places where I’ve never been and I’ve even survived getting lost a few times. I’m so much more functional when it comes to driving that I don’t actually even have to think about my fear on a regular basis.

But then things happen that remind me, and I’m back to remembering what a quivering mess I can be when it comes to driving.

Yesterday was our homeschool co-op’s winter showcase (a social gathering where the kids show off cool stuff they’ve done), and I’d been secretly hoping all day that it would simply be postponed so I wouldn’t have to drive through potentially dangerous, slushy, and slick weather to get to somewhere I’ve never driven before (a major trigger for my fear). But the weather held off, so I had no excuse to not go. It was only mildly raining when we headed out and got on the freeway.

My windshield wiper made a couple weird noises and wasn’t working great, but at least it was working, so I just carried on and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter as I listened to my GPS (I had, of course, already read all the directions in preparation for the drive) and as it started raining a bit more. Then, as things were going along smoothly, suddenly my windshield wiper pivoted, popped off, and flew past me into the road (sorry, driver behind me!).

Well, of course my adrenaline shot up and I mentally freaked out, but I think I did a surprisingly good job of sounding calm as I asked one of the kids to offer us a prayer of safety. Meanwhile, I leaned over so that I could see through the windshield at least a little, and I tried to adjust my driving so that I didn’t steer into another lane.

Long story short: We made it to the activity safely, but I was internally panicking and trying to figure out how we were going to get home. I looked around the co-op group for anyone who knew how to fix windshield wipers, but I didn’t explain things well, and no one could help. I looked up an auto supply store nearby (it was only a four-minute drive away) and considering driving there to pick up a part. But I was honestly too panicked right then to be willing to make even that tiny drive (and also I really didn’t want to miss Coriel’s choir performance; that was pretty much the only reason we went in the first place).

So I texted Brice, who was at a meeting that he needed to be at (stake conference), and he ended up coming to my rescue.**** He came, bought the part, fixed it, and helped take care of the kids until the end of the activity.

And then I had to drive back home (because of course Brice couldn’t drive both cars). In the dark. In the rain. On a badly lit, badly marked freeway section that I rarely drove. But at least I had working windshield wipers!

By the time we got home, I had to hide in the bathroom and take deep breaths for a while.

So that’s how I know the phobia isn’t gone, but it’s also so much more manageable than it used to be, and I’m really grateful for that. (Although, who knows? Pretty soon I’m going to have to learn to drive on the left side of the road, so the situation is ripe for plenty more trauma!)

The End

* If this is the first time you’re checking in on the subject, I’m not talking about a minor inconvenience here. I’m talking about how I was diagnosably phobic about driving for many years and how I have only overcome it slowly and now it is more of an inconvenience most of the time, but it still keeps me from doing a lot of things that I wish I were okay with doing.

** Full disclosure: It didn’t start out as a blinding phobia. It started out as not having good enough eyesight, not having practiced driving enough, a strong discomfort with driving, and not having money or oomph to deal with any of these things. The debilitating phobia built up over the next few years.

*** I did once, trying to be brave, and it was a white knuckle disaster that involved a terrible, terrifying blind left turn and almost backing into a lady with a stroller. That pretty much ended my Baltimore driving days.

**** And yes, I feel utterly idiotic about that and I had to remind myself multiple times that I’m not a total loser and that I really am so much better about driving than I used to be, and Brice was very kind about it and very reassuring, but it’s hard to talk over the voices in someone else’s head, you know?

Scattered Thoughts

I’ve started avoiding blogging again because I only have little bits and pieces to tell, not any sort of coherent narrative of really anything. But that means stuff is piling up, so we’re doing another random pile o’ junk post. (Also, I started this a week ago, so it’s all old news, but I’m not going to try to fix any weird verb tenses or time references. Ptui.)

Major Minor Miracle. Yes, I know “major minor” doesn’t make sense, but here’s the thing: it was a total miracle to me, and really huge for that particular moment in my life, but it’s also ridiculously small. Yesterday I was so stressed out over preparing for our co-op’s class fair that is happening tomorrow. I had a list of performances on a sheet of paper, and I needed it so I could type up the programs for the fair, but I couldn’t remember where I’d put it. I’ve been on high stress about this activity for a while now, and this was the last straw. As I searched, I prayed—please, please help me find it. I looked in every spot I could think of that it could have possibly ended up, and I finally hit the last spot—the car—and it wasn’t there.

I came back inside the house feeling utterly defeated and on the verge of tears. Again I prayed. Please. Then my eyes wandered over to our fireplace mantle, where our family yearbooks are lined up, and there was the paper, sitting with the yearbooks. Exactly where I had put it and completely forgotten it almost a week ago. I was so grateful.

Koa the Earthling. This just barely happened—Koa walked out into the living room with a box on his head. He told Brice he was an earthling.

The Anthology! My latest gigantic and insane project is finally finished and printed and distributed! I’m enormously proud of it. It’s a collection of stories written by the teens in the writing class I’ve been teaching at co-op this last year. I’ll be posting more about it on my other blog soon and I’ll link there if I can remember. But let it just be said that it was a large undertaking and I am so thrilled to be done (but also thrilled to have done it).

Short Fiction. Speaking of writing, I have been returning to short fiction a lot lately and really enjoying it. It’s been so much fun, and I think I’m going to spend more time in short fiction for the next little while. I have several places I’d like to submit things to, so we’ll see.

Mormon Lit Blitz. Also speaking of short fiction, go look here! Pay particular attention to the entry for June 10th.

Mother’s Day. Brice is so wonderful. He made Mother’s Day quite lovely, as he always does. This year he made me a delicious breakfast frittata and said, “Fri-tada!” Complete with a “tada” gesture. It was pretty great, but it doesn’t translate on paper very well. Also, he bought me a lock-picking set! Yay! Now I can start learning a new skill. It comes with a see-through lock, which is pretty cool because then you can actually see the mechanisms, which I’ve never really understood before.

I love this about Brice—he is always supportive of my whims and desires to expand my learning, even when it’s silly.

Compliments. Okay, this is probably weird, but I keep two compliment files—one is informal, in my memory, and the other is actually in a file in my email. The email file is where I put emails or facebook messages or other communications that people sent me that were really touching and made me feel all glowy and happy. I get to go back and refer to it occasionally when I’m feeling particularly crappy. The other file is my internal list of the weirdest/funniest compliments I’ve ever received.

This last week, I got to add two potential compliments to the weird file.

1. As part of our class wrap-up, I was asking the teens what their future plans were with writing. Many mentioned how they felt about the class (overall positive), but this was my favorite: “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”

2. Driving home from church on Mother’s Day, Brice and I were talking about how our various parenting abilities had improved since the beginnings. I mentioned that I was much better with small children than I used to be (though still not very good), and he replied that he thought I was “pretty decent.” Which was both honest and amusing, given that he said it on the day we’re supposedly telling all the mothers how incredibly awesome they are. But actually, “pretty decent” felt like a pretty great compliment. It was real and completely believable (not like “you’re the best with babies!” which would just be a lie).

Must update photo! Holy crumbs, I just looked at the photo that’s on our blog header, and we are two babies behind. Yikes. I really need to fix that. Someday...

The end. Oh so many times in the past little while I’ve thought of something to add to a blog post, but I never do remember them long enough to add. So we’ll just end here.

Meta

"I don't know what to write," I tell Brice. I have a goal of writing every day, you see. 

"Write about how the baby was crawling down the hall and how we are all crawling down the hallway of life. We can choose to laugh and giggle as we head into the darkness, or we can turn back in fear."

"Brice, I love you. You are a source of endless delight."

And also, I think to myself, I'm totally not writing about that. Because that's weird. 

Sorting through stuff

 Pulled down a box this week of random papers to sort through. So much stuff I had forgotten! Here's a recap of some favorites so far:

A list I made in high school of qualities I wanted in a spouse. I got them all!

A picture of a rock monster drawn by 3yo Coriel.

A birthday card from my mom when I was six. It's always bittersweet to run across things from her. She was a great letter writer.

This statement that Brice made and I wrote down, dated 22 January 2007. "If cuteness was a flea, you'd be a flea circus!"

The kind and encouraging notes my brother Makani and best friend Kati wrote me for some random assignment in high school.

Remembering that we used to say "ecstatic like a biscuit." I think maybe I'll start that again.

A random drawing by Brice.

The really bad underwater photos from our Hawaii trip.

A photocopy of the very worst typo I ever saw in person.

Meat

Scene: The airport, where I am dropping off the hubby for a short business trip. I am attempting to not act like a total basket case because I am, of course, a mature, responsible woman capable of watching her own three children by herself for four days.

ME: [smiling] Have lots of fun in Utah!

HUBBY: Okay.

ME: [still smiling] Have fun playing with your sister and your parents.

HUBBY: [nods]

ME: [still smiling] And get some dinner from Epic!*

HUBBY: [enthusiastically] Or maybe some churrasceria!**

ME: [bursts into somewhat hysterical tears]***

HUBBY: [a little stunned by my reaction] Oh, I’m sorry. Order some Outback while I’m gone, okay?

ME: [nodding pathetically] Yeah, okay.

Scene: Twenty minutes later, at the drive-thru at Wendy’s, I am ordering a burger. It’s not churrasco, but at least it’s meat.****

* One of our favorite restaurants in Salt Lake.

** Brazilian barbecue, where they come around to the tables with giant skewers of meat, meat, and more meat.

*** There is no logical reason why the idea of Brice eating churrasco caused such hysteria. But it did make me realize how much I miss semi-inexpensive churrasco. The only churrasceria in the area that we know of is a snooty, high-falutin,’ $50-per-plate one in Baltimore. That is not happening.

**** Theoretically.