one year home

A year ago today I was standing in the drill hall unconsciously holding my breath and nearly passing out as the crowd around me shifted from foot to foot impatiently. I kept my eyes on Caleb so I’d be able to find him as soon as Unit was released, but then I completely lost him in the sea of people flooding toward the soldiers. I milled forward awkwardly, guiding Jackson by the hand with the rest of our family trailing behind. Someone finally spotted him “to the left, Jackie!” and we skirted several kids and slipped between two other reuniting families before I looked up and saw him a foot in front of me. We hugged briefly in the tight space. That awesome first kiss we’d schemed about for months? Didn’t happen. We laughed about it later, but at the time all I could think was ‘this is so not what I planned.’

And that’s been the story of the past year. Everything has taken me by surprise and nothing has happened like I planned. Deployment affects every marriage one way or the other. It either tears you apart, or it builds you together. We worked hard every day we were apart to turn a excruciating separation into an awesome thing, but I didn’t imagine it would make us as close as it did, nor that it would last forever. So thank goodness I’m not in charge and nothing has happened like I planned. Not in my wildest dreams could I have devised this life. 

*****

What we felt that day:

superdog

Protecting the kitchen floor from stray cheerios since 2010.

in the sunshine

Today, after almost an entire week of flooded walkways and tornado warnings, school drop off in the dark and pick up in the rain, heavy coats and gallons of hot cocoa… suddenly

BAM! 68 degrees and sunny perfection.

Welcome to Alabama.

bird on the roof

Caleb took this picture of what we believe to be a turkey vulture perched on top of our roof. It is one of an entire troop that have chosen our back woods as a roosting area. You can’t stand in our driveway without the urge to duck your head and hide from the ominous black shapes circling overhead. Aside from shooting at them, which is illegal by the way, the recommendation for getting rid of them is to stand outside in the middle of the night yelling and shaking the trees. Seriously, you can google it. If you don’t hear from me you’ll know the neighbors finally had me institutionalized.

heat hog

What you don’t see is his little fluffy butt parked right in front of my space heater.

‘the world waits for you’

personal project: We, four | January

Two years ago in January I started a 365 project. I had grand delusions about taking a picture a day while Caleb was deployed to Iraq. I made it until March and then I petered out. I learned a lot from it, though, like how to spring out of bed at 11:50 pm in a panic because I hadn’t taken my daily photo. I think I proved how difficult it is for me to commit to a photography regimen, for sure one that involves a portion of my time every day.

This year I’ve decided to undertake a photo a month (should be achievable, even for me). Specifically a family self portrait, and to make it a little more complicated I’ll try to capture photos that show our style, our family dynamic, who we are and what we’re feeling at the time. Not an easy task to accomplish with a tripod. But therein lies the challenge. 

Some other pictures we captured that day…

in a coat

In keeping with taking pictures I like, here’s Tucker with his coat grown out. We clipped him ultra short over the summer so he could enjoy the lake without a heatstroke. Now it’s grown back in and he’s super fluffy. Winter coat for the win. Who needs slippers when there’s a Cavie dying to warm your feet.

something I like

It’s easy to get trapped in a photography slump during the winter. I use the excuse that it’s too cold outside. Or consecutive days of drear give me sun depravation and before I know it I’ve gone a while without picking up the camera. Or worse, all the photos I’ve taken were out of necessity or guilt. Like, what kind of mother would I be if I didn’t take pictures on Christmas morning? 

When I looked back through the photos from December I saw how few I took for myself. How few I really liked. And absolutely none I took just because I wanted to capture something beautiful that day.

So I made a deal with myself to take a step back. To take pictures with my mind and forget about feeling guilty if I don’t take the camera on every expedition. To make sure I take pictures I like.

different views

I was reading a story about a family who recently adopted a baby, which prompted the following conversation.

me: Have you ever thought about adopting?

Caleb: Sure. If it had the right temperament.

me: ?

Caleb: And maybe if it was old enough to not pee on the floor all the time.

me:??

Caleb: If the parents were pure bred, that’d be nice.

me:???

me: I’m talking about a baby.

Caleb: Oh. I thought you meant a dog from the humane society!

boys room

Caleb had a few days off last week. And around here that means… fresh paint! I mean, what else is there to do with time off besides paint and sand and create furniture from a pile of wood? We have been working on a plan to improve the boy’s room for a while. And as usual I forgot to take ‘before’ pictures so I had to dig through the archives to find this one, above, from November 2010. We were missing one ‘J’ obviously.

Nothing terribly awful about their room, but they were desperately in need of a fresh coat of paint and some additional space. The #2 and #3 bedrooms in this house are super tiny. Basically we only had space for their beds and a dresser, and about 5x3 feet of floor area. Forget asking them to play with their toys in there. They really needed some extra room.

Enter solution.

Here’s the room after we emptied it and painted the walls a neutral grey. I think this photo is a pretty accurate representation of the wall color.

Caleb built and constructed parts of the beds in the garage and then we dragged them into the room for final assembly. The sun was already sinking as we started putting them together. The beds are made of 2x6, 2x4, and 1x6 boards so they are HEAVY monsters. They had to be carefully braced and mounted on the wall so it took us about two and a half hours to install them.

But so worth it!

The beds are off the floor and create a ton of play space underneath.

The room is a mix of modern grey/white/yellow color scheme, while still keeping the rustic feel we love with the chipped paint dresser and Yoda art.

A yellow tray catches random bits on the dresser. The Yoda canvas is constructed from an old pallet that Caleb was good enough to salvage from the side of the road for me.

Over the window we created a valance box out of 1x8s and some molding. Neither of us had ever worked with crown before and we learned that it is a beast. If you don’t know what you’re doing it will eat you up and spit you out. We chewed through our extra three feet before we got wise and googled. Turns out crown molding is actually very easy to cut if you don’t overthink it like we did. Another trip to Home Depot for another strip of molding and we were back in business. 

Underneath the bed we attached shelves atop a chalkboard surface for displaying the boys favorite Lego sets. Also within easy reach of little hands.

Industrial light in place of the ceiling fan they used to have.

So here’s the before:

And the after:

I want to move in myself.

EDIT to add: Although the beds don’t have rails, both the boys sleep with this set of bumpers that prevent them from rolling off. We’ve also given several lectures, educating the boys on bed safety and rules. Caleb and I have both climbed all over these beds to make sure they were safe for our little guys.

projects

I spent the day refinishing the boys’ dresser. We decided to lighten it up a bit, but leave the top stained dark. It fits much better in their new room (more on that later). I had the entire dresser nice and smooth and white, brought it in the house, and decided I wasn’t happy with it. For some reason I like the chippy, distressed look and I just cannot bring myself to love a flawless paint job. So back out it went and Caleb put some nice chips in it. Now if I could just figure out how to hide those pesky cords.

By the way, this is the painting outfit when it’s 35 degrees outside:

Awesome, right?

a look at 2011

What a year. And I know I say that every year, but this one was particularly great. I got my husband back from Iraq in January and the awesomeness just boomed after that. In 2011 we built a table, screened a porch, painted our kitchen cabinets… twice. Learned how to navigate a carpool line, and how to give breathing treatments. Cut our 3-year-olds hair for the FIRST TIME. Swam in the lake, swam in the lake, swam in the lake without floaties. Picked up more Mario and Star Wars trivia than one would ever want to know. LEGOS! The year we discovered Legos.