The Wood Between the Worlds

I discovered this term the other day: FOMO.

Fear Of Missing Out.

I have major FOMO, and I think I always have. It's kind of a relief to put a term and a definition to the feeling. From as early as I can remember, I have loved life, and have wanted to do EVERYTHING! I could never really narrow down an instrument to play or a sport/activity/hobby to focus on for long enough to really excel. And forget about figuring out what I want to be when I grow up!! A midwife? A landscape architect? A photographer? A family therapist? I'm all over the place and can't decide. I hate the idea of picking a place to live forever. I wonder what I could be missing if I lived in X place, or Y place, so I may end up moving to both of them just to see.

I remember when I worked for Brighton Camp- it was my dream come true, and I had nothing tying me down. The world was my oyster.  I had to go to every single gathering, training, party, trip, play date, hike, fireside, etc, because I did not want to miss any of the fun.

I no longer have time to go to all the parties or to play all the sports, but there is one thing I always wanted to do- I ALWAYS wanted to be a wife and mother and I ALWAYS wanted to have the experience of raising both a boy and a girl. Missing out on either of those experiences would give me major life FOMO. And realizing that this is a thing that is part of my nature, it helps me to feel a lot more validated in my fear/sadness/grief born of not raising a daughter. This is a real, valid experience that I am missing. Writing it down like this somehow makes me feel better.

And now I think I may have rediscovered the usefulness of my blog as a journal, not meant for everyone, though I'm interested in seeing some different directions that I might take.

Something really wonderful happened to me today. It was something that I really needed. A friend at church painted a picture of my family, including Elsa, and gave it to me. She was worried that I wouldn't like it...It made me melt into tears. I would post a picture of it, but I've re-wrapped it so Brent can open it on Christmas. I will post a picture later. I'm having a late night- trying to fulfil my parental responsibilities- making muffins for early morning seminary, while the baby repeatedly cries- wanting me, and Brent, who is pretty sick with a cold that has spread to his chest, should not get out of bed.
I hope nobody feels bad about this next part, because it's no ones fault. It's just circumstance. But I've been really struggling lately, and haven't had anyone to talk about it with. I don't think anyone can quite understand, and without the proper perspective, I'm worried it will be misunderstood. I can't quite understand why Heavenly Father took away my daughter and then only to send me more sons. Lots of sons. Crazy sons, whom I love with everything I am, whom I can appreciate their zest and energy, but they exhaust me. And I'm having major FOMO. It's been bad lately, and there's not much I can do about it except be patient and endure. And be grateful, every single day, for my 5 sons and Angel daughter. Over the years, I have prayed an embarrassing amount, if there is such a thing, for Heavenly Father to send me another daughter. Both Brent and I have received revelations that it would happen. But our parental resources are currently finite. Every additional son is loved beyond belief, but also brings a deeper sadness to my life, and a wonder why Heavenly Father will not answer my prayers the way I felt He would. These feelings are only escalated by the fact that we live in a heavily girl dominated Ward, and I often feel left out because we don't have one to add to the mix. And there are a bunch of girls just Elsa's age. Oh how I would love to work in activity days or young women, but to make matters worse, I feel I am forgotten I'm Cub scouts for an unforseeable amount of time. It's almost been 3 years right now. And I REALLY don't mean for this to sound like complaining, because that's not what this is. I am HAPPY to serve in the cub scouts, I love boys, and the cub scouts. It's just that considering the circumstances, I have been feeling so lonely and forgotten. I know the Lord loves me, as I have received an undeniable witness of that several times. But I wondered if He would send me even a glimmer of understanding right now? Would He prompt someone to brighten my life right now? I truly did not want to burden anyone with these thoughts and feelings, but I have had several lonely and dark times lately.
Anyway, tonight after pack meeting a sister in my ward approached me out of the blue with this gift. This is someone who is busy with 5 kids of her own- similar ages to mine, including a daughter who is the same age as Elsa. She a not my visiting teacher. We have done little more than coordinate a few scout meetings together. I never would've expected her in a million years to even think about me or how I might be missing my daughter right now. But she painted me this beautiful picture of my eternal family, of which she obviously put a great deal of thought and study and prayer into. And it brought me to tears. Heavenly Father sent me just a little something, through someone unexpected, to show me His love. And this can definitely help me to hang in there a bit longer- for who knows what? For who knows how long? Maybe just until my reality becomes more ok with me. Maybe until the baby sleeps better. I do not know what the Lord has planned for me. But I do know He is aware of me. If I could get rid of this pain and longing, I would. But I can't. But at least I know He loves me.

It's been a while.

My thoughts and feelings are getting bottlenecked.
Competing with pictures and news on Instagram and Facebook.

8 years ago today, Elsa was ALIVE in my belly. Maybe for the last time, I'm not sure. But at my midwife appointment, 3 days before she was born, she was ALIVE, and I was alive. We were together.

Since my spirit does not exist within the time constrains of this world, I can visit this day as if it is still in front of me. It is such a special, exciting time. The time I spend with Elsa in my belly is so sacred. My joy is full. The excitement of finally getting a girl. A GIRL!  It is the happiest time of my life.

These memories used to make me sad. For many years. I looked forward with all of my heart to being pregnant with another girl, so that I could have these feelings again, and this time, the feelings last, my daughter is born alive, and I get to raise her. But that righteous desire of my heart has not come to pass. Each passing year would bring a little more sorrow in that.

Now a paradigm shift. Time is not a thing where she is. That moment of pure joy can last and last and  last forever. And that joy can get me through this life. No longer do I need to compare my joy to others' or most importantly, to my own past joy. I OWN MY JOY, and nobody, and certainly not time, can take that away from me.

Elsa, you belong with me.

I haven't even looked at a blog in months.

For one thing, I never get on the desktop computer anymore now that I have an iphone.  And even though it doesn't document our life as well, facebook and instagram have taken the place of all the documentation I used to do on the blog.  Go find me- Kate H Jefferies and spideylark...if you haven't already.  ANYWAY... I'd really like to get back into the blog again, just so I can finally get around to making a book out of our most important milestones.

Another reason is that we have been extremely busy moving...moving!  Holy moly!  What a summer!
Back around the time I last posted, in May...Brent learned that he FINALLY got accepted to the post-doctorate fellowship that he was hoping (read: fixated on) to do since he had graduated 6 years earlier.  Well, this fellowship happened to be at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.  So we packed up 6 years of living in Oregon and moved back to Utah!  It was bittersweet.  One the one hand, so happy to be living close to our old family and friends again!  So happy to experience all our old fun spots!  So happy that Brent was finally getting a chance to do the research he had been hoping to do for years.  But sad to leave the beautiful, green lands and the friends we have who are like family to us.

Well, we moved to Utah at the end of June ... and it was apparent almost right away that the research program he had been dreaming of was not the same one he had dabbled in during school.  Maybe it changed in 6 years, or maybe Brent changed...but the biggest factor in him not liking it was that he realized that it would require much more of our family time than we were willing to sacrifice.  So, Brent resigned just a few weeks into the program...with a heavy heart...but early enough in the fellowship so that they could still replace him.  We really wanted to stay in Utah, but after looking high and low we found there were not many jobs open in his field (much to our surprise!).  There were a LOT of jobs open back in Oregon, so we packed it up and moved on back!  This time we are residing at the beautiful, wild coast!!  We arrived in Lincoln City the very beginning of September.

Our summer in Utah was a great big, fun vacation!

All CrAzY, all bittersweet...LOTs of big changes for us and our kids in a short time.  We are really hoping to settle in here and stay for several years though, and think we will be really happy here.  It is the smallest town we have ever lived in.  It is very touristy!  The BEACH is only 1 block away from our house now.

Come visit!  

In the spirit of catching up:

Today I was nursing the baby before his nap, and we both fell asleep.  I woke some time later, with a start, with this thought in mind: what is happening with your blog?  You need to keep a history.  Hmm...  I've grown so far behind (I think I'm a year behind!), and I've grown more cautious over that last year about what I share...so that resulted in an unintentional lapse.  I'm going to try my best to catch up our history , but it will have to be greatly truncated!  No better time to start than with the most recent occurrence:

April 27, 2013
The Canemah Bluff
My heart will always be with this location.  It is a park and wilderness area within our little city, and Brent found it shortly after we moved here.  We have spent years hiking around this bluff and forest.  I have memories here- being pregnant with Elsa, when she was still ALIVE; coming here with the kids shortly after her passing, just trying to keep it together;  moving into the lovely house in the neighborhood, where we lived for 1 year; getting our family pictures done; Milo's newborn pictures; and now a spring mama-baby photo shoot.  We are going to miss this place after we move away from Oregon.

It was my friend's idea to go and do this photo shoot together.  We've been best friends for nearly 6 years, and our recent babies were born 1 day apart.  I took pictures of her with her baby, and she took pictures of me with my baby.  The Camas Lilies were in bloom, and the pictures turned out lovely:

I have this {shh! healthy!} cookie recipe that I've been developing for years. It's as healthy as you can get for a cookie. Last year I took a plate of these cookies to a potluck event that my midwife puts on for her birth center clients every year. I put a sign next to the plate, describing what is in the cookies. When I came back at the end to get my plate, someone had written a note on the back of my sign raving about my cookies, and left an email address for me to send the recipe. At that point, I figured it was about time for me to share my recipe.

Peanut butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Set oven at 375
1/2 c peanut butter
1/2 c butter or coconut oil
Mix together and add:
1 1/4 c packed brown sugar
(Right now I'm subbing 1 cup of honey because I'm not eating refined sugar. They're good with honey, but not as sweet)
2 eggs
2 t vanilla
Mix til incorporated then keep mixing while you add:
1 3/4 c flour ( I use kamut flour when I have it, or whole wheat flour that I grind myself. I like it ground really fine. It is difficult to tell that it's while wheat...my kids love it!)
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt (I use kosher salt)
2 1/2 c oatmeal
1 c chocolate chips
If I have raisins I throw them in too.

Drop on cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes.

They turn out so thick and chewy and delicious, and definitely satisfy my sweet craving, while filling me up with some great fiber.

I hope you'll like them as much as my family and I (and my potluck admirer do)!

We got back from New York just a few short days before Halloween.  I had a plan to have all the Halloween costumes ready before we left for our trip...or at least have all the materials assembled so that I could quickly make them.  But since I have never been very good at juggling a billion things like packing, grocery shopping, cleaning, getting house ready for sitters, AND making costumes...you can guess that the least important thing didn't happen.  So I didn't get around to making the little boys' costumes and the adults' costumes (the adults were going to be trees and the little guys were going to be owls...riding on the trees).  But the big boys' costumes came together nicely, in a fast and furious kind of way.  Finished just about 10 minutes before their school costume carnival!  Whew!

But first:
10/25/12 - The day after we got back from NY and saw our precious children again!

10.24.12
Our final day of our vacation left us until 4 pm to squeeze in every last item deemed most important on our agenda.  Before we left Oregon, I got on Facebook and asked my friends what we HAD to see...and we got so many great answers, and did lots of research....so we had a huge list of things we wanted to see.  I showed our list to my sister on the day we arrived, and she laughed, told us to pick the top 1/3 of the stuff on our list and said that was all we would be able to fit into a week.  I can say that we got to see *almost* everything on our list.  We did have to majorly fly through a few of those museums...but didn't feel too bad about that since we had a great discount with our city passes.  But we did have to cross some crazy cool stuff off of our list, like the New York Botanical Garden, with the last remaining old growth forest from before Europeans.  And going to see WICKED...or any Broadway show really.  We tried one night to leave Milo with my sister, and we made it all the way to Times square, when she called us and Milo was screaming and wouldn't stop.  So we came back to get him.  It was our first attempt at leaving him with anyone besides Brent.  And it was FAIL.  Oh well!  They're only babies for so long.  We also really wanted to visit "New England," or anywhere out in the countryside...but we realized we had so much to see in the city that we might we wasting our time to leave.  That will have to be another trip!

Anyway, we wrote out a very detailed agenda of where we wanted to go on our last day (down to the hours of when we needed to be where because our flight was leaving at 8:15 pm), and we struck out on our own to run a marathon around Manhattan, over to Brooklyn and back to  Harlem...all by 4 pm.        

We started by taking the subway to Times Square, and transferring over to Grand Central Station.  It is a beautiful building, build by the same architect as the Ellis Island immigration building from the day before.  I loved all the constellations painted on the ceiling.  We looked in the shops for souvenirs for our children and babysitters.  We bought a toy subway car and a dozen of Magnolia Bakery's famous cupcakes.  And some real New York bagels and cream cheese.  Then we got back on the subway (didn't even go outside) and headed down to Chinatown.  The goal was to walk through Chinatown to pick up some cheap souvenirs, and navigate our way to the Brooklyn Bridge so we could walk over it.    

This is a really zoomed in view of the Statue of Liberty from the Brooklyn Bridge

New York City LDS Temple

We got back to my sister's place right on schedule and had to throw everything into our bags so fast that I forgot my dang glasses!  But we made it.  And we took a long subway ride back down Manhattan with all our bags, during rush hour (packed train!), through Brooklyn, and over to the airport in Queens...and I must say that by the time we were over there we were the ONLY tourists on the subway.  It was quite strange.  And we slept on and off in the plane for about 4 hours, in which Milo was a perfect angel who didn't make a peep.  And Brent sat next to a drunk guy who asked all about our LDS faith for the first hour or two (while I half-slept)...and BELIEVE me when I say that he asked all the question that you would expect a drunk guy would ask about the LDS religion.  Lol!  But he was nice, and got some good closure from Brent's answers about the afterlife and how our loved ones are living after they die (his wife had died recently).
We made it back to Oregon where our lovely friends Tara and Tiana were there to pick us up and drive us home, well after midnight.  Our lovely children were happy to see us in the morning...though they did have a great time having their Auntie and Uncle stay with them.

New York City.  If you haven't been there, I highly recommend it.  Going there, being there kind of feels like...it makes the world more relevant.  When I hear about NYC, or watch a movie filmed there or see a landmark...now I have a map and a picture in my head.  And I like that.