2003 and Overwhelming Abundance

Christmas Card 2003, first time we were too buy to get all of us in one place in the right mood for a family picture.

The river in summer is warm but the ocean can be really cold

At Jedediah Smith National and State Park

The kite festival

fern canyon, parts of Jurassic Park 2 were filmed here

Austin

Emerson

Harris Beach by Brookings, OR

Our yard is perfect for boys and cats

2003

Merry Christmas!
     Once again I sit down to review the year and am blown away by the speed with which it has flown by.  Greg and I are constantly running jut to stay in the same place it seems.  In fact, we recently looked at each other and admitted that we've both been feeling depressed, not about things we don't have but because we're overwhelmed by having too much - too many activities we've said yes too, too many "cherished" object cluttering our home - too many "delightful" pets - too many dishes - usually dirty etc., but I do have a sign in my kitchen that says, "Praise God for Dirty Dishes - at least you have food."

In fact it has gotten bad enough that I probably have at least 15 pictures, magnets, buttons etc all saying, "Simplify your life" - yes, I'm living a contradiction, between my dreams and my life.
     So why is 2003 so overwhelming?  Probably because O didn't deal with it in 1999, or 2000 and so on.  Our method for instance, with dealing with coming home to a sink and counter full of dirty dishes is to load up in the van and go out to eat.
     Also, I'm subbing every day now and Greg is not just teaching but working on the Children's Community Choir which he started last year, then the boys want to say yes to everything, soccer, fiddle, trombone, choir, birthday parties, plays, overnights, 4-h, and on and on.  I'm still writing my books and going to writer's conferences - - oh my gosh - we'd jut about kill to sleep in one day!

     Are we sounding stupid?  Crazy?  I explain it by saying, "We put the fun in dysfunctional! ??"
     Anyway, enough moaning about the ditch we have dug ourselves into - we are slowly building a ladder to pull ourselves out of the hole and there is light overhead.
    I'm glad Thanksgiving comes right before I sit down to review the year because it's nice to remember all the good things we have to be Thankful for, and with us the things we complain about and the things we have to be thankful for are the same list.
     So in 2003 we didn't travel much, which is unusual for us.  We didn't go to Wyoming either for Christmas 2002 or this previous summer.  Consequently we've dug a little out of debt, and refinancing the house helped more.  Then Greg went to Marysville in the heat of summer for 2 weeks worth 0f classes that gave him enough credits to move across the pay scale.  But the gains were off set by the fact that our boys haven't seen cousins and grandparents or most Aunts and Uncles since 18 months ago.  We are still in debt, but this Christmas we're going to Wyoming because we also feel we can't afford to miss any more family time right now.

Fortunately Aunt April and Uncle Vince Live about a 5 hour drive away, so the boys get some more contact there although never enough.  We also have our "DayCare Family" even though they haven't been in a day care for six years now.  "Grandma" and a few very special friends are still as close as real relatives.
     Again I see the blessing and the problem sides - - we have OK jobs, Ok insurance, great friends, an Ok house (although pack ratted to the max) a great neighborhood, a great yard (although under maintained)  all of this is either wonderful security, or a rut we're half wanting to - half afraid of moving out of.
    Goodness!  I sound so gloomy this year and what it really is, is exhaustion.  And even though this is a Christmas letter - our family had, is having, a very hard time letting go of summer this year.  Instead of being thankful for the days we had swimming in Jade Green rivers and walking in ancient redwood forests and running our greyhounds or going to kite festivals at the beach - we're whining because we can't do it NOW.

Nov. 29, 2003

     The previous pages were written while I was trying to look interested at a teacher training.  Now it is the 8th day of our amazing 9 days off (all of Thanksgiving week and 2 weekends) - and the 4th day in the cabin at Gold Beach.  Suddenly (I owner Why?)  There is nothing the slightest bit gloomy or depressed about my attitude.

     I have been sitting by the fire, listing to the sea gulls and the waves, talking to Greg, Vince and April and Stuffing myself on pies and poppy seed rolls.  Painting rocks, hangout in the hot tub and snuggling my boys. Here life is simple - the house is empty so the people and outdoors are important.

Austin in 4th grade until this June with Mrs Haggard

Emerson with 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Peep

Speaking of my boys, Austin and Emerson started to school in a fourth and fifth grade class - but a week into the year the school shuffled class placements and lost a teacher and since then they have been together in a 4/5 combo with 30 5th graders and 5 4th graders.  They had heard rumors about how nasty their teacher is but by now they both love her.  I think it took less than a day.  She says they get along well and she loves having both of them - and it has changed how they interact at home, more respect, yet also more competition.
     So I hope 2003 has been kind to you and I look forward to the cards and letter which flood our mailbox for the next month before leaving it a desert with only the thorny bills appearing there.

    For 2004 we are hoping to shovel some of the clutter from the house - reviser Disneyland (the boys have almost no memory of the 1999 trip) and hopefully have more of what we've had so much of already - family time - good health - good friends and more.
    Sure we're greedy.  Life for the most part has been yummy enough to keep us wanting more.  Love you!


Dixie, Greg, Austin and Emerson

1998 Christmas letter and taking time off to be parents

The portrait session just happened to be on the same day as the Redwood School Carnival for Halloween

MERRY CHRISTMAS 1998

Dear Friends,

Finally I can sit down to write a Christmas letter without any bad news about anyone in our family.  In fact, remembering 1998 will always be a pleasure. It isn't that we don't still miss Papa Paul.
We always will, but this year we had so many opportunities to spend time with people whom we really love.  The best thing that we have done is taking the time to really enjoy our family.

Easter Egg Hunt in Brookings Library

When 1998 began, Dixie was in the middle of s years leave of absence with the school district.  From January through June, I stayed home with Austin and Emerson, if you can call it that.  I had them enrolled in a dance and tumbling class and in June their class performed the role of the gingerbread boys in Hansel and Gretel.  We also took them to swimming lessons several times through the winter, and to a story/craft time at the library in Brookings, Oregon once each week.  Then we had a season pass to Ocean World here in town and spent a lot of time there pet tin tide pool animals and Leopard sharks and watching trained sea lions.  Emerson, Austin and I spent part of every week making sand castles or fishing or hiking in the redwoods and I taught them some of the things from my old preschool class so they could earn field trips to parks and places like the peering zoo to pet baby possums, skunks, bearcats and tigers; and the Sumeg Indian Village with its Dance Pit, redwood slab houses, and sweat lodge and dugout canoe.  In Wyoming as a child I never quite believed a dugout could be made to carry a person but here they are easily big enough to carry an extended family.

The school year flew by for Dixie although it was a bit of a struggle for Greg. Then in June we drove up to Salem to visit Aunt April and Uncle Vince on our way back to Wyoming. We basically moved in with Grandma Scilla and Uncle Lance and sweltered through six weeks of 100 degree weather except when we were 10,000 feet up in the Beartooth mountains having a snowball fight in July.  The boys and their Cousin Lacy did T-Ball and Swimming Lessons. They also played every day with LUke and lacy at Grandmas in a wading pool or at Brett and Shannon's on the trampoline.

Grandmas captured by Emerson

Lance and Priscilla also went with us to Newcastle where we spent a wonderful week invading my in-laws.  Harv took us out on the prairie for a wonderful time looking for arrowheads.  Grandma Mimi explored the Black Hills and Custer State Park with us and we saw lots of bear, wolves, buffalo and Burros.  We went miniature golfing at Pirates Cove in Rapid City which is an adventure all its own.  We saw the new and unimproved area around Mt. Rushmore and wept at the loss of the old Natural beauty.  We went to a play at the theater where Greg and I spent our first summer as newlyweds. In short we did all the tourist things.  Then Grandpa Harv took the boys out  on the oil patch to work with him and also out on his boat where they each caught a trout.



 On our way home from Wyoming we spent a day playing, swimming and riding roller coasters and cable cars through LAGGON outside of Salt Lake City.  That is an incredible water fantasy place which was even more perfect as the temperature was over 100 once again.  The park is filled with water slides, hot tubs, volcanoes, rivers and of course lagoons, all of which you can climb on and in as you swim through six acres of heated canals.

Once we got home the boys started another swim lesson session and soccer.  Austin was aggressive and scored a goal every game and three in one game.  Emerson loved to be the goalie and made several saves, and we won't mention the time that he got so excited that he had stopped the ball that he turned around and flung it into the goal himself.  They were on the Dalmatians team with several friends they already knew, so we enjoyed it for the seven weeks before the last three games were rained out.

At Uncle Brett's with the cousins

Dance Art Studio

From Hansel and Gretel

At our house with Aunt April

Once September came, Greg began his year off from teaching and I started a new position teaching emotionally disturbed children in a classroom sponsored by the school district but on the grounds of the county mental health building.  I really love my job and especially love not having to work for my old principal and my new one is wonderful.  I have eight students who all go to different schools in the morning so I travel around working with them. Then in the afternoon they all come to me for some school work and a group therapy session with a mental health employee.

Austin Started kindergarten and has been very successful.  He's reading at about the same level as most first graders and the teacher says she always  uses him as a role model.  He hasn't been in the time-out chic yet which, considering his energy level, must require a lot of self control.  His teacher is also our neighbor and Greg babysits her three sons after they get out of school each afternoon.  Both A and E also started Music lessons. Em is taking Violin and Austin is playing the Cello. They love and hate it both.

We saw Keiko the whale the day before he was flown to Iceland.  Greg joined a church choir.  The boys are still dancing.  If our life right now seems to be filled with our boys, that's because that is exactly how we chose it and want it to be.  They are growing so fast and constantly delight and amaze us, as they keep us seeing all the wonders of this magic world through their eyes.

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM

DIXIE, GREG,

AUSTIN and EMERSON

Another September, Another Chance

I love September, especially when we're in it.
Willie Stargell 

We know that in September, we will wander through the warm winds of summer's wreckage. We will welcome summer's ghost.
Henry Rollins 


I also love September, and yet I find myself often depressed by it. As one who has lived 45 years on an American school schedule, I feel September as my true New Year. This is when I evaluate how the last year went and promise myself that I will change the things I didn't like and hold on to the things I loved.

After 45 year it becomes easy to see that doing that isn't easy. The resolutions each year sound a lot like the resolutions of the years before them.  So hope and depression mingle, like the perfection that is my home area in September, when the fruits are ripe and scenting the air and free for the taking. When windows hang open and the temperature both mid-day and mid-night is comfortable without air conditioning or heaters. Life is perfect but also tainted by the knowledge of how quickly things must change, and when they seem perfect, even a small change feels like a loss.

Yet This picture of my Son reminds me that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  As a toddler he wanted nothing more than to be on a boat with a line in the water. So when grandpa took him and his brother out, he was in his element, and now, when he thinks I'd  rather have him in college like his brother, 

he is a commercial fisherman with a lot of hard dangerous work and he is not always happy, not always content, but he is where he was born to be and he is true and loyal to who he is in a way that makes me proud of him.

 Wouldn't it be boring if everyone made the same choices?  If the world had one color, or one species or one religion or one dream?

I find my dreams and hopes in my family and my students and in the books I write and the books I read. I don't think my way is better than yours though, if you never want to have a child, or write a book, if exercise delights you, and you like to get physically tested, I love to hear your stories and watch you work out.

At 50 I have lost enough loved ones to know that the sadness I feel in September is the knowledge of things slipping through my fingers and away, no matter how tightly I grip.  I know my enjoyment of the vivid sunflower will be bittersweet for the knowledge of the grey rainy winter on the way. I know I play with the young dog, and already see him old and limping and grey muzzled now that I have had a series of wonderful dogs live out their life as my friend.

 But I can anticipate more than pain and loss. I also have lived long enough to know the death in the family, is followed by another birth, that the withered sunflower stalks drop the sees that volunteer next springs green shoots, and next Septembers glory.

So I have been thinking about what I have and what I have not done. I was going to make the bucket list of the things I wanted to visit, and do, and own, but while it is true, I want to see and do more, I'm not too concerned with owning THINGS anymore So this is what I really want for my resolutions

 I want to get rid of the clutter the way my neighbor has spent the summer removing the old junker trailer.

 I want to enjoy the gifts of life, like free blackberries

 and beautiful friends
 and bright
vivid
blooms