So. We went mini golfing one evening after Early Bird dinner. Because we're wild like that.
It was super fun and not just because I came in second (out of 4 - haha) but because Cory was pulling out some really messed up moves. He was a hot mess. Emphasis on hot.
There was another foursome right ahead of us. In my mind they were a full generation older than us, but that's because I often still think I'm in my early twenties instead of my late thirties (true story). They were having the most miserable time. No laughing. No inappropriate humor. Men on one side, women on the other. Drab footwear. It was depressing.
Can we all vow right now to never turn into that? Scout's honor.
I miss my friend. 5 days together and then BOOM. She was gone.
I ran into her last night unexpectedly at the grocery (score!). She was looking all cute in her rad pixie and the cutest skirt. I told her, "I always LOVE that skirt." She looked at me strangely..."I bought it from you. At your garage sale."
hahaha. I honestly don't remember ever owning it. I just remember loving it when she wears it. The more we talked, I vaguely remembered it. But I don't remember liking it when I owned it. (Hence the garage sale?) In a million years I could not have told you that she bought it from my sale. Did I even have a garage sale?? I'm not convinced.
This is just how life is for me and my everyday people. It's not as funny in person. It's more, "You need to get more sleep, Shannan."
This was my last night of vacay, when I had given up. 3 evenings of looking cute had taken their toll. I was spent. So I wore a weird outfit and didn't do my hair.
It turns out, I should never have packed the Blue Dress for No Dang Reason. After wearing it with knit tights, a cardigan, and tall boots, I felt downright scandalous for the 3 minutes I donned it solo.
So I tried on a new dress I'd bought at Target a month ago. It's short in the front a long in the back. You know, a mullet dress. When I first spotted it, I thought it seemed like the quirkiest find ever. So I nabbed it. Then I saw youngsters everywhere sporting the look and it lost some of its sheen. On second glance, it was a giant arrow pointing straight to my chicken legs which were now partially sunburned (left knee cap, left side of right calf, lower right ankle. Don't ask.)
In the end: my gray knit skirt and a t-shirt that keeps narrowly escaping the Goodwill pile.
But at least we had the sunset.
Say it with me, "Awwwww!"
Let's speed this up a bit. One line captions!
"No comment."
"The tree stands alone."
"Dude looks sketchy."
"Sidewalk to Heaven."
"I hate tourists."
"I hope the lady doesn't remember that this is my third night in a row of mocha almond fudge."
I'm getting ready now to hunker down with the season finale of Scandal. Tomorrow is a crazy-hectic day, but I'm banking on it being the good kind of busy. Garden planting, garage saleing, and Calvin tests for his yellow belt!
Friends, I'm here to share the good, the bad, and the ugly about what I wore on vacation.
Let's start with the ugly, shall we? Then it's all down hill from here. I mean up hill.
Down hill.
Down hill?
I bought a proper cover-up. Old Navy. Full price! 30 fat smackers. I know. I get a little twitchy when I pay full price for anything, anymore. I have to really love it.
Guess what? I don't really love this. I thought I did.
But then I wore it for 4 days in blazing, sweltering Florida and I realized something that had previously eluded me: It has sleeves. 3/4 sleeves. (I cuffed them up by day 2. See above.)
All I really know is, it's pinstriped and gauzy and it has pockets.
Fun fact: the waist in these types of items never hits me at the right place. They're always creeping up, veering dangerously on empire. (If you're Stacy London, you pronounce this "ompeer". You're welcome.)
Fun fact 2: I am awkward in photos. For the life of me, I never know what to do with my arms. This shot cracks me up because I thought I had moved past the classic "hand on hip". Apparently not. Don't I look natural? Like I'm not even posing???
You know what else is awkward? When you brag about finally buying a proper swim suit cover up then you go to link up to it and find that it's a dress.
Is this weird? Because it feels like it is, or like it could get there quickly. In my defense, it's made of gauze. But it does explain the sleeves.
Okay, nevermind the me-ness of this picture. Nevermind the wadded up dress and the cup of undetermined contents hiding out in the shade of my lounger. Check out the suit. That SUIT! Gads, I love that flipping suit. It's the one I found on our Fancy Spring Vacation for $30 with the original $156 tags intact.
It's infinitely easier to pay $30 when you know you're getting a deal.
This suit is the perfect floral, the perfect cut. It's a tankini that somehow covers my free-range torso. I have to say, it feels a mite fancy. It's practically couture. I wish the bottoms were one size larger, but what the biz. It works well enough.
Note: I read this book. I had never read it before! Go ahead and gasp. Everyone I tell gasps. "You didn't have to read this in honors Lit in High School?" Well, no. For one thing, there was no honors Lit at my High School. There was also no Lit. There was English class. We graduated 43 in my class and my science teacher had also been my mom's science teacher. (That is neither her nor there, but it seems somehow relevant.) There were no options. Like zero. And see how well I turned out??
Note 2: I'm not trying to be cool in my purple fedora (Target clearance), so you don't have to feel embarrassed for me. It's just that I feared for the well-being of my forehead. Andy told me I looked like Michael Jackson. I took it as a compliment.
The Skirt. Millions upon tens of you asked about it in the last post,
and I'm afraid I won't be much help. I bought it a year or two ago at
Dear Old Navy. I'm sure it was on sale, although I do truly love it, so
perhaps not? We'll never know.
My favorite skill is mixing gingham with, well, anything. This combo especially pleases me. I'm here to tell you: Navy and white gingham is a neutral. Try to disprove me!
The necklace was found years ago at Target, I think.
It's important to note that this was the first full night of vacay, when I was still making an effort to be cute. (i.e. I styled my hair.)
I also fell deeply in love with a few products on this trip and I wouldn't think of keeping them from you.
1. Maybelline Color Whisper lipstick in Pin Up Peach Shiny and sheer and light and perfectly peach
2. Essence roll-on perfume oil by Maddie and Sophie This fragrance? Is the bomb. I had the opportunity to try a few of the new "gluten-free vegetarian glam" products by Maddie and Sophie and I died for this on roll ONE. I'll wear this forever. It's compact and long-lasting and it smells SO dreamy. Timi helped me test it and she loved it, too. We also glitzed around in their Gloss/Glow duo. It also smelled unbelievable and shined and softened us right up. Perfect for the beach or, you know, the neighborhood. Whatevs.
Maddie and Sophie are offering FPFG readers 20% off all orders using the code FPFG. (put code in comments section and the discount will be refunded to your account)
Hey - when all else fails? Grab an indigenous bloom.
You can't see it here, but I'm wearing my favorite new shorts. They're long and perfectly slouchy with a button fly. It makes me happy, this button fly.
Now. Back in September at the Influence conference I had the privilege of meeting two super cool cats, Barrett and Marisa. In a sea of unfamiliar faces both of theirs made a huge impression on me in one of those ways that you notice. Through them I became aware of their amazing work in Ethiopia with Mocha Club and fashionABLE. I signed up to be a fashionABLE affiliate (this means I get a small percentage of sales in exchange for advertising and selling their wares) because their video made me bawl my eyes out the first time I watched it. The work they are doing is redemptive and life-giving. I wanted to be a part of it. I told you about their amazing scarves around Christmas time, having no inkling that 5 months later, they would ask me to join them in Ethiopia, along with 9 others, on their "blogABLE" trip. To serve in this capacity has been a bloglong dream of mine, and the one dream that I always felt might eventually come to pass.
It will be my high honor to bring the stories of these women back to you, come August. I am thrilled and excited and slightly nerve-wracked about the responsibility of sharing these lives with sensitivity and clarity. I'm thrilled to be a part of the team and even more excited to "take" you with me.
I'm thrilled to share this space today with my friend Emily Wierenga who, along with Dr. Dena Cabrera, recently published Mom in the Mirror: Body Image, Beauty and Life After Pregnancy, a poignant and important look at restoring healthy body image in women. Though I haven't experienced pregnancy, I am a woman hauling around the complicated baggage of learning to love and accept exactly who I was created to be. I'm also a woman with a precious daughter of my own. I want to do justice to the honor of mothering her. I want her to understand her beauty much sooner than I understood my own.
Soak up Emily's poetry-words and leave a comment below to enter the giveaway for a free copy.
Maybe it’s one
of the reasons I whisper hallelujah each time I find a boy in my womb growing
long and limber, although I know eating disorders are just as real for them, 25 per cent real in fact, and we just don’t realize it…
That men
sometimes hide in toilet bowls and candy wrappers and weigh scales, but 75 % of women struggle with disordered eating and I never really wanted to have a girl. I never
really liked the color pink, and I still struggle with OCD and I joke that it’s
like ADD only different acronyms but when the stress becomes high it’s truly
debilitating.
Prayer is the
only antidote and if I did have a girl, I fear I’d always be adjusting her pink
ribbons. Or purple or whatever I would insist on her wearing, and I’m still
thin. Too thin, my husband says, the one who saw me through my anorexic relapse.
The one who prayed me through nights of insomnia, and days of only eating
supper, the one who gave me the ultimatum on the side of the highway after I
tried to drive us into traffic. It was him, or food, he said. He couldn’t do it
anymore, and I chose him, and every day now, I choose him.
I have two boys
of my own now, and I’m trying not to mess them up. I’m trying not to let my OCD
or my dislike of cooking or my struggle with portion size affect them or their
understanding of value. I’m trying to sit with them at mealtimes, and eat with
them and place my hand lovingly on theirs and to remember that food is much
simpler than it seems.
I’m 32, and I
like a piece or two of dark chocolate just as much as the next person along
with a glass of red wine (or two). But I catch myself looking in the mirror too
long after I’ve had a shower, or sub-consciously feeling the bony parts of my
arms.
I remind myself
of my mum, in many ways, who’s re-teaching herself things like balance and
moderation after eight years of brain cancer. I have to re-learn things too. I
know I’m recovered in the same way that I’m being healed, in the same way that
I’m saved even as I’m being perfected. And it’s all grace, they say, but I say
it’s all God.
Because that’s
what is growing inside of me now. God. All warm and dark and mysterious.
And I’m
beginning to wear pink, because I’ve realized it brings out the blush in my
cheeks. And I dream about her sometimes. A girl. With her chubby cheeks (yes, I
said chubby, even though I still struggle with eating even though I just wrote
a book on eating disorders) and her soft voice singing, as she toddles down the
hall and her brothers laugh when they see her, laugh and dance with her to the
music on the radio.
She’s wearing
lots of ribbons. All kinds of colors. And they look like freedom.
***
I’m giving away a copy of my new book today, Mom in the Mirror: Body Image, Beauty and
Life After Pregnancy, co-authored by Dr. Dena Cabrera, and foreword by
supermodel Emme.
Here’s an excerpt from the book:
Giving birth produces life in more than one sense. It’s the
baby powder, milky-breathed spirit found in the softest limbs you’ve ever felt,
and it’s the respect a man feels for his wife as he watches her give up her
body for another.
And it’s the deep-rooted soul
satisfying feeling of knowing you were born for more than the mirror. That you
were born to see the face of God in your child, and to know, you yourself are a
miracle.
I want you to have this book! Tell me ONE thing that you love about yourself, and you’ll be entered
into the draw!
Emily Wierenga is a mom to two
beautiful boys, wife to a handsome math teacher, and author of Chasing
Silhouettes: How to Help a Loved One Battling an Eating Disorder (www.chasingsilhouettes.com)
and Mom in the Mirror: Body Image, Beauty and Life After Pregnancy (www.mominthemirrorbook.com).
To learn more, please visit www.emilywierenga.com.
That's pretty much what we did for four straight days.
Thanks for reading!
Goodnight!
Nevermind. I'm not done yammering.
If you know one thing about me, it's that I'm highly gifted and exceptionally talented at dragging out the simple and mundane and exhausting all of you with my incessant jaw-flapping. Just be glad it's not the 60's and you're here at my house where I've already set up the slide show. You know I would be that girl.
Here's where I'd like to start: What is it about vacation? What is it about sitting around reading books in the sun? I kept thinking - couldn't I just do this at home? For free?
The answer is - Nope.
Day after day I lounged in my chair and marveled at the vast completeness of the white space in my mind. No errands. No doctor's appointments. No grim hour of doom (aka homework). No meals to cook, laundry to fold. No alarms. Heck, no emails! All I had to do was roll myself out of bed, yank on my swimming suit, and walk a few paces to the pool, where I parked my rear and stuck my nose in a book.
Sometimes I multi-tasked and ate an apple while I read.
It was altogether freeing.
Just go on a kidless vacation. I dare you.
And I highly recommend going with another couple. I don't know, it just works. But it's imperative - imperative! - that you have similar ideas about vacationing.
In our case: lazy/lazy. Boom.
(Although Timi did dare to run one morning and they both took a couple of real, bonafide "walks", so they're on probation. We had no choice. Just following the rules.)
The other benefit of going with friends is you don't have to ask the waitress to take a blurry photo of you and your honey. You can just ask Andy! This is Andy's trade-mark. Somehow he always ends up focusing on the gigantic bottle of rum instead of our faces.
Try #2 was better. I can't remember the precise configuration, but I like this shot. I look dainty and shorter than my husband, like normal wives.
Okay, this next montage is important for a few reasons.
#1: It highlights the exact moment that I fell dangerously in love with mocha almond fudge ice cream. (Timi got coffee instead, which is a double-dipped infraction if ever there was one.)
#2: The most hilarious conversation was happening just across the sidewalk from us.
It looks like we're talking about something really...interesting...and funny. In reality I kept saying, "I'm eavesdropping right now. Look natural." "I can't focus on what you're saying because that guy is talking about METH! Out loud! Keep talking. Look natural."
Right about now the guy-in-question was screaming into his phone, "She tries to act like she's so tough and like she can do so many push-ups and pull-ups. I said to her, 'You think you can do more push-ups than me????! Well, that's not fair because I weigh more than you. So duh! You wanna make it a real contest, you lay on my back while I do 20 push-ups then I'll lay on your back while YOU do 20 push-ups.' He he he!"
Then, within a fraction of a second, the conversation took a dangerous turn for the creepy and gross and we spent the rest of the trip mentally scrubbing our brains with Clorox.
The whole scene took place just outside Cuban Paradise, fyi. Apparently hand-rolled cigars are noteworthy. Who knew?
BREAKING NEWS: That is the man! See his knees and his dog leash? Doesn't he look harmless enough with his nondescript middle-aged calves and suspicious USPS-knock-off button-down? He's not! Not harmless! Also, he has no sensitivity for the public air waves. He bellowed his dirty laundry into his phone for all the world to hear. He gives flip-phoners a bad name, that one.
PS - I don't know why I'm making that look, except that Cory said I looked like I was throwing a gang sign with my cone and instinctively his comment threw me into this face, favored for facebook profile pics by many of the youngish urban girls we know and love. And yes, I know that gangs aren't funny.
But sometimes they are. Like when an almost 40-year-old mom thinks she has even the slightest clue about them in her maxi skirt with her mocha almond fudge.
But mostly - not funny. You're right.
To Do:
Research the relationship between cigar shops and large statues of Native American chiefs.
I only know this is a "thing" because of that one episode of Seinfeld where they Indian-give the Indian statue.
Okay, I still have 10 photos left to painstakingly detail and I'm only on day 1. I can't even handle the stress of my job right now! This always happens. I tell myself no one really cares about my vacation and that I should just choose my favorite 3-5 shots and be on my way. (Of course you're more astute than I and you know I'm immune to reason so you probably saw this coming.)
Stay tuned for parts II-VIII.
Until then, I'll leave you with one parting shot:
I'm sorry.
They begged to be commemorated. They terrified me.
It felt so good to slow all the way down today. Daddy worked at the annual neighborhood Help-A-House project and we played memory, read books, did a little crafting and unpacking. (But just a little.) I wore multiple layers and knee socks and watched in horror as my tan chipped off before my eyes in teeny, tiny icicles.
But who needs a tan with a heart this full?
We sat around the dinner table together eating our new favorite comfort food.
(We stir-fried in fresh broccoli, sliced carrots, red cabbage and extra
green onions. Also, we subbed veg oil for canola and red pepper flakes for the chili oil.) In honor of tomorrow, conversation turned to all the other mamas - the birth moms, the foster moms. As usual, it's fascinating to see how each of them processes things so differently.
**
Silas: Did my Korea Mommy used to boss me?
**
Silas (later): Then you came all the way to Korea to get me! To be my boss!
**
Me: Siley, what do you think your birth mommy looks like?
Silas: She looks Korea. Like Sunny. (Sunny is the owner of our fave Korean restaurant.)
**
Me: What do you love the best about Shosh?
Ruby: (grinning) That she's almost the same as me. We have almost the same curly hair.
Me: Do you think she loves you?
Ruby: Yes!
Me: You're right. Why does she love you so much?
Ruby: Because I'm her girl! (She then launched into a lengthy tribute to the "silliness" of her birth mom's husband. It's just the way she rolls and I can't get enough of her random insights and short-circuit thought connections.)
**
Calvin: So I really have FOUR moms.
Me and Daddy: ???
Calvin: Well, you know how God says He is like our Mom and our Dad? So - four!
**
Every year since I've become a Mama, just when I think I can't possibly feel any more love for all our people, a bit more slips in, right about now.
I think of our birth moms all the time. I will them to see how well their boys are doing, how happy and smart they are. I'm grateful every minute that Ruby's doesn't have to wonder about those things. But this time of year is different. It's more. To me, this day is theirs. I don't know that they would see it the same way, but I find no alternative. They are a tender and powerful part of the stories of my children, and even of mine. They have much to teach me about obedience and trust. They're beautiful, and I don't need a picture to prove it.
This year, there's a new one wedged in to my heart in a whole different way. She's somewhere out there, in Chicago or who-knows-where. She brought our tallest son into the world nineteen years ago and I wish she could have stuck around for everything that happened next. I hope she'll be back. Like all the others, I hope she somehow knows he's well-loved today. I hope her heart isn't hurting tonight.
Each story is different and my questions could fill a palace, if I let them. But I don't ask because it simply does not matter. What we know for sure is that God made a way for these Littles. He took sorrow and tears and shaped them into something lovely and eternal. He breathed a living bloom into a place where there was desperation. He gave courage where many could never have imagined it possible. He did all of that, so I plead and believe that He'll finish this work, that He'll heal all of the hurts, every one.
We pray for them extra, tonight. We purposely wind conversation around to them because we know our kids won't ever forget, but we also want them to remember that we've always been right here, helping them hold on to the thread that connects their heart to ours, and to one more.
We had a vacation, man. We did all the regular vacationy stuff but you might be appalled surprised to hear that neither of us set foot in the ocean. We're weirdos, okay? We own it. We did walk on the beach a few times, and that has to be worth something. We also ate a lot. (Can that please be worth something, too?) (It can on vacation!)
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
It's almost ten peaem. I'm roasting crack broccoli because I need some green like the salsa needs its chip. There's a frozen pizza on deck - a rising crust Margherita - totally legit. We're home and hungry. We're also lucky, because there's a giant bowl of mangoes and a fridge stuffed to the gills. My mom is the exact type of rad that stocks the fridge and washes the sheets for me. She's also the kind of rad that buys large boxes of sugar cereal and two boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes for them. Yet somehow, in the midst of all the rogue sugar, Calvin said to me, "Grandma spoils us...but in a way that's pretty healthy."
(I'm on to you, Grams.)
I'm full of the feeling of the goodness of all that there is.
Is that specific enough? Vague enough? Does it acutely indicate that I'm still slightly trapped between my vacation-state-of-mind and my life-is-beauty-full rhythm?
I always feel this way on the heels of a get-away and I'm sorry to say, I always feel compelled to say it right here. Every ding dang time. Sorry about your luck. I probably could've just linked to this post and called it a night, but what fun would that be? My fingers have missed these keys. And you.
It's just that I love vacation. I love the full letting go of it all. I love that dinner appears like magic and ones I love are right there with me. I love the books and the mags, the movies and the fruity drinks. I love the sun on my legs and the sleeping in and the splotchy suntan.
But I love the thought of home even more. I love what waits for me right here. I love that they missed us more than they realized. (I love that they were too safe and having too much fun to notice.) I love my kitchen and my bed. I love the perspective that taking a break holds a mirror to. I love being reminded of how good I already have it.
Here's something I don't love: realizing days later that I put the wrong links in my last post. Yeesh. If nothing else, it's proof that I fell clean off the grid for 4.5 days. I have to confess, I sort of loved that, too.
But vacay's over, so let's fix it, because they really were good reads. (Still are, in fact.)
My today will be spent soaking up words on a page, sun from the Florida coast, and love from my man. I'm hoping for unexpected thrills and quiet mixed with a strong swig of rowdy. I plan to notice beauty for the grace that it is and sleep in late.
How 'bout you?
While you're thinking about it, have a peek at these fine reads:
