About

The Short Story:

I am a young woman, saved by the grace of God, married for five wonderful years to My Marine, mama to my precious Little Man and sweet Itty Bitty Man, lover of beauty, lover of music, happiest when surrounded by family and dear friends. Above all else, one who is thankful to be found in Christ.

The Full-Disclosure Memoir:

I was born in the year… wait, scratch that. A lady doesn’t tell her age. (Although, if you do a little looking, you could find it. Here’s a hint.)

I’ve been a California girl most of my life–born in Arizona and lived in Japan before I was old enough to remember it. I was raised in a little desert town, and as much as I can’t stand cactus, it’s home to me. I love green–the mountains or the South–more than anything, but Yucca plants and Joshua trees make my heart happy.

In 2004, I married a Colorado cowboy and promptly told him he didn’t necessarily need to get rid of the cowboy hat, but I wasn’t too sure about the 1995 Garth Brooks shirts.

He didn’t take that too well and bought me some Wranglers.

Four years later, we’ve reached a happy medium–I still look like I’m from California, John looks like… well, not quite Rocky Mountains and not quite California, but somewhere in between–at least not 1995. Handsome as can be, even when he does put on that cowboy hat and the Wranglers. He’s my best friend on earth and I don’t know how he can be so perfect. As my cousin said, “John’s just in a higher class.” To which my brother replied, “No, he’s just in his OWN class–above all the rest.”

Oh, did I mention he’s a Marine? My Marine? He is…. and he returned home from Iraq about a year ago. But you can read all about that in the 2008 archives. Goodness knows I blogged enough about it. This was our first deployment together and was a difficult journey, but stretching is a good thing. God knew I needed it. He’s proven Himself real to us and done more in both of our lives through the Sandy Spot trip than we could have foreseen. We mean it when we say we wouldn’t have traded it. The lessons were THAT good.

We have two little boys–a spring 2006 baby and a fall 2007 baby. They’re nineteen months apart and as different as can be. Together, they keep us on our toes and make us laugh every day. We do some crazy things in our parenting and don’t fit into any mold we’ve found so far–we cloth diaper, co-sleep, breastfeed well past one year (well, I do that part), and wear our babies in slings. And yet we think some crying can be beneficial, value routine, think our babies should learn to soothe themselves to some extent and believe in definite, purposeful child raising with the utmost emphasis being leading their hearts to Jesus. We’ve read Sears, Ezzo, Pearl, Pantley, Tripp and more. Our favorite author on child rearing? God. Funny how that can be, huh?

Being a military family, we signed the lease on our fourth house on our third anniversary. For now, we’re stationed in a beachy California location and will live here forever if given the choice. Too bad we don’t actually GET that choice. Not only do we love the cool weather here, but we can’t imagine life without our awesome church family. If we move, they’re going too. We’re also only a couple hours from all of my family and a day’s drive from John’s. Perfection.

I became a Christian when I was five years old–led to the Lord after a Wednesday night church service. As I grew, my knowledge and understanding of what I did that night grew as well. As most kids raised in Christian homes, I went through a few rough years during my teens in which my personal spiritual pendulum swung all over the place. For a long time I struggled with ultra-conservativism, extreme self-righteousness, living my life by man-made standards–but soon found that if I was only living a certain way for the approval of other people, what was stopping me from doing whatever a new group of people approved of, even if it was the other extreme? At sixteen, for the first time, I saw the salvation I’d accepted as a little girl for what it really is–Jesus dying and saving me, a sinner. A sinner. Unworthy of God’s grace. Nothing to offer Him. But He loved me and gave Himself even still, making a way for me to enter eternity with Him. It stared me in the face and forever changed my life. My spiritual journey has taken many twists and turns from there on out, and it’s far from over–in fact, sometimes I have more questions than I do answers–but I’m clinging to Jesus, knowing He’s unchanging, no matter what I try to make of Him.

This “About” page wouldn’t be complete and my blog won’t make sense without me mentioning that in December of 2008, my father–the conservative church deacon, marriage counselor, top firefighter, homeschool convention worker, hero–was suddenly discovered to be involved with a woman who was not his wife, my mother. The details are many, sticky, and sordid, but this is a vital part of my story and a recurring, if sometimes underlying, theme in my writing. I can hardly pick a post or two highlighting this situation, but it can be found beginning in the January 2009 archives.

I’m a writer by nature and can no more stop writing than I can stop breathing. I write to tell a story… a story of a life that is far, far from perfect, but is finding the glory of a worthy God in the mundane and the magnificent. I’ve heard it said that friendship is borne when one person says to another, “Ah, you too?” My hope is that a bit of such fellowship is what you’ll find in my story and know you are not alone, whether it be in changing diapers and making dinner or delving in and discovering the truth of God.

If I were to list hobbies, likes and dislikes in a classic pen-pal ad style, I’d say I’m an avid reader, although sometimes, it’s more blogs than books (not always a good thing), I taught myself to crochet but can’t knit more than a dishcloth, like to sew but haven’t done it in a few years, can’t scrapbook for the life of me but love pictures, love baking but cooking is work, adore diet Coke but can’t have more than one cup of coffee without getting jittery, think music my lifeblood but mourn over the time I don’t spend on the piano since I had kids, love coloring in the lines while my toddler scribbles, can’t play team sports worth beans, am addicted to exercise but struggle with emotional eating, fight against some not so great tendencies toward extremism in all things, I like clothes but have no real fashion sense, tend to clean obsessively but love when the baby dumps toys all over the floor, can be very cheap but adore frequent date nights, am a total night owl but am thrilled by seeing a sunrise, and I talk way too much.

So that’s me in a nutshell. Are you sufficiently scared away yet? If so, sorry bout that.

If not, see you around…