Academia

Perhaps it is because I love higher education, specifically Yale, or perhaps because I had the same fears when I was 20 and finishing college, I'm not sure what it is, but Marina's Article really got me.

When I read her lines saying, "We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time." I cried. She was so happy and excitedly planning for her future and then she's gone. How tragic. I hope her story is a gentle reminder to live in the now because we aren't promised tomorrow...even when we're 22.

Perspective

Perspective. That's a really important word, isn't it? Yes.

Today I walked over to the Student Center for an omelet. Ball State should be renowned for its omelets. Seriously, they're SO good. And they're good for you. They're also only $2.16. Yep. Awesome. Anyway, I went over to get an omelet and saw a blind man with his dog eating alone. I couldn't stop watching him for a few reasons 1.) I'd not seen him around before and the campus is pretty quiet in the summer 2.) I love dogs and they always catch my attention. His dog was peacefully sitting at his side (not begging like my incredibly cute puppy is as I blog and eat dinner- HA!). The man was using his fingers to know how much food was left on his plate, used touch to find his orange juice bottle and wash down his meal. Then he looked a little confused. I realized that he didn't know where to take his tray and trash to so I rushed over. I said, "You're all finished! Let me take your tray for you." He looked up and said, "Bless you, thank you. Please recycle my orange juice bottle!" I melted. I told him I would certainly recycle and wished him a good day. My omelet was ready and I was checking out when the cashier told me she saw the exchange. "You know, I would have cleared his tray later," she told me. I casually said, "He did not know that and looked concerned. You couldn't see his face from your perspective, but I could so I just took care of it." She just smiled at me and said, "Perspective is certainly everything, isn't it?" I agreed.

I share the above story not to pat myself on the back. I just thought it was a beautiful illustration of perspective. In this case I just happened to see the big picture. I don't always; that is for sure. He also gave me some perspective on my work day. I'd been feeling bad for myself because all my co-workers are on vacation and I'm a little overwhelmed by a project I've been working on. Seeing him eating breakfast all by himself in an unfamiliar place that he couldn't even see made me realize that I needed to suck it up. That I have things pretty darn good (because I do) and get to work. I did just that and I got a ton accomplished today.

I hope he knows that he was important to me because he was. He was my definition of brave.    

Happy 12th birthday, CeCe

We cannot believe that our "little" niece Grace is 12 years old today! Ah! What happened to the little 5 year old that used to show off all her new clothes to me?! TEAR! Happy birthday, Gracie- we LOVE you!!

On the move

This is little photo pretty much described what happened to us; we changed. We didn't want to feel like we were a part of the rat race anymore. What was at the finish line anyway?

Gone are our dreams of living the "American dream" and climbing the corporate ladder.

One of my friends posted an article to Facebook the other day that had two quotes that

succently described how we feel:

"They pass from a materialist to a post-materialist phase, where they start thinking more about quality of life and meaning of life"

"The good thing about crisis is that maybe it awakens this other side of us, and helps us to step off the treadmill a bit, and think about why we're here — besides just paying a mortgage."

While the article was about Spanish people flocking back to church during their financial crisis, I thought those two sentences really said a lot.

We want something totally different. We're going to leave it all behind. No, not right away. We have to plan, of course. In about 2 years we'll sell our house and move to the house we currently use as a rental. At that time both of our cars will be paid off and we can focus on paying down the remainder of my student loans. In about 4 years we'll sell the rental house, our cars, any household goods of value and donate the rest. Then we'll make that change I'm talking about; we'll become professional travelers. We want to see the world and spend time learning with people from all walks of life. I call it my mission to "learn with and love on people around the world" but Jackson thinks the term "love on" is sketchy. I assured him it was more of a Christ-like term than anything else, but he is not budging. Typical. ;)

This plan has radically changed our spending habits already. We're not going to buy things that in 4-5 years we won't take with us on our journey. We have no idea how long we'll be gone so it seems silly to amass a bunch of things here just to leave them behind for an indefinite period of time. The plan has also made me change my perspective on a lot of things. It made me realize how easy life is here: groceries down the street, friends close and Grammy close to watch MacKenzie just to name a few. It also made me realize that if we settle for an easy life we are doing just that: settling. We don't want to settle; we want to seize the day!

We're researching a ton into the rules in different countries about how long we can stay and what all we can do while we are there. We hope to find some kind of work overseas perhaps a teaching job for me; we'll see. There is a great need for us to mobilize and show the people of the world that they're loved and that they matter. We want to stop working to make our lives "better" with material things and start making it better with relationships and experiences. Please pray for us as we continue to work on this somewhat long-term plan. We're pretty excited!

Visiting babies!

We got to go see two little lovebugs at the Porterfield house tonight. Jackson cooked dinner and I caught up with Heidi. That's fair, right?! Baby Jocelin is almost a month old. I swear she is smaller now compared to the day after her birth! She's tiny. She packs a loud cry, though. HA! :)

She's really quite chill and just slept for the first few hours of our visit. I stared at her patiently waiting for her to wake up so I could hold her.

"Leave me alone."

Doesn't she look so cute all bundled up?! :)

Jackson L-O-V-E-S playing with Jax; they're of the similar maturity level. ;)

Jax has gotten SO big!

Yay! Baby J woke up and let me hold her.

Jackson, Jax and Gunner got some major play time in this evening.

I love this photo of Jax wanting the ball from big bully Jackson!

Jackson attempted to "rock" Jax to sleep. It was not a success.

Baby J making a wardrobe change into her pajamas for the evening. She's SO tiny.

I thought her jammies made her look like a glowworm. :) I loved getting my baby fix; it made coming home to my quiet house all the more special. (evil laugh) Thanks for sharing your little loves, Porterfield's, we'll be over again soon!

Ouch, Mr. Sun!

We spent our final day in Palm Beach at the beach, of course. As you can see from the photo above by Tuesday morning we had to entire beach to ourselves. I kept asking Jackson how he managed to get me a private beach on our budget. HA! :) It was so relaxing and peaceful. I guess we got caught up in the beauty of it all because I forgot to put sunscreen on my back! Yeah, we were out in the hot Florida sun from 11:00-3:00 and I did not have sunscreen on my back. I'm paying for that now. I hurt so badly you cannot even believe the pain. (I'm not being dramatic. At all. I promise. It HURTS!) Needless to say after spending the afternoon in the water I was sufficently sun-kissed killed and it was time to hop our flight home.

This was the second trip in a row that all of our flights went seamlessly even with connections on each leg. Amazing. We also booked our flights seperately because I had Delta credit to use and were never assigned seats next to one another. Each flight Jackson got us relocated to better seats and together. I swear he is the master of travel. I love it.

We recently converted to packing in duffel bags to avoid getting our bags taken away and checked when the overhead comparments are full. They do not make duffel bags go under the plane which saves us time, money and the hassel of checked baggage. Normally having a duffel is not a big deal for me but by the time we landed in Indianapolis that evening my sunburn was just killing me and carrying my bag was excruitating. Jackson took it upon himself to carry his backpack, his duffel and my (Coach brand, of course) duffel through the airport so I could limp along freely behind him with just our beach bag. Is he not the best?! I love him. I told him this was great because I got to admire him from behind (ha!) and my duffel bag (it is really pretty. Jackson got it for me in Key West at some point. I cannot recall when that was, but I use the duffel all the time and always get compliments on its cuteness!).

We got home and didn't even completely unpack and start laundry because we were exhausted and it was late. (If you know me, you know that is an incredible feat Jackson pulled off. I always unpack and start laundry right away!)We had such a great trip! I'm totally behind on laundry now but that's OK. It was worth it. :)

Boat for two, please

Sunday night we went to dinner at one of my favorite places, Rocco's Tacos, on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach. It is SO good! Then we went and sat at a nearby park and enjoyed the fact that we did not have to go to work on Monday. HA! :)

Monday morning I went to spend some alone time at my "happy place" (this is the exact location that I take myself to when someone says "find your happy place") which is the Starbucks at City Place in West Palm. Why is this my favorite place? 1. Happy memories. I've spent time here with some of my favorite people ever including my girls from my time at PBA and Jackson, of course. 2. Gorgeous surroundings. The palm trees lined up out front make my heart smile. 3. Fantastic drinks. I know some people think all drinks are the same; they're not. The drinks at this Starbucks taste better. 4. I've not been to a more wonderful place for people watching. It was nice to spend a couple of hours with an interesting book just soaking it all in. 

That afternoon Jackson and I rented a kayak for the first time. The photo above is from where we kayaked but obviously we aren't the people pictured. :) We were chugging right along with our paddles until Jackson told me that while there were no sharks in this shallow area (whew!) there might be alligators. It took me a good 10 minutes to calm my nerves. (We did not see a single gator. PTL!) Then I've found my zen again and a jumping fish comes out of the water and nearly into our kayak. I screamed at the top of my lungs. Naturally this was the exact moment that another kayak was passing us by and the other boat along with Jackson got a hardy laugh at my expense. :) Whatever. ;)

This was our view while kayaking. Did I mention that I loved kayaking in Florida? Ok. I'll move on then.

When our arms screamed for a break we headed over to the beach at the state park where we just kayaked.

Jackson went out too far- as always. One day he is going to get either sucked in by the undertow or get attacked by a shark, I swear. I cannot even watch him in the water because it stresses me out too much. Anyway, he made it out alive this time and we enjoyed an afternoon at the beach before the thunderstorms rolled in.

We spent our final evening in Palm Beach at the movies ("The Lucky One" was decent. It did not match the greatness of the book. The movies never do.), dined at the Cheesecake Factory (another favorite- yum!) and then parked by the ocean and listened to the waves crash mixed with the rain. It was one of the best date days ever. My Jackson is just to most beautiful, wonderful man. I enjoy my life with him more than I ever dreamed.

Mother's day comedy

I got the above photo this morning with a message reading: "HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! Love, MacKenzie

I responded with: "Aww. I love that little girl!" Then Jackson came up with the idea to send a similar photo to his mother to wish her a happy day. Hilarious. We weren't sure if she'd get the joke, but Jackson dropped down on the rug in our hotel room and posed for me.

I sent the photo above with a note reading: "Happy Mother's day, Mommy!" and right on cue Susie responded "Aww! I love my little boy!"

SHE GOT THE JOKE. H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S. :)

Birthday boo

Today we celebrated Jackson's birthday. He was really bothered to be turning the big 3-5, but he's never been more beautiful in my eyes. :) We took a quick 5k walk this morning and had breakfast at Starbucks. Then we headed to the beach. We've been going to a more private beach and it has been so nice and quiet there. I love it.

 Jackson loved it today because the waves were much bigger than yesterday.

He's in there...somewhere.

We went to dinner tonight at one of our favorite restaurants down here, Sonny's. The birthday boy even had a diet coke (tisk.) to celebrate his big day.

We went back to the beach tonight and played with a little puppy who was out with his family. He was adorable. Then we decided to go grab some cake for the birthday boy so we got Cheesecake Factory slices to go. It was a good day. I love my birthday boy so much.

MacKenzie, of course, wanted to wish her daddy a happy birthday, too. She's staying at Grammy's so that her daddy can spend time at the beach for his big day.

Getaway

Life after the wedding shower has still been busy. How does that happen?! I've moved to summer hours at work so my schedule is now 7:30-4:00. It is amazing, but getting used to getting up 30-40 minutes early was tough. It is worth it, though. I'm loving my longer evenings. I've gotten back into seeing my personal trainers regularly and even branched out and tried a new workout. Thursday evening I went to a Pure Barre class in Carmel with a friend from high school, Amber. Pure Barre is a mix of yoga, pilates, core work, ballet and some hell I think. It was SO hard; I loved it. Birthday alert: I'd love a giftcard to take more Pure Barre classes. End of hint. ;)

Between going to exercise class, dinner with Amber, finishing a tax return (my LAST return of this tax season- WOOOOOT) and packing, we had a late night. We only got about 4 hours of sleep before we had to get on the road for our 6 a.m. flight to Palm Beach this morning. That's ok. It was worth it to get here and have all day to do whatever we wanted in one of our favorite places on earth. The first stop? The beach, of coure. 

My happy boy. We applied sunscreen (OK, I applied sunscreen), but still managed to get quite a bit of sun on our first day out. Oops. :)

One of Jackson's co-workers lives down here and suggested we go to a restaurant in Jupiter (about 30 minutes North of Palm Beach) that had an awesome atmosphere called Guanabanas.

We had to wait an hour to be seated but the place was so awesome that we didn't care. It was right on the water and was just so cool. We loved it. Our dinners were really great, too. Jackson says it will be on our "tight rotation" (Our term for our favorite haunts) from now on when we're in Southern Florida. We finally came home and crashed after a long day of traveling. I'm looking forward to celebrating Jackson's birthday tomorrow.

THE Bridal Shower

The bridal shower that has all but consumed our lives as of late has been successfully completed. Shaya looked beautiful, got a lot of great gifts, received a lot of warm wishes and enjoyed some great food.

 We played a quick game of bridal B-I-N-G-O and the groom's mother won. Hooray!

All of the bridesmaids came together and made our house look super festive and fun.

 We had an absolute ton of food and it was all amazing.

 We had right about 30 guests attend- whew!

Shaya made out like a bandit!

 The food room worked out just great.

 The groom's mother winning at bridal shower bingo!

 Shaya sitting pretty waiting to open her presents.

 We did the wedding dress out of toilet paper game and the gown on the right was our winner. How they made that flower in 5 minutes out of t.p. is beyond me.

Shaya opened all of her lovely gifts and I dutifully noted them down for her thank you notes.

 The mothers enjoying the show.

 She got some gorgeous night gowns.

 I made a collage of photos of Shaya that took us all down memory lane.

Britt, Kim, Shaya, Hannah and Me...the making of one super fun wedding for sure! :)