“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.” ~Leonardo da Vinci

In the past four months:

• We moved to a new town, away from family, friends, and church
• Said town is a  rural town where I need to drive to yet another town in order to visit Walmart
• I finished a five year college career and GRADUATED
• Our youngest finished a four year college career and GRADUATED
• I witnessed my first snake and then…my first mouse
• I built a deck, with a *little help from my man. Okay, maybe it was the other way around…
• We spied newly born buzzards in the window of the old haybarn
• We planted our first-ever garden
• I have sat many mornings and evenings on the deck we built and delighted in the cows in the back pasture
• We’ve hosted several rich and fun-filled family and friends weekends at our country place
• I got a TEACHING JOB!!
• I witnessed my first newborn calf
• We’ve begun to harvest the vegetables from our garden – such deliciousness!

All of this has happened in the past four months and I’ve not blogged about any of it. It’s been the equivalent of a thick tongue and dry mouth…LOTS to say but no real way to put it all out there and feel like I am doing any of it real justice.

I woke up this morning though and – as I walked through my house, with the sunshine splaying happily on the floors of this old house, my coffee cup warm and cradled in my hands – I realized I am doing more of an inservice by not at least attempting to journal all this newness.

All this wonderfulness.

I am not an ordinary farm girl. What is the antithesis of a farm girl? Find that word in the dictionary and I am sure you’d come much closer to finding my picture attached. Yet I am experiencing such a deep-seated contentment and sense of wonder these days that is making this transition a true adventure.

Google has been my point of reference for everything in the  last few months. How far apart should I space my zucchini plants? Google. What does poison ivy look like? Google. What are the nesting habits of buzzards? Google. What kind of flowers do I need to put in my garden to keep away the bugs? Google. What kind of snake is this? Google. Pros and cons to having a farm cat?  Google. Recipes for thing to do with zucchini when you have a bumper crop? Google.

Trust me, it goes on and on. And this not-your-ordinary transplanted farm girl/teacher/writer couldn’t be happier about it all. That’s not to say that snakes and mice bring any sort of happiness at all. I do, however, accept that they have their specific place in this wild new territory I now call home, and I respect that.

And that, my friends, may be the newest new stuff of it all.

I may not have all the right words to introduce this new life to you, but I do promise to try. I will leave the bits of pieces of writing that is happening now that my soul has found this fresh inspiration in the country air. I will upload pictures of birds and of projects and of any variety of animals and/or pests. I will share glimpses of the joy and wonder we are finding here as we make memories we’ll treasure forever with family and with friends.

This promise is brought to you by a not-so-ordinary farm girl.

“Life gives us brief moments with another…but sometimes in those brief moments we get memories that last a lifetime.”

2010 was chock full of those type of moments.

Brief  little pockets of time that swept down, wrapped us all in their warm grasp, and then left us changed for a lifetime.

We celebrated with MJ’s mom as she turned 90 years old. 

We hosted a Mystery Dinner Party and laughed until the tears rolled.

We spent lots of time doing fun things with the little people that make our life so GRAND!

We celebrated the major milestones…

and the tiny sliver of moments that took our breath away.

We welcomed new family members with joy, and we said good-bye to others who left  footprints on the pathways of our hearts.

We enjoyed time with friends, drinking in all the joys that come with these type of friendships.

We cruised the deep, blue sea…

and enjoyed road trips with our nearest and dearest.

We had epic sleep-overs, complete with McDonalds, popcorn, and movies, with all the littles in our life.

We took in Game 5 of the World Series…and had so much fun that we didn’t even mourn when the Rangers lost that night.

Most of all, we lived a year full of loving this family. The family that God has so mightily blessed us with.

2010 was an amazing year, filled to the brim with amazing people, amazing events, and amazing moments.

Moments that have left us forever changed. And forever grateful that lived them.

1.) Carter’s FIRST football game since having his cast removed! BIG DAY!

2.) Next up…Madie’s volleyball game. The girl’s got game, y’all – she made us PROUD!

3.) Moments I treasured when they didn’t even know I was looking!

A weekend well-lived. A weekend well-loved.

School work slammed me last week, and I was pretty much held hostage by a whole host of papers, exams, research topics, and projects.

In between all the craziness, though, there were moments of pure bliss. And even though I missed blogging about them right after they happened, I certainly don’t want to miss mentioning them because…they were THAT special to me.

So…to recap…

1.) Madie turned 11!  In true family fashion, we celebrated BIG.

Then after that HUGE meal and even BIGGER amounts of LAUGHTER and LOVE, it was time to head back to the grindstone for several more days of hard work and deadlines. Boo.

Friday DID finally arrive, however, and with its arrival came a very special evening. Our dear friends were installed as the new pastors of a great church. Our own pastor delivered a touching keynote message. The entire night was amazing on every level and MJ and I were so honored to share the night – and the experience – with some of the BEST people we know. Dawn and Kevin – we LOVE you dearly!

We arrived back home in Commerce a little after midnight, and were back up at 6:30 the next morning. I would say, bright n’ early, except there was nothing bright going on at all. It was a dark and stormy morning, to be sure, but the Bois d’ Arc Bash 5K Run was on – rain OR shine!

So we pulled on our shoes, caps…and rain ponchos…and lined up at the entry booth to receive our bib numbers and race maps. Then we stretched, chatted, and tried to stay out of the rain until the call came to approach the starting line.

Then the next thirty-five minutes were some of the MOST fun I’ve ever had with my husband. I had to laugh as I thought of all the weeks of training I had endured and how NONE of it had prepared me for running in a torrential downpour and leaping deep and wide puddles with a single bound…

We managed to cross the finish line TOGETHER and we must have been grinning from ear to ear because amid all the cheers I made out, “Look at those smiles!’ And I have no doubt we WERE smiling. It was fun, plain and simple.

MJ didn’t have the luxury of the same amount of training times so the effort he put forth is all the more to be praised. He’s my hero! He also makes me laugh – a LOT.

I walked into the living room late Saturday afternoon and found him sitting in his chair. “How’s your body?”

“It hurts.” He patted his lower stomach. “Everything from my navel down.”

Like I said, he makes me laugh.

And when I laugh – with MJ, with our family, with friends – I gulp in big breaths of fresh air.

Just the remedy for an intense week, don’t you think?

Mike and I stopped by Mom’s on the way to church. Knowing they had already left to attend the Grandparents’ Breakfast, I wanted to slip in and set the big table in preparation for our family lunch. We were armed with all things festive and fun, and it was my intention to do what I could to ease us all into this very special lunch.

This would be the first time we’d all gather around the big table since my grandfather’s passing in July. And that is quite a bit of time for a family that has racked up quite a sum of memories by spending hours at a time sitting around this very table – sharing stories, sharing laughter, even sharing a few tears from time to time…

Last Sunday we gathered for an impromtu lunch at Mom’s too, but we almost instinctively huddled around the much smaller table in the kitchen. No one ever said a word, but it was like we all knew that we weren’t quite ready to take on the big table yet. The emptiness of my grandfather’s chair – and the one next to it, for that matter, that my grandmother had always occupied – seemed powerfully empty.

But yesterday was a special day. We were gathering to celebrate Robyn’s birthday. And one of our family celebrations definitely calls for the big table, no question about it. Not just because my sister-in-law deserves it, which she certainly does, but because we all deserve the feeling that only comes when we gather in that way.

So we left home extra early, Mike and I, so we could swing by Mom’s first and set the table. As I walked into the semi-darkness of the dining room, I was prepared to feel almost anything. Except for maybe the wiggle of delight that made its way up my middle and all the way to my face when I flipped on the light and first glimpsed the table.

Mom had beat me to it.

She had opened the bags I’d left at her house earlier in the week and she’d set the table, fun and festive. Each place was set with care. Mike and I carefully added the touches we’d brought in silence and then quietly turned out the lights and left. A deep feeling of contentment mixed with anticipation welled inside of me. All was as it should be. The family celebration would be perfect. I just knew it.

And it was. Perfect. My nieces – who’ve always sat at the “kid’s table” in the kitchen received a promotion. They accepted their new seats at the big table with a maturity and a grace that made me proud. And we laughed. And we told stories. And we passed Kael. And we shared food, love, and made new memories.

We did the Big Table.

And it fed our hearts in the best way possible.

What’s that saying, the more things change, the more they stay the same?

Well, times have certainly changed in America’s high schools across the country. Technology literally resides in each student’s fingers in the forms of cell phones and iPods. Slang has developed to a whole new, unprecedented level. And traditional blackboards have been replaced with uber-wonderful laptops and PowerPoint presentations.

But one thing remains the same.

Friday night lights.

That’s right, are you ready for some foooooootbaaaaaalll?

High school football at its finest. Coaching at its funnest. At least from my perspective…that of one of the coach’s siblings.

I don’t get to attend many of Kevin’s games but that doesn’t in any way at all diminish the amount of immense pride I take in what he does. The relationships and levels of trust he cultivates with his players and students inspires me. There’s nothing quite like looking “up” to your younger brother.

I love it.

While my mind and heart still hold mental snapshots of him as a skinny kid who had crushes on my friends, bruises and mosquito bites on his legs, and was almost always drinking grape Kool-aid, the little brother who can be found on the field most Friday nights is a man.

A man I’m so proud to say is my brother. Strong (maybe even sometimes headstrong), hardworking (he stays in project mode), and irresistably good-looking (just ask any of my friends), he’s grown up to be a husband and father (and coach) that I’m proud of.

Here in the Wilder home, we’re cheering on the Berkner Rams this fall season…and Team Rogers!

I can do a lot of things on my own, but I probably wouldn’t have been so successful at this college thing without MJ’s constant support and encouragement.

He believed in me when the math grade was in the toilet.

He has shared the sofa space next to me with a stack of books for what seems like forever now.

And he was the one who endured my four endless semesters of Spanish (even though I threw the accent in for FREE!)

So baby, this is my thank you…for everything you’ve been…for everything you’ve done…

Thank you for a summer that recharged me and helped me to gear up in every way possible for this last semester of classes and then student teaching. This phase of our lives – like the others – has been a true adventure and so much of that is due to you.

There are many weeks that we sacrifice a lot, especially time, because of the crazy schedules that work and school dictate. I love the fact that even on the days when you’re on the road you’re still the one I talk to the most. And if it weren’t for that crazy road schedule then I wouldn’t have the memories of those unexpected times when you’ve shown up outside of one of my classes – just to surprise me. I appreciate the fact that you celebrate the end of each semester as fully as I do, and it’s in these ways that I know this has most definitely been a shared journey.

Today we celebrate the start of the last semester of classes. Sixteen more weeks. Four months.

The last one!

This one’s for you. Because as much fun as this part of the journey has been, I’m anticipating what lies ahead in our Big Adventure!

I love you.

This free photo slideshow created with Smilebox

There was a time when I thought this road called Motherhood would one day become breezy.

One day when ear infections and middle-of-the-night stomach flus were a thing of the past.

One day when homework no longer required my assistance and lunches no longer needed packing.

One day when they’d shop for their own clothes and purchase the extras with – could it be – their own money.

Now I know differently.

There are no breezy sections on this Motherhood Road.

Whether our children are two, twenty-two, or forty-two, we feel their pain in a way that is so exquisite that there is yet to be a word created that would aptly describe it. It takes us to the very brink of all we think we can feel or think or experience…and then the very next day it surprises us all over again in completely new ways.

It has been said that pain is the best teacher in the world. And while a part of me really wants to balk at this, particularly in the case of motherhood, I find that I still agree with it.

The pain of motherhood – of loving this extension of yourself so much that your heart bleeds when they hurt – teaches us about what is good and right and truly important in this world. More and more these days, I am reminded of what is no longer fundamentally important to me. Instead I cling to what I know.

And I know that my purpose is to love and to nurture and to find joy in the simple things.

I came across this blog that I wrote quite a while back. Instantly, it took me back to a day when The Teacher gave a lesson that I didn’t necessarily want to learn.

Forty-eight hours ago, I sat in a doctor’s waiting room, nervously and mindlessly flipping through the worn and smudged pages of one magazine after another. For two solid hours I sat in that black vinyl chair, all the while my heart was somewhere in the depths of that doctor’s office, in whatever room Nate was in.

As a half-hour turned to one, then an hour and a half came and went, I gave up all pretenses of reading or people-gazing or anything else that one tends to do in those type of settings. I gathered my purse and moved to the edge of my seat, and was truly only a nano-second away from barging behind The Door and finding my son all on my own.

And then these words begin to spill through my mind in the sweetest possible way:

“Peace, peace. Wonderful peace.”

“Coming down, from the Father above.”

Just like that my twirling thoughts stilled and my pulse returned to normal. Even though I sat here, in the one place, facing the one thing that I feared most during my kids’ growing up years, I felt the peace of God. I wish that I could control heredity, that I could somehow shelter both boys from the pains and trials of life, whether it be physical, mental, spiritual, or emotional. And yet – just as I could only sit with them held firmly in my lap during those awful visits for shots, for ear infections, for chicken pox – now I could only sit in a lonely chair in the waiting room, knowing that my firstborn was on his own this time. Besides my presence and my prayers, I was helpless.

“Peace, peace. Wonderful peace.”

“Coming down, from the Father above.”

The lesson that day – and the one that I’ve had to repeat several times since – has been one on acceptance. Accepting what is and letting go of preconceived expectations and even plans and goals I may have had for my children. What I’m learning is that in letting go I am receiving something so rich and so full that my mother’s heart almost can’t contain it all.

I am receiving the fullness of joy that comes with true peace of mind.

And that’s pretty breezy, let me tell ya!

I began having my children while he was finishing high school. By the time he began having children, my boys were ten and nine years old.

I don’t suppose we ever dreamed together of what it would be like if we both lived on the same street. Of what it would be like to have our kids and grandkids running back and forth, with large family gatherings and impromptu saturday afternoon backyard cookouts.

And yet we are very close to envisioning that very thing right now. Sprawling acreage where the kids can roam, where we can gather late into the evening – while the cicadas chatter in the background – and bask in the kinship that our kind of love deserves. We’re in the dreaming stages right now, with the hope that Kevin and his family can have a weekend place that adjoins ours sometime in the near future.

There is a sweetness to being with family…like this past week.

When all the kids – who have been separated from seeing each other for months – came together in one, long, jubilant visit that was filled to the brim with giggles, stories, swims, and sleepovers.

We crafted, we swam, and we watched late night movies while munching popcorn.

We visited the North Texas Children’s Musuem, lunched, and took the entire crowd to Chuck E Cheese (where Andi ate her lunch under the table in order to avoid Chuck E. )

Everything seemed sweeter…hugs were tighter…and the minutes were cherished because they were oh-so-valuable.

This past week was filled with only the good.

Only the best.

I think maybe that means we did something right.