The Walls Within

May 8, 2018 / Julie / 4 Comments

This month this little blog turns five. When I started it I had a two-year-old and a one-year-old and a new-to-us house that I hadn’t even finished unpacking. I was (am) highly distractible and my kids hardly napped at all, so I mostly wrote at night after everyone else had gone to bed.

Lots of nights I fell asleep at my laptop. Some days I drove myself batty trying to fit in blogging during TV time or “quiet” play. But I plodded along at a decently steady rate for a while, writing about motherhood and our home life and whatever political issue was bugging me at the moment.

Then I had another baby. And another. And another. And my kids got older and busier and I was spread even more thin than I had been at first. Before I knew it, I’d let a couple of years go by, hardly writing anything at all.

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

When I was tossing around ideas for this blog back in the spring of 2013 I landed on the title “These Walls” because I was looking for something that could work for both of the topic areas I wanted to write on: my home life and my politics. I didn’t love the title, but I thought that with my tagline (“Sharing stories from within the walls of my home; encouraging discourse on the wider world outside them”) it expressed my general goal decently well.

There was another, more fluid, line of thinking behind the title too. I mention it somewhere in my About Me (don’t go looking it up; that section is in desperate need of updating) or in one of my first blog posts: I liked the idea of discussing the figurative walls that people put up between each other when it comes to politics.

But these days there’s another kind of wall that most occupies my attention (and no, it’s not Mr. Trump’s). These days, in this age of political upheaval, of shifting loyalties, of upside-down values, I’ve come to focus on the walls within.

The walls within me. The ones I’ve hidden behind, the ones I’ve found refuge in, the ones I’ve broached, the ones I struggle to abandon.

I fancy myself a fair person. I like to think that I take in a decent representation of information and viewpoints, weigh them, critique them, and come to my conclusions based on impartial reason. I rail against those who would treat social and political issues like players on their favorite professional sports team. You know: if he’s my guy I love him, if he’s yours I hate him.

But the truth is, I’ve been struggling with my allegiances and my prejudices, my values and fears for a long time. On some issues, I’ve changed my mind. On some, I’ve become more resolved. On some, I wince and cling to my home team – not convicted, but not ready to let go either.

Which brings me back to the blog.

I’ve been struggling mightily over the thing. Not a day goes by that I don’t have a “walls within” kind of idea for These Walls and long to bring it to fruition. Not a single day.

But also – not a day goes by that I don’t remind myself how limited my time is, or how poorly I’ve been feeling, or how ill-equipped I am, personality-wise, to be a reliable presence on the internet.

Yet for months now (ironically, the same period of time in which I’ve been sick*), I have felt an almost constant pressure to get back to writing. The messages have come from many quarters, and they’ve been relentless. Whether it’s been from my spiritual reading or podcast listening or prayer life or social-media observing (or now Jennifer Fulwiler’s new book), I feel like I’ve been barraged by the following messages:

You have a job to do.
It’s going to require hard work.
Stop getting in your own way.
You don’t have to be perfect to do good.

So I think I’d better stop fighting it.

Maybe this post was starting to read as a good bye, but it’s actually far from that. It is, I pray, a hearty hello. I expect things to look different around here, content-wise, but I’m excited to be back.

I think I’d better get out of my own way and get busy doing the work I feel like I’m supposed to do. Even if I don’t feel well. Even if I have little time. Even if I have lots of little people underfoot.

Tomorrow I’m going to flesh out my plans for the blog; check back here to see where I hope to take it.

*Those of you who follow Jennifer Fulwiler on Instagram – did you see her IG Stories on Resistance yesterday? I couldn’t help but recognize it in my own life. Did you recognize it in yours?

Also (I’m experimenting with this), if you’d rather listen to this post than read it, click here. (But realize that you’ll be getting a low-quality recording with baby noises in the background!)

7 Quick Takes… Monday? (Vol. 33) – A Mash-Up of Weddings, (Not) Delightful Baby Phases, and a Possibly Rabid Fox

July 20, 2015 / Julie / 4 Comments

Yes, I realize that 7 Quick Takes are supposed to be a Friday thing. And that it’s been months and months since I’ve linked up to 7QT (Hi Kelly! It’s my first time linking up with you!) But hey, my morning sickness is beginning to fade so I am blogging. That’s good enough for me.

—1—

Other than the sobbing child who attempted to chase us down the driveway as we pulled out (stab me in the heart, why don’t you?), last last weekend’s wedding/anniversary festivities went really well.

On Saturday we jumped from (1) a formal wedding at a gorgeous gothic-style downtown church to (2) a more casual outdoor wedding at a country club just outside the city, then (3) back downtown for a waterfront reception on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Whew!

Both weddings were lovely, both brides beautiful, both families happy. We were able to visit with both sides of my family, we enjoyed a delicious meal, great views, and even a special dance for our anniversary. I call that a win!

On Sunday we celebrated my grandparents’ 60^th wedding anniversary with almost every member of my mom’s side of the family. With relatives having flown in from San Diego, St. Louis, and Chicago, I believe we hit over 60 people, missing only my Uncle’s family in Maine.

As one of my aunts put it, “So glad to be sharing the 60th celebration with these two in the same way we grew up – a casual picnic, surrounded by kids & adults alike running around catching frogs & lightning bugs, playing games, singing & dancing. Always someone passing a baby or toddler to another to enjoy, & simply catching up with the everyday events as the generations grow!”

She’s right – the anniversary party was very ‘us’ – a potluck meal, lots of talking and laughing, lawn games, group pictures, kids running around in packs, even random wildlife. Granddad kept saying that we shouldn’t have made such a fuss, but I think we made just the right kind of fuss.

—2—

I’m enjoying reading the recap posts from those who attended this year’s Edel Gathering. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I very much regret that I wasn’t able to hear Rachel Balducci’s talk, watch Jen Fulwiler record her radio show, witness Rachael Escandon’s craaaazy shoes, visit the beautiful city of Charleston, and hang out with so very, very many wonderful women. But I don’t at all regret missing out on the extreme humidity or (worse yet) the hotel’s plumbing problems. Not. at. all.

—3—

Here’s something I never thought I’d be glad to hear: “Jude spit on me!”

My poor little three-year-old was suffering a stomach bug last week. The other morning, once he finally seemed settled and the baby had gone down for his nap, I grabbed a quick shower. I’d given firm instructions to my oldest to run to get me if the baby started screaming or the three-year-old needed my help. So imagine the panic that set in when I heard a shriek shortly after I’d gotten out of the shower: “Mommy!… mumble, mumble… MOMMY!… indiscernible shouting (during which I imagined vomit sprayed over half my family room)… Mommy!… Jude spit on me!”

Aaah…. What a relief! I’ll take a brotherly spat over vomit clean-up any day.

—4—

And here’s something I never thought I’d have to say: “If you see a fox, I want you to run as fast as you can back to the house!”

My mother-in-law returned from her hair appointment the other day to tell us that her hairdresser had recently had a terrifying experience right in front of our house. The woman was walking up the street when she saw a skinny, mangy-looking fox run out of the woods. And it chased her! She started running, but it kept chasing her, and she was seriously frightened for her safety until some Jeep pulled up and placed itself between her and the fox. The fox attacked the Jeep’s tires and the woman ran to safety.

So that’s just great, isn’t it?

(And what a quick-thinking, amazingly helpful person that Jeep’s driver was!)

It looks like we have a very sick, possibly rabid fox in our neighborhood. I didn’t let the boys go outside to play (well, the one wasn’t feeling up to it anyway) for a few days, but I finally let them out with that warning. I can’t keep them indoors forever, can I?

—5—

We’re officially in the phase where I walk into the kitchen to find the baby standing on the table. I hate this phase.

—6—

When it comes to caring for small children, workloads are a funny thing, aren’t they?

In some ways it doesn’t take that much more effort to care for three than it does for one – you’re already cooking the meals and doing the laundry and running the errands, so what’s a bit more? At any rate, my first child was much harder to work around than my three now are together. He wouldn’t let me out of his sight. He wanted me to be engaged with him during each of his waking moments. They have each other to play with, so they come to me for mommy things: comfort, nourishment, arbitration. They go to their brothers for entertainment.

But on the other hand, caring for three sometimes seems exponentially harder than caring for one. For instance, in the last two weeks, my two older boys attended swim lessons together while the baby and I participated in a little Mommy and Me swim class. (It seemed like the best way to keep him from screaming for the duration of the boys’ lessons.) It was great: the boys loved their lessons, I could watch their progress from the other side of the pool, and the baby was sometimes kinda sorta happy to be in the water. But it was so exhausting.

Getting everybody up and fed and dressed and out of the house each morning… keeping up with the pool bag and the towels and swimsuits… crouching on the pool deck to pull off boys’ shoes and shirts and hand them their “gobbles” (definitely my favorite preschool mispronunciation)… then rushing over to the other side of the pool to pull off my own cover-up and wrestle the baby into his swim diaper and suit… wrangling everybody into a changing room afterward… managing four rounds of showers and drying off and dressing…

Exhausting!

The last two days of lessons, the three-year-old was in the middle of his stomach bug, so my husband went into work late so our oldest could still finish his lessons. The baby was left home too, for convenience’ sake. And it was so much easier! Taking one child to swim lessons is about 100 times easier than taking three and being in one of the classes yourself. I seriously felt like waving my (empty!) arms around to demonstrate just how freeeee I felt.

Next year’s kindergarten/preschool combo? I’m coming for you!

—7—

As I mentioned above, my morning sickness seems to be fading away. Thank the Lord! I still have it for much of the day, but the intensity is decreasing and I’m actually starting to have some short windows in which I don’t feel sick at all. And I have some energy – what an amazing feeling!

So I think the time is right for a little jump-start to my blogging efforts. Partly inspired by the 7 drawings in 7 days Heather is just finishing up (they’re great! check them out!), I thought I’d commit to 7 posts in 7 days.

But, needing to not get too ahead of myself, these posts are going to be pretty simple. Every day I run across news articles or blog posts or radio segments that make me want to answer them aloud with my own take on the situation. So that’s what I’m going to do. For each of the next seven days, I’ll take a recent item (by someone much more original than myself) and I’ll comment on it. That’s it, but that’s something!

I hope to ‘see’ you back here this week for my itty bitty baby steps back to regular blogging. And I hope you’ll go check out the other Quick Takes over at Kelly’s. (For those of my readers who don’t regularly follow Quick Takes, 7QT used to be hosted by Jen Fulwiler of Conversion Diary, but now it’s hosted by Kelly Mantoan of This Ain’t the Lyceum.) Have a great week!

All Because We Said Yes

July 11, 2014 / Julie / 13 Comments

This morning a little blonde-headed boy appeared at the foot of our bed, asking for his daddy. “Downstairs,” I mumbled, half-asleep. A while later – no idea how much – a little brown-headed boy woke me with a “Jude’s hurt. He’s pwobabwy bweeding.” “Is he actually bleeding?” I asked. “Nope. He’s just pwobabwy bweeding.” Silence. No screams. It can’t be that bad.

The boy climbed onto the bed and crawled over to his baby brother, who was jerking his arms around, chirping at the ceiling fan. He cooed over the baby, smiled sweetly, and said good morning.

All because, five years ago today, we said yes.

I brushed my hair and tried to look less morning-ish, but didn’t get far before the blonde one was back (unhurt), needing a diaper change and a nice, long hug. The diaper was taken care of, clothes were unearthed from the pile of clean laundry, and the boys were dressed.

I wandered back into our bathroom and looked around blearily. I should get myself ready. But the baby was hungry for his bottle, so I turned toward him. I saw you, instead. You looked happy and alert, fresh from your morning work-out. You picked up the fussy baby and we kissed good morning.

Breakfast and more diaper changes and teeth brushing and make-up were gotten through. We gave you hugs and kisses and then some more, and we told you to have a good day.

We dropped off a meal to a friend, picked up her little boy, visited my family’s animals. The boys held chickens and petted goats and cats and turkeys and cows and they pointed at the pigs. We went to another friend’s house for lunch and I nursed the baby while we chatted. The boys rode scooters and ate popsicles and shouted “Watch this!” as they jumped off the sofa.

All because, five years ago today, we said yes.

~~~

Five years ago this morning, my stomach was in my throat. My mind raced over all the details I no longer had control over. My good sense fought my mind, telling it to relax and to absorb as much as I could.

Then I saw you down that aisle and you looked so handsome and you smiled. And everything changed. I was still nervous; I was in the middle of the biggest day of my life, transitioning from one phase of life to another. But I was doing so with you.

We were made one that day. We became partners; we undertook the same path.

~~~

Today we rush from one task to the next. We wipe mouths and we pick up forks that have been dropped on the floor. We step over dinosaurs and airplanes. Sometimes we admonish a “ROAR!!!” and sometimes we join in. We work hard. We sleep little. We go through phases when we don’t fit in more “us” time than the moments it takes to kiss good morning or goodbye or goodnight.

But we’re better partners now than we were on the day we married. Each year, each struggle, each big decision has taught us how to better work together, how to be more patient, how to be more respectful, how to better support each other.

And look at what we’ve done: three gorgeous boys, a beautiful old home, friends who are becoming our community. We have much to be proud of and more to be thankful for.

Especially when it comes to each other. Today I want you to know how thankful I am to have you in my life. I want you to know that I appreciate you even when I don’t say so. I want you to know that my favorite time of day is when you walk in that door. And I intend to be more deliberate about showing you that.

I intend to smile your “hello” and hug you more warmly and sit next to you on the sofa. I intend to act like I love you as much as I do, even when the baby’s screaming and the boys are fighting.

All because, five years ago today, we said yes.

And because that “yes” is the best thing I’ve ever done.

P.S. Remember all those things I told you I loved about you last year? I love them even more today.

How We Met

July 11, 2013July 11, 2013 / Julie / 10 Comments

Grace of Camp Patton has been telling the story of how she met her husband and decided to turn it into a little “how we met” link-up. (So go check them out!) I have entirely too little time to be doing this right now, but…

Today is my wedding anniversary, and I did post this little piece yesterday in honor of my husband, and (it being just past midnight) I have just been drinking this glass of wine, and my husband did walk in with these lovely roses a few hours ago…

So, all the stars seem to be aligned. I can’t resist. Now is the time for me to write about how Brennan and I met. (In a quickish amount of time, hopefully.)

To put it most simply (and I already mentioned this in my earlier piece), we met on eHarmony. Brennan and I had both been single for quite a long time. He (as always) was very pragmatic in his decision to join – it was just no big deal. I, on the other hand, had anguished over whether to try eHarmony or something like it. I just couldn’t imagine having to tell my family that I’d met someone online. The horror.

Eventually, though, I got over myself and decided to give it a shot. (To give credit where it’s due, I only got over myself when a friend of mine, someone whom I admired, became engaged to a really wonderful man she’d met on eHarmony. Kathleen, I’m looking at you. Thank you.)

By this time, I was in my late twenties and I had almost always been single. I’d had a couple of very quick, not very meaningful relationships looong before and another that went on (and off) for a couple of years, but was like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. More recently, I’d had a couple of guy friends who were maybe-more-than-friends (maybe?) but nothing ever seemed to progress. So I didn’t exactly have high hopes for this internet thing.

But, whaddy’a know? In the slew of guys I was matched with when I opened my account, there was this one who mentioned something about bees. Everybody else was saying how they liked to keep in shape or hang out with friends – one guy even went on and on about how much he loved his iPhone. But the bees… I was intrigued. We progressed through the million-and-one eHarmony steps (me waiting with baited breath each morning to see the response that would be waiting), until we finally spoke on the phone. And he was so nice and talking to him was so easy… it wasn’t long before we set our first date.

Brennan and I decided on the county fair – a fun place to walk around and see some sights; public enough for me to run away if I needed to. (I can be quite practical too, you know.) I did warn him, though: “The fair would be fun, but we’re liable to run into some of my family there. If you have a problem with that, we can go somewhere else.” But he didn’t – not at all. And it’s a good thing, because we did indeed run into some of my family – my great-uncle, a couple of my aunts, a few of my cousins… I think we hit ten of them in all.

But Brennan was such a great sport about it! And we had so much to talk about. It was easy and comfortable… and I was so happy. He was too; later he told me that he knew that very evening that I was the one for him. (Blush.)

Within the next couple of weeks, we went out a few more times, including one impromptu and very cozy weeknight date at a coffeehouse concert in my little city. The next day Brennan left for a family wedding back in his home state of Minnesota. Oh, how I missed him. I was trying not to call and bug him, but when I found out that I had the opportunity to go to a big, fancy dinner through my work – and I could bring a date – I had to call to see if he wanted to join me. He did – no question. When we went to said big, fancy dinner a couple of weeks later, Brennan introduced himself to our fellow guests as my boyfriend. It was hard for me to hide my excitement.

I won’t go on in any more detail. The basics are that a year later, we were engaged. Nine months after that, we were married. Eleven months later, we had our first child. After another fifteen months, we had our second. The time has FLOWN.

And today – exactly four years since we were married and just shy of six years since our first date – I am still amazed by how quickly my life changed. In June of 2007 I was 28 years old, long single, and (though yes, I was still hoping and trying to meet “the one”) just starting to come to terms with the idea that I might never marry. By August, my future husband knew that I was “the one” for him. Soon after, I knew it too.

The whole thing happened so easily and naturally and comfortably. (I think I might have typed the words “easy” or “easily” 13 times so far in this post.) After years of angsting over the whole business of meeting my hypothetical future husband, all of a sudden everything just fell into place. Like it was no big deal. How. Amazing. And what a blessing.

So… that is my own story. But maybe I can be so bold as to suggest that it might hold a little glimmer of hope for some of the long-single ladies out there. I’m not going to tell you “Don’t worry; it will happen.” (Because I hated when people told me that: They didn’t know what the heck would or wouldn’t happen in my life.) But I will tell you that you just never know. Whatever your life ends up looking like later, it will most definitely be different from how it looks right now. You just never know; change could happen soon. And it could happen quickly.

Five Favorites (Vol. 2): Anniversary Edition

July 10, 2013June 6, 2014 / Julie / 7 Comments

Linking up with Hallie for this week’s Five Favorites! Be sure to check out the rest!

(Updated to add that I’m also linking this post to Jenna’s “I Pray I Don’t Forget: What I Love About My Husband” at A Mama Collective. Check out those stories too!)

Tomorrow we’ll celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. To mark the occasion, I thought I’d dedicate this week’s Five Favorites to my excellent husband, Brennan. So here’s some background on our relationship, Five of my Favorite things about B, and some of my favorite photos from our wedding. (Randomly placed and more than five, because I needed to break up the looong intro in #1.)

— 1 —

Brennan is interested in things – so many things.

In passing, this may seem pretty inconsequential: “Umm, big deal, Julie. Everybody’s interested in something. Even lots of somethings.” So let me back up for a minute and give you a little background on what lead up to our relationship. It should give more meaning to this and some of the other Favorites. Or maybe I just like to provide more information than anyone could possibly care about. One of the two.

Anyway, I was single for what felt like a looong time before I met Brennan. And I mean single single, not dating-but-not-yet-married “single.” Other than three very brief relationships in my early twenties, I was alone and lonely, day-dreaming of my ideal man. (Does that sound a little pathetic? Sorry. It was what it was.) Toward the end of my twenties I had the blessed insight that I needed to adjust my outlook on single life and my approach to maybe/hopefully finding the man with whom I could share a future. All-in-all, it’s a longer topic for another day. But the pertinent part is that I refined the list of qualities I hoped to find in my future husband. I realized that, most of all, I wanted to find a man who was good and kind, moral, responsible, hardworking – and interested in the world around him. I knew that I could never marry a man who didn’t have those values. And I figured that if my husband had an interest in the world, a hunger to learn and do, then our life together would be an open horizon – something to be explored.

We walked to the church, which was super fun,
except for how worried I was about the hem of my dress.

When I met Brennan, everything fell into place very quickly. Good? Kind? Moral? Responsible? Hardworking? Check, check, check, check… and check. But the clincher was really that he was interested in so many things. He caught my eye on eHarmony (yep, that’s how we met) because he said he loved bees.

Bees? Who loves bees? My beekeeper of a hubby, that’s who. A few years before, Brennan had gotten to talking with a co-worker who kept bees as a hobby. B thought it was interesting, so he started to read up on it. He read and read and researched… and the next thing he knew, he was putting together hive boxes and picking up packages of buzzing bees from unhappy postal workers.

We gave out little jars of Brennan’s honey as favors.

Brennan has done the same thing with other hobbies: skiing, target shooting, cooking, home improvement, etc. On the house front, he’s taught himself how to do all sorts of useful things: woodworking, plumbing, mechanics, painting, even pest control. Brennan identifies something he wants to know how to do and he just figures it out. There doesn’t seem to be a “What if?” with Brennan – just a “How?”

Likewise, Brennan has cultivated his interests in history, architecture, and politics by reading and reading and reading… The man loves the internet. And good nonfiction. And audio books that he can soak up on his commute to and from work.

Brennan didn’t grow up doing any of the above; he wasn’t influenced by beekeeper or carpenter or plumber or historian or architect or politician parents. He just happened upon something (many things) that interested him, he had an open mind, and he decided to pursue the new activities and ideas. With gusto. I love that. I can’t wait to see what will be inspiring my husband in ten or twenty years.

— 2 —

Brennan gets stuff done.

Just as I love how Brennan is active in pursuing his many interests, I also love that he takes the initiative to just go ahead and do what needs to be done – even if it’s tedious or unpleasant. Me? I’m the procrastinating type. The type who avoids the things I find intimidating or disagreeable. But, big or small, Brennan does what needs to be done. Hours upon hours of schoolwork while also working full time? He does it. Paying the bills, going to the doctor, cleaning the bathroom? He does it. Doing preventative maintenance on our very old house? He does it. And not just that – he does it well, without a fuss, and with very few complaints. What a great example to set for our boys. (And, er… for me too.)

— 3 —

Brennan is a loving father and a patient teacher to our boys.

On one of our first dates, Brennan and I visited an arboretum. Walking through the trees, Brennan spotted an insect hovering near some leaves. Very gently, he pointed it out to me, studied it a bit, and explained what it was doing. In that moment I thought to myself, “Wow. What a wonderful father he’ll be.” And he is. Brennan had very little experience with children before our boys were born, but he jumped in with both feet – doing all kinds of tedious tasks, showering the boys with hugs and kisses, playing all their wild games, teaching them about the world around them, and showing them great patience and a powerful love.

— 4 —

Brennan is a kind and supportive husband.

This cake tasted so good that our guests gobbled it up before we could even get pieces ourselves!

I love staying home with my boys, but I am a social person by nature and I need to be around other adults. I need some mental stimulation and I need a bit of a break from the constant demands that come with having two very active young boys. I also need to feel like I’m giving something to my community. Brennan understands this, he supports me in my efforts to do things outside of the home, and he has never once complained about it. And it’s no small thing on his part: I serve on the board of a historic home an hour away from our house and I sing in our church’s choir. Both require my presence at times that necessitate B leaving work early. Sometimes hours early, meaning he has to make up those lost hours on another day. But Brennan says that if I really want to do something, I should do it.

— 5 —

Brennan has high standards.

Gotta love the tiny spectators.

Brennan has high standards about lots of things – work, behavior, food, coffee and chocolate, goods and services that we buy – but let me feel flattered for a minute that he also had high standards when it came to finding the person he wanted to marry. When he was doing the eHarmony thing, going out on first date after first date, Brennan’s buddies at work started to give him a hard time. They’d joke about how he rarely made it to a second date. “What’s wrong with her this time?” was their standard question. One friend told him “everyone settles.” But my Brennan? He answered, “Not me.” He shared my conviction that it was better to be single than to be with the wrong person.

Perhaps this last Favorite sounds a bit self-gratifying. Certainly I’m glad that my husband didn’t “settle” for me. But more than that, I admire a person who will hold out and work hard for what he or she really wants. Too often these days, people expect instant gratification – in relationships, in their homes and careers, in their spare time. But Brennan couldn’t be farther from that. To achieve the kind of life he wants, Brennan works hard, he makes smart decisions, he sacrifices, and he is patient. He sets high standards for himself and he keeps to them.

I am so thankful that this man came into my life. I am grateful for all his hard work and careful planning. I am glad to have his love and his good company. I feel blessed to be building a life with him. Happy anniversary, Brennan. I love you.

All photos are credited to Gordon Eisner.