Tag Archives: home

November 8, 2023 · 9:19 am

From Home to School

As many of you have, we have a route we take every day to school in the morning, then follow the route in reverse from school to home. It’s part of the daily routine. It takes about 15 minutes to get to school, 30 minutes round trip. That’s if there is only one trip that day.

Yesterday, I made three trips to school and back. At the moment we only have one car. So, my daughter had morning basketball practice. I dropped her off and returned home to get the rest of the crew for school. At the end of the day we went home, then to my junior high daughter’s game in a nearby town. After her game we returned home, but I had to go out to school to get my other daughter who was making sugar skulls for her Spanish Club.

We finally settled down at home after 8 o’clock last night.

It got me thinking about how many times I have traveled the streets from home to school and back again.

So, being conservative (I did not include summer or holiday breaks or even weekends when I come to my classroom to grade.) I calculated some numbers.

We have lived in our home for about 12 years. My oldest son started junior high around that time. In those 12 years… again conservative numbers.

I have traveled 33,000 miles on just that route.

Adding up the time… 84 days traveling that route! If I started driving back and forth from home to school to home without stopping today, I would drive that route continually until Jan 31, 2024.

It’s been a hard year. Even now my wife’s side of the family is dealing with another tragic moment. Time and the importance of my life have been factors that trouble my soul, but as I thought about this small moment, driving to school, I realized two things.

One: Life happens in the smallest moments. Singing songs, laughing at my bad dad jokes, venting about a bad day, getting a blueberry muffin at the coffee shop as a surprise, all these moments are the moments that weave the fabric of my life. The quality of my day is elevated in this routine. The bonds with my children and my wife are built in these small moments.

Two: There are no throw away moments in life. Our daily life has routines that fill lots of time, usually in small chunks. But it adds up. To be honest, this was something I thought about as I listened to my dad talk about mom at her graveside. How a life is not defined by the big moments. A life is the individual strands of yarn we weave together to make a tapestry of living. If we do it well, others can find warmth and comfort by wrapping it around their shoulders.

Today, we only have two trips to make. I have some new dad jokes to tell during the trip.

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October 15, 2023 · 9:15 pm

This house is not a home

I am not going to talk about all the dots life has been sharing with me about this idea. There have been many, some very deep and challenging. Instead I’m going to jump right to the point of this post, and that means we are jumping into deep waters right away.

Our lives are our homes.

A house is just one of the facets of building a home. It is a central spot where we build our homes. But it is just one of the elements to a strong home, a strong life.

Our routines are central to the quality of our homes. This doesn’t mean our lives are just a series of repeated actions, far from it. Routines that build a sense of safety and love allow us to do wonderful things. 

A major routine I have is to wake every child with Care Bear or unicorn energy. Even if they have the morning blues, I make sure they know a new day has begun, and I am happy to wake them. (My boys still talk about how much they hated my energy in the morning… but with smiles now.)

Another routine we have, as many of you readers know, is Sunday morning blueberry muffins.  We also try to have dinner together every night, even with practices, musical concerts, and games.

Even the simplest routines influence the sense of home during the day. For example, I fill everyone’s water bottle in the morning and make lunches when they don’t like the option at school. Every day.

I could go on, but these routines would happen anywhere, any house, under any circumstance, and they have. They happened when I was jobless. When we lived with the in-laws for six months. We were home.

Another aspect of home is the people we let in the front door. The people we let into our lives. Now, this is a tough element to delve into. If someone came into your home and started breaking your dishes, throwing them on the floor, and ransacking the cupboards…Would you just sit there and let them? Or if they started screaming at your children or taking a hammer to the walls? Would you just sit and smile while you watched them? I don’t think so.

Yet… yet, we allow people to emotionally do this to us. To walk into our lives and destroy us in the name of family or friendship. Our home becomes filled with fear, angst, doubt and negativity. We would defend our dishes, but not our hearts? Our home is influenced by the people we ask into our lives. 

I understand the complexity of relationships, especially when the family is used to justify accepting someone’s actions. But I will protect my home, protect my heart from being thrown on the floor to break.

The final aspect of a home is the decorations, the pictures, the figurines, and the books on the end tables. The stories and memories we create are hung on the walls of our lives. A beautiful home is created by living fully with the people we cherish. 

Yes, big moments, like family vacations. But also the small moments of breakfast at McDs or taking snack walks. The walls of our lives should be filled with stories. Our lives are our homes… and a home is where we should feel free to live.

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July 19, 2023 · 7:46 pm

I don’t know what I’m writing

Seriously, this may be the most organic blog post ever. As I write these words, I do not know where my thoughts will take this blog. You have been warned.

I am sitting in my chair, rolling with my “Deep Thought” playlist and Pearl Jam’s song, “Just Breathe” is playing. I am trying some new coffee, which isn’t too bad. And I am lost.

Ohhh, “Bad Man’s Song” by Tears for Fears just started playing. Love this song! You should check it out.

OK, back to being lost. Besides on what to write for this blog post, I am feeling adrift at the moment. Part of that feeling stems from visiting my dad back home. The energy in the house was missing my mom’s gentleness. Her soft laugh. There was an undertow in the house as if life was trying to find a way to fill the emptiness in the house, but it didn’t know what to fill it with.

Life continues going no matter what happens to us as people. My mom died just a few days before her 69th birthday. Earlier this month was my parents 52nd anniversary. My dad has major holidays coming up. But even harder milestones will be the first University of Wyoming football game, then the start of basketball season. Let alone, drinking coffee alone each morning.

This life is an amazing gift but comes with responsibilities that challenge our very being. The first is that we are responsible for the quality of our happiness.  Even when others try to destroy us, tear us down. Even when the randomness of life breaks us. We are still responsible for every breath we take. It is a heavy load to carry, especially if we run from it.  Which I fear too many people do in so many different ways.

But to move through hardships, you have to move into them. And that means feeling the pain, screaming at God, crying when a song moves you to. I had never hugged my dad as he cried before until this visit. The moment needed to be felt, instead of running away from it.

We then drank coffee together in the kitchen. Yes, there was still an emptiness in the room, but we helped life fill it with love and the pictures he showed me of last fall when they went hiking. There was my mom smiling on a bridge in her University of Wyoming gear.

I’ll end with a song that played while I was writing… (Seriously it did!)

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July 16, 2023 · 7:25 pm

Back Home

I’m heading home tomorrow to visit my dad. It will be the first time back home since my mom passed away. I know it will be different. I don’t know how I will handle it. There will be a silence… I am most stressed about being in the kitchen. Now my parents didn’t dance in the kitchen, but it was the hub of the house, especially when I was growing up. I would sit on the counter to talk with my parents as they made Sunday breakfast. When I became an adult, we would lean against the counter, coffee in hand and just talk.

A digital frame sits in the kitchen, a Christmas present from us, with pictures of my family playing on it. Bags of chips are still placed on top of the refrigerator, even though they got a new fridge a few years ago. The microwave still sits on wooden table in the corner.

It will be different now.

Life is different now. 

But I will be back home soon. I’ll stand in the kitchen, coffee in hand, while dad and I fill the silence talking about memories.

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July 15, 2023 · 9:43 am

A Post for the Old Man and his Garden

The first poem in my book, April 2020, is “To the Old Man Gardening During the Pandemic”. The poem chronicles my encounter with an older gentleman as he was gardening. I was on a walk, which I did a lot during the lockdown. This man’s house has a big backyard with a variety of flora. I had seen him out in his garden over the years. Of course, the poem (and book) are centered on life during the pandemic.

Flash forward to now. Even with the craziness of the summer, I have been walking on a regular basis. I had noticed that I had not seen the gentleman out in his garden, even though it still looked good. Yesterday I found out why.

He’s gone.

I do not know what happened to him. For once I was too shy to ask the person out front of the house closing up a moving trailer. The backyard had one of those little kid cars (the blue one with a red hood), a hot tube, and other toys that meant that a young family had moved into the house.

He was gone.

I stood at the yield sign at the T-junction where most of his flowers are trying not to cry. This summer has been filled with drastic moments that changed my life. Some joyful and exciting (my oldest son starting his career). Others have cracked my spirit. And standing next to the flowers this gentleman spent so much time caring for pushed my heart to the edge. 

I wondered what the new family would do with the backyard. I envied the children, they will love the space (the house sits on two lots). But what will they do with the trellis? Will they keep the roses? His home and garden was becoming a home for a new family.

The old man gardening during the pandemic is gone. But I remember him. And his garden.

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July 4, 2023 · 6:19 pm

Home

We had s’mores last night. Set off a few fireworks. Tried to catch lighting bugs. Watched our neighborhood firework show. Then went to bed. This morning we had cinnamon rolls. While we were eating, my youngest daughter said that last night was fun. Everyone agreed.

One of the things I am proud of is the sense of home we have. My wife and I work hard at creating a home that is warm and safe for our children. When I became a dad, I wanted my children to know that they had a loving place in this world. I wanted a home filled with laughter. Filled with love. A place that my children could find reprieve from this world. 

I grew up in houses that I felt alone in. Scared in. There were houses where I found ways not to spend time in… luckily the library was across the street from that house. 

Our home is part of the fabric of our family. We have movie nights, dance parties, blueberry muffins and simply some good days.

Of course we have had our troubles, rough times. But the heart of our home is love. And I have to give credit to Oprah Winfrey for some advice early in my days of being a dad. 

Does your face light up when your children enter the room?

As Oprah says, it was a light bulb moment for me. I remind myself of this everyday.

Now, I might have taken the idea to the extreme. Especially in the mornings. My kids hate my energy in the morning, but part of the reason for that is that I want them to know I am excited to start the day with them. To let them know they are loved. The teen years are the toughest in the mornings… they do not want to talk when they first get up. But it is all good! It is funny to listen to my sons, who are both out of the house, about how I used to wake them up. But they remember it!

I do my best to let my children know I love them each time they enter the room. I am not perfect. No one is, but I am proud of how I’ve created a home I never had. I look forward to all the good days ahead.

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July 29, 2022 · 8:18 pm

Miles to Home

As many of you know, my word for this year is MILES, and I have fulfilled that word. Roughly, I have traveled 5,000 miles so far this year. I have traveled for sports, college visits, and a small family vacation. What is interesting about all my travels is how I’ve learned more about the idea of HOME.

Home is a house. A building that I start and finish my day at. A building that protects me and the family from storms. A place where we gather to eat dinner and to play Mario Kart. A place where we rest our heads and our feet. This house becomes a home because of the stories we share at the table, the protection we get from the emotional storms in our lives, and the laughter we share as dad comes in last again.

But home is not just this house. Home is our history. I went home this summer to visit my parents. It was just me, a few days to be their son and to walk down memory lane. One night we walked to the letter hill and found that my name, football number, and hand prints were still set in the concrete D on the hill by the high school. 

My name and number.

For a few days I was simply their son. We talked about life, family, and recalled funny and emotional stories. The house was basically the same and so was the sense of home, especially the routine of gathering in the kitchen to talk. It was always the place we would gather before we went off on adventures (maybe someday I’ll share how we had to heat up the oil pan in the car with a waffle iron one winter).

Home is a routine. My wife and I make blueberry muffins every Sunday. Growing up we had bacon and eggs almost every Sunday. Home is the traditions we create. When I traveled with my daughter to Atlanta, it was funny how we still followed some of our normal routines, like eating at a certain time.

But what I’ve really come to realize is that home is actually the people we love and have a strong relationship with. One of the best things about the trip home was how easy it felt to talk and be with people that I hadn’t seen in years. It was like being home with them. I sat with my high school guidance counselor on her back step and just talked. Yes, we caught up on life, but there was no awkwardness to bridge because of the years. That is home.

If for some reason we had to move from this house, we would still have our home. You would find us eating dinner (at 6 p.m.) sharing stories at the dinner table. We would be home no matter where we were in this world.

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May 2, 2020 · 12:11 pm

Walking Thoughts

This morning it was about 57 degrees outside. I decided not to wear a sweatshirt because I always end up taking it off and tying it around my waist. My walk started out chilly, and stayed that way. Maybe it was because of the temperature that my thoughts jumped around in my head this morning…

I decided to listen to Dream Academy on my walk. The first song “Life in a Northern Town” has a line that got me thinking about the craziness of the moment.

I considered how many life changing events have happened over my lifetime. How many times people said we would be different when things went back to normal. That’s when I saw a bird hopping along a lawn with a beak full of grass and sticks. Obviously building a nest nearby. I was just passing a cul de-sac where a new home was being built. Three houses down from us, a new family was moving in. They arrived yesterday.

Home has always been a foundation of our lives. Sadly, this pandemic has elevated the sad reality that home is not a good place for all people. Domestic and child abuse cases have risen during this pandemic. Divorce rates are expected to rise after the lockdowns. Home should be the best place to be right now. As a father and husband, I was trying to make sure home was the best place to be for my family.

The wind was a constant on my walk. My bare arms took the blunt of the chill. The cold actually felt like sleeves on my arms. It felt good in a way. As I turned corners, or walked along the curve of a street, the wind would shift from my shoulders to my face. Walking through the wind gave me a defining edge. I felt my arms swing through, my forehead chilled and my eyes squinted. I felt like me, I felt a boundary to my existence which has been blurring like the way days are blending together. Walking through the cold heightened my sense of self this morning.

I followed a curve of a street that led me to a street filled with blossom petals.

I was struck by the beauty and sadness of the scene. The trees in the area were still mostly filled with the blossoms. And the blossoms would be replaced with leaves and the trees would have a different look, a different beauty. But the situation reminded me that everything changes. Endings happen. There are new beginnings. And pain is part of that process. Whether it is regret or the feeling of loss, our heart goes through that pain. If we truly live our lives with an open heart, we will feel both sides of the spectrum. Joy and sorrow. That’s good. Those emotions give us a defining edge too.

I turned the last corner. I had three blocks till I was home. As life does sometimes, the music in my earbuds played a most appropriate song…

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December 3, 2011 · 8:45 pm

Snowy Day

The snow cancelled basketball.  The girls stayed in pajamas.  I shoveled the driveway.  It was one of those relaxing snowy Saturdays when you eat too much, we made sugar cookies, and you get the chance to spend serious family time.  We had a great moment at the dinner table where we all were laughing so hard we were crying.

We read stories; a few of us took naps (yes, I was one of them).  But technology allowed us to do some creative things.

My oldest son wrote a song, “There ain’t room for both of us” as a Christmas gift for his grandparents.

He is learning to play the clarinet.  If you remember a past blog (“Miles Davis: So What”) you will recognize the similarities of the beginning of his song.

This day gave my other son the chance to make his first Lego movie, “ARC Troopers: Ambushed”

I helped with technical parts, but he was the director and producer.  He had the script done, a staging map for the Lego men, and ideas for the sound effects.

These projects are not earth shattering, but allowed my sons to pursue things they are interested in or working on.  This day gave us the opportunity to build memories that we can experience for along time.

I can’t wait for the next snow day…

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