Christmas Card 2013

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Looking back on 2013 we're filled with gratitude and humility for all we've experienced and all we've been given. Adam spent six months teaching and learning as Chief Resident and then began as an Attending Hospitalist at the Seattle VA hospital. He loves his work and the time it allows him to spend at home especially as we became homeowners this summer. This spring we spent many precious moments saying goodbye to Sheri's grandpa and were more grateful than ever for proximity to family in Canada and for our friends here in Seattle. Sweet and precocious three-year-old Anna brings us more love, joy and laughter than we could ever imagine. We absolutely can't get enough of her and her antics and are thrilled to be adding to our family this March!

We are full to bursting and grateful for you - your love, prayers and support. Please come visit!

Praying that peace, goodwill with all abide this Holy Christmas tide,

Adam, Sheri, Anna & Baby Johnson

my hiatus

It's been a while. A long, long while. I first wrote this blog post over 2 months ago and I still haven't published it. Over 5 months of silence.

I guess you could say that I took a hiatus from blogging, just like real bloggers do. But that would imply a level of intention that is simply untrue. The truth is much less noble. I wasn't taking time to focus on myself, or my family, nor was I fasting from the internet. I hardly blog in the first place. I might write a lot, but I hit publish rarely. I didn't mean to stay silent so long. It just happened.

It happened because I'm pregnant - 26 weeks now and through the worst of it, finally. But it was a rough summer. A lost summer. July was spent sick, exhausted, miserable and packing. August was spent sick, more exhausted, miserable and not unpacking. I spent most days trying to figure out how to entertain Anna from bed, and just how much TV was OK for her to watch. I didn't do anything, and anything I did do was done in a daze. I don't remember a thing.

I wasn't violently ill like so many are, but somehow I was still in abject misery. Insomnia set in the very day I got pregnant and I have yet to make it through the night more than a handful of times. I didn't feel like a person of any description, and I certainly didn't feel anything like me. But WHATEVER, pregnancy is miserable - for all of us. I'm no exception.

But here's some advice. Don't be pregnant over cold and flu season. As soon as I started to feel a little better I caught three consecutive colds with just a couple days of health in between. Then a few weeks ago, the three of us came down with the flu. Ten days of fever, aches, pains, cough, stomach issues, headaches, etc. You name it, I had it. And now, FINALLY I am feeling healthy. Tired, but healthy. But it's been a long haul. I am so ready to be healthy again. Ready to be me again.

And it turns out I can't write when I'm not well, not myself. In "The Summer of the Great-Grandmother", Madeleine L'Engle talks about how she couldn't write when she was pregnant because all her creative energy was being used to create, well, a person. I'm not sure my excuse is quite so poetic but I'll take it. I would remind myself that surely I would feel like a person again one day and have some interest in actually living my life. Only then would I have interest in writing any of it down.

So here I am. Still tired, but feeling more or less like Sheri. Small victories, people.

I'm wanting to write down all the blog posts that I have written in my head over the past 5 months. I don't know if that will happen or not, but intention is a good place to start.

It sure is light years ahead of where I have been.

the choices he made

(This was originally going to be up for Father's Day, but then I realized I had good reason to delay my post. My dad sold his business this week. I am so happy for him, and proud. Let's raise a virtual glass to Matrix Metal Machining. The end of an era, indeed.)

My dad is an entrepreneur, a small business owner. He is no stranger to hard work and sacrifice. But somewhere along the way he realized that the hours he spent building his business and the success that he earned could be taken from him in an instant. He chose to be married to his family, not his work.

And I can't thank him enough.

It would be unfair to suggest that his work was effortless and that there weren't copious amounts of blood, sweat and tears invested in his business. Nor am I suggesting that the road was easy, or that tremendous sacrifices weren't made by him, and mom, to provide for us. Tremendous sacrifices.

What I am saying, is that as his child, somehow I came through all that unscathed. Dad was always there when I needed him. He was his own boss, he set his priorities and his priorities set his hours.  The sacrifices made were not at my expense.

I can't tell you how many times I have called my dad at work over the years. And not one of those times, not even once, did he make me feel like a bother. Not when he was busy, not when he had clients sitting there, not even when I caught him at a really bad time. Not even once.

Growing up it felt like owning a small business meant having all the freedom to put your family first. Now I realize how far this is from the truth. Now I realize that this is true about my dad not because of what he does, but because of who he is and the choices he made. They must have been hard choices, impossible choices. But from where I sit, they were very good choices.

And I am grateful.

Thank you, dad.

And congratulations.

(since this post was about my dad, I didn't mention, but should have, that he was a co-owner of Matrix. Equal congrats to Mike as well. :)

all about her dada

We did a little keepsake questionnaire for Adam for Father's Day. I thought Anna's answers were too cute not to share.

ALL ABOUT MY DADA

By Anna, age 2 1/2

My dada's name is 'Dada'

He is 'big' feet tall

He weighs '6' pounds

He is '2' years old

His hair color is 'black'

His eyes are 'blue'

His favorite TV show is 'I don't know'

He likes to 'work'

His favorite food is 'cheerios'

His favorite drink is 'beer'

For fun he likes to go to the 'zoo with us'

I love it when my Dada 'bike'

My favorite thing about Dada is 'ride bike'

He makes me laugh when he 'gets me'

I love Dada 'cause I love Dada sooooo much!'

Happy Father's day, Adam!

do over, please

I'd like a do over on yesterday, please.

Let's just rewind and start again somewhere around 7:30 a.m. OK?

We'll get to church, you know, on time. And we will have been on the email list about the kinderchoir and know that it actually exists. We won't be told as we walk in the door that Anna is supposed to be singing... now.

And she'll do it. Our girl who spends most of her day singing will join her friends and teachers up front like she does almost every Sunday and sing with them. And my heart will burst with pride and joy just like the rest of the parents there. She won't scream, 'daddy!' and refuse to get off his lap, or at least he will sit up there with her and she will make it in the pictures like some of the shy-er children. This end of the year celebration will be joyful and meaningful and it will make me cry (in a non-frustrated and heartbroken way) and it will redeem all the Sunday's and sunday school's she had to miss this winter. These are the moments parents live for. What a milestone. I can't wait.

And then when we head downstairs she'll go play with her friends just like every other Sunday and she won't throw a fit. She definitely won't run upstairs and into the sanctuary to get her dad. She won't pee on him as he carries her downstairs and we definitely won't have to leave early - again.

We will also get to the Sunday School picnic on time and we won't have to wake her up from a much needed nap. There will be food she can eat and we will play all the games together. She will be her most cheerful, charming and adventurous self. These are the events that parents live for. It will be even more fun than last year. I can't wait.

And finally, when we get her to bed after a full and fulfilling day, she will go down easily and sleep soundly. She won't take over an hour to fall asleep. She won't make us get baby, or take baby back out of her room a dozen times. We won't close the door the wrong way, and if we do, she'll shrug it off, like a non-crazy person would. She definitely won't wake up and scream inconsolably from 1-2:30 a.m. requiring both parents to perform a miracle to get her back to sleep. She won't hit, throw or scream relentlessly. She won't even dream of it.

I can't wait. Yesterday is going to be amazing.

(full disclosure: she actually wasn't a total mess at the picnic. She was a little cranky and sleep deprived, but she gave it her best shot, all things considered).

the fire in my bones

I don't want to retract yesterday's blog post- because it's honest, and I will never apologize for honesty. But honesty without context isn't always truth.

Here is the truth.

I am generally happy, joyful and content. Sure, there are days and moments when I get caught up in the monotony of my days, or frustrated with my temper tantrum throwing strong-willed toddler. Some days I'm overwhelmed, some days I'm busy, some days I'm grieving, most days I am a little bored. But I am fundamentally content, and relieved that it is spring.

This winter was hard, but it was not without hope.

But here is my problem: sometimes I get stuck at hope. Because I am hoping for something more and I'm just not sure exactly what that is. And so I never get much beyond hoping.

Every day I am grateful for the abundance of blessing in my life, and many days this gratitude translates into peace. But under it all, always, under it all, is restlessness.

It's this essay by Shauna Niequist - putting into words something I have been thinking about lately and striking a chord of truth deep within. It's the call to freedom and courage by Glennon Doyle Melton in Carry On, Warrior - that's resonating in the very depths of my being. It's the words said to me many years ago by a woman I greatly admire, that I have fire in my bones. And the words of my friend who caught me off guard completely when she called me an artist. It's all this and so much more, swirling around and around. Restlessness, longing, dreaming, hoping. Trying to figure out what it means, how to let the fire that is within, out.

And I think about this, incessantly. About who I really am, who I want to be, what I want to do. Who God created me to be. I have wonder-filled glimpses of my destiny, and then sit on the couch and watch Days of our Lives.

I allow melancholy to win.

So it's not that I'm sad and depressed and can't get the laundry done (although that happens, too). This is not that season.

This is a season that's filled with excitement as I feel my soul stir. And it's a season that is filled with frustration at feeling so stuck.

I had high hopes that after a circumstantially difficult winter that I would emerge renewed and refreshed this spring, ready to really live. 

And that is the source of my frustration and the context to yesterday's words.

I'm not making excuses, eating my words or changing my story, but I am amending them.

It's not so much that I've been slow to thaw. It's that I don't just want to be un-frozen. It's that I want to find a way to be on fire.

winter

In case you hadn't heard, we didn't have a great winter.

It was a winter filled with tears and rain and sickness and death and not a whole lot of sunshine. It was a rough season for our family. Surely spring would be better. Surely there would be happier times to come. Surely the sun would shine again. Surely my heart would stop aching.

And here we are, well into spring. We made it past the funeral and got our relaxing vacation and now we have much to look forward to in the coming months. We are firmly in a new season - a good season.

Yet the change in me is slow to come. I am not thawing as quickly as expected.

I am still sitting like a lump on the couch during Anna's naps wasting away precious hours, more tired and lethargic when she awakes than before. I am still up in the night worrying about the same things. I am still feeling guilty for all that is left undone. I am still only dreaming and definitely not acting. I'm still longing. I'm still aching.

This has nothing to do with winter.

This has everything to do with me.

So, now to move on.

And, now to do better.

Because to move on is to do better.