The Pirate & Avenger Party

We celebrated Sam's birthday early this year, partially because we had some family visiting from out-of-town. Sam wanted to have a birthday party with his cousins, so we decided that an early party would also be a great excuse for a small family reunion. J and I have never thrown a large birthday party for Sam before, so this party was especially exciting.

Several weeks ago, Sam said that he wanted to have a pirate treasure hunt for his birthday party. But a few weeks ago, things changed when Sam saw a Captain America costume at the mall. He became obsessed with the Avengers, and as a result we ended up having both pirate and Avengers party themes. Here's some pictures from the event:

J made a treasure map for the kids. We stained the map with tea and burned the edges of the paper (to make it look like old parchment). We took this shot while the map was soaking in some tea. Afterward we split the map into different pieces, so the treasure hunt involved a search for pieces of the map.

The treasure chest with booty! (This chest is made by Melissa & Doug. It's absolutely darling and I would recommend it to anyone who wants a treasure chest for kids!)

Sam wanted to have an plastic party tablecloth with the Avengers depicted on it. The adults actually ended up eating at the table with this tablecloth. I thought it was a little disconcerting to eat food under the constant gaze/grimace of Thor and the Incredible Hulk, but Sam was happy about his decoration.

A Batman costume from Gram!

A Superman costume from the California cousins!

A Captain America costume! (This costume was the highlight of Sam's party. He desperately has been wanting this costume ever since he saw it at the mall a few weeks ago.)

Sam with our extended family, before the treasure hunt

The cake! (The star shape is like the one on Captain America's shield.)

N, Sam, and O

Sam has worn his Captain America costume multiple times per day. Although it is a pain for J and I to help him take the suit on and off, Sam looks so cute that we don't complain too much.

Here are some fun video clips from the day. The first one is of the treasure hunt itself. The second clip is of "Captain America" looking at himself in the mirror. Whenever Sam wears his Captain America costume, he ends up spending half of the time looking at himself in the mirror. It's both endearing and hilarious.

"Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl

Tonight I finished reading Viktor Frankl's famous book, Man's Search for Meaning. This book caused me to reflect quite a bit on where/how I find meaning in my own life. Since Frankl discusses his experiences as a prisoner in a concentration camp, I thought a lot about suffering and how I cope with suffering in own my life. I think that I often view myself as a victim when suffering occurs, but Frankl's text made me think about how I can view suffering in a more objective (and even positive) way. Although we cannot avoid suffering in our lives, we can derive meaning and depth of character through our sufferings.

I also have been able to look at my own problems and sufferings in a very different way, especially when compared to the experiences of prisoners in concentration camps. In many ways, I feel like I have no grounds to complain about my own problems and sufferings. They seem so trivial in comparison.

There are a lot of quotes that I like in this book, and I thought that I would record them here.

• "Dostoevski said once, 'There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings'" (p. 66).
• "Prisoners, too, suffered from this strange 'time-experience.' In camp, a small time unit, a day, for example, filled with hourly tortures and fatigue, appeared endless. A larger time unit, perhaps a week, seemed to pass very quickly. My comrades agreed when I said that in camp a day lasted longer than a week! How paradoxical was our time-experience!" (p. 70-71). (I thought this quote was interesting because it reminded me of my mission. The missionaries would often comment to each other about how the days would drag on forever, but the weeks would fly by. Is there a parallel between missions and concentration camps?!? Eek!)
• "...we have already spoken of the tendency there was [for camp prisoners] to look into the past, to help make the present, with all its horrors, less real. But in robbing the present of its reality there lay a certain danger. It became easy to overlook the opportunities to make something positive of camp life, opportunities which really did exist" (p. 71-72).
• "One could make a victory of those [concentration camp] experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate" (p. 72).
• "Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it" (p. 74).
• Nietzsche [wrote], "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how" (p. 76).
• A poet [wrote], "Was Du erlebst, kann keine Macht der Welt Dir rauben" (What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.)" (p. 82).
• "The person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? 'No, thank you,' he will think" (p. 121).
• "To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions" (p.130).
• "Man...determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment" (p. 131).
• "In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by the Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast" (p. 132).
• "Frankl was asked to express in one sentence the meaning of his life. He wrote the response on paper and asked his students to guess what he had written. After some moments of quiet reflection, a student surprised Frankl by saying, 'The meaning of your life is to help others find the meaning of theirs.' 'That was it, exactly,' Frankl said. 'Those are the very words I had written'" (p. 165, from afterward by William J. Winslade).

The World Through Sam's Eyes

Sam loves to take pictures and videos with my phone. Sometimes I won't even notice that my phone has been missing, and then later I'll pick it up and discover a slew of new pictures and videos that Sam took. Here are some of my favorites photos:

(Some of my art history notes)

Sam also likes to take videos. When he films, he often imagines that he is showing our house to a friend, so the audio will be peppered with him saying things like, "Yeah...hmm...I know...yep, sure is," in response to his imaginary friend's comments (about the house, I presume). He also likes to film the house while saying in a sing-song voice, "Everything you wanted to know...everything you wanted to know." I'm not quite sure how he came up with this little phrase or lilting way it is spoken, but I think it is cute. Here are some of my favorite videos:

Sam showing off his bedroom:

Sam often likes to make videos in the master bedroom, while sitting on J's side of our bed. You can hear him struggling in the middle of the video to climb up on the bed:

"Everything you wanted to know...in the whole wide world":

And just in case you think that there is always a little boy behind the camera, think again. Sometimes we have a dragon as a videographer. In this clip, Sam is trying to figure out how he can look at his dragon mask and film at the same time:

Staining the Front Fence

The weather has been really fantastic over the past several days, which prompted me and J to start a really time-consuming project: staining the wooden fence that surrounds our front yard. The previous owners of our house started to stain this fence a few years ago, but they obviously became daunted with the task and gave up. They even left an abandoned gallon and a half of wood stain the basement. Anyhow, J and I figured that we better retrieve the stain from the basement, since we want to train our clematis to climb around a stained trellis.

So, with a "now or never" attitude, J first stained the trellis. And once the project was started, I just had to keep going. J eventually had to stop, because his springtime allergies were bothering him too much. Luckily, he could watch Sam while I worked.)

I have a really, really hard time walking away from an unfinished project. It took us (mostly me) several days to stain the fence, and I would even wake up early (at 5:00 or 6:00 am) so I could stain for a few hours before Sam woke up. And finally, I finished everything this morning. I know it's not that exciting to look at a fence, but I'm so glad that this herculean project is done. The fence looks so much better. Now I won't be bothered by the bright-orange color of the wooden posts.

Staining this fence entailed:
- ~25 hours of manual labor
- 11.5 gallons of wood stain
- Two sunburned arms
- Countless sore muscles

In the middle of the project. You can get a sense of how the originally fence appeared.

The finished project! 

 The south side of our house. The previous owners had only stained some trim and the small part of the fence that is in the left-hand side of this shot.

The driveway looks so much better! 

You can see in this shot that I only stained the fence for the front yard. Our backyard also has a high fence on both sides, but we'll attack that project another time. Luckily, the backyard fence is considerably older and didn't look as obnoxious as the front yard fence (before it was stained, of course).

Here is our stained trellis (and the clematis which started this whole project!)

"MOM" by Sam

These two boys made sure that I had a really nice Mother's Day. I love them so much. Sam has become obsessed with The Avengers lately (thanks to a new display at the Disney Store). He likes to make up stories about the superheroes, and dictates stories while J transcribes them. Today, for Mother's Day, Sam practiced "being an author" and made up a story about me. He specifically requested that J write my story "in big letters" (i.e. capital letters). Enjoy!

MOM

by Sam

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS MOM. SHE WAS STRONG, A LITTLE BIT STRONG. MOM IS GREAT BECAUSE SHE GIVES ME DISHES. I HELP DO THE LAUNDRY WITH HER. MY FAVORITE THING IS THAT SHE DRIVES ME TO THE DINOSAUR MUSEUM. 

ONE DAY, MOM WAS DOING THE DISHES. ALL OF THE SUDDEN, SHE WAS IN AN ART MUSEUM! AND THERE WERE BAD GUYS EVERYWHERE! SHE TURNED INTO BLACK WIDOW, AND PCHEEW! PCHEEW! PCHOO! PCHOO! PTK! PTK! AND THEN SHE GOT ALL THE BAD GUYS. 

THE NEXT DAY, SHE WAS IN THE GARDEN. SHE'S THINKING ABOUT HER HOUSE. SHE HAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY. 

THE END

05.12.2012

An Effective Cleaner

Yesterday on NPR, listeners were invited to call and share a favorite quote or bit of advice that their mom used to say to them. While listening to the callers, I couldn't help but think of one of the last pieces of advice that my mom gave to me. (And, while we are on this topic, what is some good advice that your mother gave to you?)

After my mom was diagnosed with cancer, I went to Utah several times to help my family throughout 2009. On one trip, I was helping to clean my mom's bedroom, while my mom rested on a chair and told me where things were supposed to be placed. I must have picked up several items off of the floor at once, and then placed some things back down (on a dresser or the bed) so that I could put each item away, one at a time. My mom (who loved to give advice) was watching me and said, "An effective cleaner only touches something once before putting it away." I realized, then and there, that I was expending extra energy in my cleaning process.

My mom's advice about cleaning has stuck with me, and I'm glad about it. I've never felt like my mom and I had the same approach to housework or orderliness, and I sometimes would get frustrated when I would go to my parent's home for a visit. Before this occasion when I was cleaning my mom's room, I don't know if I would have even asked my mom for advice on cleaning or organizing. It wouldn't have occurred to me. I'm glad that I can now think about my mom and her advice while I am doing housework every day, which is something that I probably wouldn't have done before. And now, since my mom has passed away, I especially like to think back on times when I have connected with my mom or been influenced by the advice she has given to me.

Whenever I am cleaning the house or putting dishes away, always try to just touch something once before putting it away.

I love you, Mom. Happy Mother's Day.

Gladiolus for the Garden

My thoughtful friend ixoj and sent me a large bag of fifty gladiolus corms (which are different from bulbs) for my birthday. They arrived yesterday, and I quickly planted them in the ground two hours later. Hooray! I planted the corms along the north fence of our house; they are spread out to cover about 25 feet altogether. We have had a late spring this year, so I'm hoping that these corms will take and we'll enjoy gladiolus blooms in August or September. The bag of corms said that there is a "mixed" variety, so it will be fun to see what colors pop up. I'm hoping for something as vibrant and fun as the flowers in the photo above.

• Gladiolus (see an extensive care guide HERE): Grows between 2'-6' tall. This is a hearty plant which does well in well-drained (and even sandy) soil. Since we have mild winters in Washington state, I don't need to dig up the corms in the winter time, but I will need to cover the bed with mulch or hay.

Birthday festivities!

I enjoyed a whirlwind of birthday activities and celebrations when I recently turned thirty. Everything was so much fun, I wanted to make sure that I wrote everything down so I could remember it all. I feel very loved. And I almost feel guilty at the thought that my birthday celebrations haven't really ended, since some friends and I will be traveling to Istanbul this summer (to celebrate that we all turn thirty this year). Needless to say, this new decade is off to a great start!

My birthday festivities lasted for several days. The day before my birthday, I got together with my friend Rachael. She had compiled an eclectic present for me that contained a whole bunch of objects which have some type of significance - either relating to something about me or a story that I've told Rachael. For example, she gave me some Swedish Fish because I told her about the "smut candy" that I used to eat with friends in college. It was such a thoughtful and fun present.

On my actual birthday, I received some very nice gifts from my family members. My favorite gift was from Sam. The night before, he went with J to the store because he wanted to buy me a present "that [I] never had before." And Sam was true to his word. I've never gotten a huge bag of Red Vines for my birthday before. As soon as I opened them, Sam said, "And you can even share this with me, Mom!" I didn't know that Sam liked (or even knew about) Red Vines.

That day I worked in the morning and then stayed on campus to listen to the art historian Francis Pohl give a guest lecture on the Italian artist Mirella Bentivoglio. (I'm such a nerd - I was so excited to see that a lecture was being offered on my birthday, that I made child care arrangements for Sam so I could be sure to go to the lecture.) Afterward, I rushed to take Sam to my mother-in-law (who generously offered to babysit Sam at our house) and changed my clothes. When I arrived at home, I was greeted by a number of packages and a lovely "apple attack" (a version of a "heart attack" with paper hearts, but with apple-shaped bits of paper) from an "anonymous" friend (cough - Carrie - cough). I'm not sure if she picked the apples intentionally (she used to be an elementary school teacher and has creative supplies on hand), but the green apples made me think of this blog's header image. Each of the apples had some comment about me or fun little phrase, and it was a really nice surprise.

Anyhow, after I changed I hurried to pick up J. We had a reservation at Sky City (the restaurant on top of the Space Needle) for dinner, but traffic was so horrible that we arrived downtown an hour and fifteen minutes late! Luckily, we still were able to get seated and enjoyed a really nice dinner (with a bottle of Martinelli's to celebrate!). I've never eaten at Sky City or been up the Space Needle before that point, so it was fun.

J and I then took the monorail (which I have never ridden before) to the 5th Avenue theatre to see a performance of "Damn Yankees." One of the backdrops broke during the second act (the whole audience could hear a big thud), and the stage crew had to close the curtain and set up something different while the audience waited for fifteen minutes. We actually ended up leaving the show a little early so we could take the last monorail train back to the Seattle Center. Luckily, it's easy to surmise that the show had a happy ending.

The next day, my friend Meka and I took an impromptu two-day trip to Vancouver, B.C. It was fun to go out of the country for a few days! We visited the Museum of Anthropology, ate at The Flying Pig, hung out in the rooftop jacuzzi of our hotel, impulsively got haircuts at Bangtown hair salon, and visited Stanley Park.

When I came home, I was greeted with a lovely birthday dinner, courtesy of my in-laws. I've eaten so much delicious food over the past few days, I'm starting to feel really spoiled.

The new haircut!

Here's to a new decade! I'm curious to see what happens in the next ten years. I feel like I accomplished a lot of lifelong goals in the last decade, and as of yet, I don't feel like I have any long-term goals lined up for my thirties. (And, honestly, I can't decide if that is a good or a bad thing.) We'll see what goals and adventures crop up in the next few years.

Finding Happiness

It's been a strange day. This morning I went and visited with a friend, who unexpectedly told me that she and her husband are getting a divorce. At first, I felt horribly sad about the whole situation (and I still am sad that this couple's relationship and dreams for the future haven't worked out), but my friend was so happy at the same time. She was glowing. And as we talked about her current plans and situation, I could tell that she is doing what she feels will ultimately bring happiness to herself and her family. As I left her house this morning, I felt happy too. I'm happy that she is living the life that she wants to live, and I'm happy that she has found happiness.

After leaving my friend's house, I went downtown to see another friend at his new job. This friend and I worked together several years ago, and he just moved into the area to live with his boyfriend. Although it seems like he's a little out of his comfort zone (he just moved here from Utah) and we only spoke for a few minutes, and I can tell that he's happy too. I know that this friend has experienced a lot of pain and difficulties in his life because of his sexual orientation. It was so nice to perceive that he is in a positive environment and is thriving in his new life up here.

The juxtaposition of these two visits has gotten me thinking a lot about happiness today. Both of my friends have made some drastic life changes in order to find happiness. And in many cases, I think those drastic changes are necessary for happiness to come about. My own husband made some drastic changes in his own life over a year ago, and he has felt more peace and happiness than he has felt in a long time. And I'm happy in my husband's happiness. Although I wish that the drama and drastic changes could be avoided (especially for my friends' sakes), I'm glad to know that people find happiness after the dust settles. That's what we all want, right? I believe that deep down, everyone just wants to find happiness in their own way.