Name:Johanna Country:United States State:Minnesota Metro:St. Paul Gender:Female
Interests:My husband, Kyle; cooking/baking, staying in touch with my far-flung friends, photography, scrapbooking and most of all - loving and serving Jesus...making Him known in every way Expertise:Preparing delicious food, being honest, laughing Occupation:homemaker, chiropractic assist Industry:Ministry, Chiropractic
last night I finally got around to watching the movie "Up". Just as I figured; I loved it.
For those that might not know, or merely for my own recap - it's a story about Carl Fredrickson, a quiet old man whose soul mate and love, Ellie, passed away before he could take her on the adventure they had planned for a lifetime - a trip to Paradise Falls in South America. Ellie's dream was to put their house next to the falls and live out their adventure to the end of their days.
Through a series of fanciful events, he makes good on his promise to Ellie and gets to Paradise Falls. Albeit with a tagalong, little Wilderness Explorer Russell. Russell draws out the old man and shares his own hurts with Carl. They develop a friendship as they make the trek.
They are faced with some challenges and though Carl successfully gets the house on the ground overlooking Paradise Falls per Ellie's wish, he has lost Russell's trust. Ellie made a scrapbook that Carl rediscovers in the closet as he tries to decide what to do. The last time he saw it was years ago, when the pages following the page on which she wrote "Stuff I Will Do When I Get There" (i.e: Paradise Falls) were blank.
He turns the page and finds that Ellie had filled the pages with pictures of their life together. Her "Paradise Falls" was living life with Carl. Her adventurous streak was clearly satisfied in their daily adventures together. At the end of the book, she wrote Carl a note that said, "Thanks for the adventure! Now go have one of your own." This inspires him to carry on, rescue Russell and his favorite bird from the evil villain, and to live life to the fullest from that point onward.
It made me think of the phrase "the journey IS the reward". Everyday life can be full and beautiful as we live it out with intention and joy. Lately I've been a little frustrated at how it's a little more difficult to plan things and be spontaneous now that Mr. Jackson is part of our lives. But the message of "Up" reminded me that this life - the seeming mundane tasks of cooking, cleaning and caring for my family's needs, the moments we have together, the laughter and the tears, the joy and the sorrow...THIS LIFE is the great adventure God has for me now.
And by golly, I will live it.
I will make dinner a candlelight affair. I will make breakfast a sumptuous feast, even if its oatmeal and orange juice. I will plan and be intentional about things that are important - dates with my husband, time to relax, catching up with friends, playing with my little boy. I will buy good coffee and make delicious scones. I will not stress about the scale not showing me the numbers I want to see. I will hug my baby and kiss my husband. Life is hard, but life is good.
And when my heart is weighed down by the things of this hard world, I will look UP and have my spirit buoyed by a thousand hundred promises of God's grace and an eternity with Him, like so many colorful balloons. I will look forward to seeing my Savior's face and thanking Him for the life He gave me. I want to be able to say I didn't waste it and that I lived bravely.
I look forward to Heaven - the REAL Paradise Falls.
{my latest contribution to the world of journalism}
Someone once said you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone. Never has that been truer than for 20 year old Private First Class Nate Henderson and his family, formerly of Cambridge. Until a year ago, being home for Thanksgiving and enjoying family, food, and football was something he took for granted.
On the day before Thanksgiving last year, Henderson graduated from Army Basic Training at Fort Benning in Georgia. His parents, Keith and Meredith Henderson of Golden Valley, along with his sister Jo and brother Josh, proudly celebrated his accomplishment. After twelve weeks of MRE’s and Army food, Henderson devoured a homemade apple pie Jo brought with her from Minnesota. Though not at home, Thanksgiving 2008 was still about family, food and yes, football.
Twelve months later, Henderson is 6,500 miles away this Thanksgiving; thinking about his family, his fiancée Karla Gotzman of Maplewood, and that homemade apple pie. He is deployed with the 82nd Airborne 504th Parachute Regiment of the U.S. Army to Ramadi, Iraq; where his battalion patrols and protects an Iraqi government facility. Specializing as a .240 machine gunner, Henderson has been in Iraq with his platoon since mid-August.
PFC Henderson won’t be home again until his mid-deployment leave, which is expected to come in late December. It can’t come soon enough, though technology like Skype (a free on-line video phone service), email, and Facebook have made it possible to stay in close contact.
“I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to only write letters and not be able to see Nate,” said his father, Keith. Henderson’s mother Meredith said, “It has made all the difference in the world to be able to see him (on Skype) and know that he’s okay. Hearing what he’s doing and what it’s like over there has helped a lot.”
While local residents dig into their Thanksgiving feasts, Henderson will dig his heels into the sand of the Iraqi desert and dream about hot turkey and colder temperatures. The heat of Iraq has been harsh and surprising for a Minnesota boy.
“I miss the chilly fall air of Minnesota and seeing green hills and rivers – here it’s just tan flatness as far as you can see,” said Henderson, speaking via Skype from Iraq.
124,000 American troops are currently deployed to the “tan flatness” that is Iraq, according to the Brookings Institution’s Iraq Index. Many soldiers have been deployed more than once, missing countless holidays and family events. Henderson counts himself blessed with a reasonably short deployment of 12 months and is grateful for the chance to come home for a break near Christmas.
“When I’m home for R&R, I just want to spend time with my family and fiancée. I want to go downhill skiing, hit a Timberwolves game and a Minnesota Wild game, take Karla on a romantic dinner date and play some serious Xbox with my brother, Josh,” Henderson said.
Meredith is looking forward to celebrating Christmas with the whole family, even if Nate doesn’t make it home until several days afterward. “I plan to feed him whatever he wants.”
Many friends, family members, and even total strangers have sent Henderson boxes. Little slices of home, whether from photos, familiar flavors of a favorite cookie or a caring note go a long way toward making the separation bearable for a soldier.
“Missing my family and Karla has been the hardest thing to deal with during my deployment, but the care packages of candy, cookies and items from home have really helped,” Henderson said.
The family has dealt with the reality that Henderson is in a potentially dangerous place, though they are thankful that less is happening in Iraq now. “It’s been hard for me since there is the possibility he could not come home. We are really close and I miss hanging out and playing basketball,” said his brother Josh.
Reflecting on the past year and the challenges of deployment, Henderson sees how he took the comforts of home for granted. “Be grateful you live in America,” Henderson said. “It’s been eye opening for me to see more of the world.”
Henderson’s parents trust that he is well taken care of by a force larger than their love. “Our biggest comfort comes from knowing that Nate is in God’s hands. God is as mighty and powerful on that side of the world as He is here. We miss Nate, but we know he’s in better hands than ours: God’s.”
This Thanksgiving, the Henderson family realizes how much they have in each other. And they won’t take that for granted ever again.
{constructive criticism from my writer friends would be much appreciated - I submitted this without my "pre-editor" reviewing it...}
this has been a busy week. Somewhere along the way I realized that I am probably crazy for all the things I am currently trying to do in life:
be an excellent wife
be a great mom
look somewhat put together each day
manage my house
a 21 day business building challenge with Silpada
write 2 stories for the newspaper (one of which I CANNOT get anywhere with because I can't find the type of person I'm looking to write about!)
get ideas for new articles (I have about 5 in the hopper)
start a catering business
Yeah. Nuts. Especially considering the fact that two of the three vocational endeavors I'm currently pursuing involve me HAVING NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING. :) I'm just fabulous like that. Starting several new things all at once seems to be a common occurrence in my life. Will I ever learn?
I really am excited about all of the things I'm doing right now, though. If it weren't for that excitement and my dogged determination to make things work, there is no way I would keep this pace going. The want-to is there in spite of the fact that I abhor the learning curve that comes with new ventures.
My wonderful network of awesome friends have come to my rescue - my friend with a journalism degree is helping me with my writing, while my former-foodservice-manager-of-a-large-Christian-camp friend is making me these epic spreadsheets for pricing my menus and recipes for the catering business. I seriously couldn't do it without them. (Thanks, Whitney and Heidi!)
It's funny, now that I write for the paper, I am super critical of my grammar and sentence structure. I keep thinking, "Oh, great. People know I write for the newspaper, so now they will think it's dreadful that I ended my sentence with a preposition or that I mixed my tenses on my Facebook status." lol. How silly. But I just edited this very paragraph because I thought about that.
Well...ending abruptly here - it's time for this tired momma to hit the sack. I'll leave you with some cute photos of my little Jackalope. I cannot even believe that he will be four months old already on Tuesday. How is that even possible?
current reading material: Free Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy....it's all about chilling out as a parent and letting your kids experience life (as in - let them go to the park by themselves when they are nine. Don't put foam corners on your coffeetable, etc.) I definitely subscribe to this sort of parenting.
current songs o' delight:You and Me by Dave Matthews Band - I LOVE the lyrics to this song. It's the latest "our song" for me and Kyle.
Wanna pack your bags, Something small Take what you need and we disappear Without a trace we'll be gone, gone The moon and the stars can follow the car and then when we get to the ocean We gonna take a boat to the end of the world All the way to the end of the world
Oh, and when the kids are old enough We're gonna teach them to fly
You and me together, we could do anything, Baby You and me together yes, yes (x2)
You and I, we're not tied to the ground Not falling but rising like rolling around Eyes closed above the rooftops Eyes closed, we're gonna spin through the stars Our arms wide as the sky We gonna ride the blue all the way to the end of the world To the end of the world
Oh, and when the kids are old enough We're gonna teach them to fly
You and me together, we could do anything, Baby You and me together yes, yes
We can always look back at what we did All these memories of you and me baby But right now it's you and me forever girl And you know we could do better than anything that we did You know that you and me, we could do anything
You and me together, we could do anything, Baby You and me together yeah, yeah
current projects: planning Christmas presents, researching a story for the newspaper on a soldier coming home for the holidays, working on menus and prices for my new catering venture (I'm calling it Apple Blossom Catering...it's a throwback to my very first catering job when I lived in WI on an apple treed hill) AND calling people that just received their Silpada pieces from a benefit party in October.
current hair color: almost natural! thanks to a clarifying treatment that stripped the miles of built up gunk, minerals and color on my hair. The various tones of brown/caramel/honey and highlights of blonde are almost okay with me. But I have a feeling it will not be long for the world with my penchant for chocolate brown coming on strong. I'm thinking of plum streaks in there too...or caramel highlights. We'll see.
current events:
1. MOMS group yesterday - I really enjoy getting out and fellowshipping with other moms from my church a couple times a month. It's a nice group and the speakers are usually interesting. Yesterday was on nutrition - nothing I didn't already know, but it was a great reminder to feed my family well.
2. My three side-jobs are really making me happy. Each day it's fun to make my to-do list and tackle either Silpada, the newspaper or catering ideas. I'm super excited to be dipping my fingers back into my own personal honey of catering. (I'm going to be catering for a local scrapbooking retreat cottage once or twice a month starting in December, if all goes well with my debut weekend.)
3. Yesterday we voted on a proposed school levy (read: TAX HIKE). I'm very glad it didn't pass, though at the same time I wish there was a better way to provide the schools with the money they need. Maybe dipping into the overpaid administrators pockets would help? (I think teachers are compensated fairly - it's the administration that I'm frustrated about.) Also - I'm trying to figure out how when enrollment is down, they need MORE money? In any other situation, when consumers go down, costs go down....hmmmm.
upcoming events:
1. Silpada show this weekend - BIG sale on retired pieces and a great chance to get Christmas presents ordered.
2. Day of shopping with great girlfriends - we're going to hit the new Clothes Mentor in Roseville, my beloved Turnstyle, good ol' Goodwill and top if off with a Starbucks trip. Did you know they already have their holiday drinks on the menu? Gingerbread Latte, here I come!
3. Jackson's 4th month "birthday". I cannot believe how big my little man is getting! He's busting out of 6 month clothes already and is tipping the scales at 20+ lbs. Jack has become SO interactive and vocal in the past couple of weeks - it's wonderful and so fun.
4. Thanksgiving! I need to start plotting the delectable things that will grace our table on the holiday that is rapidly getting squeezed out by Christmas already.
