I have a good friend who is an amazing photographer, and has his own photography business here in Cincinnati. He's extremely talented, and was responsible for the photos that we had done as a family in September. A couple weeks ago, he had approached me about a new series he wanted to do for his business, and wanted to use my kids as models. He offered to give me a CD of all the pictures he took as compensation for our efforts--and although I am completely convinced I'm getting the better end of the deal--I just at the chance. I asked what he wanted the kids to wear, and he requested the boys be in fairly neutral solid colors, and that Brooklyn have two outfits--a white summery dress, and a tutu. I searched 4 different stores for a tutu, to no avail. Finally, last night, I sat at my sewing machine and put together a tutu of my own. I am beyond thrilled with the results of this photo session. Looking at the slideshows brings tears to my eyes. My children are exquisitely beautiful, and although I know I'm biased, I feel that these photos show it to great effect. I am grateful beyond measure for the chance I have to spend my eternity with these people. They're beautiful--inside as well as out. I hope you all enjoy the pictures!
Friday, March 20
Monday, March 16
Ammon's Montage
The Life of Ammon
I created this montage for Ammon's family for Christmas last year. I spent hours upon hours upon hours poring over photos in my collection of shoe boxes, and searching through the hundreds of photos stored on my hard drive. I gathered pictures from his parents for the era before I came into his life, and then I spent many more hours uploading them into this program, editing their sequence, layout, and cropping, and choosing music that spoke to me. I ordered DVD's for his parents and siblings, and every time I watch the final result it brings me to tears. I wanted to share this many with my cyberspace readers. He was so vibrant, so alive--and so loved. I regret that as the children started arriving, there are very few pictures of he and I together. When I look at these photos, I try to remind myself that I am in the pictures, you just can't see me. As I snap the camera, the smile on his face is for me. The love that emanates from his eyes--that is mine.
I miss him so much.
Heaven Wrapped Up
This recipe is heaven on a tortilla. I'm not exagerrating. Even my kids loved it.
Thai Chicken-Broccoli Wraps
Yield: 6 sandwiches
Prep: 20 minutes
12 oz boneless chicken breast strips
1/4 tsp garlic salt
2 cups broccoli-slaw mix
1/4 tsp ground ginger
Peanut sauce (recipe below)
3 10-inch whole wheat tortillas, warmed
Sprinkle chicken strips with garlic salt. Coat a large, nonstick skillet with cooking spray. Cook and stir seasoned chicken in hot skillet over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes or until cooked through. Remove chicken from skillet and keep warm. Coat pan again with cooking spray, add broccoli slaw and ginger to skillet. Cook stirring constantly until vegetables are crisp-tender.
Peanut Sauce:
3 tbs peanut butter
2 tbs hot water
1 tbs reduced sodium soy sauce
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp ginger.
Heat over low heat, stirring constantly, until smooth.
Spread tortillas with peanut sauce. Top with chicken strips and broccoli slaw mix. Roll up each tortilla, and cut in half. Serve immediately.
Thai Chicken-Broccoli Wraps
Yield: 6 sandwiches
Prep: 20 minutes
12 oz boneless chicken breast strips
1/4 tsp garlic salt
2 cups broccoli-slaw mix
1/4 tsp ground ginger
Peanut sauce (recipe below)
3 10-inch whole wheat tortillas, warmed
Sprinkle chicken strips with garlic salt. Coat a large, nonstick skillet with cooking spray. Cook and stir seasoned chicken in hot skillet over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes or until cooked through. Remove chicken from skillet and keep warm. Coat pan again with cooking spray, add broccoli slaw and ginger to skillet. Cook stirring constantly until vegetables are crisp-tender.
Peanut Sauce:
3 tbs peanut butter
2 tbs hot water
1 tbs reduced sodium soy sauce
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp ginger.
Heat over low heat, stirring constantly, until smooth.
Spread tortillas with peanut sauce. Top with chicken strips and broccoli slaw mix. Roll up each tortilla, and cut in half. Serve immediately.
Sunday, March 15
Tonight's Pain
I am aching tonight, an ache that I thought was relinquished or at least quieted in months and weeks past. I have become so adept at pasting on a smile, laughing and conversing like a functional human being, that for a time I actually believed that I could become a functional human being. Tonight, wounds that I thought were reasonably healed over are gaping open. They are pulsing and raw. The dull ache of missing Ammon, the burden that I quietly carry with me through my daily life, tonight that ache is a stabbing pain in my chest. The physical pain of it surprises me, after all this time. The threat of tears hovers. My heart is heavy inside my chest, and I know a long night of tears awaits me when I finally choose to turn out the light. Perhaps I will take a sleeping pill and pray that sleep takes me quickly and deeply into it's embrace. Perhaps I'll give myself over to the abyss of grief that yawns open before me tonight.
The grief is truly an abyss. It is a wide open cavern of pain and agony. The depth and breadth of the pit is indescribable to those that don't look through a widow's eyes. The bleakness of my future is blacker than the darkest night, more hopeless than a world without sunshine. I feel, tonight, that Ammon was the sunshine of my life. I feel that he was my center, my orbit centered around his light, and now that he is gone, my orbit hovers without the pull of gravity.
I know that tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow is always better, and the morning light always brings with it a renewed hope that someday, somehow, I will find the strength to stagger through whatever stretch of time is placed before. Really, on nights like tonight--and even on the good days--that is how I number my existence. Today? Just one more day out of the way until I can be reunited with him. Last week? Just another milestone out of the way until I can join him beyond this earthly realm. Oh, how it aches. How the grief and loneliness grips uncomfortably at my heart and my soul. Every day, I choose life. I choose to get out of bed, care for my children, and find the strength within myself to excel in so many areas of my life. As I knelt at Ammon's side-even as he drew his final breath--I desperately plead with him to live. I told him I couldn't go on without him. The reality? I am. No matter the agony that shadows my every step, I am going on without him. April 12th 2008, and every day since then, the sun has continued to rise, and so have I. Tonight, I don't feel like rising. I feel like, if it were an option, I would simply crawl into bed and take my last breath. I would make this journal entry my last living act, and go be reunited with my love.
God, how I miss him. How I long, with every cell and synapse in my body, that I could turn back the hands of time and bring him back into my life. Tonight is not one of the nights that I feel as though our marriage didn't exist. Tonight, I can hear the texture of his voice in my mind, and feel the caress of his hands through my hair. On my skin. His breath on my ear as he whispers his love to me. It's only a figment of my imagination. He isn't here, his presence doesn't warm my room or my body. Will I ever be able to move throughout a day and not long for what was once mine?
The grief is truly an abyss. It is a wide open cavern of pain and agony. The depth and breadth of the pit is indescribable to those that don't look through a widow's eyes. The bleakness of my future is blacker than the darkest night, more hopeless than a world without sunshine. I feel, tonight, that Ammon was the sunshine of my life. I feel that he was my center, my orbit centered around his light, and now that he is gone, my orbit hovers without the pull of gravity.
I know that tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow is always better, and the morning light always brings with it a renewed hope that someday, somehow, I will find the strength to stagger through whatever stretch of time is placed before. Really, on nights like tonight--and even on the good days--that is how I number my existence. Today? Just one more day out of the way until I can be reunited with him. Last week? Just another milestone out of the way until I can join him beyond this earthly realm. Oh, how it aches. How the grief and loneliness grips uncomfortably at my heart and my soul. Every day, I choose life. I choose to get out of bed, care for my children, and find the strength within myself to excel in so many areas of my life. As I knelt at Ammon's side-even as he drew his final breath--I desperately plead with him to live. I told him I couldn't go on without him. The reality? I am. No matter the agony that shadows my every step, I am going on without him. April 12th 2008, and every day since then, the sun has continued to rise, and so have I. Tonight, I don't feel like rising. I feel like, if it were an option, I would simply crawl into bed and take my last breath. I would make this journal entry my last living act, and go be reunited with my love.
God, how I miss him. How I long, with every cell and synapse in my body, that I could turn back the hands of time and bring him back into my life. Tonight is not one of the nights that I feel as though our marriage didn't exist. Tonight, I can hear the texture of his voice in my mind, and feel the caress of his hands through my hair. On my skin. His breath on my ear as he whispers his love to me. It's only a figment of my imagination. He isn't here, his presence doesn't warm my room or my body. Will I ever be able to move throughout a day and not long for what was once mine?
Wednesday, March 11
Last Month
Today is the last of the monthly anniversaries. I'm sure that the 11th of every month will continue to pierce my heart with agony and loss, but from here on out the passage of time will be marked with years instead of months.
How bizarre that he has been gone this long.
This morning as I was driving to the gym, I looked at the clock and it was 3 minutes past 9 am. With startling clarity, I remembered where I was at 9:03 on that fateful morning. I was at the same YMCA, meeting with my fitness instructor and learning how to use the weight machines in the cardio room. I completed the whole circuit, and it was a workout that left my muscles sore. In fact, in the days after his death I was incredibly sore in my neck and arms, specifically my throat. It hurt to speak or raise my voice at all, and I wondered absently if my sore neck and throat muscles were a result of my exercise on the day Ammon died, or my prolonged and grief-filled scream upon hearing the noise. Likely, a combination of the two.
When I reached the YMCA this morning, the familiar sights and sounds were not comforting. I sat down on the floor in the gym, laced up my sneakers, and waited for the class to start. The instructor, and my new personal trainer, noticed that I wasn't my normal self, and knowingly asked if I was having a bad day.
I shrugged my shoulders, fighting tears. "No, it's just the 11th", I replied
"Well, get out there, then", she said, pointing over her shoulder to the gym floor.
I walked toward my friend Joanna, still fighting back tears. As I approached, she also asked what was wrong.
"I just need a hug", I replied weakly, falling into her embrace. "It's the 11th again".
She gently rubbed my back, and was sympathetic to my pain. I began to cry in earnest, and had to excuse myself to the ladies room. Once there, I quickly locked myself into a stall and fought off the hysterics that were threatening to overtake me. I briefly considered leaving the YMCA. I thought about the consequences of skipping my regular Zumba class, and how it would make me feel. In the end, I took my swollen, red eyes into the gym and stood in my usual place in the front row.
At the end of an hour, I felt much better. The endorphins finally kicked in, and while I'm still reeling that today is yet another 11th on this horrible journey, I'm not as dangerously unstable as I was this morning.
I'm grateful for good friends, for hugs, but most of all today, I'm grateful for mindless exertion and profuse sweat. I needed that today.
How bizarre that he has been gone this long.
This morning as I was driving to the gym, I looked at the clock and it was 3 minutes past 9 am. With startling clarity, I remembered where I was at 9:03 on that fateful morning. I was at the same YMCA, meeting with my fitness instructor and learning how to use the weight machines in the cardio room. I completed the whole circuit, and it was a workout that left my muscles sore. In fact, in the days after his death I was incredibly sore in my neck and arms, specifically my throat. It hurt to speak or raise my voice at all, and I wondered absently if my sore neck and throat muscles were a result of my exercise on the day Ammon died, or my prolonged and grief-filled scream upon hearing the noise. Likely, a combination of the two.
When I reached the YMCA this morning, the familiar sights and sounds were not comforting. I sat down on the floor in the gym, laced up my sneakers, and waited for the class to start. The instructor, and my new personal trainer, noticed that I wasn't my normal self, and knowingly asked if I was having a bad day.
I shrugged my shoulders, fighting tears. "No, it's just the 11th", I replied
"Well, get out there, then", she said, pointing over her shoulder to the gym floor.
I walked toward my friend Joanna, still fighting back tears. As I approached, she also asked what was wrong.
"I just need a hug", I replied weakly, falling into her embrace. "It's the 11th again".
She gently rubbed my back, and was sympathetic to my pain. I began to cry in earnest, and had to excuse myself to the ladies room. Once there, I quickly locked myself into a stall and fought off the hysterics that were threatening to overtake me. I briefly considered leaving the YMCA. I thought about the consequences of skipping my regular Zumba class, and how it would make me feel. In the end, I took my swollen, red eyes into the gym and stood in my usual place in the front row.
At the end of an hour, I felt much better. The endorphins finally kicked in, and while I'm still reeling that today is yet another 11th on this horrible journey, I'm not as dangerously unstable as I was this morning.
I'm grateful for good friends, for hugs, but most of all today, I'm grateful for mindless exertion and profuse sweat. I needed that today.
Monday, March 9
Payoff
I got some huge payoff today, and it was a much needed breather. This morning I stepped onto the scale after Zumba, and was pleased to see that sometime within the last three weeks, 5 pounds have melted off. That put me on a pretty good high and gave me ambition to continue the hard work I've been doing.
When I reached school this afternoon, my much-awaited Algebra score was back. I scored a perfect 100% on the last test of the quarter--and my overall average is the highest in the class! Those of you who know me well, go ahead and snicker. My math skills (or complete lack thereof) have been fodder for many jokes. My high score in algebra is proof that there is indeed a God!
When I reached school this afternoon, my much-awaited Algebra score was back. I scored a perfect 100% on the last test of the quarter--and my overall average is the highest in the class! Those of you who know me well, go ahead and snicker. My math skills (or complete lack thereof) have been fodder for many jokes. My high score in algebra is proof that there is indeed a God!
Sunday, March 8
Thunderstorm
The storm sirens went off this evening as the kids and I were getting ready for bed, and within moments the rain started coming down. I had to tape it to share with you desert-folk, but please excuse my phone conversation in the background. And my cackle of a laugh. In fact, I'd remove the sound completely if it wouldn't destroy the impact of the video.
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