30 Days of Thankful

Each year for the last three, I've purposed every day of November to faithfully carve time on Facebook to write one entry. It's quite the important entry, I dare say, because it's shaped my entire month - one 24 hour chunk at a time.

I hear the murmurs in increased numbers - the plaintive melodies decrying FB's lack of merriment, of honesty, of good 'ol kindness even. Okay. I see that. But I offer this in retort to said decriers: You do realize, do you not, that the networkers et al - NOT the actual network - are the guilty offenders? Because, see, the network's not alive: it's nothing without the content we put in it, post on it, spread through it. And - yes, yes - we can hide some posters, limit our feed exposure, or flat out unfriend, if you're really interested in spreading your point. But, then again, few people accompany their unfriend with any feasible explanation. So, here's the rub for you....

Why not change the content we post? Better choose what we spread? How about we claim Facebook for the beauty it can offer rather than the crud it can spew? (I suddenly feel a bit like Amy Madigan's character, Annie, at the PTA meeting on banning books..."Come on! Come on! Let's see those hands!" Yeah, think it. Post it. See it for fun.)

So, come October, I start compiling my list of 30 - which isn't a lot when you see your life through the lens of thankful, I note. I think of who matters deeply; what's changed me; which nouns fill my happy place of want; which nouns faithfully fill my treasured column of need. I reflect and pray and smile quite a bit actually because, in the end, I'm left with nothing but a cup running over...nothing but love.

So, come November, I practice what I preach. Some were on the list...some strolled in just by being.

Either way, it's good to contemplate your content. To contemplate your life. It's even better for the soul. Well, my soul, anyways. And just maybe yours, too.Which doesn't have to happen solely in the eleventh month.

  

     Thankful is funny like that: 

it's cool any month of the year, like a superpower that never runs out of juice.

So here's my contribution to the good juice...in the order I posted my thankful's.

For stacks of essays waiting to be graded that remind me teaching is who I am, not just what I do...I am truly thankful.

For a treasured friend - a necessary part of my core - whose quiet strength and Godly perspective signifies Comfort to all whom she loves...for Amy Roek Cunningham, I am truly thankful. Love you.

For 9 pounds 9 ounces of miniature Craig who has grown into 4 feet of his own soul-blessing self...I am gloriously thankful. Happy Birthday, Elijah: you will always be my best reminder to laugh hard and live big. I love you.

For words - long and short, skinny and tall, juicy and dry, clean and...not - for the way they are alive and fail only when they should: I am thankful for words.

For the "A-Ha!" moment that lights my students' faces when they get it, do it, and like it once they're done...for that singular moment of superb connection, I am thankful.

For the moments that have defined me and for the grace that made them sacred...I am blessedly thankful.

For a day to celebrate the birth of my friend who represents depths of loyalty and devotion I can only aspire to reach...for my hysterically insightful Jessi Chavez, I am beyond thankful.

(Here's to one that's true every year. Of course.) For indoor plumbing - and the creature comforts it so faithfully provides through cold, infirmity, and dark of night...I am blissfully thankful.

For having had the extraordinary opportunity to live in The Last Frontier, where all that is most beautiful remains still untouched...and called Alaska - I am an awe-inspired thankful.

For pumpkin. For bread, coffee, creamer, muffins, cheesecake, candles, lotions, and even the big ol' orbs we place on the stoop...for pumpkin, my scents are delightfully thankful.

For your bravery, your resilience, your valiant belief in duty before self and God above all...you are my daddy, my friends, and my beloved Craig most of all...for my freedom, I am humbly thankful.

For the Chai Spice walls of a cozy parlor awash in the glow of afternoon sunshine...and a Kindle to go along with it...I am thankful.

Because I woke this morning with his arm around me and listened to him breathing beside me...for the presence of my soul mate Craig, saturating every day of life until it's just the right side of dream come true - I am ever thankful.

For 4'11'" of golden locks, dimpled cheeks, artist's hands, blue-green eyes, and the warmest heart of compassion I've ever encountered...for my only begotten beauty-girl, Grace Abigail, my mothering heart is thankful.

For my Someone, my Peach, my reminder that wisdom isn't separate from humor and all that glitters really IS golden...Michelle Rice Zitzmann, there aren't words for the depth of thankful I am for you. Love you.

For lists that get trumped and goals that get traded in favor of what's better, grander, more beautiful than any I'd imagined...for learning to yield my Type A to His "Type Perfect", I am infinitely thankful.

For a warm bed to climb into come night's fall; for a roof that shelters the heart as much as it does the home; for a full pantry, a cool fridge, clothes that fit, and soap that cleans...for having everything I need more than than everything I want, I am thankful.

For coffee - all kinds; and its packaging - cups or mugs or paper carriers; and its smell - nutty, sweet, slightly bitter; and its warmth - through my hands, across my lips, down my tummy...for my sensory love affair with coffee, my taste buds are thankful.

Gettin' this one in under the wire: for the simple pleasure of cuddling with Elijah beneath a fuzzy blanket, belly-laughing-until-tears watching old The Cosby Show episodes...my merry heart is thankful.

For the gift of knowing and being known, for counting people as gifts and realizing, "They see me and let me seem them, too...no hiding required" - for the gift of acceptance, my friendship meter is thankful.

For Good Wife dates with Jill Singleton Bailey including decaf, pumpkin pie, pajamas (for me), and delightful chats on solving life's great puzzles...the plot of the show among them - for a 30 second drive to hang with one of the smartest, wittiest gals I know, I am thankful.

For my last name: a tangible gift my husband gave to say I belong to him. It's a reminder of legacy and of love. It's alliterative (and that's just cool) AND, even after 15 years, I never tire of being called "Mrs. Covak"...for a name far greater than mere signature, I am thankful.

For our house - more than walls and paint and windows, it's a dream we built together with sacrifice and faith, stitched together by three hands intertwined...His, Craig's, and mine. We've brought our babies home to this house, watched them take their first steps here and, one day, will watch them walk out of it to build their own homes. For the realization that a house loved becomes a home where your story begins, I am thankful.

For the perspective of joy: realizing I have a blessed life is rarely based solely on circumstances and always based on perspective. When I see through eyes of love and peace, I don't see circumstances...I see the bounty of the good life. And I am blessed. For the perspective of joy, my happy heart is thankful...and hoping yours is, too!

For the Day After traditions: halls are decked, leftovers consumed, carols a playin', and pizza is gettin' eaten. Welcome Holidays!

For beer. That's right - beer. For blondes and pales and schillings and every seasonal there is. For the foam and the hops and the finishes, too. For the pilsner, the stein, the pint, and the weizen...for all the fashions in which beer arrives to please the the palate, I am thankful. (No belching, please.)

For LG 47, boys, girls, men, women - Christ the center of all: you are a rich group who make me laugh and think and feel and DO better and bigger than without you...for Steve, Michelle, Jessica, David, Lynne, Micah, Becca, KJ, and Craig, my never-alone heart is thankful.

For my second-favorite lefty who's all giggles and smiles...until he's not; who lives life all in and teaches me what it means to love with heart wide open, especially when he says, "I love you, Mommy" about 50 times a day - for my miracle Judsen Ames, my smile is surely thankful.

For the unexpected gifts that rearrange moments, days, and even years of my life: for every one from snow days to drop-in guests, from marriage proposals to sticks with two lines, my life has been full of rearranging...and I am thankful for it.

(And, to be posted tomorrow….) For the memories of what made me then, the adventures carving me now, and the dreams and hopes deferred for tomorrow…for His promise of “the best is yet to come”, I am eternally thankful.

33% Bliss

The months between October and January are a marathon, not a sprint. 

For lots of us. Let's get real: for MOST of us.
In a world where "different" is the new "same", the quest of getting-through-holidays-with-festive-zing-intact is the uniting thread that might - gasp! - actually get us through the holidays with festive zing intact. Radical, I know.

In our house, the race gun fires come October 31st - for you, this may be because, Hark!, it's Halloween. For us, too. But it's also our anniversary: add an Elijah's birthday chaser mixed with a shake of Thanksgiving, a stir of Gracie's birthday, a splash of Christmas, and top with a two-olived pick of New Year's and Craig's birthday, and you've got one heck of a marathon martini.

Wait. Was that entire analogy centered on liquor?
Well, that was entirely on purpose.
        I mean, subconscious.
                I mean, accidental.

Like you, we're also paying the bills, cleaning the house, hitting the gym, cheering the kids, scheduling the meetings, gassing the car, shopping the stores, and...well...living the glamorous life.

So who has time for blogging? Well, sadly, I haven't prioritized it...though other rock-stars have maintained the pace (props, people. Props). And who pays the price?
We-ellllllllll....me.
       I mean, us.
           All right, I mean you.

Because you've got the sandwich post that throws the first third of the leg at you all at once...I like to think of it as 33% Bliss.

Apologies in advance.

Grace and her friend, Ally, had a piano recital just before Halloween. It was themed. How can you tell?

 This year, the Covak's became the Scooby Gang...complete with Scooby, Velma (seriously, Grace hardly looks like Grace, right?) and Shaggy.

LOVE! Thanks, Zitzmann's for taking it in our absence!

 

 

 

  Not afraid to be eclectic: our traditional Halloween with the Z's found us lost in the land of Mystery Gang/Zombie Sweet Witch/Ahoy, Matey!/American Werewolf in Colorado...makes a  heart happy, this shot.

 

Look at his little body! Cute.

And, as always, we marked the Pumpkin-palooza with painting (yeah, we don't carve...WAY too much work for Momma and Daddy). Each kiddo gets his own and her own wee gourd, and then we all paint a panel on the family pumpkin.

Here are the "fruits" of their labor.

2 more 33% Bliss's to go!

Redefine Disgusting

Life is all well and good until chunks of vomit are cascading down your underpants.

What?!!!!???

A truer statement may never have passed my lips. Or echoed from my keyboard.

You're speaking metaphorically, right? Like a euphemism, right? Like letting the curses fly when it doesn't go your way? Something like, "Oops, I forgot to stamp that card...chunks of vomit cascading down my underpants!"?

Yeah. No. I mean, one minute I'm talking to Grace's teacher in the back of the gymnasium before the curtain rises (Did I mention Grace was a pirate? Tried out for the play and everything? Been memorizing her lines since August?). Next minute, Judsen's sounding all panicky, like he's the first to spy the white horse riding on the horizon cloud. Then I hear, "My tummy doesn't feel goooood." 

Oh crap. I know where this is going.

With teacher still talking and concern sharply peaking, I ask, "Do you feel like you're going to be s --"

And then, yes. Yes he was. Like a hose. Aimed right at my chest. Curled into it, if you really want to know the horrors. Then, as I was moving like I, too, had seen the apocalyptic horsemen, he did it again. And, just as I hailed Elijah to go get Daddy - quickly - he did it again. And again. And, just for good measure, one more time. All before we made it the bathroom.

Um. 

Ew.

Yes. Yes it was. After finally getting him to the toilet, up he chucked twice more. Outside the women's room, I could hear Grace's teacher telling Craig, "Just go in. Go in! It's all right." Of course, when Craig came 'round the corner, he was a most exceptional shade of green. I don't think he thought it was all right. Wife covered in vomit traipsing its way steadily south. No, not all right at all. But still he passed the near-useless (not his fault) brown school paper towels like a motorized arm on the "just to help you scrape off the chunks" conveyor belt of mercy. 

Yeah, that simile isn't helping the "ew" factor.

Yes. Yes I know. When the last retch had ceased, I wrapped the boy in my sodden jacket - yeah, I did type sodden - and told Craig to stay for Gracie while I headed home with the hurler (and I don't mean the throwing kind). By now, the spooge (um, didn't know how to spell it, so Googled it. Turns out, that's NOT what that word means. Triple ew.) vomit has oozed a path down the v-neck (how often do I wear a v-neck...come ON!), over the belly, and well into the underpants.

Wow. 

I'm just incredibly disgusted by this whole post.

Yes. Yes I am, too. Try motherhood. It'll redefine disgusting every time.

And, while you're basking in the merry land of pondering, here's another tittle worth excogitating:

Life is all well and good until chunks of vomit are cascading down your underpants.

But Colorado

Colorado is beautiful country. Grant you, it's no Alaska - but it's got it's own brand of spit and shine. So, whenever we've the chance to get away, if only for a few days, we pack up the clan and head out to some as-yet unexplored nook of the Centennial state.

Our latest trip was especially notable, though, because of the absence of what otherwise makes for a busy trip: our three children! In honor of our 15th trip around the sun, we headed to High Country for some days away from the normal grind.

I love High Country: most recently, I wrote about it's beauty on our annual summer trip to Dillon.But, this year, we headed even higher to mountain views yet seen...in Winter Park. Neither Craig nor I had been, and if ever there was an occasion to embark on a new adventure together...

The drive was beyond words (but, since this is a blog, after all, I'll give it a whirl). The best one-worder I can contrive is crystalline. They'd just had a massive dump of snow and, being as how they're ski country in the off-off season (think winter's answer to a western Ghost Town), it was absurdly quiet. Silent, even...much like I'd imagine it would be inside the glass of a snow globe.
And when I say we were in the mountains, I mean we were in the mountains.

That's the Continental Divide below. (In case you're not familiar, the CD is the line of demarcation running north-south that separates water flow between the Atlantic and Pacific. Rain or snow runoff to the east heads towards the Atlantic; to the east, the Pacific.) And, considering you can't be just anywhere to see it, it's pretty cool when you actually do.

There's nothing more breathtaking on the initial stretch than this shot.

 Because, until you see it, you're climbing in elevation all gradual like...until boom...Hello, Rockies!

Along the way, we ran across these...my pictorial homage to the Colorado brand of mountain humor.

That's a moose beneath the sheeting and a watermill starring as Jack. Yeah. We shame our landmarks here.

Like Alaska, you can't let Colorado's snow or cold or otherwise challenging weather snafus hold you back: you'll only become a sad hermit if you do. Besides, why else do we have cocoa and toddies if not for nipped noses and tingly toes? So, lest we surrender to Old Man Winter, we spent an afternoon on this gorgeous hike. Think the forest scenes in Narnia when first they leave the wardrobe and you've just about got it.

  We hiked about four miles to the sound of Adams Falls...

Agh! A rare glimpse of me...and just me...I really do appear in photos without my friends or family...I think.

Until we came upon this.

And heard this.

Yeah.
You heard it right.
Nothin' but the water.
Absurdly quiet.

Crystalline.
Like the inside of a snow globe.

But Colorado.

In The Last 365

Today is our son, Elijah's, 8th birthday. 

8 (!).

It's hard to believe - and even harder to imagine I'll be making that same statement for the next, oh...say....every year until I die.

In 2009, I wrote a post entitled "The Story of Elijah" that tells you everything you need to know about the quality of this gem we get to call son. And, truth be told, I could write a similar entry for every year we get to have him. But, this year more than ever, I've seen our little man grow. Change. Become more of his best while shedding his worst. 

In so many ways, Elijah is my hardest child - the one I struggle to understand the most, usually because he's the child I'm like the least. Yet, he's also the child who's taught me the most about my own best...and worst...and inspired me to tip my own scales in the same way he's tipping his. He makes me laugh just by laughing himself. And it is he, more than any other worldly influence the last 365, who has awakened me to the joys of living each moment - in that moment - as a singularly delicious "just as it is". 

I've looked before at my first-born son and seen possibility; glorious potential; a promise of greatness to come. Then, somewhere along the way, I cleared my lens to see the presence of glorious potential, the arrival of promises once to come...and he is beautiful.

And that's just in the last 365.

See for yourself.

Happy Birthday, sweet boy.

Seconds of Happy

Yesterday, Craig and I marked 15 years of marriage together.

According to CalendarHome.com, that's 5478 days,131,472 hours, 7,888,320 minutes, and 473,299,200 seconds of story - chapter by chapter - written one memory at a time. Thanks to the beauty of blogging, I can look back to this date in 2009 and 2010 and reflect on what I felt then - which is better than the best gift because I am instantly back to a reflection frozen in time...and I find my sentiments stretch now further into the deep.

You know, we ask ourselves a great many questions about marriage today: Do we talk enough? Save enough? Spend time together? Spend time apart? Are we attracted to each other - as friends, as companions, as lovers? Are we in love? Are we even happy?

Culturally, we've never chased after the elusive concept of happiness more than we do (arguably) today. In the face of dwindling 401K's and swelling debts, diminished jobs and increased global warming, less everyday joys and more long-term burdens, we just don't feel happy. At least, not all that often. But what is happy, anyway? I mean, I'm happy when Judsen tells me he loves me - for no reason at all. I'm happy when my coffee's hot and when I don't have to make dinner. I'm happy when there's a card in the mail, addressed solely to me. And I'm happy when I wake in the morning and listen to Craig beside me...just breathing.

Like "love" and "awesome", "happy" has become one of the most overstated words in American use, so much so that we're left wondering exactly what it means at all. But when I go back to its roots, its original connotation of an in-the-moment, blissful awareness of making contact with that soul-spot now contented by an instant's happening....well, then, I think of my husband, my companion, my best friend, and my lover.

And I find that I am truly happy. 

473,299, 200...201...202...203...seconds of happy.

With the best seconds yet to come.