summer vacation – Sheila Dougal

Our wildlife sighting adventure in the Apache Blue Range Primitive Area

I saw a black bear cub today. I caught a brown Trout. I went to New Mexico and back into Arizona on a fire road through a spot on the map called Blue, Arizona. I saw the white Blue Cowbells in the meadows next to the stream that is the Blue river. I saw bull and doe Elk and several of their young. I walked the bed of the windy Blue and parked a chair along it’s banks to watch my boys roll up their pants and stick their bottoms in the air searching for crawdads. They say they caught a grand-daddy! I walked over a set of stairs put in place by citizen conservationist from the 1930’s to lead the way to a hidden area of petroglyphs along the rocky formations next to the Blue. And I ended the day watching my sons catch and release Apache Trout from a hidden lake tucked away in a hole surrounded by Pine, Spruce and Aspen trees.

Tonight’s our last night at Hannagan Meadow Lodge. We haven’t taken a family vacation in 6 years and this is only our second family vacation, so I don’t have a lot to compare it to. But it’s the best so far!

Every year I usually take the boys to Oregon and Redding, California to visit family. They usually stay for a month with my sister, but this year we broke tradition and the boys went to ZONA camp at Biola University for a week and we all (husband included) went on a much needed family vacation to the beautiful high country in Eastern Arizona. And I am so glad we did. I wrote 4 poems here. Took up watercolors (I won’t quit my day job) and wrote a list of observations at several places we visited. The time out here has been inspiring, refreshing, quiet and adventurous at the same time.

Hannagan Meadow Lodge, where we rented a cabin, is at 9000 feet elevation along the historic Coronado Trail (a.k.a. Devil’s Highway- it used to be labeled Hwy 666) in Arizona’s Blue Range Primitive Area. About a five minute car ride from Hannagan Meadow is hidden Aker Lake. I painted two of my water colors there and wrote two poems there. You drive down a forest service road into a valley were at the bottom is a natural, small lake, tucked all around with green grass, Pine, Spruce and Aspen trees. There’s a simple wooden sign at the lake instructing fishermen: Single barbed hook and artificial lures, catch and release only. Aker is full of Apache and Brown Trout as well Greylings. My boys took a fly fishing lesson the first day we were there from Wendy, a pro-angler and sweet, intelligent, strong, active woman. So glad she taught my boys. Now their hooked! They want to get their own fly fish gear.

There is so much more I could tell you about this trip. I told my husband I want to write a memoir about it. But I’ll leave you with a list of wildlife (I don’t know all their scientific names, so some of this list is just a description) I personally observed in the past 72 hours. As well as some pictures from our wildlife siting adventure in the Apache-Sitegraves Blue Range Primitive Area.

Black and white butterflies

Monarch butterflies

Bright orange butterflies

Black/white swallows?

Finches with yellow breast

Bull elk (4 of them)

Cow elk (I lost count… more than 20)

Baby elk

Mule deer

Big-horned sheep

Swallows (and their babies in a nest on our cabin’s porch)

Hummingbirds

Brown Trout

Apache Trout

Chipmunks

Grey squirrels

Dragon flies

Red breasted Robin

Bald eagle

Vulture

Wild turkey

Black bear cub

Summer Vacation: Day 14

I have three blogs. Well, really 2. The third, which will be on our Goats Make Soap Co. website soon, isn’t officially up and running yet.

I have 10 goats now. Danny and Champ are my wethers. Buster, Champ’s brother, is staying with us for awhile, but will eventually go back to his home with his dam. Darla, Daylight, Daisy and Esmeralda are all in milk. Hand milking 4 does every morning is quite the chore. So I’ve worked a system where I milk Darla and Daylight one day and Daisy and Esmeralda the next. This works for now because I still have Daylights twins, Luna and Star, Daisy’s daughter Lily and Esmeralda’s daughter Mulan. But soon (I hope) the buyer for Star and Lily will be taking them to their new home and I’ll have a doe with no kids to keep her milk emptied out. This will work out OK because Daisy and Daylight will (hopefully) be going to their new home also sometime the middle of this month. This will leave me with 6 goats. Two dams in milk, two doelings and two wethers. And that’s just the goat part of my life.

I have a very entrepreneurial husband who is quite the dreamer. He’s always dreaming up ways to invent the next great thing or start a successful small business that would free him up to work autonomously. Being a police officer fits his analytic, driven personality. But the para-military style work-life of policing doesn’t. He’s a very creative, talented, driven guy and when he caught wind of my goat milk soap making hobby his eyes lit up with an entrepreneur glow. By the end of two weeks he had a website started and a logo designed. The man is a machine!! In the mean time I’m making soap, honing in on my base soap recipe and what essential oils and “flavors” I want to use in my soap. I’m giving soaps away to everyone (which makes me happy) and I’m very surprised at the feedback: When can I buy some more?

I’m not a business person. I have a hard enough time keeping a personal budget and balancing my own checkbook so its a good thing I have this driven guy doing all the tasks that need to be done to put a business together. If it was up to me I’d probably just make soap, give it away and maybe sell some on Etsy. Who knows, maybe my dreamer will get his dream and I’ll be the happy soap maker.

Besides blogs, goats and soap (I won’t even get started on the chickens, going back to full-time work schedule, looking for a church and trying to get back to the gym after a broken wrist), I have these two boys sprouting into men in my house. They, by far and away, are my dream and drive. Yes I enjoy writing (blogging inconsistently). And Lord knows I just love those goats! And the soap… it’s just plain old fun and rewarding. But my boys. Mom to men I am. That overwhelms and weighs on me, and gets me thinking and praying all day long!

In a few short weeks I’ll have a 7th grader and a 6th grader in my house. Two sons in middle school. Someone tell me what happened to the time warp between that day in 8th grade when I looked in the mirror in the bathroom of my childhood home and wondered what I’d look like when I was 30 and now! 30 is 11 years ago already! What?!!

I so I wish I could put my life on pause and regroup and get a few steps ahead. I can’t. But I lift up my eyes to the One who rules over time. My times are in his hand. He knows that life feels like waves sweeping over me and I can barely catch my breath.

But I <span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-14346AC" data-link="(AC)” style=”box-sizing: border-box; font-family: ‘Helvetica Neue’, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.625em; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;”>trust in you, O Lord;

I say, “You are my God.”

My <span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-14347AD" data-link="(AD)” style=”box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.625em; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;”>times are in your hand; -Psalm 31:14-15

Ok. Now to GoatsMakeSoap.Com to get that driven husband of mine some hope that I’m not gonna squelch his dream and give away all my soap. A few paragraphs of effort on his really nice site (you should check it out– it is still in progress thanks to his contemplative wife) should help.

Quieted,

Sheila

More Roadtrip Thoughts

Not much time for blog posts on a road trip vacation like this. From the time we reach my sister’s in Redding till we leave Roseburg to head back for our long drive home to AZ, the days are packed full of visiting family.

We’re in Roseburg now, got here late Saturday night. The family worlds all come together here. My dad plays basketball on Saturday nights right down the street from where my house full of nephews live. This is our home base (the house full of nephews, aka the Simmie house) here in Roseburg. On Saturday when we got in, we visited my grandmother in Oakland for a little bit (this is my boys’ great-grandmother) and took the tour of the house she’s living in, which my dad has been working on remodeling for quite some time. My dad does carpentry work well, even though he is a log truck driver, he’s gifted in home construction, furniture carpentry and masonry. He’s made much progress on the house. I’m always amazed at the ability to build things from raw materials.

My grandfather is living with my dad. Ryland is thrilled to find Rockhounding runs in the family. My grandfather (his great-grandfather) has a collection of rocks he inherited from his dad (my great-grandfather) who was a rockhounder, did masonry work and made jewelry. Ryland is thrilled! He spent much time talking to a his mostly-deaf 80 year old great-grandfather about rocks. Ryland doesn’t know it, but my grandfather can probably die happy now. Not another child or grandchild in his family has shown as much care for the rocks he’s kept as Ryland.

My Simmie nephews are all awake now (it’s 11:30 and this is a night-owl house in the summer 🙂 and we’re off to go for a hike in a bit.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, or back at the Waddell hacienda my husband is holding down a full-time work schedule in a new position at work, trying to install new showers and purchase used appliances, keep our rental house clean while prospective renters come to look at it… amidst all that he says he really misses food. Real food.

We’ll leave very early Friday morning and will be home late this Saturday night. I start my orientation with Phoenix Baptist Hospital on Monday and we have to be moved out of our rental by July 1st. It’s gonna be busy until then.

Quieted,

Sheila

He’s chasing me

I’m married to a police office, even still, when I see an officer behind me, I get all nervous. Suddenly I’m trying to recall everything I learned in driving school. How many feet from an intersection do I need to turn on my blinker? Who has the right of way? Grab the wheel at 12 and 2, or is it 9 and 3? And even though I don’t have a lead foot, I do occasional drift above the speed limit, so when I see that patrol car behind me, my eyes immediately check my speed. I’ve had several of such moments on the road today as we made our way from Litchfield Park to King City, CA where we’ve stopped for the night.

As I was driving I remembered reading Ann’s blog regarding this line from Psalm 23:

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life… (vs. 6 ESV)

She talked about the word for follow: radaph. It means to pursue or chase or run after.

I smiled as I drove. God is chasing me with his goodness and mercy. He is following me, not to punish me for my sins (Christ took all my punishment), but to show me his goodness and give me his mercy. I’m being pursued by God’s mercy and goodness! Just think about that.

I thoroughly enjoy a road trip. For me, it’s not about getting there fast. It’s about the memories and the experiencing new places and changes of scenery.

This is our 4th year going west for the summer. This year might be the last two week trip to Nor Cal and Oregon we get for a couple years. Since I’ll be starting a part time position at a hospital 2 days a week, I won’t have two months of summer free. So I’m especially treasuring this year’s trip with the boys.

They did really well considering they were stuck in a small car for about 11 hours today. Connor especially has very long legs and not much room to stretch back there.

While we were driving we listened to 15 chapters of the Last Battle by C. S. Lewis. I had not read that book in the Narnia series. So many great analogies in Narnia… the dwarfs hardened their hearts to the notion of there being an Aslan at all. They’d been told lies by the ape and had been tricked into slavery by the Calormen. When face to face with the truth about Aslan they chose to not choose. They would be independent, they thought.

Tomorrow we head to the Monterey Aquarium. I’m sure it will be a great time. We went to cannery row last year, but didn’t have time to go to the aquarium. We’ll spend the first half the day there and then head north. At least that’s the plan. Whatever happens tomorrow, I’ll be looking over my shoulder for His goodness and mercy and slow down long enough to give thanks for it! And I’ll be missing the sweetness of the gathering of believers at Pathway.

Quieted,

Sheila

Anticipation

(Pics from last year’s Oregon trip)

We spent almost the entire day at the new house but never managed to see much of each other. The boys were out on the back half of the acre most of the day either digging for treasure, shooting at ant hills with the BB gun, or chasing each other with water guns. James worked on pulling out the old sump pump from the basement and getting a new water softener and water heater from someone on Craigslist while I did the only thing I’m comfortable with in buying a fixer-upper… clean, and played gopher for James when he was at Lowe’s and needed me to measure the pipe sticking up out of the sewage ejector pump and get the model number off the corroded thing. I plugged my nose and did my best. Ugh. I can’t imagine working in the sewage business. Yuck!

Bailey, our black lab, wore herself out chasing a squirrel and sniffing for cottontail bunnies.

By the time we got home all my normal Saturday energies were spent, but I haven’t even begun to do the normal stuff that needs to get done on a Saturday around the house we’re still living in. I have a lot to do this week if I’m going to head to Oregon on the 8th. Monday, after work, I take my physical and do all the HR stuff with Phoenix Baptist hospital. I start orientation on June 24th. Tuesday evening we have the end-of-season baseball party at a laser tag place. Wednesday is my last day at my school nurse job and I get to pick up a friend at the airport. Thursday and Friday will be preparing to leave Saturday for the long drive to Redding, CA to stay with my sister.

I look forward to these trips to Nor Cal and Oregon every year! But I think my boys enjoy it even more. They’re yearly calendar seems to revolve around this trip. They mention it throughout the school year with longing. And as we get to summer, daily they ask, “When are we leaving for our trip to Oregon?” They love the early morning wake-up the day we start out on our road-trip. They anticipate it. They know good times are comin’!

It’s like that as a Christian. Our calendar is built around the celebration of Christ. And life is a pilgrimage and we move through our full days, change of addresses and daily tasks longing for those times when we get to come together and revel in the promises, and tell the Old, Old Story, and rejoice in the gift of Christ, and love one another and Him together, and anticipate the day of the consummation of our longing.

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem. A psalm of David. I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD.” -Psalm 122:1

And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. -Romans 8:24

Quieted,

Sheila

"Thanksland" and a test in hupotosso-ing

It’s been three days of prepping for our road trip tomorrow plus the daily things a mom of two boys home on summer vacation do.

I know it sounds kind of goofy, but the Parent For A Day game was a such a success so I went with it and we played “Thanksland” on Monday.

I am weary of the constant complaining in my house and am aware of my own lack in giving thanks. Ann has really inspired me to pay attention and receive everything as a gift of God’s grace for my good and His glory. So I told the boys Monday that we were going to play “Thanksland” from breakfast till lunch. In “Thanksland” everyone speaks Thanksese. Whatever your choice of words, it had to contain a verbal giving of thanks. So it began, “Mom, thanks for the cereal, but can I have eggs?” And when the complaining wanted to start coming (about the same time as the chores started), warnings were handed out like citations. Three citations equaled an unpleasant chore.

It was funny hearing us give thanks out loud in literally every sentence, but I noticed two things:

1. There was no complaining.

2. There was a lot more smiling and laughing.

I need to give thanks out loud more often! What would it be like if literally every sentence I spoke contained some form of saying “thank you” or “thank You Lord” or “I’m thankful for…”? I’d probably get some raised eyebrows but there’d be less frown lines around my brows.

Today I attended a “total conditioning” class at the gym. It was 75 minutes of non-stop movement. I’m completely spent. Crossfit leaves me feeling the same way but in only 30 minutes.

I feel really bad for my husband. He had filling fall out a few weeks ago and a week ago his dentist put a temporary crown on it. Yesterday he went in to have the permanent crown put on but somehow, in the yanking off of the temporary one, some of the build up fell off and after painful attempts at re-building, they told him he’d have to live with another temporary for a couple more weeks while they send off the new mold of the broken, but rebuilt stub under his crown.

He said the appointment was sheer torture. He’s not one to complain of pain, but tonight, while eating, his tooth pain brought him to his knees. He said the 2nd temporary crown is now loose. And we’re leaving in the morning for a road trip. Not good!

I despise dental pain! I really hope his tooth isn’t killing him the whole trip. You know the saying if momma aint happy… Well in my house its daddy who keeps the thermostat for that. I’d be a grump too if I had a stabbing pain in my tooth my entire vacation! On the up side, maybe he’ll get to eat some good clam chowder.

I’m looking forward to being with my sisters, brothers, parents, grandparents, and nephews, but I am really going to miss my Pathway family.

Connor’s All Star experience was an experience. When parents act like tantrum-throwing toddlers regarding their 9 year old’s baseball I realize who so many kids are so disrespectful to each other and adults. His team lost both of their tournament games pretty badly. The coach is a very patient, nice guy, unlike some of the dad’s of the kids on his team. He choked back tears after last night’s loss, saying people told him if he coached All Stars he’d loose friends. I couldn’t bear the silence and spoke up amongst the disgruntled, but respectful parents gathered round to listen. We all felt the same way- we felt he’d made wrong choices for the games, but we respected him as the coach, kept our opinions to ourselves, and cheered our kids on. The adult toddler had yanked his son out in cursing rage on Monday night and wasn’t there to hear this well-meaning man explain. I offered, “We appreciate your patience Coach! Good work!” My husband clapped in support and the kids he coached came running to give him a good hug.

You can disagree and still show respect for the person doing the leading. That’s what it means to hupotosso. It’s easy to tear down a person in a position of leadership or authority. It doesn’t require any strength to cuss and yell and make a scene. Strength under control is displayed when you voluntarily carry a burden of living with the decisions of a person in authority. Lord give me the grace to do just that!

Quieted,

Sheila

Second living of the past few weeks

I have been planning our yearly summer trip to Oregon, trying to keep a semblance of order yet keep the vacation in our summer break, doing the daily things that keep a home running and in the back of my mind through it all I have blog posts going through my brain. Smile. Sigh.

Time budgeting is much like money budgeting for me. I find if I don’t set aside the allotment for the necessary I’ll spend it all on the unnecessary. But then usually the necessary uses up so much of the budget that there’s not much room for the unnecessary. Writing isn’t unnecessary to me, but if I don’t get up early enough or stay up late enough the opportunity to write is missed. Problem is its usually throughout the day that I think of things I want to write. I find myself jotting down thoughts on scratch pieces of paper or in the many journals I have floating around wherever I go. I have a bunch of pictures of meals I’ve made in iPhoto. One of these days…

There’s a terrible bunch of knotted up muscles descending from my left jaw, down my sternocleidomastoid and trapezius accompanied by a hideous grinding/crepitus sound from the base of my skull on the right side when I turn my head. I’m convinced this is all due to the damaged TMJ on my left side that, after years of gab, grind and grub is permanently flawed. I don’t know what to do about it. Do I see a dentist? A chiropractor? An ENT? A physical therapist? My family practice doc? What would they do about it?

About 2 months ago I started experiencing pain with squatting in my knees- left worse than right. I ignored it and joked about approaching 40. Its gotten worse to the point getting up from a sitting position or sitting down is causing a stabbing pain in my left knee. A week ago we went fishing, I climbed up the rocky trail to our car, pushed off with my left leg in a lunge position and the pain just about brought me tumbling down the trail. Since then, I cannot squat, lunge, sit, climb stairs, get out of my car…anything that involves bearing wait and bending my left knee to a 45 degree angle, without some serious, eye-watering pain. This is really messing with my plans to keep doing Crossfit style workouts 3 days a week. My husband thinks its a torn meniscus. I know what they do for that. I don’t like that option. And I thought men were the stubborn ones when it comes to medical stuff.

I’m only 38, but my body feels things I didn’t expect to feel until my 50’s.

We’re planning to drive the famous Pacific Coast Highway in California, from Morro Bay to San Francisco next week. I love the ocean view. I like mountain views too, but if I had to choose, I’d choose ocean. Desert view isn’t very high up on my list… but it has a beauty.

I am so looking forward to this trip. A Geek Squad guy at Best Buy named Connor (with an O like our Connor who umps Little League) helped us buy a GPS for the trip and wrote out some must-see places in Santa Cruz, San Fran and Half Moon Bay for us to consider stopping at on our trip. Apparently he’s from the area.

At the end of our PCH California trip are my precious nephews, sister and her man. The boys can’t wait to go fishing. I can’t wait to hug my sister and nephews and listen to their sweet voices. I treasure the time I get with my family in Oregon. I wish I could just stop by and visit Aunt Kandace or head to grandma’s house for the day. I’m very thankful for the friends in AZ who have become family to my boys. Nevertheless I wish I could be closer to my mom and dad and family.

After my sister we’ll move up to where my mom, dad, brother, grandmother, grandfather, nieces, nephews, sister-in-love (as opposed to law… saw that written somewhere and loved it!), and house full of more nephews are. We miss them all! My boys would literally move in with the house-full clan if they could! They look up to my now graduated from high school nephew Ethan, and the next in line Nolan. They treasure the play time with Avery and feel like big brothers when they get to be with Liam and Quintin. The always leave that house wishing they had “10 brothers.” Sigh.

I’ve been thinking about what my “voice” is. Writers talk about finding their voice. It feels weird to call myself a writer. I write, but I guess I wouldn’t consider myself a writer unless I was published. Is a person who rides bikes a cyclist? I guess. I feel more comfortable with calling myself a journaler. Maybe that’s my voice. Journaling.

Ann Voskamp is one of my favorite blogger-writers. She’s definitely a writer. Her voice- poetic, encouraging, meditative. I leave her blog encouraged, agreeing.

Pastor Craig is another favorite blogger-writer. In fact, right now, theirs are the only blogs I read regularly. I’ve also read a book from each. Pastor Craig’s voice is humorous, insightful, editorial. I leave his blog smiling every time!

I don’t know what my voice is. A few people have told me I have a different way of putting things that helps them understand. Interesting how that works. Interesting how a person can use words to open doors of understanding.

Hupotosso is a word. We unpacked it a bit using an online Bible Study Tool at the last ladies Bible study for the summer last night.

The Bible really is a living book! It’s inspiration is inexhaustible. God’s word opens doors of understanding that no one can shut and shuts doors of understanding that no one can open. To voluntarily yield yourself to the authority of another is God-like. To fight for your rights is human. To suffer for doing what’s right is divine. To fight back is fallen nature. To entrust yourself to the One who judges justly is Christ-like. To strive to prove you’re right is what we all do. To be a Christian is to be a hupotosso-er. We do not follow a weak, mousy, doormat. We follow the Creator of the Universe who humbled Himself, who bent low to lift us up, who huppotosso-ed and saved us.

I read Ann’s post about an encounter with a stranger in an airport. He asked her what “kind” of Christian she was. Her answer resonated with me:

Isn’t being a Christian rather like being pregnant? You either wholly are or you really aren’t — is there an in between? How did we become known as “kinds” of Christian instead of being simply, humbly, loving Christians? What if following Christ was about a living faith not about wearing faith labels — about living Christ-behaviour, not living in Christian boxes?

Quieted,

Sheila