Hanging By a Thread

Photo Op {A Standout Among the Crowd}

I took this photo just a few weeks ago in early May around 1 pm. It looks more like mid-afternoon in late November or early December by the color of the sky and the lack of leaves or buds.

Something about this tree really speaks to me. It wasn't until after I had taken the photo and looked back at it that I felt drawn in by it.

The tree itself is so imposing and commanding of respect with its giant stature and sprawling branches reaching out above the other trees surrounding it. The starkness of it gives it beauty and gives me pause.

What types of photos speak to you? Over and out...

Anna

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Choices {A Fork in the Road}

I'm at a fork in the road. I could go this way or that. I have been standing here peering down each of the routes for a while, but it's hard to see very far down them. Both paths are shrouded in trees and brush and rocks.

Will one direction be easier? Will the other be harder, but the better choice? Would they both come out of the woods at the same point and converge in the end; so that it didn't really matter which way I chose when it's all said and done?

I don't know the answers, but I do know that I can't continue to stand here going nowhere. And I can't take two paths at the same time either.

Do I choose based on passion? Do I choose based on practicality? Do I take a poll? Do I roll the dice?

This isn't the first fork in the road I've come to, and it won't be the last.

Sometimes if I stand pondering my options long enough one route will be closed due to excessive ice or rerouted because of construction or simply boarded up and closed down or suspended until an inspection can be performed or renamed; leaving me with only one viable option... or not...

And if not, then it's up to me to make that affirmative step towards the path I choose.

Am I ready? Can I lift my hesitant foot and move forward?

Should I run? Or perhaps just casually walk on into the path's perimeter? Maybe a determined jaunt is best.

Whatever I choose, I must be resolute. I must not turn back and wonder, "Was this the right way? Should I go back? Should I go down the other?"

For, once I choose a path, the other path will alter its course. There will no longer be the same two choices as before.

So, I must step bravely, boldly, decidedly and with gusto onto that the rocky path, strewn equally with weeds and flowers; thorns and moss; bears and bubbling brooks.

Because no one ever got anywhere by standing perfectly still staring down options. Over and out....

Anna

Love Wins {Marriage Equality in MN}

And then there were 12

I had just parked at the library. The boys had unbuckled and were bouncing around the van, ready to go pick out some books. I decided to check Facebook one more time to see if the MN Senate had voted yet.

The first five or so posts that met me as I scrolled through my stream immediately told me that Minnesota had indeed passed the Marriage Equality Bill (which Gov. Dayton will sign today), allowing for gay marriage in our state.

I happily announced it to the boys. I explained once again what that meant for the people of our state. And tears flowed from my eyes.

The boys said, "Why are you crying? You're already married." They asked me, "Why are you sad?"

I explained that they were tears of joy. And yes, while their dad and I are already married, this law will mean that many loving, devoted couples can now be married, as we are, if they so choose.

I couldn't help but think of our friends and family who are affected by laws that discriminate against them and their loved ones. I couldn't help but think of all of those who feel liberated and empowered by this new law. I couldn't help but think of the future generations and what this law will mean to them.

Marital Status

This law has nothing to do with sexual relations. This law is about the basic rights of a married couple both in life and in death. This law is about giving adults of sound mind, regardless of sexual orientation, the right to marry whom they choose. This law is about giving couples basic rights regarding insurance coverage, hospital visits and medical information, testamentary rights, tax status and deductions, and more. This is a legal distinction; this is a human rights distinction.

People can live together, sleep together and spend their lives together without a marriage certificate, so long as they choose to and are of legal age. That wouldn't change whether this law had passed or not.

In addition to the legal rights afforded by this law, what changes is the legitimacy of these relationships from the perspective of others. The level of commitment won't change for the couple who has devoted the last 20 years to each other, regardless of legal marital status, but it will change the way the world views them. They will be married; they will be connected in the eyes of the state; they will be one unit for all to know and recognize.

Marital Injustices

It wasn't that long ago that the issue being discussed and legislated was marriage between a white person and a person of color.

In Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case that made inter-racial marriage possible in every state, Justice Earl Warren wrote, "Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

Yes, Justice Warren was specifically discussing racial discrimination, but in so many ways, we're talking about the same thing. Opponents of Marriage equality among gay couples fear that it will ruin the institution of marriage; that it will hurt our kids and damage our country's morals. Opponents of inter-racial marriages made of a lot of those same arguments.

The Scoop

I'll tell you what hurts our kids and damages our country... It's hate and fear and closed hearts and minds. It's the idea that one group knows what's best for another group. It's failing to love each other regardless of our differences and our similarities and in spite of them.

And so it was with tears of joy and gratitude and pride that my Christian, hetero-sexual, happily-married-to-a-man, heart swelled with rainbow-colored pride when I heard the news that MN had just become the 12^th state in the U.S. giving all adult couples the option of marriage! Thank you, MN Legislators!

I will respect your opinion, even if I don't agree. Will you respect mine? Over and out...

Anna

Marketing to Moms {PSA Re: Mother’s Day}

Marketing Departments everywhere consider this a Public Service Announcement from moms everywhere (or at least this mom).

Moms do not wish to visit the zoo, the children's museum, the science museum, the amusement park or the ballpark with the little wrecking crew on Mother's Day. Moms do not desire to eat breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner out with the whole cranky, hyper, picky gang on this day honoring her.

These are the things moms do on a regular basis; this is mom's life. This is NOT mom's idea of being treated, pampered or relieved of duty.

Offering mom free admission to such places and a free meal with the family is not a brilliant idea; in fact, for this mom it's not even the tiniest bit enticing.

So, listen up. Lean in close, I'm going to let you in on secret. Are you ready?

Moms want to sleep in late (in a quiet house); moms want to go to her favorite coffee house and settle in with a book and a latte (alone); moms want to go out to brunch with their moms or best mom buddies and then come home and take a nap (in a quiet house); moms want to sip champagne while getting mani/pedis ; moms want to sit and do nothing for once (in a quiet house); moms want to stroll around the lake or go shopping for groceries or clothes or shoes (alone).

Keep listening; I'm going to give you some brilliant marketing advice; simple, brilliant marketing advice.... give dad free admission to take the kids to the zoo, the museum, the amusement park, the ballpark, etc; give dad a free meal when he dines with the kiddos (mom's fine; she's sipping a mimosa).

This is a gift to mom; let dad take the kids on an adventure and leave mom to relish the silence in a quiet house or enjoy a day out with her girlfriends or her mom.

Go ahead give it try. I think I'm right; at least I know that's what this mama would like for Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mommies out there who get it done every single day; day in and day out with minimal complaining and only a few glasses of wine. Over and out...

Anna

Working to the Bone {Motherhood Fail}

Darling 2 brought this home from preschool for me for Mother's Day. This breaks my heart.

I don't like to work. I don't even do it well. But, the truth is my son is right. I work all the time. I work from home....at the kitchen counter, at the dining room table, sitting on my bed, at my desk in my basement office.

My work is never done. I work long after they've all gone to bed. I work in between running errands and making meals. I work before I read a book to him or sit down to play something with him. I work.

To say I have flexibility is a lie. Oh, sure I have the flexibility to compose an email or send a text while making a pb&j sandwich or check the status of something before turning on PBS kids or run a search while running and up and down the stairs checking on dinner or sit at my computer in my pjs all day and night or work every single day for weeks at a time. But who am I kidding; I am not flexible; I am rigid; unbending.

I hate that he thinks that work is what I prefer to do.

What I'd rather be doing is exploring and having adventures with my kids. I'd rather sit and read book after book with them. I'd rather tell stories and listen to their play and soak up the memories of it all.

But I can't. Right now I work because I have to. I work to catch up. I work to break even. I work to pay off. I work to move up.

It hasn't always been this way, but he doesn't remember that. It won't always be this way, but he doesn't know that.

So, I will forge ahead; working myself to the bone; unconvincingly balancing my time as mom and consultant and contractor; doing what I must do, until I can change that scenario once and for all. Over and out...

Anna

5 Things You Should Know {On the Secret to Being Happy in Life}

This list just came to me one afternoon. As I age and become more comfortable in my skin, these are the "rules" I try to adhere to, in general.

Of course, there more to each of these succinct statements and these few words are not the be all and end all of a happy life, but I have been reading a lot about happiness v. joy and what makes us happy, etc.

And when it comes down to it, it's pretty simple. These points say nothing about work or faith or economic status or age or stage of life. These 5 (really 6) statements can apply to anyone and everyone, regardless of the level of ease of comfort of one's life.

 

1. Say No when you need to
2. Say Yes when you want to
3. Be present in the moment as much as possible
4. Don't feel guilty when you need to retreat from the world around you and be alone with your thoughts
5. Embrace where you are now and where you have come from, who you are now and who you are becoming, what you are doing and how you are getting where you are headed by refusing to give up or give-in, learning from your mistakes, continuing to move forward step by step, day by day and always offering a smile to everyone you meet.

Oh, and indulge a bit here and there! These moments are the cherries on top; shiny and sweet.

 Life is simple if we learn to travel lightly and ride the waves. This is not always an easy task, but one worth striving for. Over and out... {now humming "Don't Worry, Be Happy"}

Anna

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A Life Full of One-Night Stands {It’s not what you think...}

We all have them... a chance meeting, an unexpected connection, a scheduled date with an acquaintance, a business encounter. They may be short–lived, but that doesn't mean they aren't significant.

There's nothing sexual about these encounters with relative strangers. No, it's about the conversation, the revelations, the insights, the moment.

It's that person you sit next to on the plane and find yourself in deep conversation from departure to arrival; a fellow attendee at a conference with whom you find a common bond; it's someone in your profession that you meet and instantly feel that spark of connection through shared experiences; the person next to you at the coffee shop who randomly strikes up a conversation; a fellow parent sitting on the park bench watching his or her kids and casually confides in you; a shared meal with someone you've met once or twice because you have similar interests or mutual friends; it's a perfect stranger with nothing in common with you except that you're in the same location at that given moment; it could even be a co-worker from a different department, a neighbor or a friend of a friend in a new and different setting that opens up the lines of communications, allowing you to see them in a different light.

It's an amazing, intriguing, inspiring, profound, entertaining, emotional conversation, connection, sentiment. You know it won't last. You know this is a one-time encounter. You know the memory will be with you always; it may change your course; it may change your attitude; it may give you a new insight; it may simply make you smile when you recall it.

These chance connections may last a few minutes; a few hours or even a few days or weeks, but it will end. You will not forge a deeper relationship; you will not know everything about each other; you will not keep up. In fact, I think that if these friendships went deeper than the one-time flings, they would lose their magic; their profundity.

When I'm in the midst of one of these chance meetings I know it; I feel it in my gut that it won't last; it won't turn into a friendship that in our old age we laugh about how we met. And yet, at the moment, this person is the most important person in my realm; my focus is on this person. We converse and laugh and share as if we've known each other for years. Those who are witness to our tete-a-tete would swear that we're dear friends.

It's the knowledge that these chance meetings won't last that allows us to let down our guards and talk and be honest and share our deepest thoughts and feelings with a perfect stranger. There is a comfort zone there that we may not have with good friends and family; there is no worry about hurt feelings; saying something that isn't becoming of you or what people think you should say or be. There is no expectation; there is no context. You are who you are at that moment; you don't have to be mom, wife, daughter, employee, etc. The labels disappear and you are simply you.

These are the kind of relationships that leave a memorable, indelible mark on our hearts, our minds, or our souls, but last only a brief moment in the span of our lives. We look back on these brief acquaintances and wonder where they are, what they are doing, did your chance meeting mean the same thing to them or something different or nothing at all....

Oh, I've had a number of these connections over the years. They have meant different things to me. A few, I still wonder what it meant to me. Others I know the importance; the lesson I should take away from this encounter; sometimes positive, sometimes negative. Whatever their relevance, I look forward to them. These "one-night stands" add spice to my life; give me new and different perspectives; make me think or perhaps merely help me get through a situation or mood.

Whatever they are and for whatever reason they occur, I don't think they are coincidental. I think it's another dot to connect in the dot-to-dot that creates the portrait of our lives.

How many of these chance encounters have you had? Do you think of them often? Did any of them change your life? Or perhaps you changed someone else's life. Over and out....

Anna

Photo Op {This is May?}

This is May 3, 2013. Dreary, snowy, wet, chilly....We did have a few days of spring last week. And Spring and Summer and Fall and Winter will come again, each taking it's turn. But today we pretend it's mid-November, not early May, and hunker down with movies and pizza and warm, comfy sweatshirts! Are you having a Winter-Spring where you live?

Enjoy the Weekend! On a Soapbox coming this weekend. Over and out....

Anna

Brothers; A Close Bond {The Glue that Binds Together or the Wedge that Breaks Apart?}

A Close Bond

My boys are 2 years and 2 months apart in age. They are not twins as they sometimes say they are. And yet, they are not so different in size. They often dress alike. They share a bedroom and often a bed. They have amazingly similar and wildly different likes and dislikes. They are protective and concerned and loving towards each other. They are overly competitive and hateful and rude and bullies towards one another. They are forever linked by their DNA, their upbringing and their tight love/hate relationship.

They are brothers.

Bad Seeds or Good Apples

Brothers have been on my mind lately.

We have begun a new tradition of reading a passage from a Children's Bible at the dinner table each evening. I recently remarked on the number of brothers who despise and kill or set out to ruin the other; something that I had failed to ponder so much before giving birth to two brothers.

I recently picked up a magazine and read an excerpt from a book about brothers. There were many interesting connections, observations and theories regarding brothers and their birth order in this article, but what struck me was the conclusion that brothers are not necessarily alike, despite similar DNA and their shared parents and experiences don't mean much; it's more about their personalities, birth order and one's perception of a shared experience, which is often quite different from that of his brother.

I saw a headline that said something to the effect of "Two Brothers become dads within minutes of one another just a few doors apart at the same hospital." The article said the brothers were best friends; they saw each other quite frequently; lived near each other and were thrilled to add this experience to a list of many others.

Then, just this past week, I read something about the Boston terrorists; the brothers. And this article outlined the number of terrorists in recent and past history that were brothers; apparently, a shared closeness, such as that of a brother, can aid in shutting out the rest of the world and help them to believe their own flawed perceptions are true and right.

Of course, those shared experiences and likenesses and differences can also create amazing, beautiful, imaginative, innovative industry, ideas, art, etc. Think of the Wright Brothers, the Coen Brothers, the Marx brothers, the Gershwin Brothers, the Rockefeller Brothers, etc.

The Scoop

Perhaps, one day people will add the Berend Brothers to such a list for a great achievement in something. Or perhaps they will grow up, split up and take up very different lives, barely seeing each other during their adulthoods.

I see their similarities and the differences. I see how they comfort each other and rile each other. I see how they take up for each other and guide each other and encourage each other through difficult tasks or feelings. I see how they taunt and compete and physically strike out at each other.

I see all these things. And I think about my two sweet, stubborn, creative, boisterous, tough, sensitive boys sound asleep tangled up together in the lower bunk and I wonder will they be close and protective and loving when they are adults; will they always need each other; will they never plot to do evil; will they always understand each other?

This mother's heart prays for a loving, peaceful, steadfast relationship for these Brothers; a relationship that does no harm to each other or their families or to strangers, but one that produces only beautiful and inspiring and inventive outcomes, whatever they may be.

Brothers; there is no other relationship quite like it. Over and out....

Anna

*Coincidentally, we have a shortage of sisters in our household.... we don't have a daughter; I have a brother, but no sisters; my dear husband has only 2 brothers; no sisters.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe {Gluten Free & AMAZING}

I don't care who you are (unless you have a nut allergy), you've got time for these cookies! They are super easy and absolutely delicious....and a plus for our household is that they're Gluten Free! But, don't stop reading if you aren't GF, you won't miss the flour in these Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies!

This recipe comes from the bag of Trader Joe's (big surprise I know...I'm obsessed with TJ's) Gluten Free Rolled Oats. And here's another surprise, I didn't change a thing!

Another plus, It's easy to half the recipe; in case you, like me, are down to only 1 egg and you are in desperate need of a chocolatey treat and don't want to run out to get more ingredients. I'm willing to bet you've got all these items on hand too.

Gluten Free Oatmeal Cookie Recipe

¼ cup butter

¾ cup sugar

¾ cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

1 ¼ tsp baking soda

1 cup peanut butter

3 cups Trader Joe's Rolled Oats

6 oz (or however much you want) chocolate chips

½ cup sunflower seeds or chopped walnuts (I used sunflower seeds because I had them)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine butter (softened) and sugars and beat until creamy. Add eggs, vanilla and baking soda and mix well. Add peanut butter and mix. Stir in oats, chocolate chips and nuts. Scoop out dough (I used a Tablespoon – recipe says to use a teaspoon , but that seems like really small cookies to me – use your own judgment here) and bake for about 10 minutes, if using Tablespoon size, that is – don't over bake, please!

There are plenty of ways to switch up this recipe, if you want to. Sub dried fruit for chocolate chips or mix it up with several different kinds of chips, change up the type of nuts or seeds or leave them out; use a different type of nut butter or exchange the butter for a dairy free option, etc.; or simply follow the recipe!

Measure, mix, scoop and bake! OMG! Yum!

You're Welcome! Oh, but it's a pity there's not a photo of these scrumptious cookies...we ate them before I thought to snap a picture of them. So, go make your own and then you'll know what they look like!

One note about oats and gluten: don't assume that oats are gluten free. There could be some cross-contamination during processing. If you are using oats and need them to be gluten free be sure to purchase oats specifically labeled as such (like my Trader Joe's oats – on the cereal aisle) Over and out...

Anna