Mary

in the mountains of North Carolina

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: we don’t take for granted that during a pandemic we’ve able to still travel and explore with our camper.

COVID-19 changed the way we travel: no wandering around a gas station to stretch our legs or buy junk food, restroom breaks in the camper, no eating inside restaurants even though we really want to. We skip touristy things we might have visited in the past.

We are a pretty self-contained little caravan. Camp in the forest, hike with masks in case we pass others, and bring our own food.

Even with all the changes, fall break in the North Carolina mountains was perfect.

We arrived Saturday afternoon to Lazy J Campground. Over five years of camping with a travel trailer has brought us a wide variety of campground experiences. We tend to stay away from places that have long-term camping; we’ve learned those places aren’t where we like to be. Truthfully, if I had seen Lazy J ahead of time, I wouldn’t have made a reservation. I’m so glad I didn’t see it though, because we would have missed out on some pretty great rustic camping.

Our lot was wooded and secluded; we could hear the French Broad River as we sat outside; we were near all the places we wanted to be. If you wanted a weekend in a tent, this would be a pretty great spot too. This is a low-frills campground; don’t expect nice bathrooms, wifi, or a place to do laundry. You’re paying for a spot and that’s it. (It’s $30/night for full hookups which is crazy cheap. We’re used to paying around $60/night for most places.) The lack of amenities was fine for us since we shower in our camper, but we only packed enough clothes for six days, because I normally do a load or two of laundry if we’re gone for more than a week. Probably more information than you need, but the socks and underpants situation got dire near the end of our trip because I didn’t do laundry as planned.

Sunday we spent the day exploring the Pisgah National Forest. Our campground was right on the border of the forest and driving through the park for trails was fun. The Cradle of Forestry was worth the $6/person visit. We got to see the nation’s first forestry school and the grounds where the foundations for America’s forestry programs were laid. The CoF also has paved walking trails on 1-3 mile loops if accessibility is a concern.

After exploring all day, we had a movie night at home. A Redbox and boxes of movie candy and popcorn with the windows open as the cool mountain air blew through was the best way to end the day.

Monday was my birthday. We took a 3-hour morning hike to a waterfall we never found. Happy birthday to meeeee. It was fine; it was a beautiful hike even if Harper cried for most of it.

We drove the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped at lookouts as long as others weren’t around. I know I’m not the first person to say this, but the BRP is breathtaking. The fall leaves were unbelievable. It feels like you’re driving in a movie that never ends.

We got sushi takeout for an early dinner. We rely on Yelp a lot when we travel; we try to eat local when visiting a place and Yelp said Sora Japanese was a good stop. I agree. First time eating sushi on a picnic table at the camper; we so fancy.

After dinner, we had a game night. I bought two new games for the trip: Uno Flip and Monopoly Deal. The girls loved Uno Flip so much we never even opened Monopoly Deal. They played it every day, multiple times a day.

Tuesday we drove into Asheville. It was about a 45-minute drive from the campground. The girls shopped at Dancing Bear Toys, we walked around the downtown shops, we picked out treats for the dogs at Patton Ave. Pet Co., and Chris Graham bought a new pipe and tobacco at the Carolina Cigar Company. There were a few stores downtown that had signs restricting out-of-state customers. One was a bookstore we really wanted to visit, but I understand the majority of people traveling right now might also be the people who aren’t making choices to keep others safe. This was the first trip we’ve ever taken without a bookstore stop. Sad trombone.

On our way out of Asheville, we stopped for a late lunch at Moe’s BBQ. It was our 14th wedding anniversary, and we knew we wanted to eat some Carolina BBQ to celebrate. We ordered Moe’s to go then sat on their patio. The weather was sunny and perfect, the BBQ was amazing, and Harper declared Moe’s her second favorite restaurant of all time. (First favorite is City BBQ.)

Once our bellies were full, we left the city and headed to DuPont State Forest. We did the Triple Falls Loop to see where they filmed part of the first Hunger Games movie. This late afternoon hike was full of stuff to see, places to get into the cold water, and not a lot of people.

Wednesday we spent a lazy morning at the camper. Chris slept in, I drank lots of coffee, and the girls played on the dangerous old slides the campground had. Mid-morning we left the girls on iPads and took the dogs on a hike a few miles up the road. They loved it; Mac has boundless energy and no fear. Blue is more timid and cautious. They both traipsed through the river and swam in the cold, cold water.

After lunch, we drove a few minutes down the road to Headwaters Outfitters. We rented kayaks, and they dropped us off on the French Broad River for a 3-hour trip. The river was cold and clear. We made reservations for Wednesday, knowing it would be the warmest day all week, so we enjoyed mid-70s and clear skies as we manned the river. The section we were on is Class A, so it was a pretty calm, manageable trip. There was enough current to keep you going without too much effort. I’m not sure we could have asked for a better afternoon on the river.

We finished up the day with more rounds of Uno Flip and Gin Rummy. (I won, thank you.)

Thursday we spent the day at the Biltmore Estate. This was the most peopley part of our trip, and I was a little anxious it would feel too crowded and unsafe. But the Biltmore was ready: limiting attendance, hand sanitizer stations everywhere, constantly reminding people to leave space between groups, and firmly telling every person wearing a mask below their nose to cover up or leave. (This is my dream, to be able to tell people how dumb they look wearing a mask that doesn’t cover their nose. I’m not saying it’s a good dream, but it’s a dream.)

If you’re going, especially in the fall, buy tickets in advance. I bought them a few weeks before we left and tour times were already slim. Nine and under are free, so don’t buy your nine year old a ticket like I did. (They gave me a refund at will call when I picked them up, but they didn’t have to. It’s all over the website that refunds and transfers are not allowed. It was very kind of them to do it anyway.) We knew we were going to visit the Biltmore so I was prepared for the ridiculous tickets even though it still killed me to buy them. We spent all day touring the grounds, house, and buildings. I don’t regret spending the money, but I understand how it also feels really crazy to spend that much money on tickets. We packed a lunch and ate there; you could spend hundreds of dollars eating a nice meal at one of their farm-to-table restaurants, but we chose to spend $30 on three ice cream cones instead.

Whew.

Friday we slept in, had biscuits and gravy, and packed up the campsite. Around noon we headed toward home. We made it to Norris Lake in Tennessee and stayed the night at Mountain Lake Marina and Campground. It was just a place to sleep, but I’m not sure I’d pick that campground again. It was full of long-term campers, you had to walk ten minutes to the dumpster to get rid of trash, and our view was crappy. Obviously, we don’t own a boat and so a marina campground isn’t the place for us anyway. But Norris Lake is amazing; we camped there years ago with friends and loved the long weekend.

Saturday afternoon we pulled into home dirty, tired, and happy. I love traveling and exploring, but I really love coming home too. On this trip, we reminded the girls a few times how this fall and winter might be hard with the pandemic so we were grateful for the traveling we got to do and the things we got to experience. Infection rates in Indiana (and many other states) are spiking so we’re mentally preparing for schools to be shut down again. We’re not trick-or-treating this year; the girls are okay with it, and I’ve promised to make the 31st a day full of fun, but it still stinks that so much of what we’re experiencing now could have been avoided.

I think it’s time to winterize the camper. We thought about camping a few times in November, but we’ve got a summer porch project to wrap up, a few more trees to cut down in our yard, and a garden to ready for winter. This was probably the last trip of 2020 for the Grahams. Definitely ending on a high note.

DISCLOSURE: AFFILIATE LINKS USED.

I’m always looking for food ideas when we camp. Below is the meal plan for the trip. We were gone 9 days and I planned food for 6 days. With leftovers and a few meals out, 6 days worth of food was more than enough food. (We don’t cook too much over the fire; no one has time for that. We have a grill and an electric skillet. I do most of the cooking outside on a table, but the fire is mostly for warmth, hot dogs, and s’mores.)

Breakfast:
-cereal x2
-waffles/French toast sticks
-bacon, eggs, and fruit
-biscuits and gravy
-banana bread and yogurt with granola
-Poptarts

Lunch:
-charcuterie board x2
-sub sandwiches
-salads
-dinner leftovers x2

Dinner:
-tomato soup and grilled cheese
-chili dogs
-Crockpot pulled pork sliders
-grilled hamburgers
-walking tacos
-broccoli cheddar soup and grilled turkey sandwiches

It changes the way you vote

My dad told me he regretted paying for my college. He said this because he saw my college education at a secular school as the gateway to political beliefs that no longer match up with his.

He’s never had a real conversation with me about what I believe or why. Or how much my faith–not my college degrees–has to do with how I vote the way I do.

It’s really not a conversation we can ever have, it’s not safe or respectful. It will do more damage than good so I’m not interested in having it with him.
But I would like to have it with you.

I entered undergrad and exited undergrad voting the exact same way. If I didn’t know anything about a candidate on the ticket–normally for a local election– I left it blank. I understood the importance of carefully voting after research, but I voted similar to my parents.

After college, I interviewed at a few schools for a teaching position. I interviewed at a private, Lutheran high school where the principal called me later and said he thought I was meant to work with a different type of population than his private school kids.

I agreed.

I found my way to a school district less than 15 minutes from where I grew up. It was close to my White community, but not very White. Kids came from government housing and apartments. We had a high rate of free and reduced lunches, a term I didn’t know as a student, but knew well as a teacher.

Here’s what happened when I spent ten years teaching kids who, for the most part, lived and looked very different from me:

I started to learn that many of my political views directly hurt my students and their families. I saw firsthand how lack of medical care influenced their learning. How costly childcare meant they often cared for siblings in the evenings instead of doing my homework. I witnessed kids in foster homes that hurt them more than helped them. I had more than one student miss first period, because they needed to use the locker room showers to bathe and brush their teeth. I had parents skip parent-teacher conferences because they couldn’t miss work, no matter how much they cared about their child’s education. I learned some kids don’t celebrate Christmas in December; they celebrate it when the tax return comes in February because that’s the only time they have extra money.

Teaching kids who didn’t live the same life I did made me start questioning a lot of my beliefs. It didn’t make me more confident in the way I was taught, it made me start to realize something in my thinking was wrong.

I see the need for some people, especially Christians, to want their kids to go to Christian colleges. On the surface, it sounds safe and insular. Christians are taught to fear the big bad world outside their door. They’re taught people who don’t think like them were made specifically to trip them up.

This isn’t an actual Biblical principle—the Bible doesn’t mention college or higher learning once. It also doesn’t mention sticking to the people and places we feel most comfortable with. But we’ve been able to twist His words enough to make it sound like being around people only like us can keep us the safest. We’ve disregarded the parts of the Bible that tell us to be salt and light and latched onto the lie that safe and comfortable is the reward for following Christ. A reward we should reap in the here and now.

I went to a secular college and somehow managed to not sleep with 400 people, get pregnant, do drugs, or become a prostitute. I know this might shock the church people. My husband spent a semester at a Christian college, dropped out, then came home to begin a 15 year+ drug and alcohol addiction.

Plot twist.

I’d say our responses to college have more to do with family life, trauma, support systems, and mental health than the “good” or “bad” college we went to.

That’s the same with so many of my students. Their responses to their environments weren’t based on their education or lack of, it was based on their family life, trauma, support systems, and mental health.

Because when we don’t have to worry about basic needs like food, shelter, and safety, we are able to do more things, able to make better choices, able to be more successful in relationships and careers.

So I began to vote in a way that matched with my evolving belief: if we want better citizens, maybe we should create better lives.

That means I vote for:

Healthcare for all
Affordable mental health access
Fair wages
Abolishment of the death penalty
More taxes on the wealthy
A more equal distribution of wealth
Freedom to make choices about my body
Affordable childcare
Care for immigrants
Legislation guided by science and data
An end to privatized prisons and mass incarceration

If I believe all humans are created in the image of God—imago Dei—I vote for their respect and care and benefit.

I was trying to educate kids in an environment set up to fail. We expect schools to fix all of society’s problems instead of understanding school is just a reflect of society. If we want healthier, engaged kids to show up at school every day, we have to start by fixing things outside of school.
Schools reflect their community, not the other way around.

My college degrees didn’t change my voting habits, getting to know people who were different than me did. Suffering and injustice is easy to ignore when you don’t know anyone who doesn’t have the exact same problems as you. If you’ve never been hungry, you don’t understand what someone will do for food. If you’ve never experienced housing instability, you don’t know how far someone would go to have a safe place to sleep.

These are not character flaws. They are basic human needs we all have. And we are failing large, vulnerable groups of people by the way some of us vote.

I’ve had lots of conversations with people who can’t imagine giving people something they didn’t earn. “I work for my things and so should everyone else.”

If we all started on a level playing field, that might make sense. If we all started off in safe homes with plenty of food to eat and clean clothes to wear, maybe that would work. If we all had loving, healthy parents to protect us and guide us. If we all had homes where drugs weren’t present, where addiction wasn’t lurking, where we learn healthy self-esteem instead of how to carry our parents wounds.

If only.

And until that happens, we look for the people who need help and we help them. Will there always be the people who take advantage of the help? Of course. But we help anyway. We can’t control what other people do, but we can also not actively make choices to hurt them more.

Last year, my Thursday morning Bible study girls and I read through the Gospels. We learned a lot about Jesus, obviously. Sometimes we read the same story repeatedly and that was a little annoying, but that’s just my need for efficiency getting in the way. Reading the same stories, especially from different perspectives, often taught us new things about Jesus and following him. The point was the story-—of course—but the point was also the different perspectives. We saw new or different things when we read the same event from a different author. We saw different details, different parts of the same truth.

We have to have different perspectives, different points of view, different accounts. We have to have people who live differently than us, who grew up differently, who see life differently. Because it changes us. It makes us kinder and more aware and more merciful and more generous. We have to know how others live, what they struggle with, what hurts their hearts, and what keeps them up at night.

We have to know things outside our bubbles. It’s the way Jesus lived, and it’s the way his followers have to also. When we sit with the woman at the well, dine with the tax collector, or touch the sick, it changes us. It shapes our hearts to be more like his in a way surrounding ourselves with people who only look and live like us doesn’t.

We lead sheltered lives because we believe it keeps us safe, but really it just keeps us away from the suffering of others. We tithe our ten percent and trust the church to do some charity work instead of finding people who are worth being friends with and then meeting needs when you see them. (And realizing others can help meet our needs too; we are all needy in one way or another.) We sweep into situations trying to save people instead of just being with them. And we do it while failing to acknowledge we also need saving.

I’ve spent a lot of my thirties around addicts and alcoholics. I sleep in the same bed as one; I’ve sat at tables with them during rehab visits; I meet them in the stories my husband shares; I shake hands with them at AA meetings; I welcome them into my home. This is a world very different from the one in my twenties. I got pushed out of that comfort zone kicking and screaming when I realized the issues Chris had brought to our marriage. Learning about addiction showed me programs and laws and rules and facilities set up to help some people and punish others. I got to witness firsthand how the world handles sick people we don’t deem worthy of grace, mercy, or respect because of their disease.

I got to see hurting people who have to rely on the help and support of others to survive. I got to be a hurting person who had to rely on the help and support of others to survive. That changes your heart, your understanding of what mercy is, your awareness of who God is.

And it changes the way you vote.

My college education didn’t make me more liberal, as my father has inferred. It didn’t teach me to vote for socialism or Marxism or any of the other terms people like to throw around but don’t really understand. What changed my political views was Jesus and relationships and compassion and hurting people and reading the Bible to learn better ways as opposed to find support for the ways I already believed. What changed my heart was praying “Lord, break my heart for what breaks yours” then following that pain to people.

If we are Christians, the goal of wisdom and maturity tells us we will continue to get uncomfortable with our beliefs, continually be changed and challenged to be more like Jesus, and continually see areas of our dark hearts that need Jesus. If instead, in aging, we’ve found hard hearts, a political home with no wiggle room, and easy answers to every question, we have failed our God, we have left Him behind. We have created a new god, one who closely mirrors us.

Reading about the life of Jesus can be frustrating because so often he answered peoples’ questions with other questions. JESUS, JUST TELL US THE ANSWER, I want to scream during my morning quiet time. Give me black and white so I can feel secure and doubtless in my faith.

Time and time again, I’m reminded Jesus is often found in the gray, in the questions not the answers, in the faith to continue for the next moment, not the next five years. He is found in loving people well even when it doesn’t make sense, when they don’t deserve it. He is found on the other side of fear and scarcity. He is found in generosity and open hands and trusting that He will take care of all of us, not just some of us. He is found in the places the world tells us we shouldn’t go and with people the world says aren’t important.

And if that’s where I find Jesus, that’s how I vote too.

1096 days

Thanks for taking me to the hospital three years ago, he said as we sat on the couch.

He was watching football. I was reading a book with my feet in his lap.

You’re welcome, I said as I turned back to my book, and he turned back to the TV.

Today is the three-year anniversary of my husband being clean and sober. Three years of therapy, AA meetings, growing, healing, and learning. This is the first anniversary that hasn’t felt precarious. The first time in years it hasn’t felt like a bittersweet celebration, with excitement and fear, hope and reservations.

I’ve been trying to work out what I wanted to say about this milestone, but I don’t have a clear post for you. I guess I just have snippets.

Last week I was on my morning walk when I passed an empty Coca-Cola can on the side of the road. Bright red against the drying grass in the ditch, I knew it wasn’t there yesterday. This was fresh litter. My very first thought was should I pick this up and smell it for alcohol? My first thought was it was Chris’. My first thought was he’d thrown it out on his way home the day before.

Trauma is weird, because it bombards you with thoughts and feelings and emotions before you even have time to know what’s happening, before you know it’s there.

I knew I wasn’t going to pick up that can. Gross. I knew hundreds of people drove this road, not just Chris. I knew lots of people drink Coke, not just my husband.

My thoughts weren’t rational. I didn’t have other things happening at home that made this discarded can confirm my suspicions. It was just a can and my mind—without my consent—went to the scariest story.

Healing is slow for Chris. It is slow for me.

Last winter Chris’ counselor suggested he do brainspotting. Brainspotting is “a treatment method that identifies, processes, and releases core neurophysiological sources of emotional/body pain, [and] trauma…” The idea is you can go back to the memories your brain has stored–maybe some you can’t even access completely–and rewire your response to them. For Chris, it meant going back to the abuse he suffered as a child and handled with his child-brain. Using the safety and security his adult-brain now has, he gets to use better coping mechanisms and heal from the situations.

Adult you goes back to kid you and tells you you’re okay, that the things happening to you aren’t your fault.

It sounds crazy, but it’s not. God, in His infinite wisdom, made our brains to keep us safe. It’s where fight, flight, or freeze comes from. It’s also why sometimes our brains hide things from us; our well-designed brains know we are not equipped (for whatever reason) to handle what we’ve experienced.

But our bodies and brains don’t forget what has happened. We live in the response and consequence of those things. And one day—if we’re lucky—we’ll have healthy, patient people who help us handle the things that shouldn’t have happened to us.

For the first time in years—as Chris went through brainspotting—he wanted to drink again. The farther way he gets from his drinking, the less appeal it has. But looking directly at the moments and places that broke your little kid self is exhausting. For Chris, it brought back intense feelings of loneliness. And loneliness is what caused him to drink. When you grow up in a home that doesn’t tell you you’re important or valued or worth keeping safe, it’s hard to learn a different story when you’re older. So every time Adult Chris had a negative experience (things we all have every day), it reinforced the lie that he wasn’t wanted or worth anything.

And if you believe you’re not worth anything, you can’t make good choices for your body, your future, or your life.

Working through months of brainspotting and painful childhood memories sober was challenging. Addicts and alcoholics don’t like to feel their feelings (that’s the whole point of using), so feeling everything that came up and not muting it was some of the hardest work I’ve seen Chris do.

But he did it. He remembered the things done to him. He remembered the people who covered it up. He remembered the loneliness.

And he stayed sober.

I’m just checking on you, man, because we’re a bunch of liars, Chris said into his phone this weekend. He was talking to a fellow drunk, someone he’s sponsoring in AA.

A few years ago, this would have made me cringe. Telling the truth is so foundational to my being, it feels like a personal attack to know someone has lied. I tell the truth even when it’s to my own detriment.

I know lying says more about the liar than the listener. The lies tell others what we want to protect. They tell others about the secrets we have, about the shame.

I am remembering that more easily now, with less internal crisis, than I was a few years ago.

Lies always have benefits for someone. An old friend lied about me to others, because it sowed division and made others less likely to ask me about the stories she was creating. Liars manipulate people to control the narrative. Chris’ mom lied to family and friends, because it kept people from realizing the truth of what she was allowing at home, the dangerous environment she was helping to protect. Lies keep selfish people safe. A friend’s husband admitted to making up things I’d said to save his marriage. He apologized to me, but said he wasn’t going to stop telling those stories. Liars love stories to save themselves no matter what the cost. Addicts and alcoholics lie. They lie to keep their secrets secret, to keep their needs hidden, to keep their pain covered up.

Recovery is freedom from lies.

It’s amazing the time and energy you have to do other things when you’re not so wrapped up in keeping all your stories straight, making sure your victims don’t cross paths and share stories, living a life you don’t have to hide from people.

Chris walks lighter these days. He still drags his feet like a child. He still ignores me when I tell him to pick them up. But the walk is lighter nonetheless.

After Chris came home from rehab, I asked my therapist when things would get easier. His recovery, learning boundaries, removing the dangerous people in our lives: how long does it feel so overwhelming and hard?

It takes a few years, she said.

Absolutely not, I thought. This is not sustainable. We will not survive at this level of upheaval for so long. Maybe giving up is easier.

But here we are at the three year mark, after a quiet, amazingly easy summer. This was the first summer we didn’t live so fully in the consequences of Chris’ bad choices. This was the first summer we weren’t taking two steps forward and one step back. Recovery is slow. So is building a new life.

I get asked a lot how I knew to stay. What made me not give up?

My answer has two parts:
1. I stayed, because Chris stopped drinking. If he was going to continue numbing his life using drugs or alcohol, I wasn’t going to.
2. I stayed, because we were slowly-but-surely always moving forward. We were (and are) inching toward healing and honesty and better conversations and less co-dependency. I stayed, because he kept up his part of the bargain. The minute Chris got comfortable with where he was, I knew he’d start using again. When he got lazy in his recovery, he was going to get lazy in his choices.

And, of course, Jesus. The AA mantra is “one day at a time,” but I think they stole it from Jesus. He constantly re-centers me: I cannot fix the past, I cannot control the future, but I can make wise, loving choices right here and now.

And so I do.

And so does Chris.

And here we are.

end-of-summer yard

We’re sleeping with the windows open now, crisp air coming in through the screens and complaints from my daughters that it’s too cool in the mornings going out.

I thought the outside construction and building and staining would be most loved in the summer. I sat under the new porch and worked while the girls swam and played. I spent mornings underneath the kitchen window, checking the cushions for frogs before I sat down. In the evening, after dinner, I’d find my way back outside while Chris cleaned up dinner.

But fall is here and outside is still my favorite; maybe fall is best for porches.

The new roof we built sits under the girls’ windows. They climbed out that first day it was up, excited to sit as people added roofing paper and shingles around them. In my head, I thought this might be a bad idea in a few years.

I hope they don’t make me regret my new porch.

I’ve started dragging a blanket outside after I wake up. Hot coffee and crickets to greet the morning.

My garden has begun browning, the tomatillos slowly sinking to the ground and tomatoes trying to eek out one last hoorah. I planted a fall garden for the first time ever: snow peas and bush beans. I’m only mildly committed to their growth. My freezers are full; my friends are tired of getting deliveries from me; I could not eat another cucumber if my life depended on it.

We are mostly still staying home and staying away. Chris goes to work. The girls go to school. I go downstairs to my office to write. We haven’t stepped foot in a restaurant since early March. I miss coffee shops for writing and people watching. I miss lunch with friends and stopping for Mexican food on the way home from camping trips.

I have never been more thankful for our camper, for the easy, safe way we can go without coming in contact with others.

We’re still taking the pandemic very serious. I can’t imagine future generations asking me what we did in 2020 and answering that it didn’t really impact our daily lives much. We are mourning and grieving and angry about so many things.

We have hammocks in the backyard for Sunday afternoon naps. We ended up with a pool this summer, and it has saved us many times. I have sun-kissed girls running around the yard barefoot. They are best friends one minute, mortal enemies the next.

It’s dark when I get up now. I tiptoe downstairs each morning even though the dogs stomp down behind me and if anyone was going to wake up, it’s not going to be because of my footsteps. I still tiptoe.

Sometimes Chris has to be at work at 5 AM, but there is still coffee waiting for me when I come into the kitchen. He makes it even though I say he doesn’t have to. I think at the end of my life, if you ask me how I knew Chris Graham loved me, the answer will be: coffee when he didn’t have to.

I drained the pool last weekend. I tried to funnel the water to the line of hostas I planted along the field, begging them to stay green and full just a little bit longer.

Our apple trees–dying since we moved here–have officially given up. In the coming weeks, we’ll cut them down and have apple wood for fires. I don’t know if I need to walk across the street to the cemetery and give my grandpa a heads up that we’re cutting down his apple trees. It feels courteous.

In the spring, my husband built a bird feeder with scrap wood from the garage. He’s lovingly filled it all season, excited to see birds enjoying the condo he designed for them. This isn’t an important story except to say we have a little squirrel friend who also enjoys the bird feeder. He’s very small. I bet he could fit in the palm of my hand. Chris despises him. The squirrel and my husband are at war.

I don’t make the squirrel leave when I see him snacking. I tell him he’s welcome to eat here.

I wonder, at the end of his life, if you ask Chris how he knew I loved him, the answer will be: she didn’t, remember that squirrel?

The fields behind our house had beans this year. I always forget what it’s time for until the crop starts growing. I like corn years better, it makes our backyard feel like a cocoon. But beans are okay, too, I guess. They’re drying out, turning yellow. Soon, the field will be empty, and we’ll see deer on the hills.

Someone asked me this summer if I’m still writing.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I am writing all the time. I am writing and gathering.

This summer, in my head, I’ve written about:
what my compost bin is teaching me
why you shouldn’t watch the news
the prisms we hung in the living room windows
how to get rid of “friends” on facebook you really don’t like
a story about the bees coming to the flowers I planted for them
peoples’ houses I go by each morning on my walk
the best roasted tomatillo salsa recipe in the world
anxiety and anger
what healing feels like
why bookshelves should be filled with books and not decor
‘Somebody Feed Phil’
fallen heroes
a drama about the hummingbirds outside the kitchen door

And that was just last week.

Yes, I’m still writing.

For me, there are seasons for writing and there are seasons for preparing to write. I’ve been preparing to write for a while now.

Maybe I’ll be writing again soon.

Social distancing: week seven (April 26-May 2)

I’m writing this weeks after the fact, but I’m determined to document eight weeks of our stay-at-home life. I promised myself I’d write eight weeks worth of posts so I could look back on this later, and I always finish what I start. It’s a curse.

About five weeks after I set it up, I took down the table we had in my office for the girls to do school work at. They’ve been slowly migrating away from my office into the family room, to the couch, on the floor with the dogs, and the table was just taking up space. So it’s gone and it feels nice.

We’re in a pretty good routine. The girls know how to fill their days, when to focus on school work, and when to run around outside like wild animals.

The weather was better this week (finally) after weeks of being gross so we spent a lot of time outside: getting garden beds ready for planting, cleaning up landscaping, and pulling weeds.

Have I shared the patio plans here? I’m too lazy to go back and read the other posts so this might be a repeat. We have a patio off our family room that we’re building a roof over. It seems simple, just build a roof, but to do it we had to complete a bunch of other projects.

The roof will block all the morning sun from my garden beds so we moved my garden beds out away from the house. Then we built more beds, sectioned off a part, and plan to cover it with river rock.

The roof will block what little natural light we get in the family room so Chris installed canned lighting in the family room a month or two ago.

Now that the garden beds have been moved, the whole area outside the kitchen looks pretty depressing. There’s a small concrete slab off the kitchen doors, but it’s so small I could only ever put one lawn chair on it and then it kinda blocked the door. So then we decided to break up the concrete patio (it was about 6 x 4) and have a much bigger one (22 x 8) installed.

I feel like I shared part of this already because the concrete patio is how Chris threw his back out.

ANYWHO. Long story to tell you they started working on the patio this week. They leveled the area, built the frame, and then moved some huge rocks we had near our driveway. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

Also, this is a detour to the patio roof. This step wasn’t ever part of the plan in getting the roof up. Full disclosure: it’s not a cheap detour, but when we’re finished with our backyard, it’s gonna be amazing.

Stay tuned for more exciting concrete stories.

I took Friday off work to borrow my dad’s truck and haul a few loads of river rock to fill in my garden. Chris’ back is still messed up so if I wanted to get this done, I had to do it myself. I wasn’t sore from shoveling rocks for hours, but I should have worn better gloves because the blisters I ended up with are going to stick around for quite some time. But the garden is *almost* ready and I’m thrilled with how it’s coming together.

Late last fall, I inherited about five plants from my mom’s work. They were getting rid of everything for a remodel/update, and she scored me some pretty sweet houseplants. Except I’m pretty sure one of them had gnats living in it…and I finally lost my mind this week because of them. I don’t know which plant it is and I have a feeling they spread so I went full attack and pulled out every single plant in my house on Sunday. EVERY. SINGLE. PLANT.

45+ houseplants from every room of my house got dragged out to the driveway and front sidewalk, cleaned, treated, and aired out. I never ever want to do this again so I was really thorough, took every tip the internet had to offer, and left no piece of soil or pot unturned.

(The good news about writing this weeks later is I can confidently tell you I no longer have a gnat problem. I don’t know exactly what actions worked because I took every tip suggestion and used it, but I’m gnat free and loving life again.)

You know how everyone and their mom started making bread during lockdown? Because I am nothing but defiant and contrary, I stopped making bread. Literally stopped making the bread I love because everyone else was doing it. I think everyone is almost over making bread now, so I’m sure I’ll start back up again soon.

I’m slowly turning our backyard into the place to be. I picked up a rope/tire swing at Sam’s Club when I went grocery shopping. Our pool goes up in a few weeks. As summer approaches, we’re getting more and more camp cancellations so our backyard needs to pick up the slack if the girls will be here all the time.

All my garden starts are itching to be planted. We’re about a week away from safely planting in zone 6, and I can’t wait. There’s so much to do to get dirt and gardens ready before you can actually plant, but it doesn’t match actually putting the seeds or plants in the dirt. Nothing beats that.

Ellie has been very invested in getting her wet hair French braided after her showers. She wakes up with some fancy curly hair and no place to go, but I admire her energy to not completely give up on her appearance like someone else in this house has.

Her math bowl competition happened online this week. She was really disappointed and bummed at how it turned out. I would feel such relief to not have to do some math problems in front of large groups of people but, obviously, we enjoy different things.

We ate a lot of sweets this week: the party scones and the blueberry almond cake from Let Me Feed You are really good. If you haven’t purchases this cookbook yet, I don’t know what to tell you. Just do it.

Things we watched, listened to, or read:
-We watched McMillion$ documentary on Hulu. It’s so weird and funny and odd. I liked it a lot more than Tiger King. Less horror and heartbreak, but still kinda unbelievable.
-We’re still watching the Michael Jordan documentary; still interesting to watch.
-I’m sure there’s more but I didn’t write anything else down and it’s far enough away that I have no idea what I was reading. This is why I shouldn’t procrastinate so much.

What’s for dinner?
Sunday: red beans and rice with chicken sausage
Monday: grilled chicken, zucchini, and couscous
Tuesday: turkey cheeseburger soup (from this cookbook)
Wednesday: Steak-n-Shake takeout (while running errands)
Thursday: one-pan sausage and potatoes (from this cookbook)
Friday: Egg Roll #1 takeout (after returning my dad’s truck)
Saturday: leftovers

DISCLOSURE: affiliate links used

the TV producer, part II

I didn’t need to call him. I knew the answer.

After my friend responded, I sat at my desk and sobbed. It was the first time during the stay-at-home order I had cried. It came fast and hard. I cried mostly for the TV situation, but probably a little bit about everything else happening in the world too.

I knew, I knew, I knew.

I just didn’t want it to be true. I was looking for someone to tell me it was okay even though I knew it wasn’t okay.

I let the rest of the day be about feeling sorry for myself, for the opportunity I was passing up, then I emailed the producer first thing the next morning.

My husband and I took some time to talk and pray through your kind request, but we don’t feel we’re called to share our tithing story with your network. [The scripture and principle they wanted to use to share our story] doesn’t align with our understanding of the Bible.

Thank you for the offer, and I wish you well on your search.
Mary Graham

Then I exhaled a long-held breath.

Last year around this time, I had lunch with a friend. I was sharing about a tough decision I was supposed to make and how hard I was fighting what I knew in my bones to be right.

She said, “It sounds like you have a maturity issue. You know what’s right but still want to do things your own way. Even when you know it will end up hurting you.”

I flipped the table in response to her comment.

Just kidding. I nodded thoughtfully, because I imagined that what’s a mature person would do. Then I went home and spent a lot of time thinking about how my innate need to be defiant might be affecting my spiritual life.

Flash forward almost exactly a year to an email from a producer wanting to spend the day filming me and my family for a TV segment millions of people would see.

Obedience is hard but worth it. Always. Always. Always.

Not because it offers a financial payout. Not because this obedience ensures a bigger and better opportunity later. Not for any other reason than when I decided to follow Christ I did it because I said His way is better. No matter what, His way is better.

Even when I don’t understand.
Even when something else looks fun.
Even when, for a moment, something seems shiny and easy and, on the surface, good.

I don’t want easy. I don’t want fake. I don’t want the quick return the world has to offer. Because in the end, it will all have been for naught.

That’s what the prosperity gospel promises: quick returns, easy wealth, and fake health. Why hope for heaven if God can give me everything I want right here on earth?

As I prayed and waited for God to make the TV opportunity feel okay, I thought a lot about the “ends justifies the means” argument. How many times Christians accept or allow things they know are not of God because the end result is something they believe God would want. We use this argument for politics. We use this argument for relationships. We use this argument for how we spend our time and money.

The “ends justifying the means” argument twists scripture to make God’s wants, needs, and desires line up with ours. It is a convenient reading of the Bible, a wonderful lie that God believes everything we do. It makes us feel safe and smug and full of right answers.

We use the argument to justify bad choices or behavior because the result might bring God glory. You know, because the Bible is full of stories about how God calls us into sin so He can show how great He is.

You know, all those stories and parables where we’re encouraged to sin.

I rolled that idea around in my head a lot. We’ve struggled with a lot of hard stuff in our marriage that God could use to encourage or help others, I thought. He could be glorified and honored and we could show so many people the grace and mercy God is known for!

But none of those arguments held much weight.

God doesn’t “need” me to fight for Him.
God doesn’t “need” me to ignore some parts of His commands to meet some goal He has.
God doesn’t ask me to bend some rule for his good.
God doesn’t need me to scheme and accept sin and pick the lesser of two evils to accomplish His will.

All those things make it sound like my God isn’t very powerful.

God wants my obedience.
He wants my integrity.
He wants me to say I trust His ways more than my own.
He wants me to be mature enough to admit I don’t understand, but I’ll be obedient anyway.
He wants a relationship with me and through that relationship I’ll grow to be more like him.
He wants my actions and choices to always point toward Him and not myself.

I don’t pretend to know what comes next. I don’t hold my breath for my reward, for my payback. I have no doubt my story was going to be used in dangerous ways to shame and guilt people into giving their money away in hopes of a big return from God. I know anything that involves shame or guilt isn’t of God.

I can tell you that as soon as I sent the email, I felt lighter than I had since it arrived a few weeks prior. It didn’t hurt, I didn’t regret it or wonder, I did what I believed was right based on how God is forming and changing my heart, and it felt like a deep, cleansing breath.

Actually, here’s what I got from being obedient to what God was asking: I got peace, contentment, and freedom. Nothing worth money but absolutely priceless.

the TV producer, part I

At the end of March, a message showed up in my inbox with a curious subject line. Of course, the key to getting someone to open your email is a good subject line. This one did its job.

A woman was introducing herself, telling me she worked for a large Christian television network, and was writing in regards to a blog post I’d published about tithing. Would I be interested in sharing more details about the story and possibly allowing them to film it for use on their television stations and social media channels?

I get emails like this from time to time. Some of them are real and some of them are not. It’s pretty easy to spend five minutes on the internet to figure out which is which. This email, this person, her company: all real.

Even though the email did not contain the specifics of the tithing story she was referring to, I knew immediately what she was referring to. I’ve written about tithing quite a bit. I’ve written about our journey to get rid of our debt, to be obedient with our finances, about what we believe in regards to money.

I don’t write about every aspect of our lives, but I do write about money.

Even with a handful or more of posts to pick from, I knew exactly what she was talking about. And because I knew without asking, I knew why she wanted to use it.

Late summer 2017, Chris and I separated. You probably know the story: he couldn’t stop drinking, and I refused to allow him to stay home and lie about it anymore. So he left. About a month later, the police got involved, and he ended up in rehab. It was scary for a million reasons but one of them was because he lost his job and income.

Each week that passed, God was meeting our needs and putting people in our lives who were His hands and feet. We were never truly alone. I kept most of the stories from that time to myself, recording them in a bright pink and blue spiral notebook, but not sharing them on the internet.

Eventually, I chose one story to write about. A story about writing a tithe check for $150 even though I was worried and scared about the following week. I knew in my heart if I was only obedient when it was easy, I was not actually being obedient. I was just doing something that was convenient. So I wrote the check and left to visit Chris in rehab.

A few friends from church came to rehab that day too; as we were leaving, a friend wordlessly held out his hand and passed me $300. I tried to refuse it, but he just drove away.

I wrote about the experience, not to show off, but to tell of God’s attention. To remind myself and others that we are never not seen by our God. Telling the shortened version here still brings me to tears. I know I will never be able to share of all the goodness God showed us through others during that time. That blog post was a feeble attempt that said, “Look at God.”

But in the wrong hands, that story has a hint of the prosperity gospel. On the outside, that story might look to some like obedience equals wealth. That I did something good and God rewarded my faithfulness.

The reward of obedience is obedience. We don’t do it for some promised outcome or payout. But there are some Jesus followers who believe God promises us health and wealth if we’re faithful. They believe we can earn something from our obedience. They believe the Bible promises us comfort and luxury and answered prayers in return for tithing and following God’s Word.

I believe that is absolutely wrong.

This post isn’t a sermon on the prosperity gospel, but it’s important to remember God doesn’t owe me (or you) anything for being faithful. Tithing doesn’t ensure my health or safety. Tithing doesn’t mean I get a tenfold or twofold return on anything. God actually says I’ll have troubles and heartache and struggles. Just like everyone else.

When the email came in March, I knew why my story was appealing to a large Christian network. It could, with the right twists of scripture and emotional music, be sold as the health and wealth principle. It wasn’t a far leap, especially if you already live in that lie.

I responded to the email with questions. How would my story be presented? What were you hoping to teach with it? Do you have examples of other stories you’ve filmed? How would it be used? How would filming work during a global pandemic?

I prayed and emailed back and forth with the producer a week before I mentioned the proposal to Chris. He asked questions, I shared what I knew, we both prayed and talked about it more.

I watched the video segments they had already created and aired. I studied the scripture verses they were basing our story on. I googled “Prosperity Gospel” and the preachers associated with the show. I googled people of faith I respect to see if they’d been on the show or network. I watched YouTube clips and scoured Twitter feeds.

I wrestled with God too. I’m an Enneagram Eight who relies heavily on what my gut tells me is right and wrong. The constant stomachache I had as I prayed and pleaded and researched didn’t stop me from asking God if I was supposed to do this even though it felt wrong. I am quick to react, and I know that is not always in my best interest or the best interest of those around me.

This would be good for business, God. The story of our marriage and addiction recovery is for your glory, is that why I’m being asked to share? Could this all be for your good? It would be fun to be on TV, God. That feels fancy. Can I trust them to tell the story with scriptural accuracy? Do you want me to do this anyway? You can use anything for your good; does that mean this too?

It’s important to know: I wanted to be on television. That just sounded fun.

I looked at the email a million times. I waited on God to make it clear I was supposed to accept the offer. Finally, I asked for some outside help.

Being vague, I sent a text message to a friend asking about a phrase used in one of the emails. Is it tied to the prosperity gospel, I asked. It’s sitting funny with me, and no pressure, but I’ve been asked to share a story about tithing for a large Christian TV network, and I’m SICK with what I might be endorsing if I say yes.

She said her gut said yes, but she wasn’t completely sure. So she shared a name and phone number with me. He’s my go-to for theology questions, she said, he’ll know.

to be continued…

(You can find part II here.)

No, I don’t have any questions.

I knew something was wrong last fall.

Randomly I would have trouble swallowing, my throat getting tight and painful. I didn’t feel like I was choking or dying, but it just kept coming back even after I watched what I ate, eliminating things I thought were causing it. Was I suddenly allergic to something? Maybe I need to drink more water?

But nothing I ate was causing it; I could not eat all day and it would happen. I could eat less sugar, it would happen. I could chug gallons of water, it would happen. I could cut gluten, it would happen. It just kept happening.

I was tired all the time. For someone who doesn’t require much sleep, who loves to get up early in the morning, who can’t nap even if I try, this was hard to handle.

From the outside, no one could tell I was struggling. I was still juggling home life, writing commitments, a new job, and the upcoming holidays just fine.

But I was just so tired.

In January, I finally spoke up. I don’t feel good, I said. I think something is wrong.

It kicked off an endless set of appointments, referrals, and blood draws. In a ten-day span, I had my blood drawn five times. Everyone wants their own tests, their own results, their own work.

I was pricked and poked and bruised. Veins collapsed, tubes were filled and sometimes–when my body said no more–tubes were not filled.

I mostly kept quiet about my fears and worries.

Some of what we were discovering was genetics. Thyroid issues, autoimmune diseases, things that weren’t unfamilar to my family’s tree.

But there were a few things no one saw coming.

They’re swollen, my doctor said. It was a sunny Friday morning, I’d taken the day off, the girls were in school, and I felt light and free for a day of no responsibilities.

They’re swollen, and I’d like to do an ultrasound to make sure the nodules I’m feeling aren’t cancer.

I nodded and listened and no, I don’t have any questions.

Waiting for the appointment was hard. Why else would there be bumps? Why else would something smooth feel rough?

I knew it would be okay.

And then the next moment I knew it wasn’t going to be okay.

Here’s an unexpected hard thing in a sea of hard things: My husband is stronger and healthier than he’s ever been. But he is not strong enough to carry my burdens yet. He’s not able to shoulder my fears and worries, my concerns about my health and the scary visions I keep having about not living to see my girls grow up.

As I’m seeing doctors, he’s going to brainspotting, addressing parts of his childhood that would devastate anyone. It’s working, it’s healing him, but it’s also making him tender and emotional and weary. To deal with what his parents did to him, he has to remember it. He has to acknowledge it to keep healing.

Remembering brings up feelings of loneliness and the desire to drink. Things he hasn’t felt in a few years. We stand in a store holding each other as he sobs; we sit next to each other on the couch as he mourns the life stolen from him. He doesn’t have room for my stuff right now.

I mentioned one thing the doctor was concerned about one evening, and he had nightmares that night about me dying. Upsetting, horrible nightmares about my death. It just added to the nightmares he was having about his parents.

I don’t mention it again.

My friend Christine would come over on Friday nights. We’d sit at my kitchen table or on the couch, talking about what could happen, what the doctor said, diagnosing problems via the internet and what drugs we’d need to get better and possibly make us skinnier.

It was serious and it wasn’t. Just like anything that feels too overwhelming to face head on, we looked at it with sideways glances and muffled laughs.

I went in for the ultrasound on a Monday morning.

Is this the first time you’ve been seen for this? the ultrasound tech asked as she rolled her device back and forth across my throat.

Yes, I whispered, eyes closed and fists clenched in my sweatshirt pocket.

The world stopped by the end of the week: school was cancelled, stores closed, restaurants stopped seating customers. The coronavirus started overwhelming the health care system, and my worries about some test results seemed unimportant.

I dreamed of cancer. I’d wake up at 2 AM to a silent house, wondering what would happen if I wasn’t here anymore: would Chris remember what Harper wanted for her birthday? Who would fill Easter baskets and back-to-school lists and make banana bread?

I wasn’t going to die in the few weeks before Harper’s birthday, but that’s what my brain focused on. Who would remember to change the hand towels in the bathroom before they got gross? Does Chris know how to put the girls’ hair in buns?

My chest would tighten–is this what cancer feels like?–then I’d convince myself it was nothing. I was going to be fine. I was going to be fine.

I’d will my body back to sleep and pretend everything was okay.

I waited weeks for the doctor to call with my ultrasound results. I rationalized that doctors were really busy right now, and I just needed to wait my turn. I knew if my tests came back worrisome, I’d need a biopsy. I’d imagine what cutting into my neck would feel like, what kind of scar it would leave, how this might make my neck look old and saggy.

I was concerned about dying but also about aging. It was real and not real at the same time.

Three weeks passed. Some days I was sure I was dying, that I didn’t need a test to confirm what I knew. Other days, it was laughable that I was worried. I feel fine right now, the medicines are doing their job.

I cried when no one would know.
I worried when no one was around.
Christine worried for me when I couldn’t do it anymore.
She brought chili and bacon dip and Fritos to feed us even though I was perfectly well enough to make our own dinner.
She offered to go to appointments and take notes.

The medicine made me gain ten pounds almost overnight, but I started to eat and drink without pain. My throat didn’t feel tight, I couldn’t see my swollen thryoid in pictures anymore, I started to have a little more energy.

I’m probably not dying, I said to myself.

But the doctor still didn’t call. I’d write it on my to-do list: call endocrinologist. And then I’d skip that line on the paper. Rinse and repeat the next day. And the next. And the next.

I called the day before Harper’s birthday. It was a good day, a day when the ultrasound tech’s question of Is this the first time you’ve been seen for this? didn’t feel like blame or warning.

Everything looks good, the doctor said. The dark and light gray results confirm what we’ve already known and that your medicine is correct. There are no concerning nodules or masses.

He said it upbeat and nonchalantly, like the weight of the test hadn’t been suffocating me for three weeks.

No, I don’t have any questions, I said as I hung up the phone.

I sat in my quiet office, the girls upstairs in their rooms. I said a silent prayer of relief and thankfulness. I texted Christine and we celebrated with memes. I sat perfectly still at my desk, grateful for a throat that wasn’t currently trying to kill me. I felt like I had gotten away with it; gotten away with a longer life for just this moment at least. Like I had one single thing to do with it. I tried to talk my shoulders into relaxing. I thought about spring trying to creep its way to my yard, trees with tiny buds on their branches and the always-too-early tulips peeking over my office window. I thought about Harper’s birthday that was coming up and how she gets to turn nine and I get to see it and thank you.

It’s May now, and my shoulders have finally started to relax.

______________________________________________________

A little note: I’m vague about some stuff here on purpose. This is the story I feel okay sharing. Thanks for reading it. I have some answers to my health struggles, but there’s still a lot we’re working to figure out. The global pandemic put some of that on hold. I see more specialists in June. There are more things off (is that the best word?) with me, but I am okay. What feels the worst is that nothing going on with my body is something I can fix. Genetics are weird and wonderful; right now I’m getting a big dose of the weird part. It is what it is.

Since January I’ve felt stuck in my writing. The stories I want to tell don’t show up when I go to write them. I’m trying to work that out. This is my first attempt at showing up to tell a story with the emotions that feel vulnerable to tell you and just be okay with it. Pain and suffering makes me turn inward, it makes me hold my cards close; I’m slowly trying to pry my own arms back open. We’ll see how that goes.

Social distancing: week six (April 19-25)

I don’t know how long I thought self-isolation would go, but it feels crazy to be writing this summary about our sixth week. In January when I was covering the lockdown China was doing, it felt kinda magical. Not being allowed to go anywhere, no reason to leave the house, hunkering down with just my little family.

Flash-forward three months, and it’s a little less magical. I did not see that coming. We’re all getting antsy to go somewhere, but we’re not allowed to and where would we go anyway? Everything feels irresponsible and slightly dangerous. Not for us, but for our community as a whole. I selfishly want to see friends, wander around some stores, and see a movie. But I don’t need to do those things. Seeing social media posts where people are visiting friends, going places with their whole family, and letting everyone know that what they’re doing is fine is helping to show how entitled so many of us are. OOh, you’re allowed to see your friends right now but we should all stay home? Explain that one to me, please.

Entitlement. Entitlement. Entitlement.

We all want to see our friends right now. You’re not special, stop acting like it.

That was a little tangent to tell you we’re still here and still staying home. It is fine, and it is not fine. I had a therapy session Wednesday morning, and I cried for part of it. I think that’s only the second time I’ve cried during this whole global pandemic. I am mostly okay; surviving hard stuff is what I was made for, but spending an hour with someone who only wanted to know how I was doing and feeling was harder than I expected. In lots of ways, I’m the one everyone else leans on and sometimes I forget to check in with myself. I’m glad I still get to see my therapist over the phone. I was going to virtual appointments for a while before the pandemic happened because of my schedule so the consistency of seeing my therapist has been comforting.

The week started off with Chris hurting his back pretty badly. We’re in the beginning stages of a million outdoor projects. A few weeks ago we moved my garden beds to a new spot in the yard. We did this, because we’re covering our family room patio and the new roof was going to block a lot of morning sun from the garden beds. After we moved the beds, the tiny concrete slab off the kitchen looked depressing and lonely. So instead of moving on to the family room patio build, we took a slight detour to break up the kitchen patio and have a new, much larger patio poured.

Which meant on Sunday, to save us a little money, Chris was supposed to break up the old patio.

Except he was about 10 minutes into the project when he tried to pick up a piece of concrete that was way too heavy and pulled something in his back. He could barely walk inside. I had to take his shoes off for him. We got him to the couch and there he stayed.

The mess he started in the backyard needed to be finished and cleaned up so I got to spend Sunday afternoon breaking up a concrete patio and hauling it away. Want a cheap way to relieve some coronavirus stress? Grab a sledgehammer and break up some concrete. It took most of the afternoon for me to break it up, load it into my SUV, take it to my aunt and uncles, drop it along their eroding creek bed, then drive back to do it again.

I thought I’d be sore for a week after that, but I guess the gym workouts (pre-COVID-19) and the sporadic garage workouts (during COVID-19) have been paying off, because I pretty much felt fine. Truthfully, I love feeling sore so I was little let down after the whole episode.

Chris spent the whole week slowly walking from one place to another, going to chiropractor visits, or trying to be helpful but just getting in the way. He worked, slowly, and did a lot of moaning. Then he’d do something dumb he wasn’t supposed to do and be back to lots of pain and discomfort. The only way to heal a back is to rest and he seems hell bent on hurting himself *just* enough every day to never get better. His back injury might be the end of our relationship if he doesn’t just sit himself on the couch and stop doing stuff.

Stay tuned for more announcements about the end of our relationship. I’m sure it will be exciting and involve many more trips to the chiropractor as he keeps doing things he shouldn’t.

Harper was supposed to get her braces off this week. Except, the orthodontist isn’t seeing patients, obviously, so they pushed her appointment back one month. She’s had braces for almost two years, much longer than we originally planned, and the minute she’s finally allowed to get them off, we can’t go to the appointment. Worst timing ever.

The weather this week was perfect. Sunny, warm days we spent outside. Well, the girls did. I mostly spent them at my computer because being an adult is lame, but I took breaks outside as much as possible. Wednesday evening at dinner, I noticed the girls had pink cheeks from the sun. It felt hopeful to see the result of a day spent outside. I’m finding hope and encouragement in new places right now.

My garden! I’ve had people ask for specifics on my garden so I’ll probably do a full post later this week, but I transplanted zucchini and yellow squash seed to bigger cups this week. They were outgrowing their starter containers fast and I still have weeks before I’ll plant them. I probably have more than I need, but we’ll see if they all survive to mid-May when I plant. I’m still prepping boxes for planting too. I weeded this week and put down weed killer/plant food. Sometimes I forget how much goes into the garden before I even plant, but the excuse to be outside and getting my hands dirty is welcome right now.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this at all, and I need to write it down so I don’t forget: The first week of self-isolation involved cleaning the girls’ rooms and moving Harper’s room around so she could have the optimal classroom setting. She LOVES to play school. The first weekend of staying home, she asked us to come into her room for class. Chris, Ellie, and I spent about an hour being bossed and abused by a very strict Harper Graham. Ellie eventually dropped out due to bullying and somehow became the principal of the school. It was a weird transition, but probably for the best.

Since then every Saturday and Sunday, Chris and I have spent 45 minutes in Harper’s classroom. She creates lesson plans, yells at us for talking to each other, and gives us LOTS of work to do. We had to set a time-limit of 45 minutes because she would keep us in there for hours if we let her. She spends time during the week copying worksheets on my printer, grading work from the prior weekend, and writing notes on her whiteboard for us.

This week she started giving us homework. Things are getting out of control. I had to do a math packet AND read two chapters of a book about a classroom hamster before I went to bed Saturday night. Someone else was given homework but LIED when asked if he did it. I’m not naming names, but my classmate definitely did not read two chapters of his assigned book.

We took the cover off the camper on Thursday. I say “we,” but it was mostly me. Chris can’t lift his arms up high enough to be helpful yet. It’s probably warm enough to un-winterize (is that a word?) the camper, but we just took the cover off so we could get to our hammocks. We have a few we take camping and with the nice weather, I wanted to hang them up in the trees for the girls. They were, as expected, a hit. They read and played in them for the rest of the afternoon as well as the rest of the week.

I’m slowly running out of all the stuff I saved up to dole out when things got dire. The hammocks were one of the last things I had on my list. A few days later, I unveiled the 100-count bracelet thread container I bought a while ago. Since then, our house has become overrun with friendship bracelets. (I’ve got a running list of things that are saving us right now; I hope to put a post together soon and share it.)

Before Chris became incapacitated, we had been spending time in very intense NERF wars. I include all of us, but somehow I never had a gun and just ran around the yard trying to steal bullets from Chris and blocking the girls when they were getting attacked.

It started with just NERF guns, but ended with backpacks, helmets, walkie talkies, and belts. I’m sure people who drove by our house that first night thought something was wrong. The dogs, for sure, thought something was wrong. By the end, the only thing that was wrong was how out of breath my husband was.

School for the girls is going fine. Nothing new to report except they have completely ditched the desk and my office for cozy places by the fireplace. I don’t blame them; if I didn’t need two screens to do most of my work, I’d end up there too.

I’m normally at my desk for lunch, and Ellie has taken this opportunity to open a restaurant in my absence. She dons her waitress apron filled with straws, pens, and notebook, seats Harper at the table, providers her with a menu based on what’s available that day, and then serves herself and her sister lunch. It’s pretty fun to witness. Harper gets a bill at the end of each meal and then she pays with fake money. Food is very expensive at Ellie’s restaurant, but she’s consistently luring in customers so she’s doing something right.

At some point, I’ll break down and order more LEGOs for the girls. Not because they need more, but they’re spending so much time playing with them. I feel like a new set will bring them so much joy and excitement. I think I shared this a few weeks ago, but the LEGOs, Magnatile, Shopkins world that has taken over my family room is entertaining them for hours. They also have sets of IKEA trains and tracks that sometimes get added to the mix. There are storylines, rules, and a whole language I’m not privy to, but walking over LEGO creations is a small price to pay for the hours of fun they have.

One afternoon a Shopkins slide showed up on the handrail upstairs. It’s been there for days now, and they use it to shoot animals and supplies downstairs. Until someone loses an eye, I’m sure it will stick around.

They’ve also started decorating Shopkins with hot glue. I can’t even begin to count how many hot glue sticks we’re going through in a day or what exactly they have to glue, but the hot glue gun always seems to be plugged in. This week I found Shopkins with hot glue hats in my freezer.

Things are getting weird.

Things we read, listened to, or watched:
-Chris and I started watching the Michael Jordan series on ESPN. Finding things we both want to watch is a challenge, but watching this show feels like my childhood so I’m just as invested as he is.
-My family is currently obsessed with anything related to Bear Grylls. Our thirst for travel and adventure is so strong right now–I think this is the longest we’ve gone without traveling in years–so we’re living vicariously through Bear and his adventures.
-I finished listening to Open Book by Jessica Simpson. I posted the full review on my book IG account (@themarygrahamreads), but the short version is this book was super interesting. I’m glad I read it. But it’s weird too, not gonna lie.
-The girls spent a lot of their reading time reading books on Epic this week. I’m not sure if it’s free like most things right now (we pay for a subscription), but it’s a good place for kids books especially since the library is probably still closed in your area. Younger readers can choose the read-aloud option and older kids can read novels and graphic novels. There’s a lot of good, high-interest stuff on there and the Graham girls give it two thumbs up. (Edit: It looks like parents can try Epic free for 30 days. Teachers can use it free until the end of June. Ask your kid’s teacher to sign up for a free account then their students can use it free for a few months.)
-I’m running low on audio books right now so I’ve switched my attention back to podcasts. My top three go-to podcasts are: Up First by NPR, My Favorite Murder, Young House Love has a Podcast, and The Big Boo Cast. News podcast every morning as always, MFM when I’m cooking or working outside and wearing headphone (it’s not child-appropriate), and The Big Boo Cast and Young House Love has a Podcast for family-friendly listening. No one in my family wants to listen to it either, but if they happen to be nearby, I don’t rush to turn them off.
-The girls still listen to KidNuz most mornings. If they get up at different times, sometimes it doesn’t happen. But they still love it, and it makes them feel connected to the outside world. They don’t really have access to news other than that; we do our best to limit the things they hear because they don’t need the burden or anxiety it would cause. Between school work, the stories we find okay to share with them, and a morning podcast, that’s enough news for them to handle.

No weekend grocery run this week. Like I shared last week, I’m trying to go three weeks before needing to shop in a grocery store again. We’re starting to run low on fresh fruits and veggies, but I think I found a solution that will keep us out of the stores and help support a local business. I’m doing that next week so I’ll keep you posted.

What’s for dinner?
Sunday: bean burritos with chips and salsa
Monday: hot dogs on the grill
Tuesday: tomato casserole and Brussel sprouts from the Let Me Feed You cookbook
Wednesday: beef stew with dumplings from the Let Me Feed You cookbook
Thursday: leftovers
Friday: leftovers (I refused to make more food until the fridge was cleared out; we had so much food to eat that we had leftovers two nights in a row. It felt like a vacation, to be honest.)
Saturday: lunchmeat sandwiches

Other food-related bits:
-I made a big batch of chicken salad for lunches and ate it every single day this week. I could eat chicken salad with lots of celery and onions constantly and never tire of it. Just top it with a little TJ’s Everything But the Bagel seasoning, and I’ll eat it for every single meal.
-Ellie has been baking a lot. This week she kept us filled with brownies and smoothies.

April 25th marked 41 days of the Grahams staying home. Ellie and Harper have had a few car trips to do porch drop-offs, but otherwise they’ve not left the house in over a month. What a weird, wonderful world we live in.

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so you want to buy a camper

With so many things closed or cancelled, in many ways, it feels like the perfect time to purchase a travel traveler and hit the road. You can camp without coming into contact with people, social distancing is easy in the woods, and hotels don’t seem super safe right now.

I’m not going to disagree with you, I think now is a good time to buy an RV. But I would have agreed with you before the global pandemic too. We have been camping for over a decade, love our camper, and have yet to tire from a weekend in the woods or a week in another state.

Camping is something I don’t think we’ll ever regret doing or investing in. Sound like something you want to do too? Here are some questions I’d ask myself before I even open the internet browser to start looking at what’s available:

How often can you camp? I *know* it looks fun. It is fun! But if you look at your schedule (okay, not right this second, but in general) and hardly ever have a free weekend, buying a camper might not be the best idea for you. It’s a costly purchase to only use a few times a year. It would probably just be better to rent one from a company or an RV-share site. I’m not covering upkeep or maintenance in this post, but unless you just like throwing money away on something you don’t use very often, I’d skip the purchase for now.

But if you’re learning through this pandemic that the slower pace is for you and you want to make some serious schedule/life boundaries, buying a camper might encourage that. We camp a lot, but that also means we say no to a lot of other things. We limit sports commitments, summer camps; sometimes we miss baby showers and friend parties. If we stayed home every weekend we had an invitation or offer, we would never camp. Getting away in your camper involves missing other things. If your schedule or priorities are different, you might not want to buy the RV right now.

What’s my price range? Know what you’re willing to spend before you start looking. You can get a decent, first camper for around $4,000. It’s not going to be pretty or new, but if you just want to camp, it will work. Or you could buy a trailer worth more than my house. Whatever you want to spend, figure out the budget before you begin looking because once you start, it will be reallllly easy to get distracted or think you should spend *just* a little more. We live in the Midwest so keep that in mind when I’m talking money, also. We don’t have access to oceans, but we do have better prices when shopping for a camper.

I’m writing this in the spring, when the weather is turning nice and everyone wants to be outside. Campers are more in demand in the spring so you normally pay a little more right now than if you bought in the fall. Everyone wants a camper in May. But lots of people buy campers, hardly ever use them, and decide as the weather turns cooler that it’s time to get rid of it. You get better deals and more selection if you can purchase in the fall. I know that’s less time for you to use it before it gets too cold, but if you can wait or know you want to make a purchase for next summer, fall camper shopping will be to your benefit.

How much insurance do I want and how much will it cost? You should definitely call your insurance agent and double check everything I’m about to tell you. I haven’t checked your specific insurance policy in a few weeks, so things might have changed since the last time I was rifling through your glove box. But most car insurance policies cover anything you hook up and pull/tow with your insured vehicle. So technically, we had insurance on our camper the minute we hooked it up to our SUV. But that just meant if something flew off while we were driving or it hit something, we’d be covered.

We wanted more insurance than that. Your travel trailer will spend the majority of its time not hooked up to your car. So if you just use the vehicle insurance, it’s uninsured while you’re camping in the woods. Or when it’s sitting in storage. We pay about $400 a year to have full coverage on our camper. That means if a bad storm comes through and rips off the awning, insurance covers it. That means if a window has a leak you didn’t know about and it lets water in all winter, the damage is covered by insurance. We’ve always paid cash for our campers so we didn’t technically need extra insurance for a loan stipulation, but we also felt our investment needed full protection. We blew a tire in Wyoming one summer and it was so jarring that it damaged the kitchen cabinets above it. We’ve lost an awning in high wind in Montana and suffered water damage one winter. Our full coverage insurance has saved our butts many times.

What will plates and registration cost? Every time I go to register and plate a recreational vehicle, I’m shocked. If you buy from a dealer, you’ll pay sales tax, but if you buy from an independent seller, be ready to pay that sales tax to the BMV too. I wasn’t prepared for this expense with our first purchase. I wish I would have included plates and registration in my budget so I didn’t have that unexpected expense.

How will you tow it? We have always bought towable trailers. We don’t want the additional expense and stress of owning a class A, B, or C camper with a motor. Plus, we like the ability to use our vehicle while leaving the camper hooked up at the campground.

We don’t own a truck. We purposefully bought an SUV able to tow 9,000+ lbs. because we knew a travel trailer was in our future. Most SUVs cannot tow that much weight. We basically bought a truck frame on an SUV body (a Nissan Armada). If you’re interested in a pop up, you can tow those easily with most vehicles. The older the camper, the heavier. The campers they make today are ridiculously light. But our budget, especially for our first camper, was pretty small so we knew we’d be buying an older and heavier camper to tow.

We had a generic hitch on our SUV, but it wasn’t made to tow more than a small trailer. We had a travel trailer hitch with sway bar installed on our vehicle so we could pull the camper. I think it cost around $1,000, but it made sure we didn’t tear up our vehicle by pulling something we shouldn’t and the sway bar helped keep the camper stable which helps with driving and gas mileage.

Where will you store your camper? Do you have room in your driveway? Will your HOA allow it? Do you need to pay to have it stored? How much will that cost? Camper storage costs can be ridiculous. We kept our first camper, the one we rehabbed, in our driveway for months. It blocked access to the garage and required my husband to park on the street. Once the season was over, we paid to store it. Soon after, we moved out of the city and had space to store it in our driveway. Make sure you have a place and budget to store your camper, especially if you don’t have space at home.

Where will you shop? For our first camper purchase, we stuck to dealerships. We didn’t know enough about buying a camper and what to look for that we felt it was safer to stick with reputable places that were, hopefully, not going to sell us something uninhabitable. We had a friend who owned a camper give us a list of things to ask or check, and then we had my dad come give it a once over before we signed on dotted line. The more eyes on that first camper purchase, the better. I tend to get excited about something and ignore problem signs because I just want it so bad. Bringing a friend or annoyingly practical father with you can’t hurt.

Buying at a dealership will probably mean you spend a little more than you would if you bought from an independent seller. We were willing to do that to ensure we got something safe and usable, but if you’ve got an experienced friend or are buying from someone you trust, independent seller is the way to go. Once we got the hang of maintaining a travel traveler, we bought our next two from Craigslist or Facebook independent sellers. Do whatever makes you the most comfortable.

Where will you camp? Obviously, you don’t know the answer to that completely. No one does. But it might be good to check out a few campgrounds you’d like to visit and see what it will cost you. For a quick weekend trip, we spend about $50-$80 for a spot in a state campground. That means an electric site, no sewer or water. We’re also pretty loyal to KOA campgrounds and pay about $100 for a weekend with full hookups. You can find places cheaper than state parks and, if you want to go completely off the grid with no amenities, you can find places to stay for free. Just be aware of what you’d like to do and how much a weekend away will cost. (This means extra gas expenses too; towing a camper eats gas fast.) If you get a camper but can’t afford to go anywhere, it would be a total bummer.

Ready to look at a camper? There are plenty of YouTube videos that walk you through buying a camper and how to do it. I’m not going to do it any better. But as you’re checking out a camper you’re interested in, make sure you:
-look for soft spots in the floor; that signals water damage even if you can’t see it with your eyes
-check windows, skylights, the A/C, etc. for water leaks or places that have been patched; water damage is the kill shot for RVs and something you really don’t want to mess with
-if you see visible rot or mold, run away
-check the exterior for damage; use the ladder or bring your own, you’ll need to climb on top of the RV to see what’s happening up there
-check the tires; campers sit for long periods of time and tires rot out fast when they don’t move. They’re not too expensive to fix, but know before you buy if that needs to happen, it might figure in to your final cost.
-check the plumbing; does the toilet leak? Does the sink drain okay? We bought our first camper without realizing the shower head was missing. When we got it home and hooked it up, that was a nice, messy surprise.
-what’s the dry weight? Can you pull it?

That’s a short list and watching a few YouTube videos ahead of time will give you a good foundation to start looking at campers. I was really scared of buying a camper that ended up having massive damage and wasting our money; having a friend there to help was crucial for us. Also, if you feel something’s off or have a concern, there are more RVs out there. Don’t make concessions because you like something and ignore a major issue that will end up costing you a lot of money in the long term.

We had our first, small camper for two years before we sold it and upgraded. I’m forever thankful we got to learn the ropes on an older camper before moving on to newer ones. It felt like less pressure if we broke something or if we decided camping wasn’t for us.

I hope you made it through that list and still want to camp. I wouldn’t trade anything for the thrill of throwing some clothes and food in the camper on a Friday afternoon and taking off for the weekend. We’ve explored the country in a travel trailer and spent weekends just a few hours from our house. Both of them feel adventurous and special. So whether you’re planning on traveling the country or just heading up state a few miles, the camper life is always a worthwhile adventure in my book.

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