Oh I Love Him

There you are standing strong,
I'm a leaf holding on
You believe like a child,
In this fire runnin' wild
Oh I love how you see
Right to the heart of me

You're a waterfall, washing over me
I'm a thirsty man let me drink you in
Well I am on my way,
You're a mountain top
When I reach for you, your love lifts me up
All that I want is to be
Where you are

I'm the frozen ground, you're the warm sunlight
Shining down on me, baby just in time
Well I have never been in a love like this
Oh, you move my soul every time we kiss
And I love how you heal;
I can't believe how alive I feel

                                                   Where You Are, Rascal Flatts

A Peek into My July

Whew.  That was a rather long dry spell from me in the bloggery, wasn't it?  I've been traveling a bit and have also been quite busy with several kinds of creative projects - some I can share about, some I must wait to share - but in an attempt to break the dry spell of posts here, I'm going to combine a "whatchya doooin'" post with a "here's one of my creative projects that have kept me busy and therefore not blogging."  

Sooo, without any further ado: 

This past weekend had Jason traveling up to Washington for his Navy Reserve Drill Weekend.  My mom was sweet enough to keep Siennalee at her house so everybody could have a special weekend away.  It was one long drive from Klamath Falls, Oregon up to DuPont, Washington - with a brief stop in Albany to toss the kid and her stuff from the car and then drive away in a cloud of screeching, burned-out tires.  

One of the benefits of Jason's continued service in the US Navy Reserve is that he often travels and occasionally I travel with him.  One of my very favorite Navy Reserve travel destinations is Washington, because when I get to go with him, I get to see Anna and Efiz.

Anna and Efiz live just outside Seattle and have been my friends for a very long time - well, Anna came first and then she brought Efiz in later.  :)  Anna and I have been friends since we were barely 4 years old.  We were besties all through our school years and even now, despite the fact that we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like, the closeness is still right there.

I cajoled Anna into picking me up at the hotel Jason and I were staying at and then taking me home with her so I could then plant on her couch for the entire day Saturday.  I even maneuvered Jason and me in for dinner.  I'm clever that way.

I was especially looking forward to this trip because it meant I was going to get to meet someone very special for the very first time: Anna and Efiz's son Benjamin.  I'd "met" him when he was a bump in Anna's belly, but that's nowhere near as personal as getting to see his little personality bloom and hear his giggles.  And I got to do all that on Saturday.  Oh and hey, look at that - I'd brought my camera along and snuck in some kiddo and family shots. 

(Enter the creative portion of our blog post.)

Anna and Benjamin admiring the wind chimes.

I super heart this face.  Seriously, cute doesn't get much cuter than Benjamin.

Oh wait!  It's a tie!  The cuteness!  The cuteness is overpowering!

I just love candid moments of a happy family.

And just look at Benjamin's face here.  Adorable little flirt!

This one is probably my favorite: there's nothing like seeing pure joy on the face of your bosom friend.  And I love how Efiz is looking at her.  The perfect snapshot of a sweet little family.

Thousand Words Wednesday: Plotting.

The Grill Master

When Jason and I got married, Jason - being older (for those of you who might not know, we were not the teen bride and groom) - came with a certain number of very desirable household goods which I termed "bachelor accessories."  Kind of like Bachelor Naval Officer Ken.  So not only did I get a great deal on a guy, but I got a fabulous leather couch and overstuffed chair, coffee table and end table, armoire, and basically an entire household.  Some stuff had to go, like his apple patterned Corelle dishes, but most everything else was exactly what I might've have chosen myself, so it stayed.  But there was one - one very special item that Jason came with that I would grow to love almost as much as him.  

The Weber Grill.

I had been made aware of the Weber Grill on countless occasions as Jason related his latest grilling feats to me in a boyish exuberance.  Never having been around a propane grill, I was at first quite afraid of it.  I mean, the thing can go POOF.  FLAMES.  HEAT.  POOF!  Slowly I grew to be comfortable around The Grill until several years later, I myself was out grilling even when Jason wouldn't be home for dinner.  

So, fast forward several more years and we now find The Grill to be getting along in years.  It's time for a new one.  When we moved our household down to Klamath Falls, we left The Grill for my mom - it still works beautifully, but the paint is starting to peel and, well, we're outgrowing it.  

Our time without The Grill has been kinda sad.  There's nothing like grilling, you know.  Food and fire were made to go together.  So we waited and waited, and then we felt the time was right.

The time for A New Grill was upon us.

Of course, we went with Weber.  It would have felt traitorous to stray. 

Jason undertook the overwhelming job of actually putting the thing together.  

Little known fact: The Grill box can actually be *more* fun than The Grill itself.  

(Especially when you're 4 and 3/4 years old.)

Our new beauty.

Our first meal on the grill was a thing of beauty.  Kabobs.  I think kabobs are quite possibly the world's most perfect meal.

 

I rejoiced at watching Jason back at The Grill.  He really is amazing.

To reiterate: kabobs, perfection, amazing Grill Master of a husband.

Poetry on a bamboo skewer.  Go ahead.  Shed a tear.  I might join you.

We are so happy to have The (New) Grill back in our household.  Somehow, the world is right again.

Thousand Words Wednesday: The BIG Wishes

Thousand Words Wednesday: Wishing You Summer Joy

"Just Moms" Reading at Frogs & Pollywogs

My very first book reading!  What joy!  I am so blessed and honored to be counted among such lovely ladies and fabulous authors.

The reading was hosted by Frogs & Pollywogs in Albany, Oregon.  Frogs and Pollywogs is a wondrous little specialty toy store that delights both parents and kiddos alike.

I promise you - you will love wandering down the aisles of this sweet store!

Our reading was in "The Lily Pad" which is a loft area upstairs stocked generously with the specialty toys found for sale downstairs, but opened and waiting for kiddos to come play!

And play they did.  

Several of us brought our kidlets with and I imagine they had as good a time as we did!

Two of Jen Rouse's girls, Beth & Lucy

My Sweetheart and one of Cassie's girls, Desiree

One of Melanie's sons perusing the books and Lucy and Siennalee working at the work bench.

Dorcas Smucker kicked things off by reading a her chapter "Wealth Isn't in the Crayons" and then I was next with a summary of mine: "Choose to Be."

 Rebekah was next with hers: "Superhero Jesus" and Jen finished up with a tidbit of her story "Precious in God's Sight" and then a summary of a couple of her favorite chapters.

It was priceless to dialog with these ladies, to hear their takes on their favorite chapters, and to hear - once again - how very important we (and all) mommies are to each other.

We even had groupies there.  :)  Carlie Davis and Cassie Wicks drove up from Junction City just for our reading.  I was quite giddy to have friends there from my home church Christ's Center.  Kristin and Hannah, friends from my Covallis MOPS group (who also hail from Jen and Rebekah's church Grace City - Hannah is the pastor's wife), came as well.
Kristin's the head groupie.  

Word is she even got a "Just Moms" tattoo.  (But you didn't read that on MY blog...)

Top to bottom, clockwise: Carlie, Cassie, Hannah, and Kristin

Our youngest fan - Evie, Jen's youngest

And here are the two ladies who made it all happen: Melanie Springer Mock and Rebekah Schneiter:

And the local writers who attended the reading:

Left to right: Jen Rouse, Melanie Springer Mock, Dorcas Smucker, Rebekah Schneiter, and Jessica Kantola

And just to prove Just Moms isn't just for moms:

My wonderful (and hot) husband Jason also attended the reading.  He drove us up to Albany from Klamath Falls, listened to all of us ladies read and chatter, entertained and wrangled kidlets at large, and then drove us home again.  You're my hero, Love.

What a great day.  Fabulous job, everyone!  Thank you for all being part of such a rich memory.

Bad Lady

That's it.  I've had it.  I clean and reorganize and put away, repeat, and repeat again, and still - every single day following quiet time - the room in its toy entirety has turned into some kind of a mishmash between a crazed Pre-K fire sale and a (toy) Woodstock.

And it doesn't get put back - none of it.  Forget being put back even a little bit similar to the way it was found - no, it doesn't get put back at all.  Not at all.  Okay, if I stand there and become a skirted drill sergeant, then some of the toys might get put away.  Sort of.  But there's always too much yelling.  And too many tears.  And - we're one step closer to the neighbors calling social services.  (Okay, I'm joking about that last part.  Sort of.)

So today I had it.

I picked up the toys myself. 

But instead of putting them carefully back in the closet, in an only-the-way-a-mommy-will organized manner, in a way easiest to be taken out by sweet small hands and happily played with, I wickedly put the toys away in MY room.  (At this time, I won't go into how there really is no room at all in MY room for any kind of extra anything.  Because I've had it.  So into my room they go.  Like a strange assortment of adorable refugees.)

At first, Siennalee is wearing a small, happy smile.  Mommy is cleaning for her!  She won't have to pick up her awful mess after all.  Victory.  Then the awful truth dawns on her - assisted by me pointing out the details to the obvious, of course - the toys are not going to be accessible to her.  Not for a long while.

Her little brow furrows and she continues - painstakingly, infinitesimally - with her own little chore of re-folding (I'm inserting an expressive cough here) and putting away the clothes she has yanked out of her drawers, tried on, and discarded in a messy piles around the room.

"Mommie," she finally says to me, heavily, "you shouldn't take away my toys like this.  It- it feels like you are a bad lady." 

A poignant and mother-daughter-dramatic moment hushes over us both.

Now, the "bad guy" and the "bad lady" really are key players in our little world right now.  Siennalee is beginning to understand that not everyone in the big world around us is loving and kind and keeps the best intentions at heart.  She has been very impacted by the mere idea of the bad guy.  Sometimes she opts out of watching a show that might give too much attention to the bad guy.  But me, Mommie?  A bad lady?  Well, yeah, I guess so.  The villains on her kiddo shows are always doing dastardly deeds like pilfering toys and pocketing fluffy puppies. 

And now, Mommy is doing the same thing.

So when her little brow furrows now, I can tell she's really feeling this, not just saying it as any kind of jab or to get a reaction. 

"A bad lady?" I prod.

"Yes, a bad lady.  And," she adds, now with more feeling, "it's not fair."

I look down at her.  She looks back up at me with the quizzical, contemplative look of a four-year-old really thinking life out.

Not only am I a Bad Lady.  But it's not fair.

I choke back the laugh elbowing its way out of my throat and I lean down to the same level as her little face - "It's not fair?"

"No.  It's not fair."

"Do you think, Sweetheart, that it's fair for a mommy to work very hard all day to take care of her sweetheart, to feed her and play with her sweetheart, then to have to spend the rest of the day again cleaning up all the toys that her sweetheart played with - not the mommy played with - that the sweetheart played with and junked?"

She became thoughtful, "No."  Then she added, "but you still shouldn't take away my toys."

So hello, era of "Not Fair."  I, the Bad Lady, will see your bet - and raise you a pile of unorganized toys.

Update: the toys and some books are still refugees in my room (aka, the Motherland), but they now have hope of returning to the homeland (aka, the Sweetheartland).  Siennalee is slowly "earning" the right to free a toy by doing small "clean-up" tasks through the day.  And just this morning, she cleaned up several puzzles - a daunting task - all by herself and thus earned back two toys to keep her company during today's quiet time.  As I type this, I have yet to again be referred to as a Bad Lady, but Siennalee did find my sketch above to be quite apropos.

A Very Happy First Day of Summer to You!

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day 

to the very best daddy I could have ever hoped to have for my children. 

Thank you for working so hard for us.  Even when you'd rather be home.
Even when you'd rather be sleeping.  

Thank you for providing so excellently for us, so I can stay home with our sweet daughter, so we can (unintentionally) manage two residences, so life can be richer and fuller than I ever thought it could be.  

Thank you for loving your family so completely, so deeply, so powerfully that you continually choose
to set yourself aside
and focus on us.  

Thank you for making the hard choices
- even without really knowing that you are -
those choices that so many other men cannot or will not
choose to make.  

Thank you for being such a beautiful reflection of God and his perfect Father's Heart to our little girl.

Thank you for being that man, that wonderful, hero of a man that I prayed for so long ago.

We love you, Jason.  Happy Father's Day!

Published.

Well, I have to say this whole post has been a long time coming. 

And I don't just mean a long time from when I was a very little girl, still mastering how to hold a pencil (I still do this wrong) and scribbling away in notebooks, on papers, on napkins, and anything smooth and still enough to hold the words and ideas and pictures zinging around in my head (still do this).

No, I mean this post has been a long time coming because the actual event happened several months ago, 

and I've been keeping it quiet.  

But now, the time has come for me to - actually, the time has now passed and I'm a little late (thanks to an early summer family vacation, among other things) - 

but  

the time has now come for me to finally be able to say:

I've been published.

Sometime last year, my good friend Rebekah approached me about submitting an essay for an anthology she and her former professor Melanie Springer Mock were putting together.  (An anthology is a collection of selected literary pieces or passages or works of art or music - thank you Merriam-Webster.)  This idea had been some time in the making as Rebekah and Melanie chatted, mulled, and finally birthed the idea through countless conversations followed by countless hours of compilation, author recruiting, publisher/manuscript shopping, and editing.   

I liked the book idea, but I really didn't want to submit anything.  It was a dark time for me personally and Rebekah had asked me to submit an essay on "contentment."  I waited and waited until the very last minute, and then scribbled something out - something raw and bloody and utterly unsatisfying.  And then I sent that to my friend.  Oh well, I thought, at least I followed up on her request.  We went through the editing process - which in hindsight was great experience, albeit a bit painful in points - and then I discovered I'd made the cut.  

Incredibly (and against all odds, at least in my mind) - I was in the book.   

Just Moms: Conveying Justice in an Unjust World

Our book: Just Moms

Re-reading what I wrote, from a new place in life as well as from a renewed perspective, it's not nearly the awful piece I was afraid I'd put together.  I wrote about contentment, yes, but also the principles which I believe are laying quietly just beneath contentment, the main one being: choice.  My chapter "Choose to Be" honors my mother, who taught me that happiness is a choice, not just a feeling.  It also touches on my hopes and endeavors to teach this principle to my own daughter.  (I kept the news of the book as quiet as I could until I could give the book to my mother as a surprise Mother's Day gift.) 

The rest of the book is a compilation of writings from women, and not all moms either, who share their varied stories of teaching and learning, retooling ideas and scrapping ideals, and above all how being a mom isn't always what it had looked like on paper. 

I encourage you to pick up a copy, read it, and leave a review on Amazon.com.

And below, just for fun, is a shot of me and my two dear friends (and also two of the contributing authors in Just Moms), Jen and Rebekah.  This picture is from the story our local (Albany) paper did on us as local authors.

Jessica Kantola, Jen Rouse, and Rebekah Schneiter (co-editor), contributing authors in Just Moms (Photograph from the Democrat Herald)

Jen and Rebekah also happen to comprise my writing critique group.  We meet every month or two and share submissions of what we're up to in our literary lives.  These women have taught me so much.  I'm very blessed to have them in my life.

Thank you, Rebekah, for befriending me, encouraging me, and getting me to write that dang essay.  I love you for it!

Published!  My toes are wet.  Time for the rest of me to jump in.

The Greencloset: Confessions of a Townhouse Dirtoholic

The weather continues to change in our high deserty-mountain world and suddenly I'm no longer as satisfied to only live vicariously through friends and family kind enough to post (on blogs and Facebook) pictures and detailed descriptions of their yards and gardens over which I hungrily pore again and again.

How's that for a dramatic, run-on opener?

Hello, my name is Jessica, and I'm a dirtoholic.  I need it.  I need it under my nails and against my skin, in my hair and around my knees.  I am compelled to dig in it and inhale its pungenty-sweet, rich scent.  I admire newly turned sod like I would admire a bouquet of fresh flowers.  I inhale the scent of fertilizer like a fine French perfume.  I require dirt.  With a primal, demanding, instinctive requirement.  And I require it now.

However, there are new obstacles to me indulging my dirtoholism.  I am currently living in a new and unknown environment where the daily spring temperatures can flirt with the 70's and then nightly temperatures will dip a toe down into the upper 20's.  And wacky temperatures aside, the Townhouse's cute little cement patio does not afford me much - okay, ANY dirt.  Therefore, I must become creative and open to new and previously unknown ideas.

So, temperature and dirt being my main issues/obstacles:

I bought a greenhouse.  

The Sweetheart and I (okay, mostly I) made it our project for our little Girls' Weekend while Jason was away on Navy work.

Inspection by Sweetheart is a must.

It's less of a greenhouse, and more of a greencloset really.  But I think it'll get the job done.

 
The inaugural occupants for the greencloset are the herbs I've been so desperately missing since we moved away from those beautiful, mature plants growing happily at Albany House.

Left to right: sage, rosemary, German thyme, basil - and the two little guys in front are more basil

Here is the basil before I transplanted it.  I just love the cute little chubby faces of baby basil.

And here's another cute little face.  I think I was born to raise little things.  I love them so.

The greencloset made and the baby plants transplanted, I tucked them all in.

Soon we will add some seedling trays to the mix and the little greencloset will become quite cozy in the colder evenings.

Goodnight little plants!  I hope you sleep warmly enough.

I set up the greencloset on the other side of the glass sliding patio doors that open out of my little kitchen.  I'm hoping any warmth escaping through the glass will help out the greencloset.

The placing works well for our little patio and also looks quite nice from my kitchen.  I can look out the patio doors and see my herbs growing and - hopefully - happy.  

Just like me.

Thousand Words Wednesday: Kitty-cat or Hood Ornament? Discuss.

Crushing the Serpent's Head

When I found out the squirmy little kicker I was carrying in my belly was a girl, and not the boy I'd (for whatever reason) anticipated, I was shocked. Okay, not so much shocked as unidentifiably anxious. And this was disquieting. I’d very much looked forward to having my first baby, boy or girl. So why this strange anxiety? Was I that disappointed to not have a boy?  


I dealt with the odd feelings quietly, feeling a bit like I was betraying some sacred maternal trust.  Hoping the tiny she-person in my tummy couldn’t feel my conflicting emotions.  Doing my best to make sure nobody sniffed out what felt like a deep, dark secret.

And then things slowly began to lighten, the shadows of unidentified emotions melted away, and I began to understand what was happening inside me.

For the known generations past, the fathers of my father's line have abandoned their children and their wives and gone on to pursue whatever pull was strongest. I guess my own father just expected that was the way it would all eventually go down.  He didn’t put up much of a fight.  My mother knew life could be different.  She knew the power of just making a choice - and she fought her hardest to keep him with us - but in the end, she had to let him go. And thus I gained the dubious notoriety of being one more of the daughters from my father's line who have been left fatherless.

And here I was, the fatherless daughter, having a daughter. 

I had one of those life moments, earlier in life, when my brother Paul and his wife were having their first little girl. I’ll tear up every time I think back to that first moment of understanding; when I realized that Paul, my dear little brother, would be the first to break our family’s fatherless cycle; the first to crush the serpent of destruction and abandonment that so long has stalked our family line.

And the light in my understanding grew brighter: suddenly it was my turn.

Thankfully, not too long before I met Jason, I'd discarded my own romantic choices and with heartfelt honestly asked God to assist me with choosing a husband. Faithfully, God listened and along with other wonderful male friendships, into my life came Jason. Steady, sure, strong Jason who never, ever backs down from the tough slopes of life. And behind him a family dedicated to God and each other. I knew I'd found the father for my yet-to-be children.



So here we are, four-plus years later. My little daughter is growing and blossoming. She will never know the long, painful hours of waiting endlessly and in vain for a daddy to come home - or even just to visit.  She won't ever taste the breaking disappointment of realizing there are things more beloved, more important than her precious little self. She'll only know the secure love and embrace of a family with roots deep in God's all-encompassing love and power of redemption. 

And as each year passes, I feel my heel grind down upon the serpent's head.

A New Era

This past weekend, we officially turned over a new leaf for our little family.  Bicycles.  We started the whole journey on Siennalee's 4th birthday when she got her very first Trek bike, a little pink and white number complete with training wheels and ribbons - and a girly basket, of course.  But let me back up.

Once upon a time, Bachelor Jason had way too much money on his hands and bought one of the nicest bikes on the whole dang planet.  A Trek.  And it was spanky.  Fast-forward to Bachelor Jason meeting and falling in love with Nearly-Spinster Jessica, and the Trek story takes a dark turn.  Newlywed Jason moves up to Oregon to attend the University of Oregon's MBA program and, unbeknownst to him, settles down smack in the middle of Bicycle Theft Capital, USA.  On the first day of school, the Trek is discovered - in the apartment complex's not-so-secure bicycle barn - totally stripped.  Undeterred, Jason re-outfits the bike and spends the next two years faithfully riding - through rain and, well, rain - to classes.  Then, at the end of the MBA program, very close to graduation, the bike - in its spanky entirety - disappears.  And that, my friends, is how the small Eugene Kantola clan donated way too much money to the Eugene Bicycle Theft Madness.

Fast forward to happier times, as Jason has moved his little clan to Klamath Falls, Oregon.  Hike and bike trails abound.  Work is a tantalizing 5.5 miles away.  Bicycle dreams once again began dancing in his head.  And so we ventured to Medford, to pay a visit to Rogue Valley Cycle Sports.  There we outfitted both Jason and Jessica with road bikes, also adding a small trailer bike for the Sweetheart who cannot yet ride so well on her own (and also keep up with us).

We took the bikes out the very next day for their maiden voyage.  And it was heaven.  We rode down a good portion of the paved part of the OC&E Trail that runs though Klamath Falls (fantastic bike and hike route!).  Siennalee did wonderfully on her little trailer bike which we attached to my bike.  She pedaled faithfully and kept up a steady stream of chatter as we passed fields and cows and many birds out enjoying the evening bugs.  I told Jason it was the most I've enjoyed exercise since playing volleyball in high school.

It was a little nerve-wracking to get back on the "horse" - and by "horse" I mean super light road bike with 45 pounds of excited and unbalanced Sweetheart trailing behind.

My goodness we're cute.

I just love my Sweetheart's little face here.  She's making me laugh as I'm riding.

Of course, since we learned the hard lesson of living in Eugene - that sometimes, sometimes people may feel entitled to a bicycle that is not their own - our bicycles are now our roommates in our sweet little townhouse.  Jason did a great job clearing out our downstairs hall closet (aka, the Garage) and while we're still quite cozy, we are also quite content.  New eras are good.  Life is good.