the one with friends

*This was written Tuesday evening but I held off posting it until this morning so I could blackout my site in protest of SOPA/PIPA. If you haven’t already, please consider taking action against this censorship.

As I type this my house is quiet. It’s 11pm. Jasper is asleep and Josh is at work. I just finished watching tonight’s episode of Parenthood. It’s one of those evenings that I feel reflective and just a tad bit sad for no reason.

I hate that as an adult I still have that “left out” feeling. I seriously never dreamt that it would still continue into adulthood. People that technically are “supposed” to include me don’t. It’s not really a big deal except for when I’m reminded continually on Facebook. I’m sure they don’t think that my feelings would be hurt when I’m not tagged in a status even though I should be. Or how there are always pictures of their kids together and mine isn’t there… It’s just hard.

I get sad when bloggers get divorced or split with their significant other. It’s usually one of those “I didn’t see that one coming” thing because obviously I don’t see their entire life. Even though I don’t know them in real life I’m always really sad about it.

Making friends as an adult is not an easy thing. Have you noticed that? I’ve been a little skittish because of a recent bad experience. Suddenly a friend decided not to like me anymore which is weird because we’re not eight. Mostly I beat myself up about it because I feel like I should have seen it coming. I overlooked red flags that I shouldn’t have. So now I’m scared to make friends but thankfully my husband isn’t. We’ve hung out a few times with a new couple recently. Clients turned friends seems to be the trend for me. After doing some pictures for them a couple months ago Josh asked if they liked a specific restaurant. They did and thought going out to eat would be fun. (Yay!) After we set up a time I joked with Josh that he asked them out. I’m so glad he did because it turns out we get along really well and we’re excited to have new friends. I just decided that I can’t let a bad experience ruin future amazing experiences. That’s how life goes.

Though sometimes I feel like I just don’t understand life I do know this… I am lucky to have this boy and this man. They make me smile and love me in a way I didn’t know possible.

I had another string of lights go out. Luckily it was just half of a string and it’s all in the back of the tree. I’m totally not going to fix it. I seriously cannot tell you how many lights I have replaced this year. I should have kept track.

So I got my Christmas wish…well at least halfway. Josh’s working weekends will now be days. Yes! He’ll still work nights during the week but every other weekend will be during the day! This is kind of enormous for us. Hopefully soon he’ll be days all the time. For now I’m going to appreciate being on the same sleep schedule as him for a few more days a month.

Josh and I are ridiculously excited for Christmas. Jasper’s gifts are wrapped and tucked away in the crawl space. (Side note: I would be lying if I said I haven’t been checking our sump pump numerous times a day out of paranoia.) I think he’s going to flip out when he sees what he got. Not only that, Josh has an entire week off around Christmas. One whole week on the same schedule! Just us, Christmas movies, coffee, games to play… It sounds like heaven.

Jasper and I hosted a little Christmas party for some of his friends. I met all of the moms because of this blog. How cool is that? There were four boys under the age of 3 1/2 which is kind of crazy. (There was one girl there but at 9 months old she mostly just rolled around.) They all did really great. We played a game, made some crafts, ate a lot of cookies and donuts. It was a blast. And by the looks of the playroom, I believe they all had fun too.

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” Melody Beattie

I saw this quote recently and have been thinking about how grateful I am. Through the past year of suck, I have been continually reminded what an amazing family and group of friends I have.  You’ve listened to me complain, you’ve been my shoulder to cry on, asked me how I’m doing even when it was hard to know what to say… The older I get the more I realize how lucky I am to have the friends and family I do. To those of you who have been there and supported me (you know who you are), I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don’t know what I’d do or where I’d be without you.

Met up with a couple friends from college this week for a trip through the local zoo. It was nice to spend some time together. Luckily the weather held out for us and only started raining after we left. Seeing them reminds me how thankful I am for my friends. I am very lucky to have people in my life that care about me and my family. We can go months, even years without seeing each other and just pick right back up. I think that’s the sign of a true friend.

My Internet friend, Katie, finally became just my friend, Katie. We met face-to-face after keeping in touch through the Interwebs for years. Funny how it didn’t feel like I was meeting her for the first time. I just was hanging out with an old friend. Looking forward to doing it again soon!

I heard that one of the hardest things about losing a baby is that some day you’ll still be struggling but every one else will have moved on. I’ve been very lucky to have my family and a few amazing friends that check in on me, specifically asking how I’m doing with it. My parents got us the ceramic bird to sit on our patio. It was just something they picked up as a little remembrance of Grace. I was so thankful for the notes, emails and such this weekend from people that just wanted us to know we were loved. It sure is nice to feel that.

Over the weekend I met up with three of my best friends from college. We had talked about going back to campus for awhile. A lot had changed and it had been quite a few years since being there.

We ate lunch, walked around campus, talked a lot, laughed and ended the day with Starbucks.

It’s always so nice when you can get together with an old friend and it’s like no time had past. I think that’s a sign of true friendship. It was a good day.

I often joke that I am the unluckiest person you will ever meet. I have never won a single contest, raffle, or anything of that nature. If something is going to go wrong, it will usually happen to me. I shouldn’t complain though because I am lucky in one aspect of my life…love. I sure am lucky to have my boys. Jasper and Josh both make me laugh every single day. I also have lucked out in the family and friend department. My parents are pretty much the greatest. They would do anything for us.

I recently got together with an old friend from college. It has been eight years since we’ve hung out and it was just like no time has passed. We stayed up late looking through my scrapbook from college laughing about our good times. It is kind of amazing to go that long without spending face-to-face time with someone and being able to pick back up.

Josh and I also joked that we won the neighbor lottery when we bought our house. Our next door neighbors have turned into fabulous friends that we really enjoy spending time with. Ranee and I got together last week with some coffee and commiserated our lack of money. Brandon is building Jasper an amazing swing set for free, we only have to pay for the materials.

Today I received the camera ring I had been lusting after. I don’t know who it was from as there was no note but I wore it all day smiling when I saw it. Last week the mail brought a Starbucks gift card from one of my blog readers. It said to drown my sorrows in coffee, signed a loyal reader. I was excited just with the fact that I had a “loyal” reader but now we can get coffee this week!

And a huge thing… Josh and I received a note from someone anonymously with some cash tucked inside. I cried when the money fell out. That someone felt they wanted to do that for us….well, I’m blown away. I was able to pay a couple more bills and have a little less stress this week.

So I may have the worst luck with everything else but at least I have love. And lots of it.

As some of you may know, my good friend Sondra (who I met through this very blog) moved in with us at the beginning of this year. She needed a place to stay and we offered. Nothing much to think about there. She fit in easily with my goofy family and it really was effortless having her around. Today she moved out to start a new adventure in Nashville. I’m excited for her but so sad for us, specifically me. I will miss having my friend around.

We’ve been talking about having her guest post on my blog since she moved in. Before she left she emailed me her guest entry with a note that said I shouldn’t read it until she left. (She was right; I sobbed like a baby). Here is her beautifully written entry:

I’ve been telling Kimberly for months now that I would write a guest post for her blog, and it hasn’t happened until now: hours before my departure. I’ve spent the last hour reading through Kimberly’s old blog posts, smiling and laughing… and yes, crying. I started out by reading the first post I ever commented on, which was in May 2005. Yep, this month is our five-year friendiversary. Five years!! The crazy thing is, I didn’t come out here and meet her in person until August 2008, but I honestly feel like I have known her (and Josh) (and her parents) for my whole life. I remember how nervous I was to meet her, and how excited I was to turn on to her street and see their cute house, recognizing it from the photos she had posted and feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. She came outside when I pulled into the driveway and we hugged and what has evolved from that has been one of the most rewarding and effortless relationships of my life. There has never been a bit of awkwardness or weirdness or drama.

Kimberly and Josh both told me several times that I was welcome to come stay with them if I ever needed a place, and at first I didn’t really even consider it. After they insisted a few more times that they were serious, I began to think seriously about it as well, and it just seemed… right. I worried a bit about how exactly that would be, with me all invading their space and their day-to-day life and family business and such, but again, from day one, I have truly felt at home here. There was never weirdness (well, never any BAD weirdness) and I never felt uncomfortable or like an intruder. I have felt more at peace and at home here than I have perhaps anywhere else in my life, ever.

So why in the heck am I leaving?! Well, that’s a valid question, and one I intend to answer on my own blog (yes, I will be returning) shortly. I have thought and prayed about my next steps very carefully and I believe this is the right move for me at this time. But it doesn’t mean that it is necessarily easy. It’s not. It would definitely be easiest for me to get a place here right now. And I don’t think there is any worse feeling in the world than making a pregnant woman cry. I keep telling everyone that this isn’t GOODBYE, because it’s not. But it is the end of me hanging around the house all the time and monopolizing all the “That’s what she said” opportunities.

I will definitely miss the day-to-day happenings here at the Knight house: all of Jasper’s dancing and talking, (“Happy, happy, happy”), the cute banter that Josh and Kimberly have with each other, putting puzzles together, trips into town, Tuesday night TV, and just sitting in silence as the three of us randomly geek out on our respective computers. I know for a fact I am going to feel pretty lost for a while at 5:00 p.m. on Monday nights during family dinner. (Shout out to S&K, Kimberly has been blessed with seriously the best parents in the history of parents.)

It has been invaluable for me to be a witness to these functioning relationships the past four months. Aside from my grandparents, I really haven’t had a lot of good examples like that in my life. It doesn’t mean there aren’t little issues from time to time (if Kimberly orders mashed potatoes with her hot beef, she definitely does not want French fries!!), but the issues are always resolved in an appropriate manner, and sometimes all it takes is “hugging it out”… I think I might have to steal that approach.

I have joked a few times over the past few months that I was here to write a tell-all expose on what goes on behind-the-scenes at Easily Distracted. But here’s the truth: there’s no dirt to reveal. Kimberly’s been criticized here on her blog for being “too happy” or having too perfect of a life, but the thing is… the things she shares here are true. No, they are not perfect here, but they are a family who does their best to do right by each other, put each other first and laugh and enjoy life together. I don’t know that I have ever laughed so much as I have during my time here.

One of the old blog posts I read earlier tonight was one where “engaged-Kimberly” was imagining what her life would be like at 60, and I had to smile and tear up a little bit at the description, because I could TOTALLY picture it.

Kimberly and Josh: If you ever do get your lake house, I would like to come visit you sometime. I’ll bring my wrinkly 60-year-old self and, God-willing, my grandkids, and we’ll put puzzles together by the fire and eat ice cream with hot chocolate mix sprinkled on top. Josh can mix his specialty drinks (I propose a “Grandpapants”) and I know I will sleep as peacefully there as I have here the past four months, because I know, in some way, wherever you guys are will always be home, and you will always be my family.

Thank you for that. I will never be able to express in words how much your kindness and love have meant to me during this particularly rocky season of my life. It is in part because of you that I am even able to have the courage and the strength to leave right now, and it is because of you that Sondra 2.0 has emerged. (And with INK!!!)

So with that, I must go… new adventures await. I am excited and sad, and a little scared, but most of all hopeful. I know if I need a place to come home to in the future, Central Illinois would be a great place to put my roots down. Only God knows what the future will bring, but I do know this: I am so very blessed to have these friends.

Sondra, we for sure have been blessed with your friendship. And you always have a place to call home here with us!

Just a couple of weeks ago, I left the house and trashed my mom’s tire and rim. Yesterday my friend Sondra and I headed into town. I left Jasper with my awesome neighbor/friend and got excited about actually leaving the house.

We literally were no more than two miles out of town when the whole car sounded like it was falling apart. Sondra stopped the car and we both got out. I thought I would see a piece of her bumper hanging down. Nope, just her tire completely off the rim. What the what?? I seriously did not know that was possible. (Apparently the combination of a frozen tire and sitting for four days did it in.)

I called my trusty pit crew (ie. Josh) and he came out to put the donut on. Sondra and I sat in his warm car watching him remove the demolished tire in less than five minutes. So much for leaving town… At least we didn’t wreck the car and Josh was there to change the tire.

In other news, I am grounding myself to the house.