Past, present, future

I did this a year or two and it was fun so I'm doing it again!

Thirty years ago- In 1983 I was 8 years old and in third grade. I have three distinct memories of third grade. First, I remember having a substitute one day who noticed I wasn't singing during the little music time we had and pointed it out in front of the whole class and really embarrassed me. I really disliked that lady.

Second, I remember my pants splitting down the back one day during recess and I had to go to the office and have the secretary safety pin my pants back together. Why didn't they call my mother to send her with new pants?! Both of my parents worked, maybe she couldn't come.

Third, I made a new best friend that year. One day we both came to school wearing brown corduroy pants and cream colored turtle necks. We looked like twins and a friendship was born. I love that things that simple started new friendships as kids. It's a lot harder to make friends and an adult.

Twenty years ago- 1993 was a big year of change for me. It was the year I graduated from high school! I had a boyfriend who had graduated the year before and he went off to college with all the rest of our friends. Plus our high school split that year and I was sent off with half our class to spend our senior year at a new high school. Being the first class in the new high school was fun and kind of a bummer at the same time. I didn't want to leave my other high school. I liked it there. I also had to leave most of my other close friends who hadn't graduated the year before.

My junior year I was on the newspaper staff, I had a big group of friends and at the end of that school year I had boyfriend I got to see every day. My senior year I was at a new school, not really involved in extracurricular activities and most of my friends were gone. Plus, it was senior year and everyone is pretty much over school by that point. I pretty much just tolerated school that year and eagerly awaited weekends when my boyfriend would come back to town or I could spend time with my other friends who weren't at my school.

I was so eager to grow up that year. The majority of my friends were older than me and were already at college and out in the world and I was more than ready to join them. I had such big plans back then. I could see the whole big world in front of me and I couldn't wait to get out there and be amazing.

In May of that year I graduated and had big plans to go to college and get my masters degree in psychology. In July of that year my boyfriend left the country for two years to do missionary work for our church. He told me not to wait for him. I was determined to wait for him anyway. Because I was an idiot. There's no other excuse for that decision. My first official big mistake of my post high school life, lol.

My second big mistake of my post high school life was changing my major from psychology to social work at the last minute because my parents convinced me that it was a better choice. I hated the classes, I hated college, I hated my roommates and I spent a good portion of that year sitting by the mailbox waiting for letters to arrive from my boyfriend that never arrived. That was not a good year for me. If there is one year of my life I wish I could go back and change it would probably be that one. I made a gigantic mess out of my first "grown up" year. I often wonder how my life would be different if I had not changed my major and had come to my senses and gotten over that boy.

I never got a masters in psychology, or in social work. And two years later my boyfriend came back and got engaged to someone else. Sometimes life doesn't work out the way you think it will.

Fifteen years ago- In 1998 Shawn and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. In the five years between leaving high school and that first wedding anniversary I had had that disasterous year of college, I dropped out of college and moved across the country for a year to be a live in nanny, where I had all sorts of crazy adventures, I moved back home just in time for my boyfriend to return and get engaged to someone else, my dad got cancer and died, and while I was trying to hold it all together I got a job while I tried to figure out what to do next and Shawn was one of the very first people I met on my first day. The breath of fresh air amid the chaos. We became friends immediately. While all the storms were raging in my life, he was my safe place and I will always be grateful to him for that.

Long story short, we got married, and in 1998 we celebrated our first wedding anniversary. When we got married Shawn was just starting a very challenging pharmacy doctorate program. We lived in an apartment in a crappy apartment complex in a town we both hated, but we didn't care. We hung curtains, planted flowers out front and it was home to us. I worked while Shawn went to school. I got a job as a secretary for an office supply company. They had accounts with a lot of local businesses to supply all their office supplies and they got an account with a government facility that was so large they needed someone just to handle the daily orders from that account. That was me. I did all the ordering for that account and I also answered phones, filed invoices and did other secretarial stuff. It was a job. It's not what I wanted to be doing with my life, but without a degree in a small college town it was as good as it was going to get, so that's what I did. It paid the bills and allowed Shawn to focus on school.

I always smile when I think of those first few years of our marriage. At the time we couldn't wait to get past that time in our life and get on with it. We wanted a house, we wanted kids and we wanted Shawn to finally get out of school and start making money so we could afford those things. Sometimes we would drive around and look at nice houses and just dream of the day when we could finally put apartment living behind us.

The funny this is that now we live in 4,000sf, six bedroom house and I miss that little apartment! I miss those days when it was just the two of us in a cozy little apartment with no money and big dreams. People told us we would miss those days and I didn't believe them. They were right, I do kind of miss it. I'm happy with our life now and I'm proud of what we've accomplished over the years, but I will never forget celebrating our first wedding anniversary in that little apartment, taking the top of our wedding cake out of the freezer and giggling because it tasted terrible after a year in the freezer, lol. We were just kids back then. It was a good year.

Ten years ago- In 2003, Matthew joined our family! He was born in August and what I remember most about that pregnancy was how miserable it was to be nine months pregnant in August! That was a tough summer. For some reason we went camping that July. I slept on the ground in a tent 8 months pregnant in the middle of a hot summer. Why did that seem like a good idea? It wasn't, lol.

The fun thing I remember about being pregnant with Matthew was that we finally lived in a house and I could decorate a nursery. When Josh was born we were still living in that little apartment in that little college town. By the time Matthew was born Shawn was done with school, we had moved 300 miles away from that little college town, Shawn was working as a pharmacist and we had built our first house. Finally, all the things we had worked for were happening, and it was a really good time in our lives. I had a ball decorating a nursery for Matthew. All red and blue with cars and trucks. It was perfect.

Matthews birth, on the other hand, was no so perfect! That story is too long to tell today, but basically the cord prolapsed and I was rushed into emergency surgery. Shawn had to stay out in the hall and they had to put me out completely, so we both missed Matthews birth. Of our three kids, Josh's birth is the only one we were both present and conscious for!  But I didn't care, I was just happy that Matthew was safe and healthy and we welcomed an 8lb blonde haired, blue eyed ray of sunshine into our family that day. 2003 was a great year for our family.

Five years ago- In 2008 I started this blog! You all know what I was doing then. I was very impatiently waiting to adopt Clarissa! I'm not even sure what to say about that year except for that. What I will say is that I spent a lot of time imagining what it would be like to finally have Clarissa home with us. I love that I know now. At the moment my sweet Clarissa is sitting next to me, wearing a princess dress and playing ponies. I love that little girl and every agonizing moment of waiting for her was worth it. 

2008 was kind of a hard year for me. We did a lot of fun family things that year, if I remember right we took a lot of vacations that year, so there were a lot of good times, but my brain was just full of adoption things. It was kind of a limbo year for us. We were always saying "once Clarissa gets here...". It was hard to plan anything because we knew we had the adoption coming up but we had no idea when that would be. We kind of just tried to keep ourselves busy and prepare for what we knew was going to be a gigantic adjustment when we finally did get to bring Clarissa home. It was an exciting time though. It was kind of like waiting for Christmas morning to come. Our whole family was excited and it was the start of a new adventure for us.

One year ago- hmmm...nothing much has changed over this past year. A year ago right now I was doing petty much what I'm doing now. The boys are in school and I'm home hanging out with Clarissa. This past year has been extremely uneventful. I'm content, I'm happy, life is good...but nothing so earth shattering happened that I can come up with anything to say about it. I like being a stay at home mom. I like spending my days with Clarissa. I'm going to miss her when she goes off to kindergarten next year. Next year will be a big year of change for me. After 14 years of being home with kids, I will finally be sending the last kid off to school. What will I do? I have no idea, you'll have to stick around and find out. 

Yesterday- Yesterday I did a whole lot of nothing. Sundays are pretty mellow at our house. I ate too much Halloween candy, is what I did yesterday. Someone get this stuff out of our house! 

Today- Today I have no big plans. Monday's are pretty low key around here. I do most of my running around on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I need to clean out my closet. Maybe that's what I'll do today. 

Tomorrow- Tuesdays are my busy day. Clarissa has preschool in the morning and in the afternoon I take her to ballet, I take Matthew to a friends house and pick Josh up from his after school yearbook meeting. Tuesday is the day I spend driving people around. Tomorrow will be no exception. 

And there you go! That was long! I guess I'd better go get working on cleaning out my closet!