I'm Not Okay Now, But I will Be...

Me: I really am okay.
Friends: No you're not....
Me: I mean I will be okay. I'm not okay now, but I will be.
Friends: I know you will.

This conversation is one I've had probably five or six times in the last week. And I will find ways to cope with what's going on. I may be a wreck right now or when I talk about it, but I am learning. To control my anger. To watch my words. To not let people put the blame on me. To never give up my mama bear instincts.  To turn to God. To keep loving, even if respect or trust is gone.  I am finding things to be thankful for in every day. I'm determined not to let situations destroy my life. I am finding ways to cope. So, I'm not okay now, but I will be. I really will.

New Year's Day

Well, New Year's Day could have been better, yet it also could have been worse. In our family, New Year's Day is celebrated with gifts and family time, food and more food. Much like other people's Christmas traditions.

I was up first. I usually am. Not just because of the gifts waiting in the living room. The gifts this year were simplified, but still, I was excited. I poured a lot of time and energy into researching awesome gifts for the family. Nope, I have a hard time sleeping past 8:30... Anyway, I enjoy the sweet morning time before everyone gets up. But yesterday was different. A note sat waiting on the kitchen counter. No greeting or closing. Cold. A note saying she would be gone for a few days. Tears from me. Angry, hurting tears. 

She wasn't going to try being with the family. It was frustrating and selfish. Logistically, the pressure of making dinner now fell completely on me to oversee and cook instead of just cooking and sharing the responsibility for the meal. The responsibility to give the gifts to people and to explain gifts also fell to me.

After a good cry and talking to Rose, we turned the day around. We gave gifts, we cooked and played. We still are a family, no matter what. We made an AMAZING meal. We had fun and didn't let what's going of affect our day.

Rose and I drove the Little Fuji Family to the airport that night, but it wasn't a sad goodbye, I see them again in six days. 

December

9 days home. Nine sets of people visited - groups, individuals and families. I thought I was doing just great as far as how short a time six weeks is. Then I laid out my schedule for the month of December...

Between holiday baking, catching up with friends, two Christmas concerts, family coming into town, other family coming into town, traveling to Canada, attending a ball and the holidays in general, it's pretty crazy!

48 Hours

I've been home for around 48 hours. Busy hours.

Thanksgiving morning:
4am wake up. Dressed and on the road by 4:30. Lisa woke the girls up and we all went down to the airport. Dropped off by bag. Hugged Elsa and told her I loved her. Kissed Elena's soft chubby cheeks. Hugged Samuel and Lisa. Lisa keeps telling me how much she's going to miss me. It's only six weeks.

Breezed through security. Stood in line for coffee for more time than I spent at security. Watched the sunrise from the airport windows. Boarded the plane and slept or watched movies. Finally landed. Between the ten minutes to deice the place in Nashville and waiting for other planes to get to our gate, I was going antsy. I wanted to be home. To see the family I hadn't seen for three months.

Back of the plane, so within the last 20 people to get off the plane. Slowest set of three opening doors one after another while leaving the secure part of the airport. I could see Dad and the doors took like 4 seconds each to open. Long traffic ridden drive home, but it was good to catch up with Dad.

The chaos of entering a house with seven adults of teenagers compared to my other home, quiet with just two adults and two babies. There were literally times where I couldn't keep up with the conversations because it was bouncing around so much. The process of finishing dinner, taking a family picture and catching up with people was fun. Dishes by hand until the kitchen was clean. Succeeded in counting calories during Thanksgiving dinner. Skype call with my Little Fuji Family. This was followed by three really dumb movies before I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.

Welcome allergies. Cats, dogs, mold... Puffy, itchy eyes, runny nose, trouble breathing. It's going to be a hard transition in that sense. But I'll get used to it.

Friday was minor shopping for necessities that I didn't bring back from Tennessee, watching ridiculously dumb movies, catching up with the Rothenbergers and some gift shopping online....

The past 48 ish hours have been way busier than a couple weeks in Tennessee, but it's a good busy.

Childlike Excitement

One week. In exactly one week, I will be home. Hugging my family. Hugging Ian, who I haven't seen in nearly half a year. I feel like a child this year in anticipation for the holiday season, even though there are parts I'm dreading. I can't wait to make paper snowflakes, listen to Christmas music and wear fuzzy socks. I can't wait for late nights with siblings, seeing friends and making delicious food. 

I'm so excited that I started sorting through the things I have here. The clothes that are necessary to take home, the clothes that I'm tired of. The ones from the summer days that need to be replaced for winter days... I set aside art work that I've completed and want to show the family, books I've finished, my 2017 journal, which will soon be replaced with my 2018 journal. I have to set aside my camera and paints, because both of those are needed for my month at home. 

But not all my things come home. No, this room here in Tennessee will be tidy and relatively bare until I return in January for another couple months. 

A Good Day

I woke up to rain. Beautiful, thick, gloomy rain. It made me so unreasonably happy. It felt normal, looked lovely and reminded me of home. 

Today was a combination of lovely and really challenging. After Church, we went out for Indian food. The bold flavors and textures make such a unique cuisine and make me jealous because I don't know how to cook Indian food.... Yet... 

Challenging came next. A seemingly hopeless situation from far away. I know there is nothing I can really do, but it's sad when you lose respect for someone who you should always respect. I still don't know what to do in that situation, so for now... I'll pray. 

After that, I sat down to start a traffic safety course. I really don't want to talk about WHY I have to take this course. Ahem, speeding ticket while going 26 MPH... 'nough said.... I had planned to take it today because I had the time off from watching the girls and could focus 100% of my mind to this 4+ hour course. The dumb course had expired and the office was closed for the day. 

Anyway, these "hard" things happened right before a lovely Facebook video chat with Ian, Jane, Mitchell and Kara. And brownies. Plus happy babies. And episodes of Chuck. And a game of Wizard that I got absolutely demolished at... 

I'm learning that even when things make me angry, that stewing in that anger or ruining a day by being mad won't solve anything, but will take away my ability to see the good things that happen. I'm learning (and have a feeling I'll be learning for a while), when I worry, even for a second or two, I should change that worry into prayer. And that's why today was a good day. 

 

Candy Making

This is baking week in our family. And by baking, I mean candy making. Pounds and pounds of butter and sugar are used during the week as mass amounts of English toffee, peanut brittle and caramels fill the house, taking up the majority of the many sheet pans we own.

Today, Jane and I made caramels. Two half sheet pans full. 6 pounds of butter... It was going well, no scorching or burns like previous days. We have been having trouble with our brand new candy thermometers, mostly, I believe, because of the amount of candy we're making and the large pots we have to use. Anyway, I was going off of the candy thermometer and the ice water test. Well, turns out one of the batches was cooked a little too long despite the careful tests. I was pretty upset. It was three pounds of butter, which is a lot. It also took a good two hours to make....

So tomorrow, I've got another batch of caramels to knock out... The good news? It just tastes like Worther candies, so it'll still get eaten, just not gifted.

The Things I Learn- Number 3

So I'm home. It is a little more overwhelming of a transition than I anticipated. The house is smaller than I remembered.

The other night, we had eight people over in addition to my family of eight. I felt weird all evening and finally figured out it was because there were an overwhelming amount of conversations going on at the same time and I wasn't used to it.

The next morning, I had no voice. That gave me perspective on just how quiet it was in Tennessee.

Post of Pasts

So I went through old pictures today. So, for your enjoyment, I share 2000-2009, best Fuji Pictures.

2000- Visit to California 

Anna, Grandma and me

2001-Ev's always had great fashion sense

2001-Aw, partial family picture

2001- I've always loved kids

2002- Me and Ian at the zoo

2002- Siblings

2002- Ev "cooking"

2002- Sporting Hawaiian dresses

2003- Ian and Ev

2003-cooking

2004- Ian and Allen

2004- first time at Fort Casey 

2004- my baby brother

2005- Ev and Jane

2007- visit to Hawaii

2007-First ghillie suit

2008- oldest girls

2008- me and Jane

2009- Corn maze 

A Competitive Family

Today I drove 150 miles chauffeuring the kids to different activities. Competitions...

Rose and Anna left for Rose's grappling tournament early. We heard from her a couple times during the day. Overall, she placed second and first in the two different competitions she was in.

Mom drove Jane to her piano competition in the morning and she placed top four. We learn tomorrow if she got first or second place.

Then I dropped Ian off at Cascade High to compete in an automotive competition with one of his diesel buddies. He spent four hours competing and their team placed 3rd of 20 teams. Pretty impressive.

After picking Ian up with Ev and Jane, we headed to Evie's piano competition. We teased her a bit about being the only one who could possibly not place. ;-) We were teasing, but she pulled through and she too will be performing in a competition tomorrow!

We got milkshakes from Mikie's and pizza for dinner. But before we went home, we drove to Granite Falls to pick up what turned out to be a REALLY large notebook of class information for part of my CAP training...

An April Weekend

Friday:

 I was up at five thirty to go watch Ian compete in SkillsUSA with Dad and Mom. It was super interesting to watch him work and see more of the industry I've heard so much about for the past 2+ years. Once home in the early afternoon, I set to packing for the weekend in Wenatchee.

My plans got somehow foiled when Ian (once he came back) got a game he had been waiting for in the mail. A super fun game called Coup. You all should try it. So we invited the Rothenberger kids over (they live about five walking minutes away...) and played the game with them for a couple hours. 

Saturday: 

I woke up at 4am. Way too early to wake up on a Saturday, but it was well worth it. Ev, Jane and I headed out on highway 2 over the pass to go to Civil Air Patrol Washington Wing Spring Conference. We hit the pass at sunrise and it was gorgeous. We sang almost the entire way and complained about the people who were driving slowly. 

Spring conferences is pretty much a day of awards, speeches, lectures and classes, but the majority of the people who go are awesome. Still, there's nothing like getting to see about 100 friends and having to sit through classes. So I ditched the whole class idea. A senior member from our squadron and I hung out pretty much the entire day and got some good ideas down for things to do with our squadron and ways to improve. 

At four, I taught my DFAC class. Well, at least part of it. Half way through my class, another senior member came in and told us we had three minutes to wrap things up and get out so they could do banquet set up. I was a little frustrated because the second half of the class involved a bin full of M&Ms, Skittles and Reese's Pieces. It was my hands on food handler's portion of the class. Anyway, as far as I got went really well in my opinion, but I definitely need to work on my public speaking. 

The banquet was boring, the food was marginal, the dance afterwards was horrendous, but I got to dress up. During the dance, one of my favorite cadets and I went to the hall and talked instead of watching the awkward senior members and cadets try to dance. We had a blast talking and it made my evening! 

Sunday: 

The drive home the next day was fun, Jane had never been to Leavenworth, so we stopped for less than a half hour and went to the cheese shop and the hat shop. We made it home in decent time. Someone in our family had a birthday celebration that day (namely the eldest child) and we made rice pilaf, garlic asparagus, tilapia with homemade mango salsa and Drumsticks for dessert. It was a fun celebration and the meal was delicious! 

Ian and I ditched after the party to go to volleyball. It was a blast to get to play and hang out with friends again. That and Ian's a pretty awesome brother. :-D 

I thought this week would be calm, but after a crazy Monday, I'm thinking I might just stay in my pajamas all day... 

Kingston, Ontario

While in New York, we headed to Kingston, Ontario. The shops were supposedly open and it sounded like fun. The hour and fifteen minutes drive was prettier with two gigantic bridges and a views of some of the Thousand Islands.

We drove around Kingston, the architect was pretty cool, including seeing (from a distance) part of the Royal Military College of Canada, basically the West Point equivalency in Canada. I wish we could have seen more of the actual college, but maybe another time.

We stopped at a wonderful tea store which had some of the most unusual flavors. I don't like tea. I would drink only loose leaf peppermint tea, so for me, to drink four different cups of tea in one day is quite a feat. Well, I succeeded and the best one I tried was not peppermint! One had popcorn flavoring, another had nuts as the major flavor. It was interesting!

Anyway, we barely touched the tip of Kingston in the partial day we had, but it was well worth the short little drive and the non-existent border crossings. Plus it was my first time in Ontario 

We also saw a bobcat on the side of the freeway, which is the craziest animal I've ever seen in the wild. It was super cool. 

Upstate New York

(From last weekend) Watertown New York can be summed up with one word. Sketchy. It's kinda sad because I see so much potential for how it could be transformed into a lovely historic town with shops and proper businesses. Instead, the historic architecture is crumbling away, worn down brick buildings and old, interesting homes are rotting away. The people are sketchy, the restaurants are bad. pathetic even. And there's not much to do in the freezing temperatures.

Seeing Allen and Kayla was amazing. They were so welcoming and kind. They made me feel right at home with them. Kayla makes delicious food and it was really fun to visit until really late, catching up with what's going on with them, my plans for the future and many other things. Probably the most helpful subject we talked about was how different it is going to be to go home. That sounds weird to say, but in the span of six months, a bunch has changed. New drivers, new hobbies, new friends... I feel like I have a lot to catch up on.

We went to check out a town called Clayton. It is on the edge of the St. Lawrence River. It had a gorgeous view. The river was frozen, so it looked amazing!

The only shops that were open were the olive oil and vinegar. It was super fun. We tasted a whole bunch of different flavors. The balsamic vinegars were REAL balsamic, not the wine vinegar with flavorings and coloring....the oils didn't feel greasy at all and everything was super delicious! I bought a glass bottle of raspberry balsamic and Allen got a bottle of orange olive oil for me. I'm excited to cook with it.

We also stopped at a Maple store. They are having a maple weekend in a couple weeks showing how things work. I so wish I could be here for that, but it's now on my bucket list. I also had Maple Cream for the first time ever and it was delicious!

We also stopped to take pictures of the sunset over Lake Ontario and watched a movie before bed. It was a lovely day.

Saying Goodbye

It's hard to believe my time in Tennessee if over. I said goodbye. I flew away and I miss my little family. But not home to Washington, not yet at least, but to upstate New York.

Saying goodbye was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Everyday for the week before, I knew is would be hard. I could hardly think about it without crying. Half an hour before I left, I woke her up. She snuggled with me for the last time while waking up. When the time came, I cried as I held her. She hated it. She kept touching my tears, starting to cry and say eye over and over again.

I might go back. I miss her that much. I'm so glad I can Skype her and see her that way. At least for now.

Travels and Transitions

So... I'm super excited. My brother and his wife who now live in New York invited me out to visit as a round-a-bout way of getting back to Washington. I'm really looking forward to seeing them and the beautiful state they now call home!

That also means that I am getting close to coming back to Washington. I'm five days away from leaving Tennessee. I'm torn. There are a lot of exciting things I've been a part of here in Tennessee, ones that I won't get to see the end outcome for a good deal of time. I'm going to seriously miss this part of my family.

But there are good things back at home too. You friends for example. Civil Air Patrol and my leadership position that I abandoned for six months, cooking more regularly, even though I've done a decent job of keeping up my cooking skills, doing errands...

I know the transition home will be challenging. The allergies, moving back into a house with tons of people, sharing things again.... I sound really selfish.

So for now, these last few days, I'm trying to cherish every moment. With Elsa, Samuel and Lisa. And I know that I can visit, Skype and call to talk and see the people I've fallen in love with. And making fun plans to get together with everyone once I'm home!

Celebrating a New Year

New Year's Eve or Old Year's End like we sometimes call it, is spent in cooking, eating and remembering the previous year.

Traditionally, we have eggs Benedict for breakfast, but this year it was the only day Samuel and Lisa could cook for us. I helped out since I had made the recipe before. We served savory crepes with mushrooms and spinach cooked in balsamic, steak and blue cheese butter drizzled with balsamic reduction. It was so good I didn't even take a picture! :-) After breakfast, they gave gifts to everyone, which was super thoughtful and sweet. I really missed living with them, so it was great to catch up!

We cooked a whole bunch of appetizers and finger foods for the evening and while we ate them, we watched all the family videos from the year. It is always interesting to remember what we've done.

New Year's Day is celebrated with gifts and good food... Noticing a trend with the food? Mom and Dad started doing this when we were little or non-existent, I can't remember.... They always sneaked little gift bags on the end of our beds which we could open when we woke up. There were always other gifts given throughout the day. 

The number one rule of gift giving in our family is: NEVER EXPECT ANYTHING. As we've gotten older and started to help Mom and Dad with finding gifts, it has become a bit of a joke. I helped Mom pick out tons of gifts for all the kids, sending her links and prying/stalking my siblings to see what they want/need. It is fun. 

This year, I had a record number of family members ask for help with gift ideas. Samuel asked me for ideas for Lisa. Lisa for Samuel. Allen for everyone, Kayla for Elsa, Allen for Elsa, Dad for Mom, Mom for Dad... It was funny because no one else knew that the others were asking for help. 

I started my morning off with talking to Mom and Dad and toast with leftover cheeseball and tea. It was a quiet, lovely start to 2016.  

I waited until the next person got up to open our gifts together, because it is more fun. I got some awesome stuff including this book written by the same woman who wrote one of my favorite childhood books (Twenty and Ten or the Secret Cave), pepper spray (Yeah, beware...), an awesome necklace that I picked out and a leather wallet from Allen and Kayla which matches my leather satchel perfectly!

Pancakes-Paris by Claire Huchet Bishop

 We made prime rib for dinner with all the fixings. It tasted the best it ever has, but perhaps it was the good company that helped. Dessert was a huge hit! I made a raspberry chocolate torte, which was so incredibly rich that you could either only have a small piece of balance it out with fresh raspberries and coffee. Cool thing is, it was one of the easiest recipes I have ever made!

Sadly, the rest of my day was spent packing and saying goodbye. It was a great New Year's celebration and it makes me love my family even more! Here's to another year, may it be the best yet! 

Christmas Traditions

Now that I finally have a chance to sit down and actually write, I want to share my family's Christmas traditions, silly as they are. We have always celebrated Christmas as Jesus' Birthday. No gifts, no tree... We find a phrase about Jesus' birth either from song or the Bible and Dad draws large letters. Everyone makes designs and colors the banner and it hangs in the kitchen until all the holiday decorations get put away. This year it said "Son of the Most High". This is by far the classiest banner as far as designs go and even though I am not artistic at all, mine turned out quite nicely.

                       

Our other Christmas traditions include watching part of Handel's Messiah (from the 80s, I think) and A King is Born, the animated movie of Jesus' birth. We continue to watch it even though the youngest is a teen...