A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ~ Lao Tzu

Dear Hubby and I have never been known for being the sharpest tools in the shed.  This photo is proof of it.  In this part of the country, when people travel to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, they go in the summer months.  They go there to enjoy the beauty of the region and the majestic vastness of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.  Truly, they are inland seas, as my blog friend Alaine described them to me once.  Being a West Coast girl all my life I believed  there were no other 'beaches', no other 'shores' than those of the Pacific Ocean.  After crossing over the Mackinac Bridge, I changed my mind.  My first glimpse of the Lakes had my jaw dropping down in awe and all I could say, over and over, was "WOW!"

Do we go in the summer like most sane and sensible people?  Why, no.  We go now, in December, when it was in the teens and ice heaves like these are forming along the northern shore of Lake Michigan.  When the wind is howling at 40 miles per hour and the wind chill factor has the air temperature hovering at zero.  Why do we do things like this?  Well, partly because we're a little bit crazy.  And partly because we like doing things unconventionally.  This way we had the highways to ourselves.  This way we got to see what kinds of conditions the native "Yoopers" - as residents of the Upper Peninsula are called - live with in the off-season months.  From what we could see, they hunker down with plenty of wood stacked out in the woodpiles.  They have snow plows hooked onto the front of their pick ups or standing ready, leaning up against their garages.  The land is rugged and wild.  There are huge sand dunes and the wind whips off the tops of them in stinging sprays across the highway.  There are rough cabins and spectacular homes sharing space along the shore.  You can look out across the water and there is no land in sight.  It is, undoubtedly, some of the most beautiful land the good Lord has created on this earth.

I know before we moved to Michigan I'd heard of the Upper Peninsula.  I hadn't heard much.  I couldn't even remember much of the American History I'd learned about Michigan in high school...too many other states to learn about as well.  But since we've moved here just about everyone we've met has asked us, "Have you been to the UP yet?"  They ask it with kind of an affectionate pride in their voices, like they're talking about their kid or something.  When we'd say "No" they'd say, "Oh, but you gotta get up there!  It's one of the most beautiful places on earth!" and we'd smile politely and say, "Yes, we hope to soon."  And we'd talk about it but time just got away from us and we never made it during the tourist months.

But we made it in December.  And if you ask me, I think we hit it at its best time.  In its wild state.  When it felt like it belonged to no one but Dear Hubby and me.

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title. ~ Virginia Woolf

I was going thru my archives of about a bazillion different photos and graphics when I came across this one.  I was looking for another photo for today's entry but when I came to this one my whole train of thought shifted and I decided to use this one instead and save the other for another day.  If I ever find it, that is...I really do have a lot stored away, considering I've written close to 2,000 blog entries the past 5 years.

This photo is one my Dear Hubby took a few Christmas seasons ago.  He'd gone hunting at his cousin Ed's house which is just across the road from this one.  This house has special memories for Dear Hubby...it is the farm homestead of his maternal grandparents who originally emigrated from Austria in the very early 1900s.  They settled in Canada, to begin with, then came to Oregon City.  Dear Hubby's mother, the last of 14 children, was born here in 1929.  When I married Dear Hubby in 1974 only a handful of the children had passed away.  As I write this, my mother-in-law and two of her brothers are still alive.  But one is terminally ill with cancer and may die within days.

Dear Hubby spent a good portion of his early years in this house.  His mother worked so his grandmother took care of him and one of his sisters during the day.  His grandma never learned to speak much English.  When they moved to Oregon this house was far enough out in the country that she rarely went to 'town' so there was little need for her to speak anything more than the basics.  Dear Hubby tells me he never spoke German but he could understand it when his grandmother spoke it to him.  This house was the Sunday gathering place after church when everyone who could would come over for dinner.  Dear Hubby had something like 60 first cousins so I can just picture little ones frolicking all over the yard, the porch, the fields.  They were a big, boisterous group.  I don't know if the accordions and the spoons were brought out on any of these Sundays but I've been to wedding celebrations where they were and the family would dance polkas and the Schottische.   There was a lot of life lived in this house.  But, like with all families, parents aged and died.  Sadly, the house was sold outside of the family tho Cousin Ed still lives across the road in the house he grew up in, and family still lives scattered all over the nearby area.

I don't exactly envy Dear Hubby for this rich heritage but I often wonder what it must have been like growing up surrounded by so much family.  He had cousins who were as close to him as siblings.  So, as he took this untouched photo that day, I wonder at the memories that must have been moving at lightning speed thru his mind.  Picturing his parents as their younger selves, seeing his long-gone grandparents and aunts and uncles.  Picturing himself, a skinny little dark-haired boy playing in the yard.  Eating all the wonderful food prepared and served in that house. 

I never had that, growing up.

Maybe...on second thought...I do envy him after all.

Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate. ~ Barnett R. Brickner

I've never been a leader.  And yet I've never been a follower, either.  I've always forged my own path and never asked anyone along unless they choose to.    In my life I have a man who made that choice.  Dear Hubby's been with me for 37 years but for us it's been a road we've tread side-by-side.  No "boss".  No "subordinate".  Just a couple of people who've given living life its best shot.  And sometimes his ideas have been the better solution.  And sometimes mine.  Most often we come to agreements or compromises and it has worked very well for us.

What is marriage?

Well, it's kind of like taking a blender. First you add a huge dose of love.  Then you add to that another good helping of patience.  Then a cup or two...or ten, depending on the situation...of communication.  Those are the basic ingredients.  You push the button and whirl those around a bit, open the lid, and check it out.  Now it's time to add some spices.  Not too much, not too little...enough to make it just right.  You sprinkle it with tear drops, but only enough of those to help share the heartaches that come along.  Oh, and laughter...don't forget the laughter!!!  That will see you thru anything and help lift the load when the burdens of life get to be too heavy.  Then add a healthy portion of respect.  Another push of the button and then pour it out and store it in a safe place.  And when you're feeling dry and a little thirsty, take a drink from it and refresh yourselves.

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. ~ Paul Boese

I've been married to this man for a long time.  37 years, to be exact.  I met him on a blind date.  When I opened the door to let him and our mutual friends into my parents' house for the first time he almost blew me away.  He had long dark brown hair that cascaded halfway down his back.  He wore a leather jacket, jeans, and boots.  He had the most piercing brown eyes I'd ever gazed into.  I was in speechless awe.  At the end of the evening, after he and our friends had dropped me off at my parents', he told our friends, "Someday I'm going to marry that girl".  They laughed him to scorn.  5 months and 4 days later, he made those words true.

You learn a lot about another person after being with them for close to 4 decades.  I sometimes feel as if I know him better than he does himself.  But that isn't true.  There are parts of each of us that are never revealed to the world around us.  But I do know the important things about him.  I know he's a man of impeccable integrity.  I know he's honest and true.  I know his strengths and his weaknesses.  He has proven to me many times that he's in this for the long run, 'til death do us part.  He has been with me in good times and hard times.  He has stayed by my side when I've been very ill, so devoted that even the nursing staff has commented to me how lucky I am to have someone who loves me so much.  They have seen many women dumped off at the hospital, the husband never to be seen again until he comes to pick them up to take them home.  Dear Hubby has been an awesome father to our two children...and still is.  And I don't think there is a Papa in the world who could be loved by his grandchildren as much as he is by our two grandsons.

For a life change as huge as the one we've undergone these past few months, learning of a possible move to Michigan from Oregon around the first part of November last year and then making it so in March of this year, it's gone remarkably well.  We hit a pretty big bump in the road when we first arrived in Michigan, only to find a mortgage mess of - to us - catastrophic proportions.  We ended up living in a hotel suite for over two weeks while everything got sorted out.  Beyond that, it's been pretty seamless.  We've settled in and already grown to love our new home and surroundings.  But Dear Hubby and I began sniping at each other, a little here, a little there.  We were irritable and short-tempered.  Instead of doing what we've always done in the past by talking such things thru, we let it fester.  With all the adjustments to a new home, a new city, a new state, and a completely new job for him I don't know if we weren't aware of what was happening or if we were too distracted to give it much thought.

It came to a head a week ago.

We sat out on our porch on that Saturday morning.  Grumpy.  Not very talkative.  And then Dear Hubby opened up like a dam and let all his frustrations, his hurts, pour out of him.  I sat and listenend in rather stunned silence, letting him say his piece, mulling over all that he had to say.  And I found myself agreeing with him.  I told him it was too bad he hadn't opened up sooner instead of bottling it all up inside.  But I'd done the same thing.  So after talking these issues thru we decided we'd start from square one, from that point forward, and put all our grievances and gripes behind us and move on.  We also agreed if we saw ourselves falling back into that rut, to point it out to the other one and change it right then.

You see, communication is the secret to a happy marriage. 

We have had many people say to us thru the years, "If you guys could bottle up what you have and sell it you'd be billionaires".

There's no bottling up of any secret formula.  There's no magic elixir.  What there is is the want-to to make this relationship work.  It's mutual respect.  It's realizing that my opinion, my feelings, are only half of a whole.  His are the other half.  It is leaving selfishness behind at the marriage altar.  It is a building process, one day at a time.  It is what you make of it.  It doesn't just happen.

There is no white knight in shining armor, coming to sweep you away.

If you're lucky, as I have been lucky, you find a good man you want to spend the rest of your life with.

Homeward Bound....I wish I was homeward bound....

I don't know how to start writing tonite. I don't know if I even remember how to write. My mind is so fractured and full and spilling over. I can hardly keep a cohesive thought in my head. My focus is non-existent. My daughter-in-law and I flew back to Detroit last Thursday and spent 3 whirlwind days house hunting with Bill the Real Estate Guy. A wonderful man who was so friendly, so funny, and so charming. He and I got along like a house afire and my d-i-l spent a lot of time in the back seat laughing at us. She texted my daughter, "I never knew your mom was so goofy!" My daughter texted back, "Yup. This is what I grew up with." Do I take that as an insult or a compliment?! Haha! Actually, the two of us had a great time together. I think we viewed something like 30 houses? But we finally found two that we like, within a mile of each other and only about 10 minutes from work for everyone. Dear Hubby and I are putting in an offer on Monday and we'll see where it goes. He told me as he was leaving for work that Thursday morning, "I hope you find the house of your dreams back there. You deserve it." No wonder I love the man. As long as he has a room to tinker in and to put all his hunting gear and trophies....which he will...and a place in the yard to target shoot with his longbow...which he will... he doesn't care about any of the other details. He told me wherever we've lived in these 36 years together I've always made it home...and he knows I'll do the same with this one as well.

This is the house I found. This is the house I love. This, I hope, will become home.

My Dear Hubby is a quiet, unassuming man who never pursues the limelight. But when asked to do something, he rises to the occasion. Easter Sunday was one of those occasions. He took part in a musical our church presented in the morning and evening services and he and the rest of the cast, musicians, and choir did an AMAZING job. You can't see his face here...he's the guy in the glittery robe...but aren't these costumes authentic? I was very proud of him.

The fire is the main comfort of the camp... -- Henry David Thoreau

(I got this amazing photo here)

My Dear Hubby is an amazingly intuitive man. He has a keen sense of knowing when I'm reaching the end of my rope and am in need of some 'me' time. Or at least some 'down' time. Where no one can reach me. No one can interrupt me. I'm left alone to enjoy a day in peace and quiet. Sometimes those days are ones where I'm left at home alone...but those are so rare I hardly even know what that feels like any more. So when he suggested we take a drive up into the Mt. Hood National Forest and go for a campfire/picnic yesterday, I was all for it.

We left at 6 am and traveled up the Columbia River Gorge highway, heading east to The Dalles. We watched the sun come up as we drove along. Hardly another vehicle on the highway. Once we got east of Hood River the Columbia was as smooth as glass...the play of Nature's lights did tricks on the mind and the eyes. You couldn't tell where the shoreline began and everything shimmered in subtle shades of mauve and lavender. I saw a couple of pelicans, sea birds I've never spotted before so far upriver - about 160 miles from the ocean - floating peacefully in a sheltered cove. As we reached The Dalles and headed south into north central Oregon, the rolling hills of fruit orchards, the contrast of green grass and bleached-out stubble from winter grass and grain crops, the dips and swoops of the highway as it meandered thru the landscape, began to ease the stress in my shoulders. I could feel myself begin to relax. I knew I'd been stressed and tired...but until that moment I hadn't realized how much.

We turned off on to a gravel road. One of probably thousands I've traveled on thru the woods and desert with Dear Hubby the past 36 years. We saw deer run across the road. We saw a Canada goose perched on a rock outcropping...probably protecting a nest. Hawks glided lazily above. We eventually found the spot we'd had a similar campfire/picnic at several years ago and set up our day camp. We got a big, warm campfire started. I sat down to read and keep the fire burning, and Dear Hubby took off with his longbow for a 'walkabout'.

It was a little cool at first but as the sun began to creep steadily higher and shone down on me thru the pine and fir branches, I took off my coat and soaked in the warm rays. I got lost in my book, listened to a woodpecker high in a tree overhead tap-tapping for his breakfast. And before I knew it, Dear Hubby was back. We started a big pot of coffee on the Coleman stove. We roasted hotdogs on the fire. We had a lovely feast.

Another walkabout. A book finished, another started. Time to pack up and go home. Another beautiful drive down the Columbia, back to Portland and reality.

As we sat in the living room last nite Dear Hubby told me, "I've taken a lot of trips and done a lot of things with different friends thru the years but I've never enjoyed any of them as much as I enjoy spending a day like today with you."

The first day of Spring.

Love still blooms.

Who's on First....

My Dear Hubby deserves a medal in patience. Have you ever seen this classic clip with Abbott and Costello? This is what it's like to live with me.

I have a refrigerator magnet that says it all, at least for my long-suffering Dear Hubby who's been with me 36 years now. It says: "You can tell a Swede. You just can't tell them much." I don't know how many times I've caused that poor man to shake his head at me and say, "For someone so smart, how can you be so dense?!" Because I am. Dense.

A couple of days ago we went to a corporate center to a company where we had to sign some documents. I had the Mapquest directions in hand and navigated us to the building without any problem. As we walked into the huge main lobby I consulted the notes I'd taken and told Dear Hubby, "It's Suite 200 so we need to go to the second floor." So we found the elevator and got on and Dear Hubby pushed the "2" button. The doors stayed open so he pushed the button again. The doors slid shut. After what seemed an eternity the doors slid open again and I could see the number 2 etched in to each side of the door posts so I said, "We're on the 2nd floor now." "We are on the 2nd floor," Dear Hubby said back. I gave him kind of a weird look and said, "Yes, that's what I told you. We're on the 2nd floor." As I started to step off the elevator I said, "Boy, that was the quietest and smoothest elevator I've ever ridden on!" And he said, "That's because it didn't go anywhere." I stopped in my tracks and looked at him. "What do you mean?" I asked. "It went to the 2nd floor." "No," he rolled his eyes at me, "we're on the 2nd floor." "I know," I said, "because we just got there."

We each took an exasperated sigh and tried again.

"What I'm telling you," he explained ever-so-patiently, "is that we were on the 2nd floor to begin with. The reason you had such a smooth ride is because the elevator didn't go anywhere. There's another floor below us that's below ground."

The light bulb finally began to flicker.

Author Update: Linda brought it to my attention that "Aren't most floors underneath the ground the basement?" so I must explain that this is a building built into a hillside. The main doors to the lobby actually do open onto the 2nd floor. The floor underneath is the 1st floor, with huge windows looking out over the valley. Underneath that is the basement, haha!

A little faith will bring your soul to heaven, but a lot of faith will bring heaven to your soul. ~ Author Unknown

You can think what you will about this post but because this, most importantly, is my personal journal for my grandsons to read someday, I am going to share this. There may be some of you out there who read this and will scoff. There are those of you who may read it and not believe it. And then there are those of you who will read it and rejoice with me in what a wonderful Savior we serve. But what I am telling you is the absolute truth.

This morning I awoke with a start. I'd heard some kind of noise and I lay there in the dark, straining my ears, trying to figure out what I'd heard. Dear Hubby was already up...the alarm hadn't gone off at 5 and it was now almost 5:45 so I figured he must've awakened before the alarm and turned it off, that he'd be downstairs in his den where he goes to read his Bible and pray every morning. I went down quietly and peeked in the door, not wanting to disturb him. And there he was, just as I knew he'd be, on his knees lost in prayer. So I crept back upstairs, got my breakfast ready, and went to sit on the couch with my coffee and bagel. He came upstairs a few minutes later and as he came in to the living room he told me, "I don't know what's wrong but I'm really confused." Alarm bells went off in my head. "What do you mean? What's wrong?" I asked him. But he couldn't tell me, outside of the fact he was very 'befuddled' and couldn't figure out what was real and what wasn't. I had him sit down. I asked him if he knew what year it was, who's the President of the United States, what year he was born, his birthday. I checked his pupils, had him track my finger with his eyes, and had him write down his name. He passed those tests with flying colors but I could tell there was something really, really wrong with him. So I sat beside him on the couch and we talked. I told him about how I am attacked by the devil sometimes...I spent 7 years deeply involved in satanism and the occult when I was young...and how the devil can get to me in dreams in ways he no longer can when I'm awake, how we're so much more vulnerable when we're asleep. That sometimes after one of those kinds of nightmares I wake up and I don't know where I'm at, whether I'm in reality or still stuck in dreams. It's very disorienting. But he said no, this was different. He couldn't tell if what he was thinking now was something that had happened or if it hadn't. I got up and grabbed my Bible and brought it over to him. I said, "Hold on to this. This is what's real. The Lord knows what's wrong." And as he held it he began to weep. I put my hand on his shoulder and I began to pray with all my heart and what can I say but the Power fell from Heaven like a bolt of lightning. It's giving me goose bumps all over again as I'm writing this. The Lord truly came down and met us there. I have never, ever felt anything like it in my entire life. And as we finished praying together Dear Hubby looked at me and said, "I'm fine now. It's gone!" Just like that, in a moment of time.

You can argue this with me until the end of time but I know this is true. I was there. I witnessed it. God still hears and answers prayer.

The Man You Are Now

In the man you are now

is still the boy you were then.

A seasoned version,

weathered by time,

mellowed by countless hours of peace and contentment

in each other's company.

Rivers and ribbons,

the ebb and flow of two lives

two hearts

so closely entwined

words are not

necessary.

In the man you are now

are the mysteries of a

Cherokee fire,

the embers of which I sensed

smoldering

beneath the surface on

that cold January night.

The eyes already seeing

the future

of what we were to

become.

One.

In the man you are now

is the man I knew you would be.

The father of my children.

The center of my universe.

The one who sees my strengths

but forgives me

my weaknesses.

The man who I can show my tears to

and not be ashamed.

My life.

My sanctuary.

--January 18, 2006

Written for the 32nd 'anniversary' of the day we met.