the way some people in our house celebrate christmas

Merry Christmas from those of us at the Garcia house who wear peacoats (me too), reindeer pajama pants (me too), and shirts that say, "Go Jesus, it's your birthday!" (not me too, so he totally wins) to see A Christmas Carol at the movies on Christmas morning, give our wives pretty pearls for Christmas, let our wives call us "SNOW-MAR,"  and are currently mashing potatoes to take to our in laws house.

137 days

I realize that Christmas is only 3 days away,

but  we are even more excited for what happens in 137 days...

We both (finally) graduate college!!!!

 {focused on the future}

an ode to our "other" family

both of our families are somewhat eccentric. they just are. the foundations of our families are peculiar, broken at their core, and filled with unbridled love when its needed the most. i would not trade my family or my in laws for anything in the entire world.

however, throughout my entire life i have longed for consistency, the sense of a "normal" family (as if that exists anywhere) and really, ive just always wanted a group of people who ate dinner together and played board games and were there in the joyful moments and the not-quite-so joyful moments. just a pretty standard longing for normalcy and community in a group of people outside our bloodlines.

and i realized that we are blessed enough to have that in its entirety in this group of people:

(plus their parents)

in their different forms, each one of them have been:

our neighbors

our childhood playmates

our best friends

our parents

our warm home and safe zone

jack and jae jae have stood up as omar's parents more times than he can count. taking him in as a little boy, teaching him how to cross stitch, bailing him out of jail at 2 a.m., feeding and disciplining and encouraging and standing by him day in and day out for at least 18 years.

tracy and i have walked through life together supporting eachother, interceding in prayer, encouraging eachother and putting up with moods (avocado days) and trials, and have had more joyful experiences than i can count. tracy and jose went far out of their way to literally break into the house that contains our wedding slideshow dvd on our wedding day, just because they loved us.

jon has been my best friend (and one time boyfriend), knowing me better than almost anybody. we have committed to taking one another at face value, accepting and loving eachother for exactly who we are. we have gone on wild, beautiful, adventures and gone together to smog checks, banks, grocery stores, and indiana.

together, our families (theirs large and extended and open armed, and our little two person loveboat) have experienced life and death firsthand. i held baby madi in the first hours of her life, prayed over her and tracy as she struggled through child birth, delighted with them when she discovered what it means to be a mother (as i know that she will someday do for me). we watched jack and jae jae as they renewed their vows and recommitted their lives to eachother, threw a going away party for jon when he moved to california, rejoiced together when he came home, traveled to at least five different states and have celebrated countless birthday parties, anniversaries, weddings, and milestones together.

in the carmichael clan , we have found our family away from family, a group of people who enter in when everyone else bails out, the people that we know will never bail when life becomes difficult and never miss an opportunity to celebrate life with us.

i have never thanked them for this, never gone out of my way to let them know how significant their presence is in our lives, and how grateful we are to have them as family.

jack, jae jae, jon, tracy, jose, madi, jeff and gina, THANK YOU. we love you.

blurbs

Looking back at the last seven years of journaling my life, I wrote alot about feelings and ideas, but not so much about what is actually going on. Here it is:

God carried me kicking and screaming through the first half of this semester, until I finally "got it" and stopped trying to run my own life, which i totally suck at. Anyway, I ended up with straight A's, thanks to my classmates who heelyed with me through campus and didn't give up on me in the midst of my procrastinations. 

I have the best job in the world as a nanny, getting to spend each day with smiling little angels in polka dot rain boots and piggy pajamas and wondering how I get paid to have so much fun. I'm going to miss them so much next semester.

The Roof is growing and wonderful. It is so much fun to be a part of such a dynamic ministry. It feels so good to know that we are doing exactly what we were made to do with our friends with special needs. We win.

My best friend, Whitney, lives with us and its awesome. She totally unexpectedly got engaged a couple days ago, and we are planning the most legit wedding there ever was. The best part is that six months ago, I was so bummed that my closest friends weren't married or having babies anytime soon. I started to freak out about raising my kids on my own, while they were both galivating around in single-ness. Now, they are both getting married at the beginning of next year. Score!

I have a thought on that, by the way, even though i'm not writing about feelings or ideas. Getting married young is the most illogical thing you can do. But it is so much fun growing up together!

Omar's band, Summit Grove, is really awesome. They went from five members, to two members, to five members and God is bringing them out of the desert.

This month is going to be filled with ugly sweater parties, cookie exchanges, magical forest excursions, and absolute christmas awesomeness which i hope involves this skirt:

the end.

growing down take 2- still true.

repost from Sunday, December 28, 2008

growing down

i am sitting in my kitchen eating Jesus' birthday cake which is three days old and probably the best cake ive ever had. cake and milk is still a good snack, even when youre not six.

and on that note, im officially convinced that i grew up too fast. the girl who was named "most likely to never grow up," i am always, always, a contradiction. a cigar-smokin (well, once) bible readin spaghettios eatin 21 year old bride, who has never made any sense. i think ive found my identity in this. this, and the many years ive spent building all of this up.
living, and being quite reckless with other peoples hearts, while carefully guarding my own. sometimes i feel cheated by my choices, because i dont have stories of late night clubbing or drunken bar hopping. i dont own stilletos and ive never smoked a cigarette or tasted whiskey.
the closest memories i have resembling all of that are made up of running through war-torn spanish cities late at night in my underwear with people whos names i dont remember, walking five miles barefoot to see the eiffel tower, sleeping in airports and traveling the australian coast with one of the kindest strangers ive ever known. ive had my motives questions and have spent many a night explaining to people why my choices are not the most ridiculous and naive thing theyve ever heard. ive lied and prayed my way out of situations that had no way out. one time, i didnt shower for more than a week. i lived on a whim, and prayed that i wasnt killing myself in the process, experiencing in two years what takes most people late into their twenties to accomplish.

and then he showed up.

the man who would one day tame my wild heart, the person who i sometimes resentfully, but mostly affectionately, refer to as my anchor. the one who loved me without knowing me, but had a burning question on his heart, "is this what life with you is like?"
and how do you respond to that, knowing that he is the greatest gift that God has given you in this life, but wanting him to know all of you, to know what he was getting himself into?
"this is what life with me is like right now. im all over the place. but when im 25 ill have a steady job and a family. and when im 45 ill enjoy baking and traveling all over the world with you, or not, its your call. and when im 75 you and i will sit on rocking chairs on our porch and talk about the sky or the weather and the wonderful things that weve experienced together. but for now? this is what life with me is like."

and now, it is more like being 23 and staying at home studying the IEP process in special education with the faint sounds of my husbands voice echoing from his recording studio, trying to get from 20 to 25, wondering whether this transition is even possible... but it has to be, because people somehow make it through this awkward place of being a kid and being a wife.

i was standing in line at a store the other day when a middle-aged hispanic man standing behind me in a cowboy hat tried to stike up a conversation about second-hand furniture and politicians from illinois. i brought up my political science major husband, and was quickly interrupted by the statement that i've heard at least 342342374982375 times,
"YOURE MARRIED??? but youre so young!"
and then,
"How old are you? I can tell you your future right now." (smirk, smirk)

being married is, by far, the hardest thing i've ever done, it has stretched me and made me feel like im in over my head many times, i've decided over and over again that i grew up too fast and i am unprepared for all of this. married women envy single women and single women envy marrried women, and i am 23 and dont even consider myself a woman yet and i envy everyone, including myself, which should be added to my list of resolutions.

but as long as im unprepared and in over my head and growing up too fast with him, ill be okay. because what ive discovered in the last few weeks is that nobody has any idea how to do this, this human thing, and even fewer people know how to be under thirty and married (or under 120 and married), so ive realized ive either got to own it or abandon it, and abandon is not an option.

a grand discovery

so once upon a time i began researching a certain music artist and listening to every. single. song shes ever written. and i may or may not have watched all of her music videos and read her biography and looked at every picture that she has on google images and then facebooked about my new discovery and how much i love her. and then all of my friends, including middle aged men, were like, "umm, she came out like three years ago and you just now noticed?" and, well yeah.

I LOVE TAYLOR SWIFT.

im thinking about standing outside her window and begging her to get matching BFF bracelets with me, but apparently thats considered stalking?

hairy green donut

so, i just finished three weeks in a first grade class with the sweetest teacher ever and the most fun 6 year olds in the world. i fell in love with one of them, named Ramon. he is the smallest kid in the class and looks like a little tiny Omar. so cute. when he talks he gets all up in your face and his eyes become super wide and he talks with a lisp/ slight spanish accent and he says the most random things. for example:

"i drew a worm. do you think its the cutest worm ever?"

"i like oreos because im so good at eating them!"

"i worked SO SO SOOOOO hard today!"

"do you think im stronger than my dad?"

(after playing Scrabble Slam together) "this is the best day of school ever! of my whole entire life!"

"we celebrate christmas because its santas birthday!"

but my verrry favorite was Thursday when i had them write in their journals about a family holiday tradition, and he wrote

"my favorite family holiday tradishun is when we always hang a big green donut on are door. and its hairy!"

get it? a big, green, hairy, donut??? i will never call it a wreath again.

oh, and once upon a time (aka last year) we werent too sick to go to our annual Magical Forest trip. like, we werent stuck at home while all of our friends enjoyed a tradition that we've had for FIVE years. whatever. eff you, flu.