some serious sadness

Forgive me for being a bit depressing, but I need an outlet for some big life/death thoughts and hey, it's my blog, right?
*sigh*
It's been a long year of really sad and tragic events for quite a few people I know. A number of friends of mine have suffered completely senseless and utterly devastating losses lately and it's kind of doing a number on me. I just keep wondering,

"how could something like this happen to him/her?" and
"what's keeping these things from happening to me/my family?"

I'm really not good with the whole death thing in general, and while it's immensely inspiring to see people's faith in there being something greater after our physical bodies are gone, I personally really struggle with what I believe in regard to all of that. I have said numerous times this year "Oh my god, I would not be able to go on if that happened to my sister/brother/mom/husband/child" and someone always responds, "Oh, yes you would. You'd have to, and you just would." Well, I'm not so sure about that. I have an extremely vivid imagination and I've imagined losing a sibling or Andrew or Sadie and I get a knot in my stomach, a burning lump in my throat and tears in my eyes just thinking about it, so I really can't imagine what I'd do if I did lose someone close to me.
I don't want to think about it, but for some reason, I feel like I'm past the point of being able to trip merrily along in my life as if I don't have a care in the world. It's like with each passing day lately, I'm made more and more profoundly aware of (and you'll have to excuse the glaring cliche here) how precious life is.

So there's the lesson, right? I'm supposed to see all this tremendous heartache and suffering around me and then be more grateful for all that I have, right? Sure. I get that. But it still sucks. There, I said it. It just sucks so so so very much that my friend lost her sister and nephew, my friend lost her mom, my friend lost one of her sons, my friend lost her brother, my friend miscarried her first baby, etc. I definitely feel fortunate that I haven't been struck with an acute tragedy (yet?) but I find it very hard to be the sunny, upbeat person that I like to be when there is so much pain happening all around me.
I suppose it just goes with the whole "growing up" thing. Okay, I'm an adult. I'm married, I have a child. It's not about me anymore; I have the ultimate responsibility now. I get it. But I just feel like someone turned up the intensity knob on life. It's as if I'm hearing the refrain "enjoy it while you've got it" over and over again in my head. And I know that's a valuable lesson, but I resent it! It feels heavy and gloomy and ominous. It makes me just that much more stressed about what could happen at any given moment to knock my life off the happy track that I've been riding for so long.

So...*sigh*...what am I getting at? I don't know. This is essentially just a brain dump and a major ramble. I know that we never know what's around the corner for us and we shouldn't take a single moment of our lives for granted, so I guess I just need to try to live life to the fullest and make sure that my loved ones know how very much I love them. It sounds so dramatic, doesn't it? That's just the headspace I'm in right now. And after all, even though I went to a heartwrenching funeral today, I also just celebrated my grandma's 90th birthday yesterday.

Clearly life can be very long and full so I guess I'll try to focus on that.

Must. Do. More. Of. This.

This past Saturday, Andrew suggested we all go to the beach. I was floored and totally thrilled. We've been saying for months now that we need to hit the beach with Sadie, and this impromptu suggestion was perfect!
Here's a short video of her first real experience in sand.

Instead of being slaves to her nap, we put her in the car and hoped she'd sleep on the way to Pescadero. That only worked until we got on the windy part of Highway 84. She was pretty annoyed at being tossed back and forth for 20 miles. Lunch in Pescadero made us all feel better and then we headed out to San Gregorio State Beach. It was overcast but quite warm, so we played in the sand and let the waves lap our feet and ankles. Sadie loved it and I took a ton of photos. This is my favorite:


It was deeply satisfying to sit by the ocean and watch them together. I breathed deeply, gazed at the ocean and my family and spoke my silent thanks to the universe. I could go on and on, but I'll just say that it was awesome to see Andrew playing with her and enjoying her wonderment of the sand and sea. He was all smiles and said more than once that we need to do stuff like this more often.
Check.

Recent Adventures

I'm starting to neglect the blog again, so here's a recap of the last month:

We took a trip to Atascadero for Labor Day Weekend to visit with my high school friend Chris and his wife Janna, who have a little girl who is exactly a week younger than Sadie. It was a nice trip - lots of good food and conversation. Things got a little heated during the late night poker and domino games, but that's normal, right? Tilla and her man (also Chris) came as well, so they and Andrew got their biking fix on Sunday, and we all headed out to Montana de Oro State Beach on Monday. Great to get a dose of the ocean - it was fiercely windy and storm-like out on the bluffs. Good fun.


On the 13th, I played in a grass volleyball tournament in Sunnyvale which was organized by a friend of mine from my Nordstrom days. I had team "practice" with them the prior 2 Tuesdays, and while I anticipated being a little rusty and certainly plenty sore - I had no idea what was to come. My knees were hurting so badly by the second match, that I seriously could have cried. I ended up spraining my ankle, taping it and playing the rest of the day, but it was not pretty. I literally hobbled to the car when Andrew came to pick me up. I wish I were exaggerating. My ankle was bruised and swollen for a few days and my knees recovered in about 36 hours. Oh, and I was sore all over (but like I said - that I had expected.) Long story short, I feel it was the wake-up call I've been needing to push me to make an appointment with a PT to find out once and for all what's up with my knees and get some strengthening exercises assigned to do. I know I'm out of shape, but I'm not ready to be decrepit at 33.

A few days after that, we headed out to Colorado to visit with Meghan, Michael and their 2 boys, Brogan (3) and Kelton (8 months). We had an awesome time with them, as usual. Great food - Meghan is the consummate hostess, and Michael does waffles and french toast like nobody's business. It was total immersion - we just joined their family for a few days; no pretense, no tip-toeing around one another. They are of the "it takes a village" philosophy of parenting, so that's incredibly refreshing. Brogan is an amazingly mature 3 year old (just turned on August 26th) and he did an impressive job with sharing and watching out for Sadie & Kelton. He's got great manners (please, thank you, bless you, excuse me, I'm sorry, etc.) and will bust out with the cutest sentences here and there. "mom?" Yeah, buddy? "I like you." I like you too, buddy. "mom?" Yo. "You're the best mom in the whole world." Yeah - stuff like that. It was a fun sneak peek into what is to come.
Here's the 3 of them on the couch:

We took a trip to Tiny Town, which was pretty fun, too. Since Meghan's and my friendship really took off over pen & paper back in 1992-1993, we thought a picture by the Post Office building would be cute.


My former volleyball coach (the wonderful one, not the evil one) lives 2 streets away from M & M, so Andrew and I took off for a day with them on Friday the 19th. We ended up going to Golden Gate Canyon State Park for a hike and picnic lunch, which was a perfect way to spend the day. Mary and I got to catch up




and Andrew and Jon had tons to talk about, too.
Their youngest son Tim brought a friend, and the family's 2 black labs Smokey and Bear joined us. We took a picture at a great look-out point where you can see the Continental Divide:

All in all, it was a wonderful trip and we feel really lucky to be able to travel to visit friends. We know it's a luxury and there are many more of you we'd like to see, so stay tuned.

Paper Posterity

I love cards, stationery, paper, etc. I have kept many, many letters and cards over the years and I haven't yet found a good way to store them (so I'm open for ideas). I have been trying to keep up with Sadie's baby book, but saving all of her birthday cards doesn't seem practical.
This picture was taken by a professional - one of the dads from our mom's group - at the giant joint birthday party we had at the end of July. I thought this would be a good way to save it.
Here's a shot of most of the rest that she received:

I still haven't decided if I should keep them or not. Have I mentioned that I'm not the best decision maker?

Chess, anyone?

Sadie seems to really like this giant chess set at Santana Row in San Jose.
Today was the second time we've been there and she got right into it - moving the pieces around, etc. (the last time we had to steer clear of some older boys who were kicking the pieces all over the place and generally wreaking havoc - nice, eh?)
I don't like to hang out here normally, because while it is lovely, it's uber-trendy and just kind of ridiculous (I mean, the list of shops reads like Rodeo Drive) The people there on average are...well...the kind of people who let their kids kick chess pieces all over the place! However, there are a few stores that I like there including H&M, so I make the rounds every once in a while.
Anyway, Sadie had a ball for a good 20 minutes at this chess set while I chatted with a very friendly Chinese woman whose 2 kids were also in the mix. People stopped to watch the kids tottering around and there were a particularly funny few moments when Sadie started following a very snappily dressed little girl (pink & brown houndstooth toe-up, including a little beret). Sadie kept signing "hat" and even tried to take it off at one point! Here she is going for the grab:

Thankfully, she listened and obeyed when I told her not to take it.

By the way, if anyone wants to volunteer to teach Sadie how to play chess someday, have at it. I certainly don't have the patience for it. Just ask my friend Fabio who tried to teach me in college. I think one of the only times I found him speechless was when I cleared the board with a single sweep of my arm. Hey - I'm the first to admit that I don't like learning new things if I'm not able to be really good at them right away. I blame my intelligent, athletic and competitive family tree!

Extreme close-up!

Thanks for this fun shot, Aunt Joanne!
We love you.

These Little Feet

Sadie's been kind of obsessed with shoes lately. It's one of the words she knows both verbally and in sign language and she just likes to say it. She will bring me one of hers, one of mine, or even one of Andrew's, and proudly announce, "shooz!"
Tonight was the first time she took an interest in my flip-flops, which I thought was pretty amusing, seeing that I pretty much live in them.
I got to thinking about her feet. They are big (long) which seems to be an indication of her height, and they are prone to sweatiness, which she definitely got from me. My feet were a size 10 by some point during high school and grew almost a full size after my two year stint working at Nordstrom a few years ago. I don't like having such big feet, but I do like being taller than the average woman, so I don't complain. I wonder if Sadie will feel that way?
I wonder if she'll live in flip-flops the way I do? I wonder if she'll like having lots of fun, fashionable shoes or just a few essentials? Mostly, I wonder where she'll walk in her shoes. Where will these little feet wander in the world? There's no way to know. For now, I'll just dream of all the countless steps that lay before her.
Lucky little feet.