Author: jenzug

I know, I know, I know. POOR ME.

Pumpkins

In Seattle you don’t die of heat stroke at the pumpkin patch.

I mean, yes, it was 54 degrees and raining in Seattle yesterday so of course I love the sun and heat, but I was not mentally prepared for pumpkins.

No, due to the gorgeous weather I was mentally prepared for a beach chair and a margarita, which I did not find in the middle of the pumpkin patch but could have used after the wheelbarrow incident.

All American Boy

The unbearable heat also changed my strategy in the corn maze because I only wanted to stay on the shady paths.

However, Bryan strongly suggested that this strategy would not get us out of the corn maze in a timely manner, nor would it help us find posts marked 1, 2, 3 & 4 in the corn maze scavenger hunt, which would earn us the coveted prize of sparkly black and gold bead necklaces.

IMG_9147

I’m just thankful I made it out alive, which is more than I can say for the pumpkins I saw in the patch.

The View From Here

Back yard

This is a working vacation for Bryan and I, so we’ve been swapping the kids back and forth every few hours so we can each check in on our projects.

Yesterday afternoon I sat in a comfy chair on the back patio looking at this view while I responded to all my emails from the day.

It was just starting to cool down after a 78 degree day.

Grandpa's camper

Earlier in the day I’d sequestered myself in the camper for a conference call – a perfect mobile office.

I really love that we can work remotely. It’s the only thing that’s even come close to influencing me in the direction of homeschooling. If we weren’t tied down to the school system, we could go anywhere and do anything whenever we wanted.

Well, if we had money, that is. But you get my point.

But alas, I am neither qualified to teach children, nor am I patient enough. So we’ll see how it goes while we’re here.

California

Departure

My friend Giyen tweeted about a Virgin America sale back in August. One thing led to another and before I realized what happened I’d booked a three week trip to visit the Land of Zug.

I was all, BRYAN CAN WORK ANYWHERE WITH AN INTERNET CONNECTION! And then I was all, I CAN WORK ANYWHERE WITH AN INTERNET CONNECTION!

And I sort of forgot our kids don’t do the kind of school that happens on the internet.

This morning Ruthie asked if we were going to homeschool while we were away, and Bryan was all, No, we are REMOTE schooling.

Jack Black, We Salute Thee.

We probably shouldn’t have watched School of Rock right before bed. And maybe the marshmallows were a bad idea. But Ruthie’s fits of giggles over Jack Black’s silliness was worth every minute of delayed bedtime.

And this encore presentation? Awesome.

I recommend you turn the volume down or your speakers might blow. Also, stick with it long enough to see Thomas’ dramatic slide at about 1:03.

kindergarten

thomas curiosity - filtered

I worried a little how Thomas would fare as one in a classroom of many.

He is full of questions about how things work, how they’re put together, how they came to be, and when he’s on a mission to discover the answers he will not let go until he has them.

With Thomas there is no “I don’t know.” He gets strangely obsessive about knowing things, and as a person who gives up easily I often wary of satiating his curiosity when it’s inconvenient to my agenda.

This worried me as he entered kindergarten, an environment where a teacher cannot devote twenty minutes to unraveling the secrets of how a flashlight works for just one student.

Ah, but I worried for naught.

We met recently with his teacher and her eyes lit up as she talked about how much she enjoyed him, how much she loved his think-outside-the-box ways. When I expressed worry over his excessive question-asking, she assured me his curiosity was a great example for the other students.

I heard many horror stories of public school as I raised my babies and prepared to send them out into the world, but I don’t know what I was so afraid of. Or maybe I’m just lucky. At any rate, I’m very grateful for our experiences so far.

Will the real curmudgeon please stand up?

There’s a running joke in the ZugHaus about spontaneity – I claim to have some when we all know I don’t.

For the longest time I pegged Bryan as a curmudgeonly old man with no flexibility or zest for the spontaneous. I just wanted to run! Be free! See what the day held!

But no, there had to be a plan.

Boo! Down with plans!

As the years went by, however, it became increasingly apparent that I was not as much spontaneous as I was a control freak. My desire wasn’t so much to be free to do what the day held, but free to do what I felt like doing right in that moment.

So if you were not me, and you had an idea, you were sooooo inflexible.

HAHAHAHA!

I now admit that the opposite is actually true. Bryan comes up with great adventures for weekend fun, while I scowl and sigh and whine about how all this fun is really gonna put me out because I HAD AN AGENDA!

Thankfully, though, I’m slowly getting over myself and Bryan is (usually) safe to tease me when I start to tick off all the Eeyore reasons why we can’t do whatever fun thing he’s planning.

Anyway, life is more fun when I let go of my agenda and follow Bryan into his great adventures – like this hike we went on a few weeks ago.

Miss Sassy Pants

Skate Park

After several volatile mornings followed by several volatile afternoons I had to regroup my wits and come up with a way to deal with Ruthie that didn’t involve me yelling at her.

I’m really good at yelling – it’s a knee-jerk reaction to being yelled at, and I get yelled at a lot.

I hate that I fight with my kid like she’s a playground cheer leading rival, but when I do it’s a sign I have an undisciplined tongue.

On the really good what-would-Jesus-do kind of days I remember that I’m the grown-up, and that the right combination of words won’t necessarily make Ruthie listen to me. Those are the days I remember that God already established a plan to provide peace in our home:

Honor your father and mother so that you may live in peace. Exodus 20:12

(I paraphrased this verse a little from the NIV, but I think Jesus is okay with that because it’s all in the name of contextualizing this stuff for my kids.)

No amount of yelling or manipulating is going to sway my stubborn child from the line she is toeing. But as for my part, I need to remember – and be confident of – my place in the hierarchy of things.

I am Ruthie’s mom, and it’s my job to lead her. When she follows my lead there is peace in our home, and when she doesn’t there is much yelling.

It’s really pretty simple, and when at least one of us gets that (*cough*), there is peace to be had.

Living a Better Story

The other day I slipped and fell in my basement. The whole area is carpeted except for, like, three feet at the bottom of the stairs, but that’s all the space I needed to fall on my ass.

I slipped on a dog bone. One foot flew out in front of me, and the other bent under me. The fall looked a little like this, only with less guitar and more angst. I can’t say for sure how the swearing measured up.

The entire one hundred and *cough* pounds of my body weight landed on my left knee and ankle. Now, some might think one would lie there on the floor for a period of recovery – whether it be of body or ego. But no. I instantly flew through the air several times like this, still with less guitar but for certain with more swearing.

In that moment I created more derivatives of the word “fuck” than ever existed before.

After floundering like this for a few moments, I finally collapsed on the floor again and cried. Not only was I in pain, but because of the history of my back and neck problems, I knew I was in for a long, full-body recovery and several visits to the chiropractor I didn’t have time for.

This is how I deal with conflict.

I get Uma Thurman mad, swear a lot, and kick a few things. There is much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth.

Sometimes this happens outwardly, and I flail about or throw something; sometimes when faced with conflict this happens inwardly, and I seethe in my own bitterness.

Either way, something’s not going the way I want it to, and woe to the obstacle blocking my path.

Telling a different story.

I’ve struggled with anger for as long as I can remember, and there’s not much you can tell me about how I’m supposed to act when facing conflict that I don’t already know. It’s not for lack of information that I lash out in rage, but for lack of character.

And this is what finally clicked for me while attending Don Miller’s Storyline Conference last weekend – in many ways, I tell a really shitty story with my life.

In the way I respond to conflict – or anything that doesn’t happen the way I expect it to – I tell the story of a God who criticizes, who is inflexible, withholding, and loves only when his expectations are met. I tell the story of a God who isn’t very much fun.

You may not see it this way from where you stand, but this is primarily the story I tell my kids. And when it comes to stories my kids will remember after I’m gone, I know I can tell better ones.

So going forward, when faced with conflict I will attempt to do less floundering and more reflecting; less swearing and more praying; less Eeyore-ing and more praising.

I want my kids to know the story of a God who loves unconditionally and walks us through our darkest moments with compassion.

The History of Birthdays

I don’t have one of those dramatic conversion stories you hear from some people.

You know the kind – I was a teenage runaway who prostituted to pay for my heroin addiction, and then Jesus saved me and now I’m married with three beautiful children.

My story is more of a slow burn. An awakening. I can’t really pinpoint the moment in time when Jesus grabbed me, though I have a clear sense he’s been wooing me most of my life.

The closest thing I have to a point of conversion is the day I moved to Seattle – September 21, 1990 – twenty years ago today.

This day feels sacred to me, in the sense that tradition is sacred because it represents something deeper, something meaningful. In our traditions we pause to acknowledge the passing of time, and the changing of ourselves in that time, and of course the inaugural event our tradition remembers.

On September 21, 1990 I turned nineteen years old, and on that same day I moved away from home for what turned out to be forever. I came with two suitcases and a box, wearing flats, a red plaid skirt, green turtlenck, and a headband in my perfectly bobbed hair.

I cannot find a picture of myself on that day, nor have I seen one from anyone else. Yet if you ask anyone who met me on that day they will describe me exactly as I just did.

We all remember that day.

I’ve always viewed my life in terms of Before Seattle and After Seattle – my Then and Now, my B.C. and A.D. I find that no matter how busy I am or how little attention I pay to my actual birthday, the significance of this day still gives me pause, often surprising me with its weight.

This morning it happened as I read Psalm 31:24, the last verse in my Psalm for the day:

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD.

Right then I burst into tears. I sobbed. I was filled with gratefulness and joy because Jesus is so faithful to me – always, but especially from this day on twenty years ago when he brought me to this new place and set me on a new course.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I became a new person that day. I became His.

Every day since then has been an unraveling of myself, the unclenching of my fisted heart. But where I let go and open up, he fills me with himself. He never leaves me empty or wanting.

So on this day each year I commemorate my friends, my community, the potholes and roadblocks and u-turns, the deaths, the gut-busting laughter, and the scars that remind me I’m victorious in all things.

That, my friends, is the History of Birthdays.

square footage

downsizing

Here you can observe the Zugs in our natural habitat.

I am sitting in my favorite chair, updating my grocery list. I have just finished folding the laundry, and the shirts I need to iron have been tossed carelessly over the back of the chair. The kids are playing in the fort they made where they each say no one is allowed yet they are always in there together.

When this much fun can be accomplished in nine square feet, who needs 2,200?

For the past several months I have taken car loads of treasures to the Goodwill for someone else to enjoy – things I’ve been hanging on to just in case. I’ve dumped hundreds of old magazines in the recycling bin and given bags of clothing to friends.

Almost a year ago we moved our bedrooms down to the main floor from upstairs, and for months I never even went up there. With the exception of my office and the laundry room, we’ve basically been living in a 925 square foot space.

So when I stepped into a friend’s loft apartment in Pioneer Square the other night – a loft that was spacious and open and felt bigger than my 925 square feet of divided rooms – I knew right then that we could do this.

Well, maybe not this, as in a loft apartment in Pioneer Square, but we could definitely downsize.

So this is what we are working toward – living with less so we can do more.

stepping through the door

At the State Hotel

“we’re stepping through the door / we’re shooting from the heart / but if we get it wrong / they’ll feed us to the sharks” – Starsailor, Shark Food

In the movie of my life (where I am played by Ellen Page), this song will underscore the climactic visual montage where scenes are cutting into each other and someone is running in slow motion – or crying in slow motion, or shaking a fist at the sky in slow motion – and you know two story lines are about to collide or something is about to explode and you’re on the edge of your seat holding your pee because you don’t want to miss it when —

But seriously. I’ve been playing this song all day.

I know I can be dramatic, but the Zugs are on the cusp of something big. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I do in general, and for the first time in my life I’m okay with not knowing all the details or whether it will all blow up.

Because it could all blow up.

If we get it wrong, they’ll feed us to the sharks.

And we will be glorious shark food.

But here is what we do know:

  • we don’t need all this stuff
  • we don’t need all this space
  • we like to make cool shit

I’ve been walking around in a fist-pumping, barbaric yawp-ing, let’s-do-this-thing kinda mood for awhile, now, but don’t ask me why, or what’s up, or what’s happening because I have no freakin idea.

Yet.

But there is a door God is calling us to step through, and so we step – even though we don’t exactly know what’s on the other side.

I’ve never been an adrenaline junkie, but when I listen to the building momentum of this song, and I imagine all the possibilities in front of us, and embrace the likelihood of failure – I have to admit it makes me feel a little tingly.

Things I observe when Getting Out

dangling cord

This is how people without kids live, with lamp cords dangling right there for anyone to reach. I find this fascinating.

Can you IMAGINE life with dangling cords? I certainly can’t.

I mean, when you’re gettin’ busy without the birth control you don’t really consider the possibility that you’d one day experience culture shock when entering a home with dangling lamp cords.

You see the lamp on your dresser and you think to yourself, lamps have cords. Period. No big deal. Why am I thinking about lamp cords while gettin’ busy?

But then you suddenly find yourself, years later, walking into a home with dangling lamp cords and a tingle ripples through your body that you can’t explain. Things look strangely out of place, and there’s a stillness in the air. It feels familiar, but in an alternate reality sort of way, like you’ve had this dream before.

And then it hits you – dangling lamp cords! You had one back in 1997! It was a beautiful clear glass lamp positioned precariously on a stand in the corner, and nowhere on the lamp shade did it say “pmodkyt” in brown marker.

As this memory heightens your senses you pull your cardigan a little tighter across your chest, hiding the grease spot where the french fry landed after your son threw it across the table; you set your bag down inconspicuously behind the chair – the bag that’s big enough to hold two water bottles, a container of fish crackers, and a change of clothes; you quickly run your fingers through your hair and wonder to yourself, Did I brush my hair this week?

And then the wine is poured, and the music is turned on, and someone greets you – the words make sense! You understand the words she is speaking! You realize all is well in the universe and the only thing separating You from Them is a silly lamp cord and an over-active imagination.