hollywood housewife

2012: a year in pictures

I'm addicted to the recap.  You can read my personal thoughts on 2012 here.

We started 2012 in Colorado with family.  It throws me off a bit, to start this way.  But I would never trade the time or memories.

two thousand twelve, thoughts on a year

I welcomed 2012 in the quiet of my childhood home, my two month old baby sleeping quietly beside me.  I was glad to see a new year.  2011 was difficult for our family in many ways, facing death and disease and discomfort.  I wanted the fresh start.  I believe in them.

This year was redeeming on some levels.  It was not twelve months of perfect, but it was not all painful, either.  There is still disease, and that weighs on our hearts every day.  People we love fight monsters we don’t understand and our physical distance furthers our helplessness.  There was also joy, and healing, and cracks that provided transformation. 

I was a friend.  Relationship is the key of my life.  In Oklahoma, where the culture is so different, I took for granted the natural friendships.  Since I moved to LA and out of the sorority house at the same time, I have learned one lesson after another about adult friendship.  It has been mostly confusing and frustrating.  I spent many years trying to twist LA’s arm into what I believed it was doing wrong in the girlfriend department, and it was only when I let go of these expectations that I found a camaraderie in this city and, of course, online.  Friendship doesn’t look the same in 2012 as it did in 1995, and relaxing into that brought people into my life for whom I am grateful.  Realizing, slowly, that old friendships will also change has been a relief.  I clench less tightly to parts of my past, hoping others will give me the same grace. 

Of all my talk about friendship over the years, I’ve had revelations lately that my angst clouded the fact that I am often a crummy friend.  I won’t make any grand declarations about how I’m going to change this, just that acknowledgment is the first step.

I was a mother.  Just as with my daughter, my recovery and emergence from the fog was slower than I would have liked after the delivery of my son.  When I was going through pictures this weekend, some of the earliest of Pirate don’t even ring a bell.  Fourteen months later, I wouldn’t say my body has bounced completely back, but my mind feels better.  These early years are hard.  Don’t let anyone tell you differently. 

Wouldn’t you know it, I’m not the most patient parent.  I am quick to accept my strengths and weaknesses in many areas, but there are things about my own parenting that I know I want to do better.  I’m okay with not being the fun-wrestle-on-the-floor momma, but I wish we sat and read books together more.  I’m okay with being the primary disciplinarian, but I need to make sure to temper that with as much healthy praise as possible.  These early years are hard.  Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

I was a wife.  The Gorilla and I celebrated five years of marriage this September.  Our wedding weekend seems like it was just minutes ago, but I feel like I have been joined to this man for most of my life.  His work and its success gives us our home, our food, our lifestyle, and it comes with strings attached.  This year we had to make more compromises on our time and hearts than we ever have previously.  We draw from a solid foundation, and I praise God above that I married someone kind and generous, with the ability to put up with a lot of crazy.  Marriage is a marathon.

I was a writer.  I called myself that this year for the first time without trepidation.  I have always been a writer in my heart, but I haven’t always written.  This year, as a paid writer for several websites and with the invitation to visit Sri Lanka with World Vision, I finally felt like I was moving towards a dream. 

Still, I want to deepen.  I feel like I fell into some bloggy traps this year that I want to rectify for 2013.  Most days it’s easier to tell you my beauty routine instead of opening my soul, but great moisturizer only enhances so much.  Writing is for me like exercising is for others.  I breathe and sleep better when I’m doing it.  I feel off when I don’t.  I have written tens of thousands of words in 2012, but most of them won’t last beyond their link.  I vow to write more that matters.

My mantra for 2012 was to Start Where You Are.  I said it to myself all year, and I have messages from many of you that you did, too.  I did, I think, Start.  The message of it is something I will carry forward.  So we’ve started, now what?  This is the middle, how do I want to fill it?  How do you? 

Welcome, 2013.

 

First photo by Kelly Sauer, middle photo by Amy Cargill

christmas in california

We had a wonderful first Christmas in California.  It was mellow, really, which is not a word I use to describe our Christmases in Oklahoma.  But it was a welcome change, as the travel and emotions of this December meant that we welcomed a little down time.

merry christmas!

Merry Christmas! 

We are happy to be celebrating Christmas back in California after an emotional December full of travel.  Our prayers have been answered as my niece Carrie Ann was released from the ICU yesterday.  She remains in the hospital, but has made great progress this week.

We were able to catch a flight home late Sunday to spend the holidays in Los Angeles, as we originally planned.  We are tired and grateful and excited.  We are also greatly comforted by your prayers and messages for the family.  What a wonderful world the internet is. 

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

xoxo, laura

and then we ended up in oklahoma after all

On Monday, the kids and I abruptly flew to Oklahoma to be with my sister while her youngest child battled epilepsy and pneumonia in the ICU. 

In the chaos, we forgot the stroller and underwear.  It doesn't much matter, really.  I carried the baby in his carseat through three airports and I didn't shower for three days.  That doesn't really matter, either. 

Nothing can prepare you to see a beautiful six-year-old girl in a hospital bed on a ventilator.  The only thing that can ready you to see your sister bedside is your own fear and shock mirrored in her face. 

Time moves differently in the hospital.  You forget to eat and sleep.  You forget that Christmas is on Tuesday.  We have all relied heavily on the generosity of family and friends while we take shifts watching the beeping monitors. 

It has been a sad December.  Nationally and close to home.  Stupid stuff feels stupid and then suddenly important.  Important stuff feels like the only thing, then suddenly angry and stupid.

My niece's name is Carrie Ann.  I know many of you are already praying for her since I tossed out a plea for it on the facebook page.  Please continue.  Her road to recovery will be long.  

One of my best friends is a surgeon.  We grew up together in the same small town.  She made the drive to come see us in the ICU and bring medical comfort while we peppered her with four million questions.  When she arrived at the hospital, her phone wasn't working well and she misheard me.  She got off the elevator on the wrong floor and approached a nurse to ask directions.  That nurse - of the hundreds in the hospital - happened to be an old childhood friend of ours that neither of us had seen in years.  We did not know she worked at this hospital, she did not know we were struggling upstairs.  I consider it God's wink to us that he revealed a loving connection in another part of the building, someone who knows our family and could help if we needed it. 

In such a heightened emotional state, it's easy to see God everywhere or not to see him at all.  I do both, depending on the hour.  That's what faith really is, I think.  Seeing the "everywhere" portion as Truth and doing your damndest to dismiss the rest.

If you know how, please tell me.

...

I had a regular Mommy Monday post scheduled today, but the Newtown school shooting still feels raw to my heart.  Out of respect for those mothers (and fathers and siblings and families and friends and everyone), Mommy Monday is figuratively bowing its head in silence.  We weep.

sunday together

We had a meaningful weekend with friends, time together in the midst of lots of work, travel, and the heartbreak of the nation. 

Sweet fella gets stuck in pink hand-me-downs more often than he should.

It was nice to have lots of hands on deck to love on my kiddos.  I've given a thousand extra kisses in the past few days. 

I'm so grateful to be able to. 

friday links - holiday memories edition

We sure had a fun time putting together this gingerbread house.  But I don't think anyone around here should move towards a career in candy house decorating or anything.

2012 was a pretty darn good year (with two weeks left to go!), but I'm already thinking about 2013.  I'm trying to be intentional about what I want for myself, my family, this blog, our life in the new year.

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This week on the HH facebook page, we had a long discussion about how to organize pictures on your phone (if I come up with a system that works, I'll make sure and share it).  There are always so many good suggestions when I ask a question like this. 

Over at Simple Design, I show some of my favorite outdoor Christmas decor.

And over at allParenting, I wrote about How To Dress in the Holiday Spirit.

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For your weekend reading pleasure:

While you're over at Simple Design, check out 20 Favorite Monthly gift subscriptions.  I love this kind of gift, and this is a great round up.  (If gift subscriptions are your thing, don't forget about the option to give a Gift of the Month through World Vision.  You can read about all my World Vision gift ideas here.)

For those of you who like my entertainment industry posts, you will love How To Become A Prop Stylist by Emily Henderson.  So interesting!

I think I'm going to try this banana nut bread recipe this weekend. (Shauna Glenn)

As I'm preparing goals for the new year: 7 Productivity Myths Debunked by Science (and Common Sense).  (Lifehacker)

22 Terrible Things that Must End in 2013. (Gawker)

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I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season.  This past week had an unusual number of ups and downs, including some beautiful moments.  This is especially true during the holidays, isn't it?  Everything is amplified.  

Happy weekend!

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steps. 12.12.12.

The Gorilla is in the middle of shooting a movie right now.  He started it earlier this fall and won’t be done until we’re well into next year.  I do not know what’s like to have a husband who works the night shift at a factory, or 9-5 at a bank.  I only know what’s like to have a husband who makes movies.  And what is very glamorous and exciting at times is also very grueling and long.  Even in his position, he is often a slave to others’ schedules, just one part in a huge machine. 

We are lucky that in this economy, in this entertainment climate, that he is working and that his television shows and movies are successful.  Well, we’re partially lucky.  I give the other part over to the aforementioned hard work. 

In the past week I have received tragic news about childhood friends.  These are not girls - women, now - that I have talked to in decades.  These are not people that I have even thought of in months before their names came around cushioned by the very worst words. 

They live there, in my childhood memories.  Before there was death, before there was accidents, before there was pain.  In my memories, likely in fact the last time I saw them, we are all very young and we are cheering.  They would have stayed that way in my mind had it not been for now I know more of their life story and I wish I didn’t.  I wish that wasn’t their life story.

When you find out news like this, through third or sixth party, through the internet, there are times when it can seem as distant as if you’re hearing about a stranger on the nightly news.  And then there are times when you weep in sadness for how hard this world can be. 

It is not my loss, I won’t accept condolences.  But if it can happen to them, it can happen to me.  And we are of that age now, when life happens and it is no longer a stunning statistic, but just...life.  And death.  That is terrifying.  We are just little kids.

My son has taken his first steps recently, sinking eventually to his knees and looking upward expectantly for our cheers.  We dutifully oblige him, again and again.  My daughter is advanced in many ways, straddling the line between true toddler and little kid.  We talk about things, my girl and me.  She wants to wear a dress every single day.  She wants to snuggle with daddy, every single day. 

But I’m back with my son.  Small steps, then sinking to my knees.

control freak

I bought a remote control for the camera.

There's pretty much nothing more fun in all of life.

I hope you're having a joyous holiday season.