January was waaaay more action packed than normal! First of all, we ended our four months of
living with 2 extra kiddos AND we got to go to Vegas!! Jeremy’s band bleedingkeys got the incredible opportunity to open for North
Mississippi All-Stars at the Hard Rock Hotel.
For the night… we all pretended to be rock stars; and I a rock stars' wife. Ha!Although I had a mini melt down about Vegas because I thought I’d definitely die before visiting that city, I had to admit it was a ton of fun and seeing my man perform so well was icing on the cake!
February was more notable than normal because Jeremy and I ended up taking
on one of the toughest decisions yet. In
January (actually IN Vegas) he found out that the job he’s never wanted was
being relocated to Denver. We really
didn’t have to scratch our heads too hard about NOT taking this “opportunity”. So, after almost four slightly miserable
years in a cubicle, Jeremy was done working at Arrow Electronics. Hey, we can’t be too hard on that cubicle,
without it songs like Bleedingkeys and
Poison Gold would never had come into existence!
Throughout February
and into March, we wrestled with what to do, and I blogged here and here as we pondered. I
was fully enjoying the chance to re-write our lives and actually THINK about
what we wanted to do next instead of feeling like we had to do something we
didn’t want to do. We were both willing
to shift things around so that Jeremy could pursue more avenues with music, but
we weren’t sure how we’d be able to replace his income entirely. Then came an option that God threw in totally
unexpected…
Safe Families is the organization we stumbled upon last year
when we found ourselves at the end of someone else’s rope. I had no idea our story
would pique the interest of the state’s executive director and I’d be offered a
job with this organization—but that’s what happened. The part-time job offer came on the tails of
Jeremy’s lay-off, so we decided to give it a whirl. This option also allowed Jeremy to continue
to focus on music, which is what we both wanted but felt like it was impossible
to be to do. So between part-time work
at Safe Families, side jobs, music, the YMCA and my Shaklee biz…. We’ve been
able to scrape by.
Heading up a chapter of Safe Families in Madison County has
been exhausting but glorious work that is right up my ally. Everything from working with the parents, to
getting to know the kids, to recruiting the host families is work I’m
incredibly passionate about. God has
done INCREDIBLE things in the lives of both parents and kids through this
movement and I am continually in awe of God’s careful plan to bring me to this
place.
Along the way I’ve also been busy with a small gymnastics program at
our local YMCA. It’s been such a great
fit for me, as I love teaching kids the sport of gymnastics and always have. The YMCA allows us to bring in more kids at a
lower cost and keeps things more laid back and fun. The only challenge is keeping things in check
with my increasingly wise and witty daughter, who has found herself in my class
along with two of her best buds. Addi is
still tiny as ever and well fashioned for the sport of gymnastics…however she
doesn’t seem to care about it too much!
I wrote a post about her on her 8th birthday this year that
really only skims the surface of our life together. Her mind is always one step ahead of mine, and always has been. Just a few weeks ago Addi said to me,
“Mom? We aren’t supposed to be sad in
heaven right? We’re only supposed to be
happy.” Me: “Well..yeah” Her:
“Well if I was in heaven and God came up to me and told me that one of
my friends was in hell, wouldn’t I be sad about that?”
I feel like most days we live a version of a Katy Perry song, “Your wrong when it’s
right, it’s black and it’s white, we fight we break up, we kiss we make
up…” It’s exhausting and sometimes tear
jerking being her mother. Some days my
only goal in life is to NOT become a stumbling block to her being fully known
by God. My only consolation at times is
that He’s ultimately the one who created her and gave her to us…and there’s got
to be a reason for it all.
The best story of the year when it comes to Addi has to do with baby skunks, a concerned officer from the correctional facility and a visit from the police. I scarce have room to tell the tale, but I must. The kids found genuine baby skunks in our backyard one afternoon, and my husband with his Oregonian upbringing wasted no time in handling them after they landed in the neighbors’ raccoon trap. We thought them to be abandoned babies in need of care. The neighbor rushed out for baby kitten bottles and milk and we spent the afternoon feeding and cuddling 2 baby skunks.
Addi could hardly bare to part with them and I had to all
but pry her out of the neighbors house at the end of the day. We had found a friend who was picking them up
the next day and taking them to an animal rescue location. Addi of course wanted to visit with them
again before they left, and I promised we would. The next day I woke up at 7:15am to a knock at
my front door. I opened it to find a
correctional facility officer and my daughter in her nightgown…looking a little
guilty I might add.
Confused, I began to ask what had happened.
Turns out Addi woke up at 7:00 am and wanted to visit with
the skunks again. She thought she’d just
walk on over to the neighbors, go in her back door (since it was so early and
all) and just check on the baby skunks.
The back door—of course—was locked.
Addi thought that perhaps the house key for her Grandma’s house would
open the door to our neighbors house. So
she took off down the street to Grandma’s house.
Seeing a young girl running down the sidewalk barefoot in
her nightgown at around 7:00 am looked a little funny to the correctional
facility officer headed to work. She
stopped and asked if she was lost. Addi of
course said she wasn’t, but complied when she was prompted to be taken home.
Enter the knock on the door at 7:15. Maybe my breath was worse than I thought because the officer that brought her home made a police report despite the fact that I actually thanked her for helping to teach
my determined daughter that she can’t go wherever she wants whenever she
wants. Regardless, 20 minutes later I
got another visit from the police to check on our well being. I chuckled when I told them my position with
Safe Families… they thought it was a little comical in the end too. All in all I was glad Addi got to experience
some real life consquences!
One of the most tragic things that happened this year was
the loss of Addi’s sweet guinea pig Ferdie in late September. The thought of this day still brings tears to
my eyes. Ferdie was definitely as close
to Addi’s heart as any child to her parent, and the day we came home to find
him suddenly expired was heartbreaking.
We all sat together and cried until we could cry no more, then we buried
him in the back yard and wrote notes of our favorite memories. Addi handled the stress of losing him fairly
well, and found comfort in telling the story of his last day to those who knew
him best. She sent text messages and
emails from my phone to family and friends.
To her art teacher she composed an email (from me of course) that simply
stated, “Ferdie died.” Her teacher was
kind hearted enough to fully understand this, and made her a card sharing her
condolences.
Sam turned 6 this year and besides defending himself against
the onslaught of verbal attacks from his sister, he has thoroughly enjoyed his
2nd year of Kindergarten and become quite the sports star. He
routinely finds any reason he can to race himself and never tires of the
“let’s-see-how-long-it-takes-you-to-go-get-your-jammies-on” routine. In fact one day I realized Sam was opening
the refrigerator door and running away.
I asked Addi what was up: “Oh, he’s trying to see if he can open the
fridge, run in the living room, flip on the couch and come back before it
closes.”
This year Jeremy and I finally put him in organized sports
since his energy level has always hovered right at 9 out of 10. He tried his hand at baseball in the Spring,
soccer in the Fall and wrestling in the Winter.
He's proven to be pretty decent at all three sports, but seems to love
wrestling the best. It helps that he’s
been practicing his craft since age 3 with his older cousin Blaine on the
trampoline. It’s incredible to see how
boys’ tend to show their affection by kicking the crap out of each other. 
We had a close call with our dear dog Tok this year
too. Tok has been with us for almost a
decade now!! It seems like just
yesterday we bought him as a pup in Alaska and smuggled him into our “no pets
allowed” apartment. Much to no one’s
surprise, Tok was hit by a car last spring.
Somehow he pulled off some kind of tuck-n-roll and managed to limp
himself home where he laid down and didn’t get up again until we took him to
the vet the next day.
We feared internal injuries, but found that he acted much
better for the vet who was handing out treats, and after limping around in her
office, he was given pain meds and sent home.
Tok wasted no time in picking up right where he left off with chasing
squirrels and annoying the neighbors.
Tok’s close call was hard on Sam. He’s more of a feeler than his
rational-minded sister. Sam cried for
hours over Tok the night of his accident.
In an effort to console him, Jeremy shared a story about his childhood
pet that went missing one night and was found drown in a pond the next
day. I’m not quite sure how this was
supposed to make him feel better, but nevertheless, Jeremy was identifying with
his pain. After Tok made a recovery, Sam
was more bothered by the story about Jeremy’s childhood pet than Tok’s
accident.
About a month later, I heard Sam sniffling in the back seat
of the car. He said (as he had many times before) “I just
keep thinking about how Dad’s dog died!
It’s soooooo sad!!!” Addi of
course shot back quickly, “Sam… if Dad’s dog didn’t die then, he’d be dead
now. So either way, he’s dead!”
The highlight of our year was of course our drive and month
long trip to Oregon. Jeremy’s sister got
married in June, so we decided to drive out for the wedding and stay for a
while! Jeremy was able to pick up work
from his brother-in-law so we managed to have enough cash to fix our car and
get ourselves back home again. Spending
almost 4 weeks in Oregon was fantastic, especially since Jeremy’s parents threw
in a trip to Disneyland for all the grandkids.
Every now and then our vocations have overlapped (music + Safe Families) and become something beautiful. Tying in our
life with Jeremy's music and this organization is something that could only be
orchestrated by the hand of God. We have
had a few opportunities to present in front of a church, or at a small group
setting. God has opened major doors in
one way or another each time and we look forward to more opportunities to share
our lives through stories and song.
Keep following the blog for more updates as we press on and
see what God has in store for the Johnson Family Adventure 2014!
2 comments:
Love you guys. I don't put much stock in Astrology, but the similarities between Addi and Lilly are ridiculous.
That doesn't surprise me. Lilly's mind has always been incredibly keen... even as a baby I could see it. Would love for those two to spend some time together! Love you guys much!!
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