Snapshot of My Life

Ellia is sound asleep in her crib, Thad is falling asleep next to me on the couch and I’m staring at my screen trying to gather some random musings to type out for the blog.  I am so not a blogger.

I just stopped after that last line for a good 10 minutes staring at the ceiling. The only thing I thought of during that time is how I need to dust out the air vent up there.

Which got me thinking about how I hope I’m not one of those bloggers that just breathes out dusty words onto a page. And that’s about as deep as I’m getting tonight. How’s that?

One TV show last month called me a “mummy blogger” and I almost laughed out loud during the interview.  Afterward I turned to my husband and said “so is that what I am now?”

I don’t know what blogger etiquette is and I honestly don’t know why anyone even reads these blogs about some random girl who has no idea what she’s doing with her blog, so I’ll just make up my own rules.

I feel like looking through old pictures so I think I’ll just give a quick synopsis of my life. No big deal, ya know, just sum up 29 years of my entire being into a short blog post.

And now that I’ve said that, I’m quickly regretting this idea. But you see, the problem is, I’ve already spent 30 minutes on what I just wrote and if I delete them then there’s no starting over on something else.

I’m going to go find some pictures.

Okay so that was a bad idea because I definitely just spent the last 2 hours browsing through pictures.

Here we go. I grew up in a family with five brothers. No sisters. I hated it at the time and judging by the picture above my brothers did too... (don't worry, I grew to love it and wouldn't change it for the world now).

When I was six we moved overseas to the jungles of Papua New Guinea where my dad was doing Bible translation work in a remote village accessible only by foot or dangerous drive (aka exciting drive for us as kids). My days were spent outside with my brothers swinging on vines and playing in the mud, something all kids today need to experience more I've decided. It was the life.

Here's my cute family minus the last two boys who came along later- mom's rockin' those 80's glasses and dad's rocking that beard! (also how cute are my brothers?)

We moved back to Rochester, New York when I was 10 years old. This is my best friend Meg who lived across the street from me. We spent our childhood outside playing cops and robbers and kick the can around the block, back when you could run through your neighbors back yard and not get shot at.  I realize I'm skipping like 10 years here but all my pictures for this period are buried in a box somewhere (we hadn't made it to the digital picture age yet).

When I graduated high school I packed my bags and drove out to Oklahoma to learn how to be an art teacher. I know, everyone asks me how I made that connection... especially considering how I learned my THIRD YEAR there that Oklahoma had the lowest paid art teachers in the country... anyways, I made lifelong friends and may or may not have met my future husband and his family so it was worth it.

Notice Zorro on the right- that's Rebecca- she and I started making our goofy videos in college. Maybe one day we'll make those public... you can watch her in "The Two Types of Moms" video.

There he is. Meet my handsome Thaddeus Anderson.  The kid who won my heart and still does. This picture was taken on one of the most stressful days of his life... the day he met ALL FIVE of my brothers AND my dad... on an island. No escaping from that one.

I did actually end up using my degree for one whole year after I graduated. In the Cayman Islands. Not a bad start and end, right?

I moved back to the states and Thad and I were very happily married in the middle of the freezing Rochester winter. But don't worry, I still went barefoot down the aisle in commemoration of my barefoot childhood.

And so our traveling adventures began.  Thad was working as a traveling superintendent for a construction company in Florida. That's him working on a big project over a bridge in the keys.

We'd move into one house, and then out again. Into another and back out, over and over and over (I'm really good at packing boxes).

We lived in some pretty cool little places along the way. This stilt house literally swayed under us in a strong breeze. So fun. Sort of.

One day we were bored, so what do you do when you're bored? You get a hudini puppy, duh. Enter Sydney. We love her to death but wow was that a terrible idea at the time looking back since we moved about 14 times in the following 4 years...talk about complicated trying to find places to rent with a large dog who may or may not eat through a wall (she did) and can escape every fence known to man (wherefore hudini).

The thrill seeker in me from my childhood days and my husband's sense of sport kept us on our toes with crazy adventures (we were kid-free remember).

In between moves I worked (very hard obviously) at an office supplies store and then a fishing warehouse (once again, random I know). I didn't know a thing about fishing except that I was terrible at it and remain terrible at it to this day.

We moved during the day and in the middle of the night...we moved...and moved...and moved again.

...and I painted almost every place we moved into. I.love.decorating.  I have a problem. We'd be in one place for 3 months and I'd have to throw color on the walls.

A couple years ago I brought my husband back to Papua New Guinea to experience my childhood home (The girl right next to Thad is the same girl in the picture next to me in the first picture). THAT was awesome. They're watching a video (something they'd never seen) of my family saying hi.

Eventually we got transferred out of Florida to Texas where we found a house on a farm for rent. So we decided we'd pretend to be wannabe farmers (I even bought boots).

And goats. And horses. And a donkey named BoDuke. And 2 calves which we promptly named T-bone and Ribeye (they fulfilled their names).

Then we finally got pregnant. I knew she was going to be a feisty one pretty early on. Thank you BoDuke for the pro photobomb.

That labor part was not fun. I remember my best friend telling me she could get into the "zone" by picturing herself walking through a sunny field of grain.  I remember yelling "I can't find the grain field!! Where is the happy grain field????"

but this part was fun...this little bundle of energy and joy named Ellia entered our lives and flipped them upside down in every way imaginable (mostly in the best ways....)

...except that thrill seeking, adventurous thing I was telling you about....died. Gone. All I wanted was sleep.

Ellia made her first move when she was 6 weeks old (that was rough)...

...where she met her best friend Naomi and sat in pumpkins with her.

After two years in Texas with some great friends and fond memories we were transferred back to Tampa, FL which is where I am right now, sitting on this couch with my husband snoring away next to me.

I could go on and on about all the amazing people who have helped shape the past 6 years of our lives as they've allowed us into their lives for just short periods of times, and I could show you literally tens of thousands of more pictures (I take lots of pictures) but at this rate it'll be next year by the time I actually finish this post and it's crazy late and I'm tired.

Plus I keep getting distracted looking through all these old pictures so I'm just going to stop.

If you haven't figured it out by now, the story of our life is full of change and new beginnings. 

But the one thing that has stayed consistent through our crazy transient life is the hand of our Lord over it all. We've seen it day in and day out. Moving in and moving out.

He stays the same and we can be confident as we can rely on Him as our Rock when the storms pick up and toss us in a new direction.

"The Lord is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”  Deuteronomy 31:8