stephanie lee - Semiprecious Salvage

I've moved!

 

I have a new online home and I'd love to have you over for a visit!

 

Come on over to stephanieleeart.com

 

Who I'm voting for

When my daughters were younger, I used to not tell them who I was voting for in the presidential election. For many reasons, not all of which were entirely mature but I knew for sure that I did not want my girls to be on the receiving end of judgement and criticism for who their parents voted for (because it was happening in my little town with other young people). At 5 or 6 or 7 years old, this was not something I wanted them to have to carry (or dish out).

But we did talk a lot. A lot about morals and principles and what it means to to me to do the right thing and how that had everything to do with who I voted for. More than anything, I didn’t want my girls to assume that one of their classmates was unfortunate to have parents who didn’t vote for who I voted for. I didn’t want my opinion of which character seemed most suited to the office of the president to overshadow what I hoped I was communicating was the most important thing - kindness towards and respect for another person. And that there is absolutely room for all of us and our varied opinions and desires and dreams for our country.

In marketing they say that people don’t buy what you are selling them. They buy what they believe they will FEEL as a result of what you and your product are promising. I’m not sure that elections are much different and I find it harder than usual to listen, to keep my judgments in check, to not slip into hypocrisy of thought. I catch myself feeling tempted to be really intolerant of “intolerant” people, oblivious (ignorant?) to what the “ignorant” are afraid of, and defensive towards those who defensively attempt to set me straight or point out my ignorance.

But something magical happens - even if only for a split second - when I ask myself to listen between, behind, and around what’s being said in words and heated social media posts to try to understand what ache and dream and freedom and healing is there that my friends and neighbors are hoping to feel by way of who they vote for. I see tender hearts and courageous hearts and warrior hearts and healer hearts. I see humans - not objectified obstacles in the way of me getting what I want…even when I’m convinced it’s for everyone's good. I see humans deserving of all my love and respect if in no other way then in never, ever, ever criticizing the choices they make based on what their hearts long for. 

I remember hearing once that no one does anything that doesn’t make sense if considered in the context of their whole life experiences - good, bad, and beautiful. 

“For the past several months, especially the past several weeks, I’ve been watching and processing all that I’ve read and heard in the public light. You have not seen me make any political proclamations or judgments, nor will you see me do that today. Those conversations are best reserved for a medium which allows for eye contact, mutual respect, and back-and-forth dialogue.

But I am going to make a spiritual proclamation, and it’s simply this:

How you and I respond to election results (or any life-altering circumstance) says a lot about where we’ve placed our confidence. We have every right and reason to be concerned. These are trying times, trying circumstances. There is reason to be sober-minded, wise and educated about the issues and those leading us through them.

HOWEVER. It is one thing to be concerned, another to be consumed.”

-Michelle Cushatt

Consumed. Being consumed by the political drama (and the self-righteousness I am prone to) is what I aim to protect myself from in all the noise and temptation to slip into forgetting the humanness of another.

Make no mistake. I have deep, unshakable convictions that are reflected on the beautiful, black and white ballot that is delivered to my mailbox every election season. I am more certain than ever that my vote reflects the values that are most important to me and the changes I most want to see for our country (as I trust yours does to) and that I can move about my world giving the kindness that only a heart at complete peace with her choice can give. 

My decision to keep my convictions close to my heart is not cowardice or uncertainty. 

It is absolute devotion to honoring and protecting my choice from those who would feel entitled to condemn me for it without seeing and honoring me first as a woman, a mother, a wife, a friend, a complex and wild creature is who far too conservative for her most liberal friends’ appetites and far too liberal for her most conservative friends’ tolerance. I know my weakness for being defensive and so I create a quiet and sacred space where my vote is decided and held and where no one can assume what kind of person I am based on who I voted for (because, without a doubt, there would be far too many holes in that assumption that would marginalize my wide and complex soul). Please know that I am, in no way, suggesting you should do the same. You are doing exactly what feels most true to you and I absolutely honor and respect it.

So in all of this I do want to tell you who I’m voting for. Because it’s where I have invested all my hope and dreams and confidence.

I’m voting for us. For you. 

I know you love hard and true and have dreams and fears worth the most valiant protection and advocation. You’re the ones I know will reach in and out, without a second thought, when disaster strikes and when a friend is in desperate need and when someone needs protecting. I’m voting for you to be giant mountains of love and kindness and “how can I help?” and “you can do it” and “you are doing an amazing job”.

I vote for you. Every day.

 

 

a dozen online courses in and I have it all compiled in one place

If you have ever even wondered if you might want to create an online course, my newest offering - How to Create an Online Course - will help you do just that. I don't want you to be held back by the overwhelm of the unknowns any more. It's all here...every mistake and solution and work around and shortcut I've come up with to make the process as awesome as possible. I want you to be excited about teaching online and, better yet, feel really good about the content you've created, how you are getting the word out, and to see awesome success in your bottom line and in the smiles on your students' faces.

This isn't a course in "here's how complex it can be". It's a course in "here's how simple it can be" and by simple, I mean clear, doable, while still being rich with the content you are aching to share. The course is full of step-by-step tutorials on course planning, video production, site hosting, and more - including interviews with some of the best online instructors I know! Here's an excerpt from an interview with my good friend, Michael Demeng. (Have you seen his awesome new course? This guy IS generosity!)

 

 

Early bird registration ends when April ends so check it out if you're curious.

 

 

 

We are volumes each

"There is no way to communicate the secret of life in 30 seconds, because there is not only one secret to life. One can easily fall into the trap of suggesting simple aphorisms solve all of life's complex problems. One obvious flaw in simple sayings is that many of them are countered by equally pithy sayings urging precisely the opposite course of action.

'Absence makes the heart grow fonder' is unlikely to comfort the distant love when he recalls the opposite 'Out of sight, out of mind'. The timid soul happily hears, 'look before you leap' but his equanimity is shattered when someone reminds him that 'he who hesitates is lost'. People often procrastinate and reassure themselves with 'don't cross that bridge until you come to it' but they must also remember that 'a stitch in time, saves nine'. Life is far too complex for these one-liners to serve as fail safe guides."

-Rabbi Daniel Lapin

 

To a few of my closest friends, with whom I have droned on and on about how I am equally enamored and exasperated with platitudes, I can heretofore almost guarantee that the problem in my head is now resolved thanks to the simple wisdom of Rabbi Lapin. It's always been much simpler than I had assumed. I was trying to fix it in the wrong place, it turns out, for it was a matter of the heart, not head.

My heart - in all it's three dimensional, multifaceted, lopsided, intertwined-with-the-soul voluptuousness - is nearly stopped when I see an explosion of Pinterest images of helveticanized wisdom on a photo of intergalatical glory or a sun-kissed boho chick (straw hat, twenty necklaces, and a mug of tea the size of her head). It might be the beauty and 'heck yes' of it all that nearly does me in. On those days, I've had enough sleep, the house is mostly clean, and I think I have a pretty good idea of how I am going to love on the world. I'm tuned in.

But on Mondays, Wednesdays, and every other Saturday, when the bank account has gone on a diet, when it feels most certainly hopeless that I have something useful to share, when I have been starved of sugar for, like, 6 whole hours...those are the moments when everyone of those pretty Pinterest platitudes seems so obviously false.

Like who is the internet trying to kid? (or what is it trying to sell?)

The truth is that opposing one-liners are both true. In this context, the true and the false are one in the same as they stand alone. It's in our own realities that they become one or the other. Our fear of choosing the wrong one is what throws a monkey wrench into it all, causing mass hysteria in our cells because sometimes we just want to be told what to do (even as we tantrum against it) while our intuition is pressing pressing pressing on our hearts. It seems to me that the job of any good life coach would be to not tell you which platitudes are a lie and which ones are true but rather listen to the ones that are true for you and help you reconsider if there is pain there. Better yet, cheer you on if the battle cry of liberation draws the breath from your very soul.

What if we're all walking platitudes - volumes each - fueled by our unique coding, the web of Allthatis running through the center of each of us. We are free to move and rise and fall and the web adjusts, never letting us loose into the void. In my coding is the mother who still feels the warm child on her hip and I am also the woman alone, wandering the desert. I am the terrified, fearless friend who will love you hard, no matter what, while also turning away from you in jealous fever. I am the source of music who doesn't remember the tune.

I widen my hips to hold it all while that dumb line that the internet dropped into my ear recently repeats: You be you, boo boo.

 

 

 

Painting among the Redwoods

The past couple of months I have spent the majority of my time at a computer helping a friend creating some amazing stuff. A lot of focus and planning and building and more focus. I've loved darn near every minute of it.

Now my attention is shifting towards continuing my preparations for An Artful Journey at the end of next month. This is the LAST retreat that Cindy will be hosting at the magical Presentation Center among the redwoods and I'm so happy I get to be a part of it again! Three days with the same group of creative participants is my favorite. This venue - and the soulful artists it attracts - is divine. Lots of friendship, painting, and fresh air - sweetened with the fragrance of redwood trees. Creative energy is so strong among such ancient guardians.

There are just a few seats available in my workshop if you'd like a little restorative winter getaway. We're going to do some deeper diving than I've ever done in a class before to clarify and translate our intentions on the canvas. Of course, each participant is free to go exactly as deep or not-deep as he or she needs to go. No requirements or judgement.

This life of artistic expression is not for sissies. It's good to know we are among friends in this journey. If you want to create some painterly touchstones for when you need them, come push paint with us in my Luminous Voice class.

tomayto/tomahto

Happy New Year!

I've been looping through all sorts of busy-ness. Building and rebuilding, shifting and laying down the bones. In some ways, I'm pulling myself to the top of the flagpole so I can re-familiarize myself with my internal landscape. It helps to leave the baggage on the ground and bring only curiosity and non-judgment with me to the top. They're like binoculars. I'm making new stuff for me and new stuff to share with you.

This whole thing about following your passion or finding your purpose? It's an interesting conversation. It blows my mind to see what people create when they click with that thing that is their thing. It's like nothing is off limits. Writing soul-shifting books, making meals and beautiful homes and artful messes, going back to college, quitting the paying gig to create a non-profit, growing a ridiculously lush garden. 

But for those who a) haven't found it yet or b) wonder if there even is an "it" to be found in their soul, all this "follow your passion" (or it's benign sister: "follow your bliss") can feel pretty heavy. That feeling of "I'm TRYING!!" can be tough to carry. (Maybe even worse when we think we found it and then after a time, we loose interest and therefore trust in ourselves and our ability to know ourselves. Elizabeth Gilbert speaks so beautifully about how curiosity is our friend when this happens. And yet...it still leaves me saying "Well yeah, but following one's curiosity can get tiring after a while if it feels like it's not "going anywhere". So...)

I don't necessarily believe in destiny in that we were made to come into life and do this thing that is going to fulfill us and give us that glorious feeling of purpose and connectedness. Believing that seems to have cause a lot of suffering for a lot of people. I also don't believe that we came here a completely empty vessel. One to fill with whatever purpose we decide is relevant enough to give our lives to (as if our lives didn't have seasons). Believing that seems to have caused a lot of suffering for a lot of people. Especially those of us who feel a pull but don't see always know - with blazing, passionate certainty - exactly what we are being pulled toward and what the heck we are supposed to do to know.

So with this as truth for me, it leaves in question "purpose". Following my curiosity feels like just a first step. A very important first step, but not the whole of the journey.

I believe that we are much more complex then can be satisfied by merely accomplishing or doing what we are curious about.

What if were weren't made to DO something but rather to FEEL something. Not the "what do I want to feel" kind of feeling that can often be temporary and as squirrelly as our moods. (It's a great thing to ask yourself, though. I mean, how else are you going to know if what your doing with your time and energy and creativity is bringing you to what you want?) But isn't it true that a lot of the time it's easier to know what we don't want to feel? Monkey wrench.

What if we were made to feel love, compassion, empowerment, connectedness and the ever elusive oneness instead of being made to DO any one thing? What if there were a hundred things we could do that would equally bring us to the holy land? Would it really matter how you got there? Would there have to be a thing that you would devote your whole life to? Would it really matter if it were through sewing or painting or drilling wells in India or campaigning for green energy or advocating for the voiceless or even "just" doing a really good job at your cubicle job making your little piece of the machine work smoothly because that feels really good to you to do?

I can't believe anymore that there is a hierarchy to purposeful pursuits. For me to believe in the hierarchy kills my joy, my curiosity, and even my ability to be happy for people who profess (and very well may have) found (or made/chose/created?) their purpose. I muffles my internal knowing and I doubt myself every which way from Sunday. Believing in a hierarchy feels like cultivating a breeding ground of the comparison virus and as long as I'm struggling with that, I'm missing the point of me. And I want to feel all the best feels. The joy, the curiosity, the I-am-so-freaking-happy-for-her because she has worked so hard and look at her awesomeness! The "Yes. THIS is what I want to build/do/create/try/explore.") I want to feel them big and wild and wide open for me to then be inspired to live my version of all that feel goodness.

It all might be tomayto/tomahto but it doesn't really matter if you have a good sea salt to sprinkle on top, right?

Carry on. Be curious...or not. Have a purpose...or not. If you can, trust that you are much more complex and glorious than any guidebook on how to find or make your purpose can tell you.

 

 

 

 

This time last year, you blew my mind!

Just look at this smile!! Is it not the most radiant thing you can imagine? (I'm her mom. Play along.)

Seriously though. This is my baby. She's funny, kind hearted, works VERY hard to do well academically, goes the extra mile whenever possible, and has an uncanny confidence in the presence of adults. I love so much about her and am also kind of having a hard time computing that she is now officially driving. Like real cars. Like my BIG car. Whoa.

 

This time last year, I was about to embark on a sweet journey with my oldest daughter, Melissa. She was loving her position as her High School FFA Chapter Secretary and her dedicated advisor had cut through a whole LOT of red tape to take a small group of students to Nashville/Louisville to participate in the National FFA Convention. 

 

We hesitated to create a fundraising account - we felt we should be able to do it all ourselves. But as we were talking to different people, we heard time and time again, "We WANT to help!! Let us!" 

My daughter mined her talents for something she could create to give as a thank you to those who donated and the result was a hauntingly beautiful professional recording of an original song she wrote. It kind of blew my mind to hear her voice in that form. It blew my mind even more how incredibly you all stepped in and echoed the sentiment "We want to help!! Let us!" and you did so with your dollars. Donations from $10-200 rolled in and we were able to finance the trip just in time. I still feel huge gratitude in my heart for the opportunity to experience that wonderful trip with my girl because of YOU!

 

Fast forward one more year and my baby Pony - Annabelle - has followed in her sister's footsteps and has been elected the chapter Secretary. She LOVES her role in the chapter and amazes me with her constant desire to do GOOD in our community. (If I had a nickel for every late night conversation that she and I had about how we could keep the grocery stores from throwing away good food..."can we pick it up and give it to the food bank? It's just getting THROWN AWAY, mom!")

 

We leave in one week. One very short week and we are quite a ways away from our funding mark. Like Melissa, Annabelle has mined her talents to create a thank you gift for everyone who helps. She has created an original art print of her own photo+typeography to not only to express her gratitude but also to give YOU something to remember to practice in your own life. (because GRATITUDE makes life so much sweeter.)

 

If you feel inspired to support Annabelle in the same was you incredibly supported Melissa, you would be showing her that you believe in her and her love, her heart, and her creative spirit that she wants to share with our community more and more through her position.

 

Click here to support Annabelle

 

HUGE thank you to everyone who has supported this so far! We are so very grateful to you! 

ox

When you get what you ask for

Recently I've been #vaguebooking about some big changes in my life and business. It's not that I don't want to tell you every piece of it. It's just that I don't know exactly how it's all going to unfold. There are some pretty incredible and specific possibilities on the table but it needs room to breath, opportunity to expand into what more it can be than even I can imagine. It feels really big for me and for my family. 

I've been waiting for a string of stunning words to find me so I could do justice to the feeling but today is the day to get it down, workbooks and clumsiness and sugar cravings and all.

Here's what I CAN tell you: I have chosen into a full year of intense, laser focused business coaching and mentoring and life time membership into a dedicated, effective mastermind group of people way ahead of me on the "get out of your own way" curve. Not just phone calls - though I'm sure there will be plenty - where someone cheers me on and tells me I need self care or balance or better SEO (like, duh) but actual stuff happening. For me, with me. By people who know how to do it way better/faster/more effective than I know how to at this point. 

But that's not what I came here to tell you.

For years a growing desire has been making itself more and more known to me. I have mentally tried on all shapes and sizes of possibility and a few things have resonated with my heart far more than the others. I have been consciously making choices to align me with those possibilities should they arise having no idea where or when they would show up for me. I knew it was my job to be the person I would be if I were experiencing those possibilities. I've been doing the grunt work of work (opportunity doesn't show up in a room full of stagnation.) I've been investing in belief. I've been investing in myself. I have been declaring to Allthatis that I am ready.

I chose into the coaching because it was the next right thing for me to do. I counseled with smart and kind and loving people about whether this choice was right for me or not and the answer I got was "Isn't this what you've been opening up for? You're so ready."

Yes. Yes I am.

I had three days to commit. I don't like rush decisions & I usually opt out if it's smells like an "it's a once in a lifetime chance" game. But I had to decide and this opportunity would always be available to me. Money was on the line. I had to decide if I was going to choose this for me now or not.

Those three days were so incredibly intense. I was in constant conversation with myself, playing out all the pros and cons, playing out the what if's, imagining worse case scenarios (I have an active imagination so worse case scenarios usually involve living in a tent with no people to call my own and being tortured endlessly by what could have been that wasn't. Canned green beans and no showers and an itchy scalp. ew.)

At one point I actually felt frantic, terrified, certain of my incompetence. I had a flash of a vision of me sleeping in, reading novels with not pressure of a to-do list, and generally living a very small, very quiet life. It felt like salvation, like a siren call, like the drug I needed. Every. Day.

And then it hit me.

That feeling of being so desperately drawn to the "small life" was my fear showing up in fluffy lamb's coat. She made herself appear so appealing, so comfortable, so safe. So exactly what I had loved and enjoyed for many years but have been growing away from in many ways because my soul was calling for expansion. If I had chosen into the allure of that particular safe life, I would have been writing "refused" on the package Life had delivered. The very package I had custom ordered.

How crazy would that be?

In that very moment of this awareness, I felt a huge surge of gratitude for being shown this truth before I had undermined myself. I fully stepped into the opportunity with total confidence that I was being given what I had chosen for myself a long time ago and that I have everything it "takes" to rise into it and be lifted by it. Every opportunity that hadn't come yet and every break I didn't get was all part of bringing me to this place. 

I haven't regretted the decision for one second. A friend asked me if I'm scared. No. Not in the way that would indicate that i'm not ready for this. I am full of very active energy that someone could label as fear but it's actually anticipation to see how I will step up to this choice that will bless our family. It's desire. Desire to experience my visions for my life and creativity in real time. Desire to experience myself more as the visionary and less as the laborer. Desire for my influence and abundance to spread to others. Lots and lots of others.

I will labor, no doubt about that. I am willing to do the work. And I am so grateful for how I know I will get better and better at saying the best yes for me and my family.

If there is one thing that I could say I've had a little fear about, it would be in the arena of the "work life balance". It's been heavy on my mind. 

"Will I be able to handle it? Will I pull it off?" and true to form, the Universe give me the assurance I needed by way of delivering a particular podcast into my inbox this morning. He doesn't know it, but Michael Hyatt was my salvation this morning. Just when a surge of doubt began to run through my veins, his words and insight were a gift. (I love all his podcasts but this one was the blessing of all blessings for me today. I listened to it twice, it's that good. Can I just say that I have HUGE gratitude for people who live their lives in such a way that allows such powerful work to come through them into the world??! Seriously beautiful!!)

I don't know what fear looks like for you, what comfort it promises and safety net it assures you. I would not even begin to say that "feel the fear and do it anyway" is the best medicine for us all, all the time. How would I know what Life has in store for you?

Fear can be a gift. Not in the sense that it keeps you safe but in the sense that it can tell you there's work you need to do. Fear can be the indicator of impending growth. Fear can be a call to rest, regroup, reevaluate. It seems like it comes down to what you do with your fear. What choices do you make because of your fear and who are you when fear is at the wheel?

That day I choose to invest in myself and the fear got quiet. She is likely to reappear - certain, no doubt - and I'm ready to learn from her and even more ready to be who I am without her calling all the shots.

 

More and Less

It's been 325 days since I last posted here.

There's no merit to bringing you up to speed, to filling in the gap, to catching up. Too much has happened and in some ways everything is exactly the same as it ever was. The most interesting, beautiful bits are not arranging themselves into sensible sentences in my head just yet...which is probably a very good thing because I have found that one of the most difficult tasks for me to do is to try to honor with mere words what my very Soul is still learning to honor "enough".

I'm still me.

Only more.

More awake. More willing. More letting go of the chase. More receiving what I believed I had to chase. More bulk around my midsection. More love in my heart for people I care about. More yes. More no. More dirt ground into the carpets. More deciding. More knowing {and owning} what ancient wisdom calls my original medicine. More courage. More clarity. More grateful. More better.

There is some less-ness too.

Less afraid. Less needing things to be perfectly clear before I honor my instinct to step into the next right thing. Less craving approval from people who are still figuring themselves out. Less frustration. Less  heartache. Less fear. Less staying on top of my to-do list. Less therapy and self help and trying to figure out where I am broken (my weaknesses are made strengths). Less dragging things out. Less holding back. Less making excuses (especially ones that misuse words like "intuition" and "triggers" and "authenticity"). Less waiting for a new website to come back to my writing here. Less putting disclaimers on what I feel deeply true for me by tentetavely prefacing sentences with "I think..." 

More knowing in the spaces where my Soul has been preparing a room for my consciousness. Less knowing in all the ways that don't need knowing. All the ways that pretend to be reasons why something might not be working out the way I want it to and also all the reasons why something almost too good to be true "shouldn't" be happening. To me.

So, here I am 325 days older than I was last time I came here and there are deep and vibrant veins of gold that have been packed into the cracks. I have opened up to divinity in ways that are showing up big time in my day to day life. 

Lots of prayer and visualizations and woo woo matched with logistics and accountability and action plans and a major humdinger of a kick-butt business leap. (Like, huge. Hard work + desire + saying yes.) Lots of getting stuff done. Lots of stepping up my game for me. For my family. For my Soul.

I'm so so so deeply grateful and full of complete resonance with Life telling me "I've been so excited to give this to you".

And I receive. 

 

October is for getting out

I feel pretty confident that this month, the one that we're only 13 days into, is going to be my most adventure-filled October to date. Coast trips, trail voyages and, yet to be had, an adventure back east with Pony #1. (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for making this happen for us!! Gratitude in heaps and mounds!)

The first weekend of the month found us plotting to cover as much outdoor ground as possible before the wet weather settles in. Every ounce of sunshine, at this point in the year, is borrowed time. We don't want to miss it.

My brother came to visit for the weekend. Complete with burning-man-leftover braids and all. I suspect that a big part of his motivation to drive three hours north to be with us was that there are three pair of hands that are skilled braid taker-outers. It took a while (the understatement of the year.)

We went to the Redwoods and camped among the sweet scented giants. Pony #2 built cairns on the Smith River bank and we took group selfies in the dark.

Theman, my brother, and I walked through the sparsly populated campground at night where I whisper-cooed about how pretty all the glowing tents were. The boys obliged my romanticism. I imagined couples, head to head and tucked into sleeping bags, reading books by headlamp or plotting the next day on a paper map they kept folded in a pocket.

The next morning we drove to the tide pools and found a heap of interesting things even though the tide was in and the season wasn't ideal for tide pool exploring.

Eventually we ended up on the sandy beach where the dogs could run and the rest of us could bask in the glorious sunshine while the ponies played in the water. Somehow, in spite of my aversion to doing things that would eventually lead to goosebumps burned by saltwater, my brother and I ended up way out in the fridig water - fully clothed - with the ponies and the other daughter + boyfriend. We were literally in over our heads, riding the waves, choking on the intense saltiness of the water, and having a glorious time. Brother thanked me for helping him feel young and told me that tropic waters are way more fun and that sometime we should go to a place where the water is warm. My frozen toes wanted to take him up on the invitation right then and there.

The next day he and I went on a sister-brother date to buy him some new electronic gadgets and we ate the biggest, most delicious sushi I've ever had. Roll slices the size of your palm. The very thought of fish eggs or raw anything from the sea makes me want to gag but I crave a good California roll as much as my brother craves the fishies. My roll, topped with Panko, was to die for!!

He stayed one more day and plotted his three month winter journey in Thailand and Bali and that area of Asia with two friends of his. He'll be leaving the first of December and, no doubt, will experience wonders he's never imagined. He said he'll scope it out so that someday our little family can join him. Again, with the dangling carrots of adventure...

I love visits with him, learning more and more about what makes him tick, what makes him feel alive. There are benefits to "broken home" sibling relationships - the discovery sometimes comes a little later and never stops. I feel more appreaciation for the journey of connection. There's no room really, to assume that you know all there is to know about the person you grew up with because there are so many gaps where we weren't living in the same house. I find it an inadvertant gift of the circumstances.

This past weekend was a different kind of adventure. Theman and I stuffed our packed and headed for the mountains. There's an area I've been dying to check out rich with many lakes and beauty. Apparently summer time brings backpacker swarms taking over the best camping sites and mosquito armies determined to chase off any human for miles around. We waited for the cooler weather to make our maiden voyage into this territory and experienced a serene, totally private wonderland of nature. Not that I'm opposed to meeting like-minded souls along the trail. We can learn a lot from fellow voyagers.

The tunnel of Shasta Red Fir (what a gorgeous variety of everygreen!!) guided us down to the lakes where we camped at Horseshoe Lake (a little father than planned). The sunset was stunning, the fire good and hot, and food tasted better than at home. 

This dog...the best trail dog ever. So eager, so loyal, so willing to hunkerdown in a makeshift doggie sleeping bag and stay tucked at my feet all night long. Sometimes also so annoying with the alwayswantingtoplaywithastick. 

The first few hours of the night were spent trying to stay warm. Can I just say that the next nobel prize should be awarded to whoever had the idea of zipping two sleeping bags together? Would that be a stretch? We found our warmth and slept hard. (note to self: include the dog IN the sleeping bags next time. She and I would both be happier, I'm sure.) Morning came and our cozy tent hid the fact that it was a frozen wonderland outside. Not to worry, I had twenty seven eleven layers on and we built a big, hot fire fast. As soon as the sun came out it all melted and we hit the trail again, happy little campers with only sorta cold toes. 

See how CLOSE we are to the PCT? Such a tease...

I see this mountain from the west side everytime I go shopping for groceries. Never do I see it this close and from this angle. Beautiful. Pony #2 hiked to the summit this summer while at girl's camp. A brutal 10+ mile round trip hike. She's amazing.

One of these days we'll probably have had our fill of carrying our world on our backs into the wilderness. For now, we're savoring every minute.

I sit here at my computer with stiff and sore legs that serve as a tart reminder of the beauty of the past two days and the 8 intense miles of trail we walked. Theman called me at lunch and when I asked him if he had anything going on after work or if he was just coming home he said "Coming home. There's no place else I'd rather be."