Advent Post 2023: God With Us

One of the things I'm thinking about this Advent season is how God is full of surprises, and the Christmas story shows this as much as anything.  It's a such a familiar story that we forget the shock of it, but imagine seeing any of these things in the headlines, and not of the National Enquirer:

A virgin becomes pregnant with the Son of God.  Shepherds are visited in the middle of the night by a huge choir of singing angels.  Several kings follow a giant moving star to meet a baby in a farm stall.  It's crazy!  But the biggest surprise of all is how God, who created the universe with His word, entered into humanity to be with us.  This blog is some thoughts about how much we need the "with us", and what a gift it is to have God with us.  

Since we're in the holiday season, I'll start there:  when I think of favorite Christmas memories, the main thing that stands out is who I was with.  The food, the decorations, the music, and the gifts are all great and contribute to the atmosphere of abundance and celebration (and shout out to all the hosts who, over the years, have worked round the clock to make Christmas so special) - but what really makes the holiday is celebrating with those you love.  

Beyond the holidays - every day life is made better when you have someone who understands, even in part, what things are like for you.  With siblings, you understand together the unique dynamics of your family (and as we all learn, these dynamics don't end when you grow up and move out of the house!).  With a spouse, you build a shared history and life as you age together, experience the joys and challenges of parenting children, and make all kinds of decisions about all kinds of things.  With friends, you choose people who have a similar understanding of the things that seem most important to you.  In a workplace or church or community group, you understand the ups and downs of working towards a goal together with this particular group of people on this particular project.  In all of the examples listed above, things sometimes get trickier and more conflict laden because other people are involved, and not all of these people will be lifelong companions - but ultimately life is richer and better for the people who stick with us through the long haul. 

And hard times?  This is the best time of all to have someone walking beside you.  When you or a loved one gets a devastating health diagnosis; when you or someone you love is struggling with something that can't be easily "fixed"; when you've been treated horribly; when finances feel impossible.  These are the times when it feels the most needful to have someone alongside you.  

The problem is, we don't always have someone with us through the good, the ordinary, or the bad.  We don't always feel understood.  We don't always have the "with you" that we are built for, long for, need.  

This longing for "with us" is one of the things that makes Christmas so beautiful:   in the Incarnation, the God of the universe comes down to be with us.  He joins us in the ups and downs of life, so we can know that He understands exactly what it's like that we go through.  Here is my favorite quote describing that:

 "The incarnation means that for whatever reason God chose to let us fall into a condition of being limited, to suffer, to be subject to sorrows and death - he has nonetheless had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine...He himself has gone through the whole of human experience - from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death...He was born in poverty and suffered infinite pain - all for us - and thought it well worth his while."  - Dorothy Sayers

We never have to feel alone in any part of the human experience, never have to feel that no one understands us, because God understands what we go through.  And while we are in the Already Not Yet  time of waiting for Christ's return, we can take great comfort that God is with us.  Merry Christmas to all of you, and I pray that everyone reading this feels the sweet companionship and love of God with us.  

Thankfulness post 2023

It's my annual Thanksgiving week post!  This year, there's been two themes that keep popping up for me, and they seem wildly different, but they were joined last week, so I'm also going to join them in this post.  

The first theme is hope in the middle of doubt and discouragement.  Often in the fall, I struggle with feelings of self doubt.  These feelings pop up in my parenting, homeschooling, relationships with friends and family, trying to write these blog posts, you name it.  Even as I've learned to expect them, I can't seem to fight them off on my own.  But my gratitude is for the promises that in my weakness, God is strong.  That my identity isn't found in what an amazing job I'm doing (or failing to do) with my life, but rather it's found in being a child of God, which is something that I'm not powerful enough to mess up.  I'm grateful for these promises, and I'm grateful for anything that can remind me of them in the middle of weakness.

The second theme - taking a 90 degree turn - is gratitude for music.  So much of adult life is work and responsibility - but this is why moments of fun and joy and abandon are so wonderful.  For me, music and dancing often brings these feelings.  Upbeat music on a run, new songs sent by friends, Kenny playing guitar, singing worship music at church; dancing around the campfire or the living room, line dancing (badly) at the country western bar, seeing live music at a show - the joy that comes from music feels other worldly.

These two themes united when we went to see Lauren Daigle in concert last week.  The big theme of her lyrics touches on exactly the things I struggle with; lyrics like, "I keep fighting voices in my head that say I'm not enough" or "When I'm not somebody I believe in".  And then she proceeds to sing the promises of God that reminds me how God loves us through these doubts, how God is our strength, and how to pray in these moments when you're feeling so weak.  And when you experience these beautiful promises in combination with her amazing voice and band, and with an arena of 10,000 people singing along, it feels like a foretaste of heaven.

So this year, I'm grateful that we got to have this concert experience.  I'm grateful for the transcendent joy that can be felt in music.  And most of all, I'm grateful to have Someone so much bigger than me to help as I grapple with my struggles.  

Happy Thanksgiving all!  I would love to hear any of your own stories where you felt transcendent hope and joy while listening to music.  

1,000 Hours Outside

Palm tree oasis hike

This year, we decided to take on the 1,000 hours outside challenge, inspired by the podcast of the same name.  This challenge encourages families to spend more time outside throughout the year - 1,000 hours specifically, which works out to an average of 2.7 hours outside per day.  We're not quite at the end of the year, but we're rounding the bend close enough that I thought I'd write a blog about it - why we did it, what were the best and hardest parts, how did it go, and whether we will do it again.  

Kenny and Josh watching sunset in Oregon

Why do it?

The benefits of outdoor time are huge.  Just some of these benefits include:  more physical activity; more time playing / using imagination / taking risks; less time on screens;  good health and sensory effects; great memories; exposure to natural beauty; and the list goes on.  

Spooner Lake

This challenge seemed like a good way to really measure how we were doing at getting outdoors, and to encourage looking for any and every space that would get us outside more.  We are reasonably outdoorsy in the warm weather months, but I would guess in past years we were only getting to about half the amount of hours in this challenge (maybe??  if even that much??).  I wanted to see if we could ramp our hours way up and turn sustained outdoor time into more of a habit.  

How did it go?  What were the best parts and the biggest challenges?

The first challenge we faced was weather.  As I wrote about previously on this blog, our region received record breaking amounts of snow this year.  There are some kinds of weather where it's unpleasant, but not impossible, to be outside: days that are unpleasantly hot, unpleasantly cold, or precipitous.  I felt like it was one of the unexpected benefits of this challenge to try to take these uncomfortable days on - to learn how to dress appropriately, to find the fun and motivating activity that gets you out (sledding!), and to strategize about what's the best time of day with this kind of weather forecast.  An hour outside in dreary January does as much to boost the mood as 8 hours outside in beautiful May, and this was one of my favorite takeaways from the challenge.  However - while we did get a little time logged in that snowy first quarter, probably much more than we would have without the challenge - we were still mostly indoors and we were WAY behind by the time April hit.  

Zoey writing poetry at Evans Creek

Partly because we were so desperate for hours, I started doing school outside once the warm weather arrived.  And this was great!  It provided some fresh energy during that fourth quarter when everyone is worn down.  It should be noted here that this was a great answer to the two other main challenges:  1) finding the time, and 2) killing boredom.  It's great when your outdoor hours can be filled with adventuring, but to fill 1,000 hours, much of it is going to need to take place close to home with everyday tasks.  Chores are great for this - watering the lawn, tending a garden, walking the dog.  Outdoor exercise is great for this - running, bike rides, baseball, skiing.  And if you can combine the outdoors with things that you want or need to do anyway, but might have normally done indoors - things like meals, board games, art projects, reading, school - that will really rack up the hours during the warmer weather months, when it's comfortable to be outside.  I really liked that this challenge encouraged me to move indoor things outside whenever possible, and I hope that continues past this year.  

Once school was out in June, we conducted our summer pretty much as normal, which includes lots of outdoor time at various bodies of water and a couple camping trips.  This reminds me of another thing I appreciated about this challenge - it encourages you to say yes to adventures.  Whether this means coming up with your own plans, or saying yes to someone's invitation to get together outdoors even when you might be feeling lazy (or introverted!) - it's good to have this extra push to do outdoor outings.

We were blessed not to have any wildfire smoke this summer (some years, smoke impacts up to 60 days - there's no way we would have met the hours in a year like that).  Between the school hours in the shoulder seasons of spring and fall, combined with summer being so amenable to outdoor time, we were able to catch up.  We haven't officially finished our 1,000 hours yet, but we are down to the final 50 hours, so we are in the home stretch.  

[A note for those who are also doing the 1,000 hours:  There were certain tracking rules that we did not follow.  If we slept in a tent, I counted those hours.  If the kids were playing in the backyard while I was inside cooking dinner, or if I was outside for a run while the kids were inside, I counted those hours.  All of the "broken rule" hours combined probably make up less than 200 of our total hours - but I want to disclose that, in case anyone is wondering, and to own up that we wouldn't have made it to 1,000 without breaking a couple rules.]

Andelin Farms

Favorite outdoor memories

This is one of the great parts - outdoors time makes great memories!  Some favorite memories include skiing at Sky Tavern with the kids; sledding Village Green; hiking through a palm tree oasis in Palm Springs; going on a lichen hunt on a spring hike; night swimming with glowsticks with the cousins; diving into the waves on a choppy day at Lake Tahoe; middle of the night run through Genoa during the Reno Tahoe Odyssey; paddle boarding at Boca on Zoey's birthday; having a campfire dance party with friends; spotting whales on the Oregon beach; and telling ghost stories in the tent.  

Sky Tavern

Will we do it again?

I'm undecided.  I'm glad we did it once, and I do hope lots of the outdoor habits stick.  But it was pretty challenging to get all these hours and keep track of it all; also, getting outdoors is just one priority among many in life; so I'm thinking we might drop the tracking at the end of December.  

Have you done this challenge?  Are you thinking about doing it?  I'd be very interested to hear about others' experiences!  

"All That's Good: Recovering the Lost Art of Discernment" - Book Thoughts

 From time to time, I write a blog post focusing on a book I've read recently.  These aren't reviews - they are a summary of some of my favorite thoughts from the book.  The goal of these posts is to help me remember the book better, and hopefully to encourage a few of you to check it out as well.  The book I'm writing about today is "All That's Good:  Recovering the Lost Art of Discernment" by Hannah Anderson.  

This book's main idea is that discernment doesn't just mean avoiding what's bad, but also learning to recognize what's good and beautiful - which can be hard to do in our noisy, chaotic, distraction filled world.  Anderson's framework for finding goodness and beauty is Philippians 4:8:  "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."  When we learn to find the things that fit these descriptors (true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable), we will find what is good and beautiful.   The meat of the book goes through each of these characteristics, chapter by chapter, and gives us ideas for how to search these things out.  

Here is an example quote from each chapter (these are not intended to summarize the chapter, but just to give you an idea of the type of content):

• True:  Here, the idea is that if something is true, it should be able to stand up to questioning and contrary opinions.  And if we care about the truth more than being comfortable and right, we should be open to changing our mind if we are proven wrong.  P. 75: "We must be willing to test, question, doubt - not the truth, but our own certainty and our own motivations.  We must expect and even invite the Scripture and other people to confront and question us.  We must allow the truth to make us honest people."  
• Honorable:  There were two ideas that stuck with me from this chapter - 
• First, we need a source of honor that comes from outside other people's approval.  P. 85: "when we know that our worth comes from God, it frees us from needing to seek it from other people."  
• Second, she urges us to look carefully at who our culture encourages us to honor, and how that matches up with what the Bible says.  P. 90: "God regularly upends our cultural notions about who and what deserve honor, choosing instead to destroy the wisdom of the wise. Instead of using the rich, He uses the poor.  Instead of celebrating the powerful, He celebrates the weak.  And instead of calling those of noble birth, He sends His Son to a manger." 
• Just: This chapter talks about how we are bothered when things aren't right because we all carry a sense of goodness; and then it talks about how part of the mess comes from us; and how that points us to our justifier.  P. 106: "The problem with seeking justice is how quickly the process reveals our own injustice.  We want the world to be the way it should be only to find out that we ourselves are not what we should be...But here too, seeking justice leads to goodness, because when we seek justice, we will find the One who justifies the unjust."
• Pure:  This chapter focuses on how purity is having a whole and undivided heart, and that choices made in secret will flow out to our broader character.  P. 115: "whether we fulfill our promises to those closest to us predicts whether we will fulfill our promises to the broader community."  It also encourages becoming wise about what is good in this arena rather than just trying to avoid what is bad, and teaching kids the same - P. 120: "to be open and honest with the struggles, to celebrate the joy and security of lifelong commitment, to delight in the God-given goodness of our physical bodies."  
• Lovely: One part I loved in this chapter is how to treat the loveliness you see in other people.  P. 136: "So when we truly see the loveliness of our brothers and sisters, our hearts will respond as it does to any other form of loveliness: in celebration of their Creator - a Creator so wise, so imaginative, so kind as to create each one of us.  And when we celebrate their Creator, we will guard the loveliness He has made.  We will sacrifice for it, even if it means sacrificing our own desire for it.  This is something of what we mean when we talk about not objectifying other people.  Their beauty is not ours to possess; it is not ours to consume.  It is ours to protect."
• Commendable: This chapter focused on what do we read and what do we talk about, with a special focus on how we interact on the Internet and social media.  P. 142: "If we spend our days sharing trivialities, life will be trivial.  If we spend our days focused on what we fear, life will be filled with anxiety.  If, however, we spend our days talking about good, worthy, glorious things, there is the strong likelihood that our lives will be filled with good, worthy, glorious things."  

If this concept and these quotes stir you, I would really encourage you to check out the rest of the book.  This is just scratching the surface - I've got stars and underlines all over my book.  I absolutely love the idea of seeking out the good and the beautiful in our world, and I think these are some really helpful thoughts about how to do that.

Day 30: Something You're Passionate About

I am grateful for and passionate about the message in these two songs.  First one (above) - that we are perfectly loved by God.  Second one (below) - that God is with us and is our steady hope in all the ups and downs of life.

This is the final day of the summer gratitude series - I'm grateful to end with this, the biggest and best thing to be grateful for.  Thanks to those of you who have followed along with these.   As I go through many of the same prompts year after year, it's interesting how this becomes a bit of a time capsule, capturing things that are going on in my life right now but that might be completely different five years down the road.  It's fun for me to grab these moments in time and get them down on paper (well, blog), and I hope if any of you are following along privately, that it's having a good effect for you.  And thanks to those who have messaged me with things you're grateful for - I love to hear it, and would welcome more! 

Day 29: A Compliment You Have Received

Today I'm grateful for a compliment from a friend I received earlier this year, after I sent her a care package.  She said, "This is what it looks like when a person knows you really well."  It was nothing fancy - some food and a puzzle book - but they were things that I knew she particularly would like.  As a friend, I try to be someone who sees and understands the person well - but I don't always hit the mark.  So it makes me grateful when a person feels seen by me, and it also makes me grateful when they take the time to say so.  

Day 28: Something that Brings Hope

I was talking to my sister about her grad program, and she mentioned something that one of her professors said:  in relationships, we all have two questions - 1) "Do I matter?" and 2) "How much?"  That has really stuck in my head, and as I think about close relationships of all kinds, and what has made them go better and worse, what's been at the root of conflict, it's amazing how often this plays a big part in it.  It's made me think about whether I'm managing my time and energy to prioritize the people that matter to me, and whether I'm communicating this to them in a way that is meaningful to them (and here I'll add, three cheers for love languages and personality typing to help me better learn what is meaningful to my people that might be different than what's meaningful to me).  I'm not consistently good at this - I don't think any of us are - but it's helpful to now have these questions as a mental checkpoint.

So why is this something that brings me hope?

Because I can look to my faith to get the most deep, consistent, fulfilling, needful dose of "yes" to the questions, "Do I matter?" and "How much?"  The Bible is filled from start to finish with promises of God's love for us and stories about His faithfulness to these promises.  It tells me that I matter.  And for the question how much, it describes how the Father gave His Son to die because He loves us so much.  There's no greater love than this.  When I remember that I matter in the deepest way in the most important relationship in my life for all eternity, this brings incredible hope and gratitude.  

Day 27: A Gift You Received

 

There's something special about Christmas gifts you receive as a kid.  Today, I'm grateful for the memory of the year when my brother and I received rollerblades, and my sister (who always likes to put her own unique spin on things) received roller skates.  And even though we usually hoped for snow on Christmas, that year we were so grateful for dry streets and unusually warm temperatures, so we could use all of Christmas afternoon to test out our new wheels.  I'm grateful for all the memories of blading around the roller rink with elementary school friends and feeling that surge of energy when the song "Footloose" came on.  I'm grateful for outdoor games involving the rollerblades, walkie talkies, and secret missions.  I'm grateful to be a child of the 1980s, when there was a little more freedom to roam and zoom recklessly down hills.  I'm grateful for my parents' generosity in giving us this gift and the hundreds of hours of fun they produced.  

Day 26: Something in Nature

Something I'm grateful for in nature is the caterpillar - chrysalis - butterfly sequence.  We've ordered caterpillars by mail for the last couple years (who knew this was a thing you could do!!) and watched the whole life cycle.  They arrive as tiny little caterpillars, then grow rapidly, exponentially bigger.  Then, as if it's programmed into them, they climb to a hanging spot and form a J, like in the picture above.  That J eventually turns into the crysalis, where they hang out for days to weeks - their bodies can tell if conditions are good to come out (?!!).  Then they emerge as beautiful butterflies, ready to fly out and take on the world.  

I wouldn't be me if I didn't also at least mention how beautiful this symbolism is.  The creature that starts as an ugly, ground dwelling insect does what he's made to do:  eats and eats; builds; rests; and through these steps, emerges as one of nature's most beautiful creatures, and a helpful pollinator.  When you're in the preparation or growth / early stages of anything in life and it's feeling like two steps forward and one step back, it's helpful to see both the dramatic and consistent nature of the caterpillar to butterfly ttransformation, and take hope from it.  

Day 25: Another Person

The cake she made me!

I am thankful for my friend Autumn.  I don't even know where to start, there's so much to say here - so let's start at the beginning:  I'm thankful for the way she is very intentional about friendships, and so very generous and including with bringing new people into her life.  When I first moved to Reno, I didn't know anyone beyond family.  Autumn was so kind to regularly invite me over and include me in get togethers.  For my 30th birthday, when we were still new friends, Autumn set up a whole party and made this beautiful cake (pictured above), which was so over the top kind.  And she does this sort of thing all the time, for new and old friends - she's generous, thoughtful, and kind with friendships and hospitality.

Second, she's really got a knack for both teaching and learning.  I can think of so many things she taught me that turned out to be extremely useful - how to set up and take apart a breast pump, how to use a camping stove, ideas for schedule and curriculum with homeschooling multiple kids, and so many other things.  When she has knowledge, she is so enthusiastic about sharing it.  And when she has something she wants to learn, she is very intentional about seeking out that information, always learning and growing.  

Third, she's a great adventure buddy.  She knows great spots for hiking, camping, and other outdoor activities in our region, and she's always up for going together.  She's helped us get into family camping, and led the way on one of my all time favorite outdoor memories - a sunset swim with our kids during a camp at Boca.  

Fourth, she's got an active and vibrant faith that shines out in everything she does.  Whether she's singing worship songs, or discussing prayer requests, or a favorite Bible verse - you can see her faith shining in all of it.  As well as in the way she supports and loves her friends and family so well.  She's a constant encouragement to me in my faith, and I know to many others as well.  

I'm so grateful for Autumn!

Day 24: A Book, Magazine, or Podcast

Our tracking sheet

 I am grateful for the podcast "1,000 Hours Outside".  The host, Ginny Yurich, is a really warm and engaging personality, a careful reader of interesting books, and a terrific interviewer.  The premise of her show is that we should all be spending more time outside - the number she encourages folks to shoot for is 1,000 hours in a year.  (We are attempting the challenge this year - I will probably do a longer blog on that sometime later this year - that's what the picture is tracking.)  She does a combination of things with her podcast - sometimes she describes fun outdoor destinations and activities, sometimes she motivates by talking about the benefits of outdoor time (whatever that looks like in your life), and more and more she's branching out into interviews with authors who take a deep dive into something that also happens to be a benefit of nature time:  the effect of screens, why kids need risk / independence, the importance of free unstructured play, the family bonding that happens through adventure, etc.  It's all been very informative, challenging (in a good way), and inspiring to me, and for those reasons, I'm thankful for this podcast.

Day 23: Something Nice

 I'm not exactly sure what this prompt is getting at, so I'm going to take it as "something nice that happened today".  It's the dog days of summer in Reno right now - highs are in the hundreds, and it's hard to be outside anytime that's daylight without either some shade or water.  Thankfully, by driving up into the mountains, you can lose at least 10 degrees and then there are these nice cool lakes you can plunge into.  So today, I'm thankful that Donner Lake is only 30 minutes away, and I'm thankful for my time there with my kids.  

Because of the coolness of both the air and the water in the mountains, we often spend most of our time at Donner hanging out on the sand rather than swimming.  But with the very high temps today, all four of us wanted to be actually in the water, swimming and splashing around.  It was so refreshing to actually plunge all the way in, to swim out to the ropes, to practice handstands - all the things you would do in a pool, but don't always do in a frigid, quick hop in and out lake.

I'm grateful for the beautiful views of the mountains all around, and the pine tree smell.  I'm grateful for the clear water where you can see to the bottom.   What a blessing to have this  spectacular place in our region.

I'm grateful for moments when Josh walks over with a question like, "Do you think there's life on other planets?  Did you know that there's proof of it in Nevada because of Area 51?"  I'm grateful for Ivy still wanting to hold hands when we're floating next to each other.  I'm grateful that Zoey is my fellow bookworm during breaks from the water.  What a blessing to have these kids.  

Day 22: Something That Made You Laugh

 

I am grateful for how Ivy's approach to unloading the dishwasher made me laugh yesterday.  This girl is always telling jokes and making faces to try to make us laugh, and she's got a good talent for comedy, but right now she's got an extra super power - the mind of a six year old.  Which means she is still very novice in how things are "supposed" to be done, plus is super tuned into "what would make this more fun?"  So without even trying to be funny, she decides that the best way to unload the dishwasher is using tongs.  (Or, as she calls them, "meat holders".)  

I can remember the other kids doing things like this around the same age.  One that stands out in my mind is Josh deciding to complete a math worksheet using all bubble letters.  Sometimes it's a little maddening because their novel method often takes at least twice as long and works half as well, and there's other things to get on to.  But you know what else is true?  It's super funny.  So thank you to this prompt for helping me notice the hilariousness of six year old out-of-the-box thinking.

Day 21: A Technology

 

I am grateful for the technology of streaming music services.  When I was a kid, the way you listened to music was either cassette tapes or the radio.  I have fond memories of waiting until your favorite song came on the radio, then throwing a blank cassette into the boom box and trying to record it.  To listen to any particular song on demand, you had to own the album, and then do the dance of fast forward / rewind until you found where it started.  It was possible to put together a mix tape of your favorites, but that was even more of a commitment.  (CDs made things a little easier, but similar story.)  

So then, in college, the technology of Napster felt mind blowing.  You suddenly had access to the entire universe of music, for free, at your fingertips.  We all spent hundreds of hours exploring the possibilities, listening to new and old songs, putting together lists with such ease.  Sadly, this was illegal pirating that was ripping off the artists and the whole music industry, so it was there for a blip of time and then gone.  

But the idea was planted, and companies took off.  So now it's possible, legally, for a very affordable price, with a much better user interface, to once again stream most music, put together playlists, find songs in an instant, and even get suggestions for similar music.  I listen to Spotify all the time - in the car, working out, doing dishes.  I can pull up Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" for the kids' music lessons, or classic favorites for my Sunday school kids, or Chris Stapleton to sing with my dad.  I can check out new songs friends recommend in an instant.  I'm so grateful for you, streaming music services.

Day 20: A Holiday You Love

Easter 2017.  Etsy style.

I am grateful for the holiday of Easter.  I sometimes write a post during and about Lent, but haven't written much about the celebration time that follows, so here goes!  First, the secular part.  I'm grateful for the fun traditions that go with Easter, especially when you have younger kids - egg dyeing, Easter egg hunts, Easter baskets, allll the candy.  I'm grateful for the time together with family, and how ham and potato casserole and an extravagant dessert taste like Easter.  I'm even grateful for these increasingly rare occasions where we really take the trouble to get the kids dressed up, hair brushed, pictures taken - because I know that these are the kind of pictures that make frames, and photo albums, and that I still enjoy looking back on from my own childhood.  

Second, Holy Week - I am grateful for how, in liturgical churches, they take you through the days leading up to the Easter celebration.  Maundy Thursday with the washing of feet.  Good Friday, remembering the sacrifice and crushing sadness.  The quiet, confused, desperate waiting and wondering of Saturday.  Remembering all of this helps us fully appreciate what it is we're celebrating when we get to Sunday.  

Third, Easter day itself.  I am so grateful for Christ's resurrection from the dead.  I'm grateful for how it happened during spring, when new life abounds.  I'm grateful for the joyful songs we get to sing each year in church to celebrate.  I'm grateful for the great, life giving hope it brings to the whole world, and  I'm grateful for a conquering of death, sadness, and sorrow.

Day 19: Something About Work

Since my work right now is homeschool, I will once again write about that - I promise I'm not trying to be an infomercial!  I'm grateful for all the time that homeschool allows me to spend with my kids.  It's a funny thing, for those of us who get to spend the first few years at home with babies and toddler - those are physically intensive years with some very sweet moments - but a lot of it is just supervising, feeding, changing diapers, giving baths - keeping the child alive and well.  Right as they get to the age where they can do a lot of their self care on their own, and can have more interesting conversations, play more interesting games, read more interesting books, go on longer hikes and other outings -- this is the same age that they start grade school.  I'm grateful that I get spend more hours in this golden age range together with the kids.  

Always want to clarify, with this kind of post - I know so many terrific parents and terrific kids with very close family relationships whose kids go to outside of the house school.  This is what my own oldest two kids did for most of elementary school, and I still got lots of good time with them, as I'm sure any of you readers who this applies to do.  This is a selfish grateful - my personality is much better suited for older kids than the youngest kids, and I'm grateful that I get to spend full days with them as older kids after a decade with babies and toddlers in the mix.  

Day 18: An Item You Use Every Day

I am grateful for my shower.  I'm grateful because even on the busiest, craziest, loudest days, it's my time of quiet.  It's my best time to think through problems.  It's a lovely time to sing.  Also, it feels great to get clean after an outdoor excursion or a sweaty run.  I'm grateful for you, shower.

Day 17: A Character Trait of Yours

 

Triple jumping in high school

I'm grateful for my character trait of competitiveness.  This might be a surprise to some, as I keep it pretty quiet and probably come off as much more kumbaya.  Also, my competitiveness is more with myself than against the outside world.  But anyone who I've played sports with, or some who I've practiced law with, have seen it.  There are a few reasons I'm grateful for it: 1) it makes anything related to sports or games or competition more fun, because you feel invested; and 2) it motivates tedious, hard work because in wanting to win, you're willing to suffer a little more.  High fives to all the stealth competitive people out there.

Day 16: A Person You Look Up To

I look up to my sister for her recent graduation with a masters degree in counseling.  She completed this rigorous, full time 3 year program while also working part time and raising four kids.  I remember grad school as being extremely challenging, and that was with no job and no kids.  I am so impressed that she pulled this off as a feat of time management.  

But even more than that, I'm impressed that she responded to a calling that matches her talents, her deep empathy and compassion, her listening skills, and her desires.  It's easy to feel that life is set in stone, that it's too late to pursue a dream, WAY before this is actually true.  It's easy to mistake challenging for impossible.  It's definitely harder to pursue a new career and an additional degree later in life.  But because she took on this challenge, she now has the degree to pursue a career path that will allow her to put her deepest skills and talents to good use in helping the world.  I'm so proud of my sister, and so grateful for her inspiring decision.

Day 15: A Life Lesson

(not a pic of me or my space)

First off, I am grateful for this prompt, because if you take any time looking at my backlist blog posts, you will see that I like to turn everything into a life lesson.  To the point that it's a little ridiculous :).  Cheers to the life lessons that can be found in so many things!  

The life lesson I'm grateful for today isn't particularly deep, but it's one that has packed a lot of punch for me.  I'm grateful for the lesson that the way to get more of something in your life isn't to just care about it more, but to actually schedule it in until it's a solid part of your routine.  Two things I care about getting in regularly are exercise and spiritual disciplines, but these are also things that can quickly fall of the radar when life gets busy.  I've found that much more than reading a book about how much these things matter, or talking to someone about how I'd really like to get more runs in, the thing that actually leads to positive change is making the plan - put the times in the schedule - and then stick to them, regardless of mood or energy level or weather.  I'm grateful for the books and teachers that showed me this lesson, and for times in life that I didn't follow this method and saw how quickly things can fall away.  

Day 14: You're Looking Forward To

This one landed on the perfect day, as we leave for Nebraska tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to seeing people in Nebraska!!  I'm looking forward to having wine on the deck with my mom.  I'm looking forward to listening to Wabash Cannonball with my dad.  I'm looking forward to having uncontrollable, inappropriate laughter with my sister.  I'm looking forward to swimming with my nieces and nephews, and holding my new baby niece for the first time.  I'm looking forward to hearing the latest rundown on Nebraska politics from my brother.  I'm looking forward to seeing two of my favorite friends who I haven't seen in years.  I'm looking forward to catching fireflies, watching storms come in, and eating Valentino's.  I am super duper extremely grateful for this upcoming trip to Nebraska.  

Day 13: A Person

Today's thankful pairs well with yesterday's thankful:  I am grateful for the other homeschool moms we got to know this year.  A worry I had going into homeschool was whether we would all be lonely - not just the kids, but also me.  Thanks to finding community, this was the least lonely year I've had since becoming a stay at home mom.  And these fellow moms gave me more than someone to meet up and chat with on Friday mornings.  They were people who had many of the same ideas and educational philosophies as me, and could offer advice and encouragement.  When you're on a road that's different than many, it's such a blessing to travel with others who are on that same road.  

I'm especially thankful for two "includer" moms - Karen and Jessica.  Jessica started a nature club and Karen started an art club, which gave us two places to meet with other families regularly.  And both of them are always hosting other events, and inviting more people to join, and being extremely welcoming to the newer / quieter ones in the bunch.  Aren't people like this just the best, in any context?  They make the community they are in bigger and better by being so inviting to all.  I am super grateful for Karen and Jessica.  

Day 12: An Ability of Yours

I'm grateful for the newfound ability to be a homeschool teacher.  There were lots of questions at the beginning of last school year, but definitely one of them was, "Can I even do this?"  Homeschooling is a much bigger business than it was when I was growing up, and has especially boomed with the pandemic, so there are a lot of resources and curriculums to help parents, many of them free or very low cost.  No one has to take this on from scratch.  Nevertheless, it's daunting to take on the rule of teacher for your kids.

I do not have the personality to command a room of 30 kids, either by hilarious banter or magnetic presence.  I'm not great at managing difficult behaviors.  I would be a disaster as a classroom teacher.  I was never the kid who lined up my stuffed animals and taught them a lesson, with dreams of someday teaching a classroom full of kids.  I was much more the kid with my nose always in a book.

Fortunately, that personality works great for homeschool!  (And so do many other personality types - "you do you" is never more true than in the world of homeschool.)  The style of homeschool we do for many of our subjects is to read together and then talk about it, or go out and find it (science).  We are all learning together.  I love reading, and talking about reading, and learning new things - so this particular style of teaching is a pleasure and a natural fit.  I'm really grateful that the one little corner of the teaching world that works well for me is precisely the corner where I've landed.

Day 11: A Food You Love

Today I'm grateful for two new culinary experiences Kenny introduced me to - they are linked in my mind because they happened in the same year.  The first is sushi.  Growing up in Nebraska in the 80s and 90s, there were no sushi restaurants, and I probably couldn't have told you what sushi was.  Even living on the coast in college, while there probably was sushi available, I never tried it and I don't remember it being a regular thing for anyone I knew.  So my first time eating sushi ended up being takeout, on the beach, in Wilmington, North Carolina, at age 24.  Kenny and I were dating and he got this as lunch for us.  I was so excited to try something new and was amazed how delicious raw fish could taste.  It's hilarious to think back on how this worked out because I've been to the beach hundreds of times since then, and had sushi maybe also a hundred times since, but never again have the two things come together.  Which makes it an extra special memory.  (And it got me ready for all you can eat sushi, which is a Reno staple.)

The second new culinary experience is dim sum.  Technically I had dim sum once before with friends in New York, but it was a basically unknown cuisine to me at that point.  Kenny and I lived in Oakland for our newlywed summer, which is also where his paternal grandparents lived.  About once a week, we met them in Oakland Chinatown for either a dinner meal or dim sum.  Kenny's grandparents were so kind and generous to this girl from the Midwest who didn't have the first clue what each thing was or how to use chopsticks.  I remember trying to pick up a square gelatin item and it just kept slipping out, and Kenny's grandma showed me how to just stab it in the middle with the chopstick, which was both funny and a relief.  I'm grateful for how a meal can be such a warm and welcoming introduction to someone's family and culture.

Day 10: A Family Member

 I am so grateful for my dad, for so many reasons. I'm grateful how he bonded with us in the early years through sports - teaching all four of us kids (both boys and girls) how to throw a spiral on a football and run a chair pattern, how to use the correct footwork when boxing out on a basketball rebound, and how to watch the ball into the glove when playing catch.  I'm grateful for so many memories of his singing songs in the car and in the house - my knowledge of 1980s church music, golden oldies, and classic country is all deeper due to him.  

I'm grateful for his enthusiasm in planning family vacations; for how he took us to see the Minnesota Twins (and would sometimes end bedtime with the phrase "no smoking in the Metrodome"); and for how much he loves sitting on the rocks near the Oregon beach and watching the waves crash in.  I'm grateful that he has a great sense of humor and an eagerness to try new things.

I'm grateful how he's always been there for me.  In the midst of a demanding work life, he was always there for sports games and track meets and music concerts, and not just there but actively involved :).  I'm grateful that he was involved in two big moments in my life, officiating at my wedding and swearing me into the bar.  He was there for us when Joshua was born, flying out to Salt Lake City to support us, and then helping us drive across the country when we were traveling with two dogs and infant and a trunk full of oxygen canisters.  

I'm grateful that he treats my mom with love, kindness, and respect, giving me a good example of what I should look for in a husband. 

I'm grateful that he's been a role model to me throughout my life in so many ways - in his career, he has been highly successful as a judge, but always made time to give back to the community in various ways.  He has prioritized his faith.  He is a person of integrity, he cares very much about the marginalized and outsider, and he has a really amazing combination of strength and tenderness.  I'm so grateful for my dad.

Day 9: Something You Like About Where you Live

Ascension

I love so many things about where we live - I love the size of Reno and how the character is a mix of cowboy independence and California; I LOVE the geography, and how we get to enjoy both the dessert and the mountains; I love our nearby alpine lakes and our local junior ski program; I love our church; I love so many of the people here.

The year a balloon landed right in front of our house!

But to choose a new one today - I'm grateful for my favorite annual Reno event, the Great Reno Balloon Races.  This is a hot air balloon festival that happens for three days every September.  It takes place at a park near our house, so even on the days we don't attend, we can usually see some of it from our driveway (and once had a balloon land in our cul de sac!).  

The events start at 5 am, so you wake up and leave the house while it's still dark, and then you use flashlights to find your way through the parking lot, then through the trees, and down to the field - the dark makes it feel like an adventure. If you get there early enough, you get to see some of the balloons lift up in the dark and glow like little moons.  They start the main event around sunrise - 100+ balloons blow up in a giant field and then ascend.  They let the spectators walk around the field, so you are right in the middle of the action, surrounded by an explosion of color and the sound of blowtorches going on and off and people looking up to the sky in wonder.  

I'm so grateful for this annual event that's a thrill for kids and and adults alike.  

 

Day 8: A Happy Memory

For today's prompt, I'm choosing a seasonal memory - the Big Bang Boom 4th of July celebrations!  I grew up in a small town of about 20,000 people in northeast Nebraska.  Small Midwestern towns often do 4th of July celebrations in a big way.  There's an all day festival with bands and food and maybe mud volleyball that was watered down by a firetruck.  There are people shooting off all manner of fireworks at all hours of the day.  (I remember my brother and his friend putting on garden gloves and goggles and having a bottle rocket war.)  

And then the big highlight of the day is the professional fireworks show at night, which the whole town attends.  (And all the neighboring townsfolk  - believe it or not, we were the "hub" town in that area, with the mall and the movie theaters and the bowling alley - most towns in rural Nebraska are under a thousand, separated by miles of farmland in between.)  The fireworks show takes place over Skyview Lake, and we happened to live right across the street, so my parents often invited people over to watch with us.  

One year, they went all out and hired a band to play in their backyard.  I have the happiest memory of hanging around with my friends at this party, on a high of summer and grilled hamburgers and fireworks all day, and watching my musical, extroverted dad step in with the band for a few songs as the singer.  Then, as the sun went down, everyone getting blankets and lawn chairs turned toward the lake, and turning up the radio so we could hear the music that went along with the show.  Everyone "oohed" and "aahed" as the sky lit up, and held their breaths through the spectacular grand finale.   

I was not big on fireworks as a kid.  I was not one who would save up hundreds of dollars, buy up a whole stand, and blow up everything in sight all through the month of June.  I was more the type questioning (mostly in my head) spending that much dough on things that literally blow up in seconds when there are starving people in Africa - the fun one at the party!  

But now that I live in the west, where fireworks are much more limited and regulated due to the wildfire danger, I appreciate what a joy fireworks bring to a 4th of July celebration - both the driveway kind and the professional show kind.  And now that I'm older, I realize how much we all need these moments of celebration and joy.  I'm grateful that I got to grow up with a Big Bang Boom of a 4th of July, and grateful that we often get to return to Nebraska in July to do Independence Day Midwest style.  

Day 7: Something that Makes you Smile

Josh reading to Bear

Something that makes me smile is the way Bear (our pug) zooms around the house after he takes a bath.  There's something about baths that revs his energy up to one hundred percent and causes him to run laps around the house full speed.  It's funny how his eyes go crazy, how he skids a bit on the turns, and how he's kind of being funny but kind of being totally serious.  Pugs have the reputation for sleeping a lot, and they do, but they also have very big personalities and very high energy moments, and Bear does things every day that make me laugh.  I'm so grateful for our little pup.  

Day 6: A Smell You Love

I am so grateful for the smells associated with books!  First and foremost, of course, is the smell of a book itself.  Every book lover knows the feeling of burying their nose into a new book and inhaling the aroma, as part of the anticipation and enjoyment of the book reading experience.  Second, I like the musty smell of a used book store, in the kind of store that's built like a maze and has books packed into every nook and cranny, and probably a cat or two wandering around.  I like thinking about the lives the books have lived before they made it to this store, and then thinking about the life the bookstore owner lived that got him or her to this point, and then going home with a stack of amazing books for a bargain price.  Third, I like thinking about other smells that go along with favorite reading times and places - coffee with a morning read, salty ocean air from a beach read, even the gas station snack smell (specifically, my brother eating Funions) as I read in the minivan on family vacations.  Like songs, I'm so grateful how a smell can bring you right back to a time and place.  

Day 5: A Friend

Today I'm writing about a person who might not want their name on the blog, tiny as the audience is, so I'm going to keep it a little more general than usual.  I met this person as part of raising kids, and didn't at all expect it to turn into a friendship.  It's hard to make friends in your 30s and 40s, with life being so busy and people already having friends in place, so it feels like such an unexpected blessing when a new friend comes into your life in this stage.  This person has been a source of inspiration, ideas, support, and laughs. She's shown me new books and new music that are now favorites.  She gives me new nature and adventure ideas.  But most of all, there's something about our personalities that sees the world in a similar way - and what a gift that is, at any time in life, to find someone with mutual understanding, who you feel like they really get what you're saying.  I'm grateful for this friendship.  

Day 4: An Accomplishment of Yours

Depoe Bay, OR

An accomplishment I'm grateful for is learning to camp with the kids.  I went camping a few times growing up, and several times as a young adult, but I was always a tag along.  I never had to reserve the site, set up the tent, plan the food, start the fire, or figure out what to do about bears and bathrooms and bad weather.  Let alone, do all these things with kids.  For the first ten years with kids, this seemed like too high of a bar to clear, and I never attempted it.  But - I love being in nature, and camping is a huge part of summer life in northern Nevada (where we are fortunate to have the Sierra Nevadas next door, cool nights / mornings, and barely any bugs).  Also, there are amazing memories to be made with sunset lake swims and bonfire S'mores and flashlight tag and ghost stories in tents.  So two years ago, we acquired the supplies and gave camping a go.  

Our first attempt was a fail - it was a wind advisory day, which is challenging for the most seasoned tent campers.  After setting up the tent and then watching it blow over like a tumbleweed, I called it - we ended up packing up and heading home before we even got to S'mores.  It was tempting at that point to throw in the towel and just say that camping is not for us, we are more of a day outing family.  But we got a second attempt that summer, with a lot of help from my brother Eric, and in a location that was impossible to turn down - in an isolated cove next to the ocean, complete with tide pools and star fish and seals and sea lions, along the Oregon coast - and that attempt was a success.  It felt great to wake up so close to the ocean, and it felt even better to overcome a failure.  Last summer, we camped a couple times with friends, with exactly the forever memories I hoped for.  And this week, we're getting ready to camp again.  I'm still fairly scared of  lighting the camp stove, and of running into bears in the night, and about keeping meat cool enough to be safe to eat - but with each successful camp, it gets more fun and less scary.  I'm grateful that we now get to call ourselves campers!

Day 3: A Song You Love

A song I'm grateful for is "Sorry Signs on Cash Machines" by Mason Jennings.  I learned about this folk singer when I was living in Colorado and continued to listen to him a lot in law school, right at the same time that Kenny and I were dating.  We saw Mason Jennings in concert in Cary, North Carolina together, and this is one of the songs he played.  There's something about music that can bring back you to a time and place so powerfully.  All Mason Jennings songs makes me think of that time in my life, but this song in particular reminds me of young love with Kenny, which is such a sweet set of memories.  

Day 2: What You Find Beautiful

 I am grateful for the green of the desert this spring.  Usually, even in the spring months where most of the country is getting April showers and May flowers, Reno stays pretty sunny and dry.  Though we do get a desert bloom each year, which I also find beautiful, it's not often that Reno is looking like Ireland.  But this spring (continuing with the crazy precipitation pattern of the entire year), we've had tons of rain, and plants are growing wild and free all around.  I'm so grateful for the sights and smells of this green sensory wonderland.  

30 days of gratitude: summer 2023 edition

 

I'm going to start up another round of daily gratitude posts!  This is an exercise I've done not quite annually, but I find it helpful every time I do it.  Now that we homeschool, summer is the best time to commit to a daily writing project, so I'm doing the gratitude posts as a summer vacation exercise!  Since summer also includes many days and weeks out of the house, my goal is to complete one of these every couple days and complete the list of 30 by the end of summer.  As always, I would love for people to follow along on their own or by message - the full list I will use is posted above.

Day 1:  About my Body

I'm going to be liberal with modifying the topic this time around - for today, I'm going to write something I'm grateful for about the human body.  Today, June 15th, is an anniversary for two of Josh's surgeries.  Twelve years ago he had a jaw distraction, and six years ago, he had a hernia repair.  The jaw distraction was a much bigger deal - there were days in the PICU, morphine for the pain, and a very involved healing process.  So where's the gratitude in this?  It's amazing to watch how the human body is designed to heal, even from a fairly major invasion.  Surgeries involve cuts on the outside and more cuts and procedures on the inside when everything goes exactly right - and our bodies are designed to withstand this invasion and repair.  Josh's big jaw surgery is premised on the fact that the body will heal:  when there is a cut in the bone, the bone repairs itself by growing more bone - what a thing!  Think of the difference in our quantity and quality of life if our bodies couldn't heal from most cuts, many sicknesses, and even some major medical events.  As I write this, I'm aware of so many in my life who are struggling through their own or a loved one's chronic sickness, pain, and disability, and I want to be sensitive to the pain of this and how this post might be tone deaf.  For those, I'm sorry and that I would love to pray for you.

Reno Tahoe Odyssey

My RTO team, "Emergency Landing"

This weekend, I completed my first Reno Tahoe Odyssey ("RTO")! The RTO is a 12 person relay race in which you travel 178 miles from Reno, up through the mountains and around Lake Tahoe, down to Carson City, up to Virginia City, and end up back down in Reno.  All of this takes around 30 hours from start to finish.  The experience is kind of like an endurance race, a road trip, a camping trip, and a quest rolled into one.   I'm going to write up the play by play to give you an idea what it's like.

A Day(s) at the RTO:

9:15 am - My team met at the starting line in downtown Reno to send off the first runner, then my half of the group ("Van 2") went back to a house to decorate and load up our van, as our team's legs didn't start until the afternoon.  For those who have run races before, it feels strange to wake up all psyched to run a race and then have most of the day ahead of you before you actually start running.  After lunch, our van set off.

2:30 pm - This is when Van 2's first active section began.  When your van is on, you are either running, driving, navigating, cheering, getting ready to run, or recovering from running.  Each active section lasts for around 5 hours.  

4:30 pm - Because I was runner #10 out of 12, this is when I ran my first leg.  I ran my first 5 miles through Squaw Valley, along the Truckee River and up in the mountains near Tahoe.  This has got to be one of the most beautiful places in the entire world and it felt amazing to be out running in such a beautiful spot.  Your legs are still fresh on the first leg and you feel happy to be alive and up in Tahoe and part of it all.  The first run also helps get the nerves out and makes you feel like things are really underway.

5:20 pm - I finished my first leg and realized that I was sweaty and there was no place to shower and I would be sitting in a van with people for the next dozens of hours - so you figure out how to get cleaned up on the fly with baby wipes.  Everyone brings several changes of clothes to stay clean and deal with the changing weather.  There is also not time to stop and eat restaurant food, so you bring what you want to eat in the car - lots of nutrition bars, fruit, bagels with peanut butter - that kind of thing.  

7:30 pm - My van all finished their first legs, and we drove on to try to find a place to nap until our next round of running.  The sun was setting over Emerald Bay at this point, and the moon was huge, and we got to drive around a stunning vista as we made our way to the next exchange point at South Lake Tahoe.  We stopped in a strip mall in town and laid out our sleeping bags on some grass to try to sleep for a couple hours.  Everyone walking by had comments and jokes, and many thought it was funny to tell us the sprinklers were about to go off.  At one point, someone in a jeep drove back and forth blasting ice cream truck music, presumably to mock us?  Not a lot of sleep happening.   At 11: 15, we roll up the sleeping bags and hit the road again.

1:30 am - My turn to run my second leg, which was 6 miles in Genoa.  Everyone has at least one middle of the night run, which is what causes many of us (definitely myself included) to pause before signing up for this race.  It sounds exhausting and scary and a little crazy.  But actually, this was my favorite leg, because it's so unlike any run I've ever done before: out under the huge night sky, feeling small under the stars, feeling a little mad from sleep deprivation, enjoying the bluegrass music and the peaceful highway and the cows mooing at 2 am.  The air is so nice and cool.  I never would've guessed it, but the middle of the night run is a highlight of this race.

3:45 am - My van finished their second active portion and drove on to Virginia City for 3 more attempted hours of sleep.  We found a parking lot and laid out our sleeping bags there.  Still not super comfortable, but it was much quieter than the last napping spot, and we were more exhausted after 11 miles of running.  Got some actual sleep here, then woke for the sunrise and final active portion.  

8:30 am - My final run was 5 miles in the suburbs of South Reno.  At this point, everyone is sleep deprived and has put at least 10 challenging miles on their legs, and the sun is coming back up and the heat is rising.  This is the Let's-See-What-You're-Made-Of leg.  The one and only thing that's fun about it is that you have to rise to the challenge of making it through - and that IS actually super fun, especially that moment where you tag the next runner and see that you've done the thing you weren't sure you could do.

11:50 pm - Finish line!  All twelve runners back together to run the last few steps through the arch together, then photos and hugs.  Then home for showers and food and sleep!

(pic) Questions I Had Before the Race:

• How does this compare to a half marathon?  This really depends on which runner you are.  My legs were pretty flat, and although it was 16 combined miles, they were broken up so much that it felt easier.  I had wondered if sitting around in a van would make our legs get stiff and sore, but the extra time to rest and stretch and fuel / hydrate was more of a help than a hindrance.  If you had one of the really challenging legs with huge uphills and downhills, I imagine the answer might be different.
• Would I enjoy this if I'm not a runner?  There is a lot more to this race than just the running part - the team aspect, the celebratory feel of all the exchange points, the puzzle of figuring out where you're going next and when to get there and when and how to sleep - but at the heart of it is still running.  To do this race right, you should train similar to preparing for a half marathon with hills, which is a lot of running.  And if you don't train, this is going to be a super hard and painful experience.  You don't have to "be" a runner (whatever that means), but you should pose as one for the months leading up to it if you want this race to be enjoyable.  
• That's a lot of time with people - would I like this if I'm an introvert?  I'm an introvert, as were many in my van.  It's not a bunch of draining small talk.  It's more like being on a mission together and figuring things out as you go, which I think can be fun for introverts and extroverts alike, and when you're not busy doing that, you're trying to grab some sleep.  
• How do you feel the next day?  A little sore.  A lot tired.  Extremely happy that you did it and get to have the memory of this amazing experience forever.

If this sounds fun at all, you should do it!  Shout out to our captain Megan, for putting together a great team to run and travel with!