Blue To Gold: Our New Beginning

2012 was a bittersweet year for us. While I was ready for a new start (a good change from what we had been through this year) I was also incredibly thankful for what 2012 taught me...and us. When times get tough life gets real. You learn what is really important; you gain knowledge only achievable by living.

I spent a large majority of the month of December secretly blue, using holiday decorating to keep my mind at bay. The tough tide of the year seemed to come to a culmination. As if going through it wasn't enough, it all had to come and crash in on me just in time for "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year."

Like I said, though, holiday preparations were my best friend. It allowed me to keep myself busy, accomplishing everything before the "big day" arrived, while enabling my brain to do what it does best: multitask. As I worked my way through my to-do-list I found myself analyzing what I had discovered throughout the year. I was adamant about leaving 2012 in 2012 and carrying along only the things that were healthy and beneficial....the life lessons. Trying to maintain my sense of humor I contemplated my recent past in the hopes of making it a little easier to approach. I knew it was best to be honest with myself. I've come to the conclusion that in life, if I can’t be honest with myself, the chances of anyone else approaching me with honesty are slim. I’m a fan of the truth.

While bringing together my big plans for Christmas I was hopeful my excitement was masking my inner melancholy. It was Burke's second Christmas but her first as a walking, babbling toddler. 2012 was the year she took her inaugural walk down the hallway to see what Santa had left below the tree. I couldn't wait to record all of her sweet expressions as she unwrapped her goodies, one little right-handed-rip at a time. She could enjoy the magic that is Christmas morning, with the low lights and the feeling of love and comfort that accompany it. While I was unable to buy out the toy department for her I felt confident that, in her young age, she would be happy with whatever she discovered that morning. For that, I was thankful.

In addition, we were hosting Christmas dinner for both of our families. I have always looked forward to the year I could start this tradition. With Seth's mom helping out with the major task of cooking, half of that responsibility fell from my back. I'd started preparing the menu as soon as Thanksgiving was over and called my mom and sister to request some of their specialties. I was overly excited about using some of my grandmother’s dishes I'd inherited. Being a girl without a dishwasher, the thought of using paper plates when feeding 16 people was tempting. However, I think a part of me needed to use those dishes. Maybe it was my way of knowing that my grandmother was with me on Christmas...a day when I needed her strength the most. I took the time to go through the Currier and Ives set and discovered I could feed many, many more than 16 with this collection. I packaged it all up, reorganizing it as I went, and stored it so I had what I needed ready and handy.

Being on a tight budget, we couldn't afford to buy everyone the gifts we wished we could. My priorities stood with the kids: Burke and my nieces and nephew. While I secretly purchased Seth something small and snagged a couple stocking-stuffers from the dollar bins at Target, I was adamant that he get me nothing. I'd already received the best gift I could ever ask for - the ability to stay home with my daughter -something I never dreamed I'd be able to do. I am endlessly grateful for every little moment I had with her over the course of 2012. I appreciate all the "firsts" I was able to experience because I did not have to juggle a career with the most precious time of my child's life. Nothing I could open on Christmas morning would come close to matching the gift of being a stay-at-home mom. It was these appreciative thoughts that carried me through the difficult final month of 2012 and saw me to an end of my blues.

On Christmas Eve we had a nice dinner with Seth's family and after everyone left it was "go time"! I'd been anticipating this moment since the previous Christmas and let me tell you: It. Was. Awesome. We tidied up the house and perfectly placed the gifts just as the very thoughtful Saint Nick himself would have. We set-up her brand new play kitchen so it would be dimly lit by the glow of the Christmas tree as she tiptoed down the hallway the next morning. I was more eager than when I was on the receiving end of Christmas as a child! Lastly we stuffed the stockings with little goodies and made sure everything was in its place. We were ready...and exhausted.

Christmas Morning! Seth woke up at 5:00 a.m. and instructed me to stay in bed. This was not the first time I'd seen 5:00 a.m. on Christmas morning but for some reason I was just as excited as I was 20 years ago. I lay in bed for an hour before I decided to hop in the shower. Knowing I had a busy day ahead of me, I thought it a good idea to get a head-start. Just like any other day (with my phone and my cup of water in hand) I walked down the hall and into the kitchen, stopping for a little smile as I admired the display waiting on Burke. The lights in the house were still off and the Christmas tree was glowing ever so softly, just as it should before sunrise on Christmas morning. However, as I entered the kitchen I noticed an unfamiliar glow coming from the living room. Before I could ponder the source the smell hit my nose; He had woken up early and started a fire in our fireplace, the first fire we'd ever had in our home. It was beautiful. I slowly walked into the ambiance Seth had created in our living room, where he stood. Not only did he start a fire but he hung fresh mistletoe in the doorway. All of a sudden I felt far removed from the hustle and bustle of the year and the busy schedule of my day. Just as charming as one could imagine it...it was. As I approached Seth to hug him and tell him Merry Christmas I could feel myself relax and let go of everything I needed to release. The turmoil of the year was leaving me and I was not going to stop it. I was happy, with the man I loved, in our perfect home, enjoying the calm before the storm of the day. As he held me in his arms by the fire he pointed out the mistletoe, asking if I noticed. I replied as I walked toward it. As I reached the spot where it quaintly hung I turned around to face Seth, anticipating a kiss in true fashion of mistletoe. Instead I found him on one knee, kneeling in front of me.

It’s at this point I find the story difficult to tell. There are no perfect words for the way I felt at that moment. There is no way I could perfectly recite the words that followed. What I can tell you is that there were tears, hugs, kisses, and (of course) a "yes" all in the beautiful ambiance that he had created in our home on that perfect Christmas morning. A most perfect start to the day in which I washed away the troubles of the year and vowed to myself that this would be the fresh start we needed as the brightness of assurance and optimism flickered from our fireplace.

Burke's First 1st Birthday Party

So my peanut turns one this week and that lucky little girl has already had her first party! With a family so large we thought it would be helpful if we split things up. Why not make the most of this week - you only turn one once! 

My two very generous aunts hosted her first party. And did they ever. It was such a blowout the guest of honor had to take a nap half way through!

Below are a few highlights. Enjoy!

    

 

The Birthday Girl arrived in style in her pink vest and leggings with a yellow tutu. Brown boots and her adorable pink bow completed her ensemble and kept her weather-appropriate on this chilly fall day! ;)

And of course, it was beautifully decorated by Paula and Gloria. Not a thing was left out!

Pixie and Glow Worm even had a good time!

What Novotney family gathering would be complete without pictures of food?

Hold on, I need to take this call...

Time for cake!

Oh boy...

Gotta touch it..

Tastes pretty good....

Don't mind if I do!

Her First Birthday Cake!

She even shared!

She was quite the party girl, that Burke Mae!

And after all the excitement she changed into her sweatpants for a little snuggle time with, Grandpa. 

Thanks to everyone for making her first 1st Birthday Party a hit! And her first year even better!

 Round two, coming up! 

Maintaining the "Bright Side"

My New Year’s resolution started out with a bang and went out with a quick fizzle from there. As I went on with my life, the responsibility of my blog kept tapping me on the shoulder to remind me of it's existence. All I could picture was a gym with it's usual members happy to have the crowd of the “January Resolution Rush” out of their hair. Now it is mid July and I’m hanging out with the group of people wondering where they would be if they had stuck with it. But I’m going to step away from that group and try again.  


I've spent the majority of the last 4 months at home enjoying the perks of being a mom and witnessing so many firsts; crawling, standing, falling, talking. At the end of March the head of the evil snake that is the current economy reared its head again and the company I worked for cut my department. Most of me said, “Yay, I can stay home with my baby for a little while!” The rest of me withdrew and went into Panic Mode, which generally consists of me turning inward, not talking, and mentally sorting through my situation as I develop Plans A-ZZ. I would like to believe that my Panic Mode is not detectible on the outside, but my growing population of gray hair standing out against the original dark brown begs to differ. I always try to maintain my optimism and focus only on the things I can control in an effort to not bother others with my momentary state. 


Keyword: Optimism. I don’t know if you’ve read the news, dealt with the Department of Workforce Development or hell, even checked the weather lately, but optimism is hard to come by these days - so much so that I feel no need to elaborate. But as my plans were developing my optimism was fading. Fast. 


So in the midst of my disappointment I packed up the baby and went to spend the day with my dad. Now, he is the kind of guy that will always tell me like it is, blunt and to the point. He is always able to knock me back on track after I’ve turned off on some random side street and am worried about something absurd. I enjoy picking his brain – he always has something tucked away in there that I find helpful or interesting. You could call it years of life experience, but I like to think of it as a Super Hero Dad quality. And I always know when I tell him something he doesn’t know, or finds interesting when he responds with, “Is that right?” in a way only he can say. Hearing those words always gives me a little feeling of achievement. 


As dad and I are driving through town with the baby fast asleep in the back seat I decide to pick his brain on a rather controversial topic - the type that tends to indicate your generation regardless of your political party. I didn’t want to debate anything with him, or make him see my side; I really just wondered where he stood on it. And of course that topic leads to others and apparently he sensed my lack of optimism in life, the world, and the future as we know it. We probably drove for nearly an hour and I could tell he was taking the long way; he was enjoying our conversation as much as I was. 


Eventually he pulls up to a gas station as our conversation hit a natural pause. As he gets out of his truck he pulls something out of his console and hands it to me. It was several black and white photocopied pages stapled together and had obviously been looked over several times as the paper had began to soften. I thought to myself, “Who photocopies anymore?” as I looked down.


“Read that” he said to me as he shut the door to pump gas. I read the title, Cheer; 17 Reasons it’s a Great Time to Be Alive. 


Four pages later and a couple miles down the road I look up from the last page. “That’s the best thing I’ve read in a long time.” I look at him. “Do you agree with it?” I ask. I know that if he doesn’t agree with it, if he made me read this because he thinks it’s ridiculous, then my momentary high of optimism will go flying right out the window and die in the passing field. 


“Hell yes!” He responds.


Awesome. 


So we continue to discuss the article that he copied out of a Readers Digest magazine. He let me keep it, along with my reborn positivism. 


Written by Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist, the article covers topics like the environment, the growing population, and the depression: All topics that are constantly thrown in our face with negativity oozing out of them. The media likes to bring us down, get our attention with startling statistics, and leave us fearing Armageddon. They don’t broadcast the results of our efforts or even compare facts. I’d like to thank Matt Ridley for bringing a little bit of sunlight to these topics, for taking a look at the big picture rather than magnifying the flaws. 


We are an ever growing, ever evolving race and we are better off now than we realize.

I’ve linked the article above and I do hope you have an opportunity to read it.

Milestones

If you find your life is dull or lacking excitement you are more than welcome to stop by. We like to keep things interesting around here and with a four month old that is not hard to do. She is literally growing up before my eyes, achieving a new developmental milestone daily. You have to be really careful; you’ll miss them if you blink! Thankfully, I’ve been able to catch a few of them with my camera.

She figured out rolling! Well, half of it. She makes it from her back to her stomach, where she is happy for about two minutes tops, and then quickly becomes no longer proud of her accomplishment.

With a four month birthday comes the freedom to eat with a spoon. We started with rice cereal. I think she enjoys it.

And with this new found body strength we’ve introduced the Johnny Jump Up. She doesn’t quite understand the jumping aspect, but she does enjoy her new view on the world.

Burke isn’t the only one experiencing new things around here though. Seth had quite the milestone himself; He has discovered Samoas. (Or as I always knew them, Carmel deLites). Yet another reminder of how unfortunate it is that Girl Scout Cookie Season only comes once a year. But luckily (thanks to Pinterest) I have managed to find a recipe for a homemade version as someone has requested the invention of a Samoa Blizzard. I’ll let you know how that goes…

Creating A Name

Naming things can be hard to do. Finding the right combination of just the right words that perfectly describes all aspects of something is a daunting task. I usually sit and think for a while, take a trip to my favorite online thesaurus, and do a little research. I open up a blank document and start throwing words around until I find the most appropriate medley. However, every now and then something clicks right away; it just makes sense.

So when I decided I wanted to start a blog the question of its title was something I asked myself rather quickly.

I knew I wanted to blog about my home, my renovation, my daughter, my family... But how could I properly title my tale? I stopped for a moment and asked myself what I associated with the term “home” and I found myself taking a trip down memory lane, to my childhood. Ever since my parents divorced when I was 13 I’ve found that “home” is really quite relative. But before that mega milestone in my life, home was where we were all a family and everything was great. And that took place in my childhood home, in the small, no, miniscule town of Center Point, Indiana, on Harmony Road.

It was the kind of town where parents told their kids to be home before the street lights came on and you knew where all the neighborhood kids were by simply locating a pile of bikes in someone’s front yard.  And if you couldn’t find that pile? Well, then good luck finding us.  We had a perfect little hardware store that sold us candy and pop by the glass bottle. Not just one but two parks, and the perfect amount of woods to play in. We even had a town bully. The house wasn’t big, but the memories I made with my brother and sister… those were grand. And I want nothing less for my family.

While I can’t give my family all the perks that came along with a simplistic life in Small Town, Indiana, I can definitely do my best to create that feeling of family, blanket of security, and sense of home that I had growing up on Harmony Road.

Biting the Bullett

Sometime during that first week of January I was driving down the road and it hit me: my New Years Resolution was to start blogging. Now, this wasn't exactly a new idea to me, I had already started a blog, well, named it and designed it several times. As for actual, physical posts, those were non-existent. While I loved the idea, I had a hard time bringing myself to do it; to sit down and introduce myself, my blog, and my life. Talking about myself was never one of my strong points. Telling stories? Now, that’s something my family knows me for. As well, a couple of recent life changes left me with plenty of stories to tell. But more on those later..

So here I am, mid-January, more nibbling on the bullet than biting it. But at least it’s in my mouth, right?

So who am I and why should I blog?

I'm just a Midwest girl, born and raised. I have a lot of childhood memories of swimming in lakes, playing in barns, and being proud that I could ride my bike with no hands. Kick the Can was a familiar game, as was Catch the Flag, and the sight of lightning bugs flashing across a field makes me feel at home. Eventually, those bikes turned into cars and John Mellencamp songs tell all too familiar stories. I spent many of my teenage years following the trends and trying to find out who I was. After high school I was off to college and picked Interior Design as my major as if I had known from day one that’s what I would study. And the truth is, part of me did. From day one I couldn't imagine doing anything else. Five years later I graduated and was off to work for a commercial design firm, where I stayed for about 4 years designing schools. And I can tell you that if you are not meant to be a commercial designer it won’t take you long to figure it out. I felt very stifled, creatively, and I moved on from there appreciative of all of the experience I had gained, but knowing it was for the best. I now work for a global company as a Color Consultant. Every day brings a new challenge. I love what I do.

Last Spring we began the hunt for a house, the kind that comes with a mortgage, not a landlord. In September we finally made it official, September 22^nd to be exact:  A cute little mid-century ranch, owned by one family and aching for a young family and a creative mind to whip it into the new century.

With a blank canvas for a back yard and a neighborhood we could take a stroll through after dinner. I love it. But I couldn’t take on my first renovation project without being able to document it. So as far as recent life changes go, thats the first. And I can’t wait I cant wait to narrate the adventures of a 50-year-old home renovoation.

 

As for my second life change? Well, that came on October 11^th, not long at all after I signed my life away and hurriedly transported all of our belongings from a 850 square foot apartment into our new home. And it came in the form of a beautiful baby girl, 7 pounds 5 ounces, 20-3/4” long, and a full head of dark brown hair just like her mommy.

The number of stories that come with that change are never ending, ever growing.. and who doesn’t like a new baby?

So there it is; my introduction to Harmony Road, my first blog post. I look forward to sharing my life and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Cheers to blogging and New Years Resolutions. : )