Family Archives - Page 11 of 42

Abre Los Ojos, Open Your Eyes

November 8, 2012/3 Comments/in Family, Finding My Path, Happiness /by Megan

Life is a funny thing. One day you’re here and you’re laughing with your kids and the next day you’re not. (Bear with me, ya’ll, this post is basically just a long, rambling, run on sentence.)

Yesterday was Trent’s grandfather’s funeral, a celebration of a man I’ve known for over ten years, but really didn’t know at all. By the time I met Grandpa Ron, he was already in the early stages of what would become severe Alzheimer’s, and he usually thought I was his old secretary (also named Megan). He was a bit silly, but always fairly happy and ready to give me hugs. He danced with me at my wedding, smiling broadly the whole time. I found out yesterday that my wedding was one of the last times he’d danced. After that his body and mind slowly slipped away. Lucy was looking at old photos yesterday and saw one of Ron with his grandkids, laughing and smiling. “Is that when Grandpa Ron could hear and talk?” she asked. She never really knew him either. All her memories of him will be in a bed or a wheelchair, a faraway look in his eyes, if they were opened at all.

Ron and Edna with their grandkids…Trent is the surly looking one on the far right.

But yesterday I learned so much about the man he was before. How he snuck off to join the Navy at 16 so he could fight in WWII. How he created a beautiful blended family with ten kids that he loved so much. How he loved Las Vegas (and showgirls in particular). How he and his wife traveled all over and particularly loved going by boat. It was a beautiful, wonderful, sad day.

I looked around as the procession led into the church. The whole family was to walk in together. And wow, was it a procession. The family alone took up half of the church. Ron had built a big, beautiful family. Not always perfect and certainly not without disagreements, but full of love.

This year has been a strange one for me. Sometimes happy and full of hope, and sometimes really dark and depressing. I have drug myself from pretty sad places, and changed my life in ways I didn’t imagine I would last January. I never thought this would be a year of great change…but regardless, it has been. I look back at journal entries from a year ago and don’t recognize that person, she who was so angry, so full of self-doubt. The changes have been so great and purposeful, I feel renewed. I look around at Grandpa Ron’s big beautiful family and I think, “I will have that.” I will have a life full of love and joy and family.

I already have that.

The difference is, I see it now. I have removed the glasses of shame and guilt, and for now, in this moment, I see what I have. I am thankful for it, I know I am lucky.

Ironically, yesterday was also the last day of my Cultivating Courage class. This class couldn’t have come during a more perfect time. I needed a push to be brave, to stand up for myself and to remove the people and things in my life that had been causing me to see things through a veil of shame and sadness. I was probably already halfway there, but this class gave me some gentle nudges to complete my journey. One brave move, every day, for 30 days? Done. I highly recommend it.

I want to keep being brave. I want to walk into this next year, and the years to follow, with courage. The courage to be a person that makes the world a better place, through family, service and love. I want to be a person who encourages joy in the world, and helps it to spread.

I want to create a life, so that one day, when my family is celebrating who I was, they will know the world was better because I was in it. I want them to tell stories and laugh loudly. I want them to feel like I did yesterday. Peaceful, happy, grateful and loved.

The color guard, waiting before the burial. They honored Grandpa so beautifully. Just wonderful.

Weekend Roundup

November 2, 2012/2 Comments/in Family, Grumples, web /by Megan

Hello Friday, you have been missed. To be honest, this week hasn’t been very fun at our house. We started out the week with a day of tailgating and friends, but then our beloved (yet horrible) Kansas City Chiefs got killed (again) by the Raiders. Blech. Monday and Tuesday Tate wasn’t feeling so well, and Thursday I woke up without a voice. Today I sound like a 13-year-old boy going through puberty, which isn’t super attractive. Of course there was the devastating hurricane on the east coast, and we are still learning about those who have lost their lives or homes. We are so fortunate that all of our friends and family have been accounted for and most have power back, but we know there are many still struggling. If you’d like to donate to relief efforts, please click here for resources.

In addition, this week has been extra hard for our family because our wonderful Grandpa Ron passed away after a long illness. He hung on for most of the week, but last night he finally passed on, and while we are glad he is no longer in pain, it’s still quite sad. He was a wonderful grandfather to my husband and father to my mother-in-law and we will miss him very much. Rest in peace, Grandpa Ron. We love you.

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Here are some links from around the web that have me smiling today. I hope they make you smile too.

I love this post by Joslyn over at Simple Lovely about how and why she gave up on one of her goals. I think we sometimes get so stuck in a state of “this is a goal and I HAVE to accomplish it” so it’s pretty brave to admit when it doesn’t work out.

I am thinking of buying a few of these Emily McDowell prints and hanging them around my work space. I especially love the one with the Joan of Arc quote, “I am not afraid. I was born to do this.” You rock on, Joan of Arc!

If you could give a younger you some advice, what would you say? My letter to a 20-year-old me (plus horrible accompanying image of me in my early twenties, ahhhh!) is over at the Zesty Digest.

I’ve mentioned before how one of the things that keeps Trent so in love with me is the egg sandwiches I make him for breakfast. These eggy bread bowls might be a way to switch it up a little.

All of Elise Joy’s posts on business are great, but I especially love this one about the changes she made this year to make herself more profitable and streamlined.

27 reasons why kids are actually the worst. This made me laugh.

Where does the internet live? Check out this post with photos of the interior of Google’s data center, it’s pretty incredible.

That’s it, I need an orange door.

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No Instagram photos today, since most of the photos from this week were taken on Halloween and have already been posted (here). I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and hold your loved ones tight. See you on Monday!

City Mouse in the Country

October 17, 2012/1 Comment/in Family, Happiness, Photos /by Megan

I’d be the first one to tell you I know diddly squat about agriculture. I’m from Kansas, I should know better, but I have never lived in a rural area or had to make my living off of the land like so many in my state do. I learned so much from my long weekend in western Kansas, things like how the drought affected crops, how science is changing how we grow things and how a dead corn stalk can slice open your hand when you’re pretending it’s a sword (thank Lucy for that one…ouch!). I’m still no expert on any of these things, but it was endlessly fascinating to hear how a real, working farm affects our lives without us even realizing it. I was so impressed by everyone I met and talked to, and as the daughter of a scientist, I was intrigued to hear how farmers are using science and technology every day…maybe even more than I use in my daily life in the city. Crazy.

Thanks to the Coberly Farm for hosting us! You can like them over on Facebook, where they post videos of harvest and other happenings. Here are a few more images from our trip. You can view more here or here, or check out the entire set on Flickr.

Gove

October 15, 2012/1 Comment/in Family, Fun, Photos /by Megan

I spent the last four days in Gove, Kansas at my sister-in-law’s amazing family farm (you might remember when she got married earlier this year). The place was amazing and we had the most lovely time. I was in dire need of a family lovefest, and that’s indeed what I got! We just got back last night after a long car ride home, so instead of a real post today, I decided to put up some images of our trip. I have about a million more, so this may be a multi-part series this week. Lucky you!

Curiosity

August 14, 2012/1 Comment/in Family, Space Camp, web /by Megan

I grew up fascinated with space travel. Like lots of little kids, I dreamed of heading up in a rocket to outer space and discovering new worlds, but unlike lots of kids, I actually saw this as a real life actuality, not just a dream. My dad (in the photo above looking totally boss) worked with NASA from the late 1980s until 1998. I saw every shuttle in the NASA fleet launch (excepting Challenger, which was destroyed before my dad’s projects began) along with several rockets. I’ve explained over and over again on this site what NASA and the importance of space exploration mean to me, but with the successful landing of Mars Curiosity last week (see here for more info), my love has been reignited.

Unfortunately, as always, the launch of this magnificent project has led many to question NASA and it’s funding. My personal Facebook page was filled with people debating the cost of a project like Curiosity and whether or not it would benefit our country. It’s funny, because I see crappy political arguments on Facebook all the time, and even if they rile me up, I never respond. It’s just not worth the anguish and you never end up getting anywhere positive. But this time, hoo boy, my blood was boiling. I wrote and rewrote responses, which I kept deleting because I knew, unfortunately, rarely can people with uninformed opinions be swayed. So instead I posted this video, with words by the genius astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, which summed it up better than I ever could:

Some of my favorite quotes from this incredible compilation:

“NASA got founded on the fear factor of Sputnik…we got to the moon on that fear factor. Space enthusiasts say ‘Oh, we went to the moon in ’69, we’ll be on Mars in another 10 years.’ They completely did not understand why we got to the moon in the first place. We were at war! Once we saw that Russia was not ready to go to the moon, we stopped going to the moon.”

“All of this was focused on enabling people to make tomorrow come. That was a cultural mindset…and we reaped the benefits of economic growth, because you had people who wanted to become scientists and engineers, people who enable tomorrow to exist today.”

“Do you realize that the $850 billion bank bailout, that sum of money, is more than the entire 50 year running budget of NASA?”

“I worry that congress doesn’t factor in the consequences of those decisions on tomorrow. They’re playing for the quarterly report, they’re playing for the next election cycle and that is mortgaging the actual future of this nation.”

“A half a penny, that buys the space station, the space shuttles, the NASA centers, the rovers, the astronauts…all of that. How much would you pay for the universe?”

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Want to learn more about science and the space program, but don’t have time to do the research? Follow these people (and Mars rovers) on Twitter! Just another reason to love the Internet.

Neil deGrasse Tyson – Astrophysicist, American Museum of Natural History. Author: Space Chronicle, The Pluto Files,. Host: StarTalk Radio

Mike Massimino – NASA astronaut

Curiosity Rover – The Mars rover that landed last week has it’s own Twitter account, and it’s fantastic!

Space Camp USA – The official Twitter for the U.S. Space & Rocket Center is home to Space Camp, Aviation Challenge and NASA’s Official Visitor Information Center for Marshall Space Flight Center

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages many of NASA’s robotic missions exploring Earth, the solar system and our universe.

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