Can You See It?

Do you ever wish you could see through someone else's eyes? I wish I could pretty much every second of every day. I am always wondering what the people around me are seeing. It seems that most of the time the way I act is driven by the excitement of what I see and how desperately I want to share it with pretty much everyone. I have realized this is why it is so hard for me to do things alone. I do not want to have all the joy of something amazing to myself I need to share it. The funny thing is usually when I end up getting to share my amazing hike, shop, book, music, etc not many people see it the same way I do anyway :) But enough of the touchy feely view sharing stuff ... just sit back,close your eyes, and let me see if I can paint a good picture of my weekend for you. ( Yeah, I know if you close your eyes you can't read this so it's okay if you do not obey ...just this once :)

 Last Friday I left my house at 4pm. I dropped off my 16 year old at a friends house so he could go camping  and then I headed off to pick up three of my friends who were going with me to Vermont. As I gathered my friends up from their houses each of their amazing and different personalities made me smile. How they say goodbye to their kids. The way they pack. Where they like to sit in the car. All that information that endears.

 It was a beautiful day....I am searching for the very best blue describing words to describe the sky.... and then I need describing words for the endless shades of green that were everywhere your eye could see. The only bad part of amazingness like this is it makes you think of people you long to share it with...bless their hearts.  But I won't go into that :) I love to be on the road..ahem...going 80 mph as the sun is setting. The way the light is at that time of day speaks to me. Geesh, do other people wax poetic when they are taking a silly road trip on a beautiful day? Seriously. Anyhow, when you drive on Route 91 North from my house towards Vermont there are pretty much only trees and mountains. A few cities....maybe 4 of them...on the entire 4 hour drive to the tippy top of Vermont. The freeway goes up mountains and down mountains, and up mountains and down mountains, over, and over, and over, again :) I totally get now why Vermont is called the Green Mountain State...it truly is SOLID green and mountain...in no particular order :) Whoever came up with that did not win a medal for their observation skills :)

So pull out your maps and find route 91 slicing through skinny Vermont and part way up the state you will see Route 89 meeting Route 91 ever so nicely. We stopped in this area for the night. We actually ate dinner in New Hampshire...these states are SO, SO skinny that a girl can do that :) We did all the things a proper girl slumber party at a hotel far far away form real life consists of....laughing, eating, talking about boys, throwing up, comparing pajamas oh, and more laughing. Hanging in the back of all of our minds was our 6.2 mile run that was the next day so we went to bed about 11.

I woke up first. I always do. It was about 5:00am. Every time I wake up in a hotel room I have an overwhelming desire to immediately throw open the curtains. Those hotel curtains are so heavy and dark and I want to see the day. But I refrained from doing this since I want my friends to like me :) I felt anxious since I had not driven to Derby, Vermont before and was not sure how long it would take us. The race started at 9:10 am and registration was open from 6:30am to 8:30am. So my need to get going was very strong. But I tried to be mellow about it since no one else seemed too bothered :)

We got on the road at about 6:20 am in the morning (yes, I know AM and morning mean the same thing :) which happens to be another of my most favorite times to be on 91 North in Vermont going 80-85 mph. It was another gorgeous day and morning light from MR.Sun is almost as awesome as evening light in my book.

We got to the race location at about 8:10am. We got all registered and asked questions and people watched. It is so fun to watch a group of runners and see right away which ones care about winning and which ones don't :)

I felt a little nervous because I have run 5 miles before but never 6.2. Which is totally my bad. I should have been a little better prepared for this race. But this race was symbolic in many ways and the only goal I had was to run the whole way...not fast just steady. I had my headphones.I had my music. I had my determination. I had my new running clothes. I had my old running shoes. I was as ready as I could be. I felt really good as the race began and I settled into a slow but steady pace. There were two pretty good hills in the beginning. But they did not cause me too much trouble. We ran around a shimmering lake, beautiful homes, fields with dandelions in them, through woods, next to a babbling brook, on dirt roads, on sidewalks, through a small town, and past a stately cemetery. I stayed pretty close to my friend Gail. We didn't talk but it was nice to know there was someone who would know if you stopped running :) I felt pretty good the whole race. The sun felt hot. I confess I would probably adore a 6.2 mile run in Alaska. I am a cold weather girl.

When I was close to that finish line it felt so empowering to know I had almost made it. I have been informally asking people the last few months what made them embrace running and it has been fascinating to me all the different stories I have heard of what made people turn to running. How it helped them overcome numerous things. I thought a lot during my run of what had lead me to this point where I was running 6.2 miles in a blue adidas shirt alongside a dear friend who literally saved me this past year. The experiences I had in evil 2011 made me determined to set some goals and figure out who I am. Thankfully, this run helped me to determine that I do like running...or maybe it is just crossing the finish line that I like? :) I am going to try a few more races and see if running races truly is a Jennifer thing. I already know that Jennifer races have to  have a view and a clever name :) Not just any old race through any old town or city. I need my races to be unique....me and my high expectations :)

After the race we were served lunch by the people who organized the race. So we sat on the banks of a beautiful lake next to the finish line and ate. Then we decided we needed to see the course for the half marathon (13 miles) so we got in the car and drove it. And I must tell you it was impressively hilly. It had many more dandelion fields than our 10K did. Some breathtaking views. And I am mulling over the idea of attempting it next year. Yes, I said next year and I said mulling. The Dandelion Run is most definitely a tradition.

I would love to post pictures but a teenager in my home crashed my laptop so I am blogging from a computer that does not have my pictures on it. I will post them when I can. But you must trust me it was a beautiful day in Vermont. We meandered our way back to Massachusetts. We checked out the Canadian border which was a paltry five miles away from our run. We stopped at the Joseph Smith Birthplace in Sharon Vermont. And drove into Massachusetts at about 6:15 in the evening. I was feeling so grateful for dear friends who love you no matter what. Who are willing to admit that they are searching for the meaning of life too :) Who are not ashamed to throw up in front of you. Who will enthusiastically sign up to go with you for a 6.2 mile run that happens to be a four hour drive away in Vermont. It meant the world to me.

Logistics Queen!!

I am the logistics queen young and sweet only 43....sing with me :) Ever since I was about this big I have been a detail girl, add in the fact that I love to ask questions and then mix it with my stomach that gets upset if I am late to something and voila you have a pain in the neck for a friend.

What are logistics anyway? The dictionary says logistics means the planning, implementation and coordination of details. I confess those three words just may be my middle name. Yes, it is true....the minute I was born my parents declared that I was Jennifer Ann Planning Implementation Coordination Ord. I think in sixth grade when I attempted to take over the planning, implementation and coordination of the sixth grade talent show they shortened all that to busybody :) I think when I was a senior in high school and a class officer for my class at Snohomish High School they probably had some adorable describing words for me too. I have tortured many a friend with my planning, implementation, and coordinating personality. I have never, ever, ever, ever felt loved and appreciated for it. I have always imagined it drove people crazy. But then a miracle happened ........

I got asked to help with the logistics...remember that means planning, implementation and coordination :) for our stakes pioneer trek for our youth ages 12-18 this coming July. And I think something is wrong with me because I am adoring every single minute of figuring out this enormous puzzle. To transport 120 people on trails with handcarts in pioneer clothes for three days requires a lot of details. I keep asking the leaders of this enormous activity if I am driving them crazy with all my information gathering and strangely the answer so far has been a resounding no. What? My personality quirks are useful and maybe even appreciated? CRAZY TALK :) I will not let it go to my head. But I am grateful that I am able to actually be helpful with these abilities  I have that usually drive people stark raving mad.

I have a special trek folder on my computer and as of tonight it has 150 e-mails in it. Every morning I wake up and spend two hours e-mailing and phone calling about porta potties, locations, buses, water tanks and oh so much more. I feel useful. I feel helpful. I feel content. They worry they have given me too much but I strangely do not feel that at all.

So logistics I can definitely do. But never ever put me in charge of emotions....that would be an epic fail :)

Eighteen !!!

Now as much as I know you would enjoy it I am not planning on blogging about my life when I was eighteen today...no, I am not even blogging about my eighteen most embarrassing moments....no eighteen favorite food lists either...my blog is titled eighteen because it is eighteen days until I get in my car with 4 friends and drive to Derby,Vermont.

Why am I driving to Derby Vermont? Two words...Dandelion Run. I wonder why all of us when we need to prove something, conquer something, if life kicks us down, or we just plain need to feel awesome about ourselves we decide to run? I am so curious about this. I am also so part of this phenomenon. My first inclination when the life kicking me down thing came was to run a Ragnar Relay. I wanted to do this with all my might. But gathering a team of 12 people who want to part with a $100.00 entry fee plus another $100.00 in incidentals. Plus running for around 48 hours. Plus having no sleep was way harder than I ever imagined it would be. Plus, I was running Ragnar for the wrong reasons so I decided it was not Ragnar time for Jennifer. Oh, it will be Ragnar time one day...don't you worry your pretty little head. For the first time in Jennifer's life Jennifer was realistic and it was truly an amazing sight to behold :)

When I realized Ragnar was not working for me I started googling "beautiful half marathons in New England." It took awhile to find a run that was not on Sunday. But finally I found this run in Derby, Vermont called the Dandelion Run and, seriously, they had me at the word dandelion. So for $25.00 I am running 6.2 miles on May 19th with at least 4 friends. I know it is not a half marathon but I am so excited about my first 10K ever. It is my first race that is more than a 100 yd dash. It is in a little town that is about two miles from the Canadian Border. "It is run on back roads through farms and forests on dirt roads through uncut fields blanketed with thousands and thousands of dandelions" yes, I quoted :) This area where the run is is apparently one of the first areas ever to be designated by National Geographic as one of the first geotourism areas in the world.....I am all about geotourism....hmmmm what does that even mean? This is not even the best part...there is more....the race is run in conjunction with the Dandelion Festival of Bluegrass Old Country and Fiddle Music...which means there will be pickers and fiddlers all along the race playing music while I am huffing and puffing up the very hilly course :)

I feel a tradition coming on. I already know I have to do this every year. My husband got me and my peeps a hotel room in the closest city to the run possible....which puts us still about an hour away from the race :) We are going to drive up Friday night and run Saturday morning.

I am a little worried and a little afraid but I am also determined. I hope I am ready. I have been running 3 times a week. And this week I have been running 3 miles one day and biking 6 miles the next day...alternating :) I have no idea what to expect from this run. All I know is when I go to www.dandelionrun.org...(yeah, no dot com for the dandelion run people strictly dot org people here :) and look at all the pictures from last years race I feel so happy......looky, here is the link so you can feel happy too and better yet so you can join me next year.

http://www.dandelionrun.org/

I expect that my life will still have trials and struggles when I am done with this race. I expect that I will still wonder why there are so many things I do not understand. I expect that I will still secretly wonder if anyone really likes me. I expect my teenagers will still be unkind to me. I expect bunnies will still try to eat my plants in my yard. I expect that I will still wake up in the middle of the night worrying about things I cannot change. But I feel like I will have made a teeny tiny step in learning about Jennifer...and that is really what it is all about right? ME :)

 I can not wait to show you pictures of my race...I can not wait to have one of those little rectangles with my race number pinned on me....I can not wait to get my t-shirt....oh and my medal :) And most importantly see fields of dandelions while I am running....you should totally come with me :)

This Time Of Year

It is that time again....

Wrestle with the lawn time
Order loads of pine mulch time.
Order loads of topsoil time
Stand and stare at the garden willing the seeds to come up time.
Fight the weeds time.
Feel the thrill when things reappear after winter time.
Sheepishly try to cover up your dirty fingernails in public time.
Say bad words about rabbits time
Lug the enormous heavy hoses around the yard time

I love yard work/ garden time with all my might. I find myself coming home from something and getting out of the car and not heading into the house but heading into the yard where I will sheepishly realize after about twenty minutes that yes, I am weeding the yard in my dress.

Let me update you on what is happening. You know you want to hear all about it :)

 On the garden front my potatoes, peas, lettuce, onions and radishes are all up and growing. It makes me supremely happy to open the new gate to my garden and close the new gate to my garden and not find one single nibbled on veggie behind that fence. Take that bunnies!

 I have decided that this year I will carefully do everything the seed package says to do. So I measured everything when I planted and I thinned everything as it came up. I HATE thinning. It just seems wrong to pick a teeny tiny lettuce when it has not yet met his potential. But I think I finally understand that it has to be done. My lettuce has not done so well the last few years and I am determined to figure that out which is why I decided to follow the instructions perfectly....just so I can say I have :)

Every year I find myself worrying about my potatoes wondering if they will come up. They seem to take forever. This year I confess that I dug down to see if they were still there and if they were doing anything. I profusely apologized to the poor potato when I found he was doing the growing thing just fine just slower than I had expected. I have about 50 potato plants. And my experiment this year is fingerling potatoes which I am very excited about.

The next update is on the berries. I worry deeply about the raspberries. I should probably join a raspberry support group. I am not sure if I get the whole pruning thing and I worry every year that I have ruined them by cutting them back at the wrong time or too much. Thankfully so far, they seem to not need a perfect life to be happy. I should learn from my raspberries.

The blueberries have yet to produce many berries for me in the four years I have owned them. I have 5 blueberry bushes. I read a lot about blueberry bushes this winter and what they need to be happy and I provided all I could for them and I am very hopeful because this year they all look tall and happy.

I had the most amazing strawberry patch last year. I had plenty of berries to freeze but everything had gone crazy and I could not abide the fact that I did not have nice neat rows of strawberries. It was so hard to get into the middle of my patch of berries to weed and pick the berries..... So I dug up every single strawberry plant last year with plans to replant them in rows. But I had a most difficult Fall and the strawberry plants never got replanted. I should probably go to jail for that. This year I added topsoil and compost and replanted 25 strawberry plants in nice neat rows and I am determined that it will stay nice and neat.

The lawn is my nemesis. Every year I learn something new about it....okay, and something new about myself. This year I am facing the evil Dr. Crabgrass. I think I have successfully killed it because now I have huge brown dirt spots in my lawn. I have planted grass seed and I am faithfully watering it but it has not come up yet so I am fretting a bit. I have even resorted to crawling around on my hands and knees and pulling weeds out of the lawn. If things do not improve this year I may have to humble myself and sign up for a lawn service. I do not think I can take this ugly lawn thing much longer.

In the beds in the front of my house the builders of the house threw some shrubs to make the house look surfacely perfect so it would sell. They definitely did not overthink the shrubs they chose :) They are shrubs that will grow very big and take over the front of the house and I decided to dig them up last year in the Fall. I spent all winter staring at these beds dreaming of what I would put there. Of course my dreams involve the most difficult of all shrubs...hydrangeas. I love them too much to not try. So I have two hydrangeas....two purple sand cherry tree/shrubs....several salvia..and some shasta daisies.

It is funny how every year I learn a little more. Every year there is a new battle. Every year there are parallels galore between the garden/yard and my life. Yes, I will tell you if you are the evil crabgrass in my life :)

Guess Who Is Coming?

I am so excited!! I am having company this week. I do not get company much. I am not really sure why. I try not to over think that question. I thought that living close to Boston, New York City, Norman Rockwell's birthplace, countless Revolutionary War sites, Walden Pond, mountains, beaches and famous sports teams would help with the company thing. But not so much. What makes you want to visit someone? What makes you feel like you would do whatever it takes to visit someone? What makes it so that regardless of the sleeping arrangements, the condition of the towels in the bathroom, or the cold cereal for breakfast you still want to see someone? I am not really sure but all I know is......

My sister Rebecca is coming!! And how do I treat her now that she is coming? I most likely embarrass her with a blog about her. Yeah, and I wonder why no one comes to see me :)

 I was almost three years old when number one of my five siblings arrived. It truly rocked my world. I was the superstar...number 1....the oldest....the only one... numero uno.... and then rudely there were two of us... someone else trying to get on the stage of life with me. I was deeply bothered. And I don't think I was ever nice to this sister of mine.

 I tried to burn her with a curling iron when we were teenagers.

 When we were little our parents would have all of us sing together in church and the way she would add vibrato to her voice would drive me freaking crazy. I was sure she did it to annoy me.

 When I declared my favorite animal was a horse so did Rebecca so I had to change my favorite animal to a bear all because of her :) Yes, this was as traumatic as it sounds :)

 She loved animals and raised pigs for 4-H and made tons of money selling her piglets.

 I stayed in the house and played the piano, read books and sang along at the top of my lungs to Barbara Streisand albums.

 I once tried to kick my shoe at her and she ducked and it went out the window and broke the window.

 She always had utmost control and I was always trying to make her show some anger.....she never did.

 She ran track and won. I ran track and gave up.

She always borrowed my clothes without asking.

 

 Is the picture of sibling love emerging? :)

Aren't you relieved that my jealousy and frustration at how perfect she is has finally given way to simply loving and admiring the pants off her ? :) If I could get just a quarter of  Rebecca's determination I could conquer the world.

Last summer Rebecca was living in Bangkok with her family... she came back to the states for the summer and while she was back in the states she ran the Seattle Marathon... after she ran it she learned that she had qualified for the Boston Marathon. YAY! Then in the Fall of last year after Rebecca was back in Bangkok living her little old life there she found out she had annoying, evil breast cancer. Her family ended up coming back to the states so she could deal with the cancer thing.

Through all of the yuckiness that comes with dealing with cancer my sister Rebecca has continued to be determined to run the Boston Marathon. I have watched with amazingness as she has been training all through her chemotherapy and now through her radiation treatments. Every time I get ready to go run my measly 3 or 4 miles or face my seemingly devastating trials and I lift my head from the pavement to moan to myself "I can not do this" I immediately think of my darling determined sister. I feel so blessed to have her great example in my life. I have always felt like she could have done the older sister/good example thing so much better than I have :) I wonder what I conned her out of when we were in heaven so I could be the oldest here on earth? :) I really can not put all the right words together to effectively express how incredible she is.

 I know that only she knows how she has struggled through this and that knowledge makes it so none of us ever feels comfortable accepting compliments on how we are handling hard times in our lives. But I think Aunt Rebecca should accept all the compliments she gets on the way she has dealt with her breast cancer and running the Boston Marathon. If you are that curious about her awesomeness you can look over on the side of my blog and click on the blog entitled Seven Farmers and then you can read for yourself how great my sister is.

Awesome Rebecca with Mom and Dad.

But enough of the mushy stuff ..... trust me, Ord's do not do the mushy, touchy feely, lovey thing......ever! Well, lets say...rarely  :)

 The Boston Marathon is April the 16th... yes, in eight days, and Aunt Rebecca, Uncle David, and a couple of their kids will be dropping by on their way to Boston. I am so excited to see them. I am so eternally proud of my sister. And I promise I will not try to kick my shoe at her while she is visiting...as long as she does not borrow any of my clothes :)

Potential

Do you know what you are capable of becoming or being? Do you have a latent excellence or ability that may or may not be developed?

 I have been dwelling a lot on the word potential in the last few days. It all started with someone posting a video on Facebook from the website mormon.org. I rarely click on links on Facebook...I am not sure why I rarely do that...I guess its because of the time it takes and the resolve I have to be able to declare that I only scroll quickly through my Facebook news feed but at this particular moment it was late at night and it was "me" time and it intrigued me and it was posted by my dear friend Laurie Stoker so I clicked on it. It was a video from mormon.org about a woman who lives in New York City, it was her talking about her life, her struggles, her joys and it ended with her declarations of who she was including that she was a Mormon. I was hooked. I have no idea how many of these profiles there are on mormon.org. but I could not stop watching them. I think I watched fifty of them.....she admitted sheepishly to her blog readers :) I am a Mormon but I fear that that may be about all I have in common with these people. Video after video... accomplished person after accomplished person... Mormon after Mormon....these people all realized their potential and reveled in it and it exuded from them in every way. I confess I started feeling inadequate at about video number 37. I found myself wondering what would my mormon.org video say about me?

 I am 43 and about five minutes ago I looked up the word potential in the dictionary for the first time in my life. I am 43 and I think when I was ten I thought when I was 43 I would be a famous singer :) I am 43 and I do not know what I want to be when I grow up. I am 43 and I have a latent excellence or ability that has definitely not been developed because...gasp...I do not even know what it is :) I do love to dabble in things....gardening...hiking...traveling...blogging...piano playing....thrift store shopping...connecting...being hard on myself...reading...running...staring at nature...singing along with the radio...driving to fast...riding roller coasters....but there is yet to be a sign of excellence in any of these areas :) My life is filled with incredible longing as I observe the world around me. I feel inspired by everything I see and yet here I am doing nothing? I want to make difference with all my might. These people in these videos all found out how to make a difference they all seem to never have been afraid of anything that would stand in the way of their becoming...they all have determination...they all know who they are....they know what they are capable of becoming or being. I wonder how you get that? They know what is important to them. They know what they can and can not do. Some of them are famous like the lead singer to The Killers or former newscasters like Jane Clayson others are pretty basic normal people. 

Do you want to know what the antonyms of potential are? Helpless, impossible, lacking and unpromising....yeah brutal huh? I have got figure out what I am capable of becoming or being because those antonyms are not going to sound so good at my funeral...are they? :) How embarrassing....well at least I won't be there to hear them :) Sigh...hang in there guys this reading my blog thing will be much more fun when Mr. Realization appears and slaps me out of the silly who am I phase :)

Adding And Subtracting.

What do you know about Math? I will bet you a thousand, million, kazillion dollars that you know more than me. My earliest memories of math involve me, my dad, the kitchen table, some exasperation and definitely tears. I promise, I truly did want to understand math with all of my might. But my brain could not wrap itself around it. How do people just look at numbers and just know things? How is it that I can remember someones birthday and phone numbers forever and ever but I can not remember the rules of divisibility? Honestly, I did not even know there were rules for divisibility until about three weeks ago. And now that I know they exist I think I have to name drop them all the time so bear with me. Why do I happen to know about them now? Because Jennifer is trying to do hard things. And Math easily falls into the hard things category. I am 43 and I have discovered that now is a good time to do something with my life.....no, having seven kids and doing laundry every single day for the last 23 years did not count as doing something with my life :) Becoming what I want to be when I grow up that just may count as doing something with my life. I won't really know for sure until I actually do it :) So... ever so slowly, I signed up for a math class with BYU Independent study. It is a free math class that I am pretty sure monkeys could do but I need to do it. I need confidence. I need to finish. I need to say hi-ya to my little old life as I strike an awesome karate chop pose....before I do Math :)

 I was so happy when I spent an hour the other morning carefully reading every word of my first math lesson, in 24 years, on the rules of divisibility. After reading I went on the web to find a website with practice problems and I practiced and practiced and then ever so carefully I went back to the independent study website and took my first quiz and only missed one!! I felt so powerful :) All those years of sitting in math class chatting with my friends and longing to understand what was going on. All those tests I thought I did well on and alas...not so much doing well :) All those times I could not for the life of me figure out how much fabric I needed for a project. All those times I could not figure out how much older or younger a guy was than me :) JK  All those times I have to agonize over how much my tip is going to be :)

 So that first part of my class was easy but the second part is proving to be harder....prime and composite numbers...yeah, I am struggling with these guys. I have read the information over and over and I went online to read even more about these two trouble makers, Mr.Prime and Mrs.Composite. I must ask the question does it truly matter if I know if a number is prime or composite? Those of us that struggle with Math love to ask questions like these it makes us feel better :)