Stripped down to Gratitude

I think it's funny how this post, and the moments attached to it just happened to be during the month of Thanksgiving. Usually for me, for whatever reason, I find myself struggling to be grateful at Thanksgiving. I think it has something to do with the fact that I've never understood why we continue to celebrate this holiday by making some poor woman slave in a kitchen to provide a meal that really is no different than the others and which will be devoured in 20 minutes.

All the eaters of this meal will proceed to forget all about it, except for everyone complaining all night about how full they feel and how much time it will take to work off the calories. Why do we do this? I still have no answer. I think our ancestors would laugh at our sillyness if they could give some input and say to us...how about doing something that reflects what YOU are grateful for, not what WE were grateful for.

So in that spirit, and after the day I've had, I'd like to offer up my own corn for the feast of gratitude. Where do I start....

Let's start with 3 years ago. Flashback to Brian standing up 8 hours after a major and life changing surgery that would forever alter his back, and walking, pain free for the first time in months. At the time, I was grateful for that surgery. Grateful to have my husband working, functioning, and on the road to "normal". Months and years later I would come to curse that surgery. It has been the bane of my existence for as long as it's been part of our lives because of the long reaching affects a $55,000 surgery has on folks.

Flash forward. I now live in my parents basement, which although nicer and larger than my entire house was, still my parents basement. There are so many reasons for this change but if we wanted to get down to the brass tacks of it, the back surgery would be the biggest tack. Yes, Brian is in a masters program. Yes, we are moving to Kansas in 8 months. Yes, we wanted a new "UT" experience in a different area, with new faces. But the driving factor in this move is the need to be out from under owing ANYONE ANYTHING. In 16 months we will be done paying off a back surgery and we will have paid for a masters program, and a 500 hour yoga certification in cash. Does knowing all the "good reasons" for this move make me feel positive about it? Not until today.

I don't know what changed my outlook, the everyday factors are all the same. My morning looked like this:

7:23am-Shoot the alarm didn't go off...."KIDS!!!"

8:01am-Ahh...they are out the door

8:52am-Hey there's a yoga class at Soda row at 9...I'll ride my bike

......Wait! This is where it started. I got into my yoga clothes, grabbed a bag of carrots and pecans and rode my bike to yoga in the crisp, beautiful fall day. Unless you've been part of my everyday life for the last 6 months, you don't have any idea what that means to me, so here comes the gratitude.

Until 1 month ago I spent every morning of the last 8 months of my life feeling nauseous, dizzy, vertigo, and in mass amounts of pain. With no answers from anyone as to why. A few speculations...gallbladder needs to come out, too much acid....blah blah blah. After a couple thousand dollars worth of tests, the answer was, let's try taking the gallbladder out. Easy for them to say, they don't have to pay for it or go through it! I decided to avoid surgery as long as possible. I began to starve myself because every bite of food I took was a pain I hope to someday forget. Around the time I was down to about 500 calories a day a remarkable woman named D'ana suggested I see her doctor. At this point I had lost a large part of my muscle, eliciting a look of horror from my trainer during body mass testing, accompanied by "what have you done to yourself?!" I was barely finding the energy to shower everyday, much less do anything else like resistance training. Enter my hero.

I'll shorten this up, since it's getting long, honestly it's mostly for me and posterity, but don't let that stop you ;). Dr. Remington had the answers and they didn't have anything to do with surgery. I eat only meat, veggies, whole grains, milk, and cottage cheese. And I am healed. I take Probiotics, and an antigen everyday three times a day, and hopefully in my lifetime I will never experience this again. The problem boiled down to a Candida overgrowth whose bi-products produced a toxin that fried the inside of my large intestine. This all was a big deal for someone who is supposed to be prepping her body for an intensive training program that she will have paid A LOT of money for in January. It's also a big deal for a mommy, who keeps having to tell her kids, not today, mommy hurts too bad.

Today I rode my bike to yoga. Read that again. Then I sweat, and pushed my self to the limits of my breath and posture and found my heels so close to touching the ground at the same time my head brushed my mat in a downward dog. I was overcome with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for this beautiful, strong, soon to be totally healthy body I have a second opportunity to take care of. I have re-built most of the muscle I lost, I have gained ground faster than I could have hoped for. I feel GOOD. I rode my bike to yoga.

I then ran errands, mostly grocery shopping. I went to the sunflower market where I find most of the foods I can eat. Every time I go there it's exciting as I find some new treasure. Last time it was dill dip and grain sweetened cocoa chips. Today it was chicken noodle soup. Not from a can, but the kind in those big vats they keep by the salad bar. I bought all they had. It was delicious. You see, I have been nursing a cold for a week now and the deepest desire of my heart was some chicken noodle soup, but finding a yeast free, sugar/sweetener free, whole grain soup is nigh impossible. When I read and re-read the ingredients I cried. Before you laugh, think about what you eat everyday, and tell me if you wouldn't cry too if you found something that tasted good that fit into this "lifestyle".

As I sat in my car crying, eating my soup and looking at the beautiful day and the trees I realized every little thing has brought me to where I am, and I wouldn't change where I am for anything. I became grateful for Brian's back surgery and all the struggle it's brought us. I am stronger for the struggle. Just to say that again, I am grateful for the struggle. All of it. The back surgery, the job losses, giving up our house, living in a basement, the moments I lay in bed wondering if I would ever eat without pain again and on and on....

I am grateful to be alive and to have my husband who brings me a bouquet of beets in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other. I am grateful for my little Jake who for no apparent reason in a very Jake-like way, wrapped his arms around my neck tonight and gave me the fiercest hug I've ever received and wouldn't let go. I could feel his little energy flowing out to say "I love you" in the sweetest way he knows how. I'm grateful for Tyler who always has an arm to put around my waist(or shoulder if he's having an extra tall day) and the way he makes sure I have all my pills and drops by my dinner plate every night and a glass of water to take them with. Because I know that is his most special way of showing me I'm front on his mind when he walks in from playing.

I'm grateful for my parents, who allowed us to clog up their empty nest with noise, dirt, tears, and basic chaos and the love they have shown us. I'm grateful for my in-laws and all they did to raise such a wonderful man, there are no words for how I feel about him.

Most importantly, I'm grateful for a God that loves us enough to make this beautiful world and who loves me enough to keep loving me through all my stupidity and ingratitude. I would like to promise I will never be ungrateful again, but let's not muss it up with a lie.

I will have my moments, but I wanted to write down this moment, so that the record shows, there was a Thanksgiving season that I was filled with gratitude for all I have been given.

Gough Family Pictures

A cute picture of the grandkids heading to the boat and the deer we saw everyday eating grandma's flowers.




With everyone together we took a bunch of pictures. Here's a few of the good ones....

More Reunion pictures

Water seemed to be the theme of this reunion! We spent a lot of time at the lake and playing with these really fun water guns grandpa got. That picture of Ty was during an all out assault on grandpa after he snuck up and stole the hose from Blake and proceeded to drench the boys!

Jake is an amazing wake-boarder. Those buff little shoulders sure come in handy when you're kneeling on a little board being pulled behind a boat going 25mph! He was so cute out there, he would just sing to himself as we went around the lake with the huge smile on his face.

The only downside of it all is that it was still Washington, which means you get cold pretty fast in that water, so about when his lips started to turn blue, we'd pull him out and wrap him up.

An impromptu decision on my part, the three of us hopped into the inter-tube for a spin around the lake, I was still in my clothes! Lucky for me Grandpa was nice and didn't tip us over!

The Gough Family Reunion 2010

Three weeks after our trip to Washington was the Gough family reunion. So we packed up our bags and headed northwest...again. We had a great trip up and a ton of fun while we were there! Everyone of Brian's siblings came which was really nice and we had visits from both Grandma Marge and Grandpa and Syble. We stayed in a tent trailer on their property, while others bunked up in the house, the garage, a 5th wheeler, tents and even cars. We boated, tubed, swam, played, ate...a lot... and just had a darn good time.

On the way there we stopped at Snoqualmie falls. The boys were less impressed with it than we thought they would be.

We had a good time getting out of the car and playing a little football, getting cocoa, and picking up a postcard for Jake's class, which was his homework. The last part of the drive went quicker than usual, probably because we had just made the same drive barely a few weeks ago.

The boys had a great time playing with their cousins. I spent most of the time in pain and sick from what I thought was my gallbladder (more on that later). Brian had a great time seeing everyone in his family. The weather was really great for all but two of the days so we were thrilled!

We went on the intertube, knee boarded, swam, played on the fun island, ate, played track ball, water fights, and a lot of hanging out. It was really fun. I'll post some more pictures in the next one.

And he's off and riding!

With the older kids riding their bikes to school, Jake was on a bit of a deadline to learn to ride a two wheeler. From the day school started, there was only 2 weeks until Claire got her cast off and then Jake would be expected to ride his bike with the big kids. So, we went to the old house and performed that age old rite of passage of learning to ride a bike.

Jake was amazing! After we got past the initial fear of falling, he was a champ about trying it himself. We didn't have to do any of the run along beside the bike for hours stuff, which is good since I don't think Brian's back could have handled that!

He picked it up quick and soon enough was racing Tyler around the cul-de-sac. Just look at that big smile!

Walking to school study

So my neighbor works for the land developer that build Daybreak and they wanted a photo shoot of kids walking to school, so a camera man followed us all to school one day and this is the cover photo of the article that was published in the Daybreak Paper and the website. I included the study they were trying to illustrate below. Tyler's arms are behind Eric's head.

August 11, 2010 – SALT LAKE CITY – Walking to school is as natural as gravity, right?

An individual’s decision to walk to school is actually quite complex. It is influenced—perhaps—by distance and an attractive walkable environment, but also by intertwined social, psychological and environmental perceptions that sometimes differ between parent and child.

Because walking has important health consequences, researchers at the University of Utah set out to learn how the interplay of factors can help reclaim the walk to school and promote a healthy physical and environmental lifestyle.

“In the last 50 years, the prevalence of youth obesity nationwide has tripled,” says Melissa Napier, the study’s lead author. “Coincidentally, the number of kids walking to school declined 68 percent from 1969 to 2001. We wanted to explore the confluence of psychology and design that keeps kids from engaging in an easy, social and healthy form of physical activity.”

What they learned from the study, to be published this fall in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, is that walkable design results in a vastly higher number of walks by students living in Daybreak which was designed to be walkable, than in a community with a peripherally-sited school, a street system of cul-de-sacs and larger lots.

In the planned community, 88 percent of students reported walking to school in a week, compared to 17 percent in a similar, less walkable neighborhood.

In addition, the study shows how other factors also influence the decision to walk or ride, which led researchers to conclude that understanding perceptions can be as important as designing walkable communities.

Researchers found that parents living in the less walkable community agreed that more barriers to walking existed than their own children did. These barriers included perceptions of unsafe traffic, street crossing danger and crime.

“Parents’ perceptions are key because it is they who decide how to get their kids to school,” says Napier. “Changing their perceptions—by mapping out walking routes, adding crosswalks and walking school buses for example—can go a long way in creating a supportive walking environment in any community.”

“Further, get children actively involved in making changes to their satisfaction. Children who perceive fewer barriers to walking—regardless of what their parents think—were more likely to walk to school in my study. Both children and parents have to agree that the environment supports walking in order to maximize the number of children who will walk to school,” Napier continues.

Researchers polled 193 fifth-graders in two schools in South Jordan, Utah. The study was designed to compare Daybreak, a neighborhood designed along “new urbanist” principles, with a standard suburban school. Daybreak’s design places the school in the heart of the community with well-connected streets, walking paths, sidewalks on both sides, small lots and multiple front porches, all of which have shown to support greater pedestrian activity.

“This is an early indicator of success of the design goals at Daybreak,” says Stephen James, manager of planning and community design for Daybreak’s developer, Kennecott Land. “Daybreak villages are scaled to the human pace and provide a diverse set of every day destinations such as parks, schools, churches, shops, offices and community centers interwoven with the homes. The routes must be safe and direct, conveniently connecting everything via paths, trails and sidewalks that are buffered from traffic and shaded from the hot summer sun. At Daybreak the car is not central to experiencing life. It is just one of the many ways to get around,” James concludes.

The students in the study were divided into three groups. Students in the “walkable community” group lived within Daybreak and within a mile of school. The “mixed community” group attended the same school, but lived in an area with larger lots and cul-de-sacs. Three-quarters of the students still lived within a mile of school. The third, “less walkable community” group attended a different school in a nearby area. That school is on a busy street with a single sidewalk. The area, a more typical suburb, has homes on larger lots, many circuitous cul-de-sacs, and fewer walkable features. Over two-thirds of students lived farther than a mile from school.

The study was conducted by Melissa Napier for her master’s degree in the Department of Family and Consumer Studies at the University of Utah with funding from a University of Utah Synergy seed grant for interdisciplinary urban systems research.

Digging our way out

So in an effort to get ready for all this moving we've got coming up in the future, which I probably should talk about a little more, I decided that it was time for a huge purge of all our worldly possesions. When I say all, think big scale. We kept a few pieces of furniture that we love, our clothes, toys, holiday decorations, books, and computer and that's all folks. I didn't want to store stuff and we didn't want to move it every year for three years.

Here's our plan:

Move in with mom and dad, sell our house, save money, and Brian start a Master's program in Coucneling

In August 2011 move to Ft. Leavenworth, KS to live with Jim's kids while he deploys to Afghanistan. Jim will be gone a year so we'll be there for about a year so the kids don't have to have their lives too shifted in the process. Our kids get an adventure out of it so everyone wins.

Around August 2012 move back to UT to continue the Masters program at which point I might start a Yoga therapy training course, we'll see how the 500 hour certification goes.

Back to the post...I cleaned out the garage and here's what 10 years of stuff looks like.