Sarah's porch

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This is where my friend is and this is where I wish I was...(or is it were?)


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YAY for fun weekends with old friends

We have a big weekend coming up. Friends of ours are coming through Cincinnati and we get to see them. (He played baseball with Ken Griffey Jr.) (Actually against him.) (In high school). We thought we'd try to grab dinner and go to a park with all of our kids but instead, they are coming here for dinner and staying with us. So we are trying to figure out where to put everyone, what to eat that is kid friendly and easy and all I really want to think about is after the kids go to bed, what the adults will get to talk about.

This guy is a friend of Sean's from UC. He is a guy who I think highly of and who I am so grateful for. Had it not been for this guy and a handful of others, I wonder where Sean would be. They were a group of guys that loved Sean and cared about him without an agenda. Even though I don't know some of these guys well, they are so important to me because they are such a huge part of who Sean is today. So thanks Scott, Steve, Drew, Dave, Ted, Rick, Tyler, Erik, Kolia and so many others.

Did I mention Scott and Emanda have 6 kids?

This little person is home and it makes me so, so happy.

Axl

I am impatient. I do NOT like to wait. (Although compared to my grandpa-in-law, Sean and one of Sean's college roommates, I probably do better than I think.)

Waiting is so hard. For kids, little is harder than waiting for your birthday, for next Christmas, for summer vacation. For adults, the great job, meeting their spouse, or for some, summer vacation.

But I am realizing today that waiting for only a couple days stinks. Whether it is waiting for my oldest son to come home from Grandmas, for Sean to get home from work or whatever else grabs my mind and won't let go. So I must practice waiting today. When each phone call jolts me and seems to give life to the moment I will wait. When every few minutes seem impossibly slow, I guess I'll wait. When each hour that ticks feels like last week,

I am waiting...

I love this day!!!

Happy July 4th!!!!!!

To some this will be annoying...

Our June in pictures

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It's hard to believe there is an ear infection and upper respiratory infection under this smile.

I'm off!

I am headed away for a few days with lots to think about and process from the last couple of weeks.

But what I was afraid might happen, has. I desperately want to go and need to go and honestly, they probably need me to go too but I am having a hard time going out the door. My four favorite people live right here and I am leaving.

And of course there are little things that have popped up that make me feel like I have to stay here. Coughs and sniffles and sore throats make me uneasy. Like these four won't remember how to breathe after I leave.

I am not sure what these few days will do for me or the people staying in this house. But I am a mixed bag of emotion coming off of a week that left me a wet rag of emotion. I do know this, I am counting on the One who can renew and refill to come and sit with me and be with me and hold me and work with me and do what He has to do in me so I can come home and do what He needs me to do here.

My happy place

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The girls staying with us love The Office therefore we have marathons every night. I love it. It makes me tired but I love it.

We are in the middle of lots of busyness at our house. It is fun stuff but busy nonetheless. And as I age, I realize I am way more in need of being in control than I ever realized...and I hate it. Our lives have shifted a little this week and become way less about me than normal and that I'd like to admit. I get sent when the smallest of things don't go the way that I had anticipated. I do very well with schedules and time frames and routines and when something goes awry, honestly, I hardly know how to handle it. As much as I hate this I know this is where I need to be taken lately. I know that my order is chaos according to the One who has scheduled it all.

But I get to do just about my favorite thing today. Along with 800 other people, I get to hear the best speaker in all of everywhere inspire, encourage and make people laugh. When SMM talks about what he will be talking about today, he becomes passionate. There is little that he cares about more than this and it is incredibly obvious. I love getting to see the passion and how he connects to the people he is talking with and passes along that passion. He is just amazing and I am just partial to him.

And as he ran out the door this morning I felt sick. Luckily he forgot a drink so he came back and I was relieved. Because in the craziness of the first 45 minutes of our day, I didn't even get to (should read didn't remember) to wish my husband Happy Birthday.

I love you Sean Michael Murphy

Happy Fathers Day to the best dad in the history of dads...

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See what I did there???

And to the second greatest...we love you. Thank you for loving us, taking care of us and being more than we ever would have dreamed.

How lucky am I?
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Not much to say lately, lots on my mind but not lots to say.

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I do know that I am loving the sun though.

Considering the 93' and sunny forecast, we have no choice...to the pool I say!

I had a date last night. My date took me to a preview screening of Evan Almighty where I bought the popcorn, diet coke and candy, I drove, and he hid his head during the snakes and spiders and asked for quarters to play the video games after the movie. OK he is 6 but as far as dates with 6 year olds, this was tops.

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Sean had passes to see Evan Almighty in Newport last night. He insisted that I get to go, which was so great. So Griffin and I headed down and had an awesome night. The movie is so so good. It was interesting and I wonder how it will be received when it opens but I just know we both loved it and seemed to be surrounded with other people who liked it as well.

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Here is the funny aside...note this sort of tells a little about the ending but not really so beware. First the ARK that Evan is building becomes the Act of Random Kindness so that's is kind of the theme. Second anyone who had a phone or camera had to check it at the desk. We were standing in the gigantic line to pick up our things with everyone else and there was a man. He was probably 60 and I know had to be a plant. I noticed him when we were about half way through the line and he was standing so close to me I could feel him breathing on my neck. I turned and faced him in a raised eyebrow, "Um, seriously?" way. He looked at me and moved out to the side and got in front of me in line! So the girl beside me said, "Hmmm, that's interesting." I watched him do this until he made his way to the front of the line! At one point someone said, "Oh, we're all in line here" to which he replied, "I know but I'm in a hurry."

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I figured this could only have been a plant from the Universal Studios. I think they wanted to see if anyone would kick him after seeing this feel good movie.

All for Jana

That Fergie is a real wordsmith

6-3-06

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Happy Birthday Little Belle

Sigh.

6-3-07

Soul Rx

I heard an interesting book title the other day. I have no idea what the book is about so this isn't a book endorsement but the title has stuck with me.

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The Cure for Anything is Saltwater

I have thought and thought about those words, and I love them. I love what they bring to mind. When I think of saltwater, I automatically think of the ocean and what it does in me.

There are few places that make me feel like the ocean makes me feel. There is no place that smells like the ocean, that feels like the ocean, that sounds like the ocean and nothing that looks like the ocean. There is nothing that feels like saltwater on my lips, like sand in my hands or the grains crunching in my mouth for that matter.

And the sun. The way that the morning feels before the sun comes up is so different than the way the gentle sun feels in the early morning which is different than the way the individual rays can be felt at noon which is different than the melting colors of dusk that need a sweatshirt to finish the day.

I can't pick what part of that day is my favorite, I just know that all of them put together are powerful. When I sit on the beach and look past the water into the sky, it forces me to acknowledge that there is Something that made that, Something that is so much bigger than me, Something that is stronger, more beautiful, more intense than just something.Me

So I am in complete agreement, saltwater is the cure for what ails me. -
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Something about the ocean

Makes me rise up and praise

Something about the heavens

Makes me stand in awe again

Something about the sunrise

Reminds me of Your faithfulness

Something about the ocean

And I'm lost in love again

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"Much" by Ten Shekel Shirt

Memories of last night

What do Sandy, Doody, Jan, Marti, Sonny, Frenchie, Danny and Rydell High have in common? ME! I got to see them all last night! I got to go with 2 of my best friends and my best aunt to dinner and a show and it was AWESOME. I shed my mommydom for a few hours, got dressed up and went out for a big girl dinner! The food was awesome, the show was great but the company was the best of all. So thank you Peggybelle, it was the perfect night.

WE ARE

We are back in OH. I have lived in lots of states and I love being a Buckeye. I love Ohio State. I love Wooster. I love Cleveland, the Indians, Cedar Point, I love Mt. Adams, I love the Ohio River, I love watching the horses and buggies in Wayne County, I love the state fair, I love Mohican State Park, I love the Goodyear blimp, I love Lake Erie, I love Carillon Park, I love Coccia house pizza, I love the Barn, I love Annie Oakley's home, I love the Riverfront, I love 71.

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But this past weekend in Pennsylvania made me realize there is another state that will keep part of my heart. It was a lot harder than I thought going back to PA, I miss it so much more than I realized. I love love loved our time there. The things that seemed so annoying when I was first a PA resident are the things that I miss. Number one, Pennsylvanians say P-A, not Pennsylvania, no other state that I know of refers to their state by their initials. Number two, the inflection when PA peeps ask a question, if you've heard it, you know what I mean. Instead of going up at the end, it goes up in the middle and down at the end. Annoying indeed but now endearing.

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I guess that's how it always goes. The further removed from something we are the greater it becomes, sort of like Godfather's pizza. But I miss PA. I miss my friends, I miss Wegmans, the Autoport, Steeler fans, I miss climbing Mt Nittany with Katy ;) , I miss my church of which we are technically still members, I miss 14 deer in our yard, oddly enough, I miss our old house and especially our neighborhood and listening to the football games from our porch. We got to walk through our old house since friends bought it, it was definitely a little weird. As Sean and I were driving through the Happy Valley, we realized part of what we miss so much. State College is beautiful. Aesthetically State College beats the crap out of southern Ohio.

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I know things aren't the same there. Stuff changes. Life continues on whether the Murphy's address is 124 Oakmont Rd with an amazing view of Beaver Stadium or not. That in itself stings a little...

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So here's to PA, the place that offered such hope, happiness and recovery for me. Sigh.

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"If God isn't a Penn State fan, why is the sky blue and white?"