Let's Open The Doors

I learned something big (not quite new because it has be with me for many, many years) about myself recently. In a round about way I learned it from Sanguine. You know, when she was born Paul and I were so happy that she was here. In some deep, in the soul, kind of way we felt that we had been waiting, preparing for her.

For me, in my own progressive, faithful, peaceful and righteous way I thought Sanguine was to help me deepen these characteristics to a more meaningful understanding and then to help me overflow with them to the people around me. Boy-oh-boy, that notion was big of me. I am surprised that I didn't break my arm as I was trying to pat myself on the back. No! What I learned about me was ugly, quietly hidden, but none the less ugly.

Sanguine, my teacher, had a helper for this lesson. The teacher aide's name was Amelia. Amelia is an 18 year old senior high school student. This young lady was a key note speaker at a conference that I attended several weeks ago. Her message was many little messages woven together like the great spider weaves a web. It was intricate, smooth, silky, strong, and sticky to the point of discomfort... for me.

Amelia's presentation was one of those that made you laugh and cry. It made you want to know her. It made you want to pick her brain. And it made me want to cry some more because she called me out. She made me acknowledge and now confront my lie and or secret that I was semi, not really, but slightly aware of, but hid it under all those layers of blah, blah, blah - progressiveness, faithfulness, peacefulness and righteousness.

The sticky part of Amelia's web... I mean message, was that people without disabilities live in a small world with a big wall around them and in that wall are doors. People with disabilities live just outside that wall and their world is big. The people with disabilities knock on those doors in the big wall hoping that someone will let them in. And nobody really ever opens the doors; either because they don't hear, they don't want to hear, or they are afraid to hear the knocking. Amelia asked for our ears to start listening for the knocking and to let the people with disabilities come in and stay and include them in all that goes on all the time. Don't send them back beyond the big wall.

This is where Amelia might as well have pointed her finger at me and said, you are guilty. I am guilty as many of us are. I know that I have opened the door on occasion but I have never closed it behind anyone. Just as graciously as I have invited someone into my small world I know I have just as graciously escorted them right back to that door and helped them right back ever so gently to their big lonely world. I will never commit that again. My ears have become sensitive to the knocking. I will open the door and lock it behind them. They will be in my small, abled world whether they like it or not!

Amelia is all that I said she was in my writings. She is also aspiring to be a public speaker and to be an advocate for folks with disabilities. She is starting college in the Fall of 2008. She has been the keynote speaker for the United Way and the Special Olympics. She has been awarded the Special Olympic athlete of the year 2007-2008. Amelia has Down Syndrome.

You have to check out this video of Amelia Abel. Video.

The Kids in Stanley, Idaho

Happy New Year! All is well here in Eugene. Wet to say the least. Kitchen remodeling, bike advocacy, math and geography fills our days. I'll write more here very soon, but I wanted to get this picture in.

Riding High

We've already made a lot of progress here in Eugene. I'm working at Bike Friday and loving it. We've already closed a deal on our new house at 180 North Polk Street. The kids have graduated from there first round of swim lessons. We've got a small fleet of Bike Fridays for the stable. Everything seems to be falling into place nicely.

We are preparing for the Bridge Pedal in Portland this weekend. We've already had visitors Missoula. We've been to the Pacific Ocean and danced in the sand. We've really cut down our driving, to just one trip in the mini-van a week. We've eaten more food that we've picked ourselves than ever before. And the restaurants are great, lots of mexican influence.

The rush of all the newness is slowing down and we are looking forward to school starting soon for Rainy and the wet season to replace this superb summer weather.

The Tree Lawn Send Off... Ithaca Style

Wow, I have some thanking to do. So, you might as well just sit down and take a load off. And if you are in Ithaca or Missoula grab a cold drink while you are at it.

As most of you know we departed Ithaca on June 21, 2007. Our send off was fun, light hearted, and supportive. Our well wishers included, Ellen, Kathleen, Chris, Linnie, Charles, Lisa, and Charlie and all the littles that belong to them. There was a lot of hugging, kissing and laughing (especially about the way our car was packed, or maybe it was more along lines of the way our kids and dog were packed). There was just enough room for shallow breathing. I cried just a bit when I hugged each of my girlfriends. But when I hugged Kathleen with a tear in my eye and a quiver to my voice she stopped me quickly and said "there is no reason to cry, this is happy and you are on a big adventure, we all wish we could go with you." Thank you for that, Kathleen! Paul and I do live our lives, in search of our dreams. We try to live with fun, adventure, and a reason to celebrate every day.

For Kathleen, my neighbor and friend, to have said what she said that day, made me, and continues to make me feel loved and more than anything else, understood. All of our friends who stood there on the tree lawn that afternoon and waved to us as we drove away know who we are and if they fully don't understand everything we do, I know they try. This is a big deal for me because when I look back at my life I realize that not many people have truly understood me.

While I hopefully still have your attention I do need to thank all of you. However, I really need to thank you for your generous time, food and great company.

The O'Connor/Anderson Family; I thank you for girl night, 3 or 4 dinners at your place with my big brood (the a/c and kiddie pool were the added touches) and your laundry facility.

The Wieselquist/Hamilton Family; I thank you for girl night, two days of packing the moving truck, pizza, home baked cookies, and magna doodles for the kids.

The Sanfilippo/Izzo Family; I thank you for keeping me juiced up with Gimme "Kaffe Klatches", baby sitting, packing the moving truck and the van, dinners, making the kids tote bags filled with activity books, and the espresso chocolate.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU form the bottom of my heart!!!!!

And by the way, what is up with all the double last names? Give this mother of four a freakin' break...That is a lot of writing for a not so fast typist. I think you should re-evaluate the last name thing! That's just me thinking out loud ;o)

Anyway... Over-and-Out, Adkins/Deutsch

The New Meaning of Car camping

It's like we never left the comforts of our home. Our trusty, impossible to kill, 13 year old mini van is parked just so we can see it at every meal. Our clothes hardly seem limited. Our food selection is pretty good, considering I am the cook. The "facilities" are comfortable. We have weathered extreme heat, down pours of rain, and unseasonably cold mornings all without that, "I wish I were home" thought playing and replaying in our heads. The reason being... We are home!

Rainy, Torrent, Dare, Sanguine and I and how could I forget, Josie are camping in our house. We are sleeping in our sleeping bags, on our sleep pads, eating and drinking out of our camp dishes and other "camp site" trash cans (Josie is in charge of that aspect) and cooking out of the, always too small, cook pots. And we are having fun! Paul, on the other hand is doing his own kind of camping. He just busted-a-move and drove cross country to Eugene, Oregon in 57ish hours. He not only drove but he drove the mother of all big rental trucks loaded with all of our most worthy junk. Paul, my love, You ROCK!

This camp experience is happening all because we are moving on June 21, 2007 (a little side note, for those of you who are interested, June 21st is our 10th wedding anniversary. So, if you just got that idea that you wanted to get us another worthy piece of something to carry cross country, think again... money packs best in that 13 year old mini van. :) )

We loaded our stuff on the moving truck this past Saturday with the help of our friends Eric, Charlie, Lisa, Jessica, Linnie and Charles. It was like good union shift work all day long. I send a big thanks to all of you. You guys ROCK too! And Paul drove off in the thunder and lightening of Sunday afternoon. His mission now is to unload all that important stuff at our Summer sublet, start work on Monday at Bike Friday, work for a week and then fly back to Ithaca on the 16th to party hard for Father's Day and the Fall Creek Elementary School Bike Rodeo. Yee-haa! And then on June 21st we will say good bye to all of our beautiful friends here in Ithaca, New York. And we will drive west to the big skies, big rivers and big beaches of Oregon.

This post was written by me, Mony-Love. But since Paul is on the left side of the country it was left up to me to change the post do-hickey thing and I couldn't figure it out. I am computer pathetic. I know that and I don't care! See-ya-round.

Spring Has Sprung

Here Dare is training for the sled push for the olympics. And Sanguine is training for the face making contest. The weather around here is getting good. The tulips are out, our bike chains are oiled and we are ready for the 5 Boro Bike Tour in NYC. We surely should have some pictures next week of our trip.

What is Your Impact?

As many of you know, I work at Sunnywood Design Collective. We just completed a project for The Nature Conservancy where we created a carbon calculator that simply helps you determine the size of your carbon footprint. It is a bit different than some of the other calculators out there, in that it is based primarily on your lifestyle choices and your behavior— the things that you can easily change to positively affect your impact. Our family contributes 43 tons of CO2 equivilant per year, that is roughly 1/4 of the US national average for a family of six. But we are still slightly over the world average. So, we'll keep working on creative ways to reduce our carbon emissions. I'd like to get us down to 10 tons. Then I'll work to cut more from that. You can help the cause too. I suggest you ride your bike to work or to the grocery. For every day you ride your bike you can cut ‘rising’ fuel costs by 20%, and cut your carbon emissions for the day as well.

So take a look at the calculator at www.nature.org, and figure out your impact.