Sobremesa Stories

Letting stories unfold around the table

Boulder Bound: My First Colorado Trip

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Like I described in my post on learning to love my husband’s hobbies last week, my hubby is quite the athlete.  He loves anything that takes him outside! The main race he was training for  this season was a Half-Ironman triathlon in Boulder, CO this last weekend.  In case you aren’t familiar with the Ironman races, a Half-Ironman is a race where a bunch of crazy people swim 1.2 miles, bike 56 miles, and then run 13 miles.  On the same day.  Without dying. (Remember when I said they were crazy?)   We left Thursday morning to start the nine-hour drive from KC to Boulder.  Although I WISH we could have taken this cutie with us,  we had two wonderful ladies to stay with her and snuggle her while we were gone.  Thanks, Aunt Jessie and Aunt Liz!

Boulder Family Pic

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Decorating in Seasons

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When Jordan and I bought our house this past January, we jumped full force into decorating.  We spent an entire week painting for hours every night after work, so eager and excited to make this space feel like home.  Once we moved in, we spent more hours arranging furniture, hanging things on the walls, and dreaming of what we wanted our space to look like and be for people.

Some spaces came together quickly.   I had dreamed of a gray dining room for a while, so my vision for this room was already pretty set.  We had bought the dining room table and chairs on clearance at World Market because they had a scratch, the world map was my Christmas present from Jordan that year, and the chandelier was a spontaneous purchase when World Market had a flash sale on lighting.  It all came together so quickly, and this room is maybe my favorite in the house!

Sobremesa Stories Blog - Behr Anonymous Gray Dining Room with rustic wood table, world map, metal orb chandelier

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Slow Summer Days

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Summer Days Beach Mexico

Summer break in Mexico after we got married!

While teaching definitely has its challenges, there is one major thing that makes it much, much easier: the BREAKS.  Sorry to all my friends who work year-round and get 10 total vacation days, but having built-in breaks during the year and for summer is AWESOME.  I love having my year come in seasons and knowing that there are plenty of random days or weeks I can look forward to for times of rest, silliness, and adventures.  We used our summer after we got married to travel to Mexico and Sonoma, CA.  Last summer we backpacked through Europe for 5 weeks.   This summer will mostly be lazy with a smaller trip to Boulder, CO for Jordan’s Half-Ironman race and then a combined trip to Mexico and California in July.  But beyond those trips…we’re mostly just being lazy.

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A Letter to the Graduates and New Grownups

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This May marks three years since I graduated college, but boy does it feel like a lifetime.  In some ways, these three years have been a blur of wedding planning, learning to work full-time, and doing all those “grownup” things nobody warns you about.  I’ve gotten married, traveled to Europe, taught in several different schools, and done a whirlwind of things since I graduated three years ago.

A Letter to the Graduates

But in other ways, these last few years have been incredibly slow.  I’ve wrestled with deep questions of who I am, where my value and identity come from, and what it looks like to find fullness and joy in a grownup world that often just feels routine.  That struggle led me to counseling last year, and every day is another battle to choose joy in a world that invites me to choose sadness, cynicism, and hopelessness.

As I see all of your cap and gown pictures in my newsfeed, I remember how surreal that day was for me.  I think I expected to feel different, to feel like I was somehow the more grownup, “educated” version of myself, but I still just felt like me.  More than the hours of sitting on a sweaty lawn chair listening to way too many names, the moments that stand out to me from that season the most are the slow goodbyes over those few weeks in May.

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How Getting a Dog Made Me a Better Human

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I have never been a dog person.  I am horribly allergic to cats, and on doctor’s orders, my family didn’t get a dog in case I developed an allergy to them as well.  So when I got married to my dog-loving, dog-wrestling, and dog-snuggling husband, I had a feeling we’d have to meet in the middle somewhere.  That somewhere came in the form of a sweet little black lab puppy named Olive.

How Getting a Dog Made Me a Better Human

We thought for months about adopting breeds of all kinds and were nervous to adopt from a shelter because it was a little unpredictable. This was a dog that we would bring babies home to, that our children would grow up with, and we wanted a dog who we would feel safe having around our future little ones.   We ooh-ed and aah-ed over sweet puppies on shelter/rescue websites, and even got in contact with a few different breeders of labradoodles and whoodles, but couldn’t make up our minds if we were ready.

I had all sorts of irrational fears about getting a dog.  I was afraid that the dog would somehow go back to its animal instincts and attack me  in the middle of the night (I know….absurd.  Can you tell I’d never had a pet?).  I was afraid it would destroy our house, my clothes, all my favorite things.  Perhaps most importantly, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to love it like I hoped.  I was scared I would tolerate having a little creature running around the house, but I wouldn’t experience the connection and love that people describe having with their animals.

Holy moly….I could not have been more wrong.

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Well Hello, Twenty-five. (A Birthday Post)

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Twenty-four, I’ll admit I’m a little sad to see you go.  You were a great year, full of more life changes, experiences, and transitions than I imagine many upcoming years will hold.  You’ve made me laugh and play and dream, cry on the floor of my closet, and grow and mature in a million and one ways.

In this year that felt like so many years squished into one, you’ve taught me the value of my husband’s heart.  You’ve taught me to value Jordan’s faithfulness, joy, spontaneity, leadership, and strength.  You’ve taught me that the fact that my husband is different than me is one of God’s greatest gifts, and not something I should fight to change or control or “fix.”

Galway, Ireland, Backpacking through Europe

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Sobremesa Stories

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La Sobremesa: The time spent at the table after a meal; laughing, talking, and sharing stories with the people around the table.

Sharing Stories around the table, Outdoor Dinner Party, Sparkling Lights, Lanterns, Globe Lights

Ever since I was a little girl watching the grownups sip their wine and share old stories around the dinner table, I have felt a certain magic in the moments after a meal:  crumbs of dessert scattered across plates, candles burning low, and conversation turning to laughter and memories.  I loved hearing my dad reminisce about his travels through Europe (complete with many spot-on accents), my mom’s loud and contagious laugh, and the back and forth of neighbors and friends discussing everything from the latest Angels baseball season to the brokenness and hurt in their homes.

Sharing stories at a Wedding Table, Rustic pink and white flower in jars, burlap runners, candles , globe lights in barn.

In Spain, there is a specific word to describe this time around the table after a meal: la sobremesa.  Spaniards are accustomed to spending a long period of time in the middle of the day sharing lunch with friends, family, and colleagues, taking time to savor a meal and conversation before the work day continues. There is no direct English translation for this Spanish word that so beautifully encompasses a culture of lingering, a culture of spending time around the table with the ones who remind us we are known and loved and worth listening to.

Any time I have traveled, this cultural tradition has challenged my on-time, driven nature.  It reminds me to choose people and stories over to-do lists, even when my introverted self wants nothing more than to cozy up on the couch with some Moose Tracks ice cream and an old episode of Gilmore Girls.  When I moved to Kansas City, Missouri to get married and “settle down,” I knew I wanted to carry the tradition of sobremesa with me.

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