Crazy Walkers

Day 22: a photo that you associate a good memory with

There is little on earth I find as utterly entertaining as my family. And from what I hear from my friends, there is little on earth THEY find as entertaining as MY family. We are just that crazy. This picture kinda sums it up for me.

This picture was taken the night before my Aunt Cindy's (the one in pink) wedding. And that night was pretty much classic Walker. Let me give you a quick rundown...the day started pretty calm with a few of us meeting my aunt at a salon so we could get our nails done and she could get a massage or facial (I forget which). At this point I remembered why I love my family. At any given moment things are going in 10 different directions, people are holding a solid 3 to 4 different conversations with different people, there are usually about 4 problems that are being solved simultaneously while about 5 more problems are being made, and yet somehow we find this to be not stressful...it's just the way it is. Once done at the salon, we head to the hotel where everyone eventually gathers in the lobby to head to the pizza pre-wedding party. Now, so that you have an understanding of the size of the Walker family, you should know that there are 6 kids and each kid has numerous kids...and all of us inherited the crazy gene. Hence it was obviously necessary for us to coordinate the travel to the pizza place with...wait for it...walkie talkies. I'm not kidding you, we did.

So, pizza was good, we took up half of one of the rooms and we definitely THAT table (or set of tables as it were). We definitely lost the video camera at some point, lost a few people as well, but we eventually found them all and headed back to the hotel for a "calm" evening. All the girls (well most of the girls) gathered in Cindy's room to finish up the "last few items on the list of things to do". Note that I put that in quotes. I wish I had a picture of our faces as Cindy read the list...it went something along the lines of...finish up the ring pillow, glue, fold and stuff all the programs, finish the dress (yes, the dress), select all the music for the ceremony and the special dances at the reception and get it on CDs...I think you get the picture, it was NOT a small list. The picture above was taken sometime around the time we were all starting to separate into groups so that we could get everything done (good thing to have a big family at this point) and the way everyone is looking at everyone else just cracks me up.

Oh, but there's more. Doing all of that the night before the wedding wouldn't have been nearly enough craziness, so we decided to add in a bit more...the missing whereabouts of the wedding rings and the passports necessary for leaving that weekend for a cruise. Watching the video camera as people slowly find out is hysterical. Each person's face is priceless, and their initial reaction was so perfect for each of their personalities. Eventually, they were found, and the wedding went off without a hitch...would you expect anything less from a mass quantity of Walker genes? Ahhh, good times, people, good times.

It Is Well

Last night I attended the funeral of Joe Bazzle, a main-stay in my church and a pretty major punch in the gut to find out he had passed last Thursday. It was the first funeral I had attended since my mom's. I knew it was going to be hard to handle one on more levels than one, but I also knew that I needed to go. The last song we sang before I left to help the ladies serve the food for the family was 'It Is Well'. If you have never heard of the story behind It Is Well, you should read it because that alone is inspiring. The first stanza, however, pretty much says it all...

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

The stanza that caught my heart last night was the third one we sang. I don't know that I ever realized the way it was phrased with him starting a line, then literally interrupting it to say how amazing a thought it is, and then finishing it.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

Last week was a little odd for me. We passed the 8 month mark since my mom died. For some reason it hit me relatively hard, although it was almost all subconscious, which had it's own form of oddness. Rather than thinking about my mom all the time (as happened on other month markers), it was as if my brain was in fact thinking about her, but didn't bother telling me. I only knew because I wasn't in the right mood, I was edgy and impatient randomly and for no good reason, my body was physically showing stress even though I wasn't feeling stressed, and I was exhausted but couldn't sleep. I have no idea if this is really making any sense, but suffice to say that it was weird to experience. All week I battled whether it was my emotions trying to get the better of me, or emotions that I needed to express and get out, or a combination of the two. It was an exercise in questioning myself on why I was feeling stressed, addressing it, and then doing it again...and again...and again. After a whole lot of soul searching that culminated in experiencing a funeral to question the very things I had been questioning all week, I can sing with Horatio Spafford that it really is well with my soul. My brain may still have to work things out from time to time, but it is well will my soul...and in the end, isn't that the most important part?

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Can you blame me?

Day 21: a photo of somebody you find attractive

Clearly a woman was doing the casting for the Pirates movies :)

Strawberry Shortcake

Day 20: a photo of something you ate today

Strawberry shortcake either Walker or Wolgamuth style - not sure which, but it was my mom's style. Bisquick biscuits, strawberries, milk and sugar...and you serve it for dinner :)

The Saga of the Goggles

Day 19: a photo of your favorite thing from school

So I have to admit I was a bit confused on this one. Upon some consultation with Maia we decided it was a photo of something that you enjoyed doing or something you liked while in school. So...I think the answer is obvious...SWIMMING! I flipped back through some old photos and found this very spectacular one of me when I was about 10 or 11 I think...

Yep, that is in fact pretty awesome. That is my very first swimming relay team - Samantha, Courtney, Andrea, and me. All of us looking pretty excited about life in general really. And with this picture (as all good pictures) comes a story. Notice that my goggles are the only colored ones. If you could see this picture up close you would also see that my goggles are the only ones that have an slant to the lens. And there is a very good reason for this...

I was terrified of my goggles coming off when I dove in the water. DEATHLY TERRIFIED. I'm talking to the point that while I loved, loved, loved, swimming, I seriously contemplated (with my dad as my sounding board, because that's what good dad's do) how maybe I should just not dive at the start because there was obviously no way in the world I would be able to continue my race if my goggles fell off. Yes, I realize this is absurd. Swimmer's goggles fall off all the time, heck, Michael Phelps lost his goggles in one of his gold medal swims at the Olympics (and obviously didn't just finish but won...the Olympics). Clearly it shouldn't have been that big of a deal. But, clearly, to me, it was.

And so at some point along the way my wonderful, intelligent dad devised a very wonderful, intelligent plan. He took me to pick out a pair of new goggles. Goggles that would certainly stay on my head no matter what and were designed - yes, specifically designed - to stay on my head when I dove in. That was the purpose of the slant on the lens he said. Obviously, it made sense. And obviously from that point forward I never worried about my goggles because my dad said they wouldn't fall off...and they never fell off. Once I was older I could see the brilliance in my dad's plan. I highly doubt those goggles were DESIGNED to not fall off your head when you dove in. But, it was a pretty easy case to make considering the whole force of water, and such, being less on an angled surface. And when I stopped concentrating on my goggles ALL the time I ended up being pretty decent at swimming. And once I became good at swimming I realized that really you could in fact swim a race EVEN if you goggles fell off.

In the end, goggles, like many other pieces of sports equipment became one of those things that become part of you. As a swimmer, you have them on so often that you begin to bond with them, and when they break you go to all sorts of elaborate schemes to make them work or find just the right ones to replace them. I eventually released the slant ones, and had a specific pair of super tight silicone ones that I raced with and a different pair of foam and plastic ones that I practiced with, then I eventually got into sweedish goggles, but never would race in them because as much as I wanted to rationally say it didn't matter, there were only specific goggles I would ever race in (yes, because of the falling off thing). And yes, I did swim a race one time with my goggles filling up with water the whole time and lived to tell about it.

But yet, the importance of the right goggles continued until the last race I ever swam...and really even now when I just go in to swim laps in the pool. As I was flipping through pics to find the one for this post, though, I found one of my favorite goggle pictures of all time. It was after swimming Championships my junior year of college. That was possibly my favorite year of college and those were some of my favorite goggles (with tape across the nose piece because the plastic always cut into my nose and yet I love them so). Some things don't change, girls with goggles finding life entertaining :)

Cue Random Cannon Fire

Day 18: a photo of your town

This is a picture of downtown Charleston as taken from just outside my office 5 minutes ago...yes I recognize I am totally spoiled. It is true, this is in fact where I go to work every day:

Within 6 months of taking a 2 year fellowship in Charleston I knew that I loved it and could easily stay here...that was 8 years ago...obviously I was right :)

Today is a particularly interesting day in Charleston, which makes it kind of funny that today's picture was a picture of your town. 150 years ago today the Civil War started...yes, I recognize that to most of the world April 12 is not a big deal...in Charleston, it's a VERY big deal, believe me. To commemorate it there has been random cannon fire all day yesterday and today from various places around the harbor which makes it funny talking to people about normal work stuff and randomly hearing a cannon shot :) This morning they had a big memorial thing since the first shot was fired from here at Ft. Johnson towards Ft. Sumter...this is literally a 2 minute walk from where I am sitting right now:

Maia and I chose to have breakfast at the Lost Dog Cafe in Folly and let the crowd of people and buses and cars clear out of work before we headed out here, but everyone who was gathered at the point saw this:
Charleston has this amazing quality of being a city, but not, being a historical mecca but also a college town, having a weird mix of hippies, and yuppies, and regular old blue collar workers...it is all around a wonderful place to live. I love the farmers market and the fact I can get to the beach in 10 minutes, that I can walk people visiting me through downtown and look out at the harbor while talking about sleeping porches and lounging under live oak trees, I love walking in the woods in April and breathing in the fall breeze in October, and as much as the summer humidity kicks your butt, it is beautiful in it's own right. Charleston is a good town to call your town :)

Run Walkers Run

Day 17: a photo from a trip you'll never forget

There are SO MANY pictures of trips that fit this label I've been trying to decide what to post. Finally I determined that my procrastination is not making this blog get any more interesting and so I decided to choose one that I never had until Lisa sent me the 4 pictures of us that she could find (we for some reason have issues remembering to take pictures when we are together - we have been friends for over 20 years and I think have a total of 6 pictures together - I am not joking!) ...hence I have chosen my trip to Chicago to run the Chicago Marathon with Brandy and my Dad.

First of all, anyone who has run a marathon knows you are doubtful to forget it, secondly, it was classic Walker trip with ceilings falling in, hobbling through the streets of Chicago as we try to sight see after running 26.2 miles, and generally having fun with each other and friends...who came to Chicago to see us run you ask?! Why my gloriously wonderful Lisa, Kathleen and Tim found their ways (some longer than others) into town to see me and make what will forever go down in history as the best marathon sign ever...Run Walkers Run...they realized after holding it for a while and getting some odd looks that people may possibly be misinterpreting the Walkers to not be our last name and instead be those who were walking...opps :) I say deal with life. They were at the finish line, if you walking the last .2 miles you SHOULD be told to run!