These pictures were taken a few weeks ago. We’ve found that nothing makes you feel more rejuvenated than smothering your face in clay, followed by cucumbers. It’s the ultimate spa treatment in your own backyard. I used to love doing clay face masks when I was a teenager and I hardly ever think to do them anymore. But during the hot days of summer, what better time to bring out the clay? You can even wash it off with the hose so you don’t clog the drains in your house. We had some huge cucumbers, past their prime for eating, that we blended up and put on our face. The clay was easy enough to wash out of the hair, but the cucumber chunks were not easy to wash out at all, and we won’t be doing that again in the future. Lesson learned. We still had fun, though.

Bracken and I ended up having a spontaneous “cucumber fight” that day, throwing ground up cucumber at each other and laughing like crazy, while Jeff was thoroughly entertained. It suddenly flashed me back to a very random daydream I had when I was a teenager. Surprisingly (or maybe not, depending on the teenager), I didn’t think much about my future at that age or plan for it, it was enough for me to get through each day. I did hope to be a mom someday, though, and wanted to have a family that was very close. I had one daydream of family life that I visualized for myself, and would think about from time to time. In my grown-up life I’d be standing in the kitchen on a Sunday morning. My family would all be wearing our pajamas and I’d be at the stove making pancakes. Someone would get a splat of batter on someone else and before you knew it, we’d have a full-on pancake batter fight. Laughing, giggling, one big happy family- like a scene right out of the movies.

I have no idea why that was my particular daydream and thinking about it makes me laugh now. Firstly, in real life a pancake batter fight in the kitchen doesn’t appeal to me at all. How many hours would that take to clean up? Call me a fuddy-duddy, but it’s just not my idea of fun. And I don’t remember the last time we had pancakes. But details aside, having that cucumber fight with Bracken, it suddenly struck me that I was, in a way, living my daydream from so many years ago. Sure, our fight was happening outside (I much prefer it that way) and we were tossing cucumbers from our garden instead of pancake batter, but I had the part that I had really wanted- a family that was close.

I’ve had the thought lately about how much different my life would have turned out if I would have planned it out myself. I certainly never would have married someone so much older than me, or moved into a major fixer-upper in the boonies, or chosen a career path without a steady paycheck. I wouldn’t have left college that one day or moved to Oregon. I would have been “responsible” and waited to start a family when we were making more money. I would have lived in a beautiful house that was all clean and organized. And I certainly wouldn’t have chosen any of the health challenges we’ve faced. But life had one surprise after another for me. I didn’t plan it all, I walked along my path, choosing which way felt right in my heart at the time and now I can honestly say that I’m so, so grateful that life had other plans for me. Plans different than I would have chosen myself. Life has brought me gifts beyond anything I could have dreamed up or planned for myself. I have a family I can laugh with, be ridiculously silly with, and completely be myself around. Truly, what could be better than that? There are aspects of our life that I would change, as any of us would, and we’re always working to improve them, but there is a whole lot of love in our life. And what could be more important than that?