Geeze, I realized today that my last blog post was 9 MONTHS AGO!!! I don't know where the time goes- but it sure is flying by!!!
Well, a little update of my life over the past 6 months...I moved up to San Francisco when Matt deployed in March and worked up there on my family farm until about a month ago - and now I am back here in San Diego in our beach bungalow on the bay!!!
During my stay at the farm I also was able to go and visit Matt - and we headed off to Thailand for 2 weeks which was just amazing!!! I also officiated my best friend's wedding back home in Michigan and hung out there visiting for 3 weeks in June - and it was great to see everyone!
Now I am just settling in to our new home and a new job and hanging with my friends here in SD. My mom has also been here with me since I got back - and it's been great!!! I start my year long internship for school next week - and as a little present to me for working so hard my mom and I are heading to Disneyland next weekend - which should be a blast since we LOVE Disney!!!
I am looking forward to my friend Jamie's wedding in a few weeks, and then to Matt coming home, and hopefully seeing our wonderful friends Cara and Patrick in November - and bringing along some of our wonderful friends who are here in SD too!
Looks like it's going to be an amazing year and I can't wait to relish in every moment of it!!!
That's all for now - but I promise to post pictures from Thailand and of our beach bungalow this week!
After reading a few pages of 14,000 things to be happy about by Barbara Kipfer, I have decided to start a list of my own. Although I may not get up to 14,000 like she did in her book, I wanted to list 10 things that make me happy up until Thanksgiving to be in the thanks-giving spirit!
List 1:
Kenny Chesney songs Steel drum Caribbean music My 70-pound bundle of pure excitement - Clifford! Dancing Palm trees Surfing Stars at night Snapping my fingers Braiding my hair Tropical paintings
I feel like I could go on forever and list 100 things that make me happy right now...but I have to leave for class :( I think will write out my list and take it with me so I can read it and smile!
I know it's been forever since my last post...But I have been so busy lately with school, homework, friends, Clifford the now really big red dog, helping people plan their weddings, figuring out our holiday leave, and trying to figure out everything for when Matt deploys again next year. It's been nothing short of crazy around here, but really good at the same time!
It's hard to believe that last year at this time I was with Cara in Virginia working at the USO and dreaming of the day I would get to hold Matt in my arms again at his homecoming. I am so thankful that I was able to stay with Cara and Shiner for the last 3-4 months of Matt's deployment! It really helped me to get through everyday of missing him and knowing he was in a war zone. We had a ton of fun traveling everywhere, my favorite trip being our trip to New York for Thanksgiving and eating pizza and wine for our Thanksgiving dinner :) It was great to not be alone in experiencing a first deployment, and to have such a sweet friend to share the experience with.
I am SO happy that this year both Matt and Patrick are home and Cara and I get to spend the holidays with them! I just booked our Thanksgiving trip last week, and we have a lot planned! We are going up to Seattle the Saturday before Thanksgiving and will be staying on the Navy base at Whidbey Island for 2 days, and then we have a condo on Puget Sound for the rest of the week. Originally we were going to meet my family at the cabin in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Seattle, but they are so busy with the farm that it ended up being just us two! We are actually really happy that it's just us for Thanksgiving since this will be the first one we've spent together, and can't wait to explore the city and see rain again...Maybe a little too much rain, but that's ok!
I am in the process of figuring out everything for when Mat deploys next year, and the plan so far is for Clifford and I to head up to San Francisco to be with my family on the farm for the 6 month deployment. I always said I would NEVER go back home while Matt was deployed, but this is a great chance for me to hang out with my family and work on the farm without having to go back home! I am excited to work on the farm, spend time with my mom and the family, and explore the city, all while saving 6 months of rent money!!!
When Matt gets back we plan on moving back to the water so we are within walking distance again, and maybe a little more north than we are now. We like our townhouse since it has a yard for Clifford, but we really miss being so close to the ocean and being in more of a laid back beach community. We figure if we get to live in San Diego for a few years, we might as well take advantage of it and live closer to the beach!!!
I am currently finishing up another semester of school and hope to start my internship in the Fall, which means I will be done by the end of the next summer...YAY! I still don't know what I want to do with my degree exactly, but I would like to work with kids or military families and do what I can to help them! This has been a challenging semester since I am now finishing up my upper level classes, but I always like the hardest classes the best...Yes, I know, I'm weird! I have been so fortunate to meet some great friends in my classes, and it's nice to share the whole Master's program experience with some really wonderful people!
We were very happy to welcome home our helicopter squadron friends last week, and are keeping the families who buried their Marines in our prayers. It's been bitter sweet hugging our friends and realizing at the same time that there are wives and children and family members and friends who were not able to do the same, but we are still thankful to have our friends home again!
We were also very happy for our friends James and Stephanie who got engaged last night, and are looking forward to their wedding in February! I am really excited to help Steph with all the wedding plans, and do whatever I can for our sweet friends!
It's just Clifford and I tonight since Matt is out in the desert for work until tomorrow afternoon, but my puppers is keeping me warm here on the couch and I am just happy to have my little family all here in the same country!!!
A Farm Weekend By: Kara Holmes (Tara and Craig’s niece, and Auntie Liz’s daughter)
If you were to ask me a year ago what I thought about all of this farm business, I would have said I didn’t want anything to do with it. I would have said that I am sick of hearing about chickens and pigs and sustainable crops every time I went to visit my aunt and uncle in San Francisco. I would have said that since we are a military family, my husband and I had different plans for our life that would never include taking care of animals and crops on a farm up in Petaluma (which seemed to me to be the middle of nowhere). I would have said I liked the whole sail boat venture WAY better than this new farm idea. That was last year…before I was able to see the dream of owning this farm put into action. I just got home from a weekend trip up to the farm to visit my mom, Auntie Liz, and drop off her dog, who we have been watching for the summertime until she got settled on the farm. I was anticipating a lot of work, which I didn’t really want to do on my little mini-vacation, but what I experienced was more than I would have ever expected. There has never before been a time in my life where my favorite family members have lived all together in one place, and I have never even dreamed of all of them actually eating meals together every day, or working together toward a common goal. That was completely out of the question…until my aunt and uncle decided they wanted more for their lives. Their willingness to risk everything in order to start and build an organic farm hasn’t only benefited them, but has benefited our whole family, and the community around them. The farm is open to all kinds of people from all over the world who share a common goal of wanting to work hard to produce fresh, healthy meat and produce for the community, and people who are willing to open themselves up in order to teach other people how to do it too! Everyone on the farm comes together to take care of something…whether it be people, chickens, pigs, turkeys, cats, dogs, vegetables, or fruit, and each of them gives their all to make sure that everyone and everything has everything they need to grow and thrive. It was wonderful to spend quality time with my mom, Auntie Liz, who is in charge of taking care of the people on the farm by making sure they have a hot meal for breakfast and dinner every day, and gathering the eggs from the laying hens. When you know deep down inside that you are providing healthy food to busy, hungry, hard working people, it just warms your heart. Though everyone on the farm has certain tasks that they are responsible for, it is also amazing to see everyone come together to do whatever needs to be done, and help out wherever they can. If you were to ask me years ago whether my family would be living and working all together in order to improve the lives of others, I would have said no way because they were all in different states, working various jobs, and devoting their lives to their own little families within the family. Today, it is amazing to see that what started out as a little idea has now become the foundation for bringing my family together, and strengthening not only my own family, but the families in the community as well.
A year ago I would have told you that my husband and I were completely devoted to the military, and to his career above all else, but after experiencing our first deployment, we realized that what matters most in life is just spending time with each other. Although we don’t know for sure what our future will hold, we do know that we want to have a close family, and that some time on the farm is somewhere in our future. When Matt leaves for deployment next year, I will be heading up to the farm to stay for 5 months while he is gone. I can’t wait to experience that time on the farm with my family, and to contribute whatever I can in order to provide the food and experiences that will strengthen our family, and the community. I used to think happiness was mostly about having money, and having enough money to go on expensive vacations, or on the sail boat out in the Caribbean, but the more I experience time with my family on the farm, the more I realize it wasn’t the vacations or the boat that made me happy, it was being able to spend quality time with my family. Now that the farm has gone from a dream to a realization, there will always be a place where my family can come together, and spend quality time with one another. What more could I ever ask for? I want to thank Tara and Craig for not being afraid to take a risk in order to bring true abundance into their lives, and my mom and step-dad and everyone else on the farm for supporting them in creating that abundance…abundance of learning, love, family, food, and helping others. It is an abundance that has touched my life and my heart forever, and something that my husband and I want to do all we can to support it in order to bring that same abundance into the lives of our future family.
"For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."
This quote from the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is one that will no doubt stay with me forever. I am realizing more and more that things don't just happen by chance...that there is a reason, a plan, and divine intervention.
Over the summer I took a group counseling class as part of my master's degree program. I was enrolled to take the class last summer and ended up dropping it because I didn't have time to work and take 3 classes at the same time. The class came around again this summer and I was truly changed by the professor of the class, and by my classmates. We all took part in our own group therapy-group, and it was truly amazing to bond with each and every member of the group through sharing of our own life experiences. This class led me to see the ways in which I discount myself...Thinking I am always less than I really am, or worse at things than I really am. With encouragement from my group-mates, I promised to give myself a chance, and be willing to take risks in order to continue finding the things I truly love about myself.
The night of our last group meeting was my big break-through, and I left that night open to new opportunities for my own growth. When I got home and checked my e-mail I found the class schedule from our yoga studio, and it listed a class called "The Artist's Way" with a description that the class was an expressive arts therapy class and was meant to help people rediscover their creativity and internal gifts of creating paintings, clay work, drawings, and art through writing. If it weren't for my group class I would have never had the courage to sign up...but I immediately sent out an e-mail to the teacher for the class telling her I wanted to register immediately! After talking to Judy, the teacher, I could hardly wait for our first day of class to start!
My journey through this amazing class has opened up doors in my life that I slammed shut years ago. Doors that closed because people told me I wasn't good at singing, dancing, writing...doors that I closed because I didn't want to get hurt....doors that I closed because people told me "you can't" or "you will never be" or "you're stupid"....
I have rediscovered my love and talent for writing, and for being able to see an entire story like a movie in my mind...scene by scene...and I have opened the doors to the girl I was in my childhood...a girl who loved to play and imagine and dance...and who never cared what other people thought of her.
I have come to the realization that I was given these gifts by God so that I could actually use them in my life...to tell stories, write movies, let people know how much I love and care for them through letters and poetry, and love the person I really am underneath all the fear and shame...the person God has always intended me to be.
I don't think it's a coincidence that I took the group class when I did, or that I found the artist's way, or that I was told by a friend that the government is offering money to spouses who are going back to school and that my current school isn't a part of the program but the screenwriting classes I found at UCLA are all covered under the government money grant....or that I prayed for God to give me a sign that what I am doing is what He wants me to do and then I go to the movie store to get a movie for class that's already rented out and saw the Benjamin Button move, which I have been meaning to see since it came out, and that the movie talked to me through this quote...and through it's message.
I love the quote because it says that we can always start over...that we have control over our own lives...that there are no rules or way it should be done...that we can make the best or the worst of it...that we can be whoever we want to be...and that if we aren't happy, we can choose a different life for ourselves.
I will admit that I am afraid of Introduction to Screenwriting 1...I'm afraid I wont be able to do it, or no one will like my story, or that I will never make a living as a screenwriter, or that all of my family and friends will think I'm just plain crazy...But the passion and curiosity of that little girl I have found within myself again overrides it all...and pushes me to take the first step...to take a risk...to change my life's work and who I am and want to be...and for once in my life...I AM LISTENING TO HER!
This semester has been one of the best I have ever had at school, with my group therapy class easily being the best class I have ever taken as a graduate student. Not only am I learning a lot about how to lead groups for clients in the future, but I am also bonding with my classmates and learning about myself and my own strengths and struggles. With only two classes left, I went to class last night feeling a little sad that I wouldn't be seeing my classmates and professor every week anymore, and decided to share a bit of what I have learned about myself over the past 12 weeks. After I shared my own experience and inner life struggles with self-esteem, confidence, and feeling somewhat unworthy, my professor said something to me that I will never forget. He said:
"When will you take your place at the banquet of life?"
The imagery and power behind this one sentence spoke to me, and I immediately knew that until I value and love myself, I will never take my place at the banquet of life. I know that many people, especially women, struggle with feelings of unworthiness because of their past experiences or societal pressures, and I wonder if more people wouldn't benefit from hearing this simple quote about standing up for yourself and making sure you have your own place in life.
That's the reason I am doing what I am doing. I could have gone down a different road, and would have been finishing up law school next year if I would have decided to continue pursuing that field...But I am studying psychology instead and learning to be a therapist because there are too many people in this world who have never been told that they are worthy and valuable, and that they deserve a place in this banquet of life.
My journey toward taking my own place at the banquet of life isn't over yet...and if fact, is just beginning! It's a long road that leads to the undoing of years of letting life pass you bye, but it's a road worth traveling down in order to take control of myself and prepare myself to truly take my place at the banquet of life.
I am so excited to be taking this journey, and I know that self-love and self-value are waiting for me at the other end of the tunnel. I am officially kick-starting my journey by taking an art-yoga-therapy class at our yoga studio! The class focuses on finding your inner self, and the child within you that has been lost to the negative experiences of life through creative art, movement, imagery, and writing. I hope that this class will be a big step in finding the little girl I used to be who was never afraid to speak her mind, dance to her own music, and be her own happy person! I hope to use what I learn in this class to then help others find the love for and confidence in themselves that will lead them directly to their own place at this wonderful banquet of life!!!
I know it's been forever since I posted on here...but I do get on to check everyone else's blogs all the time! I have actually been busy working on a blog for my family farm up in San Francisco and I wanted all of you to check it out :) Just go to: tarafirmafarms.com (blogger page)
My aunt and uncle are business geniuses who built their own long term care insurance company from the ground up. They have done and experienced almost everything...and are now setting out on a more family/environment oriented adventure. They began Tara Firma Farms, an all natural, chemical free, cruelty free becoming organic farm that offers fresh produce and meat. The vision for the farm is to bring both my family and other people's families together to experience what it is like to be environmentally conscious in raising animals and growing produce.
My mom and dad have been on the farm for a few months now helping out in any way they can, and believe so much in the vision for the farm that they are going back and forth between there home in Michigan and the farm in order to be a part of this wonderful experience. I was lucky enough to be able to visit the farm back in May, and had an amazing time taking care of the animals and setting up a green house where all the produce begins growing. It's an amazing experience to have all of my family together after being separated by distance for so long, and I am excited about living up on the farm next summer since Matt will be gone. Hopefully I can talk some of my friends into coming out next summer and seeing what the farm is all about!!! (Cara, Natalie, Toni, Taylor, Steph, Becky...This means YOU!)
Please check out their blog and become followers so you can see what's going on up there, and please feel free to give me tips on how I can improve the blog too!
P.S. I am about to fill up Clifford's puppy pool with water and stand back with my camera... so I will be posting pics of that soon!!! :)
I'm Kara and I am loving life with my amazing husband, and our wonderful friends and family! My life changed forever the moment I left home and ventured out to sunny San Diego, CA...I met the love of my life, some of my best friends, and found out what God really wanted me to do with my life!!! I am currently married to a USMC pilot, my true hero, who I love with all of my heart...and couldn't be more happy with our life together! I am also enjoying keeping up with all of our amazing friends here and all over the country, and am working toward my Master's in marriage and family therapy.
I thanks God everyday for everything in my life and I wouldn't change a thing!!!
