Watching Dreams Realized

The last week and weekend have been rather busy, but it has been amazing, wonderful, and fun. Our friend T was here for most of the week and he and Dustin got lots done on the shop. I will have to share about the shop some day. It's a huge accomplishment for our family and our farm.
To top it off, we went out, not once, but TWICE. Yes, Dustin and I, who rarely go anywhere anymore, at least without children, got to go out on two dates. Friday and Saturday! How? You may ask.  Too many good opportunities came up in the same weekend. We both had to scramble to find childcare (which also got me hooked up with some future babysitting possibilities) and we were able to do it.
The best part. The weekend was full of watching some pretty uplifting things.
Friday night, we went to the Arts Center in Jamestown for a dinner theater. "The Purple Orchid List," is a play written by our friend Jennifer. It is the play version of her memoir about how she and her husband Jack met. Jennifer had quite a life, she was married three times and decided she wasn't good at relationships, so instead of saying she was NEVER getting married again, she said she would, when she found someone who had all the qualities on her list. (It is a crazy list) and she met Jack online and he annihilated the list in about two weeks, without even knowing it. It is absolutely the funniest and the sweetest story. I haven't belly laughed like that in a long time. It was wonderful.
It was fun to watch Jennifer's dream come to fruition. We knew she was writing and she had told us about trying to put together the play months ago when we ran into her. Friday, we saw the finished product. We saw the whole thing come together. Jennifer and Jack played themselves, which made the moment even more spectacular. It was being invited into someones dream and getting to live in it, not just hear about it. It has made me think about some of the dreams that I have had and some that I still do that sometimes seem out of reach. I guess I realize, they maybe aren't. Maybe they only are if I put them out of reach. If I say the ladder isn't tall enough, it won't be. If I say it won't happen, it won't. I really think I need to start looking at the barriers I put in my own way.
Saturday was a different day completely. In the evening we went to dinner with friends, but that really isn't the coolest part of the day, it was a blast, love it, but the morning and afternoon were better.
Dustin and I stood at medical standby  at the Special Olympics Basketball Tournament. I had never been to anything related to Special Olympics. I can't say enough about the athletes and the volunteers who make it happen. It was fun to watch the teams, it was inspiring to see so many different ages and abilities play and have fun and compete. The coordinator of the tournament was wonderful about answering questions about everything.  But the best was telling us about one of the games we were watching.
It was really lopsided, but the winning team wasn't playing defense or trying hard. She explained, both teams were from the same town. The one team, "The Wolves" knows they are going to win. They always do and they are very good. So, because they know they are going to win, they make sure that the other team gets to try and shoot. It was pretty amazing. But, among all the athletes, you realize, this is there NBA finals, they wait for this and love it. I hope we get asked to go again.
Dustin and I rarely celebrate Valentine's Day with more than a card, if that. It's just not something we always do or are able to do. It depends if we think about it soon enough or if there is something going on. This weekend, the time we spent together was the best gift.   We did a lot of talking, not that we don't do that, but there was something about just talking without Ian interjecting every 30 seconds. "Hi Mommy, Hi Daddy," which has become in the last 3 weeks his newest thing. He wants to talk and so if he can't think of things to say, we get "hi"  ALL THE TIME!
But Ian is getting his dreams realized too. He is learning to express himself more and more every day. He gets sooooo excited when he says something and I understand the first time he says it. I get excited when I give him an instruction and he says, "Okay, Mommy" and then he goes and does it. He loves to help and I love to praise him with kisses and cuddles and tosses around the room. He loves to tickle his sister and he makes her giggle more and more every day and he entertains her and while he doesn't know it, that is the best gift, to watch them grow up together and interact with one another. Ella is fascinated with her big brother and all he can do. She wants to crawl so badly, you can see it. You can see her excitement when a toy is on the blanket and she works and works to get to it and  then...success. She's so proud, she giggles and smiles and then she has to figure out what it does.
So many dreams are realized around me every day. I'm part of fulfilling some of them (at least with my kids).  And so, I think I need to appreciate my own dreams more and what they mean. I think it's time to not put them so high on the shelf on the "someday" pile or in the "it's to hard to do right now" bin. I still have dreams and I can still work toward them.
I see the dreams we have for our family and our farm so easily. It's amazing what we have accomplished in the last 5 years. We never realized we would come this far and be able to do some of the things we have done. But, to fulfill those dreams, some of my personal dreams have been packed away. I wouldn't change the life I have, but I think I need to honor myself a bit more in the life I have. Dustin has tried to push me to do some of them, over and over, but I haven't. I guess because a dream, to some extent, is a risk, at least a risk of exposing yourself and your heart. I don't always do that well. My heart doesn't come back from heartbreak so easily, so even with support, I have a hard time putting myself out there. Risks were easier when I didn't have a family, a business, things to lose. The more you have, the harder it is to risk it, even if the accomplishment would be worth it.
But, I don't have to risk it all. It's not like there's a time limit on some of the things I want to accomplish. I could work on them as I wanted, little pieces at a time and let the goal take care of itself.
I doubt my friend Jennifer just sat down and wrote a play in an afternoon. She has kids and a job and a husband and life. I'm pretty sure she did what she could when she had the time.
My friend D is a glass artist. I know she relishes the time she gets to go to her studio amid life of children and a busy husband, and when she can, she creates.
I have all these dreamers around me and it is time to take from their inspiration and tend to some of mine.