How To Find Me

Start 38 years ago in a small coastal town called North Bend, Oregon. Adored by your mother and aunts and uncles and grandparents. 7 weeks later see your dad for the first time because he was away at Officer Candidate School. Moved to California, New Jersey then to Texas all before the 1st grade.

Your sister was born a few years after you and it made you happy to have someone to play with. Once while living in Texas mom packed you and Krista up and drove to Oregon, leaving your dad behind. It was confusing for you and even more so when you were soon all living together in Texas again. Auntie Pam and Uncle Clair arrived to pick up you, Krista and your mom to drive to Oregon again; this time for good. After that you only would see your dad one week a year.

Live on a dairy farm with your aunt and uncle and cousins in Oregon. This would be one of the happiest times of your life. You realize that working hard is a blast at 6 years old. Feeding calves, gathering eggs, building a tree fort in the apple orchard, eating green apples with sour juice running down your face. Learn to tell the difference between an electric fence and nonelectric. Driving a tractor on Uncle Clair’s lap. Develop a love for traveling at the age of 10 when you and Krista fly by yourselves to see your Dad in Colorado. Spend hours making a list of things to take with you on this trip with every outfit detailed. You would continue to do this for every trip you take.

Stand by your mom when she remarries. Love his stash of candy and that he has his own CAT for clearing brush. Embrace your new grandma and aunts and uncles. Find that your new step dad has strange rules that you can’t accept. Stand your ground. Get punishments that you feel aren’t fair. Grow up in a Ukrainian home eating Borscht, Verenikis, Russian Cabbage Soup. Listen to Ukrainian music on Sundays. Create forts in the woods with Krista, roast hot dogs on giant bonfires that start to singe your eyebrows off. Swing on cedar branches. Play with the Sunshine Family with your best friend Tonya. Shovel manure out of barn stalls. Grow up with homemade bread, eating it fresh from the oven with homemade butter and jam.

Join 4-H in the fourth grade. Be given a necklace by a boy in the 4th grade. Realize you like the attention. Your teacher tells you that you are an exceptional reader and encourages you to read books way more challenging than what the other kids are reading. Keep reading, never stop. By 12th grade figure out that you can’t sew despite your years in 4-H but you can cook, give speeches, raise sheep, judge a dairy cow and make friends. Spend a week every summer at 4-H camp where you get your heart broke for the first time. That story will later win you a trip to National 4-H Congress in Chicago. Feel like you can accomplish absolutely anything you want. Apply for National 4-H congress and not make it. Try again the next year and make it. Learn that persistence and determination pay off.


In 6th grade decide that you love sports after getting the Presidential Fitness award two years in a row and being a star on the school's track and Volleyball team. After 7th grade basketball and volleyball you are told by the track coach that you were a disappointment. You never play sports again.

Be so mean along with your friends to your seminary teacher that she walks out and quits. Water-soak your shirt one day after school with your tears when you find out you didn’t make the cheerleading team. Remember that persistence pays off, try out again two years later and make it. Feel the spirit of the Lord as you sit through numerous discussions and baptisms of your closest friends. Wish that someday you could serve a mission. Spend many happy hours singing, doing missionary work, getting the Elders kicked out of Coos Bay and TP-ing with these friends.

In Jr. High you meet your first love. Remains your first love for the next 8 years. Angry when your beloved Bishop tells you that you are “In love with being in love.”
Become engaged to that first love but he doesn’t join the church. Think your heart will never repair the hole you feel in it. Prepare for a mission. Meet new love. Become engaged again but know you need to serve a mission. Love the people of Brazil with a fierceness that scares you. Learn to forgive. Know you will never be the same again. Arrive home from mission, meet new love, call off old engagement and become engaged for a third time. This time for good.

Kneel across the altar on a rainy July day and marry him. Move to BYU-Provo so he can finish school, start your schooling all over again and finish before he does. Move back to Oregon. Move to Portland for husband’s dream job. Dream job goes away after year and a half and feel like you are having a nervous breakdown while he looks for a job and goes back to school. Then, feel a strength inside of yourself that you haven’t felt in 13 years.

Give birth to three beautiful daughters, each unique in their own way. Sing and read to them every night before bed. Wonder with amazement at how creative they are as you sit through numerous plays on Sundays that they have written and acted out. Smile that they know the words to every Carpenters song. Point out the cotton candy clouds. Immerse ourselves at Disneyland, wondering if the joy on their faces could get better than that. Plan the best birthday parties on the block. Appreciate their love of the gospel and know that is your greatest accomplishment.

Talk to your dad after not seeing him for many years. Your step mom has passed away. He moves to Oregon and he becomes part of your life again. Spend one Christmas with both your mom, dad, and Krista after 25 years. See your dad a lot from then on and it's like he was always there.

Grieve after your best friend of 15 years won't speak to you again. Pray for Heavenly Father to help you heal and He sends someone. Plan a "30 years of friendship cruise" with your childhood friend, Tonya. Attend a reunion of your high school church friends and not sleep for 3 days.

Get phone call in October 2005. Stepdad has kidney failure. Mom has Alzheimers. Accept the news with confidence and grace. Just like your mom. Admire your mom for having the tests done and see how strong she is. Want to be like her. Support your parents in their health battles, knowing that your time with them is way shorter than you want it to be. Spend countless hours on the phone learning how to can things from you garden so you can preserve the heritage. Cry when you think of all your aunts and uncles and cousins and feel an overwhelming sense of love, knowing that they think and pray for you often.

Look at your list of 50 things and realize you have a lot more to do. Look at it again and smile at all the things you’ve done. Cherish your marriage. Start to laugh at husband's crazy jokes and realize that you actually think they are funny now. Appreciate that your marriage keeps getting better and better. Realize your birthday is around the corner and this would be a good time to work on this blog project you’ve wanted to do for awhile. Feel comfort in husbands new job and be vividly aware of the blessings in your life. Listen to your husband’s laughter in the other room. Tell your husband you love him. Know you are loved. Blog. Write this. You’re here.



This was inspired from reading Bridget's Road Map.