Be careful what you wish for...

Yesterday started out like any other Mile High Monday: a dizzy tangle of fleece-clad limbs and yapping doglets tumbling into our bed way too early. Dave made breakfast for Hettie and Phineas, a favorite distraction from his imminent return to a job he likes a lot -- but not nearly as much as he loves the weekend. After some waffles and jam, a perfunctory apology for the mess in the kitchen, and a volley of kisses both human and canine, Dave grabbed his bicycle helmet and rushed into the briskly radiant morning, running about as late as he always does. It was lovely.

Around 10:30, the phone rang. It was Dave, who sounded... odd. The case he's been living and breathing for the last 20 months reached a settlement over the weekend -- we'd heard rumblings for a week or two that something might be in the works, but, even if things did settle, we couldn't imagine a scenario that didn't include months of clean-up work. We were wrong: 700+ contract employees, including dear friends, laid off and out the door before lunch. By early afternoon, Dave was reassigned to a new project. Now, just a day later, he's sleeping in a Manhattan hotel room, and I'm wondering how on earth I'm going to clear out our apartment and transport three kids, two dogs, and our trailer-laden car back home on my own. (Road trip, anyone?)

We have absolutely loved our Colorado adventure. I'm surprised at how quickly I've felt blissfully at home (silly, perhaps, since we've been staying in the house I grew up in!). I sincerely believed we'd be around for a few more years -- and maybe forever. And had grown to really love that idea. We are so sad to leave our friends both new and old. I've become so spoiled, having Z and my amazing Mom just a stairwell away. Leaving is almost unbearable... until I remember how hard it was to leave D.C., and all the people, places, and -- I'm a bit ashamed to admit -- things that are waiting for us there. I am looking forward to my own house and bed, being close to so many aunties and uncles, and all the happy details of our other, wonderful life.

Happy Christmas

I love Christmas - and always look forward to it with an uncomfortable - and probably inappropriate - amount of anticipation. It is always such a necessary and joyful reward for making it through a grueling season of papers and exams. I'm slightly obsessed with the music, the crafts, the food.....Last year I waited for winter break with bated breath, but our holiday season was filled with a little more drama, fear, and excitement than any of us would have hoped for. We had planned to spend December 25th together as a family, but due to circumstances far beyond our control, most of us spent the actual holiday travelling between D.C. and the Cleveland Clinic, and - Charity spent it teetering somewhere between life and death. When I reflect on last Christmas - and all that has transpired since then - I'm filled with dumbfounding gratitude and awe. The last year was both tremendously challenging and tremendously generous - bringing with it new lungs for Charity, a new husband for Liberty, and a new baby for Kimber (just to name a few of the highlights)....As a fitting finish to 2012, almost everyone was home in Colorado for Christmas, which is something that hasn't happened since I don't even know when! And, while I didn't think it was possible, Christmas at home was maybe even more wonderful than I expected. 

The State of Our Unions

Dear Blog Friends,

Happy New Year! We are always touched and overwhelmed by the copious quantities of holiday greetings which make their way over to our mailbox every December.Year after year, we are impressed by the pleasant faces, artful tableaus, and matching sweaters which fill envelope after envelope. We tried color coordinating this year, but must have missed the memo restricting the wardrobe to khaki slacks and pastel polos:

 

We love reading the thoughtful and informative updates, and recognize that it isn't always easy to craft a coherent Christmas message -- this year, Momo decided to write ours in pseudo-rhyming code:

For those of you interested in some nittier, grittier (TMI)nformation, read on for Five's annual, overindulgent, agonizing anniversary epistle.

Kimber (née One), her husband David, and three children continue their nomadic wanderings between Washington DC and Denver due to a prolonged consulting gig. Kimber enjoys having friends in both locations, but the constant freneticism can drive her a tad crazy. Hettie (4), Phin (2), Willa (8 months), and dogs Dolley and Bert have about 50% collective potty training rate. When in DC, the 5% left of the 95% finished renovation drives Kimber mad, and while in Denver, it's a bit surreal to be cramming her 5 member family into a beautiful, if cozy, 2-bedroom apartment above Momo and Zen. She feels awfully blessed that David has such a wonderful job, though she sometimes wishes it would translate into a bit more physical stability. She really wants her sisters to start having babies. . . at least, the married ones.

Charity (née Two) and her husband Yoni celebrated their first year of marriage that they largely spent getting through a second double-lung transplant (we know, crazy), recovering and traveling around the country. Charity is fulfilling the multi-generation Tillemann-Dick ambition of making noise for a living - travelling from coast to coast singing arias, eating local foods and speaking. She likes to paint, and others like her to paint, too, because she does it rawther delightfully. She has also been honing her photography skills with a new instagram account, and they're much improved. She's an occasional contributor to the HuffPo and other places, but she really likes to write here with her sisters. She likes to do other things with them too, and she frequently does with Liberty, who lives right down the street. Read on for details on that.

Liberty (née Three) got married! Her and her delightful new husband, Premal (who we all adore) make adorable newlyweds. For the time being, they’re camped out in D.C., where Liberty is working as an energy consultant and Premal is doctoring. They will be migrating to the Mile High City this summer - and, after being in D.C. for 10 (!) years, Liberty is a bit anxious about the move. Be her friend, ok? She’ll have a cool job no doubt, but she’s all like ‘Maybe I’ll wait for a few years to make a really attractive half-Gujarati baby child’ and the rest of us are all like 'totally lame'.

Mercina (née Four) is settling into Yale quite nicely. She keeps herself busy studying bioethics and political science, but when you add her leadership roles in TedxYale and our church’s student group, as well as her compulsive need to make everything lovely, her schedule borders on insanity. It’s a wonder she has any time left over to write blogposts or keep in touch with long-distance beau, Tom. . . . the . . . . the astronaut. He’s an astronaut, guys. He’s in space (actually, not really). Mercina remains very stylish, but refuses to go into fashion because she thinks she’s above it. Pfffffftttt.

Glorianna (née the number that's left) remains too cool for school. She dropped out of Yale. Just kidding, but she IS a philosophy major--which is basically as bad as dropping out, amiright? By day, she kicks butt at artsy stuff typically involving inappropriate use of scissors and/or copious amounts of metallic spray paint/glitter - in her dorm room without opening the windows. Her evenings are spent catching up on neglected school work in candy-fueled-all-night philosophizing-binges, wherein she accomplishes a full semester’s worth of studying in 12-short hours.

That's as much over sharing as we'll indulge in right now, but what about you? What are some of your favorite developments from 2012?

(re)Introducing, FIVE!

Hello there! You may notice some changes around our little cyber domicile in recent days - not the least of which is the replacement of our numbered titles (One, Two, Three, Four, and Five) by our actual names. This year, My sisters and I resolved to try to be a bit friendlier and more authentic in every aspect of our lives - including this blog. We decided that actually introducing ourselves to any of you out there who don't already know us would be a nice way to start off. So all of us here at FIVE - Kimber, Charity, Liberty, Mercina, and Glorianna Tillemann-Dick - say hello and wish you a very, very sweet New Year.

A departure from the holidays

The events in Newtown, CT last Friday cast a long and very sad shadow over the light that Hannukah, Christmas and all of the winter time holidays spread. But if my life has taught me anything, it is that in our darkest hours, we learn our most important lessons.

This is one I learned.

We hear a lot of talking points from pundits, from special interest groups, from individuals and from media personalities. These talking points move an agenda forward. They don't move us forward as society. I grew up in a city where guns were almost always associated with violence. I have friends who grew up hunting or in the mountains. Everyone had a gun in case they met an unexpected mountain lion or bear, or they liked to go hunting. My feelings about guns and their appropriate place are probably never going to be the same as those of my brother's school mates from USAFA and I am probably not going to be able to convert a lot of the kids I knew growing up to my understanding of violence and the machines that make it easier. But I think that whether we are talking about guns, taxes, abortion, or any hot or not button issue that faces us, I think we can do a lot of good if we ditch the talking points and actually talk about making reasonable progress. I think that there are an awful lot of people who are looking for the same outcomes. But if we keep on depending on other people's talking points, we're not going to make any progress. 

I find when I actually listen to others (which I admit, I don't do as much as I should) I learn an awful lot. So I am going to try to listen more. I encourage you to do the same thing. And I hope that what happened last week will be more than a tragedy -- that it will begin a constructive dialogue on changes we can all get behind that will help make tragedies like this a dark, sad thing of the past. Because at this point, there has been enough that we should have learned something.

Looks Pretty Delicious to Me

A Happy Thought

You'll hear people say Christmas is for children or for Jesus, for giving or for families, for any number of things that are good and worthy and lovely in their own right. But I would suggest something else.

Whether you celebrate Christmas or Hannukah, Dwali or Ramadan or nothing in particular, the holidays are a reminder that even in the darkest times there is light. Even when the world seems cold and bleak, there is warmth and happiness. Even when hope seems hard to find, joy is all around us. To me, the holiday season is about  light, joy and happiness being present in the most unlikely of places. In a glass of warm cider shared with a stranger. In a smile from a passer by. In an unexpected gift or greeting that is shared or received. In candles lit. In memories made. In love shared. Even in a manger.  Goodness is all around us. So light a candle, turn on the lights and let the wonder roll.