I know that probably goes without saying, so maybe I should say I actually really LIKE them, I enjoy them, I marvel at them and just thinking about them makes me smile with love for Who They Are.

The two of them make the most interesting (sometimes challenging ) father-son duo I’ve ever known.

Do you know the juggling story?

Well then…let me tell you.

Last year, the day after Thanksgiving to be exact, Zeb asked Justin how to learn to juggle.

Justin, never having done it but being fully indoctrinated in Google-School, said, “Good question. Let’s find out.”

Oh, blessed YouTube and how you enrich our lives.

(Seriously, can you believe YouTube is only about 6 years old? How did we LIVE without YouTube before 2005??)

An hour later, and Zeb had satiated his curiosity for how one learns to juggle.

Four or five hours later – somewhere around midnight – Justin’s saying things like “Check it out! I think I REALLY got it now!”

Over the past year, Zeb would pick it up again and then stop.

Over the past year, Justin has juggled an average of TWO HOURS A DAY.

Zeb has spent just about ten hours and mastered how to juggle the three ball cascade, several tricks and passing with his dad (video below).

Justin can now juggle six balls, do countless tricks, and juggle anything from balls to pins to rings to puppies if our dog would trust him.

Zeb’s also dabbled with the Diablo and the yo-yo.

Justin is hardcore with the juggling, yo.

(It makes for some great jokes, lemme tell ya.)

And then this past summer, after some deep connecting with what exactly this juggling thing is all about, this awesome duo decided to go pro.

Justin + Zeb = Oddball Juggling!

Oddball Juggling is all about sharing the love and benefits of juggling with other families by offering affordable, durable juggling balls and inspiration with other families.

That’s their mission statement and it makes my heart go pitter-patter. ♥

Seriously, they are for realz. Check this out:

• They figured out what the real benefits of juggling for kids are.
• Justin is all about juggling and the brain.
• But even more so, he’s all about the juggling meditation.
• The dude seriously juggles everywhere he goes.
• And Zeb isn’t quite so outgoing about being in front of the camera, but a little birdy tells me he’s going to make a solo video soon.

But it’s more than just having fun and inspiring others. It’s a father-son business!

They are selling two sizes of juggling balls and have several videos to get you started (with more on the way!).

And They’re Making YOU a Special Offer!

Oh seriously, I just love their mad business skillz. They used them to convince me (with payments of shoulder rubs) to share their special offer here.

Just in time for the holidays, you can get you and your family your own set(s) of juggling balls for 20% off!

When you go to order through Etsy, enter the coupon code: organic20

In the meantime, won’t you please Like their Facebook page and share this post with your friends and family, on Twitter, Facebook, your blog and anywhere else to help them get the word out?

Justin was up first turning 30 a few weeks ago!

We’re big on celebrating milestones and on celebrating life, so 30 seemed like a pretty significant number to do something big with.

What did he choose? Skydiving!

Zeb and I watched from the ground, jumping up and down as we saw the plane, saw him jump out of the plane and at one point even heard his Woohoo reach us on the ground. And the look on his face and his serene demeanor after was priceless.

Zeb’s birthday was up next, and like a classic 12 year old, he requested no photos. [Insert sad mama face here.]

I do however have a photo of the two of them juggling together! ♥

I guess you’ll just have to take my word that we watched hours of his favorite movies, went bowling with my sister and her family, then out for pizza.

Then came our anniversary – today actually.

My sweet hubby and I have been together for 11 years, married for nine.

We spent the day together, shopping the farmer’s market, then out to lunch, a movie, a walk on the Michigan beach with ice cream and lots and lots of reminiscing about how we met (he saw me at a warehouse and was almost too shy to introduce himself – someone else did it for him), what made us fall in love (oh so many little things) and what made it last (that’s a whole post right there).

I’m so incredibly in love with these two guys of mine and am so happy they were born into my life. ♥

It’s been a busy few weeks. Two spent in Southern California, visiting, meeting, working, creating and exploring. And then we headed back to Nevada for a very special court date.

Yes! It’s official! Justin and Zeb’s adoption has been finalized!

It feels good to call official what we’ve known for almost a decade. It also felt really amazing to see my 11 year old bouncing up and down in his seat with The.Biggest.Grin on his face as the judge announced it so.

Now we’re hanging in town for another week, wrapping up our loose ends and hanging out deep in my Creative Cave while I iron out the last of my new e-book. After that? We’re cruising up the West Coast and anxiously awaiting Northern California.

I’m going to be editing photos for ages…you know, if I ever get started.

In the meantime, here’s some inspiration I’ve been swimming in:

• Justin has been working with me on the Sustainable Baby Steps site and we’re soooo loving partnering together to write new articles, such as Types of Houseplants That Clean Indoor Air. We’re also working together on some products for that site! And just generally having a blast.
• I was included in The Goddess Guidebook’s free e-book, How To Be a Morning Goddess! You can get your free copy at that link!
• Have you been listening in on The WISH Summit too? So, so excited to hear all the calls!
• A lovely reader shared this song with me on Facebook and I had to pass it along!
• If you’re in need of some reminding of the beautiful things in life, you must watch this video.
• If you’re wondering about the future of education, this article was quite interesting.
• But this is the way I can really see education evolving.
• HAHAHAHAHA I can’t get enough of this!
• Wondering what you can do for the world right now?
• I love seeing Benny with his new family.
• Every since first hearing about the retreat, I’ve been fascinated by Tiffani’s experience of it.
• Did I mention we spent the day with her and her family at Disney?
• Beautiful. Seriously. Just check her out.
• The perfect pet?
• Every parent of a teen should read this, just to know the alternatives.
• Love when something I love starts to become mainstream!
• This video makes me smile.
• This type of artwork/healing is so lovely!
• Have kids that love violent games?Read this.
• Heart.

Phew! That’s a lot of inspiration! It’s been a good month. 

What’s Inspiring You?

Leave your comment, blog your own post, or just spend a second to appreciate the good things in your life.

Wanna see me and Justin act like goofballs, sing, dance and give the Grand Tour?

And All That Jazz! from Tara Wagner on Vimeo.

Yup, pretty much inspiring the dignity out of me.

Some other inspirational stuff I want to share:

• It was warm and breezy and inspired me to write about Spring Cleaning Tips
• Which also lead me to do some research on whether or not Oxiclean is safe.
• I’ve been absorbing this message all week. It’s not quite sunk in yet.
• Fun little personality test that is So. Right. On.
• Every woman should be singing this song to herself!
• And this song too!
• I think we’ve all fallen victim to the I’ll-be-happy-when kinda thinking.
• I loved her in Beaches and I love her more here.
• Love road trips? You’ll love this site!
• Oh. My. Goodness. Gorgeous!
• I need to write Be In A Flash Mob on my life list.
• Have I shared this powerful video before? If so, it deserves another share.

Justin and I have a busy week(s) ahead of us. We’re finishing up the last minute details of getting back on the road AND we’re co-writing an e-book for Sustainable Baby Steps!

So, I might be sparse on the blog and time sucks Facebook and Twitter for a tiny bit. But I’m still available by email and still scheduling a few coaching sessions.

And I’ll be back soon with more awesome sauce for you gorgeous people. In the meantime….

What’s inspiring YOU?

The intentions might be well-meaning but the message still feels pretty miserable: Parenting sucks, it’s too hard for you to do alone, you’re too young to do this right and oh, by the way, you’re doomed to be single and miserable because no guy will ever date a woman with a kid.

To one extent or another, by someone in my young life, I was told those things. And I could talk at length at about each one of them and what they did to my thoughts and intentions.

But I’m going to focus on the last one right now.

…you’re doomed to be single and miserable because no guy will ever date a woman with a kid.

It was a pretty classic men-are-dogs message that I heard and a fairly damaging one at that. Not only was I was told to hate Zeb’s bio-dad, I was told to expect the worst from any other man I happened to come across.

And it was total bullshit.

There are men out there who aren’t acting maliciously toward their children or the mother’s of their children. There are men out there who are nothing but human beings doing the best they can with what they have.

There are good men out there who do incredible things for children who are and aren’t biological their own.

I’m married to one. And I had a child with another.

Really Emotional News

Zeb’s bio-dad backed out of the picture when Zeb was two. He wasn’t a “dead beat dad”…he was a deeply conflicted and hurting man. He was living the consequences of several negative choices he had made. And he was doing the best he could with the tools he had.

By leaving, he did the very best thing for his son at that time.

It takes an incredible amount of strength to do that and I won’t begrudge him that.

Justin came into our lives when Zeb was only one year old. I don’t remember when Zeb started calling him Dad, probably somewhere around the age of three, when we were married.

Over the past ten years of the three of us being together, I’ve watched this remarkable man stretch himself to grow into the father that Zeb needed him to be. I’ve watched him teach Zeb to ride a bike, play catch or just cuddle on the couch together. I’ve watched the two of them fight together and fart together…you know, like fathers and sons do.

Over the past ten years, there has never been any doubt in anyone’s minds that Justin is Zeb’s dad, but inspired by Heather, we decided to align the legalities with the Truth.

Justin, with the help of Zeb’s bio-dad, is adopting Zeb.

I’m overwhelmed by these two amazing men: One, who had the courage and love to step into fatherhood so many years ago…

And the other, with more love than I’ve ever heard in anyone’s voice, through his own pain and without any ego, gave the greatest gift to his child that he had to give.

My heart is so full of love for Zeb’s bio-dad. I hold no resentment or anger toward him. I see his heart and I know he’s only ever done the best he could.

My heart is so full of passion for my husband and Zeb’s Dad. He fills our lives with his love each and every day. This adoption is just paperwork to confirm what’s been true for years.

Such enormous choices, such enormous gifts.

Only truly incredible men can do what they have both done.

Here’s to good men everywhere, doing the best they can and in unconventional ways.

You know sometimes I’m amazed Justin and I not only made it this far, and are still so in love with each other. We had both come from divorced parents and I especially didn’t have very many healthy relationship models. Neither one of us really knew what love was or what marriage took to succeed. But we did know we didn’t want to put our child(ren) through the pain we experienced as children.

A few of our single friends have asked us in the past how we did it: how we found “the right one”, how we made things work and how in the world we stayed so passionate for each other. I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the past few weeks, trying to understand our own romantic journey and discovery, or self-discovery really, trying to find our own “keys to marital success”.

The journey is different for everyone, I’m sure, but here are the things that made the difference for us:

• Letting go of our type: I was The Bagel Girl and Justin was a construction runner at the time; we both had daily stops at a tool warehouse in town. He spotted me and worked on intuition. My first impression of Justin was “not my type” (based on my type until that point, I can now see that was a good sign), and although he didn’t say so, I wasn’t exactly his either. Justin was accustomed to thoughtless, high school girls; I was accustomed to assholes. So when I started talking philosophy and theology on our first date, he knew I wasn’t the standard cookie-cutter girl. Likewise when I watched him turn his truck’s system down (yeah, he was one of those guys with extremely large and loud speaker systems in his truck) upon entering a residential area, I was literally shocked. Neither of us would have been able to get to that point of noticing these new and interesting qualities had we not stepped outside what we thought we knew about “the perfect date”.
• Letting go of the fairy tale: A very well-meaning woman had once told me, as I was sobbing over a broken heart, that “if it was meant to be it wouldn’t be so hard”. I loved her to death but something about those words didn’t sit right with me. For all of our lives, we’re read fairy tales and “happily ever after” stories. But love doesn’t always come in and sweep us off our feet, carrying us away to Perfect Marriage Land – especially when you’re entering into the relationship with so much baggage. Justin and I went into our relationship knowing that we were in love and that we would have a lot of work to do to figure out how exactly we should put that into action. The first two years of our relationship and several periods throughout were fucking hard. There were moments no one thought we would (or should) make it through. But because we accepted in advance that it wouldn’t always come easily, we didn’t let the worst of times tear us apart. We kept pushing through it, focusing on what we wanted with each other and building our partnership skills along the way. I can’t imagine where we’d be if we had given up.
• Remembering it’s not 50/50. This one came from my Grandma (who has been happily married since 1954) and is probably the greatest key to our success. I had asked her several months before our wedding what her best advice would be and she was quite adamant that a good relationship is never 50/50. It’s closer to 80/20…you just have to be willing to give more than you take. This one challenged me at the time, but she insisted that marriage needs to move from a place of generosity. She explained what I now know to be true in regards to marriage or parenting: unconditional love and endless generosity do not create selfish people who walk over you; it creates an environment of kindness and compassion. It fills people up until they have no choice but to pour it back into those around them.
• Never letting myself go. This one also came from my grandma as well and seriously rubbed up against my feminist mind. After all, shouldn’t Justin love me regardless of whether I wear makeup or gain weight? The answer is yes. But letting yourself go has more to do with Who You Are than what you look like. Justin fell in love with me because I was determined, strong-willed and cared deeply about myself; physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. If I “let myself go” – stopped learning and fighting for what I believe in, sat on the couch eating junk food in my pajamas watching trash TV, stopped being the best person I could be…if I let go of my role in our partnership and did a 180 on my personality, he was obviously going to feel differently. He fell in love with me for Who I Am, for my best qualities and for my desire to impress him with those qualities as I did when we first dated. And he’ll miss that person if she leaves just because “we’re married now.”
• Filling each other’s voids. I used to feel resentful anytime I felt I was “mothering” Justin. Likewise I felt uncomfortable admitting that I needed him to care for me the same way. But recently we’ve come to see the amazing healing power and stronger connection that can be had when we symbolically “parent” each other. I believe we marry the person who can love us the way we’ve never been loved and our gift of understanding, kindness and generosity has the power to fill voids we’ve been aching to fill. Together we can right the wrongs of one another’s pasts, giving each other what we may not have had enough of and sheltering one another just as a loving parent unconditionally and automatically shelters their child.

There are a myriad of other things I feel contributed to our success: being open and honest but knowing when honesty would be more hurtful than helpful, understanding our first role is as Zeb’s parents but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to neglect our needs as lovers, being silly together and that sometimes we need reminders of it all.

I’m glad to have written these things out; I love when messages like these come through me, as well as to me. The past few weeks have given us new challenges as we navigate this life and our unjobbing experiences and it’s good to be reminded of these principles of mindfully choosing unconditional love, generosity and compassion.

What about you? What have you learned about love?

After La Crosse, we headed back across Wisconsin to a small town an hour outside Green Bay. Zeb’s Gramma flew into town and we met her at her brother’s home for five beautiful days.

Tom and Mary live on a beautiful beach lake. We happened to reach them just as the weather cooled down. It could not have been a more serene setting.

We spent the first day playing with cousins, eating yummy food (they had a plethora of yummy gluten-free foods just for me!) and enjoying the water.

The next day was much the same: tubing, boating, playing in the sand, hooping, eating, chatting.

The third day was spent in one of Justin’s favorite places: Lambeau Stadium! We toured the stadium, inside and out. By far the most memorable part was walking through the players’ tunnel. As you start to walk down the door opens, you hear insane cheering and the announcer introduces “the team”. It was hilarious and exciting to have a taste of what the players must experience as they come out on the field.

The fourth day was spent on the lake again. This time we also did a bit of birding and actually saw a American Bald Eagle! I can’t describe how beautiful and majestic this bird was; a very powerful site to see. Zeb had even seen the nest on an earlier boat ride; apparently the nests are about 5 feet in diameter!

The day to leave came too soon. I was worried that Zeb would have a difficult time saying goodbye, like he did in Nashville. But he was impressively calm. Perhaps knowing we would see her again in a few short months for the holidays helped…or maybe, as he said, he’s just getting older. Either way it’s amazing to see so much change in him these past few months. He’s just such an amazing kid.

More photos from our time on the lake can be found here.

Current Location: Heading into Decorah, Iowa today through Saturday!

Let’s Grow Old Together from Tara Wagner on Vimeo.

Ten years together, 8 years married. Still madly in love with butterflies and goosebumps.

Happy anniversary, my love. Here’s to this moment and many more.

Current location: Noah’s Ark, Wisconsin Dells

i’m glad you were born
29 years ago
in this very place
when we were still worlds apart

you, with a crooked smile
and a chipped tooth
and a deep sense of responsibility
for things that aren’t yours
and those who are

you, who grew up quickly
and quietly
who’s path i often wondered if i crossed
unnoticed

you, who sacrifices all dignity
to see us laughing until we pee our pants
at the faces you make
or animals you impersonate
or other things I probably shouldn’t repeat
(because dignity is only lost for us, after all)

you, who feels old in his youth
and gives himself a bellyache for it
who fears things
like speaking his mind
and wearing pink that’s really grey
no matter what your eyes tell you

you, who challenges me
and my beliefs on independence
who reminds me without words
(and sometimes with words)
all you mean to us

you, who fills me
who is the catalyst behind our best ideas
who inspires me
and reminds me of my own power
yet fails to see it all lacks without your hand

you, who is not finding yourself
but creating
who thinks deeply
but doesn’t share
whom i can neither read
nor resist

you, who fails to acknowledge
your own wonder and prowess
who can’t admit to the miracle that is you
who has yet to discover
the influence and magic that would disappear
had you not been born
into this world
and into mine

i’m glad you were born
to smile and to learn
to push and be pushed

i’m glad you were born
to influence and shape
and create and Be

i’m glad you were born
into this place, this time
to be this person
just Who You Are
right now
and here with me

Happy birthday, Justin. I love you.

Everyone has their “thing,” right? That one thing they just can’t do.

Mine is dishes.

It’s not that I just hate doing them. It’s that it is that one thing that grosses me out. Give me vomit to clean or a farm animal to slaughter and I’m good to go and probably a little too interested. Show me a sink full of soggy, slimy food particles floating in warm water and I’m going to gag. Heaven forbid one of those food particles actually clings to my hand. I’m getting chills just thinking about it.

This is actually a two-fold issue:

1. Food particles = indescribable yakking reflexes
2. I don’t really like the sensation of wet hands…or feeling wet in general. Especially if it’s cold water.

I know this makes me slightly weird (although I’m adamant I’m not alone) and I do manage to take showers. Mostly I think it’s just a sensitivity thing (I don’t like air blowing on me either) and well…a weird thing. Whatever. I can own it.

One of the first things I miss in the RV is the dishwasher. And not just for the washing aspect; having a place to put dirty dishes until you have enough to wash is just as beneficial. As such there is almost always a dirty dish in the sink, taunting me relentlessly.

Thankfully I have a husband who humors me. For the past several months without a dishwasher, Justin has been handwashing like a pro. Occasionally I can overcome the water issue to rinse and dry. It’s hard and it involves a lot of hand-drying (yes, I actually dry my hands between the dishes I rinse – like I said, I can own my weirdness) but I do it.

He loves me (and he knows I have serious issues), so it’s never really mentioned. And I love him to the moon and back for it. But when Justin was taking his blacksmith workshop over the weekend, he’d come home on cloud nine and I knew nothing would ruin that excitement like dishes waiting to be done.

So today when I faced a sink full of dirty dishes, I didn’t think about the particles of stir-fry floating by or the soggy rice cascading between my fingers (oh dear lord). I took a really deep breath and focused on offering this as a gift of love to my husband.

And you know what? With my husband held firmly in my mind, it wasn’t so bad. This was my gift and nothing changes our perspective like wholeheartedly choosing to give from our hearts.

I didn’t clean out the food trap though. I do have issues, after all. Thankfully, he didn’t mind.