Strange things happen to me all the time. But they are usually a good kinda strange. My husband has gotten used to it, sorta, but there are still moments when he looks at me with wide eyes of disbelief, and I share in his disbelief, as I'm usually more shocked than he is.

While driving up to Boston for the Cannfest which is a legalize-pot rally (neither of us smoke pot, but we both agree it should be legalized), to see the bands Beyond the Embrace and Waltham, I was reading the magazine The Libertarian Comminicator (yes, I am a dork and read during long drives). I came across a picture of Amanda Phillips and excitedly showed it to my husband. I reach over to the volume for the cd player and lower it down.

"Babe, this is her, this is her! See? This chick right here, she is the head chick at the Free State Project. Amanda Phillips. I have got to meet her one day. In my lifetime. Remember those radio interviews I was listening to online last year? The chick is bright as all heck and so funny and so cool. Check out the hot tshirt she's wearing, woo hoo, cleavage shot!" Kenny laughed. "She's hot, she's cute," he said and continued driving. I worried he'd missed the whole point of why I wanted to meet her, so I kept babbling about her for another five minutes. "Babe, babe, the guy that came up with the idea, the plan for the Free State Project, instead of running it all with himself as the boss, he goes and selects this chick. I mean, obviously the chick got some heavy duty intelligence for a guy to pick her, outta all the people out there, ya know? Plus, you should hear her radio interviews, you would agree with how she thinks and what she has to say. I gotta meet her one day, Kenny. I just gotta. She's my hero. I respect and admire her even a little more than I do Ayn Rand." Kenny nodded "Yep, I know, you told me that last year," and turned up the music. I lowered it back down and he laughed. "Kenny, this chick is going to change the world for the better. Remember that name, Amanda Phillips. She's going to be president someday probably!" He nodded at me again and turned back up the music. "I'm gonna meet her one day, maybe next year, go up to New Hampshire for a day or a weekend or something," I said loudly. Kenny laughed again and said "sounds like a plan."

Keep in mind, Kenny wasn't being rude to keep turning back up the music, this is one of those private joke moments that some married couples have... I was the one who started it, by turning the volume down, and back and forth we go. It's not done with the intent of being rude, it's become one of our playful power plays with each other. Besides, Kenny does listen to what I say... I know this for a fact, because he registered to vote this year as an independent.


So I continue reading the magazine and we arrive at the festival. We see a bunch of people we know, and the boys pester me to take them to the booths selling merchandise. KC wants a studded belt (he needs a belt anyways) and Winter wants an army hat. The boys also want to meet the guys from Waltham, but they are too shy... they are literally standing right next to the lead singer, but can't seem to get over their nervousness to shake hands or say hello. Their Uncle Kevin tries to talk them into it, but they seem content just to have seen the guy in person, as well as other members of the band, and don't need any introductions.

So as I'm walking the booths with the boys, picking out spiked bracelts, belts and hats, I see a booth that looks familiar. It's the booth with the World's Smallest Political Quiz. I recognized the guy in the booth... he was the guy from the picture in the magazine I was reading. The guy that had been standing right next to Amanda Phillips. I told my boys to come with me for a second while I asked the guy in the booth if by any chance Amanda was with him today.

Imagine my shock when he pointed to the next booth over and said "she's one booth over, right there," as he handed me a pamphlet. Nearly shocked to the point I could not breathe, I turned my head and there she was. A mixture of intense respect and walking on the ground of this reality as if in a dream filtered into me with a few blinks of my eyelashes to clear my vision and to make sure I didn't end up coming across as a crying goofball. "Are you Amanda Phillips?" I asked, and I've no idea why I asked that, because I knew it was her, I guess my ears just needed to make sure. "Yes, I am," she said, and she got up and shook my hand and I said "Amanda, I have listened to all of your radio interviews online and I just gotta say I respect you so much for what you are doing. You are just great!" And with that, she walked over to me and hugged me!

Oh, my gosh... I was blown away by the moment. Completely. But that didn't stop me from yapping some more about the project, Jason Sorens, New Hampshire, and how inspiring the whole thing was. I also told her I'd tried to get to a few gatherings up in New Hampshire, but stuff just kept coming up, with three kids and all... it can get complicated to make plans. I told her that next year I hoped to find the time and resources to finally make my journey up to the state of New Hampshire to at least one of the events.

As me and the boys walked back over to where Kenny and his brother were hanging out, the boys yelling "Look, mom got me a belt!" and "Dad, I got a spiked bracelet!", I danced up to Kenny and said "Guess who I just met?" He looked at me not expecting what I said next. "Amanda Phillips."

His eyes got huge and his brain immediately knew who I meant, as I'd been talking about her only an hour before. "You did not."

"Oh, yes, I did. And she hugged me. Swear to gosh."

"You serious?" Kenny was looking at me like I'd gotten a contact high from the faint smell drifting over from the wooded areas of the park.

"Oh, I'm serious. Yep. She's right over there. Can you believe it?"

Kenny stared at me with the same look on his face that he had the day I saved the fish.

"I want you to meet her and get a picture of me and her together for my blog," I said. My brother-in-law stayed with the boys as we went over. We forgot that first visit to get the picture taken, so a few hours later, after the show before we left, we went back and got this shot:




The quality isn't that good because it was taken with a cell phone. But, I'm so happy we got a picture of a moment that will stay with me for my lifetime. It was an honor and a moment of incredible joy to meet the woman I have so much faith in, so much hope for, and so much respect and awe in all she does, says and thinks. That meeting her was so nice, so human, and so unexpected and almost a strange coincidence (I really should have logically figured out that the Free State Project would have a booth at a rally of this kind!) just made my heart and mind so content. I'll be floating along for weeks, maybe months, perhaps years (!!!) with a sunshiney little bounce to my step because of this meeting. :)


And it couldn't have happened at a better time (another case of great timing in my life... like meeting Kenny!) With this week just so full of political and beaurocratic bullcrap, meeting Amanda put me into a frame of mind that is even more focussed and resolved to do what is right. I have been so stressed out about so many things going on... after some mental reflection yesterday (after a phonecall and a visit that pretty much pushed the reflecting to happen), I am now actually ok with all we have gone through to get to where we are at. Before, I was so angry about it. Now, I'm at a point where I recognize that which somebody told me last month is absolutely right. Things are going exactly as they should, in spite of how unfair they are, because if anybody can do something about it, it could be us. I knew our family was strong, but I just wanted to live life. Now I know; we are living life and we are doing exactly what we should be doing. Every single thing we've gone through will end up making a positive impact (and in many ways, already has... just not as directed and as focussed as we'd like it to be.) Things take time, and when you're in the daily grind of things, when you're focussed so much on today and the days to come, you can forget to look back and see how far you've come.

I took a moment to look back... and now this week doesn't seem as stressful as it felt it was going to be last week when my anger at incompetence was at its height (I thought I'd hit the height months ago... boy, was I wrong.) I let go of my stress, mainly because it was so easy to see with looking back that everything I kept saying now was in bold 24 font all-caps black and white. The stress was pretty easy to let go of, the anger, though... I'm still working on it. I tend to chain smoke when I'm angry, or I try to do projects like housework or painting ceilings and walls. Today, for a change of pace, I'm going to take my doctor's advice and not paint the walls of the house or take my anger out on the floors with a mop and instead just take off for a few hours while the kids are at school and go bump around the thrift store and visit some friends just to say hello.

I have a funny blog post coming up about a wedding I went to last month, but I wanted to post this blog post first... because it had such a great impact on me and because I just wanted to write about it while it's all fresh in my mind and heart.

Will hopefully be doing more weekly blog posts... to keep everyone up to date. For any details on things, feel free to email me. For now, the details can only be shared with close friends and family, who have been an incredible support system for us during our past year, which has been just mind-boggling but at least it has been productive. Not the kind of productive we expected to find ourselves in the middle of, but, again... maybe it was all just meant to be, and we've certainly proven ourselves to be more than capable of handling it. :)