the round of life Archives | Page 13 of 29
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Friday, April 01, 2005
I waited to type this until I was relatively certain I could do it without swearing.
Well, I can never again say that I have never received a traffic ticket.
Wow, it made me a lot angrier than I thought it might, to type that. Deep breathing, it's OK, life goes ON, Rachel, it's only a speeding ticket, it's only THE END OF A FOURTEEN-YEAR STREAK OF SMUG DMV BLAMELESSNESS, IT'S NO BIG DEAL, RIGHT??
Really. Um. Wow.
Anyway. I blame it on Verdi. I was listening to the "Anvil Chorus", and...
No, wait, it's all the cardiologist's fault! If I hadn't had to drive down there to return the stupid holter monitor...
Um. Can I blame this on my low iron? no?
Seriously, I decided as soon as I saw the red light in my mirror and looked down to see my speedometer sitting at 65 that I wouldn't make excuses, I would just be straightforward and honest, and be a good testimony, and all that.
That and I thought maybe it would confuse the patrolman so much that he'd forget to write my ticket. But it didn't work. At least I can do the traffic school online.
On the way home, C appointed herself my official backseat driver. "I will keep an eye out for speed limit signs, Mommy, and I will read them to you if I see them, so you will know how fast to go. Because I am a very fast reader." And she did, too. "Mommy, it says 'SPEED LIMIT 45'. Are you going 45?"
Then a car VERY nearly ran over my daughter in the Vons parking lot. I was pushing the cart, and she was walking beside me, as we walked through the lot. The backup lights came on, on the car behind which we were walking, and before we could even trot out of the way, the car bolted backward. I pulled C out of the way just in time, and was still explaining why when the seriously seasoned citizen driving the car pulled backward far enough to finally see us (both wearing bright red sweaters). "I didn't hit her, did I?" Casual as anything. I clenched my teeth and replied, "Not QUITE."
I swear, all I want to do tonight, aside from maybe a nice relaxing sunset walk, is sit here and hork out on chocolate and do something totally boring, free, and harmless. Transcribing mind-numbing audio files about printer technology never sounded so good.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
frazzly
Today we (the kids and I) had to go to the valley to go shopping. On the drive home, LT (who's far less anxious than he used to be, but who still always worries if one of his parents seems unhappy or sick) asked me if I'd had an OK day, because I seemed a little frazzly. He was certainly right. Here's why.
First, picture a Chatty Cathy-type doll. Very cute, about 45 inches tall, goldeny kind of hair and eyes, freckles. Are you picturing?
OK, now her "chatty" switch is stuck ON, got it?
And she is being SO contrary and confrontational, and she never stops asking for things she wants or arguing when you tell her no until you either punish her or blow your top a bit and yell at her, and even when she's not doing this she is JUST. CONSTANTLY. TALKING.
Now picture spending hours teaching this doll school, or riding with her in the car, or taking her through a series of stores, or cooking her dinner, or reading her a bedtime story, or all of the above, and you have my day.
The worst part is that, in the midst of my frustration, there's a lot of guilt. First, there's guilt that I could ever be annoyed with someone whom I love so wholeheartedly. And then I feel guilty that I don't pay better attention to her -- you know how you swore you would never EVER tune out ANYTHING your kids said, you would hang on every word, until they learned to talk fluently, that is? yeah -- until the annoyance threshold is breached and then I act irritated with her. It's not that we have no pleasant interactions. It's not that I don't completely and totally adore her, because I do. It's just that instead of stopping her demands/arguments right away and being consistent, I start tuning her out and wait until I am seriously irritated before I deal with the situation. It's something I need to work on, and it's a recipe for disaster on a day like today. Or at least, it's a recipe for being "frazzly".
In other news, I am finally working on a transcription job I've been waiting on for two weeks. The guy who hired me for it first gave me the audio files in the wrong format, and then couldn't find the CF card with the correct files, and then got the flu, so it's taken this long to actually have files I can work with. I started transcribing tonight and I'm taking a break right now so that I don't get a life-threatening case of carpal tunnel syndrome. (you are forbidden to notice that I am, um, typing right now. I've BEEN taking a break, I really have.) It's amazing to watch how the Lord provides; last week we got smacked with $320 in extra bills out of a blue sky, and some odds and ends of broken stuff needed fixing, and we had no idea how we'd pay for any of it. Then a guy bought a car part from T -- T had not advertised it for sale, it was just sitting in his garage unwanted -- and then I did a résumé for a guy (who was in my first-grade class) and he paid double my usual rate, and now this job finally came through, and we're going to have enough and to spare. God is truly "able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all we ask or think." yay. :)
Thursday, March 24, 2005
grr.
Real life (in the form of unexpected bills and a very messy house and two stir-crazy kids stuck inside because of the weather) is interfering with my blogging AND with my photography right now. I'll be back around soon, I promise. Assuming I don't go completely batty insane.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Our neighbors
I've mentioned our neighbors in my photo blog (they're the ones with the gorgeous tulips). They're these little old Christian ladies who have lived together their entire adult lives, who ran a Christian camp for kids until just a few years ago. They used to shuttle my dad (and T's dad too) back and forth to Sunday school when they were kids, this is how long these ladies have been loving the Lord and spreading Him around as much as they can. Anyway. One of the ladies has become quite infirm, and needs live-in care. This past weekend the live-in carer apparently went on a drug binge (!!!) and failed to show up from Friday through this morning, when she showed up long enough to quit and grab her stuff, not even willing to help her former patient out of bed. So this weekend T and I have been filling in for the absent nurse in the morning and evening, getting Miss Ruth up from her chair, into the wheelchair, onto the commode, up from the commode, and into her bed in the evenings, and reversing the procedure in the mornings. We do the heavy work while Miss Jan, who is about the size and weight of LT, helps Miss Ruth with the more intimate aspects of her care. It has been quite an experience. (This morning I did the morning procedure without T, since he was at work). We walk away each time with our muscles aching, stretching our backs, so unspeakably grateful for the freedom to simply hop out of bed and go about our day without giving a thought to how we'll do it, pondering the kind of friendship that says: I will offer you my emotional support and friendly affection as long as you need it. I will trust you with my physical and financial well-being. And when we get old, and you can't take care of yourself, I will stand beside you and take care of you and stand up for you and help you in what should be very private moments, and I will strive to keep your dignity intact, and I will do this as long as it takes.
That is agape if I ever saw it. May God grant me the grace to love -- my friends, my family, my husband, my children -- like that.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Happy Birthday Family :)
Yesterday was our eleventh wedding anniversary. My parents came by and gave us a gift and offered to watch the kids while we went to spend it, but we decided instead to get dinner for the whole family and have a little "party" at home. We'd been thinking and talking all day about how our wedding anniversary, yeah, it celebrates the day we got married, and the first time we -- um, nevermind -- and the fact that there was NO MORE KISSING GOODNIGHT AND SAYING GOODBYE -- this was a biggie at the time. But the thing we kept thinking about yesterday was how our wedding marked the formal beginning of our family, of the entity that has grown and changed and become the center of our earthly lives and given us so, SO much joy. We spent a lot of time thanking God for the fact that His way of doing things is such a happy way. So it seemed fitting that our celebration wouldn't just involve T and me, but the whole gleeful group of us.
Do we rot the teeth out of your head with sweetness, or what.
Today we went to my parents' so that T could help my dad fix, um, I think the fuel pump in Mom and Dad's van. But it could have been some other thingamajiggy, I'm not sure. Meanwhile I went for a long walk (a very long walk, to quote the Musgroves in Persuasion), because I had of course brought [holy chord] The Nikon, and by golly I wanted to use it. Apparently I should have remembered the How Long And Which Direction rule, because everyone got kind of freaked out at how long I was gone, and went out searching for me, wondering if maybe I'd had an episode of tachycardia and was lying curled into the fetal position in the mud beside the road in the rain, or something. Which of course I hadn't, I was just, um, taking, er...
one hundred and sixty three pictures.
That takes a while. In fact, it's rather remarkable that it only took me two hours and three and a half miles, isn't it? Don't you think?
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Thursday, March 17, 2005
the textbook definition of "uncomfortable"
Today I had to go to what my dad has always euphemistically called "the ladydoctor" (all one word like that). I had to have a sonogram. I want to note here and now that this is far less fun when you're not pregnant. Especially it is less fun when you sit there (with the required full bladder, of course) for TWO HOURS in the dressing room with the little gown on, reading Les Misérables (thank you, Mr. Hugo, for that scintillating history lesson about Louis-Philippe, can we get on with Jean Valjean now), wondering if they've forgotten about you. And it is even less fun when the technician comes in to call out the third or fourth person who has arrived after you and then been seen, and tells you that by the way, the reason you're waiting is that you arrived half an hour late and they have to wait till they can "squeeze you in." Especially when you arrived on time -- early even -- and the front-desk people had your appointment time correct in their book but the technician lady didn't.
And yet I didn't kill anybody. Not even one person. I didn't even swear, not even in my head. Aren't you proud?
(Just don't ask if I, uh, cried. Because of the frustration. When I was alone.)
Then after I finally finished that unpleasant business, I went shopping. Alone. I went to Subway alone and then sat on the grass at the park alone and ate my sandwich alone while reading alone and I went to Costco and Save Mart and Smart and Final alone. It was like a vacation and a prison sentence at the same time. Like being Martha Stewart maybe, only I bet Martha Stewart never had the fun of figuring out the best way to spend exactly $55 at Costco.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
we really know how to throw a party
(I thought about putting this entry in the photo blog, since it is rather image-intensive, but since it's more of a daily-life entry, and the photos are, um, not artistic in the slightest, I stuck it here. Sorry about the hugeness of it.)
One night maybe six years ago when T was going to be away overnight visiting a friend, I decided that I would do a lot of fun girly stuff to make his absence more endurable (up until he got a job in telecom with its requisite two-week overtime stints in fire season, we had only very rarely been apart overnight). I rented chick movies -- this was the first time I watched "You've Got Mail", which turned out later to become one of T's favorites, but oh well -- and bought Doritos (which T hates) and made myself meatloaf (ditto), and I stayed up as late as I could make myself so that I wouldn't have to lie in bed waiting to go to sleep without him. (shut up, that is NOT pathetic.) Anyway. Somehow this developed into a tradition wherein when Daddy is gone, the kids and I throw a "party". That sounds really bad, I realize that, but we're not celebrating his absence -- we're more taking our minds off it. Tonight T is at a men's retreat, so here, courtesy of The New Nikon and the fact that I'm feeling a lot better than I was, is a look into the debauchery that the mice get up to while the cat's away.
This is not for the faint of heart.
(OK, maybe it is.)
First we all played a good game of pretend. The kids had torches (flashlights) and were exploring a ruin of a castle (our house, with all the lights turned off). I was the queen, who inexplicably was still alive inside this ruin. Adventure ensued.
observe my stately mantle (made from, um, a waterproof crib sheet. C was the costume designer for this production). And if you look really closely you can see the brown paper crown on my head. (LT took this picture. He is suitably aware of the honor and trust I bestowed upon him in allowing him to use The Nikon.)
LT then made a map of an imaginary country. I am unclear as to whether this map represents the country over which I reigned. I'll have to ask him tomorrow.
Then C made cookies, almost entirely by herself, from a mix she'd been given, um, for her birthday. In September.
it's a good thing these were just for family. C still needs practice at not licking the spoon.
the finished project
Part of a traditional party is the freedom to stay up as late as we want. When the kids can't keep their eyes open any longer, they make a tent in the front room and go to sleep in it.
The sheet down the middle divides it into a room for each of them. Do you notice that their legs have to go between the chair legs? Why again is this fun??
So there you have it -- a virtual tour of our wild, wild life. I'd better hope T doesn't read this one.
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Tuesday, March 08, 2005
drama queen
Today the kids and I went for a walk with my mom. I wore capris. Warm weather is nice, but I already miss winter. Come back! Before we know it it will all be about harsh hot sun directly overhead. Nooo.
We had to stop by the grocery store, where they just installed a 25c pony ride. C wanted to ride it, but I didn't have any pocket change, so she was disappointed and had to just hug it instead. We walked back to the car (thanks to the enormous hill going up to our house, we don't usually walk into town when we go for walks; we drive down the hill and park. Yeah, we're sissies.) and as we drove up the hill, C said, in a voice dripping with wistful, nostalgic longing:
"I will never forget that horse."
C, the world's foremost five-year-old teenaged drama queen.
Saturday, March 05, 2005
How To Enjoy Housework
Those of you who know me even slightly have probably figured out by now that I am not a neat freak. I am, in fact, pretty much a Messie. It's not that I don't care that the house is messy; I hate when it's messy (which it is, in varying degrees, most of the time). But I'm too lazy/sidetracked/interested in other things to keep it the way I like it to be. I'm better than I used to be -- oh, it is awful to look at pictures from when the kids were babies and see how messy the backgrounds were -- and I remember feeling so guilty when we took those pictures that my kids' baby pictures would so frequently look like they were living in a neglected methamphetamine lab.
OK, so not THAT bad. But still.
ANYWAY. Tonight I had an idea -- a surefire way to make myself enjoy cleaning up for once. Using my new toy, I mean Nikon, bought for me by the most nearly-perfect man ever, I made a time-lapse movie of myself cleaning the kitchen, as well as one of the living room. And now, because I am, um, really not shy about showing you all really embarrassing stuff, I guess, here are links to the two movies, which are extremely short. You might want to play the Sabre Dance while you watch them. Just a suggestion. You know, like the guy who tells you at a fancy restaurant what wine you should order. Not that I ever GO to restaurants like that. Or order wine.
OK OK HERE ARE THE LINKS ALREADY.
Cleaning the kitchen
Cleaning the living room (featuring in dual starring roles MY NEW FANTASTIC COUCHES. Thank you, they'll be here all week.)
Both movies came out a little dark; there's no way to adjust the shutter speed or aperture manually when it's doing a time-lapse movie, and the automatic everything kind of went, "wha? There is something beyond this table?" But you might be able to get the general idea.
This is where I would ordinarily type, "and it's off to bed for me," or something equally hokey, except that I am, um, way behind on laundry. Again. So I'm up washing some things for church tomorrow. Silly people who think they need socks and stuff. Sheesh.
Friday, March 04, 2005
I am SO grown-up
First, I have to get this out of the way. Yesterday we got up at the crack of dawn, which of course I photographed:
(OK, so that's sunrise, not dawn, quibble quibble. I'd also already been up for about an hour when I took that picture. Artistic license, OK? Oh, and you can click to see that bigger, in a new window)
We drove to first one city and then to another, to visit doctors. Here is what I learned (ooh, a list!):
- I have a flow murmur and a classic case of supraventricular tachycardia (neither of those things is actually that scary, but they sure sound like it).
- I will probably be having a hysterectomy sometime this spring.
- I should always turn off my cell phone at the GYN office, because otherwise I may end up talking to my dad whilst being examined, and folks, that just feels all wrong.
- T and I still have the happy ability to make a day of boring, necessary stuff into a date, just because we love each other and enjoy each other so much. (kids were with my parents).
Anyway, enough about that, on to the real news.
First, in case you are new to my journal(s), I must re-confess that I was a thirty-year-old woman who had never owned a pair of high-heeled shoes. This has to do with having reached my adult height (which is taller than average) in junior high, and all this deep-seated insecurity about being taller than everyone else. And also laziness, also known as "never getting around to it".
Yesterday, however, I figured, what the heck, and we bought me these:
T wants me to make sure you know that he picked them out. I said I wanted high heels, he did the rest. Aren't they darling? DO YOU SEE THE POLKA DOTS?
(Seriously, though? HOW DO YOU WALK? I mean, is it really all about these little bitty short steps -- well, they're little bitty short to ME, anyway -- or is there some trick to moving quickly and gracefully at the same time which I just don't know about? And also, very freaky when you take off your shoes and feel like your heels are downhill from your toes.)
the round of life Archives | Page 13 of 29
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