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Sunday, October 17, 2004

I am so spoiled.

This is a link to a news story about the freaky stuff that was going on in Yosemite the other day. Although the most horrific part wasn't known about until last night.

T came home late last night, after the arsonist's body was found and the weather made it evident that the fire suppression crew wasn't going to be needing his services. We were in the midst of a really big sleepover -- our neighbors' babysitter backed out at the last minute and they had a concert to attend, so they asked me if they could send the kids up to our house. It was fun, and a little crazy. It made me think about those dreams I used to have of having a family that size (we had six kids between three and ten here for the night, counting my two), and how different our lives would be if God had had things work out that way. Even just having that many kids at the table for a meal is an adventure and takes substantial planning. My hat is off to both my grandmothers, who dealt with that sort of thing every day.

And to the neighbor kids' mom, who brought us a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts as a thank you. Diet forsooth!

Today we had just a nice quiet lazy Sunday afternoon in the house. We're having our first rainstorm of the season, and we built a little fire, and I read an entire book (Good Hope Road by Lisa Wingate -- I recommend it. It's somewhere on a line between Jan Karon and Elizabeth Berg, if a little bit less professionally-done), and I don't know when the last time was that I read an entire book in one day. Oh, wait, it was Friday -- except that took part of early Saturday morning too -- when I read the new Maeve Binchy, Nights of Rain and Stars I think it's called -- which is a little less poetic than her usual books but still a good story. So, wow, two whole library books in one weekend, and a fire in the woodstove, and a "shooting-down" (C's phrase) rainstorm. I am just plain spoiled rotten, that's all there is to it.

Monday, October 04, 2004

snippety snippets, again (including an update on T)

Yesterday I bought fabric-softener sheets. I bought them at Costco, so they're in a two-pack, sealed in shrink-wrap, sitting on my dryer behind a closed door, and yet the smell of them has now completely pervaded my house. I am more than a little afraid to take the wrapping off, let alone actually -- egads -- open one of the boxes.

An update on poor T: He ended up going to the doctor today, because the pain in his jaw (which, I don't remember if I mentioned this yesterday and I'm too lazy to check, was really sore after his fall, even though he hit the back of his head, and it wouldn't close properly for a while, and won't again now) got worse and worse. The doctor thinks it may be dislocated, and sent him for an X-ray. In looking at the films, I think the doctor is wrong, but then, there's more than one reason (like, say, six or eight years of schooling) why I'm not the person who's paid a six-figure salary to read X-rays, and we'll know what the actual professional says probably tomorrow. Meanwhile T is on muscle relaxants (read: T is sleepy, and a little loopy) and is off work until at least Thursday. Good times.

With Daddy home, as usually happens, we got almost nothing at all done today. C did go to her first ballet lesson of the year, looking as cute as it is possible for a little five-year-old girl with positively enormous eyes wearing a pink leotard and pink tights to look, which is pretty darn cute. And she had a good time. LT spent a great deal of time playing Legos with Daddy. Tomorrow, even with him home, we're going to have to get back into our routine or the house will be unlivable by the end of the week, and the kids will have totally forgotten how to sit still at school and, you know, learn stuff.

I'm trying to read Mr. Darcy Takes A Wife, which is one of many sequels written to Pride and Prejudice. I will just say that Jane Austen rotates furiously in her grave every time anyone picks this book up off a shelf, and not just because it is full of really explicit sex scenes (complete with phrases like "torch of love" [yes, that means what you think it means] and "piercing a maidenhead" and "emit his seed". I swear I am not making this up). The author makes a very painful effort to use Austenian language, and fails utterly. In fact, she crashes and burns. And she is apparently about to write in an illegitimate son for Darcy. I do not plan on finishing this book. Isn't it great about books -- I've always thought this, since I was a little girl -- that the lives in them are just words on paper, smashed between covers, until we do that magical thing where our brains read the words and flesh out the stories in our imaginations, and then they are as real to us as the lives of real people whom we just happen to never see? I love that. And conversely, by not reading this book, I am effectively making its execrableness cease to exist in my own personal world. Bye-bye.

A final snippet: Our cats' collars have bells. As annoying as this sometimes is (say, when one of them is sleeping on our bed and decides to vigorously scratch her neck, at that awful moment which is ten minutes before the alarm goes off), we have left them on as a kind of protection for the quail families who live in the field next to our house. However, I frequently remind myself that the sound I'm hearing is just the cat's collar only after I have freaked out, thinking there was a dog in the house with its tags jingling. Sometimes my own mental vacuity astounds me.

Sunday, October 03, 2004

injured T, cute 5-year-old pictures, and Turkish Delight

You know what isn't fun? When your 8-year-old son walks into the kitchen and says, "Daddy fell down and he wants you to come." No, fun isn't what I would call that. It turns out that T was working on a carcass of a car on a trailer, and stepped down backward forgetting that he was four or five feet up in the air. He landed flat on his back and his head was a little whirly for a while. We called the nurse hotline provided by our insurance company (a couple more incidents and we'll be exchanging Christmas cards with those nurses) and now I have a long list of faculties to check, every two hours for the next 24 hours. Fun times. But it could have been much, much worse.

and now for some astoundingly cute C pictures*:

That's the nightgown I made her for her birthday. Because having a daughter is so darn much fun.

*I need to get some pictures of LT up here too. Not that he has ANY idea about what is here... oh please God let it stay that way... but I just feel guilty that the vast majority of the pictures are of C.

Watching "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" (or more specifically, being in the room typing at the computer while T and the kids are watching it) has reminded me of one of life's greatest disappointments: Turkish Delight. I've read that series over and over, starting when I was seven or so, and up until a few years ago I pictured Turkish Delight being a sort of cakey, fudge-consistencied confection, tasting sweet, and with the flavor of coffee and spices. (I can hear non-North-American readers laughing already). Imagine my surprise when a European friend sent me some, and I found it to be exactly like if I were eating my grandmother's rose-scented hand lotion, thickened and dipped in chocolate. Another of life's little disappointments...

Thursday, September 30, 2004

just rambling around going on and on about widely varied topics

LT had his first nosebleed in three weeks tonight. Just when we were thinking that his nose had healed fully and nosebleeds would be a thing of the past, wham. It wasn't a terribly bad one but it didn't stop as soon as I'd have liked. sigh. Just something else to add to Nameless Dread.

If Nameless Dread didn't have such a catchy title already I'd call it, I dunno, Trying to Be God or Not Trusting God Enough. Because that's what it is. I know that and yet it doesn't keep it from happening sometimes. There's a whole list of things that can trigger it or pass through my mind while it's going on. LT's Tourette's. T's lack of energy (which is getting worse and doesn't seem to need sugar as a trigger anymore, although sugar definitely doesn't help). T's boss. T's job. The real estate market. North Korea. LT's nosebleeds. Money. The everlasting worry about whether I'm doing the right things with my kids. Terrorism. And it goes on. And sometimes there's no trigger and nothing specific in my head, I just get this feeling of foreboding and worry in the pit of my stomach that won't go away. I know I should just give this over to God and trust Him. I'm trying. I keep giving it to Him and then taking it all right back. sigh.

I just tonight started working on the nightgown we're going to give C for her birthday. I'll work on it some more tomorrow night, and then Friday morning T will be off; I'll get him to keep the kids occupied while I finish it. I so totally should have started this days ago. It's my own fault -- I actually completely forgot about it last night and Monday night. whoops.

I am not sure there were enough adverbs in those last two sentences. Maybe I should add a few "very"s and a "surely" or two.

Tomorrow -- well, technically speaking, today -- my little girl will be five. A whole hand. I've said this before in here, I think, but I never realized before I had kids how big a deal a birthday is for the person's mother. I always thought of my birthdays as just my own thing -- as much as a birthday can be one's own thing when it is on Christmas -- and never thought about what was going through Mom's head. Now I know. Five years ago right now I was extremely uncomfortable, just finally going to bed after getting the house all clean so that I could go down to the hospital in the morning and not come home to an absolute pigsty. In fact, here: the last picture of me pregnant, not counting the wretched ones with me in a hospital gown. Five years and half an hour ago. (note the wrist brace. In addition to a separating pelvis, I had carpal tunnel syndrome in a very bad way at the end of that pregnancy. Ouch.)

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

it's all about money today

With overtime money looming on the horizon, we're finally able to take care of some things that have been sitting in that "someday when we are not so financially strapped that we scrounge in the couch cushions to go buy milk" category. Such things include:

Paying library fines. We like to check out a lot of stuff at the library. When each person in your family has about fifteen things checked out, and you miss the due date for all sixty (SIXTY!) things by one day, that makes for some rather substantial fines, considering that they range from 25c to 50c per item. (yes, I know there is a cents sign that I can make with alt-codes. I'm just too lazy. It's a diary, fercryinoutloud. If you want to see perfect usage, pay me and I'll help you with your resumé). So now I have that pristine pure feeling that comes with owing the library nothing. I can look the librarian in the eye when I check things out now.

Buying collars for the cats. This is well-timed since yesterday was the first day they were allowed outside post-spaying. They love being outdoors. They have been giving us accusing looks for two days because we've kept this no-ceilinged, dirt-floored nirvana from them for so long. Sorry, girls, it was for the best. Anyway. It was kind of a shock to whip out the checkbook and write a check for ten bucks for two cat collars -- but hey, at least they're the special snag-safe ones where they'll come off or break rather than strangling the poor little beasts if they get caught on a branch or what have you. That's the kind of thing you look at and say, "dang, too bad I didn't think of that first."

Um, groceries. yay!

We are going out to dinner! Even bigger yay. Sorry, but it has been too long since I even got to go to Burger King, let alone sit down in a clean, pretty restaurant and tell a nice person what I want and have it brought to me. Especially since, oh, what I want is so delightfully GOOD. mmm. zucchini sticks, here I come.

it's all about money today

With overtime money looming on the horizon, we're finally able to take care of some things that have been sitting in that "someday when we are not so financially strapped that we scrounge in the couch cushions to go buy milk" category. Such things include:

Paying library fines. We like to check out a lot of stuff at the library. When each person in your family has about fifteen things checked out, and you miss the due date for all sixty (SIXTY!) things by one day, that makes for some rather substantial fines, considering that they range from 25c to 50c per item. (yes, I know there is a cents sign that I can make with alt-codes. I'm just too lazy. It's a diary, fercryinoutloud. If you want to see perfect usage, pay me and I'll help you with your resumé). So now I have that pristine pure feeling that comes with owing the library nothing. I can look the librarian in the eye when I check things out now.

Buying collars for the cats. This is well-timed since yesterday was the first day they were allowed outside post-spaying. They love being outdoors. They have been giving us accusing looks for two days because we've kept this no-ceilinged, dirt-floored nirvana from them for so long. Sorry, girls, it was for the best. Anyway. It was kind of a shock to whip out the checkbook and write a check for ten bucks for two cat collars -- but hey, at least they're the special snag-safe ones where they'll come off or break rather than strangling the poor little beasts if they get caught on a branch or what have you. That's the kind of thing you look at and say, "dang, too bad I didn't think of that first."

Um, groceries. yay!

We are going out to dinner! Even bigger yay. Sorry, but it has been too long since I even got to go to Burger King, let alone sit down in a clean, pretty restaurant and tell a nice person what I want and have it brought to me. Especially since, oh, what I want is so delightfully GOOD. mmm. zucchini sticks, here I come.
-------

Friday, September 24, 2004

a nice day :)

To file under Things To Make Me Happy About Being A Mom*:


Last night the kids really "surprised" me. T was home getting ready to head out for the fire he's working on (which is in the Los Padres National Forest, between Highway 1 and Highway 101 about halfway from Monterey to, oh, say, Santa Barbara, by the way. He's in King City. Steinbeck fans** will know where that is), and I ran to the store to get him the latest issue of Sky and Telescope to take with him. C was feeling much better at this point -- Tylenol is like a miracle cure for her. So I asked the kids to please unload the dishwasher while I was gone, as much as they could. When I got back I had to walk through the kitchen but I was told that under no circumstances was I to look toward the dishwasher, because they were working on a surprise. So I pretended not to see them scrubbing off the dishes with a brush and loading them into the dishwasher, and sat down in the living room to read. At one point LT came in and told me that he didn't know where to put a certain dish in the dishwasher. This was followed by a loudly whispered argument in the kitchen, and then the declaration: "I needed to know because we are cleaning off the counter, Mom!" And they did do that, too. They really did quite a good job.

And today has gone pretty well. C continues to feel pretty well. The kids were cooperative. With C being sick and T being gone, we took the day off from sit-down school, but the kids ended up having a great time doing learning games on the computer. I don't have the guts to be an unschooler, but I can certainly see where they're coming from.



On the money front, things are looking up a bit. Today we answered a classified ad offering two free dressers to a person who'd come pick them up. So now, instead of needing to buy four dressers, we only need to buy two, and those can wait a bit; it was the kids' dressers that were in the worst shape. Our A/C ended up being fine in the car (did I mention it was broken?). T kept trying to add Freon to it, and it wouldn't take any, and we thought that was a problem with the intake. Then he rigged it so it would come on whenever the car was on, and it was cold, so we concluded that since it obviously had plenty of Freon, it must be an electrical problem. But then he had to disconnect the battery to sort of shut down and restart the car's computer, for something totally unrelated, and when he reconnected it, the A/C worked fine. Also, I fixed our fridge again, so we don't need a new one of those. Basically, we had a list of things we needed money for pretty badly, with the total running up about $2500, and God has whittled that down to about $700 -- eye appointments and glasses for T and myself, and two dressers. Which is almost definitely within reach of the overtime T will make from this little one-weekend fire. yay God!

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Mom's version of a wild weekend

T just got called out on a fire*. Ten minutes later C, who'd been feeling suspiciously warm all afternoon, threw up. What a weekend I'm going to have. :-D

Monday, September 20, 2004

before and after

I think for the rest of my life, my memories will be divided into two stacks: Before the Retreat and After the Retreat. I am not going into a whole lot of detail -- some of the transformation is still so close and overwhelming that it's difficult to elucidate anyway, and somehow just feels private at this point. Suffice to say that I had my focus in the wrong place, I'd been struggling with a lot of little doubts that are gone now, and I am going to stop nailing my sins and my problems to the cross and then taking them back over and over. A few of you will probably find me really boring from here on out. And honestly, I'm a little bit sorry about that, but I'm no longer going to let my desire to have people like me keep me from being the person I am, or from becoming the person God wants me to be. I've realized that while most of this diary is harmless, most of it also isn't actually God-honoring, and some of it, I'm sure, grieves God. In summary: The Jesus freak is back. I've missed her a whole lot, more than I knew. And it's worth it to keep her, even if it means that some people like me less, or that I spend less of my energy on things I have become accustomed to enjoying, but that pull me in the wrong direction spiritually.


OK, let's see, who's left? hi. and hi. :)


In other news

• our cats are at the vet, FINALLY, getting spayed. And that's a hallelujah of a different sort. They were each sick over the weekend; at least, first one and then the other spent a couple of days being really lethargic and not eating, drinking, or peeing normally. We'll be leaving to pick them up in about half an hour.
  
• LT just took a really painful fall off his bike. No broken anything (thank you God), but we had to break out the Big Band Aids [read that with dismay and awe in your voice, like a five-year-old, for the full effect] for his elbow, which lost a couple layers of skin. He's watching "The Return of the Jedi" and secretly loving all the attention.
  
• I'm halfway through Persuasion and I have to keep reminding myself to wait to watch the movie until I'm completely finished. Don't ask why I'm so rigid about this, because I don't know. Persuasion is the last book in my First Annual Jane Austen Re-Read, and I'm at a bit of a loss for what to start next. I've been kind of hankering after Watership Down. We'll see.

• C's birthday just crept up and smacked me over the head. It's a week and a half away and once again I haven't worked out any party details yet. T and I will talk about it tonight and I'll call/email the invitations tomorrow.
  
• The weather finally cooled down. It is a positively GORGEOUS day -- blue skies, puffy clouds, cloud shadows, low 70's. It even sprinkled a little last night, and there were some really impressive dark clouds. I wish it was like this all year.
• We had our first really GOOD school day today. No scolding, no meltdowns, no struggles. I was beginning to think that those kind of school days were a thing of the past. Can we say "relieved"?
  

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

in memory of Sammy

I was actually about to sit down at the computer this morning to do another Sheriff's Report entry (snake in a church this time, just for variety) when I got a sobering phone call from our church's prayer chain. A little boy, seven years old, who's been in my kids' Sunday school classes and Awana group for years, had been in a carpool on the way to school when there was an accident and he was injured. Then a few hours later the call came in that he had died. I just can't get his parents out of my mind. All through the day, all the ordinary stuff like dealing with the onset of my period, and wondering if our cat is sick (I'm thinking yes), and struggling with a pot of beans that just won't cook right (I have the worst luck with beans. Give me a complicated recipe involving wine and mushrooms and reducing and I do fine. But pinto beans confound me every time) and doing laundry and all that, all these things were just put on over the top of an underlying vicarious agony. As I was kissing my kids after they got into their jammies tonight, I thought of that couple's empty arms tonight (the boy was their only child) and just cried. People will surround them and do everything they can for them and love them, but it just has the feeling of trying to thaw a glacier with candles, or something. So inadequate. And our pain at not being able to do anything is just so inconsequential compared to theirs. It doesn't make me mad at God. It doesn't even really make me question what He's doing; I've been there and questioned that and moved on. But it just makes things seem bleak. Life, this life that gives us the opportunity to absorb beauty and feel passion and love people, can also be just so stark and horrible. And yet I am the lucky one this time around -- I'm touched relatively lightly by this boy's death. It hurts me indirectly; I am pained by other people's pain. I can go on with my day and do all the things that need doing. There are worlds of difference between being an onlooker to grief -- painful as that is -- and grieving oneself. Again I'm struck with the different feel this day will have for them, forever. The surreality of watching everyone else go on as normal -- people saying oh God I am so sorry and anything we can do just ask and then going home to their normal lives that haven't been turned upside down, just shaken a little -- and especially the people who don't even know, who are walking down the street when they're driving home from the hospital, who are not going away from their child's deathbed and probably never will and will not ever know that there was anything out of the ordinary about this day at all. And I think how often, how almost every minute of my life, I'm in that category for so many people. Tragedy happens every second, just not to us. While I'm watching P&P and folding laundry, some woman's getting a phone call that makes her scream and rock and sob and changes her life forever. For the sake of our sanity we can't bear to think about that for long; we just have to walk down the street, and fold our laundry, and wait to deal with the pain when it's our turn.


I didn't mean to go into all that. I just started typing and it all came out. I think it was good for me, so I'll leave it. Sorry for the downer this time ... come back another time for more of the usual sunny self-deprecating humor. I'm sure my life will be completely normal in very short order. For what that's worth.

the round of life Archives | Page 17 of 29

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