Sometimes when you need to clear your head, it feels really good to go for a long, meandering walk through the neighborhood.
In a similar way, it can feel good to write, just write, not compose or prove or delight or convince or entertain, but just write, to get things out.
Since Shawn has been working at home, it is harder for me to find space in the day to write. There is plenty of time to waste, and I waste it like a champ, perusing Midwestern house after Midwestern house through our new realtor's website. I have 58 houses cataloged away now as "my favorites," but (ironically) I don't like most of them much at all, and there is only one that Shawn and I are both mildly excited about, and even that one bears little or no resemblance to my "dream house."
So today, no houses. I made a pact with my eyes, which were burning and stinging by the time I quit last night, that I would not look at a single house online today.
It is strange that I cannot find a peace to write in. It is as though I have other obligations that I must manage before I write, and I do, but I don't (manage them). I feel slightly insane as I tiptoe around the house, trying to keep quiet so as not to bother Shawn at work in the dining room. I keep washing tupperware in the kitchen sink, starting laundry and forgetting it, wiping off the counter in front of the coffee maker, letting the dogs in and out, wiping their feet, giving them treats.
We are currently installing a prefinished oak floor in our bedroom. This means that our mattress and box spring are in the living room, leaning diagonally against the sofa while the foot-board from our bed leans on the love seat. Topsy-turvey is not my favorite. I derive a great deal of pleasure from rooms that are put together, neat and aesthetically pleasing. Order and aesthetics bring me a sense of peace. Perhaps this is why I so rarely feel peaceful. I am trying to be a trouper, but most the people around me would probably not know that.
It is cold for March.
That's what the boys keep saying. It's bitter cold. Of course, March is notoriously cold, and there is nearly always a blizzard during college basketball's March Madness. But still, it does seem especially frigid, icy.
Yesterday was a rare sunny day, bright blue above, gorgeous. But other than yesterday, the sky has been white-gray, the air full of drifting snowflakes, very soft, even when the wind blows. It is quiet, except for the roar of the wind and the sounds of teenagers coming home from school at 2:45 p.m.
The thing about March is that the days are noticeably longer. I love the light. I love the whole half of the year when the days are getting longer rather than shorter, just because they are. There is an enchantment about the evenings in March as I stand at the kitchen sink (I spend so much time at my sink) and look out the window which a month ago would have been black beyond, simply reflecting myself back at me through the cobwebby screen that I ought to pull out and clean. But, as if the thawing of God has begun to spread divine fingertips of spring across the land, my evening view is now pastel. Sky that hung white-gray and snowy all through the day, just before twilight lightens to pale, crystal blue as the delicate, white clouds separate, glowing with peach and golden tinges of the setting sun all around their edges. The gentle colors bathe my eyes in healing hues, and I feel as though God is swathing the world with bandages, comforting our community after the crime, stroking our souls with His beauty to let us know that He is here and He cares.
With our bedroom all in disarray, Shawn and I are sleeping in Shannon's room where the spring pastels continue. Pale pink, white, ivory all envelop us in walls, ceiling, fluffy pillows and comforters. It feels good in this room, innocent, simple, uncomplicated if flowery. Schubert loves to get out of his crate in the morning and nestle with me amongst the bedding while Shawn lets me sleep in and later brings me a mug of tea to drink while I read the Bible with the sunrise streaming through the windows behind me.
There is so much, so much. And yet, this morning, wrapped snug in a rosy comforter that was inexpensive to begin with and then laundered too many times, I felt so thankful, so very, very thankful. God is good, and spring is coming, and even if I have to sell my house and pack and throw a graduation party and move halfway across the country, I have moments when I can be still, feel beauty and enjoy the presence of God.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
On self defense
Another heinous crime has taken place.
The librarian from the elementary school where my children attended was taking her 10-year-old daughter to gymnastics last night. The class was at the mall. This is the local mall, the tame suburban mall, the mall I always tell my kids to go to because the city mall is not safe.
On their way out to the car after the class, a man hi-jacked them, drove them to a country road behind the mall, raped the little girl and stabbed the mother to death. The little girl somehow escaped from the car and got up to the road, where a passing car assisted her.
The man was a 29-year-old with a degree in computer science. He'd been arrested in January, this January, 2013, two months ago, on multiple, multiple charges of child pornography. On his multiple computers, police found over 500 illegal videos and over 3000 illegal images of child pornography.
So the judge heard his case, issued some rules about parole, and let him go with an ankle bracelet which the perpetrator quickly learned how to disarm.
Thank you Mr. Judge. An entire community trusts you to protect us from wicked people, and this is what you have done. I hope you know that the blood of this mother and the fate of her daughter rest squarely on your head: yours and the rest of the perverse, liberal and ineffective justice system in this land.
There is no such thing as a one-time child sex offender. They cannot be rehabilitated. We need to come to terms with this and start taking the safety of our children seriously. A justice system that enables these sorts of things to happen is a broken justice system that needs to be fixed.
Since we obviously cannot hope for protection from those who ought to be protecting us, we need to defend ourselves, and I will repeat here what I have told my daughters before and will tell them again and again...
1. If anyone ever accosts you in a mall or in a parking lot, scream and thrash around and holler and push the panic button on your key fob. Do as much as you possibly can to raise a ruckus. If he is threatening to kill you, if he tells you, "Be quiet or I will shoot you in the head," be as loud as you can possibly be. He probably won't really do anything to you there anyway, in a place where there are other people and he is sure to be apprehended immediately. There is at least a 50% chance that you will call his bluff and he will run away. However, if he gets you away to a secluded place, there is no longer any way to attract attention or help, and no telling what awful things he will do. It's much better to be shot point blank than to fall into the hands of a wicked person in a secluded place. Also, in real life (unlike movies), there are no soliloquies where the perpetrator talks and you have an opportunity to figure a way of escape. So if someone ever tries to grab you in a public place, fight immediately. Fight to the death if you have to. It will be preferable.
2. When you go to fight someone in a situation like this, go for his face, particularly his eyes. He will be expecting you to struggle and push him away, so if you surprise him by coming in close and grabbing his head, you may be able to catch him off guard. Grab the sides of his head as hard as you can. Pray to God to help you, make the most of the surge of adrenaline you will have, and jam your thumbs into his eye sockets for all you're worth, twisting as you go. Think, "My mama always said to scratch his eyes out. As God is my witness, I can do this." He will instinctively let you go and try to protect his eyes. Make sure you do as much damage as you possibly can to his eyes as quickly as you can. Then, if you have a chance, jam the heel of your hand upwards into his nose, driving his nose bone back into his brain. Fight like an animal, and use your fingernails, your teeth, your elbows and your knees.
3. Even better: carry a concealed handgun. I am not even kidding.
The librarian from the elementary school where my children attended was taking her 10-year-old daughter to gymnastics last night. The class was at the mall. This is the local mall, the tame suburban mall, the mall I always tell my kids to go to because the city mall is not safe.
On their way out to the car after the class, a man hi-jacked them, drove them to a country road behind the mall, raped the little girl and stabbed the mother to death. The little girl somehow escaped from the car and got up to the road, where a passing car assisted her.
The man was a 29-year-old with a degree in computer science. He'd been arrested in January, this January, 2013, two months ago, on multiple, multiple charges of child pornography. On his multiple computers, police found over 500 illegal videos and over 3000 illegal images of child pornography.
So the judge heard his case, issued some rules about parole, and let him go with an ankle bracelet which the perpetrator quickly learned how to disarm.
Thank you Mr. Judge. An entire community trusts you to protect us from wicked people, and this is what you have done. I hope you know that the blood of this mother and the fate of her daughter rest squarely on your head: yours and the rest of the perverse, liberal and ineffective justice system in this land.
There is no such thing as a one-time child sex offender. They cannot be rehabilitated. We need to come to terms with this and start taking the safety of our children seriously. A justice system that enables these sorts of things to happen is a broken justice system that needs to be fixed.
Since we obviously cannot hope for protection from those who ought to be protecting us, we need to defend ourselves, and I will repeat here what I have told my daughters before and will tell them again and again...
1. If anyone ever accosts you in a mall or in a parking lot, scream and thrash around and holler and push the panic button on your key fob. Do as much as you possibly can to raise a ruckus. If he is threatening to kill you, if he tells you, "Be quiet or I will shoot you in the head," be as loud as you can possibly be. He probably won't really do anything to you there anyway, in a place where there are other people and he is sure to be apprehended immediately. There is at least a 50% chance that you will call his bluff and he will run away. However, if he gets you away to a secluded place, there is no longer any way to attract attention or help, and no telling what awful things he will do. It's much better to be shot point blank than to fall into the hands of a wicked person in a secluded place. Also, in real life (unlike movies), there are no soliloquies where the perpetrator talks and you have an opportunity to figure a way of escape. So if someone ever tries to grab you in a public place, fight immediately. Fight to the death if you have to. It will be preferable.
2. When you go to fight someone in a situation like this, go for his face, particularly his eyes. He will be expecting you to struggle and push him away, so if you surprise him by coming in close and grabbing his head, you may be able to catch him off guard. Grab the sides of his head as hard as you can. Pray to God to help you, make the most of the surge of adrenaline you will have, and jam your thumbs into his eye sockets for all you're worth, twisting as you go. Think, "My mama always said to scratch his eyes out. As God is my witness, I can do this." He will instinctively let you go and try to protect his eyes. Make sure you do as much damage as you possibly can to his eyes as quickly as you can. Then, if you have a chance, jam the heel of your hand upwards into his nose, driving his nose bone back into his brain. Fight like an animal, and use your fingernails, your teeth, your elbows and your knees.
3. Even better: carry a concealed handgun. I am not even kidding.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Muffins
I made these up yesterday. A friend, a young mother of three, invited me over for morning coffee, and I decided that I would take some muffins. I made mini ones.
Her two older children were at preschool. The darling baby went down for a nap, and was still asleep when it was time to pick up the others, so I volunteered to stay with him in order that his mother would not have to wake him up.
When the children arrived at home with their mother, they saw the mini muffins on the table and began to eat them immediately, one after another. The little boy, a beautiful three-year-old with dark brown eyes encircled by amazing, thick black lashes, looked sideways at me over his third muffin, smiling, and said, "These are really good! Will you make them for me again some time?"
If I'm-a-gonna make them again, I better write down what I did before I forget. My heart is full of smiles, and that probably sounds dorky, but it's how I feel. When people like my cooking, it makes me really happy. What a delightful morning that was.
Her two older children were at preschool. The darling baby went down for a nap, and was still asleep when it was time to pick up the others, so I volunteered to stay with him in order that his mother would not have to wake him up.
When the children arrived at home with their mother, they saw the mini muffins on the table and began to eat them immediately, one after another. The little boy, a beautiful three-year-old with dark brown eyes encircled by amazing, thick black lashes, looked sideways at me over his third muffin, smiling, and said, "These are really good! Will you make them for me again some time?"
If I'm-a-gonna make them again, I better write down what I did before I forget. My heart is full of smiles, and that probably sounds dorky, but it's how I feel. When people like my cooking, it makes me really happy. What a delightful morning that was.
Tasty Oatmeal Muffins
Stir together in a rather large bowl:
1 cup quick cooking oats
1/4 cup oil
3/4 cup milk
1 egg (beaten)
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup dried cranberries (craisins)
1/2 cup chocolate chips
In a separate bowl, mix well:
1 cup white flour
4 tsp. baking powder
Stir the flour and baking powder into the other ingredients. Do not overstir.
Quickly spoon the batter into greased mini muffin tins. Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes. Makes 24.
I have no pictures to show you, because they disappeared just that fast.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Positive Self-Talk
Before they changed the format on Facebook, my wall displayed this statement:
I have trouble giving myself grace. The problem is--I am finally learning, now that I am nearing 50 years old--when I fail to give grace to myself, I also tend to fail to give grace to others, and this is not a good thing.
At the risk of making the entire world hate me (well, really only about 3 people, since they are the only ones who read this blog... whew), I will tell you a story about what a bad mother I used to be.
One day, approximately 21 years ago, I was the 26 year old mother of a one-year-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old, and I was pregnant. I was very, very pregnant, approximately seven months pregnant, and when you consider that the baby was born when I was eight months pregnant, that is even more pregnant than it sounds.
It was a hot day near the end of August, probably, since the baby was born the beginning of October. We lived in a stuffy little cape cod style house, and the refrigerator was in the dining room. This bothered me more before we moved in and ripped out the carpets, at which time the refrigerator had been parked on gold, sculpted carpet in the dining room. After we got rid of the carpet, the refrigerator was on hardwood, which was not as objectionable, and I could tell myself, "It isn't really a dining room. It is the eating part of an eat-in kitchen." Never mind that it was in clear view of the living room.
On this particular late afternoon, the heat settled over us after nap time, and I felt bloated, sore and miserable. Baby Davie was crying, because he usually did, especially during the everlasting stretch between naptime and dinner, which I could never serve until Daddy came home between 7:30 and 8:00 p.m. My back was sore, and portions of me were feeling the intense downward pressure of the third baby in three years, who didn't seem like she was going to hang in there much longer. Leaning over to pick up Davie, I had to psych myself up for each movement I made and push myself to completion.
"Mommy, I'm thirsty," Shannon announced.
"Just a minute," I told her as I settled Davie on my hip, trying to wipe his nose and find him a toy. I knocked a stack of mail off the counter and it fluttered every which way across the dining room floor. "Stupid," I hissed at myself, "stupid, stupid, idiot." I sighed and tried to prepare myself mentally for some time down on my knees, picking it all up.
I did not notice that Shannon had opened the refrigerator and begun to pull out a pitcher of apple juice. It was a plumb full pitcher. I had just mixed it up from frozen concentrate. She pulled it out, and her two-and-a-half-year-old arms were not enough to support the weight. Down it went, spilling apple juice, sticky apple juice, all over the inside of the refrigerator and underneath the refrigerator on the hardwood dining room floor.
Down on my knees on the opposite side of the dining room table, awkwardly reaching for scattered pieces of mail, Davie crying in my ear, I despaired. I don't remember exactly what I did, but I'm pretty sure I started to yell at Shannon.
She dropped the pitcher askew in a pool of juice, came over, and patted my shoulder. "Don't worry, Mommy," she told me. "It will be OK."
And this is the reason I am really ashamed. This is the proof that I am one of the worst mothers in the world. When Shannon told me that it would be OK, I completely lost it. "No!" I told her. "It will NOT be OK. It IS NOT OK. I am tired, and I am in pain, and now I have to clean the entire refrigerator and even MOVE the refrigerator, and your brother is crying, and I need to make dinner, and Daddy won't be home for hours and hours, and IT IS NOT OK!" Then, because I am a wicked person, and I sometimes scream when anybody else in the world would cry, I repeated it, "THIS IS NOT OK! DON'T TELL ME IT'S GOING TO BE OK. IT ISN'T!"
By the grace of God and nothing else, Shannon is a happy, healthy, well-adjusted person today, and she actually has happy memories of her childhood. She has even said to me, "You wouldn't believe how many people I know who have had unhappy childhoods. We had such a happy childhood. I'm so thankful." Where does this even come from? Not from me, certainly. It is the grace of God. If it were not so, I never would have dreamed of telling this story.
Since then, it has come to my attention that my automatic default for much of life has been to negative self-talk myself. If I turn the the wrong way on a drive, I berate myself for the rest of the trip (and beyond) over the gas I have wasted. If I forget to buy something at the grocery store, I tell myself that I am dumb. If I drop the soap in the shower, I castigate myself for my clumsiness. If I miss an appointment, I denounce myself for being stupid, unorganized and unreliable. The voice in my head is intensely critical and accusatory.
The travesty of it is: when I speak to myself this way, I am more likely to speak to my children this way.
Understanding the high cost of negative self-talk has come to me slowly. I thought it was my duty to do this, to punish myself, to make myself pay for my mistakes. About two years ago I had a breakthrough. I realized that I could forgive myself for making a mistake, that I did not have to punish myself, that it is not a sin to be gracious to myself. This was an amazing thought to me: it is not a sin to refrain from yelling at myself when I make a mistake.
But really, if God forgives me, if Jesus died to pay the price for my forgiveness which has already been purchased by His priceless blood, who am I to refuse to forgive myself?
So now, as I face the uncertainty of the future, the move, the need to sell our house and our land, the necessity of starting over from scratch in a completely new community, as I face my fears and my lack of faith... I am trying to use positive self-talk.
"It will be OK." This is my new mantra. "It will be OK."
I lean my head against the bathroom wall after being sick, and I say, "It will be OK."
I get to bed an hour later than I meant to, and I say, "It will be OK."
I see that a house I'd thought might work for us in the Midwest goes off the market, and I say, "It will be OK."
I hear that we are likely to lose big money on both the sale of our house and the sale of our land, and I say, "It will be OK. God is in control. It will be OK."
My shoulder pain, that I've had for a year now, continues, and I say, "It will be OK. This world is not my home. There's no pain in heaven. It will be OK."
I think of the way Shawn's former boss treated him and withheld compensation from him at the time he left the company, and I say, "It will be OK. God has always taken care of us. God will still take care of us. We will have enough. It will be OK."
Not only will it be OK... it is OK, today, now. It's OK.
It's OK.
"If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31b, NIV)
"And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:19, NIV)
"...for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him." (Matthew 6:8b, NIV)
"The Lord is my light and my salvation-- whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life-- of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27:1, NIV)
"Some trust in horses and some trust in chariots [or jobs, bank accounts, guns, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution], but we trust in the name of the Lord our God." (Psalm 20:7, NIV)
"And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:3, NIV)
"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.'" (Revelation 21:3-4, NIV)
It will be OK. It is OK. I am getting better at saying this to myself. I am getting better at believing it.
Trying to learn about grace... the grace God has shown me, the grace I need to show others, and the grace I have permission to give myself. I think. Do I?
I have trouble giving myself grace. The problem is--I am finally learning, now that I am nearing 50 years old--when I fail to give grace to myself, I also tend to fail to give grace to others, and this is not a good thing.
At the risk of making the entire world hate me (well, really only about 3 people, since they are the only ones who read this blog... whew), I will tell you a story about what a bad mother I used to be.
One day, approximately 21 years ago, I was the 26 year old mother of a one-year-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old, and I was pregnant. I was very, very pregnant, approximately seven months pregnant, and when you consider that the baby was born when I was eight months pregnant, that is even more pregnant than it sounds.
It was a hot day near the end of August, probably, since the baby was born the beginning of October. We lived in a stuffy little cape cod style house, and the refrigerator was in the dining room. This bothered me more before we moved in and ripped out the carpets, at which time the refrigerator had been parked on gold, sculpted carpet in the dining room. After we got rid of the carpet, the refrigerator was on hardwood, which was not as objectionable, and I could tell myself, "It isn't really a dining room. It is the eating part of an eat-in kitchen." Never mind that it was in clear view of the living room.
On this particular late afternoon, the heat settled over us after nap time, and I felt bloated, sore and miserable. Baby Davie was crying, because he usually did, especially during the everlasting stretch between naptime and dinner, which I could never serve until Daddy came home between 7:30 and 8:00 p.m. My back was sore, and portions of me were feeling the intense downward pressure of the third baby in three years, who didn't seem like she was going to hang in there much longer. Leaning over to pick up Davie, I had to psych myself up for each movement I made and push myself to completion.
"Mommy, I'm thirsty," Shannon announced.
"Just a minute," I told her as I settled Davie on my hip, trying to wipe his nose and find him a toy. I knocked a stack of mail off the counter and it fluttered every which way across the dining room floor. "Stupid," I hissed at myself, "stupid, stupid, idiot." I sighed and tried to prepare myself mentally for some time down on my knees, picking it all up.
I did not notice that Shannon had opened the refrigerator and begun to pull out a pitcher of apple juice. It was a plumb full pitcher. I had just mixed it up from frozen concentrate. She pulled it out, and her two-and-a-half-year-old arms were not enough to support the weight. Down it went, spilling apple juice, sticky apple juice, all over the inside of the refrigerator and underneath the refrigerator on the hardwood dining room floor.
Down on my knees on the opposite side of the dining room table, awkwardly reaching for scattered pieces of mail, Davie crying in my ear, I despaired. I don't remember exactly what I did, but I'm pretty sure I started to yell at Shannon.
She dropped the pitcher askew in a pool of juice, came over, and patted my shoulder. "Don't worry, Mommy," she told me. "It will be OK."
And this is the reason I am really ashamed. This is the proof that I am one of the worst mothers in the world. When Shannon told me that it would be OK, I completely lost it. "No!" I told her. "It will NOT be OK. It IS NOT OK. I am tired, and I am in pain, and now I have to clean the entire refrigerator and even MOVE the refrigerator, and your brother is crying, and I need to make dinner, and Daddy won't be home for hours and hours, and IT IS NOT OK!" Then, because I am a wicked person, and I sometimes scream when anybody else in the world would cry, I repeated it, "THIS IS NOT OK! DON'T TELL ME IT'S GOING TO BE OK. IT ISN'T!"
By the grace of God and nothing else, Shannon is a happy, healthy, well-adjusted person today, and she actually has happy memories of her childhood. She has even said to me, "You wouldn't believe how many people I know who have had unhappy childhoods. We had such a happy childhood. I'm so thankful." Where does this even come from? Not from me, certainly. It is the grace of God. If it were not so, I never would have dreamed of telling this story.
Since then, it has come to my attention that my automatic default for much of life has been to negative self-talk myself. If I turn the the wrong way on a drive, I berate myself for the rest of the trip (and beyond) over the gas I have wasted. If I forget to buy something at the grocery store, I tell myself that I am dumb. If I drop the soap in the shower, I castigate myself for my clumsiness. If I miss an appointment, I denounce myself for being stupid, unorganized and unreliable. The voice in my head is intensely critical and accusatory.
The travesty of it is: when I speak to myself this way, I am more likely to speak to my children this way.
Understanding the high cost of negative self-talk has come to me slowly. I thought it was my duty to do this, to punish myself, to make myself pay for my mistakes. About two years ago I had a breakthrough. I realized that I could forgive myself for making a mistake, that I did not have to punish myself, that it is not a sin to be gracious to myself. This was an amazing thought to me: it is not a sin to refrain from yelling at myself when I make a mistake.
But really, if God forgives me, if Jesus died to pay the price for my forgiveness which has already been purchased by His priceless blood, who am I to refuse to forgive myself?
So now, as I face the uncertainty of the future, the move, the need to sell our house and our land, the necessity of starting over from scratch in a completely new community, as I face my fears and my lack of faith... I am trying to use positive self-talk.
"It will be OK." This is my new mantra. "It will be OK."
I lean my head against the bathroom wall after being sick, and I say, "It will be OK."
I get to bed an hour later than I meant to, and I say, "It will be OK."
I see that a house I'd thought might work for us in the Midwest goes off the market, and I say, "It will be OK."
I hear that we are likely to lose big money on both the sale of our house and the sale of our land, and I say, "It will be OK. God is in control. It will be OK."
My shoulder pain, that I've had for a year now, continues, and I say, "It will be OK. This world is not my home. There's no pain in heaven. It will be OK."
I think of the way Shawn's former boss treated him and withheld compensation from him at the time he left the company, and I say, "It will be OK. God has always taken care of us. God will still take care of us. We will have enough. It will be OK."
Not only will it be OK... it is OK, today, now. It's OK.
It's OK.
"If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31b, NIV)
"And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:19, NIV)
"...for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him." (Matthew 6:8b, NIV)
"The Lord is my light and my salvation-- whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life-- of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27:1, NIV)
"Some trust in horses and some trust in chariots [or jobs, bank accounts, guns, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution], but we trust in the name of the Lord our God." (Psalm 20:7, NIV)
"And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:3, NIV)
"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.'" (Revelation 21:3-4, NIV)
It will be OK. It is OK. I am getting better at saying this to myself. I am getting better at believing it.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Lunch out
Today the cleaning lady came.
I feel so weird saying that. It was whilst I was trying to be a teacher that we started this. I had come to the utmost end of my rope, and then we found that this wonderful woman, whom I had known for quite some time, actually cleans houses and had an opening.
The first time she cleaned was like the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders (and I know that is a cliche, but it is just so very like how it was). She came on a Thursday, and when Saturday morning dawned, I needed to lesson plan for four classes, grade approximately 80 book reports, grocery shop, do seven loads of laundry, and try to track down everybody's schedules for the next week and get the information all loaded onto the family calendar... but I did not need to clean. For the first time since I had begun teaching, I felt like I could take a breath.
Since then, I've quit trying to teach. But now I have to sell my house, so I thought it might be prudent to keep on with the cleaning help. It is a little bit easier to spend a day dragging out old boxes and going through them if you know somebody else will eventually come along behind you and vacuum up the dust... as well as get to the bathrooms you neglected while you had your nose in the old boxes. I say this in theory because I have not done very much going through old boxes; some, not much.
We vacate while she is cleaning. This morning I went to a Bible study, and then I met up with Shawn who was at Panera trying to use their free wi-fi to get some work done. We are still getting the hang of this working-from-home thing, but I think it is a blessing to have scheduled cleanings. Otherwise I would probably simply never vacuum at all, because there is always the threat of a telephone call from a client.
Shawn had snagged a table in the back, by a window. He'd picked up his birthday present gadget (not an iPad, a Google Nexus) while I was at the Bible study. Now he had coffee; I had tea. He had a sandwich; I had a bagel. We sat, and Panera bustled, full of mostly little old people eating soup from bread bowls. Beyond the window, sprigs of February-dead rosehips oscillated gently back and forth, beyond them a silver Honda Odyssey, beyond that the bright red sign proclaiming Price Chopper. It was a retail sort of view.
We needed to stay until the cleaning was done, and there was so much I wanted to say that I could not say, perhaps because it was busy and crowded. Sometimes when your heart is particularly full, your throat gets clogged and constipated with words. Bible study had filled me with disjointed thoughts on the gospel, forgiveness, restoration, the need to do a thorough housecleaning across our personal relationships. Speech shunned me.
We took turns leaving our post because he had set his billfold and his Nexus on the windowsill, and his laptop was plugged in on the table. He got the food. I fixed my tea. He selected his free birthday pastry for dessert. I threw away some trash, ran into a friend, refilled my tea. He tried to open his Nexus and get it started up. I underwent a sudden stomach cramp and felt the need to leave. It was nearly time for our housecleaning to be done. We packed up and drove our separate cars home.
When we got home, I wanted to write, because something about those brown, dried up rose hips begged to be remembered, something sad and hopeful, barren and refreshingly natural against a sea of asphalt paving and yellow parking lines.
So I sat down, and the phone rang. It was the doctor. This one, a rheumetologist with a specialization in auto-immune issues, says I have Lupus. He has already called in a prescription to my pharmacy. "Which pharmacy?" I asked. He didn't know, but I should start taking this medicine right away and probably continue for the rest of my life, unless my stomach can't tolerate it.
My house is clean.
I feel so weird saying that. It was whilst I was trying to be a teacher that we started this. I had come to the utmost end of my rope, and then we found that this wonderful woman, whom I had known for quite some time, actually cleans houses and had an opening.
The first time she cleaned was like the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders (and I know that is a cliche, but it is just so very like how it was). She came on a Thursday, and when Saturday morning dawned, I needed to lesson plan for four classes, grade approximately 80 book reports, grocery shop, do seven loads of laundry, and try to track down everybody's schedules for the next week and get the information all loaded onto the family calendar... but I did not need to clean. For the first time since I had begun teaching, I felt like I could take a breath.
Since then, I've quit trying to teach. But now I have to sell my house, so I thought it might be prudent to keep on with the cleaning help. It is a little bit easier to spend a day dragging out old boxes and going through them if you know somebody else will eventually come along behind you and vacuum up the dust... as well as get to the bathrooms you neglected while you had your nose in the old boxes. I say this in theory because I have not done very much going through old boxes; some, not much.
We vacate while she is cleaning. This morning I went to a Bible study, and then I met up with Shawn who was at Panera trying to use their free wi-fi to get some work done. We are still getting the hang of this working-from-home thing, but I think it is a blessing to have scheduled cleanings. Otherwise I would probably simply never vacuum at all, because there is always the threat of a telephone call from a client.
Shawn had snagged a table in the back, by a window. He'd picked up his birthday present gadget (not an iPad, a Google Nexus) while I was at the Bible study. Now he had coffee; I had tea. He had a sandwich; I had a bagel. We sat, and Panera bustled, full of mostly little old people eating soup from bread bowls. Beyond the window, sprigs of February-dead rosehips oscillated gently back and forth, beyond them a silver Honda Odyssey, beyond that the bright red sign proclaiming Price Chopper. It was a retail sort of view.
We needed to stay until the cleaning was done, and there was so much I wanted to say that I could not say, perhaps because it was busy and crowded. Sometimes when your heart is particularly full, your throat gets clogged and constipated with words. Bible study had filled me with disjointed thoughts on the gospel, forgiveness, restoration, the need to do a thorough housecleaning across our personal relationships. Speech shunned me.
We took turns leaving our post because he had set his billfold and his Nexus on the windowsill, and his laptop was plugged in on the table. He got the food. I fixed my tea. He selected his free birthday pastry for dessert. I threw away some trash, ran into a friend, refilled my tea. He tried to open his Nexus and get it started up. I underwent a sudden stomach cramp and felt the need to leave. It was nearly time for our housecleaning to be done. We packed up and drove our separate cars home.
When we got home, I wanted to write, because something about those brown, dried up rose hips begged to be remembered, something sad and hopeful, barren and refreshingly natural against a sea of asphalt paving and yellow parking lines.
So I sat down, and the phone rang. It was the doctor. This one, a rheumetologist with a specialization in auto-immune issues, says I have Lupus. He has already called in a prescription to my pharmacy. "Which pharmacy?" I asked. He didn't know, but I should start taking this medicine right away and probably continue for the rest of my life, unless my stomach can't tolerate it.
My house is clean.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
10 points of minutia and a recipe
- Banana bread with Nutella is delicious. I make really good banana bread (recipe below).
- Aldi has a very decent Nutella knock-off.
- Schubert has had a yellow bandage on his left leg for a full week now, and he has not chewed it off, even though we have not been making him wear his cone.
- Hearing the sound of a bathroom fan running makes me feel cold.
- I have taken to washing my face with raw honey every night before bed. This has been very good for my skin. Also, it is fun.
- My husband and I both need new slippers; perhaps we will buy some today.
- The weather in New York may have some similarities to the weather in England. Reading a Flavia de Luce book yesterday, I was struck by Bradley's description of the desaturated colors of winter outside Buckshaw as the snow fell wet and hard, exactly the way it was falling against my vinyl-sided house last night.
- I wish it were warm enough for widespread, wandering walks. Cold gray days make my head ache and my muscles cramp.
- Once I tried to whiten my teeth with activated charcoal; however, they turned orange. Well, perhaps it was more of a pearly peach. It was rather a pretty color if you were talking about flowers or fabric or nail polish, but it was not a nice color for teeth.
- My husband turned 49 on Monday. It seems to me that Monday is rather an appropriate day for turning 49. On Monday we had dinner at Olive Garden (their cappuccino maker was broken) and blueberry-apple pie at home. He received two cards and two neckties, not correlated. On Tuesday he received two bags of Dunkin Donuts coffee and a DVD, and I prepared him a dinner of roast rib-eye, cheesy mash, nasty salad and asparagus. Today, perhaps we will buy him slippers and an iPad. Perhaps.
A character shot of my dearly beloved on the occasion of his 49th.
I think he is pretty fantastic. I love his eyes in this picture.
He is putting ice cream on everyone's pieces of birthday pie,
trying to get just the amount that everyone wants,
because he is very thoughtful that way.
The promised banana bread recipe:
Banana Bread
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
3-4 very ripe bananas, peeled and mashed*
1/4 cup water (or less)
1 and 2/3 cup white flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
Preheat oven to 350. Grease the bottom of a large loaf pan. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine sugar, oil, eggs and banana. Mix well. Add vanilla and nutmeg. Mix some more. Stir in the sifted flour mixture. Add up to 1/4 cup water, if needed, to help the batter mix and come to the right consistency. Pour into loaf pan, and bake for 70 minutes. Test with a kebob skewer (or a toothpick) for doneness.
*My banana bread is the best I have ever had. I think it may be because I use very, very old bananas. I leave them on the counter until they are almost completely black, and then I put them into the refrigerator for a few more days. As long as there is no mold on them, they are fair game. When I peel them, the peels are stiff and the insides are very soft, dark and almost translucent. They sometimes smell a trifle fermented. Usually I have two bananas like this, from my refrigerator, and two that are spotty and past what people would want to peel and eat, but have not yet left the counter. That's just the way it tends to work out here. My boys are actually quite instrumental in helping me cultivate the right bananas for bread... because they look forward to it.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
house hunting
It is kind of hard to give up a dream.
I know it is God's will that life should go in the direction He ordains. My husband has a job (for now... we will see what happens regarding sequestration).
We had that land, that beautiful, glorious land. Ten acres of arable land that sloped gently back from the road to ten more acres of protected, wooded wetlands. It was the perfect setting to build a beautiful walkout that faced west toward the sunset over the woods. Autumn was a particularly wondrous time to drive out and look at this land, this land of ours, and dream about the house we would build on it. We had actually bought both the lot and the view. How many times in life do you get to do that?
I drew up floorplans full of my dreams, a vaulted ranch full of hardwoods and windows. It had a lovely walk-out basement full of west-facing windows and plenty of room to keep our parents, should they ever need a place to stay, or our children, should they come to visit with their families. And closets: pantries, coat closets, broom closets, and closets to store the dog-food and the rain boots.
The houses nowadays do not have closets. It makes me want to cry.
In the midwestern city we are moving to, a smallish, college-townish sort of place, there are not many houses that float my boat. Possibly not any. I just looked at a plan of a house, new construction, that costs 64% more than what we probably will be able to get for our house here. And it had no closets. Well, there were bedroom closets, of course. But there was no front closet, no back closet, and only one tiny linen closet upstairs, no linen closet to serve the master bathroom at all.
Seriously? Seriously? I've spent the past 24 years stressing about where to store my vacuum, but apparently in my next house, there might not even be anywhere to hang my coat.
At the same time, these stupid houses (yes, I am temperamental, and I will say stupid) all have frou-frou whirlpool garden tubs and separate showers with glass doors. This frustrates me no end. I do not like whirlpool tubs. They always make me nauseated whenever I use them. I suppose I run the water too hot and stay in too long, but really, isn't that the idea? Anyway, I don't want one.
Also, I despise glass shower doors. They are a bear to keep clean. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if your shower curtain liner gets nasty, you throw it out and buy a new one. Five bucks. Everything's cool. If your glass shower doors get nasty (and they will, especially in that little metal track that the doors slide along), there is no such simple and cheap solution. The angles you need to contort your body into to clean a glass shower door are too much for me at my age and with my back. And the replacement cost is, well, not five bucks.
I was fussing about these ridiculous bathrooms, and I said, "If given the choice, I would so take a linen closet over a whirlpool tub. Where are you supposed to keep your towels?"
"Why, people store their towels in their garden tubs, of course," David told me without missing a beat, "Since garden tubs make you nauseated if you use them."
We brainstormed a bunch of potential fixes. "How about," David suggested, "You get one of those round curtain bars that hang from the ceiling and hang a shower curtain from that over your garden tub, converting it into a shower/bath? Then you don't have to clean the glass shower doors. And you could install shelves in the shower and store your towels in there."
All I'm going to say is this: If I start looking at pictures of a house online, and the first picture they show me is the frou-frou garden tub, and that is the major selling point for the house, then I might as well x it off my list then and there.
I know it is God's will that life should go in the direction He ordains. My husband has a job (for now... we will see what happens regarding sequestration).
We had that land, that beautiful, glorious land. Ten acres of arable land that sloped gently back from the road to ten more acres of protected, wooded wetlands. It was the perfect setting to build a beautiful walkout that faced west toward the sunset over the woods. Autumn was a particularly wondrous time to drive out and look at this land, this land of ours, and dream about the house we would build on it. We had actually bought both the lot and the view. How many times in life do you get to do that?
I drew up floorplans full of my dreams, a vaulted ranch full of hardwoods and windows. It had a lovely walk-out basement full of west-facing windows and plenty of room to keep our parents, should they ever need a place to stay, or our children, should they come to visit with their families. And closets: pantries, coat closets, broom closets, and closets to store the dog-food and the rain boots.
The houses nowadays do not have closets. It makes me want to cry.
In the midwestern city we are moving to, a smallish, college-townish sort of place, there are not many houses that float my boat. Possibly not any. I just looked at a plan of a house, new construction, that costs 64% more than what we probably will be able to get for our house here. And it had no closets. Well, there were bedroom closets, of course. But there was no front closet, no back closet, and only one tiny linen closet upstairs, no linen closet to serve the master bathroom at all.
Seriously? Seriously? I've spent the past 24 years stressing about where to store my vacuum, but apparently in my next house, there might not even be anywhere to hang my coat.
At the same time, these stupid houses (yes, I am temperamental, and I will say stupid) all have frou-frou whirlpool garden tubs and separate showers with glass doors. This frustrates me no end. I do not like whirlpool tubs. They always make me nauseated whenever I use them. I suppose I run the water too hot and stay in too long, but really, isn't that the idea? Anyway, I don't want one.
Also, I despise glass shower doors. They are a bear to keep clean. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if your shower curtain liner gets nasty, you throw it out and buy a new one. Five bucks. Everything's cool. If your glass shower doors get nasty (and they will, especially in that little metal track that the doors slide along), there is no such simple and cheap solution. The angles you need to contort your body into to clean a glass shower door are too much for me at my age and with my back. And the replacement cost is, well, not five bucks.
I was fussing about these ridiculous bathrooms, and I said, "If given the choice, I would so take a linen closet over a whirlpool tub. Where are you supposed to keep your towels?"
"Why, people store their towels in their garden tubs, of course," David told me without missing a beat, "Since garden tubs make you nauseated if you use them."
We brainstormed a bunch of potential fixes. "How about," David suggested, "You get one of those round curtain bars that hang from the ceiling and hang a shower curtain from that over your garden tub, converting it into a shower/bath? Then you don't have to clean the glass shower doors. And you could install shelves in the shower and store your towels in there."
All I'm going to say is this: If I start looking at pictures of a house online, and the first picture they show me is the frou-frou garden tub, and that is the major selling point for the house, then I might as well x it off my list then and there.
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