My kind of books

Through the years I have often jotted down a quote or two from books I have read, but a while ago I decided that I wanted to work harder at doing this.  I started putting little slips of paper in books as I read them to mark things I really liked, then going back afterwards and typing up these bits and keeping them in one place.  Recently though I read two books that have challenged my system.

 

When Cindy Lynn told me to read the first one, saying that she thought I would like it, I didn’t realize that it would be a book that would feel like it was pretty much written about my own life.  I just finished reading the author’s second book and it seems like a forecast of my next decade, again filled with beautiful thoughts and ideas. 

Here’s the problem, though.

I mean really—that’s just way too much to type out!  Maybe there really are some books that are meant to be owned…

And while I’m talking about books that are really meant for me, I picked this up for the library on a whim the other day. 

Within just a few pages I had an epiphany—“I AM a minimalist parent!”  I’m not weird!  (Well I am, but for other reasons.)  I’m not just a spoilsport.  I’m not unconcerned about my kids’ lives.  I’m just a minimalist.  And there are other people out there like me.  What a relief…

Band

One of the things we were so excited for the kids to be able to do at school here in Oregon last year was band.  The band practiced for an hour 3 mornings a week starting at 7AM.  Thank goodness Russ was willing to take them and drop them off at school on his way home from work!

The elementary school band teacher, Mr. Allen, was terrific.  He did such a good job of teaching all of the kids how to play their instruments and how to read notes and count music. 

At their first concert the songs they played were all very simple, with every student playing the same note as every other student.  (File MVI_4643 Christmas) By the end of the year they could play so much more complex music.  (File DSC_4831)

The middle school has two bands, an intermediate band and an advanced band.  Typically the students coming in from the elementary school are put in the intermediate band, especially if they have only played one year at the elementary school.  When I was talking to the counselor, though, we realized that if the kids were put in the intermediate band the girls wouldn’t be able to sing in the choir the second semester, so she decided to put them in the advanced band. 

[One nice thing for our kids as homeschoolers is that the 7th grader counselor decided they could take 2 credits of electives instead of the 1 elective credit that full time students get to take.  Band is one credit, and the girls will are taking art the first semester and chorus the 2nd, while Jared is taking computers the first semester and shop the second.]

I wondered how they would do in the advanced band, but figured that one way or the other they would survive.  Well, they have done more than survive. 

Jenna is the first chair flute, Rachel is 5th (out of 9), and Jared is the first of the two alto saxes.  And I could not believe their sound at their recent concert—they’ve come a long way in a year.

For some reason I can’t get blogger to upload the video link…  but if you want to hear them in their recent concert here they are. . (And hopefully we will never see Jenna take her flute apart during a song again!)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TmPirgvXtY&feature=c4-overview&list=UU8dH34GpjHgfmU7WrlbJyGA

The very worst parts of me

The other night I had a phone call from a worried little babysitter.  Like any good mom would, I hopped in the car and drove across the neighborhood to help her with the fussy baby.  As I pulled into the driveway and ran up to the front door I couldn’t help but notice a few things.  That this young family has a 3 car garage.  That their house is quite a bit bigger than ours.  My brain had done all the math before I even realized it. 

This is not the first time I’ve made this observation.  Not by a long shot.  In fact in the last 18 months I’ve probably categorized every house I’ve seen in relation to the size of my house.  And not in a pretty way, either.

I’ve realized that I had unconsciously made some assumptions during the last two decades that haven’t proven to be true for us.   I had never expected to live in homes as nice as those we owned in North Carolina, but having once lived in them I expected that our house owning trajectory would continue, if not upwards, then at least even.  Moving here was not a part of that plan.  Moving to a place where we would pay almost $100,000 more for a house almost 50% smaller was nothing I ever expected to experience.  After living in a nice roomy house for the last decade having to cram ourselves in here has been hard.  And so I compare, and begrudge, and feel guilty.  Over and over again.

I wish I could say that this is the only less than admirable quality that has shown up in the last two years, but that wouldn’t be true.  The last two years have been like a panorama of all of the mean and spiteful thoughts and feelings inside of me.  Feelings that I hadn’t experienced before—not because I was living more righteously, but because the circumstances of my life weren’t provoking them.  I have felt more envy in the last two years than in the previous 10—I’ve been jealous of bigger houses, better jobs, available choices, more established social lives, the works.  In the last two years I think I’ve felt more anger, resentment, frustration, neediness, and self-pity, than in the last decade.  It’s been a lesson to me on how evolved I’m not, and provided continual need for repentance.

 

But you know, here’s the interesting thing.  I started writing this the other night as soon as I got back from the babysitting house, all of the feelings fresh in my mind.  I wrote a couple of paragraphs and then stopped because I was tired and ran out of mental energy.  Today I was driving down a road near our neighborhood and passed a street filled with really large houses.  And for the first time in a year and a half, I noticed them without any emotion and drove on by. 

I’m test-driving a new hypothesis today.  Could it be that all of these negative emotions that lurked beneath the surface of my satisfying and happy life needed to be exposed, brought into the light so that I could see them and repent (over & over again) of them and maybe even put them to rest for a while?  It’s heartening to think tonight that perhaps there is method in this beyond exposing me to all of the darkness that exists inside of me.  And to hope that maybe through this pain and discomfort, healing is happening.

Proud Mama Moment

Jared wanted to play football this fall.  Given the recent research on football and traumatic brain injury we nixed that idea.  (Although it was just pointed out to me that with our family history his brain would probably be fine at football…if he was going to get a concussion it would be while he was alone in the wilderness, dependent on the kindness of passing strangers!)  He decided instead that he wanted to try wrestling.

On the first day of practice this week they announced that in addition to the $100 fee the boys would need to sell at least $100 worth of raffle tickets each.  There was an option to pay another $75 instead of selling the tickets, but since he also needs shoes, a mouth guard, and something to protect him from the dreaded cauliflower ear (???) I told him he’d need to sell the 10 tickets.  I even bought the first one.

Yesterday he came home from practice with the tickets and paperwork.  He told us that he was going to go out and sell at 10AM this morning, before anyone else had hit our neighborhood.  This morning he walked around practicing his door approach, nervous but determined.  We talked about where he would go, and I suggested that after he had done one end of our street he should come back and tell us how it had gone.  Much to my surprise he was back within 10 minutes, telling us that he had found 4 families not at home, two had said no, and two had bought tickets.  He was so excited, and so was I.

After a snack he went back out.  An hour later he burst back into the house, announcing to everyone who would listen, “I sold them all!” 

I was sure I hadn’t heard him right.  (Or that he was pulling my leg—a frequent occurrence with Jared.)  But no—that is what he had said.  He showed me on google maps how far he’d gone (not very) to sell the last 7 tickets.  He was stoked.

And do you know what?  I am too.  I know what a big deal it is to go door to door and do something like this.   Way to go Jared!!

Oregon after 18 months

This morning was a new “life in Oregon” milestone. 

I went for a walk in the rain.

(I’ve noticed that most experiences that are distinctly ‘Oregon’ include some form of rain.  Walking in the rain, camping in the rain, campfire in the rain, seasons of rain, etc.  Poor Jared had a scout campout Friday night and pouring rain and cold as well.  He was miserable.)

Last spring I noticed something odd.  I’d be driving around, doing something normal and routine, and then all of a sudden I’d have a moment that I can only describe as “anti-deja-vu.”  A moment where my brain would suddenly shift, and I would look around me and wonder what on earth I as doing living in someone else’s life.

That hasn’t happened in a while, and I think it’s a good thing.  As hard as it’s been, as much as I miss my old (warm) life and my old (big) home and my old (awesome) friends, this is our new life.  And I need to be fully in it.

I think going for a walk in the rain is a great milestone.

There’s tired, and then there’s TIRED.

Dermatology, I am loving it!

You know how our deductible has been, shall we say, MET?!?  Well we are trying to take care of any other medical stuff that we need to before the year is up.  Last week Russ went to get all of his moles checked, and this week was my turn.

I sat on the table in my hospital gown and the physicians assistant asked me if I had any moles that were bothering me.  I mentioned that there was something at the nape of my neck (what there was I could not say as I have never seen the thing) that from time to time gets irritated.  She looked at it and said, “Oh, we can slice that right off; make it flat.”

I showed her the odd spots that had appeared on one of my hands and she grabbed the can of liquid nitrogen.  Bzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz.  “We’ll just freeze those right off.”

Then she came around to the front of me and started looking at my face.  She looked closely at this red bump I’ve had under my right eye for about 20 years and said “we can zap that with the laser.” 

It was only then that the light bulb turned fully on.  She was good for more than analyzing all of the little freckles and moles on my skin.  She could FIX things!!  As she was looking at the bump under my eye I asked, “Can you do anything about this bump on my nose?”  “Sure,” she said, “We can slice that one off too.”

A few shots of lidocaine later and I had been frozen, sliced, lasered, and sliced again.  Now I’ll be wearing a bandaid on my nose for the next few days, and the kids have already told me that it looks strange.  But hey—after that, all my annoying skin things will be gone!

Mum’s (not) the word.

I will admit to being a sucker for a lovely flower.  And when I saw this one at Walmart at the beginning of October I just grabbed it and put it in my cart.

Even though I don’t really have a good history with mums.  In fact I believe that while in NC I tried mums once and swore off them forever.  But how could I resist those bi-color petals?  So I didn’t even try.  And I told myself that this time around, my experience with mums would be different.  They would thrive and be beautiful in a place of honor on my bridge and I would enjoy looking at them every day.

Except.

I forgot to ask around.  To get the native opinion on how mums thrive in what they euphemistically call “liquid sunshine.” 

And after two nights of heavy “liquid sunshine” (is it “liquid moonshine” at night?) this is what my beautiful mum looked like.

Let’s look at that from another angle, shall we?

 

Thrashed.  Completely.

And that’s why I’d ask, should you see me sidling up to a brightly colored mum, that you remind me gently (and not so gently) of my previous experience with mums.  Tell me to save my money.  Or to use my money to buy some chocolate.  Because I’ll get to enjoy it for about the same amount of time, and with chocolate there wouldn’t be a bad taste left in my mouth…

Scones & Soup

I’ve been reading the most fantastic book—“Friendships Don’t Just Happen.”  I’m at the part right now that emphasizes that friendships are a process of time.  And that the more frequently you meet together with your friends, the faster those friendships will progress and deepen.

Right up till that point I was energized and jazzed by the book.  But that part made me feel tired.

You see, I feel exhausted and overwhelmed by my life as it is on a regular basis.  The thought of needing to add anything else into my life regularly makes me need a nap.  Right now.

And so I did the only thing I could think of.  I said a prayer, asking Heavenly Father to guide me to the interactions that would most benefit both me & others.  He knows what I need.  He knows that I need to have friends—good friends, real friends, in order to be happy in my life.  I don’t know yet who those meaningful friends will be, but He does.  And hopefully I will have enough energy for His plan.

 

This morning as I started making a batch of bread I told the kids that I would make scones for lunch.  It occurred to me that since it was Veteran's Day, one of the women I visiting teach (someone that I hope will become a good friend) probably had the day off.  I called and left a message inviting her to come over for a lunch of scones, and she quickly returned my call offering to bring homemade tomato soup as well. 

Our meal was lovely, with lots of laughter over stories of most embarrassing moments, (we both have some great ones!) and assurances to our daughters that one day they, too, will have similarly embarrassing moments in their lives.  The scones were good, the honey butter was divine, and the homemade tomato soup was amazing. 

And when they left and I cleaned off the table the thought came to me that I had asked, and Heavenly Father had arranged.  What I had thought was my own clever idea was surely the spirit’s prompting, answering my prayer with a suggestion of a possible activity with a friend.

It makes me hopeful for the future…

Garden Notes

It was definitely an uneven year for my garden.  The early heatwave bolted all of my lettuces before we had even begun to eat them.  I got carried away with the tomatoes, ending up with about 14 (!!!) plants in a household with 1.75 tomato eaters.  They were delicious, until early September rains caused them all to split and mold.  (Welcome to Oregon!)  Here are pictures from the tomato forest late in the season, and one of the hummingbird that liked to hang out in it after tanking up on nectar.

I learned the hard way that I didn’t plant enough peas or enough beans, though Rachel did enjoy eating every pea that appeared on the vines.

I also learned that while the tomato forest thrived, plants planted in un-amended soil (where there was recently a rhododendron) definitely didn’t.  Poor me—I love summer squash so much and got almost none.  Next year my plan is to try straw bale gardening in this area.  I love that because our house is built on the lot line on the south side of our lot, we have a nice sized side yard on the south side. 

Russ tore out all of the tomatoes yesterday, and I will miss their foliage outside the dining room window.  In future seasons I might plant some winter flowers in the garden beds, but this winter we need to add another layer to them so for now they are just bare.

As we were finishing our work in the yard yesterday (which for me meant tearing out some shrubs to freecycle and planting more tulips) I realized that I needed to harvest the potatoes.  I’d planted them in 2 unused containers when I ran out of room in my raised beds, thrown dirt on them from time to time early in the season, and then forgotten them.  I was pretty sure they wouldn’t have produced any potatoes at all.  Much to my surprise, this is what I ended up with—a nice bowl full of purple potatoes!

Russ chopped them up and roasted them to go with dinner tonight.  They were…very purple.

The insides were even more purple—this picture has the roasted edge torn off.

They were delicious—the flavor was really nice.   But I must say, they didn’t look quite right with catsup!

In my next life…

I promise I’m going to be a cat.

Willamette River Cruise

One day in October while I was still kind of drugged from my endoscopy a friend called and asked if I wanted to go on a short cruise on the Willamette River in Portland with her and another friend the next week.  I might not have been quite in my right mind, but I was lucid enough to know I should definitely take her up on her offer.  The next week on a rainy windy day we drove into Portland and made our way to the riverfront. 

We started the trip up on the top open deck, but within a few minutes it became clear that the weather wasn’t going to allow us to stay up there.  We did get to see this great chart showing all of the bridges in Portland—I had no idea that there were so many, or that most of them are drawbridges. 

The lowest deck (where they were serving a lunch) was completely full, but the deck above that only had a few people on it.  We had a great time ordering appetizers and sitting and watching everything.  We saw a new bridge in progress,

we saw an incredibly beautiful house built around an historical pump station that’s never been lived in, (tragedy on the construction crew, and please excuse the raindrops in the picture)

and best of all, houseboats.  Originally living on a houseboat was a cheaper way to live in Portland because there was no property tax.  Now they’ve figured out a way to tax people who aren’t actually living on any…property…but apparently it’s still worth it to some people.  Some of the houses were old and run down, but some were fabulous looking.  I was totally wishing I’d brought the long lens for my camera.

It was totally a fun day—such a treat to get to spend it with two friends and to see so many new things too!

Catch up blogging --post about Olivia's visit & great starfish pictures

Friends,  I have so many unblogged about things that need to be caught up on that it is positively making me twitchy.  So I am committed to applying myself over the next few days and trying to get more caught up on my life.  I know it doesn’t matter to anyone else in the world, but I want to have a record that is, among other things, an account of our family experiences together.

Ordinarily when I blog something late it just stays where it lands, but since I’m going to try to get a bunch of out of date stuff done I’m going to stick it in chronologically.  On the off chance that anyone else is interested in checking out what I’m blogging, I’m going to put links in this post.

Go me!

Olivia's Visit

Saying Goodbye to Jason
Taylor Swift!

Cindy Lynn & Kate's Fall Visit
Roses, Roses, Everywhere
Other Oregon Adventures with Cindy Lynn & Kate
(Divine Summer Plans)


Family Hike
Concussion Hike

Canyonlands
Arches
Delicate Arch
Sand Dune & Landscape Arch
Moab Miscellany

Things that make us happy

My cool cousin Emily posted a message on facebook recently.  For a project in her graphic design program she needed to collect lists of things that make people happy. I LOVED reading the lists that people left for her.  I was surprised at how much happiness it brought me to think about the things that made me happy, and I was really surprised at how happy it made me to read other people’s happy lists.

A few days later she sent me a message and said that she was building an artifact made of post it notes, each with something on it that makes someone happy.  The day before this message I had been at the dollar store and had seen some really cute post it notes.  So (despite the fact that I already own a life-time supply of post it notes!) I went back to the dollar store and got them.  Then during school one day we wrote down things that make us happy. 

Again, I was surprised at how happy it made me to read the things that my kids had written that made them happy.  And in the end before I could stack them up and send them all off to Emily, I had to take a picture so that I’d be able to remember all of these things that make us happy.

What a great way to start November!

 

PS—my favorites?  “Talking in a British Accent” and “family….sometimes”!!!