If the Lord loves a cheerful giver I’m in serious trouble.

I have referred from time to time to my gig as elementary school choir accompanist.  My girls joined the 5/6th grade choir at the beginning of the school year and I was thrilled about it.  The things they came home singing were exactly the kind of music I wanted them to experience.  It was great. 

Then in November an emergency email came from the choir teacher.  (Who is the music teacher at this elementary school and two other schools nearby.)  Her regular choir accompanist, an 85 year old woman, was having emergency surgery and would surely not be back for any of the Christmas performances.  Was there anyone available who could play the piano for the choirs???

I thought about it.  I can play the piano, some.  I’m not particularly good and I have bad stage fright, but I decided that because I was so happy for my girls to have this opportunity I could offer my services in case no one else with better qualifications showed up.  I was fairly certain I would not need to make good on my offer.

I was wrong.

And so I started my new career as a volunteer at the elementary school, a thing I have not done in almost 19 years.  For the two months that were left of fall semester I went to the school three times a week—for an hour after school on Monday, and for a half hour during lunch on Wednesday and Thursday.  I joked with the women in the office each day as I signed in that for a homeschooler, I was spending an awfully lot of time at the public school.

The first performance was grueling.  I’d only had the music for a week and a half at that point, I found out when I arrived that I would be playing a rickety keyboard, and I thought I would die of fear.  Afterwards I wanted to walk into the small audience and assure everyone that I did indeed know how terribly I’d played—it was just short of humiliating.

They had several more Christmas-time performances, and each time I did a little better.  Except perhaps for the performance at the zoo when it was 32 degrees—I played with fingerless gloves and still had a hard time playing the fast parts because I was so cold.

 

When the new semester started I was thrilled to find out that because of a schedule change at one of the other schools, there was no more Monday afternoon choir and my girls’ choir was now meeting at lunch on Wednesdays.  This means that since January I’ve spent an hour every Wednesday and 1/2 hour every Thursday at the school. 

Two days a week is so much better than three, but I have to tell you it’s still killing me.  I’m not equally effective at all points throughout my day, and my prime time (and therefore best homeschool time) is between 9 or 10 and lunchtime.  That’s normally plenty of time for us to do the things we do together.  But on Wednesday and Thursday I have to leave a few minutes after 11.  This means that if we don’t get started until 10, we have just an hour to get through all of our stuff or something remains undone.  Now I am a really flexible relaxed homeschooler.  So not getting through everything every once in a while isn’t that big of a deal.  But losing this time out of my day twice a week has made things significantly more difficult, and that has been frustrating to me.

Over & over I have told myself to have a better attitude about it but it’s been hard.

Complicating the situation is the choir teacher herself.  This woman is really amazing.  She is super energetic, a bit bigger than life, and goes way above and beyond.  The choirs for the elementary schools are all voluntary—she does them during her lunch hour.  This semester she also staged a play with kids in the 6th grade (maybe I’ll blog more about that later) which was a huge undertaking.  But.  She really wastes a lot of time.  And I get it—this is her program, and it’s her time to waste.  Except that she’s wasting my time too, and as a homeschooling mother my time is really precious to me.

Yesterday morning was certainly the worst yet.  I was already in a cranky mood, I’m not even sure why.  (No protein maybe?) The weather was bad and the kids were all fractious and she spent a great deal of time fussing and even occasionally yelling at them.  We have a performance tonight and both groups had songs that were really not ready to perform, and I certainly (CERTAINLY) needed practice going through the songs with the kids singing.  The choirs practice for only 20-25 minutes each, so in my mind every minute is precious.  But both times she spent almost half of her time talking to the kids, and them crammed the practicing into the little bit of time that was left.  When they were done singing I couldn’t get out of the room or the school fast enough. 

 

I hate feeling this way.  This is not who I want to be.  In my mind I practice being gracious and giving and patient.  But in my head & life I can’t reconcile all of it and I just end up cranky and frustrated.

I keep telling myself that it will all be over soon.  After tonight’s concert the 3rd and 4th grade choirs will be done and it will just be one practice a week for the next few weeks until the big choir trip to an amusement park in Washington.  (Something else I’m not looking forward to but that my girls are excited about.)  And then I’ll be done, and hopefully I’ll be able to look back and appreciate the good parts.  That I got to experience this with my girls.  That my piano playing improved.  That occasionally I had less stage fright. 

And maybe next time around I’ll do better at the cheerful part.

Oregon Spring part 3

As the pink dogwood trees leafed out toning down their pink beauty I wondered what would come next in the adventure of this first Oregon spring.

And the winner of part 3 is in—rhododendrons.  They are truly everywhere.  I tell everyone that rhododendrons are to Oregon what azaleas are to North Carolina.  In NC, azaleas rule and there are a few rhododendrons.  Here in Oregon it’s the opposite, and (some) people call rhododendrons “rhodies.”  It’s been fun to watch them come into bloom.  One of the earliest was the one in our side yard.  It showed promise in the bud stage,

 

but the finished result is actually a blah off white color flower that I didn’t enjoy very much.  I think I can pretty much promise you that eventually it will be replaced.  I like the one in our front yard that bloomed a few weeks later.

Right now I think I will try to (eventually) put a dark red one in our yard—there are several around the neighborhood that are just stunning.

Most of the rhodies are in shades of pink or red,

but there is an occasional outlier.

Next year I am also going to try to get some irises.  They are really beautiful here.  Do you suppose it’s considered socially acceptable to ask someone down the street whom I’ve never met if I could have some of their irises?  If I take them a loaf of bread??

It’s been so warm for the last 2 weeks (unseasonably warm—what a delight!)  and there are roses starting to bloom.  Here’s a picture from alongside the freeway in Portland last week.

We’re still a week and a half away from the anniversary of our arrival in Oregon, but I think we’re just about to the same place in the blooming season thanks to the recent warm weather.  That means that the blackberries are starting to bloom alongside the roads (to eat or not to eat???) and the strawberries will be ripening soon.

So there you have it.  Spring in Oregon—which is a long, drawn out, and beautiful experience.

Why would we want to eat off the floor anyway??

 

Last night I went to a Relief Society weekday meeting centered around cleaning.  I joked to several people that I wanted to go and learn some cleaning tips, and then have someone else do them for me.  That was not really a joke.

I like to think that I’ve made my peace with my house.  While I enjoy having it clean, I seem to have been born without the “spotless house” gene.  Having a spotless house has never felt like my top priority, especially as I have added things into my life that make that goal more difficult—lots of children, homeschooling, and most recently moving.

I am generally pretty clear on what I am capable of achieving and what is really not possible.  I know that I could put my small amount of free time towards more cleaning, but for the most part I choose other, more creative (and to me, satisfying) pursuits. 

It’s funny how hard it was to hang on to all of these decisions & beliefs for the hour last night that I sat and listened to woman after woman proclaim the virtues of a clean home.  While I joked with the woman sitting in front of me, a part of my heart sank lower and lower in my seat, listening to what felt like a 60 minute reinforcement of my faults and inadequacies.  The fact of the matter is, I am just not all that worried about germs and sanitizing stuff.  But maybe I should be.  Maybe this indicates a flaw that I’ve been burying my head in the sand rather than see.

I’m sure I’ll recover my equilibrium soon.  I’m sure I will never have to say, as one woman said last night, “my kids probably would tell you that I was a mean mother, but a clean house was important to me.”  I’m more like the woman (who unfortunately only spoke for 5 minutes) who said that her mother made them clean all of the time, and that she has chosen as a mother to make sure that there was more going to the park and reading aloud with her kids. 

Here are my goals, just to remind me:

• our home is livable
• it exists to support us, and not the other way around
• no one has any questions about what (who) is most important.

Deep breath…and back to my regularly scheduled (not cleaning-filled) program.

 

PS—I am left with a wonder.  I wonder if, when I am talking about something I am passionate about, I leave people feeling inadequate because they do not share or embrace the same passion??  I can tell you exactly how things should have been different last night to make me feel better—less “you should do it this way” and more “these are options.”  The last thing I ever want to do is make people feel bad because of who I am.  I’m completely aware that who I am is not quite normal, and I don’t need anyone to feel like they “should” be like or think like me.  But do the things I say come across that way?  Definitely something to work on.

Mother’s Day Recap

Last year I celebrated Mother’s Day from San Diego.  It was a Mother’s Day with a new temple

and our family on Skype from 5 different places.

 

My, how far we’ve come.  1500 miles.  365 days.  A new place and a new life.

This morning I woke to the lovely smell of breakfast burritos.  Not in bed, because I’m not too fond of eating in bed.  We went to church where Jared gave his first talk in sacrament meeting and did an excellent job.  In relief society I sat by friends, ate lovely treats, and listened to a great lesson.  After church we had lunch and I worked on a slideshow while we waited until it was time to skype with Jason.

Our call with Jason was followed by a good nap and then a skype call with my girlfriends.  Russ made a lovely dinner and then he and the kids cleaned the kitchen.  Really cleaned it.  Then Russ and I finished the day watching the Survivor finale.

What a happy Mother’s Day!

More talk of goats

Jared has been on one all morning.  Teasing, teasing, teasing.  Poor Rachel has been the recipient of much of it.  We just played a game of (American) Ticket to Ride and it was fiercely competitive.  Lots of blocking and a quicker than expected game ending.  Rachel commented at the end of the game how much fun she’d had frustrating Jared during the game, and I cautioned her about the need to be a good sport.

“But Mom,” she said, “He gets my goat all the time!  This is the only time I can get back at him!”

“Well,” Jared shot back at her, “that’s because your goat is always out sitting in a meadow.  Tied with 10 year old twine.  To a twig stuck in the ground!!”

 

Sigh…some days are like this…

Happy Mother’s Day to my daughter

 

A few months ago I was talking to someone how hard our year had been.  As I was talking I felt a need to clarify that while there had been so many difficult things that had happened to our family, there had also been some miraculous things.  I told about Mahon getting a new job in Utah (just at the right time, as it turned out), about Cindy Lynn being able to take this new cutting-edge medication, and about her miraculous pregnancy. 

As I listed everything out it started to be almost absurd—at the same time that we were having this agonizing year, Cindy Lynn and Mahon were having a year filled with miracles.  I looked at my friend and I said, “I know it doesn’t work this way, but if there were only miracles for one or the other, I’m more than happy that they got them.”

Today reinforced that feeling for me.  Earlier I read Cindy Lynn’s post about her first Mother’s Day with Kate.  Then Mahon & Cindy Lynn joined us on our skype call with Elder Jason and got to introduce Jason to his new niece. 

I LOVE watching Cindy Lynn with Kate. 

I love seeing her enjoy every minute of this experience that she has longed for.

Happy Mother’s Day, sweetie.  Your happiness made my day.

I resemble this..