As I was riding down the street the other day, I saw yet another Nativity scene in the neighborhood and I had a flash of a connection. American society treats childbirth and Christmas in exactly the same way. There is a lot of excitement in the preparation, but when the baby actually comes, no one sticks around for long.
I explained my theory to my husband and he found it a little overwrought. Perhaps it is. I do think there is a connection, though. We put a lot of emphasis on hype and rarely linger in celebration. I spent some time trying to think of anything where we spend more time in the event than we did preparing for it. Thanksgiving, maybe?
The real question is why would a Nativity scene lead me to think about postpartum America. I am not exactly postpartum. My "baby" is three and a half years old. I think I might have some postpartum trauma. A nativity scene shouldn't be triggering.
I've touched on this topic in the past: the utter abandonment I felt with Grace, the trauma of Olivia not taking a bottle, the crushing return to work after Marian. Sam was fine, as best as I remember. In a lot of ways, I feel like in spite of having four children, I have put in a lot of infant work while rarely reaping the infant reward. I love babies, but my time whiled away enjoying them has been short indeed. Time has always been pressing in. Is that the normal way of things?
And what to do about it?
At what point do you say that the choices you made are what they are and you just missed out. I didn't know I'd feel robbed, but I do and that's life. Grow up and move on, right?
Or do you get on the roller coaster again? Do you take the chance of misery and heartbreak to grasp those fleeting moments, to rock a baby with confidence and competence, without a clock unceasingly ticking? Even if you know you probably wouldn't punch that ticket if you had gotten the chance to do it even once before. Is it even reasonable to think it would make a difference?
What's the line between selfishness, unrealistic dreams, and fear?
I've built up in my mind what the non-working, postpartum months should look like. I'm likely wrong. Is it worth finding out?
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Sins of Omission
Indulge me a little in a little bit of vague blogging. It is not outside the realm of possibility that the people I reference might read this and, still, they have their own sides, and all I can tell you is how I see things. You all know all of this.
How do you forgive sins of omission? How do you forgive sins of omission when you are the one being omitted against, not out of malice but because your need is apparently invisible to them. And it isn't invisible because you haven't told or shown them, but because they do not hear or see.
What does it mean to forgive when the need is ongoing and every struggle with it is intertwined with the knowledge that people you thought would help you through it are choosing not to. Again not out of malice, but for some other unknown reason: busyness, scheduling, lack of urgency, misunderstanding.
Can you call it forgiveness when you can't tell the difference between sorrow at what should be and expectant rage at what isn't?
I have been given the wise advice that the first step in forgiveness is to stop asking, stop expecting, and accept I have to find another way. The need still exists. I just need to find a way to fulfill it that is different than I thought it would be. I need to let them off the hook.
This is much easier said than done. I can stop asking. I can find another way, I hope. I don't know if I can stop being shocked at my apparent invisibility. It's hard not to take it personally. The resentment is hard to swallow. Once I find another way, is it really forgiveness or just the thorn being removed from my side? Is it enough to say I loved you enough to stop asking? How do you stop being angry? And then what?
As a ponder these questions, another thought bubbles up to the surface. Is there an obvious need in my purview of responsibilities that I refuse to see? I hope not. Let me have eyes to see and ears to hear.
How do you forgive sins of omission? How do you forgive sins of omission when you are the one being omitted against, not out of malice but because your need is apparently invisible to them. And it isn't invisible because you haven't told or shown them, but because they do not hear or see.
What does it mean to forgive when the need is ongoing and every struggle with it is intertwined with the knowledge that people you thought would help you through it are choosing not to. Again not out of malice, but for some other unknown reason: busyness, scheduling, lack of urgency, misunderstanding.
Can you call it forgiveness when you can't tell the difference between sorrow at what should be and expectant rage at what isn't?
I have been given the wise advice that the first step in forgiveness is to stop asking, stop expecting, and accept I have to find another way. The need still exists. I just need to find a way to fulfill it that is different than I thought it would be. I need to let them off the hook.
This is much easier said than done. I can stop asking. I can find another way, I hope. I don't know if I can stop being shocked at my apparent invisibility. It's hard not to take it personally. The resentment is hard to swallow. Once I find another way, is it really forgiveness or just the thorn being removed from my side? Is it enough to say I loved you enough to stop asking? How do you stop being angry? And then what?
As a ponder these questions, another thought bubbles up to the surface. Is there an obvious need in my purview of responsibilities that I refuse to see? I hope not. Let me have eyes to see and ears to hear.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
I've Not Forgotten
This is a sad, forsaken blog, but not forsaken from my thoughts. I have several post stubs with a sentence or two, but that's all I can seem to manage. I have things to say and no time in which to say them.
My husband essentially works 7 days a week or, really, his time off is never known far enough in advance to actually plan around. It might be Tuesday this week and Thursday next week and Wednesday the week after that. Even on his days off and into the evenings, the phone never quits. It is just the nature of the job.
The reality here is that I am on-duty almost all the time.
Some people can write while the world collapses around them or, at least while the three year old shrieks, but I am not one of them. Some people can write a sentence or two at a time and create coherence over many days, but I am not one of them.
The bits of off-duty time I do get are spent in household management, cooking and washing dishes, school planning, grocery shopping, and the like. I also like to shower periodically. It's the little things.
We have been at this new experiment for a little over a year. It's not harder than I thought it would be, but I didn't think it would be easy. And sure enough, it is not easy. It's all the things I struggle with, day in and day out.
We have been at it long enough that we need to shift out of crisis mode. Our schedule has been very fly by the seat of our pants all year long. This is starting to take its toll on both of us. We have decided to begin to be intentional about both of us getting some off-duty down time. This is harder than it sounds.
So hopefully soon, I'll have some space to post again more frequently than once a quarter. But until then, know that I've not forgotten.
My husband essentially works 7 days a week or, really, his time off is never known far enough in advance to actually plan around. It might be Tuesday this week and Thursday next week and Wednesday the week after that. Even on his days off and into the evenings, the phone never quits. It is just the nature of the job.
The reality here is that I am on-duty almost all the time.
Some people can write while the world collapses around them or, at least while the three year old shrieks, but I am not one of them. Some people can write a sentence or two at a time and create coherence over many days, but I am not one of them.
The bits of off-duty time I do get are spent in household management, cooking and washing dishes, school planning, grocery shopping, and the like. I also like to shower periodically. It's the little things.
We have been at this new experiment for a little over a year. It's not harder than I thought it would be, but I didn't think it would be easy. And sure enough, it is not easy. It's all the things I struggle with, day in and day out.
We have been at it long enough that we need to shift out of crisis mode. Our schedule has been very fly by the seat of our pants all year long. This is starting to take its toll on both of us. We have decided to begin to be intentional about both of us getting some off-duty down time. This is harder than it sounds.
So hopefully soon, I'll have some space to post again more frequently than once a quarter. But until then, know that I've not forgotten.
Thursday, July 21, 2016
The Paralysis Zone
It is a well known truth that when organizing a room, the mess is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Here is my problem: If I have a project, I can work diligently from beginning to end, through the horrible worse middle, without too much despair or discouragement. If something happens where I have to stop working on a particular project, I am paralyzed trying to find the loose thread in order to pick up the work again.
This is the current state of my living room. There are good reasons for its state.
Two weeks ago, I was working diligently on the kitchen. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. More work needed to be done, but it wasn't the neverending pit of despair anymore. I could see a way out. But instead of finishing, I turned my attention to my dresser.
There was a good reason for this. All of my children were going to spend a week at my parents' house and it seemed the perfect opportunity to spread out all those papers for sorting and organizing without worrying about little hands grabbing and spreading them all over the house. Except I didn't get finished with that either. I had Marian much more than I thought I would and also the dryer drama.
Then it came time for the biannual consignment sale where I do 90% of the children's clothing shopping for the year. I could not not go.
So here we are. The house is an utter disaster. The children are all home again, there are the loose ends of three projects floating around the downstairs, and no, the dryer is still not functional. I am paralyzed trying to figure out where to start.
Here is my problem: If I have a project, I can work diligently from beginning to end, through the horrible worse middle, without too much despair or discouragement. If something happens where I have to stop working on a particular project, I am paralyzed trying to find the loose thread in order to pick up the work again.
This is the current state of my living room. There are good reasons for its state.
Two weeks ago, I was working diligently on the kitchen. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. More work needed to be done, but it wasn't the neverending pit of despair anymore. I could see a way out. But instead of finishing, I turned my attention to my dresser.
There was a good reason for this. All of my children were going to spend a week at my parents' house and it seemed the perfect opportunity to spread out all those papers for sorting and organizing without worrying about little hands grabbing and spreading them all over the house. Except I didn't get finished with that either. I had Marian much more than I thought I would and also the dryer drama.
Then it came time for the biannual consignment sale where I do 90% of the children's clothing shopping for the year. I could not not go.
So here we are. The house is an utter disaster. The children are all home again, there are the loose ends of three projects floating around the downstairs, and no, the dryer is still not functional. I am paralyzed trying to figure out where to start.
 |
| Yes, that's a Hanna Andersson dress I bought for $8. |
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
More Adventures in Housekeeping
I feel like I have neglected this little blog. When school was in session, I felt an urgent need to write about all of my stresses, challenges, and small successes, but could not find the time. Now that it is summer break, I have the time, but the urgency to write passed as well. The best way to get back in the habit is to just to do it, right? I can't promise thoughtful or insightful, but I can post lots of cleaning pictures.
My attention has turned almost completely to the house. Marian is watching an obscene amount of television while I desperately try to get the house cleaned and organized over the summer. We are eating out way too much because my brain does not seem to have room for meal planning at the moment. It is what it is.
In the midst of the focus on the house, we have enjoyed a housekeeping fiasco of my own making. The drama has been well-documented on the book of Face, but I'd thought I'd share here because A Post!
Way back about a month ago, my mother and I cleaned my beleaguered and ignored laundry room. In the sorting, I found a cheap, plastic, flannel-backed tablecloth. It was dirty. I had a choice. I could attempt to clean it or throw it away. Well, I am a thrifty soul who hates throwing away useful things, but I did not want to hand scrub a $3 tablecloth. I decided to run it through the washing machine on gentle and see what happened.
It survived the washer slightly worse for wear, but still serviceable. Since I am not a stupid person, I knew putting this object in the dryer on heat to dry would be a bad idea. I transferred the tablecloth into the dryer and set it for no heat and 60 minutes. Sixty minutes elapses. I check the tablecloth and find it is still slightly damp.
Now I am not stupid. I just want to repeat this and make it clear.
Since I am busy and trying to get the laundry done, I think to myself that I am not really interested in waiting another 30-60 minutes for this thing to spin on fluff. I, very reasonably!, think that if I put the dryer on low heat for about five minutes, it would finish off the drying project without risk and I could move on. FIVE MINUTES! LOW HEAT!
Well.
So maybe it wasn't a good idea.
Thus begins the task of rescuing the dryer.
First I spent many hours scrubbing the dryer. I learned that if I heated the dryer to soften the plastic, I could squirt rubbing alcohol onto the hot metal and get some of the melted plastic to break free. Yes, I lived in fear of catching myself on fire.
Is this a good analogy of mortal sin? Yes, I knew what I was doing. Yes, I did it anyway.
Since most of the remains of the tablecloth were in the very back of the dryer, it was difficult to reach. After several days of trying to reach all the way back there, Dave decided it would be easier if he took out the back drum cover so I could scrub it within my easy reach.
Now I had to change techniques. Now I heated the metal with a hair dryer. Hurrah. After scrubbing for hours and hours--you can't imagine how many TV shows Marian watched--I get the drum cover about as clean as I am willing to work on it.
We attempt to screw the cover back into the dryer. It is at this moment we discover the axle that holds this entire puppy together has fallen into the bottom of the dryer. Well. This means the entire dryer has to be dissembled in order to get it back into working order.
We make a decision. What if my cleaning job is not good enough? What if we take apart the entire dryer, put it back together, and discover with our test load that more work needs to be done? This is the end of the insanity. We find the replacement part is less than $20. If we had looked up the part on day one of this misadventure, I wouldn't have spent all day, everyday for nearly a whole week scrubbing this thing. A week of my life is worth $20. We decided to order a fresh part and wait. I take all of our laundry to my sister's house and spend a day doing laundry there. Thus ends the first week.
After about a week, the UPS truck pulls up to our house carrying a box that could not possibly be holding the part we ordered. We open the box and discover this:
No, we did not order the wrong part. Yes, this is what they sent instead. The first call to the company was fruitless because the recording told us to call back during business hours, which end at 11PM CDT. It was 9:30PM CDT. Yes, I know. The second call, during business hours this time--the business part of the business hours, I guess--was more productive. We got the part re-ordered except only one warehouse carried it and that warehouse did not have expedited shipping. It would be another week. I brought all of our laundry to my MIL's house and spent an entire day doing laundry. Thus ended the second week.
After the week passes, finally at long last this shiny piece of metal arrives at our doorstep:
We can begin the dryer surgery. Dave, gallantly ignoring my nervous nattering, bravely deconstructs the dryer.
He gets it apart. He puts it back together. We bravely turn it on. And it makes a weird noise, we haven't heard before. We turn it off. Maybe we need to get a professional involved.
The children were set to visit my parents the next day. I load up all our laundry and spend an entire day doing laundry at my parents' house. Thus ends the third week.
While I was at my parents' house, my father mentioned that he has taken apart and reconstructed dryers several times in his lifetime and he would be willing to look at ours. He was due to bring Marian home after her short version of the grandparent visit.
A couple days later, they arrive. Daddy walks into the laundry room, plugs up the machine, and turns it on. He declares there is not a thing wrong with it. The noise that disturbed us was just a result of the drum being disturbed from its eight year resting place. He said after a load or two, it would all be fine.
Hurray! Hurray! Do we have access to the laundry again?
No.
With all this pushing and shoving of the dryer around, we ended up tearing up the aluminum flexible tube that connects the dryer to the vent pipe. We needed a new one.
After a trip to the store, Dave crawls under the house to replace the aluminum tube with some higher quality flexible metal piping. And he discovers the vent pipe is totally clogged with lint. He pulls the entire tubing out from under the house and begins cleaning out the entire 15 foot length of it. In the process, one of the tube segments breaks.
We are now in the middle of the fourth week. Tonight, Dave will go back to the store and buy a few more supplies and I expect we will have a functional laundry room by the end of the night.
What started out as a five minute lapse of judgement has turned into a month-long trial that has cost us nearly $100 and a whole host of lost hours. But, by gum, we will have the cleanest, most well-ventilated eight-year-old dryer in the history of eight-year-old dryers by the time we are finished! Keep your fingers crossed that nothing else breaks. We have towels for miles that need washed.
PS: Why don't I blog more? This little post took over three hours. Maybe I can find a way to work more quickly? I'll try to be more regular.
My attention has turned almost completely to the house. Marian is watching an obscene amount of television while I desperately try to get the house cleaned and organized over the summer. We are eating out way too much because my brain does not seem to have room for meal planning at the moment. It is what it is.
In the midst of the focus on the house, we have enjoyed a housekeeping fiasco of my own making. The drama has been well-documented on the book of Face, but I'd thought I'd share here because A Post!
 |
| Pretend this is a before picture. I know I've taken a picture of the laundry room, but I can't find it anywhere. |
 | |
| More laundry room stuff |
Way back about a month ago, my mother and I cleaned my beleaguered and ignored laundry room. In the sorting, I found a cheap, plastic, flannel-backed tablecloth. It was dirty. I had a choice. I could attempt to clean it or throw it away. Well, I am a thrifty soul who hates throwing away useful things, but I did not want to hand scrub a $3 tablecloth. I decided to run it through the washing machine on gentle and see what happened.
 |
| Empty shelves |
 |
| After! Isn't it beautiful? |
It survived the washer slightly worse for wear, but still serviceable. Since I am not a stupid person, I knew putting this object in the dryer on heat to dry would be a bad idea. I transferred the tablecloth into the dryer and set it for no heat and 60 minutes. Sixty minutes elapses. I check the tablecloth and find it is still slightly damp.
Now I am not stupid. I just want to repeat this and make it clear.
Since I am busy and trying to get the laundry done, I think to myself that I am not really interested in waiting another 30-60 minutes for this thing to spin on fluff. I, very reasonably!, think that if I put the dryer on low heat for about five minutes, it would finish off the drying project without risk and I could move on. FIVE MINUTES! LOW HEAT!
Well.
So maybe it wasn't a good idea.
Thus begins the task of rescuing the dryer.
First I spent many hours scrubbing the dryer. I learned that if I heated the dryer to soften the plastic, I could squirt rubbing alcohol onto the hot metal and get some of the melted plastic to break free. Yes, I lived in fear of catching myself on fire.
Is this a good analogy of mortal sin? Yes, I knew what I was doing. Yes, I did it anyway.
Since most of the remains of the tablecloth were in the very back of the dryer, it was difficult to reach. After several days of trying to reach all the way back there, Dave decided it would be easier if he took out the back drum cover so I could scrub it within my easy reach.
Now I had to change techniques. Now I heated the metal with a hair dryer. Hurrah. After scrubbing for hours and hours--you can't imagine how many TV shows Marian watched--I get the drum cover about as clean as I am willing to work on it.
We attempt to screw the cover back into the dryer. It is at this moment we discover the axle that holds this entire puppy together has fallen into the bottom of the dryer. Well. This means the entire dryer has to be dissembled in order to get it back into working order.
We make a decision. What if my cleaning job is not good enough? What if we take apart the entire dryer, put it back together, and discover with our test load that more work needs to be done? This is the end of the insanity. We find the replacement part is less than $20. If we had looked up the part on day one of this misadventure, I wouldn't have spent all day, everyday for nearly a whole week scrubbing this thing. A week of my life is worth $20. We decided to order a fresh part and wait. I take all of our laundry to my sister's house and spend a day doing laundry there. Thus ends the first week.
No, we did not order the wrong part. Yes, this is what they sent instead. The first call to the company was fruitless because the recording told us to call back during business hours, which end at 11PM CDT. It was 9:30PM CDT. Yes, I know. The second call, during business hours this time--the business part of the business hours, I guess--was more productive. We got the part re-ordered except only one warehouse carried it and that warehouse did not have expedited shipping. It would be another week. I brought all of our laundry to my MIL's house and spent an entire day doing laundry. Thus ended the second week.
After the week passes, finally at long last this shiny piece of metal arrives at our doorstep:
We can begin the dryer surgery. Dave, gallantly ignoring my nervous nattering, bravely deconstructs the dryer.
 |
| While Dave worked, I cleaned lint out of every possible crevice. |
The children were set to visit my parents the next day. I load up all our laundry and spend an entire day doing laundry at my parents' house. Thus ends the third week.
While I was at my parents' house, my father mentioned that he has taken apart and reconstructed dryers several times in his lifetime and he would be willing to look at ours. He was due to bring Marian home after her short version of the grandparent visit.
A couple days later, they arrive. Daddy walks into the laundry room, plugs up the machine, and turns it on. He declares there is not a thing wrong with it. The noise that disturbed us was just a result of the drum being disturbed from its eight year resting place. He said after a load or two, it would all be fine.
Hurray! Hurray! Do we have access to the laundry again?
No.
With all this pushing and shoving of the dryer around, we ended up tearing up the aluminum flexible tube that connects the dryer to the vent pipe. We needed a new one.
After a trip to the store, Dave crawls under the house to replace the aluminum tube with some higher quality flexible metal piping. And he discovers the vent pipe is totally clogged with lint. He pulls the entire tubing out from under the house and begins cleaning out the entire 15 foot length of it. In the process, one of the tube segments breaks.
 |
| A good chunk of lint |
What started out as a five minute lapse of judgement has turned into a month-long trial that has cost us nearly $100 and a whole host of lost hours. But, by gum, we will have the cleanest, most well-ventilated eight-year-old dryer in the history of eight-year-old dryers by the time we are finished! Keep your fingers crossed that nothing else breaks. We have towels for miles that need washed.
PS: Why don't I blog more? This little post took over three hours. Maybe I can find a way to work more quickly? I'll try to be more regular.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Immediate Book Meme
Tagging along with MrsDarwin because this is the only kind of post I can manage right now.
1. What book are you reading now?
Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray (readaloud)
2. What book did you just finish?
Helena by Evelyn Waugh
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder (readaloud)
3. What do you plan to read next?
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky (gulp)
4. What book do you keep meaning to finish?
Giants in the Earth by O.E. Rolvaag
Introduction to the Devout Life by St Francis de Sales (I keep getting hung in the middle. Then I start over because that seems the right thing to do and then get hung in the middle again.)
5. What book do you keep meaning to start?
Isn't this going to be the list.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
This was the book I was supposed to have read for the last book club meeting. The meeting was last Friday night and I never got to the book. I did read the introduction. Does that count?
Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
Kyra sent me this book over a year ago. I mean to read it. I want to read it. I keep not reading it.
Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge
Another book that has been sitting waiting for over a year. Everyone raves about it and I keep not reading it.
Leisure-The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper
I've also had this one sitting on the nightstand for over a year. I think it probably will have lot to say to me as I am trying to carve out a new way of being from the ground up. Sadly though, I don't seem to have the leisure time to read the book about leisure.
The Noonday Devil by Jean-Charles Nault
I've only had this one for a month or two so it isn't as bad as the others. I hope it has something to say about how to create habits that can move me through the pitfalls of always being in charge when I have never been in charge and feel the need to hide instead dealing with the myriad of tasks that need accomplished.
6. What is your current reading trend?
My current reading trend is mostly book club selections read in fits and starts of ten minute increments grabbed five or six days apart. And readalouds. Lots of reading out loud to children.
1. What book are you reading now?
Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray (readaloud)
2. What book did you just finish?
Helena by Evelyn Waugh
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder (readaloud)
3. What do you plan to read next?
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky (gulp)
4. What book do you keep meaning to finish?
Giants in the Earth by O.E. Rolvaag
Introduction to the Devout Life by St Francis de Sales (I keep getting hung in the middle. Then I start over because that seems the right thing to do and then get hung in the middle again.)
5. What book do you keep meaning to start?
Isn't this going to be the list.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
This was the book I was supposed to have read for the last book club meeting. The meeting was last Friday night and I never got to the book. I did read the introduction. Does that count?
Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
Kyra sent me this book over a year ago. I mean to read it. I want to read it. I keep not reading it.
Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge
Another book that has been sitting waiting for over a year. Everyone raves about it and I keep not reading it.
Leisure-The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper
I've also had this one sitting on the nightstand for over a year. I think it probably will have lot to say to me as I am trying to carve out a new way of being from the ground up. Sadly though, I don't seem to have the leisure time to read the book about leisure.
The Noonday Devil by Jean-Charles Nault
I've only had this one for a month or two so it isn't as bad as the others. I hope it has something to say about how to create habits that can move me through the pitfalls of always being in charge when I have never been in charge and feel the need to hide instead dealing with the myriad of tasks that need accomplished.
6. What is your current reading trend?
My current reading trend is mostly book club selections read in fits and starts of ten minute increments grabbed five or six days apart. And readalouds. Lots of reading out loud to children.
Friday, May 13, 2016
Unforseen Complications
When we started this grand adventure of homeschooling back in September, I anticipated some of the struggles we might have. The two areas that I never thought would be as hard as they are have been how difficult it is to keep Marian in the house and the complications involved with having neighbors who feel inclined to knock on our door at all hours of the day.
NB: This post brought to you by a knock on the door at 9:45 this morning in spite of the big, red sign saying nobody can play.
NB: This post brought to you by a knock on the door at 9:45 this morning in spite of the big, red sign saying nobody can play.
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