Dreaming Duo~ The Apple and the Tree 2

Exert yourself. Force yourself to pay attention to what is going on. Do not drift off or tune out people, or daydream. Become an active participant in the world around you. 

 

~This was in my email inbox today, from a website that gives advice to a person's specific personality foibles.  It's ironic that I received this particular advice on this day, because this pretty much sums up what I told my daughter as she was leaving our house to catch the bus.  About 45 minutes later I received a phone call from her telling me she had forgot her homework at home again.

 

I have to remind myself that she is going to have some growing pains just like everybody else.  Because she seems to share many of the same 'pains' as I have experienced, it triggers especially powerful feelings of frustration and guilt.  

 

I know what it is like to navigate through grade school, junior high, high school, college, relationships, jobs, and pretty much anything else that requires a certain amount of personal engagement. I know that sudden feeling of free falling through space only painfully connect with whatever it is I wasn't paying attention to.  It has been a life long journey for me, this learning how to stay inside of myself instead of floating along in dreamland far far away from planet Earth.  

 

I don't want my little girl to experience those particular hard thumps of life.  I want to help her.   It's hard finding the balance of how to reach her.  If I speak too soft, it doesn't penetrate the happy place where she lives.  If I speak too hard, I become one of the very thumps that I don't want her to experience.  I just can't seem to find the happy medium we both need.

~Artless~

Being a mom has a way of making me remember what it was like to be a kid myself.  The world was so different back when I was a kid.  I had a lot more freedom than my kids get to have.  We are pretty careful about knowing exactly where they are at all times- which means they pretty much have to stay in the yard, and when they ride their bikes they have to stay within a couple houses of ours.  If I walk outside to call for them and I don't hear an immediate response, I get nervous right away. 

I wish they could have the same freedoms that I had as a kid.  I did have to check in every twenty minutes or so (or longer if I was planning a bigger adventure; I'd just need to share my plan with Mom), but that was plenty of time to do most things I wanted to.  The good thing is you can't miss what you never had, so my kids don't get too upset about needing to stay close to us.

As kids, we walked to and from school by ourselves every day.  It was only about a fifteen minute walk (or longer, if we were dallying, which was just standard operation for us back then).  It wasn't uncommon to run into other groups of kids, so very rarely would we end up walking by ourselves. It seems like there were always deep and confrontational discussions (I remember lots of  "Nuh uhing" and sticking out my tongue), sword fighting with branches, and Kung Foo fighting. 

From First through Third grades my cousin Heidi lived right next door to us.  I'd walk to school with her and her older sister Wendy, and my little brother.  Heidi was my hero.  She is almost exactly a year older than me, and she was one of the most entertaining people I had ever met in my life.  When we'd have sleepovers (which was pretty common), she would tell us the best stories.  When we played with our barbies, she came up with the most dramatic plots. 

She also was an artist.  At eight years old, she could draw animals and nature scenes better than most adults can.  One time on the way to school, she had a stack of drawings she was bringing to show her teacher.  The drawings were awesome in themselves, but she'd also taken the time to make frames out of sticks and then glue then to the drawings.  They were very impressive.  As we walked toward the school, more and more kids joined our group (as usual), and of course everyone wanted to know what was up with the drawings.  Eventually she just stopped in the middle of the road and let everyone have a look.  Talk about being a sensation!  She was like a little kid celebrity for the rest of the walk to school.  I remember being simultaneously impressed and jealous at the attention.  I was also very inspired.  It was apparently a good thing to be an art-teest.

In second grade we had an art teacher come in every Friday to help us with  new art projects.  Art became my very favorite subject.  I loved my art teacher (I shall call her Mrs. Libby to protect her identity:), and I mean "love" with all of the admiration, respect, and adoration that a seven year old has in her little heart.  I did my very best on all of my art projects, and when she would praise me for doing such a good job I would hum with feelings of specialness.

When that school year was over and summer vacation began, I missed Mrs. Libby.  I missed her art projects, and I missed her telling me what a good job I'd done.  The thing is, Paradise is a very small town and I knew where she lived.  I also had art supplies of my own.  The natural direction this would take (of course), was home made art by one seven year old( me), which would then be hand delivered to Mrs. Libby's house.

But, ah, what to draw!  There was no one to give me a project!  So I looked around, high and low.  I ended up sitting on the floor in my bedroom, pencil and paper in hand, looking at the wall.  I started looking at an old poster that had been there for as long as I could remember. 

I still remember it very clearly- it was a cartoon drawing of a man holding a tennis racket, with sweat dripping off of his face.  His face was very droopy and sad but also comical.  There was some wording under the picture.  The picture was very simple- easy lines (mostly profile), very little shading, and the words underneath were easy to spell out.  So, I drew the poster. 

I drew it over and over until I was so impressed with the results that I decided it was time to deliver my work to Mrs. Libby.  As I walked to her house, I imagined her cries of delight as she noted my skill and effort. I was so disappointed when she wasn't home!  The house was completely quiet.  So I carefully folded my picture up and slid it into her door and left, fully expecting a visit soon from my favorite teacher. 

A couple weeks went by, and I didn't hear from Mrs. Libby.  I stopped by her place a couple times to knock on the door, but there was never an answer.  In the meantime, I'd drawn my poster a couple hundred more times, and I had some really outstanding results.  If anyone could appreciate the improvements in my artistic ability, it was Mrs. Libby! 

I was very frustrated with our inability to reconnect!  She had to see my new work.  So, I took a stack of my new drawings and journeyed to her house again.  I knocked, and again there was no answer.  So, I did what any desperate seven year old who is secure in the love and admiration of her teacher would do- I turned the door knob.  It was not locked! 

I stepped into her house and called out her name.  Total silence.  I looked around her living room and saw that everything was in boxes.  My most favortist teacher was moving!!  I was completely crushed! So, I searched through my giant stack of drawings, found the very best one, and laid it on her kitchen table.  I didn't leave a note or sign it- she'd know it was me, right?

I don't remember ever seeing Mrs. Libby again.  As an adult, I am a little (well, kinda a lot) mortified about the whole thing.  I heard years later that her husband and she separated that summer, and that was why they were moving out.  Probably not the best summer for her.  I went into her house, uninvited!!  Boundaries?!?  What boundaries???  And, this is the worst part...  that poster?  That horrible, rotten poster about the sad, droopy, sweaty tennis player?  The one I drew a thousand times that summer all in the hopes of impressing my art teacher?  The easily spelled words under the picture were "Poor Loser" (which makes me wonder about both the original artist of the poster *what a horrible idea!* and about why that thing was hanging on the wall in the first place!)... which would have been okay if I'd ever actually seen her when I delivered my pictures to her.  I could have said,"Mrs. Libby, I drew this picture for you!  It's from a poster that I have hanging on the wall in my room!".  That conversation never happened though- she just had those unsigned, unexplained pictures showing up out of thin air throughout that already bad summer.  **Hanging my head in mortification**

Hindsight, huh?

When I think abou it, I really did feel sorta like Paradise was just full of open doors.  I know I picked more than my fair share of unasked for apples, and pretty sure I picked my (un)fair share of neighbors flowers (cuz what's the point of flowers if you can't pick them?).  Haha:)  Boundaries... it's crazy and sad how we've gone from what I had back there to what we have today.

Me, about 7 years old

Hair and Brains

I'm sitting here, playing with features blogger offers, while Derrick watches yet another episode of 'The Twilight Zone'.  Good ol' Netflicks, bringing out our inner geeks. 

Today was the last day of the Quickbooks class I have been taking.  It wasn't too long into the first day that I realized that it isn't the actual program I have a problem with. I don't admit this to everyone because it is just so wrong and laughable, but I actually went to school for computer programming back in the days when I thought the left side of my brain would eventually fill out, plump up, and become fully developed and engaged.  I've accepted now that I will always have a lop-sided brain.  That's okay- I can stuff that side of my head and fake everyone out most of the time.  I did learn enough in school to understand the basic workings of most programming (hey, I even got pretty good grades).  Quickbooks is easy.  It's the accounting part that I don't understand.  I can, however, do data entry like nobody's business, so maybe I will be able to flub my way through and just keep a notebook handy for the hundreds of questions I'm sure I will have.

I had the worst hair day EVER today.  Derrick just told me I look crazy:/  Now he's saying I can't write that down.  Now he's shaking his head because I'm gonna keep on going until the antagonism stops.  STOPS I say!!!  It is bad.  I'm trying to grow out those rotten bangs I thought would be such a great idea last January.  What was I thinking?!?  It had been just enough years for me to forget the agony of growing out bangs.  I washed my hair last night and put it in braids, thinking it would save me time this morning if I could just unbraid my hair and have it be wavy.  I do it to Kloe's hair all the time, and it looks cute.  It just didn't work for me.  The back was long and frizzy and the front was straight and trying to get in my eyes all day. I also had to wear my glasses cuz I've been out of contacts forever. It was a sit in the back of the class, and buy contacts immediately after class day.  Still have the crazy hair though (for now).

Tomorrow and Friday I am working a little later than usual.  Hopefully I'll be able to arrange going in later in the morning so I can run.  Now that the weather has been slightly nicer on a regular basis, I'm really trying to make it out there more.  I'd like to do the Mountain to Meadow 1/2 marathon again this June.  It almost May- time to start going for more miles. 

In Tangles

Once upon a time there was a wife (we'll call her... Ann) and a husband (we'll call him Dan). They had a couple of children, one of whom was a boy named FrickoSan (he's not a big part of this particular story, as his hair is short and manageable... but now that I think about it, the time his parents spent on his sister's hair really did take away time spent with him) and a little girl (and her name.... Jan) who had beautiful long hair. Ann's mother (um.... Fran?) was the one who cared for Jan's hair, daily combing it and making long, manageable braids out of it. For years the girl's hair grew longer and longer, but thankfully Gramma Fran was there to keep it in order. Her momma Ann knew some of the basics- she knew how to run a brush through it now and again.  Mostly Ann just kept it from becoming a huge snarl; Gramma Fran was the true hair management.

One day, Gramma Fran decided that she was going to open a hair salon of her own, and she no longer had the time it took to untangled and manage Jan's super long hair. Ann thought that would be fine, because she knew the basics of brushing hair. For months, Ann would pull her brush through that long hair, but she had a lot of other things going on in her life that needed managing too.  Poor Jan's hair became more and more tangled, until finally it was just a giant knot on her head. The hair was too long to manage without the skilled hands of her Gramma, and Ann just didn't have the time to keep it under control.

Things started looking bleaker and bleaker. Ann didn't know what she was going to do about her daughter's hair. It had such potential for being beautiful, but it had gotten so tangled that it was going to take forever to get brushed out and in order again. Ann was torn between longing to have it brushed out (but by whom?) or just shaving it all off... but was shaving her daughter bald really the answer?

Her husband Dan would listen to her worry at night about what a mess the girl's hair had gotten in to. Dan wasn't too worried. He'd seen his wife brush the girl's hair many times throughout the years, and she always seemed to eventually get all of the tangles out. But one day he looked at his daughter and actually understood what his wife had been saying- if things got much worse, his poor daughter would definitely need to have her once beautiful hair shorn off.

Dan had never once brushed his daughter's hair, but he wanted to help. He didn't really think through this situation before he decided he was definitely the one who should save the day. If he would have made a list of some reasons why he was not qualified to be the hero of the situation, it would have looked something like:

•  Hadn't even brushed his own hair in years, ever since Ann decided she was better at it and would do it for him.
• Had only ever watched styling of Jan's hair from a safe hazy distance, never actually attempting to do any brushing or styling of it himself. 

Dan wasn't one to really sit down and think through a situation like that though, so he didn't. Plus, Dan really liked to impress his wife with his versatility and usefulness. They would save the day together. Or so he thought.

Gramma Fran came for a day to give Dan a crash course in french braidery, coiffery, bunnery, de-tanglery, deep conditionery, transfering braided sections from one side of her head to the other, and she also showed him where she stored all of the many styling aids needed for care of such long hair. It took the whole day, but when Gramma Fran left, Jan's hair looked beautiful.  Dan felt confident that he had the situation firm in hand. 

Later that night, Ann called for Dan to ask him about some new tangles that had just formed in little Jan's hair.  Dan was baffled- how could there already be tangles?  But he didn't worry too much; he was practically a professional after the time Gramma Fran had spent teaching him her hair moves. Plus it was the weekend, and a few tangles could certainly wait until Monday, so he didn't think much more about it for the next couple of days.

That Monday he grabbed his brush and really looked at Jan's hair closely for the first time in two days.  The mass of snarls looked almost as bad as it had before Gramma Fran had done her magic to it.  He gingerly tried to run his brush through it, but it seemed as though he was making it even worse. 

Dan's heart began to race, and a thought suddenly became very clear to him:  I don't know what I am doing!  What have I gotten myself into???

 ~The End~

Brain Talk

I need to reawaken the left side of my brain.  My life is SO non-responsive to any right-brainy-ness. Abstract and artsy thinking is USELESS when it comes to balancing numbers in quickbooks.  The thought of making sales calls makes my little introverted self shrink and quiver in apprehension. 

If I can't pull this brain out of my head and replace it with one that fits the tasks I have at hand, I'm at least going to have to construct some new masks to wear- maybe I can trick myself and everyone else into thinking I know what in the world I'm doing. 

Obviously my right brain is having issues with this new dictate, as instead of making phone calls and messing with numbers, I am blogging.  Time to shut 'er down for now....

Decisions Decisions....

“Whatever you don’t like, change.  It’s the beauty of being human.  We get to change our minds.  We get to choose again.  And we know how to laugh.”- Lois Levy

"For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else."- Ralph Waldo Emerson 


"Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts."  Arnold Bennett

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude." Maya Angelou

"We can change our lives.  We can do, have and be exactly what we wish." Tony Robbins


Change is scary for me (and probably for most people).  Sometimes you have no say in the matter; life changes completely without your permission.  Other times there is choice involved.  The thing is, it can be hard to decide when you need to change things.  It's hard to tell if that little nagging voice in the back of your head needs to be heeded or hushed up.  I have a hard time letting myself quit, whether it's a project, a relationship, a job, or anything I've been giving my attention to.  It isn't so much stubbornness, as a general distrust of my own feelings.  Am I just tired of whatever I'm thinking of quitting?  Am I going to regret my choice when a little bit of time has passed?  Am I being lazy?  Do my feelings of wanting to quit have any validity?


What I know is that we are all the creators of our own reality.  Right now my reality does not feel like what I want to choose.  I want to have a positive attitude and really I am doing okay in that department, all things considered.  But I feel like I need to change some things.  Anyways, I am planning on taking action and setting some of those changes in motion.  Nothing immediate... just setting the groundwork for later.  As long as I can see things changing in the future, I can make it through the days feeling more in control.

Pros:

• To spend the kid's summer vacation with them- spend more time playing.
• To be able to spend more time with my sister, dad, steph, tara and david, friends, and to have  the freedom to do so.
• To be able to spend more time camping and making memories with my husband and family.  
• To be able to be at home on days when I can not deal with people and I'm feeling too fragile.
• Easier to schedule service.
• Easier to schedule running
• Tired of dealing with cranky people (of the grown-up variety)
• More time to pursue photography, art and making jewelry, and writing.

Cons:

• Will need to find another way to make money, or make due with less- although this may interfere any of the fun stuff that requires money.
• Won't be forced to deal with people as much (which is actually a good thing for me).
• Will need to force myself to be scheduled without being on someone else's schedule.
• The chances of finding a place to work where I like the people (fellow employees anyways), where they are so kind about my schedule, and where they pay as decently, are pretty slim.

Various Dreams

I want to learn how to make this:

I ordered a book about a week ago to learn how to do metal stamping.  I am EXCITED (YAYAYAY) to get it!!!  It comes with a DVD and everything!!!  My plan is to watch it, become instantly enlightened, buy all of the tools and materials to proceed, make a ton of them, have Stephanie become my selling agent, sell millions and then retire.  You gotta have a plan.
Something else I've been dreaming about is photography.  Tara (fellow aspirer and awesome photographer) sent a link to me the other day at http://www.weddingshow.com/.  Someday, we are going to do this.  Because you gotta have a dream too.

I need more hours in the day.

Tomorrow is the last day of eight hour-age at my job.  The plan is for Derrick to stay home tomorrow, get us packed **!** (A moment of silence here.....  and appreciation....  to go on a trip and not have to pack sounds even BETTER than a dream come true for me!!!) (One more moment of silence- this is just that good..............okay, now we proceed), then he will load up stuff and kids, pick me up at work at the end of my day, and onward to Seattle we shall go!  :)))  It will be so good to see David and Tara, spend time with them and also away from snow.  I plan on wearing a bikini while we are there.  I don't care if it's raining and cold- it'll be warmer there than it is here!!!

It is so gray outside today.  I'm tired- it was one of those dreaming nights last night- the kind that you wake up from feeling weepy and emotional.  It was weird though- instead of Mom, I was dreaming about Dad.  Actually, it was about a letter I had written about Dad (in my dream, because I've never actually written anything like that).  It was all crumpled up, and had some sad stuff scribbled all over it.  There were big x's crossing off all of the sad stuff, and the words "He cares more than you know" were written over and over in the side margins.  It doesn't surprise me that I dreamed about him.  I called him last night and we talked for about five minutes.  It's just so hard- our relationship always sorta hinged on Mom.  She was the one I talked to when I called.  If he ever answered the phone, it was always a quick "hi" for us and then he'd ask if I wanted to talk to Mom and I would say "Yep, love ya Dad" and then it was on to Mom.

I've been reading a book about goals and time management, and one of the goals the writer mentioned is building a closer relationship with one's dad.  That kind of caught me off guard.  Aren't parental relationships supposed to be one of those effortless bonds that just happen because of all of the shared DNA<--- Yeah, I know that last sentence doesn't even make sense, but a part of me resents that my little idealistic notion isn't reality.

The truth is, my dad worked really hard to support six children and a wife that he loved dearly, and a lot of the time I was growing up he was sleeping (he worked night-shifts).  He has a genius and a passion for anything mechanical, and one of his favorite pastimes is working on cars (or tinkering with anything with bolts and metal parts).  I inherited a large amount of introversion from him, and also the inclination to get obsessed with projects, although mine are more crafty/artsy where as his are mechanical.  I've typed him as ISTP where as I am INFP (those links go to a pretty brutal typing link, but it feels accurate- probably because each type is a composite description from many of that specific type) (As another complete side note, I find it hilarious that the INFP description is so much longer than the ISTP- it WOULD be!  INFPs are WAAAAY more concerned about this kind of stuff, as of course that personality type would be...  I could go on and on...).

Anyhoo, I'm searching for a welding class for us to have a common bond with- something I could use with jewelry and projects, and he could use on his metal stuff- he just got a plasma cutter to play with.  Haven't found anything yet, but I bet the Adult Education at the Emily Dickenson School will eventually have one.  Put that one in the goal category too, I guess.

So... those are my rambling and disjointed thoughts today:)

Mutual Tutelage

Being a parent is such an interesting experience.  It allows one to experience all of the emotions of youth all over again; both good and bad ones. Watching my kids have to learn how to deal with their emotions while doing new activities has made me understand the universal way of frustration with ones self. This frustration was demonstrated (predictably) this last weekend on the slopes.

The first time I ever went skiing, I was seventeen.  I know- born and raised in snowy Montana and never went skiing?  Well, my folks weren’t skiers and most of the people I hung out with weren’t either. Skiing never even really crossed my mind as something that I should try. The only reason I went that first time at all was because it was a school function. 

We went to Snow Bowl, a place to this day I don’t particularly enjoy because its runs are STILL too hard for me.  I remember being out there with skis strapped awkwardly to my feet, wondering what in the world to do now.  I had heard there was something called the bunny hill, but I couldn’t have told you where (or what) it was, except for that bunnies are pretty non-threatening, so maybe I should look into their hill until I could figure out how to move with these boards attached to my feet.

When Rosanna Ne'er-Do-Well (Name changed to protect her identity- I hear she turned out to be a perfectly FINE adult, living somewhere in New Mexico, saving orphans and puppies) came up and asked me to go on the lift to higher runs, I was HESITANT… but, stupid enough to believe her when she said I would be FINE going down a run that was a little bit more challenging than the bunny hills. 

What she should have said is that she needed a buddy to keep her entertained while riding the lift, but she wasn’t really looking for the commitment involved in teaching a newby how to navigate that painful, terror-filled first trek down the side of a snow/ice coated mountain.  As soon as I fell off the lift, I found myself all alone. I watched Rosanna through snow caked eyes, as she was gliding away shouting, “See you at the bottom, K?  We’ll ride up together again!”  I laid there for a bit, and then slowly untangled my legs/skis and tried to suck air back into my lungs.

In retrospect, I believe a couple kind souls asked if they could help me.  At that point, I became my own liability.  My frustration with my inability to do something (like STAND on skis, let alone glide on them) so IRKED me, that I found myself smiling politely and laughing, waving would-be-helpers on as if I had been skiing a hundred times before and how silly of me to be so clumsy this day. What IS it about suffering alone in silence that is SO satisfying? 

Once I was upright and semi-mobile, I awkwardly scooted my way along, following the herd to some unknown destination.  Once there, I looked down the steep incline and I had a riveting thought.  It turns out (if you didn’t know this), that skis are lacking BRAKES. 

SO, I first decided that side-stepping down the mountain might be my best bet for survival.  That lasted about five minutes, too much for even a seventeen year olds legs.  So I sat in the snow for about twenty minutes and froze, watching all of the other skiers with squinty eyes and an inner hiss of hate.  When I realized I was silently hoping for the small children whizzing by me to wreck, I knew I needed to get up and try to go down, or perish trying.  So, I did the hard work of standing up, pointing my skis downhill, flying for roughly 10 seconds, crashing, losing my skis, taking 15 minutes to find said skis and refasten them to my feet, pointing downhill again and then repeating the whole wretched process.  It took me two and a half hours to get off of that mountain.  There were several times during that I was indeed laying sideways on the side of a run, crying.  When I finally got to the bottom, I limped into the lodge, ordered a hot chocolate, and vowed to never ski again.

We are constantly pushed into new waters (or down ski slopes), whether we want it or not.  Getting all frustrated with oneself and feeling like you are the only person in the universe to ever struggle is pointless.  Teaching my kids (with Derrick) to do something that was so incredibly hard for me to learn is so…  poignant.  Made me remember exactly what it feels like to just want to lay there until Spring for someone to scrape you up and take you the rest of the way down.  Come to think of it, I still feel that way quite a bit, only in a more general “this is too hard” mentality… that whole wanting to be a bear and hibernate frame of mind….

At the end of the day, my kids’ attitudes were awesome.  Kloe said “That was FUN! When can we do it again?”  Even after getting lodged in a deep pile of snow, after having her skis explode off of her feet, after having been so jammed that it took both Derrick and I to get her unstuck.  Same with Derrin- even after getting to the bottom of a hill and realizing that he’d have to either hop up a hill with a board attached or totally unhook from his board and have to struggle back into it at the top (both equally daunting and devastating prospects at that moment), he still jumped right back into having fun.    I’m not saying it didn’t take a bit to snap their attention back to the task at hand- they really would have just lain there without a bit of “help”.  But they were will to listen and accept help (not like their ol’ ma on her first trip down).  

Good lesson day for me.

On being an INFP

Saddest on Myers/Briggs? hahaha:)
~Type Descriptions~
INFp [+] and [-]

If your type is Intuitive-Ethical Intratim - INFp (The Romantic):

You are a very romantic person and have an excellent imagination. You appreciate beauty in both art and life. Your creative nature cannot stand greyness and regularity. You always bring an element of elegance and originality to any situation. You understand others moods and dispositions well and will often use your good sense of humour to uplift friends and family. You posses a rich variety of emotions and you can apply it to many situations. You depend greatly on your emotions to guide you. Sometimes you show great feeling for people and may often idealise others. Wherever you go you often create an atmosphere of elation and optimism.

You have a tendency to be led by lofty aspirations to an easy life. You often complain about your emotional and physical state. Eventually you can cause people to tire of you and even doubt your honesty concerning your well being. Sometimes you waste lots of time on small talk and fruitless dreaming instead of realistic activity. You have difficulty forcing yourself to do uninteresting, everyday chores, especially if finances and household economy are involved. You often cannot resist buying something that catches your eye sometimes causing you to exceed your budget.

The Holder of Who I Really Am

There are nights I wake up when I feel like I am on the cusp of a long forgotten memory. It feels bittersweet to me, like a gift that for a moment my mind almost had access to days past, but also a reminder that your days, weeks, years go by, and it is almost as if they never happened. I don't remember any of it, and most certainly no one else will remember it for me.

I understand why people feel compelled to journal their days, as a way to try to keep oneself from disappearing all together. It's also partly why big events, like marriage, the days our children are born, or being publicly recognized for one's accomplishments are such a big deal to us; those are days that are etched deeper into our minds and become gifts of memory.

Most of my biggest battles are quiet achievements no one knows about but me. They are experiences I don't care for any other humans to know about, and yet they define me with the roads taken or not taken.

I always hope I will be able to hold on to those cherished moments, because for me they are ultimate victories of either choosing not to do a tempting wrong thing, or of fighting through to do the right thing, despite a sinful inclination to do just the opposite. Those are the memories I trust Jehovah to hold for me. He knows my daily fight, and he remembers when I succeed. He is the holder of who I really am, even when I forget.

Real

Life feels more real to me at three o'clock in the morning. Every scary possibility, every for sure eventuality looms before me. The problem with this realness is I feel like I'm without defenses. During the day, I can acknowledge the same reality, but I would tell you my plan of action too. I feel strong enough during the day. At night I feel stripped of any inner strength- I feel like cowering before future possibilities. I remember every word I said to anyone during the day, only my night memory hears my own voice in tones of desperation and attention seeking, calloused and careless. Everything has an overlay of malice.
Dang, I wish this night would just end so I could go back to being the day me.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Worlds Away

Dandelions

I remember one time about seven years ago when we lived at our last place, we had a major infestation of dandelions. There was no helping it- the neighbors all around us used dandelions as ground cover more than grass. We were too poor to have anyone come out to spray the lawn, but all of those dandelions drove me crazy, so I went out there with a shovel one day and spent the whole day digging up dandelions. I had two full garbage bags at the end of the day. I was exhausted, but my yard looked awesome. For about two weeks it looked awesome, until all the little seeds I couldn't see took root and started to grow. It took about a month to look like I had never spent the entire day picking at those weeds.
Such is life I guess. I have so many weeds inside myself. I feel like I spend so much time trying to yank them out of my heart yet have so little time actually free of them.
Did you know there are some people who used dandelions as food and medicine? I've realized there are people out there who like my inner dandelions . It's like the more infested I am with weeds, the more I need them to tell me that some people think dandelions are pretty (some people crave that dependent neediness- it's food to their ego). The worse my weed problem, the better they can feel about their less infested selfs (medicine to their own lack of self-esteem). Worse, some people seem to help propagate my inner weeds- it's like they subtly feed the dandelions to maturity and then blow on them gently to spread the seeds further throughout my heart. I've even met people who would love it if I only had weeds- they are the dandelion eaters, encouraging the weeds and then eating me alive... I guess I've decided that I can't have anyone who even gently encourages my weeds. Dandelions are already so hard to control.
And, in the end, I just can't be one of the neighbors who just accepts dandelions because I can't afford to protect the grass. My grass is worth fighting for, even if it's back breaking labor for two giant bags of dandelions every two weeks.

Light's Journey

Light's Journey will guide me forward
Though I've often fell from sight
I've fought to be upsidedown and blind
I've fought with all my might
But it's strong and irresistable
Like gravity, this light
'Til my eyes are opened up again
To squint against the bright
And my head is lifted upward
A blossom to the light.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender

be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;

and listen to others,

even the dull and the ignorant;

they too have their story.



Avoid loud and aggressive persons,

they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,

you may become vain and bitter;

for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.



Keep interested in your own career, however humble;

it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs;

for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;

many persons strive for high ideals;

and everywhere life is full of heroism.



Be yourself.

Especially, do not feign affection.

Neither be cynical about love;

for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment

it is as perennial as the grass.



Take kindly the counsel of the years,

gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.

But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.

Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,

be gentle with yourself.



You are a child of the universe,

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.



Therefore be at peace with God,

whatever you conceive Him to be,

and whatever your labors and aspirations,

in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.



With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

Parallel Universe

Kloe and I usually rock along fine unless there are other children involved, even if that other child is her brother. This year that meant that from 8:25 until 11:00 every morning during the school year, we would have a peaceful household. The rest of the time (including summer vacation) is a total crapshoot. Sometimes she loves her brother but a lot of the time she could totally annihilate him if she had superhuman powers to do so. Fortunately she is smaller than him and can do no serious harm.

This week was EXTRA difficult for Kloe because she had not just a brother to contend with, but also her little cousin Aiyana. Now, Kloe and Aiyana absolutely LOVE eachother for the first day. After that all walls come down and they enter a temperary sisterhood that includes both love AND fighting to the death over any toy, chair, blanket, or pinecone that they deem worthy of their affections. Throw Derrin in the mix and you have a screamfest worthy of any rockstar. Derrin and Aiyana seemed to shift from war time to peace time with relative ease, but Kloe doesn't switch gears quite so quickly. She was on edge most of the week. She was in trouble most of the week. It was a hard week.

Aiyana went to her Gramma's house yesterday. Kloe cried her eyes out. She is still sad. Kids are so funny. Even if they fight the whole time, they would still rather be with eachother than apart. And the next time they are together they will still be best buds.

Yesterday at the daycare they were doing face painting and hand painting as I came in to pick them us (side point- I cleaned my house while they were at the daycare and it is finally really clean- yeah for me!!!). Kloe wanted a rainbow on her hand. They have a picture there with all of the designs the kids can choose from and there with an example of a delicate little rainbow. She wanted THAT rainbow. The girl with the paints started the rainbow and right away Kloe could tell it was not right. It was too big. The colors were in the wrong order. She kept saying in her four year old voice,"No, that is not right. The colors are WRONG", to which the girl painting would say,"just a minute, I will make it right." Well, anyone could see it was just getting bigger and bigger. Kloe's anxiety was growing with the rainbow. I was just mentally thinking "paint faster paint faster" because I had a lot of things I needed to finish doing at home. When the girl announced she was done there was a moment of silence from my daughter. Then her lips began to tremble. It was building inside of her... a burst of," I HATE THIS!!! IT IS ALL WRONG!!!", which she has been saying quietly the whole time... My knee jerk reaction was to shake her (of course I didn't), but instead I took my shrieking daughter to the daycare bathroom for a couple minutes, tried unsuccessfully to reason with her, then took her to the car to wait for her brother to get his face painted. She cried the whole time. Brokenheart. Hating the Rainbow.

My daughter is like me. I could explain and explain to her why she should settle down, but she is not hearing words, she is just feeling her disappointment. I just have 27 more years of experience that keeps me from shouting when I am disappointed. Just last week we had our family portrait taken. I knew I didn't like it as soon as it was time to pick our package. Instead of having an outburst, I put on my big fake smile and picked the picture I hated the least. Then I went home and stewed about it all night. The next day I was so aggravated I felt like punching walls (I was also pmsing *very dangerous*). I called my mom and complained. I called my husband and complained. Finally I called the store and asked them to redo the pictures, which they said they would do. The point is, I have impulse control. Instead of shrieking,"I HATE IT! IT'S ALL WRONG", I waited until I felt calmer to discuss the issue. Impulse control. But it took many years to develope it! When impulse control is still so hard for me, how in the world am I supposed to teach it to my little daughter? Any ideas?

On a completely seperate issue, I wanted to say something about my Mom. She is doing awesome!!! Before they did the surgery on her liver her CEA count (cancer count) was at 4000. We had it tested post-surgery, and after two months of hoxsey and her special diet and it was down to 38.9. This week she had it tested and it is down to 13.4. A cancer-free persons CEA level is 2. It is working! I am excited to see what it will be next month!!

The River may TRY to kill me, But I will Always love IT

To start, a confession: I went to see the movie "Transformers" today. It is one of those movies that I have mocked since the beginning. A residual part of me from childhood remembers my brother playing with transformers in his geeky little boy way (which I now find endearing in my little son), and I just COULD NOT take the movie seriously. Today we went with Kevin and Alta because Kevin is one of those little boys who grew up playing with transformers.

The movie is good. I say that with difficulty because it means I am eatting crow. I really really liked it. There is really good character development, it is action pacted, the special effects are outstanding and it is even really funny in parts. I am now a lover of Optimus Prime and a hater of Megatron.

But on to real life. After we went to the movie, we all gathered to float the river which was AWESOME!!!! The weather was HOT and the water was COOL. The only snage-ups happened when the river tried to kill me. TWO times I got sucked under by BIG rocks, lost my tube. The first time I lost my Corona, the second time I lost my special Mexico hat and broke my new big sunglasses which also got lost on another rapid. All and all the river kicked my butt abosolutely. But I still love it. The river and I have that kind of abusive relationship I guess. I will love it no matter what!!!

While floating the river, drinking my Keystone light (after the Corona was seized by the river), I started to have an analogy form in my head: Floating the river is like Life. You can try to stay with your group as long as you can, but when hard times arrive (like rapids), it is easy to get seperated from the group. So, many times you will find yourself floating along by yourself and you will really have to paddle hard to get back to your group. You may also find sometimes on the river you have a choice: paddle toward the rapids and take a risk to have fun, or steer clear to safer waters.... ANDDD, we know we will all eventually hit big rapids in life, but why spend all of the calm waters worrying about the big rapids instead of just enjoying the fact that right now the water is cool, your friends are near and you have a beer in your hand?!?

Anyways, that is it for my big analogy. Hope you all have a good weekend. Later!

A Little Inner Calm and Poise for Mizz Imperfection

So, yesterday I had just entered the gym . It was 6:15- much later than I usually go, and a different staff was working. One of them was Julie (very nice girl- I even voted her as my favorite staff), and the other one was Justin. Justin is a pretty nice guy. He is a chatty sort of person, and seems to know everyone who comes in. So yesterday I enter the building, drop the kids off at the daycare, and proceed onward, passing Julie and Justin. As is their habit, Julie first comments,"Wow, this is a lot later than you usually come in!", because we don't really know eachother that well and it seems like a nice safe thing to say. I ,as usual, mostly just smiled and muttered something unintelligible under my breath. Then Justin smiles and says,"Well, that is because it is MY shift *ah he he*". I know now he was joking. But I reverted to my top-form 8th grade stance by making my best scoffing noise (kinda like pssst) and looking Julie straight in the eye and saying , "Yeah, RIGHT", as only a person of my special social skills has mastered. I then walked on my merry way, confident I had handled the situation appropriately. As I entered the girl's locker room, it hit me that I had been... well... rude. It sorta crawled up my spine a little. Then it became a full-blown panic attack. I quickly changed into my exercise clothes and went to my eliptical machine back in the far corner. As I remembered my rudeness, I began to run a little harder on the machine. My stress-level kept me running frantically, moving up the intensity until I was a 9 (normally I am a firm 6 on the machine). I nearly collasped off of the machine after 30 minutes, but it said I had burned nearly as many calories in 30 minutes as I normally do in 40.

Why did I get so upset? I need to start controlling the voices in my head again.

Anyway, the moral of the story is, you have a crazy friend. But I'm nice and I smell good... and I can cook too. I could say more, but I have to fix dinner.

The End

ps... When I was leaving the building both Julie and Justin said were all chatty and nice again. All of that internal agony for nothing. Sheesh.

The Self-Destruct Button (Distant evil cousin to Happy Place)

Does everyone have to struggle with a self-destruct button(also related to the easy way out card), or is it just me? I don't know why being true to who you are(which means only acknowledging the good parts*haha*) is so hard! Little Nuggets of darkness seem to be burrowed in my brain. I thought living my life right and creating a happy situation for myself would deactivate my counterproductive thoughts. That simply isn't true. They come out at night to push and prod. It doesn't matter how much I stand to lose.

I swear, the happier I am, the calmer things are around here (actually, now that I think about it things aren't calm around here at all... things are stressful and ever-changing at the moment, which also seems to be a trigger), the more the little voice in the back of my head goes,"Go ahead, do *insert whatever bad behavoir(say that part with a low, french accent*spongebob style*, it is more fun that way)*! It'll be FINE. You are so strong right now that you can walk on water! Consequences ~meh~consequences, shnosequences. Not only will you not feel bad after *insert bad behavoir*, but you will feel better than before! You will feel more energized, healthier, more appreciative of the good things in life, and possibly sexier! Go ahead (mental nudge), just do it!!!"

I can shut up the voice and control my actions about a 100 times better than when I was younger(not to say I never fail, maybe only 95 times better), mainly because I've been burnt by it so many times. Waking up after *insert bad behavoir*, feeling like absolute crap, feeling the guilt pains, having to tell on myself (because I also have little nuggets of self-tattling in there), feels so bad. Usually there is a headache involved. Definately a stomach ache from the stress.

So in conclusion, I am not perfect("really?!? ",you gasp). I can't even pretend to be.

Ode to the Happy Place

I read the blog below and started thinking...hmmm... this so called "happy place" may need to be explained. Especially after mentioning that my son asked if there was alcohol in my coffee cup (he really did too). I do not know WHY he asks me such things, except for that he gets to watch me snap to attention and get all serious and agitated (and anyone who knows kids knows how they love to get a reaction). Then he gets to hear another lecture about alcohol. I can't seem to control lectures about random dangers of life, which also include the obvious: alcohol, smoking, drugs, talking to strangers, crossing the street, wearing the seatbelt, sharp things, poisonous things, things that will electricute you, why you can only have one vitamin a day, staying away from large pools of water unless an adult is with you, what hypothermia is, what dehydration is, how to avoid split ends, and the importance of learning to stop, drop and roll. It goes along with chronic worrying as a mommy.

Last week he asked me on two different occasions if I would like a beer for lunch (and if you are the sort to have a beer for lunch, good for you, but the point is my son is not allowed to aspire to be a bartender as of yet), only to have to hear the lecture that would surely follow. I'm pretty sure my boy is figuring out all of my strings at the age of six. By the time he is sixteen he will know the exact combonation of questions to turn my brain into pure quivering putty. I am afraid.

Back to my happy place. My neice pointed out to me about a year ago that I sort of "check out" when things get too hectic. I started paying closer attention and realised it was true. In fact, it has always been true. The biggest beef most of my grade school teachers had with me was what they called "daydreaming". I think they might call it ADD these days...

I think that is why blogging holds an appeal to me. At least this is sort of a productive checking out, and I have real documentation about what I was thinking of during my happy place interlude. At least it's not me humming to myself in a corner, sitting cross-legged on the floor, predictably rocking back and forth. Not that I ever really did that. Really.

Sometimes my happy place is a source of real coping. For instance, this summer I found myself in the backseat of a truck barrelling down a dirt road way faster than I personally would have if given the choice. The back of the truck was full to the brim with innertubes that would soon carry us down the river, the front of the truck was enveloped by a billowing cloud of dust from the truck ahead of us. I remember consciously trying to relax my whole body to keep myself from leaping into the front seat with the driver, wrestling for control of the steering wheel and gas, and thereby preserving our souls alive. The next thing I remember, we are almost there and Shannon is saying,"I HATE YOU. You were in your happy place the whole time, weren't you." Because she realised she had been basically alone in her scary backseat experience. And I realised, why yes, I had been... away. I had been thinking about : *my kids*my home*different projects I'd like to get going on* what it would be like to own my own private island* what being the queen of that island would entail* why people who win the lottery don't choose to invest more(for instance, why not buy an island?) instead of buying a hundred sports cars*and finally about what a beautiful day it was. That death surely was around the next dusty bend had become insignificant.

Other times I go to my happy place include: Any mall excursion that involves crowds of people, any public appearance which includes children who are tired, hungry or otherwise cranky(although from the outside it looks like I am there dealing pretty well), any experience which includes dangling out of a helicoptor, attached to the hand of the man who is trying futily to save my life, only to find his glove is slowly slipping off...

So, based on this explanation, I hope you find that this happy place is not only a good place, but also a very necessary one. And if you don't have one, maybe you should invest in one yourself.