This idea of a wide open calendar almost never happens to me. But today, at least on my calendar, had absolutely nothing on it. And I loved that idea.
Of course, having nothing on the calendar, is not the same as not having anything to do. I can't remember the last time I had nothing to do. Maybe I never have had that situation.
Instead, today I had no pressing appointments or reasons to be anywhere--other than to take The Girl where SHE needed to go. But I tried to do that patiently and with a little more joy than usual, especially as she examined beads, and jewelry making pieces as our local JoAnn's Fabrics and Crafts. Oh, that is nearly enough to make anyone crazy. But I digress.
I then spent the afternoon doing some sewing, or rather, mending, really. I hemmed two pairs of pants and a skirt for a dear friend. I hemmed two pair of jean shorts for the Girl. I repaired a skirt of my own and repaired a cinch-sack backpack The Girl likes.
In the course of doing all that, I had to make a run to the hardware store for four metal washers--it is for the backpack repair. And knowing I was headed there, I remembered the unused fence bracket I had purchased back in May or so that has since sat on the kitchen counter waiting to be returned. So I grabbed that and the return paid for my washers.
Now the pile of sewing and repairs is out of my office and off my desk. If only the other piles of stuff could vanish that easily. Oh well. I guess sit will just have to wait until I have another wide open day on the calendar.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Bilingual Regret
Yesterday I went to the temple and as I was finishing up and preparing to head out to the car, I noticed the little temple ladies all in a dither about something. Not like it was a medical emergency, but you could just tell something was not right. Then I noticed a little Hispanic lady in a wheelchair in the middle of everything.
These little temple ladies had no more Espanol on their tongue than "Hermana" so I leaned down to her and asked, in Spanish, if I could help. Immediately a lightening fast string of words, phrases, and relief issued forth.
But she was quite elderly and not in good health, and consequently I heard a lot of mumbling and some slurred words that I did recognize and many more than I did not.
I asked her, in my very rusty and slightly broken Spanish, to please slow down and I apologized for my lack of instantaneous vocabulary. She just smiled at me.
Finally, after some gesticulating and many repetitions I figured out that she needed to find a phone to call her daughter who was to pick her up. So we did that.
We finally got an outside line and she placed her call. Again she smiled at me.
More gesturing, repetitions, and my pleading for her to slow way down, I got the message that she needed to be wheeled outside to the driveway where her daughter would be coming to collect her.
As I was parking her in the shade, I believe I understood her enough to think she told me that she was visiting her daughter but in her home country she lives 14 hours away from the temple and how glad she was that there was one right close by for her to attend while she was here.
At this point she asked me where I learned my Spanish, and I told her, "In school, a very long time ago." She smiled again.
Then, feeling like I would probably be understood better than I thought, I told her that in the temple we are all friends, we are family. She replied that she was grateful for so many who try to help her here and she thanked me again and again, calling me "lindo" or nice.
She assured me, at least that is what I understood, that her daughter would be there in a few minutes, and that I was good to head home to wait for my children when they got out of school. So I left her there in the shade, waiting for her daughter.
Makes me super anxious that I should know this other language better. And I know I need more practice to help someone in just this kind of situation. Perhaps a refresher class is on my horizon.
These little temple ladies had no more Espanol on their tongue than "Hermana" so I leaned down to her and asked, in Spanish, if I could help. Immediately a lightening fast string of words, phrases, and relief issued forth.
But she was quite elderly and not in good health, and consequently I heard a lot of mumbling and some slurred words that I did recognize and many more than I did not.
I asked her, in my very rusty and slightly broken Spanish, to please slow down and I apologized for my lack of instantaneous vocabulary. She just smiled at me.
Finally, after some gesticulating and many repetitions I figured out that she needed to find a phone to call her daughter who was to pick her up. So we did that.
We finally got an outside line and she placed her call. Again she smiled at me.
More gesturing, repetitions, and my pleading for her to slow way down, I got the message that she needed to be wheeled outside to the driveway where her daughter would be coming to collect her.
As I was parking her in the shade, I believe I understood her enough to think she told me that she was visiting her daughter but in her home country she lives 14 hours away from the temple and how glad she was that there was one right close by for her to attend while she was here.
At this point she asked me where I learned my Spanish, and I told her, "In school, a very long time ago." She smiled again.
Then, feeling like I would probably be understood better than I thought, I told her that in the temple we are all friends, we are family. She replied that she was grateful for so many who try to help her here and she thanked me again and again, calling me "lindo" or nice.
She assured me, at least that is what I understood, that her daughter would be there in a few minutes, and that I was good to head home to wait for my children when they got out of school. So I left her there in the shade, waiting for her daughter.
Makes me super anxious that I should know this other language better. And I know I need more practice to help someone in just this kind of situation. Perhaps a refresher class is on my horizon.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Imported Thoughts
I read this article this morning and was nearly weeping as I finished it. Perhaps the emotion comes from the guilt I feel about being a little too happy to send my kids off to school yesterday, or perhaps from the fondness I too have for Thornton Wilder's Our Town. The fleeting quality of life is more and more evident as I get older and, hopefully, wiser. But for my post today, I have copied her article--to share with all of you. I hope you can see the wisdom in her thoughts too. And, pass the tissue, would ya?
Realizing Life
By Catherine Keddington Arveseth
This morning as I nursed my twin boys, changed their diapers, slid bowls of cold cereal onto the table for my three girls then put the boys in high chairs (for the first time) while making multiple trips to the potty between spoonfuls of prunes because my twin girls decided two weeks ago to abandon their diapers for toilet-training, I thought, “This. Is. CRAZY!”
My life is crazy.
And if I think too much about how crazy it is I might actually go crazy.
But I don’t. (Think about how crazy and hard it is.) Most of the time.
I just do. And do some more.
By 8AM the day is on and we’re in high gear. I move quickly from one necessity to the next. Mostly it’s the basics. Food, clothing, clean-up, laundry. I mediate inevitable conflicts, nurse “owies,” braid a pony’s mane and rescue teething toys from the toilet (true story). If there’s a lull in the chaos, we pile onto the couch for a story or dance to a favorite tune. Not much time for reflection, reading, writing, the things of the soul. Things I crave.
But I also craved children. After years of infertility, my husband and I experienced what we like to call our “family explosion.” Five children in four years, including two sets of twins. Fraternal girls followed by identical boys. Our boys were born one week after our oldest daughter turned four.
It has been exciting, exhausting, intensely joyous, out of control, but absolutely precious.
The boys are now 9 months old and we’re slowly coming out of survival mode. As the pace slows a bit, I’m harnessing more happy moments, noticing more episodes of contentment. Finally finding my groove as a mother of five. (Wow. That still sounds weird.)
So last week I saw Our Town - the great American play by Thornton Wilder. My aunt and her daughter watched all five kids so Doug and I could have a night out. (Yes, it took both of them.) Having read Wilder’s play but never seen it on stage, I anticipated the evening for weeks.
The play began. From spotlight to curtain call I was completely absorbed. All barriers between audience and actors faded away. We were right there in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. The actors were so comfortable with their roles, with each other and the audience there wasn’t a bit of uneasiness. The play was left to work its subtle magic.
Our Town is a love story about George and Emily. Childhood sweethearts who grow up next door to each other. They marry right after high school and begin their family. But during the birth of their second child, Emily dies.
The entire third act is about her transition into death - what she experiences on the other side. She watches her own funeral procession and burial. She sees the faces of those she loves.
“Live people don’t understand, do they? she asks. “I never realized how troubled and how...in the dark live persons are...From morning till night, that’s all they are - troubled” (96-97). [1]
Then, despite cautioning from those who have already died, she chooses to go back and relive one day of her life. Her twelfth birthday.
“Don’t do it Emily... It isn’t wise... It’s not what you think it’d be” (98) the dead admonish her. Still, she goes.
She steps into her mother’s kitchen, circles the stove and table, watches her mother prepare breakfast. She sees the birthday gift George left on her doorstep early that morning. A post-card album she had forgotten about.
“I can’t bear it. They’re so young and beautiful. Why did they ever have to get old? Mama, I’m here. I’m grown up. I love you all, everything. -- I can’t look at everything hard enough...Oh Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really see me...Mama, just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s look at one another” (107).
Finally, she breaks into sobs - overcome with the grief and beauty of it all - the wonder of her ordinary life.
“I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another...Take me back - up the hill - to my grave” (108).
Before leaving, however, she wants one more look.
Longingly, she says good-bye to clocks ticking, her Mama’s sunflowers, new-ironed dresses, hot baths, sleeping and waking.
Then suddenly she throws her arms out wide and laments,
“Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you! Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it - ever, every minute?”
“No.” the stage manager (who acts as narrator) replies. “The saints and poets, maybe - they do some” (108).
“No.” That was his answer. And he was right. We don’t realize how wonderful life is every minute of every day. We’re too busy, too hurried, too distracted.
After Doug and I returned home to our five little ones - all asleep, I cracked their doors open and stroked each cheek with Emily’s voice echoing in my head. “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you!”
There, in the whisper of the night, I embraced my motherhood and every bit of tenuous longing I had for this gift.
The next day I moved through the house with different eyes. I saw the busy hum of what we were about with fleeting but tangible beauty. It won’t last - can’t last - will be gone before I know it. So I began to make note of things I saw, felt, and cherished. A scrap of paper here, a note on my calendar there, and some plinking away on the keyboard at day’s end. It took some time. But how could I not? Writing it down makes it last.
While washing Sami’s hands, I noticed her dented knuckles, the pudgy softness. The way she lets me slap her paws together - blowing suds onto our faces and shirts. I wondered how long her hands will keep that three-year old look, how long she’ll let me hold them under warm water, my body bent over hers, before she wants to do it herself.
I noticed how Ali flutters instead of walks. Sailing from room to room, with a song spilling from her lips, she stretches her fingertips out to catch the wind. Teetering, gliding, dancing on tiptoe. My graceful girl, with wild brown curls - floating through our house.
I smelled Eliza’s hair at bedtime. The scent of gritty playground. Wind and dirt all tangled up in fraying ringlets. I felt the heat rise from her body as I tucked my arms around her and sang. She snuggled into her favorite blanket and quickly fell asleep. I kissed her cheek, wishing she could know how much I loved her in that instant. My oldest. My first.
I admired my boys as they took milk from me in the morning. Their eyes closed, softly caressing my arms and neck. The tender sight of their hands clasped together. This won’t last more than a month or two. It’s the closeness I love, the time alone with them, the giggles and tickling after. A quiet dependent circle, all three of us, needing each other.
I then I saw it. Today. The flash of silver in my husband’s hair - glinting in the light as he tossed Gordon into the air, the two of them laughing deeply. It’s a rite of passage - those flecks of gray. They tell of living - a sign that we are aging. Together. My heart flew to him. Grateful for his arms around my waist when the house is finally quiet.
Writing about these small things seems to freeze frame the joy, slow it down. So I can return to it, handle it, remember.
I’m no saint, but I’m trying to realize you, Life.
One day at a time.
On this earth that I love.
Catherine Arveseth is a full-time mother, part-time writer and editor. She has five young children, including two sets of twins. She reviews books for Meridian, writes for Power of Moms, and blogs occasionally for Segullah.
[1] Thornton Wilder, Our Town - A Play in Three Acts (New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 1938) p. 96 - 108
Realizing Life
By Catherine Keddington Arveseth
This morning as I nursed my twin boys, changed their diapers, slid bowls of cold cereal onto the table for my three girls then put the boys in high chairs (for the first time) while making multiple trips to the potty between spoonfuls of prunes because my twin girls decided two weeks ago to abandon their diapers for toilet-training, I thought, “This. Is. CRAZY!”
My life is crazy.
And if I think too much about how crazy it is I might actually go crazy.
But I don’t. (Think about how crazy and hard it is.) Most of the time.
I just do. And do some more.
By 8AM the day is on and we’re in high gear. I move quickly from one necessity to the next. Mostly it’s the basics. Food, clothing, clean-up, laundry. I mediate inevitable conflicts, nurse “owies,” braid a pony’s mane and rescue teething toys from the toilet (true story). If there’s a lull in the chaos, we pile onto the couch for a story or dance to a favorite tune. Not much time for reflection, reading, writing, the things of the soul. Things I crave.
But I also craved children. After years of infertility, my husband and I experienced what we like to call our “family explosion.” Five children in four years, including two sets of twins. Fraternal girls followed by identical boys. Our boys were born one week after our oldest daughter turned four.
It has been exciting, exhausting, intensely joyous, out of control, but absolutely precious.
The boys are now 9 months old and we’re slowly coming out of survival mode. As the pace slows a bit, I’m harnessing more happy moments, noticing more episodes of contentment. Finally finding my groove as a mother of five. (Wow. That still sounds weird.)
So last week I saw Our Town - the great American play by Thornton Wilder. My aunt and her daughter watched all five kids so Doug and I could have a night out. (Yes, it took both of them.) Having read Wilder’s play but never seen it on stage, I anticipated the evening for weeks.
The play began. From spotlight to curtain call I was completely absorbed. All barriers between audience and actors faded away. We were right there in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. The actors were so comfortable with their roles, with each other and the audience there wasn’t a bit of uneasiness. The play was left to work its subtle magic.
Our Town is a love story about George and Emily. Childhood sweethearts who grow up next door to each other. They marry right after high school and begin their family. But during the birth of their second child, Emily dies.
The entire third act is about her transition into death - what she experiences on the other side. She watches her own funeral procession and burial. She sees the faces of those she loves.
“Live people don’t understand, do they? she asks. “I never realized how troubled and how...in the dark live persons are...From morning till night, that’s all they are - troubled” (96-97). [1]
Then, despite cautioning from those who have already died, she chooses to go back and relive one day of her life. Her twelfth birthday.
“Don’t do it Emily... It isn’t wise... It’s not what you think it’d be” (98) the dead admonish her. Still, she goes.
She steps into her mother’s kitchen, circles the stove and table, watches her mother prepare breakfast. She sees the birthday gift George left on her doorstep early that morning. A post-card album she had forgotten about.
“I can’t bear it. They’re so young and beautiful. Why did they ever have to get old? Mama, I’m here. I’m grown up. I love you all, everything. -- I can’t look at everything hard enough...Oh Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really see me...Mama, just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s look at one another” (107).
Finally, she breaks into sobs - overcome with the grief and beauty of it all - the wonder of her ordinary life.
“I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another...Take me back - up the hill - to my grave” (108).
Before leaving, however, she wants one more look.
Longingly, she says good-bye to clocks ticking, her Mama’s sunflowers, new-ironed dresses, hot baths, sleeping and waking.
Then suddenly she throws her arms out wide and laments,
“Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you! Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it - ever, every minute?”
“No.” the stage manager (who acts as narrator) replies. “The saints and poets, maybe - they do some” (108).
“No.” That was his answer. And he was right. We don’t realize how wonderful life is every minute of every day. We’re too busy, too hurried, too distracted.
After Doug and I returned home to our five little ones - all asleep, I cracked their doors open and stroked each cheek with Emily’s voice echoing in my head. “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you!”
There, in the whisper of the night, I embraced my motherhood and every bit of tenuous longing I had for this gift.
The next day I moved through the house with different eyes. I saw the busy hum of what we were about with fleeting but tangible beauty. It won’t last - can’t last - will be gone before I know it. So I began to make note of things I saw, felt, and cherished. A scrap of paper here, a note on my calendar there, and some plinking away on the keyboard at day’s end. It took some time. But how could I not? Writing it down makes it last.
While washing Sami’s hands, I noticed her dented knuckles, the pudgy softness. The way she lets me slap her paws together - blowing suds onto our faces and shirts. I wondered how long her hands will keep that three-year old look, how long she’ll let me hold them under warm water, my body bent over hers, before she wants to do it herself.
I noticed how Ali flutters instead of walks. Sailing from room to room, with a song spilling from her lips, she stretches her fingertips out to catch the wind. Teetering, gliding, dancing on tiptoe. My graceful girl, with wild brown curls - floating through our house.
I smelled Eliza’s hair at bedtime. The scent of gritty playground. Wind and dirt all tangled up in fraying ringlets. I felt the heat rise from her body as I tucked my arms around her and sang. She snuggled into her favorite blanket and quickly fell asleep. I kissed her cheek, wishing she could know how much I loved her in that instant. My oldest. My first.
I admired my boys as they took milk from me in the morning. Their eyes closed, softly caressing my arms and neck. The tender sight of their hands clasped together. This won’t last more than a month or two. It’s the closeness I love, the time alone with them, the giggles and tickling after. A quiet dependent circle, all three of us, needing each other.
I then I saw it. Today. The flash of silver in my husband’s hair - glinting in the light as he tossed Gordon into the air, the two of them laughing deeply. It’s a rite of passage - those flecks of gray. They tell of living - a sign that we are aging. Together. My heart flew to him. Grateful for his arms around my waist when the house is finally quiet.
Writing about these small things seems to freeze frame the joy, slow it down. So I can return to it, handle it, remember.
I’m no saint, but I’m trying to realize you, Life.
One day at a time.
On this earth that I love.
Catherine Arveseth is a full-time mother, part-time writer and editor. She has five young children, including two sets of twins. She reviews books for Meridian, writes for Power of Moms, and blogs occasionally for Segullah.
[1] Thornton Wilder, Our Town - A Play in Three Acts (New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 1938) p. 96 - 108
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Back To School
It is the first day of school today. And that, in and of itself, is a pretty good day for me. But there are reasons beyond the typical "Happy Dance" of getting kids out of the house that make it a happy day.
* ROUTINE Man, I love the back to school time because we finally get everyone back to a regular schedule. Getting to bed on time, getting up earlier, getting back to having dinner together--this still usually has to wait until football practice is over, but it gets better when school starts.
* GOOD COP, BAD COP I am a big supporter of teachers, especially when they have my kids in their classes. My kids know that I will back up teachers 100% in what they require, ask, and assign. I love to have another "baddie" working on the kids. It is exhausting being the only one all summer.
* EXERCISE Last year, I'd walk with the kids to get them across a very busy street in town where the junior high school is located. Not that needed my help, but it eased my worry. Now, The Boy and his buddies are walking to school together and I get to leave him at the corner with the group. Then I get to take off for about 45-60 minutes of walking with my iPod. I love having that time first thing in the morning to exercise, and check it off my list. Plus the iPod is a fantastic tool. I have "podcasts" loaded that I listen to while I walk. These are like radio shows, interviews, or behind the scenes stories. Sure, I have music too, but the time to listen to an adult conversation--as in content, not hte rating--is pretty nice.
* BOUQUETS OF SHARPENED PENCILS Remember that line from You've Got Mail? I do enjoy the back to school supplies on sale. Sometimes I stock up on crayons just to smell them later while I back Family Home Evening visual aids.
* LUNCH For me, not the kids. On the first day back to school, several friends and I meet at our favorite burger joint to celebrate keeping our kids alive all summer to allow them back to school. The best tradition of them all.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Wasted Days and Wasted Nights
Remember this project? If not, I'll fill you in. Two years ago next month our neice Larisa got married. In preparation for that lovely day, The Girl and her girly little cousins were going to have lovely flower girly dresses. Part of the bodice had beading on it. And I did the beading. All of it. Every last one. Dangit.
I hate beading now.
Well, the little girls' dresses never got completed to the mother of the bride's liking, so the dresses didn't get worn for the wedding. Grandmama thought that they'd get the dresses fixed to satisfy the MOTB, and then the girls and Larisa, in her beautiful bridal gown, could have some post-wedding photos taken. That never happened.
Larisa and her husband, Phil, now have a little six month old baby girl, Keili.
Yesterday The Girl was prepping for the first day of school (and also school picture day, as it happens) and was moving things aroudn in her closet. She tried on her flower girl dress. The zipper couldn't be zipped because her shoulders are too wide of the dress now.
So, I spent the better part of nearly a month beading my brains out on a dress The Girl never wore, and consequently didn't like, and now can't fit into again.
I took the unused, never-worn, overbeaded gown of a dress to the dressy, petite, non-sporty neighbor girls to see if they liked it at all or could alter it to make a prom or semi-formal dress for a school dance.
Maybe they can get some use out of it. And The Girl gets the closet space back.
Monday, August 23, 2010
A Fair End
The Boy (barely seen running from the photo below) and The Girl came along with me on Thursday to see the fair. They had seen everything they wanted to see in about an hour. Though The Girl did enjoy the horse show...we almost left her there to watch, but she had to get back to work.
.JPG)
This little guy is a LaMancha goat. These have very little external ear--thought otherwise perfectly normal like the other breeds of goats. I had a few of these growing up and I LOVED them. So full of personality. This little guy was showing in the meat goat division, sadly, but her reminded me of my own babies. You've just gotta love that face!
.JPG)
This little girl is about the size of our goatie babies when we'd get them from the Green Gold Valley dairy for 4H projects growing up. We'd raise them for about a year, showing them throughout the season and then give them back to the dairy so they could be bred and become milkers. Then we'd get a new batch of babies the next year. My first doe, Klara, remembered me and came over nuzzling me two or three years after she had been brought back to the dairy. She was a mama and big time milker by then, but it was sweet to see her again--healthy and happy, and still remembering me. Good times! And to think they started out this size with us, on bottles and learning to eat grain and hay, and walk with a collar. Too cute!
Here Darling Sierra is showing her lamb, Keven, for the first time. She was nervous but she did great. I was proud of her that she was trying something new and different! Good job, Sierra!
My darling Betsy, from trek, showed her lamb, Erma, for the first time too at the fair. The girls are in the local HS FFA and Betsy is the FFA president this coming year. I love that the girls were learning about their animals and really caring for them. Livestock take a lot of tie and effort and love to become show worthy. These girls did great! And it was so nice to see them each day of the fair taking care of their lambs.
And this? Well, this was the last event I covered: the demolition derby.
.JPG)
This little guy is a LaMancha goat. These have very little external ear--thought otherwise perfectly normal like the other breeds of goats. I had a few of these growing up and I LOVED them. So full of personality. This little guy was showing in the meat goat division, sadly, but her reminded me of my own babies. You've just gotta love that face!
.JPG)
This little girl is about the size of our goatie babies when we'd get them from the Green Gold Valley dairy for 4H projects growing up. We'd raise them for about a year, showing them throughout the season and then give them back to the dairy so they could be bred and become milkers. Then we'd get a new batch of babies the next year. My first doe, Klara, remembered me and came over nuzzling me two or three years after she had been brought back to the dairy. She was a mama and big time milker by then, but it was sweet to see her again--healthy and happy, and still remembering me. Good times! And to think they started out this size with us, on bottles and learning to eat grain and hay, and walk with a collar. Too cute!
Here Darling Sierra is showing her lamb, Keven, for the first time. She was nervous but she did great. I was proud of her that she was trying something new and different! Good job, Sierra!
My darling Betsy, from trek, showed her lamb, Erma, for the first time too at the fair. The girls are in the local HS FFA and Betsy is the FFA president this coming year. I love that the girls were learning about their animals and really caring for them. Livestock take a lot of tie and effort and love to become show worthy. These girls did great! And it was so nice to see them each day of the fair taking care of their lambs.
And this? Well, this was the last event I covered: the demolition derby.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
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