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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Last Day of Nabobloblobbloblo. mo.

I'm very glad I did, I am. and I'm glad I wrote every day, clearly counting my sister's posts as my own... and I am so glad it is over. when it gets dark at 4, I am ready for bed by 6 and that makes the next two hours a bit wobbly for my intellect or my fingers, whichever are responsible for these posts.
So? What is coming up?  This morning I sent out payments for ten bills. TEN. rah rah me. we start the holiday season with a cleared scale, ready to weigh it down as the month moves along.
I've realized that the shopping hysteria ratchets up markedly when you watch more tv as we did this past week.  the amount of commercial action is really astounding, and really does have an impact on my heartrate.
I bought three dresses when preparing for my new york trip. hello macy couponing. I have to wear all three of them every day for the next month to make it financially viable.  So far, so good. And I will never have to buy a dress again.
I have a doctor appointment next week for the first time in years, and I'm not pregnant even. Its a new doc, a lady doc, and I have high hopes that I will have yet another set of eyes watching over me...
I did yoga today, and feel remarkably chipper. why the hell can't i remember to do this more often?
My young one turns four in two weeks and that is a big child. big. presents spread between two celebrations feel a bit lame sometimes.
I hope I can take a day off tomorrow. I hope you tell me you liked this month of daily dose.
wmx

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Don't Wanna...

I'm just using a photo to fill the space. Saw Chakra Carol today. so exhausted still, by the weekend, by everything.... my shells a'broken...
This is my post for today, dragging myself to a complete month.  cheer for me.
wmx

Monday, November 28, 2011

Not really a guilty girl.

     I had an email exchange with someone this week about how I sort of think its allright to overdo it at Thanksgiving, it seems part of the ritual and tradition of it, I am fine with accepting the swollen belly and the misbehaving kids and the day after pangs.  I LOVE the food, and a swollen belly really makes me happy, after all.  The exchange-ee commented about the guilt feelings some can suffer from...
The thing is, I don't really suffer from guilt. (my mother is really the only one who can make me feel it... sometimes without even a word...) BUT If you are a person who beats yourself up about such an event, an overeating, a loss of control at the pie table, than a holiday can really set you off... but its about control, guilt is... because I do have regrets about past things, things I didn't do, people that I hurt, times I spent hurting rather than moving on... but regret doesn't have that sense of responsibility that guilt does, a belief that 'we are in control, and we have failed in our responsibility'... I don't feel guilty for those things I did, just regretful... I feel it is water under the bridge - I made mistakes, I was mean, etc. but it is over, done, and the action is past, doesn't exist anymore.
I think it comes down to that control issue.  I acknowledge that I don't have any control of the past, or for many (ok, all) of the things that happen around me, even now.  Doing the laundry will not save me from an accident, for instance.  I have to keep re-acknowledging that all the time. all. the. time.
And even, when I think about my mom and how guilty I feel around her, it is more of an outward push on her part, than a feeling a responsibility or failing on mine.  I'm picking up on what she thinks, and not neccesarily how I feel.  I spend a lot of time on 'preventative' actions with her, making sure she doesn't have any cause to use the guilt on me, and sometimes it can be tense and exhausting.  She has a lot of wonder in her, and doesn't by any means spend all her time thinking about making me feel bad... its just a daughter thing.  Again, it comes down to control... how to control the expectations, controlling the environment to live up to them, manipulate them to a manageable form... all control and reactions to it.  even the reactions become part of an attempt to control the situation... like when spousal fights occur over the stupidly repetitive issues that all couples have... the rote reaction is an attempt at controlling where the arguement goes, what the next action is... the emotional response ellicited. 
at Quaker Meeting this week, i came to the realization that I can't actually imagine another response on my part to some of my spousal difficulties.  I can't even imagine another reality. (and i was really stretching, looking) ... what that realization gave me, at least for this week, was a sense that maybe I should stop killing myself for my reactions, maybe its the only reaction I can come up with for a reason.  (no, i don't know the reason:)
(i'm also aware how lame it might be, a laziness on my part, to believe myself 'right'... but it is a slight distinction here: i don't believe myself 'right' neccesarily, just willing to suspend my self-criticism for my reactions)... it is a change, thats all, and I'm glad anytime I let up on myself... I need a break sometimes.

Time for said break.  clapclap BREAK....:)

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Bats in the Belfrey, Rats in the Basement.

its either rats, or woodchucks, we don't hear them, or see them... just have evidence that someone very small but bigger than a mouse, is making tunnels to get into the basement. . . how much do i want woodchucks? a whole lot.
sort of like snakes, i think, the fear of the 'rat' is an old one. oooold.
where does this come from? all i have is holes in the ground and I am plunged into a sense of dread that I am stumbling around. really ? what story am i telling myself about this? do i see floods of rats running from the house in a big rain? do i see pestilence? will the children be overrun?
hello.
nutball.

getting ready to have  a lunch of leftovers and very very happy about it. very.
and clearly, out of material for the blogging... heh.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

HA! NOT dropping the ball...

Boy, am I going to be glad when this monthly daily pressure subsides.
Put up all my sparkly lights. want to go buy more but am feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the shopping other people are doing, making me feel all tightfisted and stuff.
huh.
plus, i got the boys a big playmobil castle set for half off this summer and I really don't need to get them anything else.
today was the second Thanksgiving, the one with all the extended family ... and because I wasn't hosting, and there were many parents there, i got to serve myself full plates and sit and eat it all... and I would really have kept going but someone cleared my clear plate before I could stop them.  Damn my efficient family.  We're like a factory of busy-ness. 
The stuffing was to die for.
but i did get to bring home a pie for HubsJ, who loves it.
whoosh.
I gotta go to bed.

Friday, November 25, 2011

BALLOONS!!!

I've been writing this thing for three years now... and today is the 500th post and while its sort of arbitrary to pick a cool number and celebrate it, I do like my double o's. 
I'm waving, bowing gracefully and sniggering at myself and .... frankly, exhausted and contented from the foodfest of yesterday. the kids are still asleep and it is past 7 , so you know there are miracles.  

And I have been thankful this week, and sad, and mad, but thankful has won this morning.  I'm thankful for Hives in Utah, and MiddleMinnesota, and Roads, Canada as a whole, and Cats, not the musical, and Greydays, and Sunnydays, and my list of gratitudes is pretty great beyond that... listen:
turkeys, i love turkeys, not the ones we cook but the irritating blunderers of my backyard. although, truth be, i also love the ones i eat...
mushrooms, i love them almost as much as i love onions.  praise be things that grow close to the ground.
i'm glad that pie makes so many people so happy ... and I am glad I have a sister who brings chocolate cake.
brothers, i love brothers too... they have good laps for children and their distracted ways make for visual diversion.
acceptance, i love that we are still all here. so lucky and blessed by our own company, and thats pretty amazing.
dapple.
when you get down on your knees and look at the grass after a deep frost, its one of the most beautiful things in the world.
sleepy seeds... almost nothing is more satisfying than finding and removing them...
wordplay, the way my mind can move so quickly through the language in its fluency, and yet most of the time plays with the same 100 words.  ah, choice, what a teacher you are...
coffee smells. tea tastes.
wrinkles, the way they are both strength and fragility at once.
I'm thankful for the moments I get to think, the times in life when I remember to take care of myself, the ease with which I can flow in and out of healthy rituals... these things that fill me up are so simple, at their core, and I know where to find them, all the time... I just have to remember and do.
making the occasional strong offering.
ah, and I could go on and on but my tea is ready and I'm sure there are balloons in my future.  (someday)
:)
happy thanksgiving!

Thursday, November 24, 2011

This is #499...

think i'll have balloons for the next one?
hehe.
i'm writing this the day before so I am going to fill my time with conjecture and imagination of what tomorrow will bring:
i'm in the kitchen right now, so is my sister. the kids are bouncing around waiting for their cousins, asking for them incessantly, soon i will hunt down whether a movie is on a channel somewhere....
the house smells fantastic. 
the sparkly lights are hung up already because I am now calling them 'winter decorations' and winter begins the day after Thanksgiving and I am prepared.  Nevermind how many times I've had to explain that Christmas is not the same day as Thanksgiving... the kids are picking up on my excitement and I am very sure I will rue this early lighting of my fires...

The cousins arrive, the noise rises exponentially and I am still in the kitchen.  cheese is eaten.  lots of cheese and maybe some slices of salami... something will break or spill.  The grandparents arrive... an uncle or two... there are huggings and kisses and comments on outfits... I am still in the kitchen. HubsJ has always been in the kitchen and/or on the back porch having cigarettes... we are fluid in this house, there are people all around...

Merry Thanksgiving all around... may you be well fed and content this day and every day.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

I just kneaded...

kaneaded... silent k.... what a whackjob, messing up first graders everywhere.
But upon the advent of my very first solo mission in the bread making department,(once, i made dinner rolls and forgot the salt, aka inedible)  I thought it incumbent upon me to write her up... kanow...

I've plugged the boythree into pbs and I'll see him at lunchtime when the six gets off the bus.  We are on holiday, as of that moment.... and we will have company for dinner tonight in the form of Sistah Anne and she's even going to stay over and the last time she did that was when boy2 was being born.  Its been a while and I'm looking forward to it.  And I've got bread gunk in the crevices of my hand where I washed in a halfassed manner and it smells like heaven. heaven.
there is molasses in this here recipe and its like taking a bath in the smells of my grandmother's house, i tell you. the woman used to make dozens of molasses cookies, dozens and dozens and everyone took a breadbag full for the ride home... and everyone reminded everyone not to eat too many at a time... molasses has its 'effects' on the system, you see...
This weekend I will see all that remain of her spawn, and many of her 17 grandchildren, and theirs...

Random, its true... but I've wanted to make bread for a long time, but thought it too complicated and time-consuming despite overwhelming personal-friend-type evidence to the contrary.  ah. so. Its one of those womanly tasks that nourish the hands of the maker and fill the bodies of the loved.
here we go.  i wait for it to rise, then hit it upside the head a few times and again... kapow.
knead.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Thanks and more thanks...

I had a great time, I did.
My friends are married, and they get to stay that way, if they choose. One of the great joys in the universe, how much choice we have to choose love. a choice.
There was a sunny repast in the village wherein I sat outside, ate a croissant and took my coat off. In November sun, anything is possible.
Now we prepare for our two-turkey Thanksgiving, because they are small and the people are not. :)
Oh how I love this food-ed holiday, and oh how I love all the reminders of what we are thankful for. . . because there is so much, all the tiny, all the enormous.
christmas lights are doing their damndest to 'lurk' but we all know how delightful they are, so the 'lurk' holds no menace, and we begin a giggle early...
Thanksgiving always works out, even full of changes, surprises, upsets, upheavals... the simplicity of the meal, the gatherings big and small, and it always works out, always. that too, is a choice.
I bet they all are.
you?

Monday, November 21, 2011

Back in the Sticks!

Home again Home again, buy a fat pig. 
right? isn't that how it goes?  It was awesome. and we've been away for a long time, it seems. and boy, were we nervous before the party... so many things... are we dressed right? enough? do we still have a role in their lives? are we central? peripheral?
the city is so overwhelming, the numbers of lives in small spaces, in big spaces.. the city is the size of the last state that I lived in... it goes for miles and miles and miles... and I am happy to be out of it, but there you can find everything you have ever dreamed of... and things you could never dream up... it is amazing, astonishing. the whole world is there.
are we central? peripheral? enough?

new place, old place, same questions....

club of dorks, member #342,456,555.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Martha Martha, Wherefore art thou?

Today's Post is provided by my sister, to keep the hope alive that I can do a whole month without missing a beat, and also travel away to celebrate the commitment of two very dears. *******************************************






They say that when Bartholomew Gosnold discovered it, he had a young daughter named Martha at home. Just a good as name as any but I don't think of vineyards when I see this wind swept scene.

Gosnold ventured out to find far away lands, while this one has been close by for my entire lifetime and I have not explored. Steeped in some class barrier that keeps us on the New Bedford dock, working inside Davey's Locker rather than riding over it on the ferry. An excuse that doesn't hold water as I sit here at 41. It is an island that is more than priviledge and summer pants with whales on them -- it has brown people and textured history, cows and farmland, cabins and lighthouses, cliffs and heather.

My trip during the Nor'easter was full of dark clouds and wind so strong it was hard to stand to take in the rugged scenery. No tourists but we were there like crazy middle-aged women determined to have a weekend away despite warnings from horny weathermen. The lights went out at the inn and we giggled. An inn we could never have afforded during the hip summer months, it was posh with downy beds and soft bathrobes.

Look forward to going back (*before another 11 years) but may strive to once again experience the wild autumn and the true Vineyard beauty.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Madeira, kitty.


Today's Post is provided by my sister, to keep the hope alive that I can do a whole month without missing a beat, and also travel away to celebrate the commitment of two very dears. *******************************************
The day after 11/11/11, Madeira was put to sleep.


I can only imagine her namesake Portuguese island saluted this 18-year-old cat, perhaps an extra crash of wave upon the rocky volcanic shoreline.


For weeks, she hadn’t eaten. I was in denial for awhile, irritated at her persnickety aversion to certain wet, smelly cat food in favor of other smelly, wet cat food. She would tentatively approach, sniff and turn away. Scare drove me to the vet.


My hand could glide down her back and her spine speed-bumped my palm. Boney hip bones protrude and concave at the same time. Waiting it out. But for what? To get more awful? For something “bad enough” to warrant the ER trip at 3:00 am?

I won’t talk about the actual last vet visit. The wake afterward at Eastern Standard bar was the thing of it. Two friends came with me, old friends, familiar friends to me and Madeira. The sign of a good wake is when you come back out into the light of day, you feel conflicted about having laughter still on your tongue in the midst of a dark event. We laughed about her idiosyncrasies – drooling in the midst of a good chin rub, thumping the litter box to the point that you were sure someone was at the door, crazed racing with her fat pocket swinging underneath. We caught up on our still unfolding lives and reconnected.



The house is empty now and I think I see her gray fur turning the corner ahead. It is shockingly hard to sit with this sadness. Not sure why I am so surprised to miss her so, but I am. Hope I can use the emptiness to propel me forward, to seek and find that state of connection.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Stubby nose...

Getting a cold right now is NOT lack, I'm telling you. 
Its a sign that my aged/decrepit body can't handle the amount of forward-thinking worry for my kids that I'm carrying.  I am being told by the God within... that I must chill out and go lie down somewhere.  MUST.

Past weekend was a doozy, but the biggest deal was really the three-almost-four deciding that he didn't want to stay in the house with his grandmother, but wanted to run across the very busy country road, run 100 yards down the same road crossing the street to find us all in the woods, all whilst barefoot and sweaterless, in November, in New England.  Granted, there are paths, and granted, we have walked the paths together about TWICE, so ... there is that. Luckily, he was terrorized by his own fears and so when he came running at us, out of the woods, barefoot and muddy and crying, the terror on his face made me fall to my knees and have a bare, fleeting thought that maybe he wouldn't do it again. he says he saw an animal.  could've been anything, but we have lots of coyotes. at the end of the woods there is also the policemen's shooting range. big big guns.

He's 3. ever tried to stop a 3 year old from doing something, when you're not even there?

I have been counseling myself away from thinking about it all week, but here it is... I got a reminder of how fleeting and tentative life is, and how such a normal thing could also be a tragic terrifying thing. . . and not only do I not want that reminder, but I can't process it and have to let it go.  I think it'll freeze me right up, as productive as my nose. so, as I approach my full week of everpresent anxiety, I'm shutting the light off. I fully admit that I can't think about it for another second.
so there.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Some people know these things:

1. not everyone who reads here is a honky.  Bro, sorry, you included now. welcome.
2. a tea drinker having a mocha capuccino at four pm might not sleep until one or two am. that would be AM.
3. intense people scare me, I don't know how to talk with them and I frequently move away in a rather rude fashion because I am nervous and scared.
4. I am not going to look like Sarah Jessica, but I do know her sister, and I will be wearing a black dress and there is little anyone can do to stop me.
5. Teachers who tell you your kid is not progressing as fast as they expected are not challenging your worth as a mother, but it sure as hell feels like it and gives you lots to think about as you are awake until the AMs.
6. Crying wives makes husbands want to have sex.
7. Donkeys make husbands want to have sex. and leaves, and bread, and water.
8. I'm going to be away from a computer all weekend and my sister Anne will be posting in my stead. give her love, because she is my sister and has to deal with a lot because of it.
9. Sunlight through the leaves is rather spectacular, and the world should regularly say 'dappled' out loud.
10.  Laughing is way better than crying, but they both bring about surprising changes, when you are able to notice.
*********

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

I'm at 490 posts. . .

I really should get a hobby or something.

I wrote in my journal yesterday, and it had been just about a month since I had.  I can't tell you how much better I felt doing that, almost like I'd done yoga and meditated and completed the check off list in my head, my ever-shrinking head.... so little room in there these days, it is all full up with my own damn stuff and ceaseless chatter about that selfsame stuff.  sheesh.  even I am bored, irritated with the chittering mind I've got. 

BUT I LOVED IT.  I had a really good quiet couple of days after this weekend of party and sleeping over and I had a good day and I even had the werewithal to push through the crapulent evening and not let it ruin how I felt about my day, and that is something new.  Not letting the 3 hour pre-bedtime routine/night ruin a whole 24-48 hour period? It is something I am learning, something that is slowly, oh so slowly, changing for me.  I have been breathing, pushing off the negative stuff, literally sometimes, but trying to maintain my own space and my own balance and hold on what I feel authentically and less of what I am reacting to... does that make any sense? I am not sure either.  Let me read it again, and edit somewhere.

oh well. good luck with that. Today and yesterday here have been grey and wet and chilly in the house and we have fired up the stove, tucked in to legos and books and just stayed in.  Its been wonderful.  My six was home Monday and now off to school and the three-four-in-a-month goes off this afternoon and I have to go dress shopping for a newyork city wedding !  They got married last weekend at City Hall but shis Sunday night is their Celebration.  I'll be away Two nights, their party is on a Sunday night. hello. yes, Sunday night for the childless or the workless or the extremely local, is no problem.  I am going to pretend wicked hard, that I am childless and jobless and local.  But I certainly have to have a new dress, one that makes me look like Sarah Jessica.  because that is real, and I always want to be real.  always.
O, I am off to buy Manalo blahblahs too.  because walking in something like that would be no problem for me. none.

check you later, honkies. ;)

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

What is left.



This painting is by my brother-in-law Justin McGonigle, find him online, the crookedness of the photo is mine, not his.
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I've been going back a year past to read the posts I've written. It is now and has always been a bit strange, as it makes time as lippitylappityloopy, those things which feel like yesterday and those things for which I have no memoryspace at all. But I still like it. Perhaps its a ticket to a realistic self-view, if I like my own writing, then maybe I should be more generous with myself when that scratchyinner voice starts speaking, you know... 'oh, your shyness really makes you a loser.... your belly is really out of control...he just wants something from you... you're still not a popular girl... people think you are so aloof and snooty...  your breasts are hitting your belly, you know, you HAVE to wear a bra now because you are OLD. . . ' you know...
if you face that voice down for the mean liar that it is...and give yourself a break, let yourself off the hook... what is left?

 quietude? satisfaction? exhilaration? joy? calm? certitude? motion? acceptance? divinity? firmament of heaven? inner lights and sparkles? buddhism? quakerism? peacefulness?    lets try.

'tis the season.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Tipped

Look away from the ATAT's ass, ok?

We got our purple sofa, we stayed up late, we 'partied'.  Personally, I had a glass of wine and a cigarette and that is what partying entails for me at this point in my life. (The cigarette gave me an incredibly bitchy hangover. really, not worth the illicit thrill of hiding from the kids at all. ) I hid in the kitchen and with the kids, I made my mother cry, my six year old stayed up until midnight, the ham was good, the beans were halfassed, the morning after was pretty great, the adrenalin crash and resulting stayhomeyness was cool. 
I'm still hiding, kept the six year old home today because he was crying at breakfast that he didn't want to go, and it wasn't the petulant cry of the whiny, but it was real, and I think he needs to catch up on his sleep some more.  I feel somewhat off-balance myself having the kids home so much in the past week and now home again with an upcoming two nights away for me, then Thanksgiving, and perhaps it is me who is almost tipping over, trying to balance 'the life' with 'the recuperation'.  hm.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Fantastic, it was.

a wild wonderful time, full of men in circles talking about sports, and lots of cupcakes. and a letter or two of love. 
and an adrenalin crash after a child ran across the street and into the woods and tracked his parents through forty acres of woodlands. found, he was found.
 yep.  there is no fence to lock, i have a runner and I am just too tired to do more than this for a post.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Today is the day, and tomorrow will be fantastic.

Today my six year old got his first trophy, complete with a stage walk. I sat in the auditorium of the High School and my husband commented that we'd be watching him cross in a graduation gown not too long off.
Yesterday he had his first loose tooth.  We are all excited and in tears, all the time. Or, really, thats just me.
Holy smokes.
Today is the day my best male friend got himself hitched to the best possible woman, or rather, the day I saw the photographic evidence...
Today is the party for the Woman Turning 70. the slowcooker portion is abubbling, and the vegetables are prepping, and the entire meal will be the most folks we've had in our home since or warming party.  Another chance to warm. 
Today is the day a purple sofa will arrive in my living room, after having traveled in my 79 year old father in law's truck for a few miles.  purple baby. maybe it'll even arrive before a guest does. probably not.

tomorrow I will get to sit in it, and look at it, and clean it of debris.
tomorrow we will breakfast in the sun, and nod to the woman who is 70, for she is sleeping over. Perhaps a woman doesn't outgrow slumberparties after all.
tomorrow will be fantastic.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Freeflow of I dont know what to write, see how 'flowy' that was? ...

Right now the very first playdate of our new town is happening nearby.  C told me this was his best friend.  Oooh....what a genious motha.  and what I had forgotten in all of our many months without playdates is how little I have to do with an extra kid in the house... I have done laundry, shouted 'careful' a few times, made two stupid phonecalls to change addresses and stop catalog people from sending us three copies of their cracktoy catalogs... its been like a dream, almost like I am alone in the house, with time stretching out endlessly before me...

almost.
My sister's kitty is dying, my own two are flush with life and following me about the house when they are not cowering in fear from the running children playing some sort of game that I can't quite follow.  It is okay, I'm sorry for my sister, she's had the cat a long time. . . its amazing how big these things can be sometimes. 
This weekend is a large family party for my mother-in-law, her 70th birthday. all the family within reasonable distance are coming. Its a bit like thanksgiving, really, a practice shot at figuring out if we've got enough plates and how to feed the kids respectfully but semi-separately... and I am very excited to have the house smell of roasting meats and vegetables. I'm making a chickendish in the slowcooker that will feed the non-pork eating portions of our family and my hopes are high but wavery that it'll be a hit.  I think I have some lingering doubts about slowcookers and it is probably a very deepseated issue that I'll have to visit with ChakraC-- just to survive. really.

no, not really. 
I'm freaked out that my mother-in-law is 70, frankly.  I don't like it at all. She has been in my life since I was 15, as an example of a smart, educated, whip and I am not sure how I feel about 70. 
We've got two families sleeping over and I've already made the beds. I am sure that there is something that I really should get on top of right this very second while the hideandseek marathon continues.  Boy, I hope I never allow them to switch over to videogames. Boys are nothing if not occasionally resourceful. Maybe I can raise them to have more inner resources than I .   Toast again today for me, rising to the occasion.
     I HAVE been working on changing my prayers but I have been overwhelmed with brainchatter, even during Meeting and so I've been disappointed with myself. I've dropped off the charts in terms of my yoga plans, my meditation plans and forgettabout veggie meals.  I DO see the connection, but I am trying to go lightly on myself because I am just doing the best I can for the moment.  I'm going, right now, to make a list of what I have done this week:
bought hardware to fix c's bureau.  returned hardware.
went looking at 2 furniture stores with the three year old. survived. bought nothing. (need a sofa.)
laundry, folded, put away.
got camera pictures into the computer, posted every day.
read a book. ! a whole damn book. started another one.
made a pot roast for our German visitor who likes to drink broth for breakfast. he did, i made it.
finished, signed hundreds of forms for schools.
found my journal. didn't open it, just found it.
dropped four bags of canned goods at the school.
dropped four bags of stuff at savers. (salvationarmy type place)
cleaned the bathroom. vacuumed umpteen times.
got references for a babysitter. a real live girl to come and watch the boys while i go out somewhere, with anyone, maybe even hubsJ .  I'm afraid to call the references, by the way, because of the shy/hearing problem with phones.

and thats it . still glad you're reading? meh.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Jacked Up




Not a single picture of the boys is less blurry, these are serious men of action, or...
werewolf and lion of action, as it were.
 

just sit the hell down and write.

the advice from the ladies at that writing thing a while back.  In the 'ritual' of sitting down to do the daily blog-entry post, I am getting farther and farther from any introspection and it is making me feel all stoppered up.  And so I can't think of catchy or apt post titles and I'm forgetting what my work is and i'm loving that my three year old is playing on his own without a screen flash anywhere nearby at all. 
This is my thing, I like to have it, this writing. but i haven't picked up my journal in what feels like a long time and it actually makes me a bit fearful, like I'm going down some slippery slope and I haven't got my bungy tied on securely.  no rappeling here, just superfly superfall.

bit dreamy really. to fall like that, in that the moments of the fall are much more interesting (sometimes) than the landing. we have all these assumptions about what happens next, pain, change, breaks, etc. I forget all the time about the arms open drift that a fall can be. like the blankspots in our souls, the mysteries in our relationships/friendships, in our children.  Sometimes things line up to enable us to see what we're doing, to identify a pattern, to 'solve' a problem... and other times, we are in a fog, whether we know it or not.
This is one of those times for me, I think I am in a fog, but can't see my way out of it, and just have to wait til it passes.  If I am falling, I don't know it for sure, and am trying to make note of how it smells here, what the light is like ... glory golden sighs?

how does joy feel anyhow? akin to confusion, bewilderment, hope, peaked curiosities? sweetness? sugarush?

just sat the hell down.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

What really happened on our day off...

we got a holy heavenly day of fall... full of warmth and golden light on the leaves... what an amazing gift it was. we had piles of leaves, talks with neighbors, tireswings into piles, hide and seek with friends, manual labor.. it was glorious.
glory- us. and gratitude.


This photo taken by a child on shoulders.


and then, at the end of it all... a dancing leaf pile by the side of the tire swing.


and pizza for dinner? and breakfast this morning?
yeah, there is abundance.  and i am happy to have moved.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Toast

Made myself toast just now. So very buttery and crunchycrusty good.  This and some instant coffee are sort of conspiring to make me feel conflicted about the day.  instant coffee really is a sad thing, so much engineering, planning, design, growth, roast, all to produce a slim package of mediocrity, even when its starbuckian.  oh so.
Yesterday I sliced apart my finger with the same bread knife and it was one of those hurts which make you sit down and worry for the future. It was just a fingertip snip and it really wasn't nearly as bad as many many things are... but it surely did make me sit down and there was an awful lot of blood. I may have lost a fingernail but apart from changing the bandaid this morning, I am unwilling to investigate at all.  Maybe I'll have one of those monthlong black fingernail issues. ?

But now, toast.  And the boys are both home all day as it is a day for teachers to have training, or somesuch.  I feel for the teachers... why not just give them a day to work in their classrooms, get caught up, develop ways to fit creativity back into their overscheduled days? but no, someone has decided that 'training' is what they need. hoo. again with the mediocrity.

And again, toast. The boys will watch pbs til their eyes bugg out.
I'm going to go pour out my sad coffee and make some hot tea.  Maybe some more toast. with more knife-usage and less the injury. hot tea. a walk in the leaves... a trip to the hardware store.  frenchfries. 

ah, toast. it is good when you win.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Synchronicity damnit.

For meditation, which I am trying to pick back up off the sad floor on which I left it, I've been following along with Susan Piver, who was one of the women at the writing workshop I went to whenever that was. She has videos and an "open heart project" wherein she sends free followalong ten minute meditations out to the world for free. go sign up for it.

And today? Today she was talking about Byron Katie. yes, seriously.

http://vimeo.com/31559506

That woman really gets around.
And I come around, really slowly. really slowly.
Going to go work on my negative thoughts. Because there is no lack and that wiggly voice in the back of my head should not outweigh my inner shine. so there.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Recipe for goodness...

oooh, i love me some cashew chicken. i do. i do. i do. and i know how to make it in a slow cooker.  you want to ?  here .... http://www.365daysofcrockpot.com/2009/12/day-336-cashew-chicken.html   and go on, make it tonight..go on.
Love you up some chicken thighs and some sauce and four hours later it is all done. and then you toss on some cashew sweetness and I feel like ... good mother ....

OH, and I made my second pumpkin pie of the season for HubsJ's birthday extravaganza. the weekends around here entail pie for breakfast. . . and maybe oatmeal, as we are out of bread and eggs and cheerios.
real subsistence living here. 

And now, this weekend of his birth, we're fallen back, waiting the time to clear out the inlaws, preparing for our quiet space of Meeting...

- weekends are for short entries too... snippets if you will... but there is , as always, for everyone, all whole lot a'brewing going on...

see you manana.
wmx

Saturday, November 5, 2011

HubsJ turns a new leaf...

Today is the mr.'s 45th birthday. and we have pancakes and a child who cried, 'happybirthday daddy' while still in bed and half asleep.  wonders of the world.  we have one unwrapped present and the slippers he opened last week and one arriving perhaps this weekend... a soccergame and a sick kid (just a cruddy whiny cold, no more) and some spiral ham and homemade all day baked beans... we will love it and be warm and happy, once the soccer is over. Perhaps we will take a walk and figure out how to make coffee without a press.  We will have love and maybe I can make him laugh.  It is a good day to have been born.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Light can be Heavy

Its the trick of words, how limited they are, no matter how many of them you know...
Like mustard, light can be thick, hard to understand, weighty, hard to see through, exciting, and yet glaring.

Light. mustard.

Two of my favorite things, plus I love onions too. I really, really do. a lot.

Sometimes the enormity of Love can weigh down the heart, in my case. What I feel for my boys mixes with fear and worry and that mix is oily, cloying. If I could stop carrying the worry and the fear about their behaviour, what they 'look like' to the outside world and all the fears and worries that I have for them, and for me, then the light of the love would be quite glorious and more constant than the muck that I carry now. Its all my choice, none of this fear and worry is necessary or forced onto me, none of it.  How will it look to choose not to carry it? How will that feel? To already be letting go of them? oh my. OR will I be holding them up in my light and in their light? holding them up, rather than holding on?
 
The whole search for the light within is good, it is changing the way I pray on a daily basis.  So little need for the outsiders of desire, ritual, form, format... just a search for the light within and for those things which perhaps enable me to access my light more readily.  and sometimes, its desire, ritual, form and format.  dig? I do feel like I'm shuffling off some unneeded weights, loosing the hair, patting the overlarge belly, accepting the lassitude in colds, moving right along.

evidently, i belong.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

My time is running out.

what if my time were running up? what if my biggest and best were yet to come? what if i'm running right smack into my time, right this very second?
what then?

I've been reading a lot about Quakers, because we've been taking the kids to Meeting and as much as I love it for its quietude and the great potential for silence and worship that it offers me every week, I am struggling with what it might mean to be a Quaker, and how much my identity might be problematic. Even as I type it, I see it as untrue.  Not that I've been struggling with what it means, but that my identity would be problematic.  These are a people who believe that your life and how you live it show the light of Christ that lives within.  They are the supreme Namaste-rs .  There aren't any protocols, there aren't any formulations... you seek the light within and take action on what you find there. 
huh.

It is the small voice in the back of my throat which says I can't belong. 
*Just right this very second I think back to the stone I picked up at the writer's retreat as a gift token, and on it was written, "i do belong" ... maybe now the relevancy has arrived. DUDE.

I have to go do some thinking.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

What you want is never what you really want... alternately titled: birds and prayers.

I paraphrased my post-title from another blog, and here is her post... in the interest of not plagiarizing, which i realize is dating myself quite seriously, but there it is. 
and while she writes beautifully and seriously, it is not really my bent to do it so well. so here is alltogether different take on the vaguely similar theme of how little we know ourselves....
or me, how little i know myself... I've been reading lately, gotten back into the habit of picking books at random off the shelf of the library and just plugging until i am done.  i like it alot. i tend towards the mystery and the fantasy, very little romance and mostly of a generation past, it seems.  Chakra C gave me a book on a 'Lost Mode of Prayer'... and I've been digging that too.... occasionally i will pick up a nonfictional guide of some sort and last month's was backyard birding and so i've become the birdlady of my acreage.  Someday I'd like to have chickens but for now I have some very fat squirrels, nuthatches, more than a few sparrows and a scrawny little sad goldfinch who pecks at the nyger seed all by his lonesome self. caught a glimpse of something red once, tho no definitive cardinal sighting as of yet. i've seen a woodpecker but only once.  we have many large hawks around here and I've tried to put the feeders near bushes so they can dart and hide when a shadow passes by but ... man, I fear the shadows passing by, my own fear utterly disregarding their very important role in the backyard birding empire i am building.  there is even fear for the runt of the wildturkey litter... poor thing. while the others are all now monstrous, the little guy still looks like a little guy.  my little guy wonders why there's only one baby and all grownups now, not putting pieces together... (in truth, i am thrilled to see the runt every time, they always say 'survival of the fittest' and all... but this guy is making it... rah rah!)
the bushes are literally teaming with small birds, waiting their turn at the birdfeeder. teeming! churning bushes of bird.
the irrationality of fearing the hawks? ah. they do have an awesome beauty in their efficiency... and still the teeming is unstoppable.

I've always prayed. For as long as I can remember, I felt just fine making lists of what I wanted or crying for people i knew to get better, get with it, what have you.  I have not lately been feeling very prayerful though*, been feeling limited by words and formats and all the language that I have.  Even during the quiet of Meeting (Quaker meeting, yo.), I've been too talkative, too busy identifying what kind of listening I'm about to do... blagh. irritation with self, here insert guffaws and hair-pulling.
*its more than just feeling not prayerful, i've been feeling downright petulant and childish and overly concerned with too many of my own mannerisms and blgahblaahg. looking for changes, as always, a deepening and thickening.
Is it the aging? the fear of the shadows passing overhead? Is there a secret part of me that is unsatisfied because things have not resolved? really? what a prick i must be. or a spoiled debutante. 

Oh to learn patience and some humility may be my biggest hurdles ever. I keep yelling at the kids about it. holy fruitless projection.  holy hawk amongst the birds of the bush.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

In for a penny, in for a pound.

NaBloPoMo begins.... this year  I officially signed up, so I'm probably doomed to fail. 

I mean, if I could do such a thing. :)

     Last night we did some trick-or-treating.  I made it to one school parade but missed the other and my six year old was really upset at me.  it was a heartbreaker, for him. I do my best, I really do and I'm sorry he was disappointed.  Oh how I love him.
 I do love Halloween also... but I had forgotten the insane excitement that my kids can't process. I suppose I am still new at it, so the forgetfulness is forgiven... but the wildness in costume is not one that I can plan for, or do preventative parenting for.  The sugar alone could outdo any calmatives I have on hand, and the sugar is really the least of it... its the dark, the strangeness of holding hands in the dark, along the road, troops of what could be strangers? or friends? ...our first year in the new neighborhood and visiting homes we've never even seen in daylight.  Two doors down there is a home for disabled adults and in ten years they have not had a trick or treater.  ten years.  boy, they were excited to see us... the workers gave us toys and spider rings.  I fought against that long driveway with an intensity matched by my son the werewolf's love for shining flashlights in your eyes.  and I will not ever make that fight again.  ten years.
ah. to be new in a neighborhood. the things you learn by trying.
also, the food banks in my town are desparate for food and volunteers because they're not getting the donations they used to and because there is so much more demand.  what about near you? I feel a rush on canned goods coming on.  this is crazy. crazy.  and there is an abundance in my house that I just cannot stop. and i'm not even trying. :) 
I feel so damn cute with myself sometimes.
sheesh.
welcome to a month of this.