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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Just a little bit...

this morning both boys are at camp, having successfully navigated the steps of the bus.. one on foot, one hand by hand, they are off. 
I successfully navigated a new and very cute breakfast spot for a cuppa coffee which is a rare rare treat and some sort of pastry. and now I am home and under orders and intention to just sit for the full 2.5 hours of alone time.  I'm going to find a book momentarily and then drink my coffee while gazing at the chicken coop.  My birthday was allright, but I was glad when it was finished, as the pressure to 'make it something' sort of ruined it for me.  I did wear a dress and I did treat myself to breakfast at my most favorite spot, and after that it just sort of deflated slowly until it was bedtime.  Part of it was the time alone.  It has been a very challenging week marriage-wise and my birthday was the first time I was really alone to process and feel things and I guess I'm not all that happy to feel things this week, so I ended up feeling sad and lonely and while I did reach out, I got alot of message machines and so had to go ahead and feel things.  so, crap. feeling things.
Its all well and good when its beauty and light and butterflies... but when it sucks, and you're trying to grow and figure out how to change your perspective without feeling like a doormat or a 'victim'... it can just be hard.
and so, for today, I am forcing myself basically into the same spot, the 'feeling' spot, but this time without the added pressure of how happy i should be because its my birthday.  so that is item one on the 'change-your-perspective-and-get-thankful' list.
1. its not my birthday.
2. the chickens do not live in the house anymore and are figuring out how to use the ramp on their chicken coop.
3. chickens are REALLY dumb and don't seem to mind or feel insecure about it.
4. coffee is pretty good, even when its half decaf.
5. the pastry still awaits my attention.
6. I'm so glad people still make pastries, and not machines. (at least, at bakeries...)

see you soon, i'm off to find a book...
wmx

Monday, June 25, 2012

NaNananana nana...

Today is My Birthday and I am 38.  I got my big bad haircut and I managed to still look just like me.  At first I was saddened not to look like Audrey Tatou of AMELIE fame, but now I am pretty damn pleased to have such short and crispy locks.  The heat blows right by me and I can whistle my pinhead through the storms...
The chickens finally have their coop, and last night was their first night sleeping outside.  I need to go and be sure they are all still there... and let them out into the morning light. 
Actually, I'mma do that now. (all fine, happy, shy to go down the ramp to the run, but happy...and because the coop is newand smells of sawdust and stain, they almost smell acceptably, almost)

38.  More than half my chickens are roosters.  We got some problems with that, not the least of which is that I still don't really like male aggression and man, these are some very serious young Cocks.  Man, men and I are rare friends, and as much as I like two of my roosters for their plumage, the rest of them can go right into a stew or into the hands of someone else ... I need some layers, my friends... and I'm not just saying that so I can surround myself with people/chickens who are of my gender or my egg-fertilizing ability.  or, maybe I am. 

The kids are both going to camp this morning, for the first time ever, at the same time, the same camp, one for half the day, the other the whole.   And assuming I can get the younger on the bus - I will have an entire 3 hours to treat myself to a birthday bash.  I'm going to read a book and journal over eggs benedict. or maybe just sit back and stare at customers who do this sort of thing all the time.  Fresh squeezed orange juice and a cup of coffee which has looked at caffeine askance...
Beyond that, I will try very hard not to do a single chore, unless something is bothering me.  Ask me tomorrow how that one has worked out for me.

I'm going to wear a dress.
WOOOOHOOO!!!!

(sorry, no pics of the new do... smiling into a camera at 5:30 in the morning sort-of depressed me and WE ARE HAVING NONE OF THAT TODAY)... :)

Friday, June 22, 2012

Rumours of Stormy Weather. . .

I'm going to get my hair all cut off this afternoon.  I've done this all before, and I'm going through it all again.  Today was the first time in my life I wished aloud to not be pregnant, and I hope I never say or think such a thing again.  I think it was a futile attempt at striking out at the universe, which just proves the heatstroke that I must be suffering.  There are first times for everything, and luckily, you never know ahead of time what they will be. (unless you're climbing mountains... then, you know.)
The kids are on day 3 of HEAVY television rotation, because they are fair and wilty after just a few minutes outside, and I'd rather they be still with their waterglasses, than moving or fighting.  This afternoon should bring a deluge of one kind or another, and I am expecting to have to hide behind pillows as I seek a real privacy when the rains come again.  Maybe a new breeze will blow, but today and now, I am just hoping to make it through the day.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

I wish i was a baller... (children of the 90's rejoice)



(sorry the post-title has nothing to do with the post, but it doesn't. at all. except very tangentially, i think.)
Today is one of those days of deep breaths and long sighs, I'm sure of the sort that drive spouses and children and mothers mad. It all comes from me, I tell you somewhat shamefacedly... I wish I were something different today, something more evenkeel, more 'gowiththe flow'... a little bit taller, a little less agedly pregnant, a bit more free, less bound in the negative... its all a choice, I keep telling myself, all a choice. I can choose my perspective, as easily, (*once begun) as I can choose my outfit. i really do think that, most days.  today i have made choices that i don't like, felt forced into by circumstance and history and i am tired, losing my capitalization as i go.  feeling smaller...
its the last day of school here and we have a bestfriend over to play and so i have made a sandcastle with the younger whilst basically doing damage control on the elders. . . it it fine, and an easier way to spend the afternoon than most. . .
and i'm still lost in the fantasy that i might be able to leave, escape it somehow... and so i putter on the internets and do not find my way... a few tasks here and there, a looking at fabric  that i need to sew, a dreaming of the single life wherein i am free to drive away.  when do i grow away from this pining for what does not exist? sheesh. * i still have not begun, and it is getting old. what would chakra carol say? or sister deborah joseph? i am pining for a letter. still looking without when i know, i know, i know, that ain't where its at.

Monday, June 18, 2012

My mom fell down the stairs. . . and what to do about it.

Okay, so she fell down the stairs. She isn't elderly, weak or fragile, but she fell into a wall and ended up in the hospital for two nights and a fraught Father's Day weekend.  Many stitches and tests later, and she is home, with no broken anythings, and a lot of shock and awe from all... I've had it with reminders of mortality, allright? had. it.
I don't know what else to say about it, and I don't know what to do about it except thank the lucky stars that this weekend wasn't the time I had to deal with the death of my mother. so, thank You Stars.  Thank you very very much.  I love . I LOVE.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Trippy

Catholics pray to Mary.  I know this is a very very exciting opener to most of you, but I've got to tell you that it has been tripping me up lately, enough so that I am considering contacting a R.C. priest about it.  (One of the boys I graduated from high school with... shouldn't be too scary?...) I mean, its the 'praying to' part of the sentence that I get stuck on.  As a born and raised Protestant, I can state clearly that there are very big no-no's about praying to anything other than 'the one'. . . but c'mon, I KNOW that lots of folks pray to the man/boy/God Jesus, and that seems legitimately fine, if not ideal ... and there are a kajillion saints out there and people pray to all of them, with a fury. and of course, there is the Catholic veneration of Mary, mother o'God.  why not? I mean, if its all ONE, what does the name matter? aye?  there are no names, man, that is what the man WANTs you to get stuck on, right? 
really? man.
I should go read the Screwtape Letters again, that C.S. Lewis guy has quite the ticket. plus, i love him long time.
The reason this is all relevant to me at all right now is that Sister Deborah Joseph of the Abbey Regina Laudis gave me a prayer to Mary to say when I felt I needed guidance.  And I used it, despite my protesting! Protestantism, and quirk of all quirks?  I got guidance.
go figure.

SO now, why do I feel like I have to confess my idolatry? and to WHOM? i mean, deity already knows all.... so ... my MOTHER? my childhood pastor, reverend Ben? the man who married me, Reverend Dan?!
OR, is it just a way to deny the challenge of receiving guidance that is not simple, but feels as true as anything ever has?  denying what i know?

anyhow, this surfaces these days because I am struggling... yesterday I sent said Sister Deborah Joseph a short note to thank her for her guidance and for her prayergift... and somehow when I write letters in realtime, with space between sentences and thought that runs through all the words... (not like here where speed can run the whole show...)  I can really plumb depths in a short span.  I hope Sr.DebJos. can tolerate the deepshort of that note... makes me miss and pine for the days of letter writing... so now i wait, for more womanly guidance, from afar, from a human woman who has chosen to spend her days in a community of prayer, away from the community of the wider world, but still very much in it.

I feel it is not so different from the world of the shy one that I am... away but still very much in it.   (my bellybutton is out, perhaps more than I am, some days... )

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Tickles

Little things to let the light shine more fully:

1. baby movements, the tickles have begun, down low, little feet pumping away...
2. planted the tomatoes and basil and sage (for poison ivy heartbreaks in the summer of my discontent) and feel so very happy that I got them in, late or no.
3. folded fabric again, discovered a top that Grammie had been cutting into pieces, its dress-bottom gone, its star crystal buttons still intact... I will take a picture, when I get to it. I will!
4. the lawnmower was fixed, and it was only forty dollars, so now i can battle the ticks by removing their habitat before I sic the chickens on them.
5. brownies. always.
6. tomorrow I host 'hospitality' at meeting, and it is the last day of Sunday School, or 'first day school' as the Quakers like to call it, so i look forward to running children that are eating my veggies and so on and so forth. plus, i haven't been since my retreat and I feel the loss and look forward to a sitting in the light. it is the beginning of summer, for real.
7. i asked my mom for help with cooking some meals to go in the freezer this summer. of course she said yes. what do i wait for?
8. my nephew graduated from high school last night.  it is a first for me, another realization of adulthood, this tiny boy is moving on.
9. my parents dropped in this morning and pruned and weeded on their way out.  that is wildly nutty and wonderful.
10.  my brother is about to become a daddy and the whole world is about to explode on him and I am excited to see the whole thing. . . in laughter and companionship.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Sorry sack.

I'm sorry I haven't been writing, I've been weepy and looking for things to look at... spending time looking out the window, at pretty things on pinterest, at the flowers from my mom's retirement party... I'm fine, not doing much but preparing for all of the end-of-school events that seem to crowd in these months of May and June...field days, field trips, birthday parties to go to, birthday parties to plan, graduations, with this belly to work around.  My husband said this morning that he thinks I am proud of the suffering I am doing.  I do not know if he was teasing or not but feel very slighted and also slightly pathetic if it is true, that I am somehow bragging about my corpulence and my headaches and so on and so forth.  and then I wonder again about my inability to engage in self-care and what the hell that is all about. . . if Sister Deborah Joseph and Chakra Carol are both pushing me to interact with my divinity, and the divinity of the world, why in the world am i not listening? and taking action? My god, I can hardly even feed myself these days...I seem to be eating solely so that the babe is nourished. . .  that is certainly not the kind of interaction/action that will move me forward in this walk.  happy moms, happy kids and the so on . . .  I've GOT to get out of the ditch.
meh.  Its been cold here for the past two days, I'm feeling it in my bones. . . maybe its just that simple.  I can warm when it does...