Goals

One of my goals has been to blog everyday. I mean, of course I miss some days and prioritise tasks, but I have been averaging 25/30 days and I think that's pretty darn good! It has also served as  a reminder of how amazing the life we live is, searching out happy to photograph and share everyday has been glorious and lovely. It adds a bit of sunshine and gratitude to the mundane. So I don't see missing three days in a row to be a failure to my goal. It isn't a pass/fail kind of life we lead.

Another of my goals has been to empty the draft drawer, the one that has been growling at me for almost twenty years. Oh that's a long time! I did it though. Every last poem in that drawer has been either retired, revised and sent out, or formatted into a collection and sent out. It was a lot of work. Almost 40 hours of intense revision, another three formatting, and 2 hours entering data into duotrope. This has taken a lot of time over the last three weeks, but well worth it. I sent the whole collection to a book prize with one of my favourite poetry journals, photographs to Flyway, and followed through with that 15 year old revision request. Yes I did. Finally. It is done. Now, it isn't a regret that I get to carry with me and it doesn't get to push me around. I did it.

New goals:

• Continue to send work out. At least a submission a week, researched and carefully selected. I can do this.
• Create a work space at home. A just for me space, with my computer and my books. A corner of a sunny room. 
• Blog food at least once a week. 
• Clean up the porch and hang my swing. 
• Make iced tea every day.  
• Clean the baseboards and windows.
• Take the kids camping and fishing as soon as it is warm enough.
• Walk a mile outside everyday that the sun is shining, ride five miles on the bike inside if it isn't.

That's it. That's the list for the next three months. What are your goals? What are you doing to move towards your dreams? 

This Otherness is My Superpower

Most people don't know.  I am a mermaid.

No not really.

I have gone my whole life feeling like I was not in this world, that I was alien, something too different to belong here.

Longing to be back in the water, wondering if I'd feel more at home there. Wondering if I was meant to be on dry land or if it was all a mistake. (Hey, no freaking out, just a metaphor...)

I get sensory overload. I get panic attacks when things change in a visual way and I am not expecting it. I cannot deal with large noisy crowds.

Sometimes I zone out. Sometimes I lose a chunk of time to daydreaming or just lose it to nothingness.

I hear all the background noise that others zone out and can't hear. All of it. Every appliance buzz, every light fixture. Every beetle click. Living in the city was so very hard.

Sometimes I can't sleep. I stay up playing over and over in my head things I wish I would have said or done. Undo social mistakes. Sometimes I wish I knew how to be a friend or how not to say just the wrong harsh thing at the wrong time. I wish my apologies would be accepted.

I get overwhelmed.

I sensory seek to cancel out. I run my hands under water to calm down.

I crank up music. I dance. I write. Then I hide it all.

When I burst into tears in the cheese aisle because Hy-vee has just remodelled and moved everything and the lighting is super bright and the new freezer cases are LOUD....I just feel like a failure. What is worse is someone seeing it. What is her problem, she can't find cheese?

I hold it together, moderate drama, softly soothe broken hearts, and generally know a lot about a lot of things....but I am not always put together and solid. I hate that about myself. I hate that I have this overwhelmingness that happens.

So when the man of steel locks himself in a closet in grade school? I get that. I used to hide in my own closet or under my own bed to try and make the world smaller. I try to practise and plan and make the world the kind of world I can be in.  I notice details though that others don't and sometimes that is just too overwhelming.

Somewhere along the line I realised that I can actually be different, this otherness is my own superpower. So, my apologies to the kind folks in the cheese aisle last year, I will get the hang of the new layout. I go in the mornings, and I almost have a comfort zone about it now.

Just know. Just know. Being different isn't something to be ashamed of, to medicate away, to pretend isn't part of my life.

My life is beautiful and overwhelming and wonderful and just big enough for now. I will continue to try and make it a world I can live in.

I began to understand this more as I have raised three children who are also experiencing this great big world and all of its beauty and noise and structures.

So, friends, be patient with each other, be gentle, be kind. Apologise when you can. Make this world better and not bigger.

Touchy Subject of Touch

I do not make my children hug or kiss people they don't want to. I don't make them hug their friends after a fight to make up. I don't make them accept it when other people want to hug them. I early on taught them to say, "This is my body. I don't want to be touched/tickled/picked up."

They are the sentient occupants inside that mammalian machine we call a body, they are the owners of their flesh. Just as I don't like unwanted touch, even affectionate touch, especially affectionate touch sometimes, I don't expect them to allow it when they don't want it either.

It is called consent. This is how we teach it. This is how we model it.

Sometimes I have to walk the walk and that means when an adult thrusts a toddler at me for a hug and that toddler does not know me.....I have to step back. I always explain that I am a stranger to that child and forcing affection from a stranger is not acceptable. It is dangerous.

Wait, what if you are a relative? No. That part does not matter. In fact, it may even matter more. The majority of abuse and sexual abuse is committed by adults related or known to the child! Being related by family does not entitle affection. Teaching children that it is? Oh, that is so scary. If I am a stranger to that child, I keep my distance. If the child offers me affection while I am still a stranger? I gently redirect and look them in the eye and remind them that I am a stranger.

You see, it is also my body. I get to choose when I am touched too. People I don't know touching me does not feel good to me, even handshakes between strangers makes me uncomfortable though I see it as a necessity of fitting in to our community. Touch can be healing but it can also be destructive and invasive.

When a child says no, let's all respect that. As a community, let us also take a minute to think about how we touch others and what kind of lesson we are teaching our babies.

I am also going to make the jump here into discipline. When a child is struck with a hand or object (spanking) that is also an unwanted touch. When a loved one does it? Is that the message we want them to learn? That violence from someone who loves you is acceptable? That they have no say over their body at that moment, and it is because they have done wrong and you love them? No. No.

No.

NO.

Touch should be loving. Touch should be welcome. Touch should be from people they trust and know.

So, when my relatives went all a flutter because I stepped back from a toddler niece who I have only seen maybe 5 times in her life and four of those times were when she was a newborn, and she was not asking for affection on her own but being ordered to and physically picked up and thrust at me for a hug? This is why I stepped back. I said at the time, I am a stranger to her at her mother's choice. Let's all respect that choice and not teach her she has to give affection to strangers.

There is a history of sexual molestation and violence in our family. I am not about to take part in a cultural norm that grooms children to give affection to people they don't know or to trust people just because they are related to them.

I will not back down from this. I will not shut up about it either. Respect our children's bodies and minds and let them choose who they give affection to AND model for them appropriate affection.

What? You thought the feminism label on the blog was the silent undertone? Hardly. I am the mother of two bright and beautiful girls and a lovely boy. Consent is one of the most valuable lessons there is. Hug your children today, give them a million kisses, tickle them until they can't stand it.....but when they say, enough, no, stop!......listen and let go. When they hesitate to hug an aunt they have never met, don't force them to. When they act or even say they are uncomfortable around a certain cousin, let them follow their gut and keep their distance. Do not let people who are known child abusers babysit just because they will do it for free.

Let us do better by our children and really teach them consent.

Laugh Lines

I know, I know. Dreams are the most boring things to read/hear about. Sleeping dreams, day dreams, goal dreams. I love the imagery and the hope these wishes bring with them. Chad, not so much. So, to all the folks like Chad.....move along. This one is for those of us who revel in the magic of dreams.

Last night I woke up in the darkness from a strange dream. It was one of those life like experience dreams.  

It started at a coffee house where I confided in a friend that I was concerned about the lines around my eyes, laugh lines, crows feet- those lines. I said I was feeling....not old....not wise....but faded and tired.

He responded, "Stop calling me your gay friend in that annoying ironic way and then I will introduce you to Ana."

So, to pause here. I would never worry about facial lines or call someone my gay friend. Dreams, eh?

So in the dream we walk through an urban streetscape and down a lane and then into a wooded neighborhood to a cabin house that is surrounded by water landscaping, like a river moat with a mill generator. In the water is a women, middle aged with wild golden hair, pulling a giant log through the current and up to the side of the house where she opens a giant metal door and reveals a roaring fire. In goes the log, the door slams shut.

I realize there is ice in the water and it is snowing.

My friend says, "That's Ana. She'll let you warm up inside."

Inside we see that the fire fuels a giant kiln for pottery. Ana is soaked and has ice forming in her hair. She laughs at my look of concern and silent wonder. She tells me, "It is strange now, but you'll grow into this life. You know. What would the city girl think of the farmer you are now? You know."

I do. I see. We sip strong tea. We wander her halls and look at art. She shows us her solar generators and her indoor greenhouse. It is warm and clean and inspiring. Tile floors that she handmade and set, living plants everywhere, and sweet smells of fruit and spice.

Then she says, "You can come back. I charge 50$/hour for art lessons. I agree that I should take you as my student."

I am sad at that. I am tired of paying people to have company. I then think of all the ways that I pay for friendship. I retreat out the door and walk home, lonely through the neighborhoods and into the rural township all the way home to the farm.

I do not know what this dream means, though I am pulling at bits of the wisdom. I had a very powerful urge to gather up all my writing books and take another look at the craft of poetry. I also felt very lonely in the darkness, though my toddler son had decided that sleeping perpendicular and across my chest was the most idea for dreaming soundly while my 5 year old daughter needed her feet by my face.

This new year is bringing with it art and inspiration where it is found and as it presents itself.

Mercy in a Ziplock

Most of us are only a heartbeat away from the kind of poverty that is harsh and cruel and inescapable. None of us believe it to be true, but in my years working with poverty level students, living in an urban neighbourhood with economic diversity that ranged from the elitist antique dealers to the homeless veterans living in tents on the banks of the Des Moines River, and my own experience as a child in a family that used food stamps....I can tell you for sure, each of us is closer to the edge than we will ever realise or admit. Those already there work fiercely to hide it and survive and others just sink.

Having a medical needs child and not qualifying for any assistance and having crappy insurance can push a family to the edge of that.

Let me tell you about my own experience though. The shame of food stamps and free lunch was so great for me that I would skip lunch instead. From that experience I struck out at others, you should be ashamed and work harder to pay for your own food! I would not back down. Then as I grew into a mother and adult and nurtured students along, I realised that even food stamps were not enough to hoist them up and out. Cycle of poverty it was called officially. One student could not afford to renew her tags, so she kept driving to the job that would give her the paycheck to do so, but got pulled over for having expired tags, and now has a $350 dollar ticket that she can't afford either. $350 was also her rent for the month. Which does she pay? Once behind, never caught up.

I thought of her the next time I saw someone at a gas station trying to pay for gas and her card was declined. Her shame was palpable and her panic real. What happens next?

Does she stand outside and beg for the money? We live in an independent society and often have no one to call that can help.

A generous stranger stepped up and paid her bill. Smiled and said she'd been there too.

I wish I had been that stranger instead of a bystander.

But so often I would be a bystander and think, I wish I could help. I don't even carry cash. One day last Spring I was having a terrible week. Terrible. Someone posted a kind word on my facebook wall and much of my woe melted away. Kindness is powerful. Kindness heals. This is where we need to direct our hearts.

I set out to not be caught helpless when someone needed 5$ for gas or food. A friend was making Mercy Bags to send overseas to a 3rd world country, why not address the poverty and suffering of our neighbours. Why not make this mercy a part of our lives. Those of us who stand on solid ground, offering a hand up to those on the edge. If all we have is words, give that. If we have extra food, find out who needs it. Extra gloves, give them to someone who has cold hands. I don't mean bagging up your unwanted and dumping them at a charity, though that is good too, I mean looking your friend in the eye and saying, "I see your need. I want to help. You are loved and valued."

You could carry a Ziplock with a water bottle and granola bars, a 5$ gas card, or grocery store gift card, some candy, a simple note inside. Even a cup of coffee delivered to a new mom and left on her doorstep with a card can make the day better for someone. Think of the kindness you are capable of, write it down, and then DO. Take these bags of mercy out into your community, then be IN your community.

Here's my list that I hit hard when I get gloomy and overwhelmed and eye twitchy (like this week):

1. Post on 10 friends' facebook or twitter feeds what is special about them to you. Maybe they have never heard you say it before, maybe you say it all the time, and maybe they need these words more than you will ever know.
2. Bring a meal and coffee to a friend for no reason.
3. Listen when someone starts to share what is on their heart.
4. Fill a bag of groceries, good food that you would eat, then bring it to your local church and ask the pastor to pass it on to someone who needs it.
5. Invite others into your home for meals. Send them home with leftovers. Especially on holidays when so many people are far from family and alone.
6. Send cards to troops. They are missing folks back home. They are.
7. Pay for the coffee of people in the drive up line in front of you. 
8. Leave a gift card for groceries at the local food bank.
9. Find out what your food bank needs that week. You may be surprised at what is on their shelves and it may break your heart.
10. Carry 1$ gloves in your car. Give them away. You may be surprised how fast they go and how many people can't even afford that simple accessory. 
11. BE KIND. When the secretary snaps at you, when the bank teller is bitchy, when your cousin says something hurtful- remember that it is probably not you. We all have battles we are fighting and most of the time hiding from others. Sometimes it bubbles over. Be the calm. Be the light. Be patient with those who need it the most. 
12. Pay attention to people around you. Start seeing their suffering. Be the person that brings calm instead of adding to the pile. Even if you are just as broken, this effort will turn others to you as well. 

What things would you add? What will you do?  Share in the comments!

Failure

Today the discussion over at Midwest Homesteading and Permaculture is about things that we've tried and then failed at. Also, about how dangerous and violent emus are, but that I already know all 

about....

Music. I have tried and failed to learn to play a number of instruments. It is hard, I have a lot of respect for those who can do this, but it is not something I enjoy enough to keep trying.

 

 See these? Oh, the picture is gorgeous but the filling had so much salt that we had to scoop it out and just eat the pepper and the bacon.

These fried green tomatoes were way too salty too. Salt has been a problem in my kitchen lately. I am having a hard time finding the balance since I switched from Kosher flake salt to fine ground pink sea salt. I have since switched back. One year I put too much cayenne in everything, or so I thought. I have since decided that there is no such thing as too much cayenne. Maybe that's why I can't taste salt...

Failure, as I tell my writing students, is an indicator of what needs improvement. It is a chance to revise and do better. If you always get it right then there is no learning, or if no one pointed out that you needed improvement, that is even worse. Revision is learning. Life is about failing over and over again.

When I was in the sixth grade I came home sobbing every day for a week and hid all my homework from my parents. A teacher had told us that if we failed an exam we would fail the class and that homework was just as important. It was history and the homework was stupid map colouring. I pointed out that one of the maps was wrong and I failed the worksheet. I got so anxious over failing the class that I couldn't eat or sleep for a week. I finally broke down crying to my dad and he called the school.

I had a B in the class. Also, failing that worksheet for pointing out an outdated borderline and country name is bullshit. I should have gotten extra credit.

Failing is not something to be afraid of. It is what life is all about, learning holds a lot of it intrinsically, and kitchen failures? My mistakes make me a better cook. Yes, I still have a fire extinguisher and activated charcoal in my first aid kit- I have set the oven on fire too many times and spent too many nights in the ER with Chad over food poisoning when we were first married to not be super aware of that. Those experiences made me research fire safety, food safety, and general health. Bonus is that I am pretty sure Chad is now immune to most food poisoning bacteria. So there is that.

I want my kids to fail too. Lily has burnt eggs so many times that she knows now how NOT to burn them. She used the wrong kind of paper to paint with and the paper ripped when she tried to move it, she knows now that details like paper thickness matter. She cut herself with her new pocket knife. She knows now not to cut toward her hand AND she knows how to deal with a deep slice of a cut. She is my brave girl and being fearless of failure has led her to fail a lot. Instead of shaming her and internalising it, we focus on how failure is part of the process and not a destination. It is only the outcome IF you stop there and do not keep trying.

Sometimes failing is a good place to stop though. Sometimes relationships fail and you just have to walk away. Sometimes there is nothing that can be done for the lamb attacked by a fox during birth and the vet has to put him down. Sometimes failure is a sign that it is time to move on. Is it still failure then? Maybe. Maybe we have too much tied up in that word as a culture to really embrace it?

 

I usually only blog success in the kitchen. Should I start including the failures too? What things have you tried and failed at?

Spoon Club Affirmations

Whoa baby. The holidays are here. Even those who don't believe in religion or celebrate the traditions can't seem to escape the stress and the pressure and the chaos of the next six weeks. The upcoming events affect all of us in a negative way- traffic patterns are disrupted, shopping for everyday items are complicated, the weather here in the Midwest can also get treacherous, and people seem to be more bah humbug than joy to the world.

If you do partake in the holiday events and traditions? Oh my. That's just asking for it.

Asking for what?

Well, that depends on you. No. Really.

I'm not saying this because I am one of those chipper elves that dons the jingle bells and wears ugly sweaters all year long. I am. That's beside the point. The holidays have always been a horrible time for me. I love giving gifts. I love decorating. I love and I mean LOVE the food traditions. I love Santa and elves and snow and everything Christmas.

Except I don't. 

I hate how people get so stressed out. I hate how the food makes people sad instead of full. I hate how giving gifts means the next year is spent trying to catch up on the credit card bill. I hate how choosing whose house to go to is like the Mason Dixon Line of family feuds. I hate the mall. I hate the traffic. I hate the holiday station that I want to love but they play the same 8 Christmas songs over and over again and two of them are the same song just different versions/eras and I have at least 200 good ones on my iPod I left at home to choose from. I hate the look of disappointment when I give a handmade gift. I hate the look even more when it is something my child has made special. I hate that everyone is super ramped up and they all take it out on strangers, especially on the Internet.

So, friends, I am going to get on here everyday and write out a special message. Any of you who are right here with me on this holiday edge can play along. Anyone who isn't? Find someone who is and give them a pie or a hug or a pie hug, ok? Let's do our best to bring peace into each others lives, shine a light to those who are battling the darkness and the dragons, and make folks who have no family or no family who wants them feel loved, and then let's keep this generosity going long after the holidays. It isn't just a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving gesture- this needs to be for real and for always. Let;s just start with today though. Who's with me? I am going to call it the Holiday Chaos Spoon Club (and I'll share with you why tomorrow....)

Today I will remember that no matter how I live my life, friends and family and strangers will think I am weird. I will live my life for me instead. I will dye my hair purple and live in an RV if that brings me happiness. I will shave my head and hula hoop on the beach if that brings me happiness. I will blog like no one is reading. I will do what I love. 

I will remember this as I attend family and social events where the things I love are criticised. I will love myself and my life anyway.

It isn't a perfect start, but it what was in my head after I spoke with my friend Ashley this afternoon. I remember thinking these same things as I was making the decision to go to college to study poetry, then when I decided to get married, when I decided to have children, buy an old run down house, and then move to a farm. Every decision I made was ridiculed, critiqued, and I was made to feel incapable. Clearly, I am capable. What if I had listened.

Oh. I have listened actually. I stopped blogging after months of a friend making snide remarks about it. I gave that piece of myself away and I can't get it back. I allowed it to be stolen from my children, a record of their lives. How stupid is that? Why did I care so much what other people thought? So what if my pictures are messy, if my content is varied and unfocused, and you know who cares about my thoughts? Me! So again, I blog like no one is reading and that means it is messy and varied and pictures of food and crayons and piles of laundry and pigs and piles of crayons and more pigs and sometimes sheep too. I make mistakes. I love pie.

I wanted to perform street poetry in San Francisco. I didn't go. I was scared and let the critics feed those fears. I wanted to travel but listened to my friends tell me that it would be hard to do with Lily when she was two, even though our first two trips were wonderful, I had this nagging sense that they were right. I just worry about you. Those were the subtle underminings that were all it took. I let it. I let it crash my self esteem. Why?

I. Me. I let it. I can't even say never again. Why? Because I am human.

So, hold you head high and your spoons higher. Let's have some pie!

Unsolicited Advice Via the Grocery Store

Courtesy of Jennifer at Herbalist Eats.  Thanks for the great think this morning!

My children go grocery shopping with me. They have done this since Lily was about 10 months old. Before that I was terrified of shopping alone with a baby. I constantly thought I would break her. It wasn't until I mastered the ring sling and was shamed into it that I dared even attempt it. I had to grocery shop for the museum I worked at and would go on my lunch break so I could also get my own shopping done at the same time ALONE.

I was shamed into it because the day care provider I used had an emergency and when I managed to get off work and go get Lily, my car was full of groceries and she thought I had stopped and grocery shopped while she waited for me to get there to get my kid so she could take hers to the emergency room. Why couldn't I have taken Lily?

Because I couldn't. I just couldn't. Terrified.

Part of it was that I was terrified of taking my baby alone out anywhere. Getting her to daycare on my own was a feat of miracles. She was so heavy. She was also so breakable.

So when I did finally venture out, first with Chad along, and then on my own, strangers' criticizing was devastating. Mind blowing crushing emotional disaster zone. If I put shoes on Lily, "Oh baby's feet should be bare!"....if I left them bare, "Oh she'll be too cold and get a chill and get sick!" AND DIE. In July when temperatures outside slid into the 100's. For real.

Babywearing helped and harmed. "She'll never learn to walk!" She'll be dependent on me forever and never talk, walk, or wipe her own butt. Those are real fears for a new mom. Lily however had other plans. She often would respond right back, sassy and all, "NO, NEVER!" I could hold her close and recover my own heartbeat and confidence, snuggled to my heart in her sling.

Fast forward to now, three kids, one who doctors actually thought might never walk and folks were fine with blaming the baby carriers we used and not his genetic condition. Thank God I was a lot more confident by then!

At the local coffee house I got scolded for not offering him food too when he was 4 months old and exclusively breastfed and then again scolded when I offered him yogurt at age 15 months. In between was a constant volley back and forth of me being polite while sucking down the coffee my kids so aptly named, "The child saver brew." Thanks kids. (Mocha caramel latte with whipped cream and three cherries on top. )

At the grocery store things were different. People commented freely on our vegetable choices. On the contents of my cart. The cashiers actually thought we were vegetarians because I NEVER buy grocery store meat. Nope. Not ever. Except for the meat on frozen pizza and the occasional alligator fillets. More comments about bare baby feet. For real people. Comments assuming we used foodstamps, even though we didn't.

It got me thinking....maybe the problem isn't overly intrusive strangers and creepers. Maybe it is just the way we make small talk? In general? We comment on things. We try to share our secret stash of food and parenting knowledge. The cashier might have been on foodstamps herself and looking for that connection too. We try and say, here, let me help because what we really mean is here, I am lonely, please look me in the eye and make me feel less invisible? 

Because I get that. I get that so deeply in my core. Even now, as motherhood joyously skips into the next phase and era and I am no longer breastfeeding and rarely babywear in public, I am losing that badge of identity that says to other moms, "Hey, I'm in your club. I'm on your side. I know." I am flickering out of that public view and needing to still make connections with others, grasping at that. I almost drove around the block and rolled down my window just to yell, "Hey, AWESOME BABY CARRIER!" to a local mom in our small town, but then froze, because creeper. I drove home. I still have no idea who she is, just that someone else in my small town gets the benefits of babywearing. Sigh.

So now when folks approach me and my gaggle of kids, often in full dress up and theatrical mode, at the grocery, offering inedible strange advice, I introduce myself and my children and tell them about whatever ingredients I am buying. I make eye contact and smile. We become less invisible.

The Ninth Inning

Yay! This weekend we plan on planting. It is a couple days from the frost free date, but I will be so relieved to get it out of the way.

My courses for summer are almost designed and ready to allow student access to. Whew. That was a challenge.

Summer/winter clothes are almost changed out.

Now I have to get to the craft room/office area and make a baby friendly nook. I have to get the baby's clothes ready, diapers washed, etc. Set up a changing area upstairs. Simple things. I am going to repack our hospital bag, again.

Oh, and food. This next week I will make an extra casserole every day and freeze it. Each one is two 4 serving meals, so that's 14 + the 10 servings of chili we have frozen (we like chili!). I think that will do.

So we will be all set for when the baby comes after this weekend. Yes, perhaps I am trying to jinx myself into going into labor before we get it all done. It won't work though. :)

Seriously????

I just finished ALL the laundry. Washed, dried, and put away. It had been looming as a giant pile of clean clothes in baskets on my bed for a week now, with an ever growing pile of dirty in the laundry room. No more!

And then....I cleaned out my closets. I have about three bags of clothes to go to donation, all mine. Why? Most of those were "work" clothes that I have not worn for over FOUR years! Now I work from home, mostly in jeans and a punk rock t-shirts (ok, sometimes my PJ's too.....), why would I need 11 pairs of teacher pants, 25 dresses, and various other dress jackets? So I pared it down to 5 sweaters, turtlenecks, 3 dress pants, and three nice dresses (two of which are feeding friendly and the other just too cute to get rid of just yet....). I kept my comfy jeans and cargo pants (5), most of my t-shirts (about 10).

It still feels like too much. I think once I pack up for storage the winter clothes I will feel better about quantities. Am I being weird? I know people with huge rooms full of clothes and others who have even less than I do, but really, laundry should have NEVER gotten so out of hand and I think the sheer quantity of clothing was party to blame.

So why was I hanging on to so many items of clothing? Part of it was that little inkling on me that was having a hard time letting go of being in the traditional work world. I still work, but the dress code has changed! Now I will allow myself the freedom to buy more punk rock t-shirts, you know, since they are required at my new job, ;P.

I also packed up the maternity clothes that no longer fit me to go to storage. Last time I just gave them all away and then had nothing to wear this time! (You know, just in case......) Which reminds me, thank you to Saratar and LifeDreamed and my MIL for helping me with that problem! MIL actually bought and had tailored pants for me and my friends graciously lent me LOTS of clothes. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

****edited to add****
Lil'Bug has gone through 3 outfits today, ruined two of mine, filthied 2 towels, and the mess continues as I pause to take note of it. There will be at least three loads of laundry by the end of her joyous rampage. Ah, the virtue of childhood! :)

Busy Weekend

This weekend we packed, sorted, and threw out things. We are preparing for an upcoming garage sale, but it is more than that.

I threw away things from my childhood that have meant a lot to me for 30 years. They were no longer sanitary to keep around and there was no real way to clean them. Why did I hang on to stuffed animals for so long? They reminded me of refuge in the storm of abuse. They reminded me of people who actually loved me. It was time to release the baggage of those things. My husband reminded me as I cried over it that I don't need cloth and button eyes to remember people who loved me, I have many other things including the fact that I survived and thrived despite what happened. Point taken.

As we were doing this, someone knocked on the door. It was the guy down the street who wants to buy our house and borrowed my thesis. I chatted with him for about 45 minutes, he still wants to buy our house. That's cool. Also, uplifting since I know he would care for it the way I do. That is important to me, even though I know that when/if we list with an agent I won't have a choice. I've just spent 10 years loving this place and I'll admit, I still do.

Update on "the list"

Here are the items on my list to tackle:

• Put away fake tree and better label ornament boxes.
• My office/craft room: need more baskets.
• Lil'Bug's room: need room for all her new loot. Need to change out 2T to 3T clothes, pack and label the 2T crate. Hang her wall art. (Thinking about framing her art and hanging it....)
• My bedroom: finish painting the trim, find (make?) better window treatments.
• Paint hallway (fine, this has been on the to-do list since 2004.....)
• Paint laundry room.
• Paint hall, bathroom, and laundry room trim. Hang wall art.
• .......(cue drums of doom) the north bedroom: right now a staging area for pre-packing and all other "stuff". Clean out, set up spare bed. Maybe paint the walls. Maybe. Hang wall art.
• Then paint middle parlor. Oh yeah, find good colour for that room. Gah.
• * edited to add * Stain and seal the hallway floor, wash curtains, and bedding.
  
• Clean out car
  
• Does it ever end? Gah.

(red means done! Blue means in progress)

I thought I had posted another updated list in March, but now I can't find it!

Rainy Day

Lil'Bug almost slept through the night. She woke up around 4:30 am scared of the dark or a nightmare. Unfortunately, she gets that from me. From a very young age, I suffered from night terrors and nightmares. Our first year living together I would wake up with Dearest Husband came home from work (around 1am) and we would argue- I didn't remember, don't remember a single bit of it. Once he realized I was actually sleeping, he found ways to diffuse the situation.

Now my nightmares are the more regular kind, a little like showing up at exam day in pajamas, they all revolve around a second life- one I would have lived had my choices been different, a horrible, hurtful, unhappy life. This morning I woke up full of gratitude for the life I do live. Full to the brim. I am so blessed to be having children inside a happy family with a loving, supportive partner. I am blessed to have friends near and far supporting me in ways I never expected. Blessed to have the time and resources to explore my and my children's interests. I am blessed to have stepped out of the dark fog of depression that haunted me on and off this past year, cleared in no small part due to the above.

I wish I knew what Lil'Bug was dreaming about.

Today it is raining. It is dark out and wet. Today I am mopping floors. I found a new to us brand of floor cleaner at Target, supposed to be non-toxic so tot can help. Smells like almonds. I bought a matching wood polish, so the furniture will get wiped down too. I am also organizing and unjunking drawers today. I got frustrated cleaning this weekend because every time I tried to find a home for something, drawers were full. Every drawer was a junk drawer!! No more. Now I even have empty drawers. The kitchen island and cubbies are getting done today.

Breaking these tasks into doable segments is really helping. First I organized my back bedroom and turned it into a creative studio (craft room). Lil'Bug has her kitchen corner in there too. I moved all my creative things in there. Now they have a home. That took days. Second I organized the toys. Doing this impacted the entire house and Lil'Bug is so happy that she can find things again. She likes it so much that she is trying to help keep stuff together and picked up. We do a pick up of her room at bedtime or in the afternoon. Whenever she wants. Then I cleared off the dining room table. Wow. That really accumulated things from Christmas crafts, holiday mail, you name it. It was Grand Central Station for all of our creativeness. I did that yesterday. It seems pretty small, but each day, doing something small but impactful is actually working. After breakfast, I clean up the dishes and do a round of laundry. I'm not spending much time doing the deep cleaning each day and yet it is getting done.

By the time I am finished, it will be time to prepare the garden!

*edited to add* the floor cleaner sucks. It smells pretty but is ineffective. I think I'll do a traditional mop down with Murphy's oil soap and then go over it with this stuff just to use it up and for the smell. Gah. Maybe it would be better if I was just dust mopping and not dredging mud.

Nesting

I hit (according to the many baby books laying around here) month 5 this week. I can hardly believe it!!!

Over the weekend I packed my hospital bag. Why not? Better to be prepared than not. I got most of the stuff for Christmas and PJ's were on clearance at the mall. So it's done.

Last night I cleaned and cleaned the house. Today, more of the same. We have tracked so much mud in that it is hard to keep up. Then my classes started. I thought, "What?! My break is over?! No fair!" and then "Agh! My class website isn't done! AND they loaded students in already? Agh!"

So I have been running full speed since about 4 pm Sunday, taking breaks to clean when my mactop battery needs a charge. No time to even look sideways at the camera. However, my photo challenge has some beautiful and inspiring participation. Check it out! (I'll post mine soon....)

Other thoughts that have caught me off guard today: it is warm outside, warm for January in Iowa. The snow is melting, there is a flood warning, and it rained. Thunderstorms and fog expected tonight. Not really all that surprising but what caught me was this- the smell. The earth and green things smell alive, like they are waking up. It reminds me of Christmas in Louisiana from my childhood. Muddy and slow, still cold, a damp cold that goes right to the core. Time for some gumbo ya ya. It will take me a few days to gather ingredients.

Back to nesting!

Release: Part 1, Stuff

Release my attachment to stuff/junk. This is the easy part, right? De-cluttering is really an economic privilege, you have to have stuff and be able to do without it. But I am a curbside junk-aholic. I have grand visions of what things could be. I also have a strange attraction to clearance sales or cheap crap- like a crow collecting pretty, shiny things. I need to develop an attachment to my bank account balance instead. This also means that when I have actual need for something, like dining room chairs, there might be money for it.

Release the extra things people give me. I am also sentimental about gifts, even if I don't need them. I need to say no. I need to take on less.

Release the desire to go shopping. I hate shopping, yet I am drawn to it as the first response to a need- any need and then I buy more than I need. I need to look around and really make sure that I don't have something that will fill that need. Getting organized will help this, since usually I can't find the things I need even if I do have them.

See this is the easy one. We will choose the quality pieces of furniture and items to take with us when we move and all else will be sold or given away. We started with 75 bins in storage and are down to less than half of that. We started with a house jammed full of furniture and last summer downed it to two bedroom sets (from 4-5?). We really have uncluttered, but I can hardly tell! This is so frustrating to me. Moving will help, but you can't wave a wand and get a lifestyle. We need to learn it now. We clear a space or a surface and within days it is full of stuff again (flylady calls these hot-spots, whatever, volcanoes of junk is more like it!). So, I must release the goblin who keeps doing this inside me and just take care of it.

As the Week Winds Down....

Well, the camera is off to New York, dinner is in the oven, progress is being made in Lil'Bug's room (she's helping so 1/2 as fast....), and Thank You cards are started. Not bad for a Friday!

The picture is of the pork chops in the oven right now, only from the last time I made them. It is a Cook's Illustrated recipe and we are still pondering/debating if the amazing taste is worth the effort involved in making the crust. Now that I've done it twice, I might reconsider my vote. :)

New Year's Deep Cleaning

Spring cleaning is great BUT I am usually knee deep in grading papers in the Spring so this year I have decided to deep clean and organize right now for the new year. That way I can start the new year and the new semester our fresh and organized.

Here are the items on my list to tackle:

• Put away fake tree and better label ornament boxes.
• My office/craft room: need more baskets and hang some wall art (or baskets on the wall- neat idea I saw in Country Living, shhh.)
• Lil'Bug's room: need room for all her new loot. Need to change out 2T to 3T clothes, pack and label the 2T crate. Hang her wall art. (Thinking about framing her art and hanging it....)
• My bedroom: finish painting the trim, find (make?) better window treatments.
• Paint hallway (fine, this has been on the to-do list since 2004.....)
• Paint laundry room.
• Paint hall, bathroom, and laundry room trim. Hang wall art.
• .......(cue drums of doom) the north bedroom: right now a staging area for pre-packing and all other "stuff". Clean out, set up spare bed. Maybe paint the walls. Maybe. Hang wall art.
• Then paint middle parlor. Oh yeah, find good colour for that room. Gah.
• * edited to add * Stain and seal the hallway floor, wash curtains, and bedding.
  
• Clean out car
  
• Does it ever end? Gah.

(purple means done! Blue means in progress)

I'll post pictures as I tackle (um, if FIL will re-lend me his camera......). I have until January 7th (start of semester.....). Ok, that's sort of a fake goal since I teach online, but it helps to have a date in mind, eh?

Oh, my challenge to you? Post your to do list. Post updates when you get stuff done, pictures optional. You don't have to aim for Jan 7th, but if it helps......

Ok, broom, I'm off!